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Ridiculous article. No mention of the tendency for computing to become more efficient as tech improves.

ilyt 4y ago
Or any power usage for compute for any of the current "autonomous" vehicles.
gertlex 4y ago
But computing applications also tend to use more or all of the available power... so by itself, tech improvements do not mean that power used will go down correspondingly. (or else thanks to processor Flops/watt improvements, we'd have most laptops running for days on their current batteries, right?) It seems we'd only expect power use to go down when autonomous driving applications are "feature complete" and stop having a use for additional compute power. In the meantime, discussions of limits based on achievable/acceptable power draw (a la phones which I would guess have been in a consistent range for years now) are more likely to be meaningful.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  It is not an electron app. And energy efficiency numbers people will look at when buying/comparing.
swatcoder 4y ago
With some exceptions, increased efficiency has historically been used to increase capabilities rather than reduce consumption. It’s by no means ridiculous to assume that this might happen here too, and in fact publishing analyses that make the assumption might be exactly what helps make conservation a priority and breaks those same assumptions.
- Animats 4y ago
  > It’s by no means ridiculous to assume that this might happen here too, and in fact publishing analyses that make the assumption might be exactly what helps make conservation a priority and breaks those same assumptions. Power consumption has become a serious problem with auto "infotainment" systems. There are cars running Unreal Engine in the dashboard. There's a noticeable reduction in EV range. (Also a tendency to have too much electronics running while the vehicle is parked. Teslas are noted for this. There's "sentry mode", and "summon mode", and WiFi, and remote updates, and telemetry, and apps phoning home...[1] This can be a worse problem than power consumption for the electronics while driving, since most vehicles are driven a small number of hours per day.) [1] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/battery-drain-while-parked.209938/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/battery-drain-while-...

ilyt 4y ago

Or any power usage for compute for any of the current "autonomous" vehicles.

But computing applications also tend to use more or all of the available power... so by itself, tech improvements do not mean that power used will go down correspondingly. (or else thanks to processor Flops/watt improvements, we'd have most laptops running for days on their current batteries, right?) It seems we'd only expect power use to go down when autonomous driving applications are "feature complete" and stop having a use for additional compute power. In the meantime, discussions of limits based on achievable/acceptable power draw (a la phones which I would guess have been in a consistent range for years now) are more likely to be meaningful.

quickthrower2 4y ago
It is not an electron app. And energy efficiency numbers people will look at when buying/comparing.

swatcoder 4y ago

With some exceptions, increased efficiency has historically been used to increase capabilities rather than reduce consumption. It’s by no means ridiculous to assume that this might happen here too, and in fact publishing analyses that make the assumption might be exactly what helps make conservation a priority and breaks those same assumptions.

Animats 4y ago
> It’s by no means ridiculous to assume that this might happen here too, and in fact publishing analyses that make the assumption might be exactly what helps make conservation a priority and breaks those same assumptions. Power consumption has become a serious problem with auto "infotainment" systems. There are cars running Unreal Engine in the dashboard. There's a noticeable reduction in EV range. (Also a tendency to have too much electronics running while the vehicle is parked. Teslas are noted for this. There's "sentry mode", and "summon mode", and WiFi, and remote updates, and telemetry, and apps phoning home...[1] This can be a worse problem than power consumption for the electronics while driving, since most vehicles are driven a small number of hours per day.) [1] https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/battery-drain-while-parked.209938/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/battery-drain-while-...