Self-Driving Vehicles/Autonomous Vehicle Technology

[afransen]

Level 5 in rural areas is irrelevant. Essentially no one lives in such areas. Nearly all VMTs are in urban areas. That is the big win--even if rural areas can't be fully automated (which I don't take for granted). We are moving to a world with ubiquitous high bandwidth connectivity with low-orbit satellite networks and 5G. So, even in situations that require interventions, those interventions can be handled by remote operators.

 

[rbt]

Level 5 in rural areas is irrelevant.

Level 5 in rural areas are the only place it's relevant. L5 is capability for safe driving without a map, GPS, or other external or pre-programmed assistance. Alberta's temporary ice roads, BC logging roads (which can change day to day), farm vehicles using a mix of public and private roadways are exactly where it might be used.

Level 4 in urban areas will be more than sufficient for the next century; the cost of mapping an urban area is quite cheap due to the large number of users available.

Construction is the only common use of rapidly changing unmapped roadways I can think of in an urban environment and in those environments they'd almost certainly get a spotter to lead them anyway just for congestion purposes (can't have 6 dump-trucks all randomly picking their own way through the site; they'll be given a path to follow).

 

[afransen]

Those are all niche applications. Level 5 AVs can happily conquer cities regardless of the tractibility of addressing rural areas. The bigger challenge might be the shrinking of supply of manual-capable vehicles and loss of economies of scale.

 

[aquateam]

Waymo isn't the only autonomous taxi service now, GM's Cruise coincidentally got approval just two days after Waymo:

GM Cruise Approved to Test Fully Driverless Cars in San Francisco

The autonomous vehicle maker hopes to hit the road before the end of this year.

in.pcmag.com

 

[lenaitch]

Level 5 in rural areas is irrelevant. Essentially no one lives in such areas.

The folks who grow the GTA's food, produce the most of its energy, dispose of all of its waste and serve as its playground appreciate the consideration.

 

[rbt]

Those are all niche applications. Level 5 AVs can happily conquer cities regardless ...

That's the point. Level 5 isn't very exciting as a goal; level 4 will change the urban world but level 5 would be a very marginal contribution in any well mapped region simply because operating without a map in an urban environment would be silly. Imagine climbing into an automated taxi and needing to give "turn left at the second light" type directions to get home; won't happen, it'll have a map of the area.

 

[afransen]

The folks who grow the GTA's food, produce the most of its energy, dispose of all of its waste and serve as its playground appreciate the consideration.

I grew up there too. These areas always get the trappings of modern civilization 10-20 years late. They still don't have decent high speed internet. Didn't stop the internet from gaining mass popularity.

I'm not saying that these places/people don't matter. I'm saying 'whattaboutism' when it comes to AVs working on rural logging roads is irrelevant, as that is a tiny proportion of driving.

 

[afransen]

That's the point. Level 5 isn't exciting as a goal; level 4 will change the urban world but level 5 is a very marginal contribution in any well mapped region.

Urban areas are and will continue to be very well mapped by municipalities and providers; there is almost no reason for a vehicle to operate without using a map in those areas.

You mean every time a utility cuts a street someone has to update the map? Good luck!

 

[rbt]

You mean every time a utility cuts a street someone has to update the map? Good luck!

Obstacle avoidance or following a signed detour is a level 2/3 feature (depending on complexity of the manoeuvre). It's a deviation from and return back to the mapped route based on local information.

Level 5 would be the ability to navigate entirely new subdivisions which have yet to be mapped, given street names, or addresses. In urban areas, those are almost always active construction sites where general traffic isn't allowed.

 

[afransen]

I thought your point was that the Waymo/HD mapping approach was going to work. I'm skeptical. I think Tesla's approach is more likely to gain wide deployment.

 

[lenaitch]

I grew up there too. These areas always get the trappings of modern civilization 10-20 years late. They still don't have decent high speed internet. Didn't stop the internet from gaining mass popularity.

I'm not saying that these places/people don't matter. I'm saying 'whattaboutism' when it comes to AVs working on rural logging roads is irrelevant, as that is a tiny proportion of driving.

There is a fairly wide gap between areas with "rural logging roads" and areas with rural roads dividing multi-acre fields with high-value crops or quarries feeding the GTA's condo market.

"I'm not saying that these places/people don't matter". But you did. "irrelevant" = 'don't matter'.

 

[afransen]

There is a fairly wide gap between areas with "rural logging roads" and areas with rural roads dividing multi-acre fields with high-value crops or quarries feeding the GTA's condo market.

"I'm not saying that these places/people don't matter". But you did. "irrelevant" = 'don't matter'.

Kindly don't imply meaning on me I don't acknowledge. My point stands, these technologies gain acceptance to the degree they are successful in cities. It has been thus for many years with countless technologies, going back to telephones and gas lighting and before.

You're claiming that AVs can't work on paved rural concessions without dividing lines. Evidence? And better tell San Francisco to cancel the Cruise AV program because they won't work in rural Ontario. It may take longer, but the technical challenge is not insurmountable. And if the only barrier to the technology being adopted in rural areas is some paint, you better believe rural municipalities will be deploying the paint trucks. They don't today because they are not necessary for the current traffic volumes.

 

[lenaitch]

Kindly don't imply meaning on me I don't acknowledge. My point stands, these technologies gain acceptance to the degree they are successful in cities. It has been thus for many years with countless technologies, going back to telephones and gas lighting and before.

You're claiming that AVs can't work on paved rural concessions without dividing lines. Evidence? And better tell San Francisco to cancel the Cruise AV program because they won't work in rural Ontario. It may take longer, but the technical challenge is not insurmountable. And if the only barrier to the technology being adopted in rural areas is some paint, you better believe rural municipalities will be deploying the paint trucks. They don't today because they are not necessary for the current traffic volumes.

Words convey a message to the reader irrespective of the intent of the writer.

I agree that the adoption and advancement of general application technologies is directly proportional to population.

I don't claim that AVs can't work on unmarked or poorly marked rural roads (beyond the fact that the 'lane keeping/road departure mitigation' on my vehicle does not) as much as I have read no evidence of it. Although I do not closely follow the issue, probably since I will be long dead before they become a reality, I can't recall seeing any AV trial that wasn't in temperate climate and either on paved urban/suburban roads or a restricted haul-route. Have there been any on snow-covered roads; not necessarily unplowed, but snow-covered to the point that edges and markings are obscured? I was on a road the other day where the pavement was completely obscured by autumn leaves.

The restriction is not simply a bit of paint. It may also be actual pavement (rural municipal roads, cottage roads, etc.). Whether the wireless data density is there may be up to data providers (if profitable) or, gasp, the public purse. The limited range of terrestrial 5G towers suggest that satellite may be more feasible. In areas where it is not realistic, will urban dwellers be no longer able to individually travel to these areas because either their vehicles will no longer work and/or they have lost the skills to do it themselves? Pastimes such as cottaging, hunting, fishing and backwoods hiking, canoeing, etc. may be in for a hit.

Anyway, that's about it for me. I'm not knowledgeable to carry it further - just a bit of a cynic. If I believed what I read in the 50s, we'd all be in flying cars by now.

 

[north-of-anything]

So will this be commercially available before or after the Hyperloop?

 

[rbt]

It looks like Tesla won the race to level 4 autonomy.

It's Level 3 at the most (legally level 2 only due to the remaining hands-on-the-wheel requirement); demos shown place it somewhere between Level 2 and level 3. I've yet to see interaction with emergency vehicles, cops directing traffic, vehicles doing unexpected things (going the wrong way down one-way streets for example), etc.

The "Full Self Driving" software Tesla has demonstrated is not advanced enough to obtain a drivers license; so not level 4. In short, no Tesla taxi service yet even in states which are issuing drivers licenses to software.