GM Favors Autonomous Vehicles with Driver Controls, Barra Says

The Detroit Bureau ^ | 06June2016 | Joseph Szczesny

[longtermmemmory]

the last sentence has doomed this project to failure.

IOW between the lines: Wheel and brake? what about acceleration?

It this a car with automation or an automated only car with no driver preferred. If government motors is still in this quota based board then it is government motors controls all. IOW the project is doomed to inevitable failure.

[I want the USA back]

If it has driver controls it’s not autonomous.
Will these damned things be able to drive off road? Will they be able to park next to Aunt Tillie’s red station wagon and behind Uncle George’s truck? Will they come to a halt when the GPS system goes down?
Will they refuse to work during a snowstorm? Will they distinguish a newspaper blowing in the wind from a dog running across the street? Will they distinguish a frozen lake from an asphalt surface?
If the driver has to be ready to take over anytime the system turns it over to him, it’s not autonomous, and it’s not “self-driving.”

[rigelkentaurus]

So many questions about this: will it be able to safely drive on unmarked country roads? gravel roads? what about roads with water ponding on it? snow and ice covered roads? I guess I might use them when I am forced to because I am too old to drive, but until then - nope, not for me.

My 1968 Ford XL convertible with a manual transmission will be just fine for me until I can’t drive anymore.

[equaviator]

Good point!

[equaviator]

I see it as a joint venture between GM and the current regime. Mary Barra and her board have probably concluded that GM owes the Obama administration a truckload of favors with this being just one of them.

[Paleo Conservative]

Would you trust your life to a self-flying airplane that had no pilot onboard? That is a relatively benign environment, where the airports are very tightly controlled, the standards for runway and taxiway markings are extremely high, the maintenance level is immaculate, and yet we still haven't even tried to remove the pilot from the cockpit.

The Air France seems to have done this in the 2000's. Air France flight 447 crashed, because the pilots didn't actually know how to fly the Airbus A330 manually in case the automation failed. The design of the joysticks used by the pilots also contributed to the crash. The pilot had no idea that the copilot was pitching the plane up when he needed to be pitching it down to regain airspeed. That mistake wouldn't have happend in a Boeing 777 cockpit where the control columns are linked together.