Autonomous Vehicles

[adam cool dude]

I will eat my hat if we have electric autonomous lorries before at least 20 years. Lorries go all over Europe even to different continents. Anyone who has done proper long distance driving will know that the rest of the world is vastly different to here. Much of the infrastructure is decades behind what we have here.

 

[adam cool dude]

Why does that stop autonomous lorries here or USA, not all lorries go multiple countries. I would have thought the majority would have set routes.

I never said it did but lorry companies want their trucks to be flexible. Haulage is not as simple as buy a lorry and go to Scotland and back for ten years. That Lorry could go all over the place.

 

[adam cool dude]

The problem is if the AI makes a mistake and crashes that company would become liable and would no longer be in the hands of the drivers. Said company would go bankrupt in no time. Insurance companies would just foot the bill to the car makers.

 

[adam cool dude]

So have someone in those machines for “safety”, as there are for aeroplanes. They can take over if absolutely needed.

If there’s extremely valuable products in the back of an HGV have a security guard in the cab. They can take over if they think something dodgy is about to happen, or override the controls if there’s an ambush.

The vast majority of HGVs and even more passenger vehicles are not transporting extremely high value or dangerous goods. Those vehicles don’t need those sort of extra “safety” features.

Those features aren’t really needed for a lorry trundling along a main highway from depot to depot either, which is where automated HGVs are going to cut their teeth in the not to distant future, and where semi autonomous cars are already being driven.

So you are paying someone to sit in a lorry anyway they might as well drive. You make it sound like lorry drivers get paid a fortune and an operator can get paid minimum wage. They would get paid near enough if not the same.

 

[adam cool dude]

So we’re basically back to someone monitoring the computer, sitting twiddling their thumbs on the off chance they’re needed.

In my example the “driver” would literally just be there for the extremely small chance the vehicle “malfunctions”. Then they can press the “big red button” and bring it safely to a standstill.

I am sure that big red button will help in a tyre blowout which is a potentially lethal scenario to other road users. When driving something that is 40 tonne a driver with computers aiding him is far superior to computers driving with the driver aiding.

This will always be the case until artificial intelligence equals that of the human brain.

 

[adam cool dude]

Who unloads these trucks when they arrive anyway?

Autonomous forklift drivers of course. With a monitor sitting just in case they try to impale someone.

 

[adam cool dude]

And people power (at end points).

Not the drivers, which is the most pertinent point to this conversation.

Have you seriously worked in anything to do with logistics before? Where I work most of the logistic infrastructure is 20+ years old and this is a first world country. It's hard enough raising a PO for cheap pieces of equipment let alone state of the art logistical equipment. People do not even want to know unless you can turn your investment into profit within a 6 month timescale. Autonomous forklift drivers would never work in the near future due to the communication element needed as it is not a nuts and bolts job. One minute he could be going to one destination with a call going out half way through to him to pick something else up. The next day he could have exactly the same order but with material in completely different locations. Computers in the next 10 years would never be able to deal with that complexity from a autonomous point of view that is of value and profit making to most companies.

 

[adam cool dude]

A couple of pages back you was saying in 5-10 years time we will be seeing full automation now you are saying "simple" tasks will be automated.

There is no such thing as a simple logistic route. This isn't transport tycoon. Your very simple analogy of a Budweiser truck going from a factory to a DC couldn't be any further from the truth. The DC would more than likely be on the factory so depending size and variety of the operation would have shunters taking finished product over to DC which is then split into locations this in turn would go to several hubs and then split down even further so your Budweiser would then get packaged up with groceries before being sent to individual stores. There is no special bud lorry going around delivering a couple of bottles here and there.

Could a automated lorry deliver coal from some quarry to a refinery in Northern Canada on an empty road in the next ten years? Hell yeah. Are the haulage companies going to splash out on very expensive new technology without some government backed incentive. Not in a million years.

 

[adam cool dude]

@adam cool dude. That’s not my analogy. That’s one of the actual test runs Otto and Budweiser actually did (last year).

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.the...f-driving-truck-budweiser-first-shipment-uber

When the tech matures enough haulage companies will only be too happy to reduce their costs by half (or more), especially in conjunction with electrification of the fleets. The days of lorry drivers are numbered, especially for simpler routes, whether they be in North America or across Europe. There’s nothing going to stop that.

So Budweiser has done one single trip on a pre planned route. That still needed the driver to do the main bulk of the complicated driving. You are really clutching at straws. In a nutshell that is a development of cruise control. Your original statement was we were going to have automation as soon as 5-10 years in the mainstream which is what I was arguing. We will have automation in the future that is definitely true but not as quick as you are saying.

Edit: and as for your coal comment. That won’t start in 10 years. Mostly because fully automated 100 400 ton dump trucks have been driving around on their own for years in and around mines.

https://qz.com/874589/rio-tinto-is-...rucks-to-haul-raw-materials-around-australia/

Again that has nothing to do with what I was saying apart from i mentioned coal. That is tonka trucks moving about a very simple layout in a remote location over a very short distance.

 

[adam cool dude]

They aren't remote controlled Tonka trucks. Lets remember what you said.

That is basically what they are doing already, except most of them are doing it in the quarries. The technology in them would be perfectly capable of moving them along an empty road in northern Canada.

I didn't say remote control I said remote location. A Tonka truck moving about a very simplistic quarry is different level to a town center. If the technology is there to move along an empty road in northern Canada then why are they not doing it?

 

[adam cool dude]

Clarkson recently commented that he had to take back control twice in a 50 mile journey to stop an "auto pilot" system from killing him. It is till a long way off tbh

Same with that guy who decapitated himself while watching harry potter in his back seat.

 

[adam cool dude]

To be brutally honest if a driverless 40ton artic came across a swan in its path I don't think there'd be too much issue depending on the programming. *splat*

As for cattle. If all else failed, wait a couple of minutes and they usually move on their own, even without the help of a vehicle slowly herding them off the road (which is what I usually do, especially if they're a ton of testosterone fueled wild Bison with foot long horns...)

What about ice on the road or a child playing with a ball on the side of the road? How does current AI see those?

 

[adam cool dude]

It sees the ice as ice and adapts it's driving accordingly and it sees the child playing with a ball as a child playing with a ball and adapts it's driving accordingly.

Any source for that? Can it differentiate from what is tarmac and what is black ice? What if you are driving in heavy snow what happens if the car gets covered in snow slush could it effect it sensors? I know this is a problem with radar guided cruise control in modern cars. I find it also hard to believe a car at this moment in time could see 100 meters up the road to see a boy playing with a ball at the side of the road.

 

[adam cool dude]

Cars have been detecting ice for years - have you not heard of ESP?

How does ESP see ice in the distance and slow down the car in preparation?

What i was getting at is driving down a stretch of Road at 60MPH, see a massive patch of ice in front, you slow down for this to avoid an accident. ESP has nothing to do with that and how does AI see this?

 

[adam cool dude]

So everything that a computer and sensors could pick up then, or be programmed into?

So the technology is there to identify different textures in the road while traveling at 60mph?

 

[adam cool dude]

Everyone in there autonomous cars doing 56mph and I will be weaving in and out in bliss. No more tailgaters and the autonomous car will just move out of my way!

 

[adam cool dude]

Actually though its more likely the opposite, when you look at the road trains ideas they are suggesting,

Basically, car 1 would start and car 2 would communicate with car 1, would then pull up very close to car 1 and would just follow car 1 directions for accelerate, brake etc
This brings benefits of reduced fuel and space needed.
The chains would form, then when someone needed to break the chain their car would advise, pull back, remove itself from the chain, the car that was following would then speed up (and any following it) and close the gap

If anything your utopia of loads of big gaps would be the opposite, large lines of cars driving so close together you wouldn't get in a gap if you tried.

No but you could force them to brake by driving close and causing a potential accident! Or just supplement the trains with power so you can take 3-4 cars at once! Also the AI would see me coming on the other side of the road. Communicate with the other side of the road to stop as I am coming through. At least they won't be able to flash their lights at me because AI will be controlling that as well.

As I am human I wouldn't give a damn whereas the AI will do its up most to protect its occupants

 

[adam cool dude]

In reality you’ll probably find it the other way round. With automated vehicles being inherently safer and with quicker reactions you may well see a higher speed limit.

Perhaps on motorways the crawler lane will be relegated to all non automated vehicles, limited to 60, with no legal way of overtaking, and then the other one or two lanes would be dedicated to automated vehicles shooting past at 100mph, with gaps of 1-2 metres between them.

This is under the presumption that everything is equal. We are capitalist. The brakes of an Aston Martin will not be the same as an Toyota Prius. So following each other with a 1 meter gap will be physically impossible unless the performance of the Aston is artificially lowered to the same as a Prius which would never happen.

 

[adam cool dude]

Agree so more evidence for taking drivers like this off the road, glad you agree
In order to make progress some of the least progressive often have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming as they aren't capable of making an informed decision

To be honest though the roads I have seen some limited testing on and they always use as demonstrations are multi lane single direction not roads with oncoming traffic. They would probably not logically expand to that scenario until driver cars were very rare.

Hey I am all for progress but I am also a realist. There is a world out there not just the UK. Please tell me when in our lifetime are we going to have driverless cars driving within 1 meter of each other in the Republic of Congo or say India or Pakistan?

 

[adam cool dude]

You’re forgetting the context. It’s an autonomous system. It would be easy enough to have a minimum breaking requirement. Sure the Aston could break faster and harder, but it doesn’t need to brake at 100% the entire time.

You’re right though. 1m is probably a bit close. The overall context is the important bit though. They will be closer than most vehicles are (recommended at least) today and it’s unlikely you’ll be allowed to weave in and out, even if you physically could, let alone be legally allowed to.

People will still buy a car on performance. Autonomous car A) can get from A to B in 20 minutes whereas car B) can get from A to B in only 30. That would rid the train idea as cars would be overtaking each other unless we revert to communism and all have the same car.