Looking further into the future, we have autonomous vehicles. But it may not be that far in the future. Modern cars have the necessary hardware to create a self driving car. The existing cameras, lasers, and radar used on cars today for systems, such as forward collision warning and blind spot assistance, can be used for autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles are the next big thing in the automotive industry. Many big car companies, including Audi and Mercedes, newer car companies, like Tesla, and non-automotive companies, like Google and Apple (rumored) are working on creating a viable self driving car.
So what exactly is a self driving car? Well, it is a pretty simple concept. It is a car that can stop, accelerate, steer, and think on its own, without any human input. There is a button to turn it on and off, and that is about it. People make mistake, a lot. People are the cause of the vast majority of automobile accidents. Self driving cars, assuming they have a large portion of cars on the road, could save more than 20,000 lives a year.
If modern cars have the modern hardware necessary for a self driving car, why don't we have them? It is a combination of things holding back autonomous driving.
One, they aren't ready for fully autonomous driving. Google's self driving car, according to a presentation as SXSW, has mastered highway driving. But highway driving is easy compared to city driving. City driving involves more turning and stopping, which autonomous vehicles can handle, but cities also have one thing no one can really figure out: humans. If the car sees someone on the edge of the sidewalk, the car may think he/she is going to cross the street, so the car stops. But the person could just be staring there. There are a myriad of other out of the ordinary situations that can fool a self driving car. The car will have to figure out if the car ahead of it is broken down and it should go around, or if it is just heavy traffic. These cars essentially have to have artificial intelligence. The 2016 Audi Q7, which is equipped with many technological safety features but is not autonomous, has a computer rated at 740 gigaflops (billion floating-point operations per second), which I guess is pretty good since it is almost as fast as the best supercomputer in 2000.
Another challenge for self driving cars, just like some of the other safety features discussed in this blog, is government regulation. Self driving cars are allowed to perform testing on public roads, but we will get the first self-driving car (some companies say by 2020) long before it is allowed to be sold to the public. The Google car has no steering wheel and no pedals, yet, because of government regulation, still has mirrors and windshield wipers even though they do not benefit the occupants.
Another issue is public acceptance. Many people are not ready to trust their lives to a computer, even though people make many more mistakes than computers.
Other issues include cost. These cars, until mass produced, will be more expensive than traditional cars. Liability is also a problem in the case that there is an accident with a self driving car.
However there are many pros of self driving cars other than less accidents. There could be a future where every car is self driving. In this theoretical future, there is no reason to own a car. Cars could be called on demand, like using Uber, but on a much larger scale. There is no need to have parking lots, because the car that dropped you off goes and gets some one else and a different car comes back to get you. Because the cars do not waste time sitting in a parking lot or a garage, the number or self driving taxis to fulfill our current driving requirements is around a third as many cars on the road today. No more traffic jams, less oil consumption, more affordable transportation. This may sound nice, but this isn't a near future. With around 250 million cars in the US and 15 million new cars sold each year, it will be a very long time before self driving cars make up any percentage of cars on the road.
Would it be better if people could take control of the self-driving cars? Lie if they see something that the car doesn't understand?
ReplyDeleteProbably not. While giving people test rides in driverless cars, Google found that people quickly got distracted since they had no control over the car. People who are staring at their phones, or a book, or napping are not paying attention to their surroundings and so make for a very unreliable backup in emergency situations. I suppose with slower decisions, like being directed by a traffic cop, the person may be able to take over.
DeleteAs far as I've seen, a lot of the companies like Uber are popular because they streamline the entire taxi/rideshare system using algorithms. Considering some of the V2V networks you mentioned last week can allow coordination of traffic, it seems like companies like Uber would be excited for autonomous cars because of how it could further streamline the traffic. Do you know if any of these rideshare companies are pursing self-driving car tech?
ReplyDeleteCompanies like Uber are very excited. In fact, Uber has started researching driverless cars on its own. This is a smart move (though it may take a while for it to become viable) because it removes the driver, which has cause Uber some trouble, from the equation.
DeleteShrey,
ReplyDeleteThis is Tanner from Lutheran High School in Parker Colorado. It is so crazy to think that you are a high school student as well discovering and developing an opinion in new technology that is not far from being released. How do you feel self driving cars will impact the world? Also my main question is what are the liabilities with having a self driving car? Like for instance, if the person in the car gets into a crash who would be responsible for the accident, the passenger or the car company?
I believe driverless cars could have a tremendous impact on how we structure our lives and our cities, like cars originally did more than a hundred years ago. Liability is still a major issue people are trying to figure out. I would think the company who designed the software controlling the car would be at fault, but who knows.
DeleteThis is Mr. Black from Lutheran High School in Parker, CO. I am curious as to in what time frame you see autonomous cars being the majority that are used. There are many who claim this is coming quicker than we expect, such as within 10 years. You seem to be much more pessimistic about how long this will take. What would be your best guess right now, and why?
ReplyDeleteAlso, it would be really interesting for someone to make a comprehensive list of every implication for this change that they can identify. You start to do this in the last three paragraphs, but as I was thinking about this, there are a number of people and occupations that will become displaced. Will we need traffic lights? Road signs? Paint for markings on roads? What about insurance? Do we need to learn to read maps anymore?
See what I mean? There are so many implications that will not only affect transportation but also so many other aspects of life. It is exciting but also daunting to think about all the changes that will take place in your lifetime.
Thanks for your work.
While I believe the technology required for driverless cars will be ready within 5 years, becoming the majority will take much longer, at least 20 years, but probably more. The main reason is that people take a long time to adopt new things. Seat belts and airbags are on every car sold today. But they came out in the 1950s and were still not commonplace in the 1970s. At the current rate people buy new cars, it will take around 17 years to phase out the older cars. This isn't perfect because older cars still work and people will still drive them, but it's close enough. Self driving cars won't be available to the public for at least a few years, so call it 25 years. Another reason this will take a while is price. It is expensive to get all the sensors and computers to create a self driving car. While it will get cheaper in the future, it will still take a few years to get the self driving equivalent of an economy car. So 30 years is a safe estimate of when they will be popular.
DeleteThe self driving car, when it become popular, will revolutionize the way we live just like the advent of electricity and the original gas powered cars. We may never have to get groceries again. We may just be able to type up a list and have our car drive to a warehouse where a robot picks out everything we ordered and puts it in the car. But it is hard to think of all the consequences of driverless cars in the future. I don't think Edison was thinking of computers when he created the lightbulb
Your reasons make sense. It will be interesting to see if your predictions come to pass.
DeleteThis is Daniel from Lutheran High School in Parker. I just want to know what's your opinion on driverless cars? Obviously they're a long way off, and even further from becoming the norm for transportation. Personally, I would be hesitant to have one unless I still had the controls and capabilities to control the car myself, in case there was some issue a driverless car couldn't detect.
ReplyDelete