Electric cars

AdrianC

Isn't "jaywalking" a crime across most of the US?

That doesn't give any car (driverless or not) free reign to run jaywalkers over, but it does explain the press emphasis on the fact they weren't using a crossing.

Gloomendoom

Some exterior and interior footage from the Uber car's dash cam here...

https://www.recode.net/2018/3/21/17149428/uber-self-driving-fatal-accident-video-tempe-arizona

AnotherJoe

bugslet wrote: »

Around 80% of my miles take place with three hairy dogs, one of them rather large - I suspect I'll have my own vehicle for a long time;)

Indeed, the whole autonomy thing ignores both personal realities like this (substitute 3 hairy dogs for a double buggy two car seats a toddler and a baby, or a set of golf clubs or sports gear left in the boot etc etc) and the overall convenience factor ifa car ready to go right "now" and not waiting for one delayed in traffic due to all the other autonomous cars on their way to and from assignements

Yes, autonomous cars implies electric cars. The reverse is not true.

AdrianC

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Some exterior and interior footage from the Uber car's dash cam here...

https://www.recode.net/2018/3/21/17149428/uber-self-driving-fatal-accident-video-tempe-arizona

That's pretty damn hard to avoid.

Pause the video at the point that the very lower portion of the bicycle's wheels first start to become visible, and they're already nearly half-way across the lane, just into the dark at the end of the streetlit section. They don't even quite travel a full bicycle length between first sight and impact, less than a second later.


Would a human driver have had main beam on? Possibly. LHD car, so much lower LH dip cut-off than in UK. It's still utterly useless forward lighting. Driving on DRLs, rather than dip?

Should the human operator have been paying more attention? Probably. And that's the big risk while human over-ride is required.

Could he have made a difference in this incident? Doubtful, given the lighting available.

Would/should an actual human operator have been using different lighting, to give better visibility? Potentially. I don't believe a current-shape XC90 has dip beam that poor.

zeupater

AdrianC wrote: »

That's pretty damn hard to avoid.

Pause the video at the point that the very lower portion of the bicycle's wheels first start to become visible, and they're already nearly half-way across the lane, just into the dark at the end of the streetlit section. They don't even quite travel a full bicycle length between first sight and impact, less than a second later.


Would a human driver have had main beam on? Possibly. LHD car, so much lower LH dip cut-off than in UK. It's still utterly useless forward lighting. Driving on DRLs, rather than dip?

Should the human operator have been paying more attention? Probably. And that's the big risk while human over-ride is required.

Could he have made a difference in this incident? Doubtful, given the lighting available.

Would/should an actual human operator have been using different lighting, to give better visibility? Potentially. I don't believe a current-shape XC90 has dip beam that poor.

Hi

The issue here is that whatever the lighting conditions were at the time, they make absolutely no difference to the vehicle because it uses a combination of radio & laser sensors, possibly infrared image processing too .... releasing a video showing how bad the lighting conditions were at the time simply looks like an effort to play down the responsibilities of the system developer/operator.

Seeing that the vehicle took no avoiding action it's very likely that the accident is a direct result of the image processing software not recognising what it was seeing ... I've mentioned this before, because it's happened before - AI is inherently 'stupid'& it learns by it's mistakes .... well actually, at this stage it makes mistakes, software engineers review the logs & create a new 'hard' rule or modify the AI decision making process ... but what really needs to be considered is that this was on a straight, wide & dry American road with little traffic with a potential for the 'backup driver' to have had the necessary clear vision that headlights provide to 'normal' drivers, so it's likely that either Uber or the driver, who likely chose to not use the lights, will be held directly responsible for the accident - incredibly, above this the vehicle was reported to have been travelling at 38mph in a 35mph zone, so either the report is wrong or it was intentionally speeding ... even if there's a 10% speeding tolerance to make allowance for standard speedometer potential inaccuracies, with the accuracy of the GPS system on a global basis the speed is known so there's no excuse at all for even going a minute fraction above the limit, which really questions where the culpability test line should be drawn.

HTH
Z

AdrianC

zeupater wrote: »

The issue here is that whatever the lighting conditions were at the time, they make absolutely no difference to the vehicle because it uses a combination of radio & laser sensors, possibly infrared image processing too

Oh, absolutely! Uber's autonomy dropped a big fat hairy wrinkly one.

.... releasing a video showing how bad the lighting conditions were at the time simply looks like an effort to play down the responsibilities of the system developer/operator.

Who also dropped a big fat hairy wrinkly one. Because he simply wasn't ready for the system to drop that big fat hairy wrinkly one first.

Typhoon2000

Yes daylight/ night time should not have made a difference to how the car reacted.
I know that I can see much better in the dark than the image produced by any video camera I have tried, so I wager a driver would have spotted the pedestrian earlier than the video suggest would have been possible. Even he didn!!!8217;t, I bet a driver would have hit the brakes at least and reduced the speed at the point of impact.
As

Martyn1981

There's some funny and silly bits in this story about a Model X and its towing ability. But I thought the example pulling 250,000lbs of 'muck rail cars' was interesting as it raises the issue of safety having electric drive vehicles in mines.

Tesla Model X Insane Towing Power & Tug Of War, Tesla Model 3 RHD, Swiss Police, & More! (Elon’s March 22 Twitter Fest)

which led neatly to another article where EV haulers can carry more, but need smaller tunnels and less air circulation equipment, and are also better for the health of those trapped in a tunnel breathing in diesel fumes:

Electric mining truck with battery swap system

All cool stuff.

NBLondon

Just thought I'd bring this over in case any of you fancied a go..

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/03/19/e-golf-competition-enter-win-volkswagens-new-electric-car/

I won't be as I've nowhere to put the charging point that's included.

NigeWick

zeupater wrote: »

So starting today, that's late March 2018 you maintain that autonomous vehicles will be fully developed, tested & approved for mass release onto the open road all over the world within the next few months (or years) & that within 10 years over half of the vehicles on the road (all over the world, in every country) will be EVs :question: .... because that's what would be necessary!

I believe by 2021, yes. And, by 2030 all new vehicles will be autonomous electrically powered ones.

I readily accept that at present the overwhelming majority will think that's impossible. But then just over a century ago, the overwhelming majority thought powered transport would never catch on and that heavier than air flight was impossible too.