24 ms·

BMW shows off 'drifting' self-drive cars

67 points by alsutton010203 13y ago

datawander 13y ago
Last time I checked this was Hacker News, not Reddit, and I am getting sick of articles like this making it to the front page (as I am aware other commenters have noted). I didn't even need to click on the article (but did in a vain hope) to know that there was absolutely no information as to what they actually did from a technical perspective that deserves notice on HN. The most technological it gets is "Using 360-degree radar, ultrasonic sensors and cameras, the cars sense and adapt to their surroundings.", but then what does it do that is different from what the Google Car and other autonomous cars do? Is it any different from the Audi that drove itself up Pike's Peak as quickly as it could? The rest is offtopic, but as a long time read-only user, I must come out of the woodwork and make my first comments (other than a few days ago) to be to beg of submitters and upvoters to please only submit/upvote stuff that is actually relevant to what should be the audience of Hacker News, not the general reddit population... I got sick of reddit and 'general' news years ago and don't want to go back to it.
- sk5t 13y ago
  I agree this is a very superficial article, although it is somewhat relevant to folks interested in self-driving vehicles. Despite regular procrastination on Jalopnik, I hadn't previously heard about self-driving tech applied to anything in the motorsports arena. Nevertheless you raise a good point re. the fluff content here and encroaching redditification. Lately a lot of "witty one-liners" have appeared up in the comment section, and downvote-enabled HN users should feel a duty to discourage them.
  - wtallis 13y ago
    Audi has been doing autonomous sports cars for years. In 2010 they had a TTS climb Pikes Peak, albeit almost three times slower than the human-driven record for that course.
- simias 13y ago
  I sympathize with your feeling but this is far from the worse I've seen on HN's frontpage lately. At least it's not about politics.
- kordless 13y ago
  In the time you spent venting your frustration about this, you might have been able to dig up something interesting for the conversation in here. Also, you can beat stuff like this for raising interest in technology. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnKzK6dX8Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnKzK6dX8Q
- bcbrown 13y ago
  You have some control over this, by the ability to upvote stuff on the 'new' page, helping the sorts of articles you like to appear on the front page. I try to run through it once a day. Then, whenever a story I upvoted makes it to the front page, I get a small sense of satisfaction.l
IBM 13y ago
If a car company has their own self-driving technology, will they ever pay Google for theirs?
- gaius 13y ago
  Of course, why would they? The interesting thing is the motivation. BMW want to make a better car, to sell more cars. Google want self-driving to free up driver's time to consume media, which will be covered in advertising - exactly the same as releasing Android to drive mobile Internet usage. But just as Google acquired Motorola, which automaker is in their sights? GM?
  - bicknergseng 13y ago
    That's what I've been wondering. I know VW, Daimler AG, Toyota, Volvo, BMW, and others have making pretty good strides in self driving tech, but it seems most American car companies are pretty far behind already. I wonder if Google intends to license the tech out to the companies who can't or won't do it themselves, or if they decide to pull a Motorola and enter the manufacturing market at some point in the future.
  - michaelt 13y ago
    Google could be hoping to diversify away from "everything free but ad supported" as they are with things like App Engine. They could plan to license the technology to car manufacturers for a per-car fee or subscription; along with the detailed road condition data gathered by streetview cars and android phones.
  - IBM 13y ago
    I feel sorry for Google's shareholders if this is what they think.
  - bitL 13y ago
    BMW has a joint research lab with Google in Munich. My guess is this is the result of its work.
- rayiner 13y ago
Volscio 13y ago
Here's a promo video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL_enMPWT7s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL_enMPWT7s
- ableal 13y ago
  I think I spotted an overturned cone at the 55 second mark ... Wired magazine had a small piece about the presentation, including that video: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/01/bmw-builds-self-drifting-car/ http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/01/bmw-builds-self-driftin...
  - kristofferR 13y ago
    Two in fact.
  - weaksauce 13y ago
    a lot of time in racing with cones they will lay one down next to another to indicate which direction to go. source: I did a lot of autocross racing. edit: looking at it again I'd be extremely surprised if it was anything but a direction marker.
michaelt 13y ago
Stanford have done some interesting work on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzI54rm9m1Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzI54rm9m1Q IIRC Stanford's motion planning relies on blending from a plan based on a physics model to a choice of learned operations programmed into the car by a stunt driver. Makes sense for demos, but I don't know how well it would work if surfaces or driving conditions were different from when the operation was taught.
Tomdarkness 13y ago
Does anyone know if it was pre-programmed with the course and made minor on the fly corrections or was able to complete the course independently in real time?
melling 13y ago
Wonder when Google will have their self-driving fleet taking people from the Las Vegas airport to their hotels during CES? It would be a great publicity stunt. "Currently California, Florida and Nevada have licensed autonomous vehicles to be tested on their public roads, and Google's fleet of 24 robot Lexus SUVs (sports utility vehicles) have clocked up about 500,000 miles of unassisted driving so far without any reported mishaps."
- seiji 13y ago
  Can you imagine the emergency procedures they have in place to cover up any mishaps? A few payoffs here, a few altered records there... no mishaps!
  - angersock 13y ago
    Do tell, how is one to search for news about a mishap? I think the Googlebot may have difficulty recalling such articles.
dcc1 13y ago
This is bad news (despite being a BMW owner) In future driving will no longer be fun, if you want to drive "non-automated" car or disable "auto-pilot" your insurance company will automatically jack up your premium, since they would consider self driving cars "safer"
- saraid216 13y ago
  More terrible than killing someone: Spending more money to do it.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  In future driving will no longer be fun It's funny seeing BMW try to be a forerunner in this space, after all of their "BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine" ad campaigns. They were one of the few car makers that actually spoke of driving fun! (Or, well, driving pleasure)
  - CanSpice 13y ago
    Note that "The Ultimate Driving Machine" doesn't imply that a human is the one driving. :-)
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- robinhoode 13y ago
  Is the cost to society (in lives lost) worth the cost to individual enjoyment?
  - barrkel 13y ago
    The cost of all your enjoyment is your own life; you too will die. It depends on how much pleasure you get out of driving. I certainly think it's worth some fraction of a life. And of course, a certain amount of the risk comes from inattentive drivers who don't enjoy driving, and would rather read a book or eat cereal (or both) on the road.
jackmaney 13y ago
0_o Why don't we work on self-driving cars that drive correctly, first? Then the "HERP-DERP, I'MMA DRIVIN' SIDEWAYS!" enthusiasts can work on their own cars (hopefully on their own closed tracks and roads).
- cjensen 13y ago
  Being able to drive sideways may be tech that applies to recovering from an emergency situation like black ice.
thirdsight 13y ago
Great. They taught computers to drive like a dick as well now...
VladRussian2 13y ago
"Fast and Furious 1X" will be starring self-driving cars i guess.
joshu 13y ago
Drifting is suprisingly hard. I took a class and after two days was only able to do a little: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-lN_jhvpqQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-lN_jhvpqQ I am thinking about how to organize an autonomous race in 2015 so this is pretty exciting for me.
davrosthedalek 13y ago
Things like this make me rethink my decision to stay in academia.
jonas_b 13y ago
Anybody know if self-driving cars can distinguish between safe and unsafe object; say a big stuffed animal, and a rock in the middle of the road. Would they make big maneuvers to avoid both?
- JshWright 13y ago
  Human beings aren't especially good at that either...
  - pestaa 13y ago
    Tell me about it. I am constantly surprised by how close I need to get to the target in low light conditions to realize it is really not what I earlier recognized it to be. It usually makes me wish I could enable some sort of Splinter Cell heat sensor.
- UnFleshedOne 13y ago
  Or a rock inside a big stuffed animal?
dkokelley 13y ago
"One 2013 study by the Eno Center for Transportation suggested that if 10% of cars on US roads were autonomous this could reduce fatalities by about 1,000." This doesn't quite seem right. How does a 10% shift towards autonomous vehicles only equate to a 2% decrease in fatalities? Why wouldn't this scale linearly?
- jules 13y ago
  Who says it doesn't scale linearly? That certainly can't be concluded from the sentence you cited. Are you assuming that self driving cars result in 0 fatalities?
  - dkokelley 13y ago
    Roughly, yes. I'm assuming that at 100% autonomous cars there will be ~0 fatalities. From the article, at ~0 autonomous cars, there are 50,000 fatalities annually. I guess I'm just curious as to the curve that dictates the relationship between autonomous car adoption rate and annual vehicular fatalities. I found the study referenced, but I haven't quite found their methods. http://www.enotrans.org/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/downloadables/AV-paper.pdf http://www.enotrans.org/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/downloadable...
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
angersock 13y ago
So, as a cyclist that commutes to work everyday on my bike--are any of these manufacturers making sure that their vehicles don't squish pedestrians, or even worse, people on bikes?
- taejo 13y ago
  Yes, of course they are. That's a major part of the challenge.
- tmp123415 13y ago
  They probably do since a collision might damage the car. And with all the sensors, there must not be a single blind spot left. That means it becomes much safer to ride a bicycle or motorcycle.
- JshWright 13y ago
  They will, in fact, do a much better job of it than a human driver. An automated car will detect the obstacle faster, make a better decision on evasive maneuvers (based on a much better understanding of the current conditions), and apply that decision _much_ faster than a human driver could. I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread, but a modern car processes a collision _very_ quickly. It detects it, decides what to do about it (which airbags to fire, which seatbelt pretensioners to deploy, etc), and implements those safety measures _before the driver is aware the collision has occurred_. Apply that same processing latency to evasive maneuvers and you'll see just how much safer automated cars can be.
- Planar 13y ago
  EuroNCAP[1] requires increasing levels of automated pedestrian protection -- i.e. autonomous braking or avoidance -- to get a 5-star safety rating starting in about 2015. Because World Health Organization predicts 3% of fatalities in 2030 will be automotive collisions, and over half of those 3% will be pedestrian deaths[2]. [1] EuroNCAP.com [2] Could't quickly find the 2030 stat, but pedestrian fraction: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/road_safety_report_20090615/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/road_safet...
snake_plissken 13y ago
There is all this talk about safety but isn't drifting your car inherently dangerous? It's not like you're drifting your car around turns on your way to work. And if you are, you're a jackass and putting everyone else at risk.
- ohazi 13y ago
  The benefit comes from automated driving systems being able to handle emergency out-of-control situations safely and predictably, not in regularly being driven around like this. Let's say you're in a self-driving car and get pegged and flung across a highway by another car going 20 mph faster than you. In this case, a driver with high performance training would be better able to land the crash than an average driver that panics and makes unsafe corrective inputs. You want the self-driving car to be able to respond like the high performance driver, which means knowing how to safely drift.
dockd 13y ago
It would be nice if the auto manufacturers spent the effort on making their existing products better before they distract themselves with these projects. Case in point? My car uses 1 quart of oil every 1000 miles (123K on the odometer) with a perfect maintenance record, and the manufacturer say this is Normal. Raise your hand if you like to stop in the middle of a family outing to pour a quart of oil into your car. Or the power window motors that failed every 60K miles. Or the vinyl drivers seat that cracked to pieces. Or the traction control that engages on wet manhole covers. Or...
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  > It would be nice if the auto manufacturers spent the effort on making their existing products better before they distract themselves with these projects. Actually, any effort expended on bringing closer the time human-controlled cars are banned from public roads is a Good Thing. As in, lots of fuel, time and human lives saved. Can't wait.
scotty79 13y ago
Yes! That's how robots should behave. Robot cars drifitng and bipeds doing backflips and pushups when handstanding on one arm.
darklajid 13y ago
I thought about this over and over. As it is usually the case with these articles (same with Google cars etc.) there's a group of supporters, usually with the 'It will be safer for the whole mankind' argument, sometimes with more mundane 'I would like to work in my car and let the thing drive itself' car-as-single-person-bus thrown in. And a group of people that firmly believe that this development takes away their freedom to (drive|steer|joyride). I guess I should've put a disclaimer that states that I sympathize more with the latter kind of people, but try hard to find out why that is the case. For me, assisted driving is a no-brainer. My wife hasn't ever driven a car where the steering wheel is unsupported. Nor a car without ABS and related/improved technology. In my world that's a good thing. The car already, today, decides that it has to take control in a number of ways. Further down in this thread I described my company car and its assistance systems. Most of those are nice to have and useful. I configured that car myself and included all those 'Let me help you here..' systems. This is not a matter of pride, no 'People that use assistance systems cannot really drive a car' attitude. I guess for me the conflict starts when we talk about giving up _all_ control. For me the perfect solution would feel like a car today. It behaves as I expect it to, if I kick down the car responds. BUT I would be totally fine with more and more assistance systems that prevent me from screwing up. Not the 'Let the car drive' future, but rather a 'Let me drive (potentially optional), but step in if necessary'. The result is more or less the same, but one feels like giving up something (a freedom, a privilege, a thing I enjoy), the other sounds like a reasonable and intriguing improvement. I don't really want a self-driving car. I want an intelligent car that prevents me from causing trouble.
- bane 13y ago
  I'd rather have a car I can drive if I want to, or hit a button and have it just autopilot there instead.
  - sukuriant 13y ago
    I am all for this system as well. I don't think you and the grandparent are in disagreement, either. It looks like what they're saying is "give me varying levels of automation, including but not limited to full automation --- as long as I can have as much control as I want at the time." similar to a car with an option to disable traction control.
TulliusCicero 13y ago
Insurance won't have higher premiums for manually driven cars, because in the future, manually driven cars will be banned. It's absurd to insist that some people's enjoyment of driving overrules others' right to life. If you want to enjoy driving, you can do it on a private track where you only risk your own life and the lives of others who want to drive for fun.
redact207 13y ago
So what will be the point of laying down a tonne of cash for a "BMW - Sheer Driving Pleasure" if you can't drive it?
- JetSpiegel 13y ago
  Pleasure for BMW, not for the drivers.

Last time I checked this was Hacker News, not Reddit, and I am getting sick of articles like this making it to the front page (as I am aware other commenters have noted). I didn't even need to click on the article (but did in a vain hope) to know that there was absolutely no information as to what they actually did from a technical perspective that deserves notice on HN. The most technological it gets is "Using 360-degree radar, ultrasonic sensors and cameras, the cars sense and adapt to their surroundings.", but then what does it do that is different from what the Google Car and other autonomous cars do? Is it any different from the Audi that drove itself up Pike's Peak as quickly as it could? The rest is offtopic, but as a long time read-only user, I must come out of the woodwork and make my first comments (other than a few days ago) to be to beg of submitters and upvoters to please only submit/upvote stuff that is actually relevant to what should be the audience of Hacker News, not the general reddit population... I got sick of reddit and 'general' news years ago and don't want to go back to it.

sk5t 13y ago
I agree this is a very superficial article, although it is somewhat relevant to folks interested in self-driving vehicles. Despite regular procrastination on Jalopnik, I hadn't previously heard about self-driving tech applied to anything in the motorsports arena. Nevertheless you raise a good point re. the fluff content here and encroaching redditification. Lately a lot of "witty one-liners" have appeared up in the comment section, and downvote-enabled HN users should feel a duty to discourage them.
- wtallis 13y ago
  Audi has been doing autonomous sports cars for years. In 2010 they had a TTS climb Pikes Peak, albeit almost three times slower than the human-driven record for that course.
simias 13y ago
I sympathize with your feeling but this is far from the worse I've seen on HN's frontpage lately. At least it's not about politics.
kordless 13y ago
In the time you spent venting your frustration about this, you might have been able to dig up something interesting for the conversation in here. Also, you can beat stuff like this for raising interest in technology. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnKzK6dX8Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsnKzK6dX8Q
bcbrown 13y ago
You have some control over this, by the ability to upvote stuff on the 'new' page, helping the sorts of articles you like to appear on the front page. I try to run through it once a day. Then, whenever a story I upvoted makes it to the front page, I get a small sense of satisfaction.l

IBM 13y ago

If a car company has their own self-driving technology, will they ever pay Google for theirs?

gaius 13y ago
Of course, why would they? The interesting thing is the motivation. BMW want to make a better car, to sell more cars. Google want self-driving to free up driver's time to consume media, which will be covered in advertising - exactly the same as releasing Android to drive mobile Internet usage. But just as Google acquired Motorola, which automaker is in their sights? GM?
- bicknergseng 13y ago
  That's what I've been wondering. I know VW, Daimler AG, Toyota, Volvo, BMW, and others have making pretty good strides in self driving tech, but it seems most American car companies are pretty far behind already. I wonder if Google intends to license the tech out to the companies who can't or won't do it themselves, or if they decide to pull a Motorola and enter the manufacturing market at some point in the future.
- michaelt 13y ago
  Google could be hoping to diversify away from "everything free but ad supported" as they are with things like App Engine. They could plan to license the technology to car manufacturers for a per-car fee or subscription; along with the detailed road condition data gathered by streetview cars and android phones.
- IBM 13y ago
  I feel sorry for Google's shareholders if this is what they think.
- bitL 13y ago
  BMW has a joint research lab with Google in Munich. My guess is this is the result of its work.
rayiner 13y ago

Volscio 13y ago

Here's a promo video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL_enMPWT7s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL_enMPWT7s

ableal 13y ago
I think I spotted an overturned cone at the 55 second mark ... Wired magazine had a small piece about the presentation, including that video: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/01/bmw-builds-self-drifting-car/ http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/01/bmw-builds-self-driftin...
- kristofferR 13y ago
  Two in fact.
- weaksauce 13y ago
  a lot of time in racing with cones they will lay one down next to another to indicate which direction to go. source: I did a lot of autocross racing. edit: looking at it again I'd be extremely surprised if it was anything but a direction marker.

michaelt 13y ago

Stanford have done some interesting work on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzI54rm9m1Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzI54rm9m1Q IIRC Stanford's motion planning relies on blending from a plan based on a physics model to a choice of learned operations programmed into the car by a stunt driver. Makes sense for demos, but I don't know how well it would work if surfaces or driving conditions were different from when the operation was taught.

Tomdarkness 13y ago

Does anyone know if it was pre-programmed with the course and made minor on the fly corrections or was able to complete the course independently in real time?

melling 13y ago

Wonder when Google will have their self-driving fleet taking people from the Las Vegas airport to their hotels during CES? It would be a great publicity stunt. "Currently California, Florida and Nevada have licensed autonomous vehicles to be tested on their public roads, and Google's fleet of 24 robot Lexus SUVs (sports utility vehicles) have clocked up about 500,000 miles of unassisted driving so far without any reported mishaps."

seiji 13y ago
Can you imagine the emergency procedures they have in place to cover up any mishaps? A few payoffs here, a few altered records there... no mishaps!
- angersock 13y ago
  Do tell, how is one to search for news about a mishap? I think the Googlebot may have difficulty recalling such articles.

dcc1 13y ago

This is bad news (despite being a BMW owner) In future driving will no longer be fun, if you want to drive "non-automated" car or disable "auto-pilot" your insurance company will automatically jack up your premium, since they would consider self driving cars "safer"

saraid216 13y ago
More terrible than killing someone: Spending more money to do it.
sliverstorm 13y ago
In future driving will no longer be fun It's funny seeing BMW try to be a forerunner in this space, after all of their "BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine" ad campaigns. They were one of the few car makers that actually spoke of driving fun! (Or, well, driving pleasure)
- CanSpice 13y ago
  Note that "The Ultimate Driving Machine" doesn't imply that a human is the one driving. :-)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
robinhoode 13y ago
Is the cost to society (in lives lost) worth the cost to individual enjoyment?
- barrkel 13y ago
  The cost of all your enjoyment is your own life; you too will die. It depends on how much pleasure you get out of driving. I certainly think it's worth some fraction of a life. And of course, a certain amount of the risk comes from inattentive drivers who don't enjoy driving, and would rather read a book or eat cereal (or both) on the road.

jackmaney 13y ago

0_o Why don't we work on self-driving cars that drive correctly, first? Then the "HERP-DERP, I'MMA DRIVIN' SIDEWAYS!" enthusiasts can work on their own cars (hopefully on their own closed tracks and roads).

cjensen 13y ago
Being able to drive sideways may be tech that applies to recovering from an emergency situation like black ice.

thirdsight 13y ago

Great. They taught computers to drive like a dick as well now...

VladRussian2 13y ago

"Fast and Furious 1X" will be starring self-driving cars i guess.

joshu 13y ago

Drifting is suprisingly hard. I took a class and after two days was only able to do a little: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-lN_jhvpqQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-lN_jhvpqQ I am thinking about how to organize an autonomous race in 2015 so this is pretty exciting for me.

davrosthedalek 13y ago

Things like this make me rethink my decision to stay in academia.

jonas_b 13y ago

Anybody know if self-driving cars can distinguish between safe and unsafe object; say a big stuffed animal, and a rock in the middle of the road. Would they make big maneuvers to avoid both?

JshWright 13y ago
Human beings aren't especially good at that either...
- pestaa 13y ago
  Tell me about it. I am constantly surprised by how close I need to get to the target in low light conditions to realize it is really not what I earlier recognized it to be. It usually makes me wish I could enable some sort of Splinter Cell heat sensor.
UnFleshedOne 13y ago
Or a rock inside a big stuffed animal?

dkokelley 13y ago

"One 2013 study by the Eno Center for Transportation suggested that if 10% of cars on US roads were autonomous this could reduce fatalities by about 1,000." This doesn't quite seem right. How does a 10% shift towards autonomous vehicles only equate to a 2% decrease in fatalities? Why wouldn't this scale linearly?

jules 13y ago
Who says it doesn't scale linearly? That certainly can't be concluded from the sentence you cited. Are you assuming that self driving cars result in 0 fatalities?
- dkokelley 13y ago
  Roughly, yes. I'm assuming that at 100% autonomous cars there will be ~0 fatalities. From the article, at ~0 autonomous cars, there are 50,000 fatalities annually. I guess I'm just curious as to the curve that dictates the relationship between autonomous car adoption rate and annual vehicular fatalities. I found the study referenced, but I haven't quite found their methods. http://www.enotrans.org/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/downloadables/AV-paper.pdf http://www.enotrans.org/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/downloadable...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

angersock 13y ago

So, as a cyclist that commutes to work everyday on my bike--are any of these manufacturers making sure that their vehicles don't squish pedestrians, or even worse, people on bikes?

taejo 13y ago
Yes, of course they are. That's a major part of the challenge.
tmp123415 13y ago
They probably do since a collision might damage the car. And with all the sensors, there must not be a single blind spot left. That means it becomes much safer to ride a bicycle or motorcycle.
JshWright 13y ago
They will, in fact, do a much better job of it than a human driver. An automated car will detect the obstacle faster, make a better decision on evasive maneuvers (based on a much better understanding of the current conditions), and apply that decision _much_ faster than a human driver could. I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread, but a modern car processes a collision _very_ quickly. It detects it, decides what to do about it (which airbags to fire, which seatbelt pretensioners to deploy, etc), and implements those safety measures _before the driver is aware the collision has occurred_. Apply that same processing latency to evasive maneuvers and you'll see just how much safer automated cars can be.
Planar 13y ago
EuroNCAP[1] requires increasing levels of automated pedestrian protection -- i.e. autonomous braking or avoidance -- to get a 5-star safety rating starting in about 2015. Because World Health Organization predicts 3% of fatalities in 2030 will be automotive collisions, and over half of those 3% will be pedestrian deaths[2]. [1] EuroNCAP.com [2] Could't quickly find the 2030 stat, but pedestrian fraction: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/road_safety_report_20090615/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/road_safet...

snake_plissken 13y ago

There is all this talk about safety but isn't drifting your car inherently dangerous? It's not like you're drifting your car around turns on your way to work. And if you are, you're a jackass and putting everyone else at risk.

ohazi 13y ago
The benefit comes from automated driving systems being able to handle emergency out-of-control situations safely and predictably, not in regularly being driven around like this. Let's say you're in a self-driving car and get pegged and flung across a highway by another car going 20 mph faster than you. In this case, a driver with high performance training would be better able to land the crash than an average driver that panics and makes unsafe corrective inputs. You want the self-driving car to be able to respond like the high performance driver, which means knowing how to safely drift.

dockd 13y ago

It would be nice if the auto manufacturers spent the effort on making their existing products better before they distract themselves with these projects. Case in point? My car uses 1 quart of oil every 1000 miles (123K on the odometer) with a perfect maintenance record, and the manufacturer say this is Normal. Raise your hand if you like to stop in the middle of a family outing to pour a quart of oil into your car. Or the power window motors that failed every 60K miles. Or the vinyl drivers seat that cracked to pieces. Or the traction control that engages on wet manhole covers. Or...

TeMPOraL 13y ago
> It would be nice if the auto manufacturers spent the effort on making their existing products better before they distract themselves with these projects. Actually, any effort expended on bringing closer the time human-controlled cars are banned from public roads is a Good Thing. As in, lots of fuel, time and human lives saved. Can't wait.

scotty79 13y ago

Yes! That's how robots should behave. Robot cars drifitng and bipeds doing backflips and pushups when handstanding on one arm.

darklajid 13y ago

I thought about this over and over. As it is usually the case with these articles (same with Google cars etc.) there's a group of supporters, usually with the 'It will be safer for the whole mankind' argument, sometimes with more mundane 'I would like to work in my car and let the thing drive itself' car-as-single-person-bus thrown in. And a group of people that firmly believe that this development takes away their freedom to (drive|steer|joyride). I guess I should've put a disclaimer that states that I sympathize more with the latter kind of people, but try hard to find out why that is the case. For me, assisted driving is a no-brainer. My wife hasn't ever driven a car where the steering wheel is unsupported. Nor a car without ABS and related/improved technology. In my world that's a good thing. The car already, today, decides that it has to take control in a number of ways. Further down in this thread I described my company car and its assistance systems. Most of those are nice to have and useful. I configured that car myself and included all those 'Let me help you here..' systems. This is not a matter of pride, no 'People that use assistance systems cannot really drive a car' attitude. I guess for me the conflict starts when we talk about giving up _all_ control. For me the perfect solution would feel like a car today. It behaves as I expect it to, if I kick down the car responds. BUT I would be totally fine with more and more assistance systems that prevent me from screwing up. Not the 'Let the car drive' future, but rather a 'Let me drive (potentially optional), but step in if necessary'. The result is more or less the same, but one feels like giving up something (a freedom, a privilege, a thing I enjoy), the other sounds like a reasonable and intriguing improvement. I don't really want a self-driving car. I want an intelligent car that prevents me from causing trouble.

bane 13y ago
I'd rather have a car I can drive if I want to, or hit a button and have it just autopilot there instead.
- sukuriant 13y ago
  I am all for this system as well. I don't think you and the grandparent are in disagreement, either. It looks like what they're saying is "give me varying levels of automation, including but not limited to full automation --- as long as I can have as much control as I want at the time." similar to a car with an option to disable traction control.

TulliusCicero 13y ago

Insurance won't have higher premiums for manually driven cars, because in the future, manually driven cars will be banned. It's absurd to insist that some people's enjoyment of driving overrules others' right to life. If you want to enjoy driving, you can do it on a private track where you only risk your own life and the lives of others who want to drive for fun.

redact207 13y ago

So what will be the point of laying down a tonne of cash for a "BMW - Sheer Driving Pleasure" if you can't drive it?

JetSpiegel 13y ago
Pleasure for BMW, not for the drivers.