GM plans to release cars with no steering wheel next year - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=Lime-alicious;53046594]Not having manual controls just seems inconvenient. How do they handle large driveways or specific parking?[/QUOTE] Or putting the thing on a tow truck. [editline]12th January 2018[/editline] Its sort of funny they have to request a waver to allow them to substitute passenger airbags for a steering wheel airbag, like the legislation isn't generic enough that you can't sell a car without a steering wheel apparently

I bet this nerd-ass car can't drift autonomously. Suck it, robots. You'll always be one step behind.

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;53047097]Imagine: You wake up groggy, you put on pants, grab a bowl of cereal, and go to your car where you eat your breakfast while you go to work.[/QUOTE] I love driving, but I do confess I wish I could just eat while having the car drive me to work, rather than try to pound it all down before leaving and rushing to work

[QUOTE=c:;53047216]I bet this nerd-ass car can't drift autonomously. Suck it, robots. You'll always be one step behind.[/QUOTE] [video]https://youtu.be/AK6srE71g5c[/video] A doughnut button right next to the auto park button would be funny though

how about going on a dirt road? entering your driveway? going on ferries? anything that isnt an asphalt road? am i wrong to assume these are all not possible?

How would you steer the car if it's disabled and needed to be pushed? If you had to push a vehicle out of the road or into a garage for repairs, you'd need to steer it as you go, with this it looks almost impossible.

[QUOTE=Callinstead;53047243]How would you steer the car if it's disabled and needed to be pushed? If you had to push a vehicle out of the road or into a garage for repairs, you'd need to steer it as you go, with this it looks almost impossible.[/QUOTE] Hah, imagine if they implemented an emergency control/steering strip that was similar to those touch bar strips on the top of the newest MacBooks these days: [t]https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/macbookpro/macos-sierra-macbook-pro-touch-bar-animation-hero.gif[/t] :v:

That would be electric interface which could easily fail. So, are you supposed to call their dedicated service if one of these cars become immobile? "Sir, we need to move your vehicle off the busy highway!" "I can't do that officer, my dashboard interface is bluescreened and GM support isn't here yet."

[QUOTE=Callinstead;53047256]That would be electric interface which could easily fail. So, are you supposed to call their dedicated service if one of these cars become immobile? "Sir, we need to move your vehicle off the busy highway!" "I can't do that officer, my dashboard interface is bluescreened and GM support isn't here yet."[/QUOTE] Oddly enough, yeah, that is the model a lot of companies are looking at. In a world with a shitload of safe, effective self-driving cars, owning your own car doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're an enthusiast. If you're the single owner of a car it sits unused for 22+ hours a day. However, add self-driving cars to a company like Lyft or Uber. Suddenly, their fairs are cut in half, since they no longer have to pay the driver. Under that model, it's more cost effective to depend on ride-sharing entirely for transit. You don't have to worry about parking, maintenance, gas, etc. The idea would be that they essentially have a "call center" of people that can take control of the vehicle remotely and resolve any situations where it gets stuck, or if something happens like you outlined above, call another car for you while they send a team out to retrieve the broken one. Most major players in the space have been talking to law enforcement about it for years. Waymo recently ran some drills with police departments testing how their cars responded.

Sounds like you'd be less able to do your own repairs on your own car then, not as an enthusiast but as someone trying to be self reliant and save money by doing your own repairs.

[QUOTE=Callinstead;53047325]Sounds like you'd be less able to do your own repairs on your own car then, not as an enthusiast but as someone trying to be self reliant and save money by doing your own repairs.[/QUOTE] The repair responsibility would be shifted onto the company operating the car, who may shift the cost on to you. However, they'd likely be able to drive down the cost of repairs by exploiting economies of scale. They'd likely have a fairly homogenous fleet, so they'd have a reserve of spare parts, as well as dedicated mechanics and garage facilities. A lot of people seem to believe the long term goal of self-driving is selling you a car with self driving tech. It's not. Long term, the goal is to get rid of car ownership completely. That's not even mentioning ride sharing, which would drive down both traffic and the cost of transportation significantly on top of the savings from automation.

To be completely honest, I'm never getting this or any self-driving car for that matter. Ignoring how utterly boring they'd be, computers don't have a perfect track record for reliability either, even though that's the biggest "advantage" to 'em. I also like being able to work on my car without needing to have a PhD or being locked out because the software says I'm not allowed.

[QUOTE=FurrehFaux;53047390]To be completely honest, I'm never getting this or any self-driving car for that matter. Ignoring how utterly boring they'd be, computers don't have a perfect track record for reliability either, even though that's the biggest "advantage" to 'em. [/QUOTE] Neither do humans. Self driving cars are extremely safe. [url]http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/googles-self-driving-car-is-ridiculously-safe[/url] I keep linking Waymo sources since they're the furthest ahead in the space and have put out a bunch of safety reports.

[QUOTE=Harbie;53047354]Long term, the goal is to get rid of car ownership completely[/QUOTE] Why wouldn't I want to own a car? I don't see what owning a car has to do with automatic driving or safety.

[QUOTE=Harbie;53047303]Oddly enough, yeah, that is the model a lot of companies are looking at. In a world with a shitload of safe, effective self-driving cars, owning your own car doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're an enthusiast. If you're the single owner of a car it sits unused for 22+ hours a day. However, add self-driving cars to a company like Lyft or Uber. Suddenly, their fairs are cut in half, since they no longer have to pay the driver. Under that model, it's more cost effective to depend on ride-sharing entirely for transit. You don't have to worry about parking, maintenance, gas, etc. The idea would be that they essentially have a "call center" of people that can take control of the vehicle remotely and resolve any situations where it gets stuck, or if something happens like you outlined above, call another car for you while they send a team out to retrieve the broken one. Most major players in the space have been talking to law enforcement about it for years. Waymo recently ran some drills with police departments testing how their cars responded.[/QUOTE] The question still stands, how do you get it onto a tow truck if nobody can manage the steering, or even brakes.

[t]https://c.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/GM-Cruise-AV-autonomous-vehicle-2.jpg[/t] I swear even in 2050 when all of us will be travelling in Minority Report style maglev capsules, US regulations will still require a physical hazard light button.

Phone didn’t work the last three times I tried to post so sorry if it’s late. What the fuck why would they give it absolutely no manual overrides?! This is a horrible idea since automated breaking systems can’t detect all hazards. One of the biggest flaws I thought was that it couldn’t detect hazards which are elevated above the ground like the side of a semi truck’s trailer or freaking kangaroos. Also aren’t electronic components more prone to failure or malfunctions? In the event something like that happens, why wouldn’t they include a mechanical or manually activated emergency brake?

I like how it's the biggest button on the dash, as if they know what a shitshow this is going to be.

[QUOTE=Sableye;53047620]The question still stands, how do you get it onto a tow truck if nobody can manage the steering, or even brakes.[/QUOTE] Skates? Skip to 2:50 [video=youtube;TeZ8JxD1r80]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZ8JxD1r80[/video]

[QUOTE=Harbie;53047354]A lot of people seem to believe the long term goal of self-driving is selling you a car with self driving tech. It's not. Long term, the goal is to get rid of car ownership completely. That's not even mentioning ride sharing, which would drive down both traffic and the cost of transportation significantly on top of the savings from automation.[/QUOTE] A company who makes cars is trying to make a self driving vehicle with the end goal of selling less cars to consumers. I... what? :huh:

[QUOTE=AlbertWesker;53047665]A company who makes cars is trying to make a self driving vehicle with the end goal of selling less cars to consumers. I... what? :huh:[/QUOTE] [url]http://time.com/money/4797898/self-driving-cars-could-soon-save-the-average-family-at-least-5600-a-year/[/url] [url]https://www.rethinkx.com/executive-summary[/url] [QUOTE]The approval of autonomous vehicles will unleash a highly competitive market-share grab among existing and new pre-TaaS (ride-hailing) companies in expectation of the outsized rewards of trillions of dollars of market opportunities and network effects. Pre-TaaS platform providers like Uber, Lyft and Didi are already engaged, and others will join this high-speed race. Winners-take-all dynamics will force them to make large upfront investments to provide the highest possible level of service, ensuring supply matches demand in each geographic market they enter. In this intensely competitive environment, businesses will offer services at a price trending toward cost. As a result, their fleets will quickly transition from human-driven, internal combustion engine vehicles (ICE) to autonomous electric vehicles (A-EV) because of key cost factors, including ten times higher vehicle-utilization rates, 500,000-mile vehicle lifetimes (potentially improving to 1 million miles by 2030), and far lower maintenance, energy, finance and insurance costs. As a result, [B]transport-as-a-service (TaaS) will offer a vastly lower-cost transport alternatives — four to ten times cheaper per mile than buying a new car and two to four times cheaper than operating an existing vehicle in 2021.[/B] [/QUOTE] The idea is that is that cars are going to transition to a service/utility rather than a good individual consumers buy. Traditional automakers aren't huge fans, you're right. But they see the writing on the wall. If they don't start working on it tech firms like Tesla, Waymo, Uber, etc. will (and already have). The automakers will sell cars in fleets to companies like Uber or Lyft. Likely they'll work out some sort of contract where the automaker will help maintain the fleet and refresh it periodically with new models. Stop thinking of self driving as a cool upgrade to your personal car. It's going to fundamentally change transit when combined with ride sharing and the reduced maintenance cost of EVs. Every tech firm and automaker is aware of this and planning for it. Read Musk's long vision for Tesla or Waymo's roadmap, or read about any of the fundamentals of ride-sharing companies. [editline]12th January 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=Bernie Buddy;53047435]Why wouldn't I want to own a car? I don't see what owning a car has to do with automatic driving or safety.[/QUOTE] Because it's cheaper for you to ride-hail an autonomous EV. Why would you want to own a car? It depreciates in value rapidly, has continuous maintenance, insurance, and fuel costs, and sits unused for ~90% of the day. If you're an enthusiast or live in a rural area, sure. [URL="https://electrek.co/2017/05/01/tesla-network-elon-musk-autonomous-ride-sharing-vision/"]Even Musk envisions car owners essentially renting out their car to a ridesharing service for most of the day so it will generate revenue.[/URL]

[QUOTE=AlbertWesker;53047665]A company who makes cars is trying to make a self driving vehicle with the end goal of selling less cars to consumers. I... what? :huh:[/QUOTE] The idea is that eventual car ownership itself will become obsolete, the need for most forms of personal transportation being replaced by fully automated on-demand car services. Instead of having a personal car you'll order one like you'd order a pizza delivery, and it'll show up in minutes on its own. Once the service becomes popular enough, it'll be a lot cheaper and simpler than owning a car. The idea is pretty similar to what Cloud Hosting is doing to IT; eliminating the need to buy and run your own servers and network infrastructure by providing it as a service instead.

[QUOTE=Sableye;53047620]The question still stands, how do you get it onto a tow truck if nobody can manage the steering, or even brakes.[/QUOTE] Skates, or there's a way to essentially remotely control the car. Maybe there's an emergency physical port that let's you give it command. This is one car from GM. Not every autonomous car will have this same setup. A lot of people speculate that the Spartan interior of the Model 3 was designed with self-driving in mind, since it contains the bare minimum physical controls, and even those could be removed without affecting the aesthetics. [editline]12th January 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=AlbertWesker;53047639] Also aren’t electronic components more prone to failure or malfunctions? In the event something like that happens, why wouldn’t they include a mechanical or manually activated emergency brake?[/QUOTE] [url]https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/5-things-we-learned-from-waymos-big-self-driving-car-report/[/url] Most firms are moving towards heavy redundancy. Separate power sources for each component and sandboxed environments, as well as multiple redundant systems designed to safely stop the car if one fails. You can safely assume that the teams working on self driving for years have already thought of these problems.

[QUOTE=Kecske;53047635][t]https://c.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/GM-Cruise-AV-autonomous-vehicle-2.jpg[/t] I swear even in 2050 when all of us will be travelling in Minority Report style maglev capsules, US regulations will still require a physical hazard light button.[/QUOTE] It makes sense though. That button could be repurposed for emergency situations. The moment you press it, the car could turn on its hazards and immediately try to stop in a safe and controlled manner. It could even automatically show on-screen buttons to speed dial maintenance/police/ambulance services.

[QUOTE=bilbasio;53046624]I would never enter a car without a steering wheel if not ALL other cars also don't have steering wheels. There is too many random factors when other humans are driving that makes it way too dangerous for a robot to control 100% of the trip. Most of the big jumbo planes fly themselves 99% of the trip and some can also takeoff and land on their own but they still have a yoke on board.[/QUOTE] No. Computers react significantly faster than people do to everything, absolute end of discussion. You are not faster at reacting to unsafe drivers than a computer is.

I am definitely not getting into the potential death machine that is a car without having any way to control the vehicle. Autonomous driving is cool but this is definitely pushing it way beyond my comfort zone.

[QUOTE=Bertie;53047965]I am definitely not getting into the potential death machine that is a car without having any way to control the vehicle. Autonomous driving is cool but this is definitely pushing it way beyond my comfort zone.[/QUOTE] Why do you think that you're better than autonomous cars? Autonomous cars are just a fledgling technology but even including the first early prototypes that were on roads, the collision rate is [I]way[/I] lower than it is with human drivers. [editline]s[/editline] You, me, and every other person are all shit drivers. This is a statistical fact and if you think it doesn't apply to you then you're kidding yourself. Compared to other people I consider myself a good driver, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm better than a machine literally built for the sole purpose of executing the task by some of the most brilliant minds in engineering.

[QUOTE=phygon;53047992]Why do you think that you're better than autonomous cars? Autonomous cars are just a fledgling technology but even including the first early prototypes that were on roads, the collision rate is [I]way[/I] lower than it is with human drivers. [editline]s[/editline] You, me, and every other person are all shit drivers. This is a statistical fact and if you think it doesn't apply to you then you're kidding yourself. Compared to other people I consider myself a good driver, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm better than a machine literally built for the sole purpose of executing the task by some of the most brilliant minds in engineering.[/QUOTE] There will ALWAYS be times where you have to take control of the wheel for an emergency. You're completely correct in your statements but the fact that it takes all my own control away no matter what is a bit sketchy. There will always be the outlying circumstance that requires manual input.

[QUOTE=phygon;53047992]Why do you think that you're better than autonomous cars? Autonomous cars are just a fledgling technology but even including the first early prototypes that were on roads, the collision rate is [I]way[/I] lower than it is with human drivers. [editline]s[/editline] You, me, and every other person are all shit drivers. This is a statistical fact and if you think it doesn't apply to you then you're kidding yourself. Compared to other people I consider myself a good driver, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm better than a machine literally built for the sole purpose of executing the task by some of the most brilliant minds in engineering.[/QUOTE] When the autonomous driver can take me through the rough dirt roads of my family's mango fields and do exactly what I need it to do for the job without any input from me (which often is more than just go to place and park), we can talk. I don't mind autonomous driving by the way, contrary to your assumption. I just don't trust it enough to relinquish [I][B]ALL [/B][/I]control of the vehicle, and I hope this never ever becomes a trend.

I think cars should still have a steering wheel and the autonomy should be able to be shut off. if you wanna be fancy, maybe the wheel can retract into the dash during autonomous drive. [editline]12th January 2018[/editline] Unless it's like a purpose built vehicle like a bus or tram or something that just hauls people around parking lots and other things. Then thats fine I guess.