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Living in a cold, snowy climate, it seems like self driving cars will never be possible here. Winter snow removal equipment scrapes the lines off the roads req

Living in a cold, snowy climate, it seems like self driving cars will never be possible here. Winter snow removal equipment scrapes the lines off the roads requiring re-application every summer in my area, and a common sight in the cities is the "re-positioning" of lanes during the winter. Drivers carve out their own lanes in the snow, so a 4 lane road might have only 3 lanes in the winter. I find this challenging to negotiate in the winter as no one seems sure whether they should follow the carved out path or be in the actual lane, assuming they know where it is under the packed snow. How could a self-driving car deal with that? Not to mention inconsistent, icy road surfaces with unpredictable traction and the springtime muck of snow/gravel/salt that makes keeping the windshield clean, much less exterior sensors and cameras.

maxerickson 12y ago
Electronic stability control is already required equipment on new vehicles in the U.S. (and around the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control#Regulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control#Re...), because computers using sensors are better at measuring traction than humans are at estimating it.
- nogridbag 12y ago
  It's also the first thing I disable when driving in the snow in a RWD car, since the last thing I want when trying to make it up a snowy mountain road is for the computer to cut all power to the driving wheels.
  - BuildTheRobots 12y ago
    My understanding with ESP (My Nissan has it as Electronic Stability Program) was that it uses small amounts of single-wheel breaking to cause the vehicle to keep the expected line during extreme manoeuvring (eg swerving around a child running into the road, or swerving around the car in front suddenly anchoring on). I would have thought your issue with power being removed to the drive wheels is actually the Traction Control system kicking in not the ESP, but then it's possible you have one button that disables both.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      For the purposes of my comment, they are pretty much the same thing (and once you have all the components for ESC, traction control is essentially a software option). My point was that immediate road surface conditions are already a bigger problem for humans than for computers. nogridbag has a point, but I think the higher level computerized control system could make a finer grained input than a human, directly requesting that the power train operate at the traction limit.
    - nogridbag 12y ago
      My only experience is with Mazda's DSC (dynamic stability control) which I had in a previous car (Mazda RX-8). I had a couple of cases where I forgot to turn off DSC, because in that car you have to switch it off EVERY time you start the car, and the power would be completely cut to both wheels going up steep snowy inclines. For most conditions like rain it's great for the average driver. DSC caught me off guard a couple of times in dry/rain and one time almost caused me to lose control. But in all cases it was because I accidentally left it on while driving "enthusiastically" and wasn't expecting the DSC to yank the car abruptly and unnaturally in its attempt to straighten the car out.

maxerickson 12y ago

Electronic stability control is already required equipment on new vehicles in the U.S. (and around the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control#Regulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control#Re...), because computers using sensors are better at measuring traction than humans are at estimating it.

nogridbag 12y ago
It's also the first thing I disable when driving in the snow in a RWD car, since the last thing I want when trying to make it up a snowy mountain road is for the computer to cut all power to the driving wheels.
- BuildTheRobots 12y ago
  My understanding with ESP (My Nissan has it as Electronic Stability Program) was that it uses small amounts of single-wheel breaking to cause the vehicle to keep the expected line during extreme manoeuvring (eg swerving around a child running into the road, or swerving around the car in front suddenly anchoring on). I would have thought your issue with power being removed to the drive wheels is actually the Traction Control system kicking in not the ESP, but then it's possible you have one button that disables both.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    For the purposes of my comment, they are pretty much the same thing (and once you have all the components for ESC, traction control is essentially a software option). My point was that immediate road surface conditions are already a bigger problem for humans than for computers. nogridbag has a point, but I think the higher level computerized control system could make a finer grained input than a human, directly requesting that the power train operate at the traction limit.
  - nogridbag 12y ago
    My only experience is with Mazda's DSC (dynamic stability control) which I had in a previous car (Mazda RX-8). I had a couple of cases where I forgot to turn off DSC, because in that car you have to switch it off EVERY time you start the car, and the power would be completely cut to both wheels going up steep snowy inclines. For most conditions like rain it's great for the average driver. DSC caught me off guard a couple of times in dry/rain and one time almost caused me to lose control. But in all cases it was because I accidentally left it on while driving "enthusiastically" and wasn't expecting the DSC to yank the car abruptly and unnaturally in its attempt to straighten the car out.