The Coming Zombie Robot Driving Apocalypse of You

antrobus

cells wrote: »

depreciation is the major cost of a car. most popular cars sold in the UK are in the £15k price region and if you scrap it at age 12 and 100,000 miles thats 15p a mile

robo-taxis might get 1,000,000 miles but over a 3 year period. The depreciation is then 1.5p a mile

That saving alone is larger than the cost of fuel ~8p a mile and insurance ~4p a mile

so long life robo cars are more of an economic benefit than perpetual motion no energy cars

If you can build a car that lasts 1,000,000 miles, you can build a car that lasts 1,000,000 miles, irrespective of who or what is driving it.

You're just making numbers up again.:rotfl:

globalds

N1AK wrote: »

The reason why we don't already drive automatic cars is because they will have to be able to handle random variables before they are sold. There's nothing more random about a human driver than there is in a crash caused by a major mechanical/electronically failure.

That isn't the reason.
The reason the whole robot zombie thing is here is that crazy moore's law phenomenon.

Most people have no real sense of the massive numbers you get from just doubling ..again and again and again ..I am not sure I do . But I know that those zombies need massive number crunching powers because they haven't had millions of years to evolve filtering systems that allow humans to make complex operations look simple...Those times are now here.

cells

globalds wrote: »

Systems don't like random variables ..Robo cars are the beginning of a road transport system ..People will really not be on the robo roads for long as it will be almost impossible to progress beyond doing what human drivers do ..Roads and vehicles can be much more efficient and cost effective ..It is that gain that will force the pace ..trucks driving within feet of each other can't happen with some old dear blindly pulling onto the motorway at 45 mph

I don't think robo cars will drive right behind each other,

The benefits of doing so would be quite trivial its more sane to just design a more aerodynamic vehicle or have multiple passengers per vehicle

cells

antrobus wrote: »

If you can build a car that lasts 1,000,000 miles, you can build a car that lasts 1,000,000 miles, irrespective of who or what is driving it.

You're just making numbers up again.:rotfl:

That clearly is wrong

A human car doing 10k miles a year would take 100-200 years to hit 1 million miles. A car just like a building or even a person, degrades with time as well as use

So doing a million miles in 3 years is more material friendly and possible than doing a million miles in 100 years.


also usage in humans clearly makes a difference so the driver is not trivial. Plus these robo cars will be serviced correctly and on time

and finally the manufacturers will themselves probably transform into robo taxi service companies. that means the manufacturers will have a big incentive to maximize lifetime of vehicles rather than just put in something that lasts the 3year warranted period

globalds

cells wrote: »

I don't think robo cars will drive right behind each other,

The benefits of doing so would be quite trivial its more sane to just design a more aerodynamic vehicle or have multiple passengers per vehicle

I was thinking of trucks really ...

I think the value of taking the driver out of long distance vehicles is where a real market for this tech lies.and 38 tonne trucks gain a lot of fuel saving by tailgaiting.

cells

N1AK wrote: »

The reason why we don't already drive automatic cars is because they will have to be able to handle random variables before they are sold. There's nothing more random about a human driver than there is in a crash caused by a major mechanical/electronically failure.

Besides which, the main reason that 'old dear' is still allowed to drive is because it would be political suicide, and tough on a lot of the elderly, to force old drivers off the road while there is no viable alternative. Once automatic cars are common you could bring in rigorous testing every 5 years for manual driving, because anyone who can't manage it can use a self-driven vehicle instead.

We'll have self-driving vehicles sharing the roads with fleshbag drivers for some time. Then perhaps we'll see some roads go self-driving only some years later.

The conversion will be extremely rapid.

Kids will stop paying the £5k it costs to learn to drive get a licence and buy the first crappy car and insure it because 20p a mile robo-taxis will be better for them. So the ?? 700k driving licences ?? gained each year will dry up rapidly

adults when they come to buy their next car, will probably go for the robo taxis instead. why buy a 5 year old ford for £4k when you can have a robo-taxi at 20p a mile no insurance no fuel no maintenance no doggey second hand car salesmen......that means that the 2 million cars scrapped each year could largely go robo-taxi

cells

globalds wrote: »

I was thinking of trucks really ...

I think the value of taking the driver out of long distance vehicles is where a real market for this tech lies.and 38 tonne trucks gain a lot of fuel saving by tailgaiting.

why would you not physically link them rather than tailgate?

eg with an electromagnet like those on security doors. very strong link very low power. They can break away when needed and it would be safer.

Also the reason we have 38 ton trucks is probably because of the cost of the human driver. we might find that that with self drive tech smaller trucks are more useful

cells

globalds wrote: »

I was thinking of trucks really ...

I think the value of taking the driver out of long distance vehicles is where a real market for this tech lies.and 38 tonne trucks gain a lot of fuel saving by tailgaiting.

The big first market to go will be taxis, trains, coaches, human-car-hire

Why pay £100 for a train ticket from London to Birmingham when a robo taxi will take you door to door for £25 and allow upto 5 passengers

That is a market of billions of passengers just in the UK


I also think buses in cities will be replace by mini self drive buses (aka MPVs). So instead of a 80 seat bus arriving once every 20 mins we may have an 8 seat "bus" arrive once every 2 mins.
That again is a huge market and much better for the public.

globalds

cells wrote: »

why would you not physically link them rather than tailgate?

eg with an electromagnet like those on security doors. very strong link very low power. They can break away when needed and it would be safer.

Also the reason we have 38 ton trucks is probably because of the cost of the human driver. we might find that that with self drive tech smaller trucks are more useful

I think you will find it is the opposite ..lots of industries would like far heavier trucks ..But wear and tear on roads and reinforcing bridges ..stopping old villages from being shaken to pieces makes a cut off point at the one we have.

Here is an example of what we humans find hard ..but a group of vehicles under one processor would handle easily.

say you wanted to move a supersized structure ..300 tonnes ..these trucks link up and work in tandem once the load is positioned ..As I said ..things we don't do now is where the zombies may well have the edge.

N1AK

globalds wrote: »

That isn't the reason.
The reason the whole robot zombie thing is here is that crazy moore's law phenomenon.

Most people have no real sense of the massive numbers you get from just doubling ..again and again and again ..I am not sure I do .

You clearly don't.

It's got nothing to do with processing power, or the affordability of it, thus Moore's is not the reason. The computer power required is quite limited, and comically cheap compared to the sensor technology in things like Google's test cars. When the first self-driving car is being sold the processing power will, almost certainly, be lower than the typical desktop PC of the time.

I've written image analysis software (a decade ago now) and even then the issue was always knowing what to look for, not having the processing power to do it.