Posted on 03/31/2016 7:00:43 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Volvo's North American CEO, Lex Kerssemakers, lost his cool as the automaker's semi-autonomous prototype sporadically refused to drive itself during a press event at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
"It can't find the lane markings!" Kerssemakers griped to Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was at the wheel. "You need to paint the bloody roads here!"
Shoddy infrastructure has become a roadblock to the development of self-driving cars, vexing engineers and adding time and cost. Poor markings and uneven signage on the 3 million miles of paved roads in the United States are forcing automakers to develop more sophisticated sensors and maps to compensate, industry executives say.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
There you go with your lies again. The “people at Google” do not WANT to take care of everything.
Also none of the plans involve software and sensors on the roads. Once again it just your paranoid fantasies.
No, opposition to new technology where one’s objections revolve entirely around paranoid fantasies and ideas that NOBODY WORKING WITH THE TECHNOLOGY ARE IMPLEMENTING makes one a luddite.
What you are or are not convinced of is not the discussion. Out here in reality self driving cars ARE going to happen, ARE going to be better drivers than us and are NOT going to be centrally controlled.
They are realists. They’re luddite paranoids making up accusations that have no basis in truth.
As you point out, between the logistics of trying to control a hundred million cars at once, and the lawsuits for every single accident, centralized control is a non-starter.
LOL. Okay, boss.
What does that mean? I've never heard of 10 year warranty.
Well, frankly, there’s got to be something in this for Google, right? What is their angle? I suspect better metrics about our habits.
Right now, I can go to Google Maps and turn on ‘Your Timeline’....and see all the places I’ve ‘visited’ for the last 6 months. I suspect Google knows my history because I leave the locator on my phone turned on, and it knows where I’ve used Wi-Fi. I also suspect that Google has learned some of my habits from this - ie I sometimes go to the pet store on Saturday, and every Saturday, without fail, I get an email with a coupon for that pet store. BTW, its always right after I’ve woken up and touched my phone - so Google knows when I’m on my phone and when I’m not.
This is all powerful stuff, which I’m sure they sell..to my pet store for example.
But its imperfect. There are places that I’ve ‘visited’ on the map...but have never entered. I must have been stopped at a traffic light nearby, or maybe my phone briefly searched out Wi-Fi there as I was driving by. How could they make it better? Well...Google could devise a system that tracks a car instead of my phone (or more likely both in concert). Such a system might know when I shut my car off, for example, which makes it more likely I really ‘visited’ a store.
But how would they do that? OnStar hasn’t really taken off...people don’t need it if they have a smart phone. An alternate idea would be to make a car that relied on gps data to function...the self driving car. And once this thing is continuously hooked to a network, there really is no limit on the data it could collect...and the data Google could sell.
Now I’m obviously pretty lax about my own privacy...but its my option. And I like it that way. If we slide towards a world where Google uses a little bit of crony capitalism to make a connection to the internet a requirement to be on the road (you know, so the self driving cars can know where us dumb human drivers are, etc), well I no longer have that option. I don’t like that.
Do you think, if Google were able to collect data on my phone and car locations for years, and map my habits...and do this for millions of people...would they sell this data to law enforcement? I do. Consent? Somewhere in the fine print, you’ll waive that right, when you ‘subscribe’ to the self driving car network.
Do you think that, I dunno, the corrupt government that targeted TEA Party groups with the IRS might do other corrupt things with such data...track who goes to what political rallies, for example? I do.
Do you think the DNC machine might use such data to send out reminders to registered democrats to vote, if their car/phone hasn’t made it to the polling station yet on election day? I do.
Do you think that our magnanimous government may send ‘gentle’ messages to us...to ‘nudge’ us into driving fewer miles, if the data suggests we are ‘out of line’...and that over time those PSA style messages will morph into a progressive fuel tax scheme, similar to tiered electrical rates? I do.
Once that genie leaves the bottle, it can’t go back in. Paranoid fantasy? Seriously, in all candor - do you really believe Google will have a fleet of self driving cars and NOT sell the information? That, my FRiend, is pure fantasy.
Wait until one drives off the end of a bridge a la the end of the Blues Brothers movie (1979)
“No GPS, no rear camera”
Starting in 2018, you’ll have to buy a car with a camera...its for the children.
How have you never heard of a 10 year warranty? 10/100 (thousand miles) car warranties have been around a long time. They started when one of the non-Japanese oriental companies (I forget which) decided in the late 90s to switch from making the cheap disposable cars that had built their empire to reliable quality cars, and part of the advertising of that change over was going 10/100 bumper to bumper. In a few years it became the industry standard, has been for most of this century. Some now are doing 5/60 as base and you can buy the extended to go 10/100. Also new cars are coming with maintenance for life, for $1000 rolled into the buying price you take it to them (or certified shops) for all base maintenance like oil changes.
Modern cars last longer, need less work, and over their lifetime have lower cost of ownership.
There’s plenty in it for Google: selling the system to car companies.
All that data they’re already getting from your phone or GPS since most of them run through google maps. And they’ll probably get that info from cars using their self driving system. But there’s no need for centralized control. And many many reason to NOT centralize control. Between the logistical nightmare of trying to control millions of cars at once, and the liability of getting sued every single time there’s a car accident anybody that was thinking centralized control has been laughed out of the building already.
New cars will have to have it, old cars won’t.
It's not bumper to bumper. All the warranties have limits who drives 10,000 miles a year?
It depends on the company and the terms. I got the platinum extensions, so my warranty is bumper to bumper for the first 5 years, and drive train for the rest. So I suppose if six years from now a headlight dies I’ll have to pay for that. But then there’s still the maintenance for life. If I still own the car 20 years from now they’re changing the oil.
I’ve always found the 10,000 mile a year thing weird, but that’s been industry standard since they started doing warranties. They’ve always been X years/ X0,000 miles. 3/30, 5/50, 10/100 the ration remains pretty consistent. Although the base warranty for my car is 5/60, apparently I’m expected to drive less the second 5 years.
It depends on the company and the terms. I got the platinum extensions, so my warranty is bumper to bumper for the first 5 years, and drive train for the rest. So I suppose if six years from now a headlight dies I’ll have to pay for that. But then there’s still the maintenance for life. If I still own the car 20 years from now they’re changing the oil.
I’ve always found the 10,000 mile a year thing weird, but that’s been industry standard since they started doing warranties. They’ve always been X years/ X0,000 miles. 3/30, 5/50, 10/100 the ration remains pretty consistent. Although the base warranty for my car is 5/60, apparently I’m expected to drive less the second 5 years.
It depends on the company and the terms. I got the platinum extensions, so my warranty is bumper to bumper for the first 5 years, and drive train for the rest. So I suppose if six years from now a headlight dies I’ll have to pay for that. But then there’s still the maintenance for life. If I still own the car 20 years from now they’re changing the oil.
I’ve always found the 10,000 mile a year thing weird, but that’s been industry standard since they started doing warranties. They’ve always been X years/ X0,000 miles. 3/30, 5/50, 10/100 the ration remains pretty consistent. Although the base warranty for my car is 5/60, apparently I’m expected to drive less the second 5 years.
Sorry about the triple. Network went psycho.
Sorry about the triple. Network went psycho.
You didn’t answer any of my questions...but I’ll repeat just one.
Do you believe (if it could) the federal government would create a tiered mileage tax, to reduce fuel use?
I think its a slam dunk yes that it would. And I certainly consider any federal tax that alters my driving habits to be ‘centralized control’.
Of course they would. Heck they’re already working on that in some places. But that’s NOT the kind of centralized control the luddites are talking about. They’re talking about you telling the car “go here” and it says “no” because the central server (government/ google/ whoever) doesn’t think you should be going there.
Rush’s “Red Barchetta” comes closer to becoming reality.
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