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Can 3 million EVs replace 30 million oil cars?

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  • Piddles
    Piddles Posts: 123 Forumite
    zeupater wrote: »
    Hi

    Probably the same viewpoint here ... if for some reason there is an imperative that means we need to go now then it's not just a matter of convenience, it could be essential that the nearest available vehicle is already at hand as opposed to being even a few minutes away ...

    Think of someone on call or having responsibility for elderly relatives etc in a situation where an unexpected phone call in the middle of the night necessitates an immediate response .... An IT emergency, a doctor, a maintenance engineer, emergency services employees called in with no notice ... even what seems to be a remote possibility such as an escaped wild animal from a safari park would cause more than a little concern for the park operators if unnecessary delay in responding was to be introduced ...

    ... sorry sir, would you prefer that I called a taxi or could you hire a helicopter again? ...

    HTH
    Z
    It's a fair point, but I'd imagine that there would be different service level guarantees for different tariffs. An on-call doctor might have a guaranteed 3 minute response, at the other end a 20 minute guarantee on a cheap tariff.

    To offset the pick up time, congestion and traffic control (traffic lights, etc) will largely disappear, so the arrival time will usually be sooner than it is now.

    Don't lose sight of all the big ticket advantages: 2,000 lives saved, tens of thousands of lives not blighted by serious injuries or the death of loved ones. Finally independent cheap transport for the disabled, elderly and poor. Real prospect of carbon neutral land transport within ten years. A much more competitive national economy. Solving the housing crisis.
  • zeupater
    zeupater Posts: 5,390 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 16 July 2019 at 11:43PM
    Piddles wrote: »
    It's a fair point, but I'd imagine that there would be different service level guarantees for different tariffs. An on-call doctor might have a guaranteed 3 minute response, at the other end a 20 minute guarantee on a cheap tariff.

    To offset the pick up time, congestion and traffic control (traffic lights, etc) will largely disappear, so the arrival time will usually be sooner than it is now.

    Don't lose sight of all the big ticket advantages: 2,000 lives saved, tens of thousands of lives not blighted by serious injuries or the death of loved ones. Finally independent cheap transport for the disabled, elderly and poor. Real prospect of carbon neutral land transport within ten years. A much more competitive national economy. Solving the housing crisis.
    Hi

    That really misses the issue that there are loads of people who, although not officially on call, often get called and need to respond immediately ... does the person responsible for the care of elderly relatives need a high price service level agreement with a TaaS provider just in case? ... do all emergency service employees need the same for when they're not officially on call? ...

    Those 2000 lives saved that you mention may come at a cost ... what if that elderly relative has fallen over during the night and needs to be assisted back into bed, or when there's a major incident that can't be addressed as promptly as currently ... just one serious/fatal occurrence per year per town & city quickly adds up to around the figure you mention ...

    It must also be recognised that like all forms of technology, vehicle autonomy will likely have issues, so every time vehicles make mistakes there will be consequences ... the technology in airliners has been around for decades and consequentially they're as safe as they could possibly be, aren't they? .... yet further breakthroughs in AI technology introduced to improve safety by overriding manual control have fatal consequences, possibly because of a simple sensor malfunction ... even if that's not considered an issue, consider the technical aspects of tens or hundreds of active sensors interacting with each-other in close proximity in less than ideal weather conditions, ranging individual raindrops & receiving reflected & refracted scatter from multiple transmissions ... LIDAR may work fine when driving in ideal test conditions when interaction with similar technology equipped vehicles is limited, but if every other vehicle encountered is similarly enabled, or someone builds a form of encoded transmission repeater to create feedback confusion & mayhem just for fun? ... get an expert to tell the public that it's impossible on behalf of the AV sector & I'd expect that expert to hold serious personal reservations as to whether it's true, but that's the trust we're all being asked to place in the experts & the manufacturers in their race to bring product to market! ....

    HTH
    Z
    "We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
    B)
  • Martyn1981
    Martyn1981 Posts: 15,398 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Piddles wrote: »
    Over to you and your imagination.

    How about a mini gym (using resistance bands, not weights), or an exercise with a small credit for any leccy generated? No more excuses for not getting 10-30mins exercise per day.

    I think I've joked about this before (somewhere) but I imagined a bus full of recliner exercise bikes with those that want to, peddling for a small credit and exercise ....... perhaps someone (Ben Hur like) beating a drum ..... whippers optional!
    Mart. Cardiff. 8.72 kWp PV systems (2.12 SSW 4.6 ESE & 2.0 WNW). 20kWh battery storage. Two A2A units for cleaner heating. Two BEV's for cleaner driving.

    For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.
  • Piddles
    Piddles Posts: 123 Forumite
    Martyn1981 wrote: »
    How about a mini gym (using resistance bands, not weights), or an exercise with a small credit for any leccy generated? No more excuses for not getting 10-30mins exercise per day.

    I think I've joked about this before (somewhere) but I imagined a bus full of recliner exercise bikes with those that want to, peddling for a small credit and exercise ....... perhaps someone (Ben Hur like) beating a drum ..... whippers optional!
    OK Mart, I think we're learning more about you than we should....

    But why not? Instead of going to the gym after you get home from work, go to the gym as you get home. That's an hour of your life back. Maybe Ben Hur could be a virtual or real personal trainer.

    Perhaps the NHS could provide one as part of an obesity related disease prevention program. Free transport if you've generated enough credits...

    When my youngest daughter was little, her plan to save the planet was to scale up her pedal car to full size. And here we are!
  • Piddles
    Piddles Posts: 123 Forumite
    edited 17 July 2019 at 9:12AM
    Tammykitty wrote: »
    Uber does not exist in any useful capacity for me.
    An interesting article in yesterday's Guardian:

    The Innisfil experiment: the town that replaced public transit with Uber

    It seems it proved too popular. Look at the conclusion at the end. Maybe as well as shared AVs being a public transport disruptor, they could be seen by the authorities as an Uber disruptor....
  • Piddles
    Piddles Posts: 123 Forumite
    edited 17 July 2019 at 9:00PM
    zeupater wrote: »
    That really misses the issue that there are loads of people who, although not officially on call, often get called and need to respond immediately ... does the person responsible for the care of elderly relatives need a high price service level agreement with a TaaS provider just in case? ... do all emergency service employees need the same for when they're not officially on call? ...
    I don't think it does. Remember that these services will cost around 10% of the individually owned ICE vehicle, so doubling or tripling that cost for a low response time won't amount to much and will be fairly common. There might well be a paid option to jump to the top of the queue, but a better service level agreement would be better for the prepostioning. I think you underestimate the ubiquity of these things. They will be hanging around at the end of your road, and will generally be with you by the time you've got your coat on and found your house keys.
    zeupater wrote: »
    Those 2000 lives saved that you mention may come at a cost ... what if that elderly relative has fallen over during the night and needs to be assisted back into bed, or when there's a major incident that can't be addressed as promptly as currently ... just one serious/fatal occurrence per year per town & city quickly adds up to around the figure you mention ...
    I don't agree. You seem to have ignored my comments about the faster, more reliable journey time. At night time, you wouldn't have any wait. What if you'd had a few beers when the football was on? In an AV you can do other things like continue to talk to the relative or other people to summon help. I can closely identify with the scenario, as my mother had a fall and broke her hip. I tried to get to her but spent two and half hours in a traffic jam on the M4. The paramedics still hadn't arrived by the time I'd got there. Congestion free roads would allow them to cover more ground in a shift. For me, I'd choose a fast reliable arrival time over a theoretical couple of minutes delay at the start, every time.
    zeupater wrote: »
    It must also be recognised that like all forms of technology, vehicle autonomy will likely have issues, so every time vehicles make mistakes there will be consequences ... the technology in airliners has been around for decades and consequentially they're as safe as they could possibly be, aren't they? .... yet further breakthroughs in AI technology introduced to improve safety by overriding manual control have fatal consequences, possibly because of a simple sensor malfunction ... even if that's not considered an issue, consider the technical aspects of tens or hundreds of active sensors interacting with each-other in close proximity in less than ideal weather conditions, ranging individual raindrops & receiving reflected & refracted scatter from multiple transmissions ... LIDAR may work fine when driving in ideal test conditions when interaction with similar technology equipped vehicles is limited, but if every other vehicle encountered is similarly enabled, or someone builds a form of encoded transmission repeater to create feedback confusion & mayhem just for fun? ... get an expert to tell the public that it's impossible on behalf of the AV sector & I'd expect that expert to hold serious personal reservations as to whether it's true, but that's the trust we're all being asked to place in the experts & the manufacturers in their race to bring product to market! ....
    LIDAR is just another layer of information that will contribute to the "degrees of confidence" in the processors decision making. The AV can continue to function without it. LIDARs don't interfere with each other in any meaningful way. The best ones have a kind of frequency multiplexing so it knows it's own light. If hackers find ways to interfere with one type of sensor, then there are tiers of other types of sensors and mapping to rely on. The connected nature of AVs and either AI or human monitoring will mean once the hacker has tried it once or twice, the network will have learned from the experience and collectively all AVs will know about it and how to handle it. AVs will be have so much evidence gathering capability, they are unlikely to be considered a pragmatic target of mischief.

    AVs shouldn't be expected to be perfect. But as soon they can be proven to save lives, there's a strong argument that society has a moral imperative to make the transition.

    AVs will start as a segregated public transport system that alleviates congestion and pollution in cities, where they can be developed and refined in a controlled environment. Don't expect to see them in country towns for at least 10 to 15 years.

    But by then the climate may have already gone to pot, and everyone will have moved on to just surviving.
  • zeupater
    zeupater Posts: 5,390 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 17 July 2019 at 10:56PM
    Piddles wrote: »
    I don't think it does. Remember that these services will cost around 10% of the individually owned ICE vehicle, so doubling or tripling that cost for a low response time won't amount to much and will be fairly common. There might well be a paid option to jump to the top of the queue, but a better service level agreement would be better for the prepostioning. I think you underestimate the ubiquity of these things. They will be hanging around at the end of your road, and will generally be with you by the time you've got your coat on and found your house keys.

    I don't agree. You seem to have ignored my comments about the faster, more reliable journey time. At night time, you wouldn't have any wait. What if you'd had a few beers when the football was on? In an AV you can do other things like continue to talk to the relative or other people to summon help. I can closely identify with the scenario, as my mother had a fall and broke her hip. I tried to get to her but spent two and half hours in a traffic jam on the M4. The paramedics still hadn't arrived by the time I'd got there. Congestion free roads would allow them to cover more ground in a shift. For me, I'd choose a fast reliable arrival time over a theoretical couple of minutes delay at the start, every time.

    LIDAR is just another layer of information that will contribute to the "degrees of confidence" in the processors decision making. The AV can continue to function without it. LIDARs don't interfere with each other in any meaningful way. The best ones have a kind of frequency multiplexing so it knows it's own light. If hackers find ways to interfere with one type of sensor, then there are tiers of other types of sensors and mapping to rely on. The connected nature of AVs and either AI or human monitoring will mean once the hacker has tried it once or twice, the network will have learned from the experience and collectively all AVs will know about it and how to handle it. AVs will be have so much evidence gathering capability, they are unlikely to be considered a pragmatic target of mischief.

    AVs shouldn't be expected to be perfect. But as soon they can be proven to save lives, there's a strong argument that society has a moral imperative to make the transition.

    AVs will start as a segregated public transport system that alleviates congestion and pollution in cities, where they can be developed and refined in a controlled environment. Don't expect to see them in country towns for at least 10 to 15 years.

    But by then the climate may have already gone to pot, and everyone will have moved on to just surviving.
    Hi

    Having mentioned Cambridge and associated public transport AVs a number of times, I take it that you're used to a high/medium population density urban environment and see the world through the eyes that you're used to seeing it through & have little interest in anything that doesn't fit a well defined viewpoint? ... well, reading such entrenched opinion, that's certainly what it seems like - very reminiscent of other profiles that have frequented these boards from time to time ...

    Anyway, on to 10% .. so looking at around 3million TaaS vehicles vs ~30million as per the thread title, a position which you seem to concur with ... fine, so where's the social engineering assessment & how does that form of necessary centralised control blend into society as the general population currently accept it to be? ....

    It's okay for academics, lobbyists & many other groups to see the world from a viewpoint where everyone in employment can work from home using a laptop for much of the time, however, for those building homes, serving in shops, doctors, nurses, policemen, tyre fitters, teachers, plumbers, machine fitters/operators and the majority of other forms of employment it simply isn't the case without considerable disruption .... so the first basic snag is how 1/10th of the personal transport vehicle fleet can successfully deliver everyone that needs to travel to their destination without disruption at peak times, especially so when logic would dictate that a proportion of autonomous vehicles would either not be occupied or suboptimally loaded when the number of vehicles in the system dictate that it's essential that they're operated in the most efficient way ...

    So, a loss of 90% of available units with the remaining 10% running in a less efficient way, which even with scheduled journey sharing likely results in longer journeys & journey times for a good proportion of the time for the majority of users ... what this all boils down to is whether it's actually possible to transport individuals from where they are to where they need to be at the time that they need to travel and still guaranty to get there in reasonably good time (ie in line with current expectations) without resorting to a form of insistence that they change their daily plans & schedules to conform with the requirements of the TaaS provider ...


    Regarding your view of autonomous public transport systems ... can you think of any vested interest groups that would consider this as being slightly inconvenient and would actively push back against introduction? ... what you're talking about has not only been possible, but has actually been happening in some countries for decades on railed system using basic autonomy/automation, but what's been preventing it happening? ... we have serious issues here that need to be addressed, but recent history seems to convey that the necessary decisions will have a lot of disruptive opposition ... we can't even operate with automatically closing doors on public transport in this country without severe opposition, let alone have automated control systems ... this is the serious flaw that needs to be addressed and likely describes the reason why autonomy will hit the personal transport sector well before replacing anything currently associated with the term 'public transport', even if it's associated with the word segregated ....

    Social engineering is the answer, but who in politics is going to explain the necessary fundamentals of that in detail to the voting public and expect it to go down well? ... the closest analogy to mind is a house of cards - it may look good and take a lot of careful effort & skill to setup, but the problem is that however it's constructed there's an inherent flaw, stability & a tendency to collapse easily!

    As for safety & public trust .... well, the proof is in the pudding & I doubt that anyone has developed vehicle autonomy to a degree where it would even be considered worthy of testing on medieval street layouts or unmarked winding country lanes yet, so there's some considerable work to do yet! ... meantime, it looks like driven personal vehicles with autonomous assistance modes to lighten the main road driving load on long journeys is the way forward for the majority of us ... ;)

    Finally, on LIDAR there's a concept of mutual interference, effectively think of the processed result as being the formation of a ghost image or the signal to be processed having the equivalent of noise in a transmission (SNR) which degrades the quality of the data ... the more transmitting nodes or reflective/refractive surfaces in the vicinity (including raindrops etc), the higher the possibility of error ... a system currently proven to work with a couple of transmission sources has a long way to go to be able to operate flawlessly when there's 20, 200 or 2000 signals to be processed through a filter before passing to the high resolution 3D model of the surroundings ... this is likely the main reason why Elon Musk has come to the conclusions he has about the future of this form of active sensor technology and decided to concentrate on passive sensor alternatives ...

    HTH
    Z
    "We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
    B)
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    The very first post I made was to studies showing that there isn't a peak rush to work and a peak rush back home that is a misconception. Car useage is high for some 12h a day so a single car can be used for 12h a day rather than a more typical 1.2h a day

    It won't be 30 million to 3 million over night
    We will lose about 2 million of the human feet per year once robo taxis arrive
    Which makes sense as the existing cars won't be scrapped but they will depreciate faster so cars will be remitted sooner and new build human driven car sales will probably half

    By year 10 I would still expect there to be something like 10 million human cars and 3 million robo taxis

    By year 15 I think it will be 5 million human driven cars 3 million robo taxis

    By year 20 I think it will be 5 million privately own robo cars and 3 million robo taxis

    Oh and I take back my 3 million figure I think it's going to be closer to 8 million (all self drive. 3 million robo taxis and 5 million self own self use) mostly because the richer 10% of society is rich enough not to care about costs of transportation so will opt to have their own shiny expensive brands. And also about 5-10% of households who are reluctant to try new things or for whatever reason need to have their own

    So 30 million cars down towards 8 million
    Still a very significant fall
    The 5 million adults who opt to have their own will have transportation costs similar to today
    The 60 million people who opt to share will have costs 1/3rd to 1/10th of today
  • Martyn1981
    Martyn1981 Posts: 15,398 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    zeupater wrote: »
    Hi

    Finally, on LIDAR there's a concept of mutual interference, effectively think of the processed result as being the formation of a ghost image or the signal to be processed having the equivalent of noise in a transmission (SNR) which degrades the quality of the data ... the more transmitting nodes or reflective/refractive surfaces in the vicinity (including raindrops etc), the higher the possibility of error ... a system currently proven to work with a couple of transmission sources has a long way to go to be able to operate flawlessly when there's 20, 200 or 2000 signals to be processed through a filter before passing to the high resolution 3D model of the surroundings ... this is likely the main reason why Elon Musk has come to the conclusions he has about the future of this form of active sensor technology and decided to concentrate on passive sensor alternatives ...

    HTH
    Z

    Personal thoughts, not technical at all, but I assume it's hard to beat 'an eye', so whilst LIDAR is clever (very clever) etc, having 8 or so unblinking eyes watching all directions is a very effective way to navigate. Recently a Tesla on AP swerved to avoid another vehicle before the driver could react.

    There are of course many issues, such as recognising what an object actually is, or following white lines that effectively disappear on rises etc, but that seems to come down to machine learning. Some companies are bragging about reaching a million+ miles of learning, whilst Tesla is already into multiple bn's of miles and adding them faster and faster - so learning to drive and learning (cheating?) all of the roads too.

    I should say, I'm entirely out of my depth on all this, so can only repeat/report what I read and see, but I'd guess that Elon/Tesla have an argument re LIDAR, whether right or wrong. I'm pretty sure Elon hasn't concluded, nor admitted that he is wrong, yet?
    Mart. Cardiff. 8.72 kWp PV systems (2.12 SSW 4.6 ESE & 2.0 WNW). 20kWh battery storage. Two A2A units for cleaner heating. Two BEV's for cleaner driving.

    For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.
  • GreatApe
    GreatApe Posts: 4,452 Forumite
    Lidar allows slightly less developed vision software but not by much
    Strong vision is nessaery to make it work which would make LiDAR mostly redundant

    But people seem to think human level cognition is required.
    It's closer to rat level vision and cognition or perhaps mouse level
    Actually you don't even need mammal level brains since fish and birds and reptiles can do collision and predator avoidance

    So we just need computers to get a fraction as smart as a mouse or a robin
    I believe this will happen in the 2020s with my �� on the first half of the 2020s
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