5 ms·

A full self-driving car with no driver will take more than 30 years, and probably will only be possible on areas restricted to self-driving cars. We will se fi

by elmar 10y ago

A full self-driving car with no driver will take more than 30 years, and probably will only be possible on areas restricted to self-driving cars. We will se first one to two seat fully self-flying vehicles than cars.

jrv 10y ago
Considering that Elon Musk says we'll have full self-diving cars (from an engineering standpoint) in 2 or 3 years, this estimate seems very pessimistic.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  It is unsurprising futurists working on pushing their cars that allegedly self-drive would tell you that the technology is closer to practicality than it is.
- rimantas 10y ago
  I consider Musk's timeframe a pipe dream.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Isn't Musk notorious for blowing way past his self-imposed deadlines?
  - jrv 10y ago
    By a couple of years, but not many decades, yes.
- Fricken 10y ago
  It could be 3 years or 30 years says Chris Urmson, depending on what you're talking about. Elon Musk's predictions are consistently unreliable.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  2-3 years in OK conditions, 30 years to cater for all the odd edge cases humans take cars. Bad human drivers, Indian traffic, cyclists, animals, narrow, unlit or poor roads etc. The other question is will the tech be there before the licensing/legislation. Somewhere in the middle there's probably a point where self driving is demonstrably safer than human, even before they're "ready" for everywhere.
  - petra 10y ago
    For a deep learning machine with LIDAR , there's only small difference between animals, indian traffic, bad drivers, and narrow/unlit/poor roads. It's just a question of more training(altough a recent NHTSA? regulation says the planning stage cannot use black box techniques like DNNs). And once self-driving is a business, i suspect we'll find ways to get said training data for cheap enough and fast enough. For example Tesla/Uber drivers as trainers .
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    You're grotesquely underestimating what fleet learning will do for traffic issues. The way I see it (as a software engineer myself), is that each wreck that the AP did not prevent gets added as a test case in the AP unit tests that all have to pass. Also, each time a human wrecks, it could/will send the data to Tesla to continue simulations and ensure AP would not wreck in the same conditions. How many of the wrecks, even fatal ones, essentially a different driver making the same mistake over and over? Likely millions. Real fleet learning would simply solve that problem once, and prevent thousands of fatalities as a result. As more and more AP capable cars hit the road, this simply will exponentially increase. Thirty years is laughable seeing how much computing has improved in merely the past 20. Maybe 5 tops assuming the legal hurdles are actually surmountable.
    - imh 10y ago
      That's such an inethical way to do it. You're suggesting that we just let it learn from wrecks in the real world, instead of trying to prevent those wrecks by other means? This, the Tesla strategy, feels despicable.
mdorazio 10y ago
On what are you basing this timeline? You realize that Google already has completely driverless cars roaming around public streets in silicon valley, right? There's even the story from an entire year ago about one of them getting pulled over by a police officer [1]. Every major auto manufacturer plus Google, Apple, Uber, and Lyft, and several other software companies are all working on this and they all have stated timelines of public-ready autonomous vehicles around a 2020 - 2021 timeframe. Will they handle every possible road condition in every possible location? No, but I'd be willing to bet money that in 2021 I'll be able to hail a completely driverless taxi/Uber in several major cities. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/us/google-self-driving-car-pulled-over/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/us/google-self-driving-car-pul...
- ghaff 10y ago
  I wouldn't put too much money on that bet. Adding twenty years might still be too optimistic.
  - mdorazio 10y ago
    Again, based on what? I'd happily put $100 on that bet today.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      Based on the fact that no one is anywhere remotely near being able to do arbitrary pickups and dropoffs of passengers without a driver being present today. And that's totally ignoring any regulatory, legal, etc. realities which I expect will get worked out once the tech is rock solid--which it isn't remotely.
      - mdorazio 10y ago
        But they are near being able to do exactly that. Uber is testing and training its autonomous-capable cars in Pittsburgh right now, picking up and dropping off passengers on real routes every day. At their current rate of testing and expansion they'll have more than enough training data in the next two years or so. The biggest hurdle is regulatory, but there's so much money and so many lives (remember, human drivers kill people on roads every single day) at stake here that even regulatory approvals are moving quickly. See: Michigan [1]. [1] http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/
bpicolo 10y ago
Small flying vehicles for daily travel seem insanely unlikely. The energy expenditure is wasteful, especially if you need vertical takeoff. Seems like not the best future for typical commuter traffic, I feel like.
- elmar 10y ago
  on Vertical Takeoff you are completely right, personally I think we will see fixed wing electrical one to two seats self-flying planes. The basic problem with VOTL is power/weight ratio of current batteries the maximum fly time you get is 15 minutes with no reserve.
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    If takeoff is still complicated, that would really make the typical commute take a long time anyway, no? You're still going to have to move between runways and a place of work somehow. Feels like it couldn't make sense for a majority of folk
    - elmar 10y ago
      for a one seat fixed wing aircraft you need a flat paved or grass surface the lenght of a court of tennis for takeoff and landing, no airport runway needed.
jsight 10y ago
For 100% autonomy, you are probably right. But there are some useful steps along the way. For example, the first ones will likely just manage the interstate and long stretches of road during a commute. The driver can "take over" in some form for parking, though even that may operate in a way that is completely different from today's vehicles. I expect to see a lot of things like this over the next 10 years.
jfoster 10y ago
Can you explain how you reach the 30 year figure? There's a lot of evidence suggesting that they will be available in some places under certain conditions in 3 years or less. Google and Tesla seem to think so, and they're the current experts on this.
- woofyman 10y ago
  Rain, Snow, Fog, Traffic cops, Construction zones, Yielding to emergency vehicles, Malfunctioning traffic lights, Newly repaved roads without lane markers, Pot holes, Railroad crossings, Standing water
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    I think much of this can be circumvented with real time data from apps like Waze. However if the car is not able to find an alternate route, it may require the driver to take over, so it wouldn't be fully autonomous. In either case, the car has to be able to reliably identify conditions in which it is necessary for the person to take over, which is definitely far away from being solved at a level that would be required to meet consumer levels of safety.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      Apps can probably help in determining that there's an area where a driver is going to need to take over. I can even imagine a central database that construction sites, etc. need to make an entry into. However, there still needs to be a driver who can take over which means it can't function as an autonomous taxi.

by elmar 10y ago

jrv 10y ago

Considering that Elon Musk says we'll have full self-diving cars (from an engineering standpoint) in 2 or 3 years, this estimate seems very pessimistic.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
It is unsurprising futurists working on pushing their cars that allegedly self-drive would tell you that the technology is closer to practicality than it is.
rimantas 10y ago
I consider Musk's timeframe a pipe dream.
kalleboo 10y ago
Isn't Musk notorious for blowing way past his self-imposed deadlines?
- jrv 10y ago
  By a couple of years, but not many decades, yes.
Fricken 10y ago
It could be 3 years or 30 years says Chris Urmson, depending on what you're talking about. Elon Musk's predictions are consistently unreliable.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
2-3 years in OK conditions, 30 years to cater for all the odd edge cases humans take cars. Bad human drivers, Indian traffic, cyclists, animals, narrow, unlit or poor roads etc. The other question is will the tech be there before the licensing/legislation. Somewhere in the middle there's probably a point where self driving is demonstrably safer than human, even before they're "ready" for everywhere.
- petra 10y ago
  For a deep learning machine with LIDAR , there's only small difference between animals, indian traffic, bad drivers, and narrow/unlit/poor roads. It's just a question of more training(altough a recent NHTSA? regulation says the planning stage cannot use black box techniques like DNNs). And once self-driving is a business, i suspect we'll find ways to get said training data for cheap enough and fast enough. For example Tesla/Uber drivers as trainers .
- SEJeff 10y ago
  You're grotesquely underestimating what fleet learning will do for traffic issues. The way I see it (as a software engineer myself), is that each wreck that the AP did not prevent gets added as a test case in the AP unit tests that all have to pass. Also, each time a human wrecks, it could/will send the data to Tesla to continue simulations and ensure AP would not wreck in the same conditions. How many of the wrecks, even fatal ones, essentially a different driver making the same mistake over and over? Likely millions. Real fleet learning would simply solve that problem once, and prevent thousands of fatalities as a result. As more and more AP capable cars hit the road, this simply will exponentially increase. Thirty years is laughable seeing how much computing has improved in merely the past 20. Maybe 5 tops assuming the legal hurdles are actually surmountable.
  - imh 10y ago
    That's such an inethical way to do it. You're suggesting that we just let it learn from wrecks in the real world, instead of trying to prevent those wrecks by other means? This, the Tesla strategy, feels despicable.

mdorazio 10y ago

On what are you basing this timeline? You realize that Google already has completely driverless cars roaming around public streets in silicon valley, right? There's even the story from an entire year ago about one of them getting pulled over by a police officer [1]. Every major auto manufacturer plus Google, Apple, Uber, and Lyft, and several other software companies are all working on this and they all have stated timelines of public-ready autonomous vehicles around a 2020 - 2021 timeframe. Will they handle every possible road condition in every possible location? No, but I'd be willing to bet money that in 2021 I'll be able to hail a completely driverless taxi/Uber in several major cities. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/us/google-self-driving-car-pulled-over/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/13/us/google-self-driving-car-pul...

ghaff 10y ago
I wouldn't put too much money on that bet. Adding twenty years might still be too optimistic.
- mdorazio 10y ago
  Again, based on what? I'd happily put $100 on that bet today.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Based on the fact that no one is anywhere remotely near being able to do arbitrary pickups and dropoffs of passengers without a driver being present today. And that's totally ignoring any regulatory, legal, etc. realities which I expect will get worked out once the tech is rock solid--which it isn't remotely.
    - mdorazio 10y ago
      But they are near being able to do exactly that. Uber is testing and training its autonomous-capable cars in Pittsburgh right now, picking up and dropping off passengers on real routes every day. At their current rate of testing and expansion they'll have more than enough training data in the next two years or so. The biggest hurdle is regulatory, but there's so much money and so many lives (remember, human drivers kill people on roads every single day) at stake here that even regulatory approvals are moving quickly. See: Michigan [1]. [1] http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/

bpicolo 10y ago

Small flying vehicles for daily travel seem insanely unlikely. The energy expenditure is wasteful, especially if you need vertical takeoff. Seems like not the best future for typical commuter traffic, I feel like.

elmar 10y ago
on Vertical Takeoff you are completely right, personally I think we will see fixed wing electrical one to two seats self-flying planes. The basic problem with VOTL is power/weight ratio of current batteries the maximum fly time you get is 15 minutes with no reserve.
- bpicolo 10y ago
  If takeoff is still complicated, that would really make the typical commute take a long time anyway, no? You're still going to have to move between runways and a place of work somehow. Feels like it couldn't make sense for a majority of folk
  - elmar 10y ago
    for a one seat fixed wing aircraft you need a flat paved or grass surface the lenght of a court of tennis for takeoff and landing, no airport runway needed.

jsight 10y ago

For 100% autonomy, you are probably right. But there are some useful steps along the way. For example, the first ones will likely just manage the interstate and long stretches of road during a commute. The driver can "take over" in some form for parking, though even that may operate in a way that is completely different from today's vehicles. I expect to see a lot of things like this over the next 10 years.

jfoster 10y ago

Can you explain how you reach the 30 year figure? There's a lot of evidence suggesting that they will be available in some places under certain conditions in 3 years or less. Google and Tesla seem to think so, and they're the current experts on this.

woofyman 10y ago
Rain, Snow, Fog, Traffic cops, Construction zones, Yielding to emergency vehicles, Malfunctioning traffic lights, Newly repaved roads without lane markers, Pot holes, Railroad crossings, Standing water
- antisthenes 10y ago
  I think much of this can be circumvented with real time data from apps like Waze. However if the car is not able to find an alternate route, it may require the driver to take over, so it wouldn't be fully autonomous. In either case, the car has to be able to reliably identify conditions in which it is necessary for the person to take over, which is definitely far away from being solved at a level that would be required to meet consumer levels of safety.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Apps can probably help in determining that there's an area where a driver is going to need to take over. I can even imagine a central database that construction sites, etc. need to make an entry into. However, there still needs to be a driver who can take over which means it can't function as an autonomous taxi.