U.S. to decide soon on GM’s request to deploy cars without steering wheels::U.S. regulators will soon decide on a petition filed by General Motors’ Cruise self-driving technology unit seeking permission to deploy up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles annually without human controls, a top auto safety official said on Wednesday.
No, no, no, no. This is right up there with my state wanting to let 18-year-olds carry concealed deadly weapons in classrooms with no permit. A deal breaker for my continued participation in this society.
I recently learned that the state where I’m from considers a baton a deadly weapon so it can’t be purchased as a means of defense, but an Ak-47 is perfectly fine to purchase AND open carry.
Great gods. I guess the AK is considered a hunting rifle or a paperweight?
I’m tempted to ask if you’re from the South, since this is exactly the garbage that too much of the region would champion. But honestly, the upper Midwest seems just as bad when it comes to “Muh guns!”
To be fair I’d have a hard time concealing my ak47. It doesn’t get fired much, ammo is expensive. Most of my ammo is for shotties and the .22 for putting down nuisance and injured animals.
Yeah self driving cars are totally the same thing as giving a teenager a gun in a school.
Given their track record, yes.
What a disgusting point of view.
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I wonder if this came from engineering or the marketing department.
I’m getting “Let’s do this, and if it fails (which it will), it’ll look like we’re really confident in our self-drive and are a challenger in the market” vibes.
Even if you have excellent self-drive, there is no logical reason not to have a backup steering wheel just to intervene in case. Tbh, I had no idea they were even in the self-drive market which may be their true problem. No one really knows.
I remember being shocked that my third generation smart phone didn’t have a pull out keyboard. Or that headphone jacks became a casualty. I think in the long run this is the goal.
if there’s no one in the driver’s seat to pay attention, then why would you have a wheel to intervene “just in case”?
Has anyone proven a technology for that long and that consistently that it is safe. I’ve seen quite the contrary and sensible legislators expect a human there in case of issue.I’d expect that for years before a reasonable level ofconfidentce is reached.
From the article, the cars will be used as autonomous taxies. It is too bad. I was hoping that by removing the steering wheel, GM would have to add in the most important important self driving car feature: a release of liability. I will not fully trust autonomous car controls until I stop being legally responsible for the actions of my car.
Public transport should be the primary target for the technology at this time. At least in parts of Europe, the primary issue with increasing public transport capacity is lack of drivers.
I fantasize about the day that I could get into a self driving car and just shout a destination at it, then go there. My commute is over an hour a day and I could use that time for myself. I don’t think that day will be here soon.
These companies need to demonstrate that their vehicles are capable (more capable than MOST drivers), and they need to do it transparently. Whats more important to me, would be the manufacturer taking the liability, licensing, and most importantly take responsibility for their mistakes (again openly).
I do as well, but then I remember the insane amount of money and man power it takes to keep things working well (like airplanes, subs, etc) and realize exactly zero people would realistically do that. So it’s great in theory, but really, really far off from being something I’d trust.
For years I argued with people that with some small changes to our infrastructure and some regulation, this would be something we could accomplish in just a few short years. I still feel that way somewhat, but every time a bridge collapses, or I hit the same pothole I’ve hit for months it erodes.
There isn’t a chance in hell I’m buying a car without a steering wheel.
I reckon it’s going to be a car-as-a-service so don’t worry your head about ever buying one
I just love owning nothing! I’m so happy to never have anything I can call my own!
OceanGate Titan on wheels.
I can’t wait to drive with a 20 dollar Logitech gaming controller instead
Stick drift will be wild!
My friend had a Civic with built in stick drift.
He didn’t drive the car much thankfully.
Be certain to get the upgraded control stick thingies!
I’m pretty sure the technology is not ready to go this far
It’s not. It absolutely is not
It already exists… https://youtu.be/ilcrMz_hWz8
No, actually it doesn’t.
You’ll notice that a) Waymo cars kill people (there’s pending litigation,) and b) they’re only in places with basically perfect weather.
Self driving cars cannot handle any sort of real winter driving.
I can’t find anything about waymov cars killing people. Not saying it didn’t happen, but id like to see your sources on some (assuming more than one since it’s plural) of the deaths.
Regardless, the technologies existence is what is being debated here. Not the moved goalposts of “operable in all weather” or “has never killed someone” using those same goalposts I could claim that passenger aircraft isn’t here yet since you can’t take off in bad weather & they have killed people
apologies… I seem to have conflated a few items from my feed. There were no deaths. that said, Waymo is defending itself from a lawsuit in SF (iirc) because of an uptick in accidents, and the NTSFB peeps say that waymo is involved in the most accidents (per road hour, IIRC) of all the autonomous vehicles.
They’re also suing (or were suing) the California DMV to keep their accident records secret as a “trade secret”. lol.
From the article, this looks like it’s for GM’s “Cruise” program, which is already out there in limited scope in a couple cities. It’s aself-driving car service limited to a small area of San Francisco and… I want to say Austin?
They’re already operating vehicles that are essentially “self-driving” now. This is about rolling out a new class of vehicle using the same technology, but without the human controls.
I don’t know a lot about the service, or what, exactly it does, but I suspect it works well because the area the vehicles operate in is extremely limited and the vehicles can have an incredibly detailed, and up-to-date map of that area. I’d also wager the area selected is free of most obstacles and has only one type of terrain, i.e., “downtown low-speed streets” or similar.
That said, I can’t imagine the NTSHA will allow a vehicle on the road without any sort of manual emergency control mechanism in place. Though, it may be very rudimentary, like others have suggested, a joystick and a throttle/brake intended to get the vehicle somewhere safe so people can get out.
This is Level 4 automation, and even it needs a human override. Can’t override without a steering wheel.
I think this whole plan is just a gimmick to dangle that carrot in front of the public, fooling them into thinking Level 5 full automation is just around the corner, when it really, really, really isn’t.
The override system likely exists. It obviously exists now as remote operators can intervene on the current fleet without being present.
And what happens if something unexpected (e.g. badly signalized road works) comes up? With current implementations you can you take over. But what do you do without wheel?
“Run them over.” -waymo
No fucking thank you
Having just seen several Cruise vehicles being recovered by human drivers, this is quite early for such a request. I think the hype cycle is drying up for them and they need to keep pretending they’re doing better than they really are.
Everyone keeps saying no in this thread, but I trust that it will be a better driver than my 80 year old grandpa who can’t see 10 feet busy still manages to retain their drivers license.
It’s okay to say “No” to two things at the same time without having to choose one or the other.
Except that in this case, one might prevent/reduce the other. There is a certain amount of mutual exclusivity here. We can’t take drivers licenses away from old people, but we might be able to get them in an autonomous car.
