What LIDAR is is more power than what they need for the problem. That’s Google Segwaying the problem. You simply don’t need that level of detail to drive a car. People don’t have anywhere near that level of spacial analysis and we’ve been mostly successfully driving for a long time.
It’s 2 quantum leaps more intense than they need the system to be. People don’t work that hard at driving. I read an article in a motorcycling magazine in the 90s about how many “driving actions” the average driver takes. I forget the numbers but they were stunningly low with drivers of automatics doing the least, then sticks, then motorcyclists. The simple reality is that we DON’T make thousands of calculations a second while driving, heck we don’t even makes dozens a minute, and a computer won’t have to.
Google is over engineering the problem, and you’re criticisms show exactly why. You’re right in why that system will not work. Which is also why that is not the way self driving cars ARE happening right now.
You persist in oversimplifying the problem....as if the only thing a driver ever does is cruise on the freeway.
Just this morning, in my driving to and from meetings, I encountered:
- Bridge Construction
- An accident on the interstate
- A funeral procession
- Parking at a large hospital complex with a myriad of specialty parking signs
- Parking at city offices, with specialty parking signs
- Interpreting signage in a parking garage
- Parking on a parking garage
- Yielding to jaywalking pedestrians
- Going around a stalled bus
- Going around parked delivery vehicles
- An intersection getting re-painted, with an army of idiots moving cones and flailing their arms to direct traffic
That’s just this morning!
None of the technology on the road today would address ANY of the situations I encountered in a span of four hours. You can deny it, you can oversimplify it...but you cannot explain to me how on earth any of the features in a car today could handle my very typical morning, driving around the city.