Taxi

[Chippy_Tea]

Would you trust a driverless car?

 

[Larse]

So long as it's not a Tesla.

 

[The Baron]

No I have seen Johnnie cabs

 

[MashBag]

I don't even trust the tw3tnav.

 

[MashBag]

I want a angry John Cleese voice on the controller.

 

[Graz]

I'd probably have more faith in this getting me to my destination in one piece than most of the mini cab / Uber drivers round our way

 

[Nicks90]

Totally. Half the Uber drivers round me are either Schumacher wannabes with non of the ability, or have questionable driving ability/valid UK licence
And for some reason they all seem to get away with cars with screaming brakes, juddering steering and horrendous bangs coming from worn suspension. Not bad when they're supposed to be MOT'd and scrutinized like hell as PHC

 

[JockyBrewer]

Honestly I thought we'd be further along with this stuff by now. If all cars were driverless then everything would work better and traffic accidents would plummet.

People in cities and towns could hail a car on demand rather than own a car, freeing roads from being clogged up with parked cars.

But I'm certain that if I got in the back of a Waymo like in that video I'd be quite freaked out.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

But I'm certain that if I got in the back of a Waymo like in that video I'd be quite freaked out.

Same here and i think they have a way to go before we are all convinced they are safe -

 

[Larse]

Same here and i think they have a way to go before we are all convinced they are safe -

I don't think they'll ever be capable of driving on every road around the world. They are too dependant on road markings and lane delineations. When they aren't present, they'll either stop like the one in the video or eventually crash.

 

[jof]

I don't think they'll ever be capable of driving on every road around the world. They are too dependant on road markings and lane delineations. When they aren't present, they'll either stop like the one in the video or eventually crash.

Not to mention dealing with potholes & roadworks.

 

[Larse]

Not to mention dealing with potholes & roadworks.

But Tesla think they can navigate all this safely with cameras.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

But Tesla think they can navigate all this safely with cameras.

Elon Musk promised in 2015 that Teslas would have "complete autonomy" "in two years". Seven years later, we're still waiting - Tesla won't release the data they have, but crowdsourced data suggests that they can only go an average of 84 miles before a "critical disengagement" (ie handing back to a human driver for safety reasons), whereas the likes of WeRide and Waymo can go ~200x that distance before a safety driver steps in, and Waymo had 1.2 million miles driverless.

So the question remains does Musk just not understand this stuff, or is he deliberately lying to inflate the Tesla shareprice? Probably a bit of both.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

How do they charge them, do they go back to base when low on charge?

 

[JockyBrewer]

How do they charge them, do they go back to base when low on charge?

They go to a base.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

They go to a base.

But there's various options for "autonomous" recharging - there's several versions of a robot arm that can automatically insert a charger into a car, and Musk claims that the planned Tesla robotaxi will use induction charging as has already been trialled on a taxi rank in Nottingham.

https://www.hyundai.news/uk/article...tic-charging-robot-for-electric-vehicles.html
https://www.transportnottingham.com/nottingham-wraps-up-uk-first-wireless-electric-charging-trial/

Obviously if you have genuinely self-driving cars, this takes away a lot of the stress about on-street charging, as your car can go off to the nearest supermarket carpark or whereever, and charge itself overnight before coming back to your house. Still need a lot to be in place before that can happen of course, but we're getting there.

 

[JockyBrewer]

But there's various options for "autonomous" recharging - there's several versions of a robot arm that can automatically insert a charger into a car, and Musk claims that the planned Tesla robotaxi will use induction charging as has already been trialled on a taxi rank in Nottingham.

https://www.hyundai.news/uk/article...tic-charging-robot-for-electric-vehicles.html
https://www.transportnottingham.com/nottingham-wraps-up-uk-first-wireless-electric-charging-trial/

Obviously if you have genuinely self-driving cars, this takes away a lot of the stress about on-street charging, as your car can go off to the nearest supermarket carpark or whereever, and charge itself overnight before coming back to your house. Still need a lot to be in place before that can happen of course, but we're getting there.

I think once you have full self driving cars the need to own a car becomes much less of a necessity in towns and cities. Instead you just hail a car and it'll come to you.

At some point a city will mandate all vehicles will be self driving, and that's when things will get really interesting.