The Autonomous Cars News, Development, and Discussion Thread

[Hatman]

The Future Of Driving, In One Provocative Chart
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7024074.html

Here is the chart:

Here’s how the chart breaks down:

• Quadrant 1: Today, most drivers own or lease their own vehicles, which they drive themselves. Autonomous driving technology is only beginning to emerge.
• Quadrant 2: Over the past few years, ride-hailing services such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar have alleviated the need to own a car in many major cities, making a driver much more accessible. Jonas said this is a logical step toward the so-called mega-fleets of public, autonomous cars.
• Quadrant 3: Over the next decade, rich people will likely swap out the cars they drive for cars that drive themselves. Already, Tesla is planning to roll out a version of its Model S sedan that has limited autopilot features sometime this summer. The latest version of the car, announced on Wednesday, starts at $67,500 after a Federal Tax Credit.
• Quadrant 4: This is the final evolution in the car industry and there is no clear date for when this will come to fruition. But with few exceptions, most people will be driven by cars that are either a public utility or part of a privately-owned fleet that users subscribe to use. At this point, laws will likely restrict human driving to select roads, Jonas wrote. Other forms of public transportation, such as subway systems, may become obsolete.

[Hatman]

I like Audi's proposed 'autopilot' system even better than I like Tesla's:

• Video Link

The steering wheel retracting is pretty awesome.
(I should mention that even talking on the phone while driving is banned in in Germany - as it should be everywhere. This will inevitably be a much more popular feature in Germany than elsewhere for that very reason.)

[M II A II R II K]

Futuristic Simulation Finds Self-Driving “Taxibots” Will Eliminate 90% Of Cars, Open Acres Of Public Space

Read More: https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wi...of-618a8aeff01

PDF: http://www.internationaltransportfor...rivingcars.pdf

A fascinating new simulation finds that self-driving cars will terraform cities: 90% of cars will be eliminated, acres of land will open up, and commute times will drop 10%.

- These “taxibots”, the researchers imagine, are a marriage of mass carpooling and UPS delivery intelligence: they constantly roam throughout cities and match carpool routes with mathematical elegance. Ultimately, they estimate, 9 out of 10 cars would be completely unnecessary — as would public transit. --- “Nearly the same mobility can be delivered with 10% of the cars TaxiBots combined with high-capacity public transport could remove 9 out of every 10 cars in a mid-sized European city,” the paper concludes.

- Because parking spaces increase the cost of construction, expensive development gets passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices on retail goods and rent. One study found that parking spaces bump the price retail goods 1% and the environmental research group, the Sightline Institute, estimated that free parking in Seattle spikes rental costs about $246/month per person.

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[Leo the Dog]

Once automation becomes reality, I wonder if we'll need to spend hundreds of billions on expensive and inefficient mass transit train lines. The cost of hailing a car will decrease significantly because a human driver won't have to be compensated. I Imagine there will be price plans $100/month for x miles/month.

96% of cars sit idle. 30-40% of cars are searching for a parking space.

[Hatman]

I doubt we will spend hundreds of billions of $$ on inefficient mass transit systems. But I do think we will continue to build and run efficient mass transit and rail lines. The cost per passenger mile will still be significantly lower for trains and transit than it will be for cars even without a driver. Remember, trains and transit stand to benefit more from the autonomous revolution than cars do. (See blog below)

I think that people from the future, when they look back at old photos of our day, will be amazed at all the cars we have just sitting around doing nothing. Cluttering the streets and sitting at red lights and making life miserable for pedestrians. They will look at the traffic jams and the smog and think we are just as nasty as people in the industrial revolution who lived in clouds of coal smoke and let their horses poop in the street.
Our day will be remembered as such a backward, dirty, and cluttered chapter in transportation history. I can hardly wait for it to end.

[Hatman]

Daimler introduces autonomous truck
• Video Link

Advertizing has begun, but so far they aren't taking orders:

Daum said society might forgive a number of deaths caused by tired truck drivers at the wheel but they would never forgive a single fatal crash blamed on a fully automated big rig.
That’s also why the company has no intention of ditching drivers. Instead, in this new autonomous world, the driver would be more of an on-board logistics manager.

LINK
So more of a 'hands free' truck rather than an autonomous one.

[M II A II R II K]

Autonomous cars will destroy millions of jobs and reshape the economy by 2025

Read More: http://qz.com/403628/autonomous-cars...onomy-by-2025/

.....

Autonomous cars will be commonplace by 2025 and have a near monopoly by 2030, and the sweeping change they bring will eclipse every other innovation our society has experienced. They will cause unprecedented job loss and a fundamental restructuring of our economy, solve large portions of our environmental problems, prevent tens of thousands of deaths per year, save millions of hours with increased productivity, and create entire new industries that we cannot even imagine from our current vantage point.

- Disruptive innovation does not take kindly to entrenched competitors—like Blockbuster, Barnes and Noble, and Polaroid, it is unlikely that major automakers like General Motors, Ford, and Toyota will survive the leap. They are geared to produce millions of cars in dozens of different varieties to cater to individual taste and have far too much overhead to sustain such a dramatic decrease in sales. I think that most will be bankrupt by 2030, while startup automakers like Tesla will thrive on a smaller number of fleet sales to operators like Uber by offering standardized models with fewer options.

- Ancillary industries such as the $198 billion automobile insurance market, $98 billion automotive finance market, $100 billion parking industry, and the $300 billion automotive aftermarket will collapse as demand for their services evaporates. We will see the obsolescence of rental car companies, public transportation systems, and, good riddance, parking, and speeding tickets. --- But we will see the transformation of far more than just consumer transportation: self-driving semis, buses, earth movers, and delivery trucks could obviate the need for professional drivers and the support industries that surround them.

- The US Bureau of Labor Statistics lists that 915,000 people are employed in motor vehicles and parts manufacturing. Truck, bus, delivery, and taxi drivers account for nearly 6 million professional driving jobs. Virtually all of these jobs will be eliminated within 10-15 years, and this list is by no means exhaustive. --- But despite the job loss and wholesale destruction of industries, eliminating the needs for car ownership will yield over $1 trillion in additional disposable income—and that is going to usher in an era of unprecedented efficiency, innovation, and job creation.

- Traffic will become nonexistent, saving each US commuter 38 hours every year—nearly a full work week. As parking lots and garages, car dealerships, and bus stations become obsolete, tens of millions of square feet of available prime real estate will spur explosive metropolitan development. --- The environmental impact of autonomous cars has the potential to reverse the trend of global warming and drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. As most autonomous cars are likely to be electric, we would eliminate most of the 134 billion gallons of gasoline used each year in the US alone. And while recycling 242 million vehicles will certainly require substantial resources, the surplus of raw materials will decrease the need for mining.

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[jbermingham123]

delete

[Eidolon]

http://www.businessinsider.com/drive...onment-2013-12

But there’s the other side of the story,” said DeCicco. “Automation could allow more driving.”

In other words, the ease of taking a ride in an automated vehicle could make us much more likely and frequently to jump in the car. “You take the driver out of the loop, and people will be much more willing to sit in their vehicles,” said MacKenzie. He suggested that the first 90 minutes at work is spent mostly answering emails. Why not decide to get a bigger, nicer and cheaper house 90 minutes away from your job, and answer your emails during the commute in your self-driving car? The result: more suburban sprawl and all the environmental damage it represents.

Increases in networked car sharing could add to vehicle traffic by those who might otherwise walk, bike or take public transit. “I don’t have to drive,” said DeCicco. “I can live even further away, and have my automated Barcalounger on wheels.” He envisioned a time when an exercise bike or rowing machine, as well as a big screen television, could become desirable vehicle features.

MacKenzie, who has analyzed various automated driving pathways with colleagues from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Lab and U.K.’s University of Leeds, believes that all of these factors could lead to as much as 160% more travel—eclipsing the efficiency benefits of automated systems.

The increase in vehicle use (and related emissions) includes new trips by young, elderly and disabled travelers who previously lacked mobility. He also mentioned that vehicle efficiency on highways could go down, if speed limits are increased as high as 100 miles per hour, due to improved safety.

“If you’ve provided mobility to a new group of users, and you're saving lives, that’s great,” said MacKenzie. “But it’s premature to say we know how it’s going to affect energy consumption.” For MacKenzie, it’s two forces fighting against one another—a technology that can improve efficiency, and improved vehicle access and safety that will mean more travel. “It’s a question of which force will dominate,” he said.

That, ultimately, is more about social will than technology innovation. “Automated cars are not going to free us from our own faulty human desire for more and more,” said DeCicco. He said technology can make our lives better, but also bring new and potentially bigger problems. “That’s the story of the automobile over the last 150 years,” he said. “It doesn’t save us from ourselves.”

[Hatman]

Google's home built autonomous car will now start testing on public streets. Google has stated previously they want their autonomous taxi service to begin in 2017. It looks like they're slowly closing in on that goal.
• Video Link

[Jasonhouse]

Am I the only one who read this passage and thought it didn't make a lick of sense?

Ultimately, they estimate, 9 out of 10 cars would be completely unnecessary — as would public transit. --- “Nearly the same mobility can be delivered with 10% of the cars TaxiBots combined with high-capacity public transport could remove 9 out of every 10 cars in a mid-sized European city,”

They say "we won't need public transport anymore!"

And then in the very next sentence, point out that public transport will become an even more vital component than it is today, doing the high capacity work of any urban network.

[Hatman]

^^^
Yeah, makes no sense. But it sort of does. Whether or not public transportation makes sense in an autonomous future depends entirely on the type of city you live in. A place like the North East Corridor will always need public transit, and in fact public transit will be increase in importance and convenience as autonomous cars will be able to feed traffic to and from transit stations much better than buses ever could. A place like Phoenix, however, may never get a comprehensive public transit system. It is the middle-ground areas, like LA (and I think my home town of Salt Lake City) where transit has a significant presence, but not a guaranteed one, where the debate will be very interesting.

Also, I completely failed to post something extremely important on this thread:
The Department of Transportation accelerates on the road to autonomy with a proposal to require vehicle to vehicle to vehicle communications in future cars.

The DOT's plans will consist of fast-laning NHTSA's proposal to require V2V equipment on all new vehicles. The proposal was originally planned to hit the Office of Management and Budget in 2016, but Foxx states that the proposal will arrive earlier at the end of this year.

Rest of the Article:
http://www.cnet.com/news/u-s-transpo...quirements-in/

We have a secretary of transportation that sees the benefits of autonomous cars, and is willing to accelerate their arrival. This is very encouraging news.

[Jasonhouse]

^Unless they figure out a way to make one-at-a-time transportation more space efficient and cheaper than mass transportation already is, then the latter will be pretty important in the environments of most any sizable city.

People keep forgetting, the 'disruptive' part of automated vehicles early on will be on the commercial side, where the drivers are paid, and much less so on the consumer side, where the driver is free. The benefit of a mass transit network using automated buses and vans utilizing big data to optimize the stops it makes should be self explanatory.

[Hatman]

Good points. The question then becomes what constitutes a 'public transportation system?' Are Uber and other privately run bus and ride-sharing (as in carpooling, or actually sharing a ride) public transit, or does that require a public agency managing a network on their own? Theoretically, if a transit service is optimized, even autonomous trains and rail transit could be operated, if not owned, entirely by private transportation companies. Along with disrupting commercial transportation (rather than private) a large 'disruption' will be bluring the lines between what is public, and what is private in the public transportation network. And I don't think anyone is ready for that kind of disruption.

[Jasonhouse]

I think what matters is that mass transit continue to be offered where it will be utilized... Won't much matter if it's owned by a company or the govt. I imagine that there would be a mix of both, depending on the community.

Like everything else, it will probably get divvied up by things perceived to be risky or unprofitable being done by the govt, and the private sector peeling off the low hanging fruit for itself. (I imagine 'need' riders utilizing something like automated buses and trains, and 'choice' riders utilizing their own systems with taxis and so on. Seems like things are starting to be divided like that more and more.)

This little pop-up commuter service 'Bridj' running around in Boston and DC is an example of that. It's made to attract choice riders who want a scheduled service with a more luxurious ride and quicker travel times than you get on the public routes.

[Leo the Dog]

Carl Icahn injected $100 million into Lyft this week. He's onboard with ridesharing and its eventual automation. He'll probably make billions off this investment.

[M II A II R II K]

Autonomous cars could lead people to live almost 200 miles from their workplaces

Read More: http://www.slate.com/articles/techno...e_commute.html

.....

One prediction plausibly holds that the autonomous car will contribute to suburban sprawl, reversing the recent flow of baby boomers and millennials into cities. But there's a hulking, hairy question hidden within that idea: How much? That is, assuming that the self-driving car will cast us out into the suburbs, exactly how far-flung are we talking?

- Here is the secret promise—and threat—of autonomous cars. When the self-driving car achieves its full potential, it could well become perfectly normal to commute 180 miles each way. With a mature highway ecosystem consisting almost entirely of autonomous cars, you could leave your picturesque home in Bennington, Vermont, at 7:30 a.m. in order to walk through your office door in midtown Manhattan at 9.

- Regardless of the mode of available transit, people tend to live a rough average of 30 minutes from where they work. This phenomenon, named Marchetti’s constant after the Italian physicist who discovered it, holds true, more or less, throughout history. (Cesare Marchetti's seminal report even theorizes about the commutes of cavemen and ancient Greeks.) Transportation breakthroughs that move people around faster, therefore, ultimately lead not to shorter commutes but rather homes that are farther from work.

- How far away from work will tomorrow's typical megacommuter live? Assuming that one's home and office are close to highways, and autonomous cars could maintain a speed of 120 mph, a back-of-envelope calculation reveals that someone could live in southern Vermont or Portland, Maine, and make it to our MIT office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in less than an hour. Stretching the time window out to 90 minutes makes possible a commute from Albany to MIT. Ninety minutes will also get you from southern Vermont or Newport, Rhode Island, to New York City.

- A world in which a 180-mile commute is unremarkable is potentially troubling from an environmental perspective—both in terms of land use and, assuming no significant advances in energy production, carbon output. Although platooning provides a way for cars to save energy by drafting off one another, commuting at such high speeds over long distances would have an enormous carbon footprint. (That's true even for electric vehicles, assuming they're drawing power from a grid that hasn't shifted significantly toward nuclear or renewable sources, and especially if more people eschew mass transit for the comfort of personal cars.)

- Changes to the physical land could have implications for ecological systems, exacerbating such issues as species loss due to habitat fragmentation. And from a social perspective, the sheer distances involved would make it even easier than it already is for people to be divided in terms of both geography and the media they consume. --- This future of high-speed commutes and sprawling ex-exurbs is by no means guaranteed to come to pass. Frankly, the changes in policy that would be needed to make such high speeds possible, let alone the minimal requisite changes in infrastructure, could well be enough to scuttle this whole idea, as could the rise of improved telecommuting technologies.

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[Hatman]

^^^
I'm sure people will try to commute longer distances with an autonomous car, but I can't see it ever getting common for people to commute that far.
The issue is platooning. This is how autonomous cars will bunch together on the highway to take advantage of the lower air resistance directly behind the proceeding vehicle. So we have a bunch of cars traveling at high speed within inches of each other, back to back to back. And, according to the article, they are traveling at 120 mph.
Now these cars get to a curve. Let's say this is a exceptionally well designed curve and can allow a car to travel around it at 90 mph without making the passengers of the autonomous cars sick (they will be busy with their food/electronic entertainment and will not want to be thrown around). So the cars in front slow down and go 90 mph, and all the other cars in the platoon will too. And because this platoon is so long (all the cars want to slip-stream because it saves them energy, or range) the cars at the back of the platoon could potentially be miles back from the front of the platoon.
You can see where this is going. The slowest curve on a highway will dictate the highest speed on the whole road because with cars platooning, there won't be a way to speed up between curves.
I also think that 90 mph may be a little optimistic. Remember that speed is a cubic function, with an incrementally higher speed taking a disproportionately large increase in energy to accomplish. A car that achieves 30 mpg at 70 mph will only get 20 mpg at 85 mph, which drops to 18 mpg at 90 mph, and drops below 15 mpg before reaching 100 mph:

LINK TO SOURCE
So a car that gets 30 mpg at 70 mph will lose half of those mpg's with just a 30 mph increase in speed.
Obviously the behavior of Autonomous Cars in platoons will differ greatly depending on the environment, but I'm going to be bold and predict that unless you are out in flyover country your autonomous car will probably never reach 100 mph.
Commutes may very well become ridiculously long if people choose to wake up early and sleep in their cars, or don't mind the longer commute because the time spent in the car is now useful and productive time. But I highly doubt it will reach 180 miles just because the car is able to reach high speeds. My two cents.

[Jasonhouse]

^Not gonna happen anyways, with tolling and VMT increasingly looking like the revenue mechanisms which will be used to fund roads over time, without putting the screws to the rest of the economy.

[eleven=11]

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburg...ant-depot.html
good article about uber pittsburgh