chip – Member

Will it double park while I nip into the offy for a bottle of blue nun, then on spotting a traffic warden scarper, go round the block twice till the wardens gone before resuming its place on the double yellows.

No but it will reverse itself out if someone has parked too close to your car and you can’t get into it.

Will open its door roughly on the way out leaving a satisfactory parking dent in the offending vehicle

These giant multi national companies aren’t spending money on this for the craic

Its worth noting that several share the same suppliers.
Until recently Tesla was using a third party for their “auto pilot” and that company was happily selling to various other companies (BMW and Volvo amongst them). Why the two parted company is unclear. Tesla tending towards they couldnt live up to the dream whereas the supplier said it was more they werent happy with how Tesla was overhyping their technology.

dissonance – Member

These giant multi national companies aren’t spending money on this for the craic

Its worth noting that several share the same suppliers.[/quote]

Small wonder google are trying to get in on this. I was just googling a bit more about this and it seems that SAE (society for automotive engineers) have five categories of autonomy for cars.

Level 0: Automated system issues warnings but has no vehicle control.
Level 1 (”hands on”): Driver and automated system shares control over the vehicle. An example would be Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) where the driver controls steering and the automated system controls speed. Using Parking Assistance, steering is automated while speed is manual. The driver must be ready to retake full control at any time. Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) Type II is a further example of level 1 self driving.
Level 2 (”hands off”): The automated system takes full control of the vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering). The driver must monitor the driving and be prepared to immediately intervene at any time if the automated system fails to respond properly. The shorthand ”hands off” is not meant to be taken literally. In fact, contact between hand and wheel is often mandatory during SAE 2 driving, to confirm that the driver is ready to intervene.
Level 3 (”eyes off”): The driver can safely turn their attention away from the driving tasks, e.g. the driver can text or watch a movie. The vehicle will handle situations that call for an immediate response, like emergency braking. The driver must still be prepared to intervene within some limited time, specified by the manufacturer, when called upon by the vehicle to do so.
Level 4 (”mind off”): As level 3, but no driver attention is ever required for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver’s seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver does not retake control.
Level 5 (”steering wheel optional”): No human intervention is required. An example would be a robotic taxi.

The new Audi A8 will be the first production car with full level 3 autonomy, and no doubt Tesla won’t be far behind with a firmware upgrade.

“In 2017 the Audi A8 Luxury Sedan was the first commercial car to claim to be able to do level 3 self driving. The car has a so called Traffic Jam Pilot. When activated by the human driver the car takes full control of all aspects of driving in slow-moving traffic at up to 60 kilometers per hour. The function only works on highways with a physical barrier separating oncoming traffic.”

Ford and GM are aiming to skip level 3 and roll out levle 4 cars in 2021, and Holland has passed legislation to allow large scale testing of fully autonomous (and completely empty) cars on its roads.

Small wonder google are trying to get in on this.

In fairness they got in early. Although they did go straight to full self driving (by investing in one of the Darpa competition lot) as opposed to assisted driving which is the way most people have taken to it.
I have to admit I aint impressed by those levels in terms of understanding people.
Tesla got slapped down for being too relaxed about Level 2 and allowing people too long off the wheel. The phrase “auto pilot” really doesnt help. Its good PR in that unless you spend time reading up on it they come across as someone special as opposed to using the same tech as the others.
Level 3 vs 4 for me is meaningless. Sorry but “intervene within some limited period”. Do you really think you would be able to be half asleep and then be able to take over the car in, pretty much by definition, panic mode and avoid a crash? If I was “driving” I reckon I would be a statistic.

I’m looking forward to the Seat Slumbero.

Pack the car Friday evening, set your alarm for 1am, shamble out to the car in your dressing gown and slippers, fall asleep again in the lay-flat seats and wake up early doors at Sennen. Spend a day or two surfing or wotnot, Fish and chips and a few pints of ale Sunday evening, sleep all the way home again.

dissonance – Member

Level 3 vs 4 for me is meaningless. Sorry but “intervene within some limited period”. Do you really think you would be able to be half asleep and then be able to take over the car in, pretty much by definition, panic mode and avoid a crash? If I was “driving” I reckon I would be a statistic.

I think the difference would come down to public infrastructure which is informing the car where it is and what it can do. As you join a motorway the car would receive a signal at a certain marker informing it that it’s safe to go into full auto, as opposed to the car guessing based on gps. Or perhaps more simply a formal agreement to what constitutes the level of road where cars can go into level 4.

Cougar – Moderator
‘It should always be a case of the people with the weapon being sacrificed, ie the people in the car.’
I can hear the stampede of people running up to buy that right now.

That’s the point.

If it’s compulsory then buyers will be putting the pressure on the manufacturers to make cars which are in fact safe for everyone, as opposed to cars which are safe for the contents and will make the decision to kill someone else (ie one of us) to save the passengers.

As cyclists we should insist on it.

But you miss my point a little though I think. I don’t just enjoy driving in a “go for a nice drive in the country” kind of way, I enjoy the act of driving. Like, you might enjoy watching TV – nice big telly with the surround sound on the go, curled up on the sofa with a nice bottle of red, log fire on the go, it then doesn’t really matter if the programme you watched turned out to be crap.

no, it was a genuine question. My suspicion is that most people, if asked “do you like driving?”, would answer something along the lines of “Yes…. not all the time though….. come to think of it, most of the time it’s not enjoyable at all. Monday to Friday commuting. Or when the kids are fighting. Or the slog home from a weekend away. Or going to Tesco. But in principle, yes…”

Clearly that’s not you. But I was genuinely interested to see if you actually glean any enjoyment from an average week’s motoring – because personally I am more like the above and I think a couple of the other posters that responded are too.

It seems a bit like the electric car debate – although plenty of people say they could never have a car with a 150 mile range, 94% of all journeys are below 25 miles, so clearly electric cars could replace a large proportion of the existing cars on the road, so long as people had access to longer range vehicles when needed. Similarly, a lot of people would consider themselves to ‘enjoy driving’ but I’ll bet plenty of them, if offered the chance to have a driverless car with access to something fun the once or twice a month they get to actually enjoy it, would probably take that*. Or at least, I would 😉

*this would then raise the issue of our country A-roads being full of people that are completely out of practice because they haven’t driven a car for 6 months and now want to throw an M3 around a few bends. But that’s a separate discussion! 😆

Level 5 (”steering wheel optional”): No human intervention is required. An example would be a robotic taxi.

From “Silicon Valley”:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UBdrMTxsvs[/video]

I think the difference would come down to public infrastructure which is informing the car where it is and what it can do.

Maybe. I find it a tad vague and just dont trust people to be able to understand the difference. We have already had cases where people read too much into the “auto pilot” claim and found themselves getting a tad too close to a truck.

dissonance – Member

Maybe. I find it a tad vague and just dont trust people to be able to understand the difference. We have already had cases where people read too much into the “auto pilot” claim and found themselves getting a tad too close to a truck.

Well I think with stricter definitions as to where you could apply it, you could have greater autonomy. Notice with the Audi system the car has to detect that you are separated from the opposite lane, not in a city and doing less than 40mph. It doesn’t already know where it can and can’t engage.

If there were clearly defined areas which met necessary standards in terms of road quality, size, markings etc then the car would know when it can go fully autonomous and where it needs to disengage as it gets close to a bad road or built up area.

The difference would be you aren’t given the option unless criteria are fulfilled.

The difference would be you aren’t given the option unless criteria are fulfilled.

But then you would have the fun of doing it securely.
Given the current performance of the car companies on security I cant say I would be hopeful.

Will open its door roughly on the way out leaving a satisfactory parking dent in the offending vehicle

That’s tech I could get behind. A sensor on door edges that locks the hinge if the door is within a couple of inches of striking another surface. It’d be brilliant for negotiating bags of shopping or wriggly children whilst you’re in a parking bay designed for a Fiat 500 (which appears to be “all UK parking bays”). You could just fling open the door and forget about it.

Or I suppose, you could do what some people do and just not give a shit about someone else’s property. Whatever happened to those little rubber edge protector things that everyone had in the 90s anyway?