[chyamor]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-b...26395.html

Google has been testing about 100 of these in San Fran for the past year.

[raliv]

the future is happening. This is awesome.

[Pacesetter20]

(09-26-2012 08:22 AM)chyamor Wrote:  

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-b...26395.html

Google has been testing about 100 of these in San Fran for the past year.

http://www.singularity2050.com/2007/05/a...imeli.html

This was posted in 2007, the guy's predictions are pretty spot on (maybe a tad on the optomistic side).

[kosko]

Strait Utopian Hamster technology here. Where you pry this idea apart is self-defeating.

Yes it makes personal transport more efficient and orderly but your still transporting old gas bombs on old crumbling highways. The car and the highway itself need to be rethought way past the human element of it. The car was never efficient to begin with outside long distances that were from State to State. Humans are most efficient in a pattern where they can reach all of their most important destinations in a strait line or grid, the car competes with this and hinders this since cars by nature are not ideal for tighter more strait patterns.

...."Saftey" ....

Is what drove this idea into fruition not the question to why humans organize their lives around steel and concrete. There was a reason humans chose to build urban settlements that were somewhat close together because it made things move quicker and made it easier to get around.

Car fatality rates have been going down since 2005. Historically they saw their largest drop in the 70's during the oil shocks, if people can't afford to drive or have alternative means (NYC Metro area they will choose other options for the largest bulk of their travel; the daily commute). Also what good is a self driving car when gas coasts 10$ a gallon?

Puuuure hamster.

Google only finds this ideal so it can have a controlled environment where you can be busy doing non-essential shit like check Facebook or Youtube and be bombarded with extra advertisements.

[Rah]

I think what'll make this even more interesting is when they start designing cars without any driving controls inside. Imagine the back of a limo being the whole car. You could have a pull out bed installed. You could have a full bar going on and never worry about DUIs. Portable logistics like never before.

Kosko - you from N America? We're sprawled out all over the place and you can't just completely reorganize the layout of all cities overnight. Cars are here to stay for decades to come.

[SVK]

Kosko - self-driving could make plug-in electric cars much more practical - car finds a charging station while you are about your business. Safety record should be way way better than human driven cars. In combination with electric engine this could be the perfect solution for the (unfortunate) North American urban sprawl - clean, cheap personal transport that doesn't require the driver's attention. Also things like personalized public transport (aka cabs for bus ticket prices) , super cheap delivery, parking quite far from you destination, etc. would be all possible. This is nothing but a very good thing.

[chyamor]

Car sharing would also benefit from this. Buy 1 car and have 3-4 people use it while I'm at work. However this would cause auto sales to go down and thus the domino effect.

[Basil Ransom]

I've been following driverless cars for at least a year. Kosko's criticisms are way off base. With driverless cars, the most efficient setup is where people use them like taxis. When you're hailing a car instead of using the same car you own every time, you're going to get a car tailored to your exact use that day.

That means when you're commuting to work, you're going to get a tiny single occupancy car. Currently, people are slogging to work in 5 seaters with huge trunks. Plus, with enough robot cars, and specialized lanes, you could start stripping out all the material in the car put in for accident protection. Without personal ownership, cars would be designed more for cost and fuel economy than aesthetics - eg, no one cares what buses look like on the outside when they take them. All this is going to lead to huge increases in fuel economy. Plus, the idea that mass transit systems are more efficient than cars in America is usually false, because buses are empty most of the time they run.

Chyamor, do you have a source for the 100 cars figure?

[Veloce]

From a traffic perspective this is huge. I remember reading an article where a bunch of nerds at MIT or Caltech or some shit were trying to figure out why traffic happens, and they couldn't get it. I think it's just human stupidity. Think about every idiot that's out there, and there's a lot of them, probably the majority of the population actually. They see a plastic bag on the side of the road and freak out and overcompensate, slam the brakes and now you have a caterpillar effect that all the other retards react against. This is probably how traffic jams start.

Instead of having people falling into extremes; either going 90 like a madman or crawling in traffic, it'd be great if everyone could just go 70, all the time. I know it's got a 1984 or pseudo utopian feel to it, but fuck, I think about how much of my life I've wasted sitting in traffic. I'd be happy to not waste any more.

That said, I do enjoy the imagery of everyone sitting in their drone cars and me pulling ahead in a '68 GT500

[chyamor]

Im at work with limited searching ability so can find you detailed info this weekend. Here is googles offical blog on it though I think

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/w...ng-at.html

[Tuthmosis]

The world of Wall-E is coming.

[Parlay44]

I like to drive my car myself personally. I wonder if this means an end to speeding tickets and other moving violations?
I don't see that happening though. They have all the cops' and judges' pensions to pay out for years to come.

[Blackhawk]

I've been seeing them on 101 between Mountain View and SF for time now.

The Army, with its Supply Train truck drivers, have been the main funders for this research. Driving food, supplies, and fuel to different army camps in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a large consumer of manpower. This will free that up.

Long haul Truck Drivers will become obsolete. Taxis will become obsolete. Curb to curb transport will become automated. But Delivery Men who drive to stores and stock shelves, like liquor distributors, will remain. This automates the drive, but the problem that killed webvan remains: How to move purchases the last 120 ft from the curb to inside.

[kosko]

(09-26-2012 10:27 AM)SVK Wrote:  

Kosko - self-driving could make plug-in electric cars much more practical - car finds a charging station while you are about your business. Safety record should be way way better than human driven cars. In combination with electric engine this could be the perfect solution for the (unfortunate) North American urban sprawl - clean, cheap personal transport that doesn't require the driver's attention. Also things like personalized public transport (aka cabs for bus ticket prices) , super cheap delivery, parking quite far from you destination, etc. would be all possible. This is nothing but a very good thing.

We already have electric people movers that are only required to get you to and from work.





The Electric car is a quagmire because the technology already exists. We had the EV1 getting 120MPG 25-30 years ago while the Pruis today struggles to hit 100mpg. Google if 100% serious on this would be developing thier own electric vehicle to go along with the stand alone self drive system.

There will never be an viable mass-available Electric car in due time because Big Oil will reap its biggest profits once Oil becomes ultra scarce, they hold the patents on many of the battery systems that can push well beyond 150MPG.

The Solution is recognizing current trends and re-organizing are living patterns. Are generation are moving to the City and for-going car use at rapid rates. What Google is doing here is not being ahead of the game but offering up a Utopian solution to a problem that did not exist.

Utopian-Hamster-ism.

The Suburbs are decaying and will soon become Ghettos where poor Boomers and oppressed minorities will flee to find cheap housing. Abandoned without serves and transports that are common in the core of the City they will literally be isolated in ghetto islands spaced between parks and freeways. You see this happening in Cities like Toronto where are hood is the opposite of typical America and in out inner-suburbs where the worst transit and connections exist. The inner-City is seeing growth all around America as Youth want to live closer to the action and jobs which are also moving back to center clusters.

US Cities boom as Young Adults shun the Suburbs

Cities outpace Suburbs in growth


^ The only standouts are Dumps like Detroit, Jacksonville, Baltimore, etc where you have a robust and large dense tracts of wealthy suburbs where the majority of jobs reside.

So what the hell is Google doing? They can nearly predict the future with some of their search algorithms nowadays, but they could not see this trend comming? But yet they are sinking big time money into self-drive cars that will drive on crumbling Highways with 13$ a Gallon gas?.... right.

It’s obviously Its simply about control & money. I did not know Google was a Saint of benevolence whom did not chase a bottom line like any other firm.

Humans are still slaves to their machines but naturally we always go back to our roots. Humans desire to live in tightly connected tracts close to each other and activities. The whole idea of driving 3hrs to work and back makes no sense; we swilled the kool-aid for 20+ years now. Nobody finds it ideal.

This idea is no better than the flying, or nuclear car which both was lauded upon as the "next big thing". All had functional and working test models and prototypes. All deemed impractical in the end. This will see a similar fate.

As:

* Car share programs already exist
* Public transport systems already exists
*The Google car does not combat the core issue of in-efficient living and work patterns.

Google's main argument is safety, cars are safer today and people are getting in fewer fatalities on the road. The only major issue which is still a problem in some parts is drunk driving.

Google is selling this system on the modern human need for individual space, safety, and comfort. And I agree that we should still have that choice. But if the numbers of incidents justified us needing self-driven cars I would be for it... but they don’t.

Cairo Egypt should call Google up. They need the help more:

The issue is not that cars are safe or humans are too stupid to drive.

The issues that are current living patterns in America are Non-conducive to human life. Are current way of life is built around a car and not people. The current ways of sprawl are becoming outdated as Counties and Cities can no longer fund/subsidize cheap expansion into the hinterlands

There is a reason organisms choose a straight line to get the places. The car broke this mode due to the distance and time factors larger distances were imposed unnecessarily.

Slime Mold using spatial pattern recognition to find food:

Live in human action:





You eliminate the number of traffic accidents and deaths by re-organizing are points of destination. A to B need to be more close together

(09-26-2012 10:51 AM)basilransom Wrote:  

I've been following driverless cars for at least a year. Kosko's criticisms are way off base. With driverless cars, the most efficient setup is where people use them like taxis. When you're hailing a car instead of using the same car you own every time, you're going to get a car tailored to your exact use that day.

That means when you're commuting to work, you're going to get a tiny single occupancy car. Currently, people are slogging to work in 5 seaters with huge trunks. Plus, with enough robot cars, and specialized lanes, you could start stripping out all the material in the car put in for accident protection. Without personal ownership, cars would be designed more for cost and fuel economy than aesthetics - eg, no one cares what buses look like on the outside when they take them. All this is going to lead to huge increases in fuel economy. Plus, the idea that mass transit systems are more efficient than cars in America is usually false, because buses are empty most of the time they run.

Chyamor, do you have a source for the 100 cars figure?

I study Transportation and worked as a Transportation aide last summer. My background is development policy which deals with everything from road, water, structures, social policy, etc.
I do think I have a little idea about transportation and spatial origination. I have been involved in this field professionally and as a hobby for over half my life.


As I said above these things already exist in major Cities. Car share program already exist where you can gain access to a little car for short trips, if you need to get groceries or run your kids around, whatever. All have proven successful because as much as humans enjoy the freedom of driving they loathe the bullshit and costs associated with it and will jump at the chance to limit those negative aspects.

The points people are bringing up are not why Google chose to for-go this venture. It was Safety first and fore-most this is how they sold the steak to lawmakers. So if nobody has disputed the Safety aspect the other reasons are moot as alternatives already exists in more efficient manners that are tangible and ready to roll out today without the significant costs of upgrading are already crumbling infrastructure to support this new technology.


I am harsh on this project because it is simply a cop out for lawmakers. As Asia is tearing down Highways and build-up mass transit systems lawmakers can sit back and let Google steal headlines on a quagmire that won’t see the light of day or a bill due way past their times in office. While New York City builds its first Subway line in almost 80 years, Asian Cities are building systems almost the same size in total In total in as little as 25 years.

Getting people to point A and B as quick as possible is all that fuking matters. The commute is the greatest daily test of the Transport system and it should be as orderly as possible. You not are going to move 200 million + Americans a day in little RC buggies down the freeways when a Mass system can do the job better and cheaper.
That is the junk they dreamed up in the 60's. Google is doing nothing new here.


Get cars of the road and free it up for Trade and Transport.

Toronto looses $2-6 Billion in lost productivity from traffic congestion. Literally (human) resources are rotting away in cars, and literal goods heading for trade or market are rotting away in Transport Tailors.

Sprawl and Congestion is damn expensive and North American have a hard time rationalizing how much time and money it costs them personally each year. This is why the second we we’re technologically inclined to do so we started digging tunnels and running trains underground, or providing exclusive Right-of-ways for trains. Because we realized early ‘just get them from point A to B as quick as fucking possible’, give people a quick, efficient and reliable mode of transport and they will take it.

Google has said all its need is its satellites and some strips of paint. But there will be some costs taken on by the public in some way in the end and this is not a criticisms it just the reality of these sorts of projects.

Public transport is miles ahead more efficient then single occupancy vehicles. If you are describing your City with empty buses then:

A. Your buses go places nobody wants to go

B. Your busses are stuck in traffic with the rest of the cars

Thus leading to:

C: Since nobody rides the buses they get cut back in services and routes which make the problem even worse.

Here is a simple picture that proves your views on transit false:


And this is only for a Bus - The least favourable form of Mass Transit. For heavy and light rail the numbers are even more drastic as a typical NYC Subway Train carries at a minimum crush capacity of 2000 people (each train! Which run at 3-8 min at a time) from a bus which only carries about 80 people. Instead of miles per gallon we should figure out how to best move people per mile, A Subway in NYC will move 24,000 people per hour.

But it’s a matter of seeing shifts in living patterns and re-formatting the in-efficient current models of the suburbs. You have to re-organize point A and B, once you do that more efficient methods just become obvious to use. We continue to bang the Highway drum because it’s cheap and easy to do so. Nobody wants to take the effort in re-organizing living patterns. If Google had any balls it would go after that problem incorporation technology and systems to create a new grid pattern which was viable from physical and digital standpoint.

[Samseau]

Kosko... why do you have to crush my dreams of owning my own Batmobile?

[Kona]

This means they are gonna be legal in Hawaii soon.

Whatever screwball laws California passes, Hawaii politicians gotta get it going here real quickly for some reason. Thats how it is for everything, smoking, gays, whatever. You watch.

Aloha!

[porscheguy]

Let's not forget that although self driving cars may be legal, the laws still have to make it through the courts where the personal injury attorneys will be swarming like sharks. Any vehicular incident that is found to have been caused by a hardware defect will result in major litigation against the maker.

And although you may see some tree hugger driving around at golf cart speeds in a self driving car, while in an empty parking lot, how is it going to work in rush hour traffic? What kind of guidance shit will that car need? Radar? Sonar? Laser guidance?

What happens when it breaks, can you operate it manually? How much will a person's driving abilities diminish after a few months of not driving?

I'm just not sure what the appeal is.

[Basil Ransom]

Google Chrome keeps crashing when I try to copy paste, so I'll have to post it later. But the short stroy of the statistics I'm referencing is that on a BTU per passenger mile (i.e. Energy per passenger mile), mass transit cannot compete with something like a Honda Insight, motorcycle or scooter. Search 'brad templeton green transit myth' to see what I'm talking about.

While there are options for borrowing cars for special trips, they don't make sense if you need a car daily. Mass transit just cannot accommodate most transit patterns except when people are broke or mentally retarded, and have more time than money.

Also, I believe that a disproportionate share of wear and tear on the roads is due to heavy vehicles. Driverless cars would probably make vehicles smaller, not bigger. Of course, there may be increased road usage instead.

People live in suburbs so that they can send their children to schools that aren't full of ghetto blacks and Hispanics. It's mostly white people doing this, but there are plenty of black and Hispanic professionals doing it too. You're seeing a revival of the cities by single professionals, childless couples and gays, and probably some SWPLs with young kids. They're desperately trying to find affordable schools that are also palatable, so that they won't need to move to the suburbs. In some places, they probably just try to get the SWPL density high enough so that they can send their kids to local public schools. Or they work on erecting magnet and charter schools.

Driverless cars will free up mass tracts of cities currently devoted to storing cars. People will go out more and drink more when they won't need a designated driver. You won't need to own a car. Driverless cars will probably be the biggest innovation in the 2020's.

[Blackhawk]

(09-26-2012 03:20 PM)porscheguy Wrote:  

how is it going to work in rush hour traffic? What kind of guidance shit will that car need? Radar? Sonar? Laser guidance?

As someone who's been driving on the same highway as them for months, freeways are actually easier for them. The sensing system on top is dorky though.

[Basil Ransom]

(09-26-2012 03:33 PM)Blackhawk Wrote:  

The sensing system on top is dorky though.

You won't care when you don't own it.

[Blackhawk]

(09-26-2012 03:36 PM)basilransom Wrote:  

You won't care when you don't own it.

You ever get on the bus or the subway, and the only seat left is the one a bum pissed in?

Ever rent a CityShare car and have to return it because there was so much pot smoke from the previous renter it make your eyes red?

Ever get bed bugs, flea bites, and even ticks from the previous occupant of your hotel room?

I have become somewhat skeptical about this "great sharing" idea. Some people are disgusting pigs. They ruin shared things for everyone else. Just look at public bathrooms.

[SVK]

(09-26-2012 03:23 PM)basilransom Wrote:  

Google Chrome keeps crashing when I try to copy paste, so I'll have to post it later. But the short stroy of the statistics I'm referencing is that on a BTU per passenger mile (i.e. Energy per passenger mile), mass transit cannot compete with something like a Honda Insight, motorcycle or scooter. Search 'brad templeton green transit myth' to see what I'm talking about.

While there are options for borrowing cars for special trips, they don't make sense if you need a car daily. Mass transit just cannot accommodate most transit patterns except when people are broke or mentally retarded, and have more time than money.

Also, I believe that a disproportionate share of wear and tear on the roads is due to heavy vehicles. Driverless cars would probably make vehicles smaller, not bigger. Of course, there may be increased road usage instead.

People live in suburbs so that they can send their children to schools that aren't full of ghetto blacks and Hispanics. It's mostly white people doing this, but there are plenty of black and Hispanic professionals doing it too. You're seeing a revival of the cities by single professionals, childless couples and gays, and probably some SWPLs with young kids. They're desperately trying to find affordable schools that are also palatable, so that they won't need to move to the suburbs. In some places, they probably just try to get the SWPL density high enough so that they can send their kids to local public schools. Or they work on erecting magnet and charter schools.

Driverless cars will free up mass tracts of cities currently devoted to storing cars. People will go out more and drink more when they won't need a designated driver. You won't need to own a car. Driverless cars will probably be the biggest innovation in the 2020's.

I think this is the page you were talking about and if I remember correctly you posted this link some time ago in older thread about driverless cars, excellent resource about this topic:

http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/

[Basil Ransom]

(09-26-2012 03:59 PM)Blackhawk Wrote:  

(09-26-2012 03:36 PM)basilransom Wrote:  

You won't care when you don't own it.

You ever get on the bus or the subway, and the only seat left is the one a bum pissed in?

Ever rent a CityShare car and have to return it because there was so much pot smoke from the previous renter it make your eyes red?

Ever get bed bugs, flea bites, and even ticks from the previous occupant of your hotel room?

I have become somewhat skeptical about this "great sharing" idea. Some people are disgusting pigs. They ruin shared things for everyone else. Just look at public bathrooms.

Yet people still take cabs. This isn't an insurmountable problem. Give people the chance to report problems, and the car will go out of service until it's restored. You'd need an account to rent a car, so they might be able to determine who did it, and ban them from the service. Honestly, except for the super-anal, this won't be a big deal. This hasn't been a showstopper for companies like Zipcar, though their use is probably limited to SWPL anyways.