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With regards to the simplicity implied with electronic propulsion I think far too many people vastly underestimate the complexity that is a battery pack, the re

With regards to the simplicity implied with electronic propulsion I think far too many people vastly underestimate the complexity that is a battery pack, the regenerative systems, and propulsion motors. While electric motors are simple in theory they are very complex items on their own and long term viability has to be worked out. Throw in the packs weight alone requires juggling of the rest of the cars construction to get weight back down to acceptable levels. Self driving, yeah I think Google is doing fine for Disneyland type environments but the ever changing world of driving cannot be surmounted by data. It will take systems which can make microsecond decisions and actually know what they have perceived. So identification of all objects in play is key. the government approach of having cars all talk to each other seems opposite of where the car companies went. Last, ride sharing will likely get surpassed by automating buses of various sizes dynamically scheduled based on needs. Why there hasn't been a nationwide push to electrify school buses is beyond me, want to get a generation off to the right thinking fast, start with kids

henrikschroder 11y ago
> but the ever changing world of driving cannot be surmounted by data. That's insane, of course it can! How can you look at the current technological changes and come to the conclusion that there's an invisible barrier we're never going to pass? Given hardware that is fast enough, of course we can construct software to make microsecond decisions about the environment!
- viscanti 11y ago
  The current technology is incredibly dependent upon high quality maps of the area. In theory that's a solvable problem, but it requires breakthroughs in mapping (it's prohibitively expensive to map to the degree needed for large areas), breakthroughs in reactions to unpredictable or untrained situations, breakthroughs in sensors that can work in poor climates (rain and snow) and breakthroughs in computing to be able to make it affordable once it's possible to process that. It's not impossible, but it's probably safe to say that it's currently insurmountable by data given current technology and the cost structures involved. Given several large, game-changing breakthroughs, of course it's possible.
  - lern_too_spel 11y ago
    Your perception of current technology is decades behind where current technology is. Current technology can absolutely drive without high quality maps. It drives superhumanly well when it has access to those maps but just fine relative to human baseline without them.
  - henrikschroder 11y ago
    You're moving a bunch of goalposts here. Mapping isn't required at all for self-driving, it's required for self-navigation. Also, the obvious solution to mapping is to let every car provide input as they're driving. What do you think Google is doing with both Google Maps and Waze? They collect a shit-ton of data while people are using those apps and driving. There's your mapping. For untrained or unpredictable situations, you don't need a breakthrough, you just need the steady improvement of sensors and computer vision. You only need to encounter a situation once for the entire fleet of self-driving cars to be trained on it. For computing, you don't need breakthroughs, you just need more, and we're getting more, every year, steadily. Self-driving cars is not a matter of flashes of genius, it's a boring matter of economics of making the sensors cheap enough, the data collection cheap enough, the computing cheap enough, for it to be fitted to every car and there we go.
  - zardo 11y ago
    For mapping, you sensor up the cars you sell, SLAM, and send the data home. I'm not saying its easy, but you don't need to wait for someone to win a Nobel prize, Tesla started doing it last year.
malandrew 11y ago
Once everything in the electric car gets as efficient as possible and electric cars reach the point where they are mass manufactured at a scale greatly exceeding combustion engines, we end up at the point where it makes sense to consider roadways as power lines and an automotive "third rail". The car could operate largely on capacitive energy or batteries designed to charge as quickly as possible to ~80% capacity and avoid trickle charging entirely. At the end of the day it's crazy to be accelerating and decelerating the mass of the batteries if you don't have to, and once you have a critical mass of electric vehicles on the road this just makes sense.

henrikschroder 11y ago

> but the ever changing world of driving cannot be surmounted by data. That's insane, of course it can! How can you look at the current technological changes and come to the conclusion that there's an invisible barrier we're never going to pass? Given hardware that is fast enough, of course we can construct software to make microsecond decisions about the environment!

viscanti 11y ago
The current technology is incredibly dependent upon high quality maps of the area. In theory that's a solvable problem, but it requires breakthroughs in mapping (it's prohibitively expensive to map to the degree needed for large areas), breakthroughs in reactions to unpredictable or untrained situations, breakthroughs in sensors that can work in poor climates (rain and snow) and breakthroughs in computing to be able to make it affordable once it's possible to process that. It's not impossible, but it's probably safe to say that it's currently insurmountable by data given current technology and the cost structures involved. Given several large, game-changing breakthroughs, of course it's possible.
- lern_too_spel 11y ago
  Your perception of current technology is decades behind where current technology is. Current technology can absolutely drive without high quality maps. It drives superhumanly well when it has access to those maps but just fine relative to human baseline without them.
- henrikschroder 11y ago
  You're moving a bunch of goalposts here. Mapping isn't required at all for self-driving, it's required for self-navigation. Also, the obvious solution to mapping is to let every car provide input as they're driving. What do you think Google is doing with both Google Maps and Waze? They collect a shit-ton of data while people are using those apps and driving. There's your mapping. For untrained or unpredictable situations, you don't need a breakthrough, you just need the steady improvement of sensors and computer vision. You only need to encounter a situation once for the entire fleet of self-driving cars to be trained on it. For computing, you don't need breakthroughs, you just need more, and we're getting more, every year, steadily. Self-driving cars is not a matter of flashes of genius, it's a boring matter of economics of making the sensors cheap enough, the data collection cheap enough, the computing cheap enough, for it to be fitted to every car and there we go.
- zardo 11y ago
  For mapping, you sensor up the cars you sell, SLAM, and send the data home. I'm not saying its easy, but you don't need to wait for someone to win a Nobel prize, Tesla started doing it last year.

malandrew 11y ago

Once everything in the electric car gets as efficient as possible and electric cars reach the point where they are mass manufactured at a scale greatly exceeding combustion engines, we end up at the point where it makes sense to consider roadways as power lines and an automotive "third rail". The car could operate largely on capacitive energy or batteries designed to charge as quickly as possible to ~80% capacity and avoid trickle charging entirely. At the end of the day it's crazy to be accelerating and decelerating the mass of the batteries if you don't have to, and once you have a critical mass of electric vehicles on the road this just makes sense.