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> They've driven more than a million miles fully autonomously Zero of those miles were at a speeds > 25 mph. And the cars have averaged > 1 accident per 100,0

by danhak 11y ago

> They've driven more than a million miles fully autonomously Zero of those miles were at a speeds > 25 mph. And the cars have averaged > 1 accident per 100,000 miles.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Audi's TTS autonomous vehicle sped up Pike's Peak successfully 5 years ago: http://www.wired.com/2010/11/audis-robotic-car-climbs-pikes-peak/ http://www.wired.com/2010/11/audis-robotic-car-climbs-pikes-... "The car made five runs during a week of testing, reaching the 14,100-foot summit in 27 minutes. The very fastest drivers — in cars putting down more than 900 horsepower — do it in 10 minutes and change, so clearly the car isn’t terribly fast. But the point isn’t the speed, it’s the fact there was no one at the wheel. According to Audi, race officials said an expert driver in car like the TTS would complete the course in around 17 minutes." Note that none of the accidents Google cars have been involved in were while the vehicles were in autonomous mode. http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/ http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/
- mod 11y ago
  None of them while a car was moving in autonomous mode* As I recall there were collisions where the autonomous car was sitting still. Others while in manual mode. Zero the fault of autonomous drivers, so far.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Regardless, autonomous vehicles will improve at a staggering pace due to computing power available to them, and sensors rapidly developing. ~33K [1] deaths a year from car accidents currently due to human drivers. I doubt autonomous vehicles can do worse than that. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm
mikeyouse 11y ago
I don't think this is accurate.. It was pretty common to pass the Lexus SUVs that Google was using for their autonomous platforms on the highway at speeds of 65+ MPH. I'm not sure if they're still around since my commute changed, but they were previously all over the Bay Area. I personally saw them on HWYs 101, 280, 880, and 92..
- danhak 11y ago
  Are you sure the cars were not being driven by a human at those times?
  - mikeyouse 11y ago
    Nope, hence my equivocation.. I've no special insight into the program, but the LIDARs would be spinning and the interiors were lit up with sensors and displays.
prawn 11y ago
Haven't all of their accidents been from other cars rear-ending them, while they've been stationary? Not even worth mentioning the accidents in that case.
- danhak 11y ago
  > The Google cars have been rear-ended seven times, often when stopped "but also on the freeway," wrote Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car program. In other collisions, the cars were side-swiped or "hit by a car rolling through a stop sign." Eight of the 11 collisions were on city streets. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/297ef1bfb75847de95d856fb08dc0687/ap-exclusive-self-driving-cars-getting-dinged-california http://bigstory.ap.org/article/297ef1bfb75847de95d856fb08dc0...
  - prawn 11y ago
    Mentioning accidents makes them sound dangerous. Mentioning that they haven't been at fault in any of them changes that significantly. In their last monthly report they described the two incidents in detail and they were the fault of the human driver behind them and about as trivial as collisions get.
    - hvidgaard 11y ago
      They're still worth mentioning though. A good human driver can anticipate those situations and minimize the risk. Eg. I will not hard break for a yellow if the driver behind me is tailgating me, I'm super aware of drivers coming out from side roads because some of them just assume that there isn't coming any cars because there usually isn't. Not that an AI cannot learn that, but they're not good in unknown situations.
      - prawn 11y ago
        I'm willing to bet that those would be considered very basic and obvious problems to the people developing these cars. They work on this stuff every hour of every day. The AI will know (and share with other cars) tendencies for individual intersections and eventually share broader traffic knowledge. There will come a time where we just cannot compete with that. They will know every intersection's peculiarities and we'll know only those that we frequent, at best. They'll adjust for weather conditions too where we'll go by gut feel - e.g., at intersection X, what did people tend to do in light rain, driving West in the morning. What about on a hot day going N-S in peak hour. They will have data at hand for every location, condition and time if need be.
lern_too_spel 11y ago
You've confused the prototypes that have just started driving on public roads with the existing vehicles that have been driving for years. The prototypes are limited to 25 mph. The existing vehicles drive at freeway speeds.

by danhak 11y ago

> They've driven more than a million miles fully autonomously Zero of those miles were at a speeds > 25 mph. And the cars have averaged > 1 accident per 100,000 miles.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

Audi's TTS autonomous vehicle sped up Pike's Peak successfully 5 years ago: http://www.wired.com/2010/11/audis-robotic-car-climbs-pikes-peak/ http://www.wired.com/2010/11/audis-robotic-car-climbs-pikes-... "The car made five runs during a week of testing, reaching the 14,100-foot summit in 27 minutes. The very fastest drivers — in cars putting down more than 900 horsepower — do it in 10 minutes and change, so clearly the car isn’t terribly fast. But the point isn’t the speed, it’s the fact there was no one at the wheel. According to Audi, race officials said an expert driver in car like the TTS would complete the course in around 17 minutes." Note that none of the accidents Google cars have been involved in were while the vehicles were in autonomous mode. http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/ http://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/

mod 11y ago
None of them while a car was moving in autonomous mode* As I recall there were collisions where the autonomous car was sitting still. Others while in manual mode. Zero the fault of autonomous drivers, so far.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Regardless, autonomous vehicles will improve at a staggering pace due to computing power available to them, and sensors rapidly developing. ~33K [1] deaths a year from car accidents currently due to human drivers. I doubt autonomous vehicles can do worse than that. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/accidental-injury.htm

mikeyouse 11y ago

I don't think this is accurate.. It was pretty common to pass the Lexus SUVs that Google was using for their autonomous platforms on the highway at speeds of 65+ MPH. I'm not sure if they're still around since my commute changed, but they were previously all over the Bay Area. I personally saw them on HWYs 101, 280, 880, and 92..

danhak 11y ago
Are you sure the cars were not being driven by a human at those times?
- mikeyouse 11y ago
  Nope, hence my equivocation.. I've no special insight into the program, but the LIDARs would be spinning and the interiors were lit up with sensors and displays.

prawn 11y ago

Haven't all of their accidents been from other cars rear-ending them, while they've been stationary? Not even worth mentioning the accidents in that case.

danhak 11y ago
> The Google cars have been rear-ended seven times, often when stopped "but also on the freeway," wrote Urmson, director of Google's self-driving car program. In other collisions, the cars were side-swiped or "hit by a car rolling through a stop sign." Eight of the 11 collisions were on city streets. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/297ef1bfb75847de95d856fb08dc0687/ap-exclusive-self-driving-cars-getting-dinged-california http://bigstory.ap.org/article/297ef1bfb75847de95d856fb08dc0...
- prawn 11y ago
  Mentioning accidents makes them sound dangerous. Mentioning that they haven't been at fault in any of them changes that significantly. In their last monthly report they described the two incidents in detail and they were the fault of the human driver behind them and about as trivial as collisions get.
  - hvidgaard 11y ago
    They're still worth mentioning though. A good human driver can anticipate those situations and minimize the risk. Eg. I will not hard break for a yellow if the driver behind me is tailgating me, I'm super aware of drivers coming out from side roads because some of them just assume that there isn't coming any cars because there usually isn't. Not that an AI cannot learn that, but they're not good in unknown situations.
    - prawn 11y ago
      I'm willing to bet that those would be considered very basic and obvious problems to the people developing these cars. They work on this stuff every hour of every day. The AI will know (and share with other cars) tendencies for individual intersections and eventually share broader traffic knowledge. There will come a time where we just cannot compete with that. They will know every intersection's peculiarities and we'll know only those that we frequent, at best. They'll adjust for weather conditions too where we'll go by gut feel - e.g., at intersection X, what did people tend to do in light rain, driving West in the morning. What about on a hot day going N-S in peak hour. They will have data at hand for every location, condition and time if need be.

lern_too_spel 11y ago

You've confused the prototypes that have just started driving on public roads with the existing vehicles that have been driving for years. The prototypes are limited to 25 mph. The existing vehicles drive at freeway speeds.