Google Self-Driving Car..

[Harry P.]

It would most likely require an entire re-think of assessing liability, and would become a legal battle between manufacturers of the software or hardware failure blamed after a thorough investigation of a particular crash scenario.

It would be a real convoluted mess, that's what it would be!

I think it could actually take longer to sort out the legal issues than it would to transition to driverless cars.

[Modelbuilder Mark]

Posted 28 May 2014 - 04:22 PM

bbowser, on 28 May 2014 - 4:16 PM, said:

Still, an electric motor will never take the place of pistons exploding noxious fumes!

Yes it will. Sooner than you think.

The biggest obstacle for full electric vehicles will continue to be range, and charge times.

Toyota, despite being the most successful hybrid maker, is already looking heavily into hydrogen. Main reason, charge time and range on a full electric continue to be prohibitive for long range driving.

For example, If someone wants to drive from here in Phoenix to Vegas in a Tesla, cool, it can make it, as long as you do not drive it too hard and pull too much juice from the battery. If you do, then the "fill up" per Tesla's own web page can take up to 4.5 hours to get the full 265 mile range back. Elsewhere on their website it states that in the future electric stations along the highway with "A Supercharger can replenish half the battery in as little as 20 minutes." Soo, if you wanted to travel across the country, and every 250-300 miles you were stopping for 40 minutes for full recharge, you will be adding another 7 hours of time to the trip just for charging. Granted, a couple of those times will be at night when you stop to sleep, but still, take two charge ups out of the equation (the nights you stopped) and you still have 5.5 extra hours of charge time added to your trip. Add to that, what will lines look like at a station where the guy/gal in front of you JUST plugged in, all lanes are taken, and you now have to also wait however long it will take the person in front of you to charge their car. I can see these charging stations needing to be VERY large with MANY more islands than the traditional station would have just to prevent the long line of people waiting.

This is where hydrogen or better ethanol, or some other alternative "fuel" will come more into play. Most other fuel sources can be filled in minutes, just like gas. Brazil has the largest and most successful bio-fuel programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugarcane, and it is considered to have the world's first sustainable biofuels economy. You just do not hear too much about that.. Plus, not all fuels have to be noxious. Some bio diesel smells pretty darn good when it burns, like french fries.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Modelbuilder Mark

[Rob Hall]

Full electrics aren't yet really practical for long road trips, but they do seem to work as around town commuter cars..at a client I worked at last year, they had a bank of chargers in the parking garage--there was always a mix of full electrics (Teslas, Leafs) and plugin hybrids (Volts, Priuses, a Fusion, etc) plugged in during the work day..that use case makes sense--drive to work, plugin and charge for a few hours, then head home.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Rob Hall

[Modelbuilder Mark]

Full electrics aren't yet really practical for long road trips, but they do seem to work as around town commuter cars..at a client I worked at last year, they had a bank of chargers in the parking garage--there was always a mix of full electrics (Teslas, Leafs) and plugin hybrids (Volts, Priuses, a Fusion, etc) plugged in during the work day..that model makes sense--drive to work, plugin and charge for a few hours, then head home.

I agree, for that model they work great. Here in the valley almost all the Fry's groceries have the Blink charge stations, lots of book stores, and more are also getting them.

[Ace-Garageguy]

see next post...

Edited May 31, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Ace-Garageguy]

This is where hydrogen or better ethanol, or some other alternative "fuel" will come more into play. Most other fuel sources can be filled in minutes, just like gas...Plus, not all fuels have to be noxious.

Exactly. And this is SPECIFICALLY WHY I joined the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition back in 1995, to try to lobby for and advocate the switch to natural gas as a vehicle fuel. Cars as we know them will run happily AND CLEANER on the stuff, conversion of existing vehicles is fairly cost-effective (much cheaper than replacing the vehicle fleet with hybrids or all-electrics), most of the infrastructure is already in place to deliver it (you can refuel overnight AT HOME), and we're floating on vase reserves of it...cheaper by far than gasoline.

BUT the short-sighted profit-now-damm-the-future electric utilities are burning it to generate electricity, rather than developing clean-coal tech. There's just nobody with any brains driving the energy-efficiency bus, and we're ALL going to pay the price for stupidity and poor long-range planning on the part of our "leaders" and energy-providers.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

I thought this was a thread on self-driving cars, not alt-fuel technology...

[Danno]

The really big questions about self-driving cars:

(1) Will they wash themselves?

(2) Will they make their own payments?

[slusher]

With the Toyota accelerator problem a few years ago, was that a electric or an electronic part problem???. If so an electric car could do the same thing...

[91blaze]

From what I can find, it seems it was caused by the pedal physically getting stuck, not electronic.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I thought this was a thread on self-driving cars, not alt-fuel technology...

It's been my experience that conversations sometimes digress into related but not exactly specifically-the-same areas.

The point is, I think, that the public and industry just seem to have a lot of mis-conceptions regarding what's SMART to do...what actually makes SENSE and makes cars BETTER...as opposed to more un-necessary whiz-bangie BS that is ill-advised at best, and vulnerable to hacking, unforeseen computer bugs and viruses, etc.

If your desktop computers all had histories of being 100% reliable with NO bugs, NO unforeseen back-door vulnerabilities, and NO out-of-the-blue crashes...EVER...then I'd think the "driverless car" might be a good idea.

That's simply NOT the case. Commercial aircraft have triple-redundancy on flight-critical systems, and they STILL sometimes crash.

A "robot or AI driver" of a surface vehicle is going to live in a much more demanding environment than an aircraft system, and will be required to interact much more rapidly with many more other objects than any aircraft. And unless ALL the vehicles within the "driverless" car's environment are AI controlled and linked, the individual onboard system will be required to also interpret and react instantaneously to the random dumbness of other HUMAN drivers, and the possible software / hardware malfunctions of other vehicles. This is a tall order for human-brain processing. It's a VERY VERY tall order for machine intelligence.

THINK about it. This isn't resistance to "progress". It's resistance to stupid.

If your computer or smartphone crashes, so what?

But if an onboard AI vehicle-control system fails, people die horribly.

Edited May 31, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

Hey, I'm not saying the driverless car is the solution. In fact, it was me that brought up questions regarding their use! I see a whole lot of roadblocks (no pun intended!) and legal issues in the way of our society switching over to driverless cars.

[Joe Handley]

With the Toyota accelerator problem a few years ago, was that a electric or an electronic part problem???. If so an electric car could do the same thing...

From what I can find, it seems it was caused by the pedal physically getting stuck, not electronic.

Theoretically, it would be possible in either situation since the affected vehicles were drive by wire, although I read of a man who ended up in jail on 2-3 counts of vehicular manslaughter after his mid-late 90's Camry took off up an exit ramp when he went to stop and rammed the car ahead of it so hard it killed two of the three in the car and the third died a few years later from the complications of her injuries. He insisted he was doing everything in his power to stop the car (don't think he thought of neutral though), but it kept going until the crash. After the more recent issues happened, his case was looked at a second time, with with the blessing of the victim's familys too, and there had apparently been issues with the early electronic cruise control systems from them causing this to happen a d he was let out of jail, I just can't remember if he was retried with the newer evidence or if the judge found that there was enough to make his conviction questionable in some way.

Edited June 1, 2014 by Joe Handley

[Joe Handley]

Posted 28 May 2014 - 04:22 PM

bbowser, on 28 May 2014 - 4:16 PM, said:

The biggest obstacle for full electric vehicles will continue to be range, and charge times.

Toyota, despite being the most successful hybrid maker, is already looking heavily into hydrogen. Main reason, charge time and range on a full electric continue to be prohibitive for long range driving.

For example, If someone wants to drive from here in Phoenix to Vegas in a Tesla, cool, it can make it, as long as you do not drive it too hard and pull too much juice from the battery. If you do, then the "fill up" per Tesla's own web page can take up to 4.5 hours to get the full 265 mile range back. Elsewhere on their website it states that in the future electric stations along the highway with "A Supercharger can replenish half the battery in as little as 20 minutes." Soo, if you wanted to travel across the country, and every 250-300 miles you were stopping for 40 minutes for full recharge, you will be adding another 7 hours of time to the trip just for charging. Granted, a couple of those times will be at night when you stop to sleep, but still, take two charge ups out of the equation (the nights you stopped) and you still have 5.5 extra hours of charge time added to your trip. Add to that, what will lines look like at a station where the guy/gal in front of you JUST plugged in, all lanes are taken, and you now have to also wait however long it will take the person in front of you to charge their car. I can see these charging stations needing to be VERY large with MANY more islands than the traditional station would have just to prevent the long line of people waiting.

This is where hydrogen or better ethanol, or some other alternative "fuel" will come more into play. Most other fuel sources can be filled in minutes, just like gas. Brazil has the largest and most successful bio-fuel programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugarcane, and it is considered to have the world's first sustainable biofuels economy. You just do not hear too much about that.. Plus, not all fuels have to be noxious. Some bio diesel smells pretty darn good when it burns, like french fries.

I'm all for renewable fuels, that's part of why when I bought my 200 a couple years back that I made sure it had the Pentastar in it, as it was designed from the get go to run gas or E85.........plus that 283hp on pump regular is hard to argue against too I do wish it had been built with a compression ratio more along the lines of 12:1 or 13:1 vs the stock (and somewhat surprising for a motor that can still burn regular) 10:1 compression, that would have required the use of premium gasoline, making it a hard sell, but you could get better mileage with one of those CR's as well as even more power. I do see Brazil's sugar ethanol mentioned from time to time as an example of why or why not to use ethanol........the nots are usually pushed by oil industry backed groups. There is one major advantage that our corn ethanol has over their sugar ethanol though, with sugar ethanol, you lose all of the sugar to the distillation process, where with corn, you still get the oil, the fuel, and distiller's grains, the latter of which are then used for an animal feed that is supposed to be better for the critters since the starches that are used to make the ethanol can supposedly cause digestive problems in livestock. It would be nice to see more biodiesel too, and since used frier grease can be used, that could become an additional source of income for restaurant owners as well! I'm still not sure on CNG though, if you're going to be using it in a multi-fuel engine, I'd almost rather see it in vehicles from full sized trucks, vans, SUV's, and on to larger, usually diesel powered trucks and equipment since there is more room to put the separate fuel systems vs cars like the upcoming dual fuel Impala.....which if GM wanted to, they could probably build it to run E85 as well as CNG and gas, as could be done with any of the full sized otherwise gas fueled passenger trucks since flex fuel vehicles use one fuel system for those two fuels. While I don't know how it is with CNG, the only real downside I've run into by burning E85 in my 200 is that there aren't a huge number of stations that sell the stuff, especially at the magic $.80 or greater spread. IIRC, there's less than 3500 stations to buy it from nationwide vs 180k stations that sell at least gasoline, and most are here in the Midwest. It appears that one of my neighbors has a mid-late 90's C1500 Chevy that is CNG, next we're both out of our houses at the same time, I'll have to stop by and ask him where he has to go to feed it. Edited June 1, 2014 by Joe Handley

[Ace-Garageguy]

... It appears that one of my neighbors has a mid-late 90's C1500 Chevy that is CNG, next we're both out of our houses at the same time, I'll have to stop by and ask him where he has to go to feed it.

CNG is most efficiently refueled at home, using one of the commercially available compressors hooked to the ol' house gas line. FuelMaker, among others, has had the technology done since the mid 1990s.

An engine optimized to run CNG (higher compression, more ignition advance, etc) makes comparable power for its displacement to a gasoline-fueled engine, with competitive mileage. CNG is cheaper than gasoline, so it's ultimately cost-effective. CNG does not cause wash-down of lubricants from the cylinder walls, and so does also not cause oil-dilution over time. CNG fueled engines using synthetic lubricating oils last much longer than gasoline-fueled equivalents. Converting an existing vehicle is MUCH cheaper than purchasing a new hybrid or plug-in electric.

"Conformable" fuel tanks made from composite materials solve many of the old-fashioned perceptions of the CNG tankage being heavy and bulky.

Again, much information accepted and / or readily available to the public is usually incomplete, inaccurate, or just wrong.

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Hydrogen as a fuel for internal-combustion vehicles is even better than CNG. An optimized hydrogen IC engine today makes MORE power than its gasoline-burning equivalent, and hydrogen is relatively easily produced from WATER using simple solar PV (photovoltaic) electricity generation for hydrolysis. When burned, it produces zero emissions and is infinitely recycled (the exhaust is water vapor...think about it...).

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Using corn feedstocks to make ethanol fuels dates at least back to the '30s depression days...done then as a way to supplement struggling farmers' incomes.

Biggest problem with corn ethanol seems to be that it takes considerably more energy to produce it than is recovered when it's burned as a vehicle fuel.

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Alt fuel tech has been politicized, obfuscated, spun and just plain lied about for so long, by so many...kinda like global warming. Lotsa media "experts", few readily available pure facts.

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" ... It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. ..." - Voltaire

Edited June 1, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Tom Geiger]

I went to a business meeting at PJM Interconnection Company last summer. This is the company that runs the power grid for the Eastern Seaboard, going into about half way into the USA. There was an experimental electric Mini Cooper in the lobby and part of their presentation was that they are working on fueling electric vehicles via airwaves. No more wires. They said that way they can continuously fuel cars as they drive, solving the battery range issues. Now the bonus... as THE power company for half the US, they see all these vehicles as additional power storage devices. So you drive your electric car to work and as it sits there in the parking lot PJM may pull power back from it to solve peak demand, and then replace the power to you before you leave for home again. Very cool stuff.

As far as litigation for accidents of driverless cars, there simply won't be any. There won't be any user error. The car never blinks or daydreams. There will be issues during the transition period, as human driven cars crash into these driverless cars. We have been using driverless technology for years in commercial applications. Maybe 10 years ago I was at the Haworth office furniture factory in Michigan. As we walked around the plant, there were driverless vehicles scurrying around the plant, delivering materials to work stations. If you walked in the path of one, it would instantly stop until you were out of the way. Also, the tram system at Newark Airport, that delivers travelers from parking lots to the terminals has been driverless for at least 15 years!

[Modelmartin]

Theoretically, it would be possible in either situation since the affected vehicles were drive by wire, although I read of a man who ended up in jail on 2-3 counts of vehicular manslaughter after his mid-late 90's Camry took off up an exit ramp when he went to stop and rammed the car ahead of it so hard it killed two of the three in the car and the third died a few years later from the complications of her injuries. He insisted he was doing everything in his power to stop the car (don't think he thought of neutral though), but it kept going until the crash. After the more recent issues happened, his case was looked at a second time, with with the blessing of the victim's familys too, and there had apparently been issues with the early electronic cruise control systems from them causing this to happen a d he was let out of jail, I just can't remember if he was retried with the newer evidence or if the judge found that there was enough to make his conviction questionable in some way.

That happened in St. Paul MN about 3 miles from where I live. It was decided by the courts that a new trial was needed based on the new "evidence" of all of the "sudden acceleration" cases popping up. The prosecutor declined to retry him. He did spend several years in prison before the new trial was ordered.

I am in the camp that knows that all of these cases are human error. They all think they are on the brakes but they are mashing on the throttle by accident. It is sad and tragic but that is what it is.

It is a great example of where a driverless Google car would have prevented this tragedy. It won't mistake the throttle for the brake!

The driverless cars would be great for the handicapped or blind people who otherwise would be very dependent on others for mobility.

I did notice that one of the companies who may be building the first batch of 100 driverless Google cars was Roush Enterprises!!! I will be waiting for driverless NASCAR cars! Perhaps that will eliminate all of the late race crashes that make watching NASCAR races suck!

[Modelmartin]

Also, the tram system at Newark Airport, that delivers travelers from parking lots to the terminals has been driverless for at least 15 years!

If that is the same one that delivers you to the rental cars it isn't a good example. At the main terminal it sits there for five minutes with its doors opening and closing before it takes off!

[Ace-Garageguy]

Is ANYBODY on here an engineer besides me? Does ANYBODY write and debug code? Do ANY of you realize how incredibly difficult it is to get ANY system operating 100% RELIABLY with as many variables and unknowns as an autonomous vehicle will be expected to deal with in REALITY?

There's NO EXCUSE for any human to "mistake the throttle for the brake", period. Why not put a little effort into some DRIVER TRAINING INCLUDING ACCIDENT AVOIDANCE in this fool country, and take just a little PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for getting places alive?

I do have to add that if ANYBODY can actually pull off a successful real-world self-driving car (more than just a demo-piece in a relatively isolated environment) Google's team has a good shot...they've been gobbling up the best and the brightest in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence for some time.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[bobthehobbyguy]

Ace I've done hardware and software and agree this is not a trivial task. There is never 100 percent reliability. If you have two pieces in system and they are 99 percent reliable the assembly is only 98 percent. Also for critical sensors there would need to be redundancy which would add cost. Also how would the software be updated. One more thing there would have to be some standardization for the code for each auto maker you really don't want multiple versions of code.

Finally you want safer cars get the bad drivers off the road. Yeah there still will be accidents but hopefully fewer.

[Harry P.]

I agree with Bill... I don't see us switching to driverless cars in any sort of across-the-board way. Too many technical problems, hundreds of millions of "regular" cars on the road (would they be made illegal?)...too may issues, period. What about the auto insurance industry? They're not going to give up their billions of profit without a fight... but if the cars are driverless, who is at fault in a crash? Why would we need insurance at all (aside from maybe insuring the car itself for damage or loss), if nobody is driving the car?

Maybe one day we'll see "drone" cars here and there... maybe as taxis or small urban delivery vehicles, for example. Maybe even as large over-the-road haulers to replace the traditional semi... but I just can't see us all in driverless cars (and trucks) any time in our lifetimes.

[Danno]

Driverless cars?

Bad enough that we have mindless drivers.

[Harry P.]

Driverless cars?

Bad enough that we have mindless drivers.

That's the upside of driverless cars. We get the clueless drivers out of there...

[Danno]

That's the upside of driverless cars. We get the clueless drivers out of there...

Well, perhaps, Harry. But that's what they thought about driver licensing . . . and then driver education . . . and then international symbol signage . . .

[Harry P.]

Well, perhaps, Harry. But that's what they thought about driver licensing . . . and then driver education . . . and then international symbol signage . . .

The problem in this country is that just about all you need to be able to do to get a license is have the ability to fog a mirror. Actual driving skills are apparently optional but not required, at least from what I see on the road daily.