Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

[santafe2]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

As more technology is introduced to millions of automobiles our lives are going to get a bit more complicated...

Until they begin to simplify. Technology and the good folks driving it amaze me. I remember the day I quit my useless 1.5 to 2 hour, 15 to 20 mph drive from Pasadena to the West Side of LA and began using my drive time in the AM and PM as my time to sell new projects and instruct my staff how to rough out quotes. PacBell, now I think Verizon, charged $1 a minute to talk on my transportable phone in the late 80s. It's expected today but no one in 1988 could meet a prospective client in the afternoon and have a comprehensive quote to them the next day. If only I didn't have to chauffeur myself and pay attention to the stop and go of LA traffic. I really dislike the mundane aspects of modern life and every day driving is one of these things I'd love to give up.

[GRG55]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

Will we be able to text, eat and watch YouTube while "driving"?

Like now

As long as we can still steer with our knee it'll be fine.

BTW, that "knee steering" thing is plagiarized from a post of yours a while back on the preference of us North Americans for automatic transmissions.

[GRG55]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

dcarrigg, I suspect you know better.

FIRE will continue to get the revenue stream of premiums, while they reduce the expenses paid out for claims.

Most of us now do not think to ask for reduced car insurance premiums as our expensive brand-new auto ages into a cheap and well-worn used car.
We just keep paying the original amount and bracing for increases.

Hmmmm. Interesting. Except for the duration of my time living overseas last decade, I have been with the same insurance company since 1981. They have a complete record of every damn speeding and parking ticket I have ever received since that time. I have a 2006 F350 diesel with 180,000+ miles on it. I pay $600 per year, because I refuse to insure it for collision, comprehensive or theft. However, I do wash it once a year...whether it needs it or not.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

... I have a 2006 F350 diesel with 180,000+ miles on it. I pay $600 per year, because I refuse to insure it for collision, comprehensive or theft. However, I do wash it once a year...whether it needs it or not.

So you have achieved a complete recovery from the ailment that made you race gymkhana in sports cars you built by hand?

[c1ue]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

Here's a simple question: how much will these 'auto steering cars' cost?

If it is anything like the 'improvements' we've seen on the power train side - they're going to remain a novelty for a long, long time.

When last I worked in the semiconductor industry, the semiconductor component in a car was something like $500 to $1000 - up to triple that in a very high end car.

The semiconductor investment needed for the Google cars would likely be many times that: the processing capabilities, the communications, the redundancies and so forth. Semiconductors are also not particularly well known for aging well in difficult environments. How are all these sensors going to hold up over 5 or 10 years of hard driving through desert heat, snow, rain, mud, etc? What happens when a fender bender occurs - does this mean sensors must be replaced/rechecked?

I'd also note that the electronics used by the auto industry was consistently 2 generations behind the forefront of the semiconductor industry. That's because it would take a minimum of 4 years to get through all the testing necessary to qualify parts - overlaid on top of inherently conservative auto designers.

Google is trying to skip all that by showing a 'cool' thing, but it is far from clear to me that a few demos in controlled environments is going to significantly short circuit this process, much less address the cost issues.

Google's motivation is quite clear: by having a hand in the auto driving loop, they gather more information which they can in turn eventually monetize.

Unfortunately that is already way behind the times. Apps like Waze are already using auto information gathering from 'opt in' users to populate their own data services, and I foresee more and more value add integrating into this type of environment. For example, if I can get Waze to integrate my parking data into their traffic and navigation data, the user gains even more value in a single platform.

Google has another product which attempts to predict what information you want/need and automatically serve that forward; that is unfortunately still only browser (to my limited knowledge). A more comprehensive offering built around transportation, however, is already in progress.

[don]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

a few demos in controlled environments

Driving Dogs by videobash

[c1ue]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

Some nice pics of what auto-driving has to worry about: a 10 point roadkill courtesy of a (non auto driving) Google Streetview map vehicle:







The article this came from had a pretty funny conclusion as well:

Do no evil, but if you must do evil, then have the "delete evil" button close to hand.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01...mbi/page2.html

[dcarrigg]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

dcarrigg, I suspect you know better.

FIRE will continue to get the revenue stream of premiums, while they reduce the expenses paid out for claims.

Most of us now do not think to ask for reduced car insurance premiums as our expensive brand-new auto ages into a cheap and well-worn used car.
We just keep paying the original amount and bracing for increases.

At least auto insurance is one place where there is some competition. I had the same company for about a decade. They jacked up rates twice in one year for the same coverage on an older car. I was up to $950/year for liability. No accidents; no tickets.

So I shopped around. Cut the price in half for the same coverage to about $450/year (just liability and medical - I buy old low-mileage used cars with cash and keep them going).

Then, one year in, that company tried to increase the rate by 50%. Now I was at $700/year. The reason why? After talking to three different people I was informed that the first year was at an "introductory rate." I asked where it said that in any of the documents they gave me. Of course they couldn't point to it.

So I switched again to a third company. Back down to the $450/year plan. Same coverage as ever.

It has been two years with the third company. So far, so good.

It's hilarious how much the price for the same good can vary for no good reason at all.

And I think people put up with it because there's no tangible product.

People can very easily look at the price of a soda or bottle of water at the movies and say, "No way! I'm not paying 200% of the going rate!"

But they don't often seem to do the same thing with finance or insurance products.

[lektrode]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

....
It's hilarious how much the price for the same good can vary for no good reason at all.

.....

its especially hilarious in states with mandatory no-fault.

cross the border (from a state like MA) to a state like... uhhh... oh.. i dunno... say.. maybe... NH, where theres no mandatory nuthin? (and if yer an adult, you get to decide if you want to wear a seatbelt or not, and there's no fine if ya dont)

and its 1/2 the price.

wonder why that is?

[don]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

its especially hilarious in states with mandatory no-fault.

cross the border (from a state like MA) to a state like... uhhh... oh.. i dunno... say.. maybe... NH, where theres no mandatory nuthin? (and if yer an adult, you get to decide if you want to wear a seatbelt or not, and there's no fine if ya dont)

and its 1/2 the price.

wonder why that is?

Florida turns out to be a No-Fault (but ours) state. Good to see back, Brother Lek.

[GRG55]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

So you have achieved a complete recovery from the ailment that made you race gymkhana in sports cars you built by hand?

Long ago .

Once I graduated and started having to move around due to job requirements it become very difficult to find places to wrench on the car, and driving long distances from remote job sites to the city to compete on the weekends. I sold the car 3 years after I graduated but I still have all my tools. A partner and I have an all-original 1961 MGA roadster in storage, with knockoff wire wheels and the twin-cam engine, that is just begging for a frame-up restoration...something I plan to do in my "copious free time" some day. A beautiful "sunny Sunday tourer" for less than the price of a used Volkswagen. And that little 1600cc engine with the twin side-draft SU carbs won't use much fuel in this coming PCO era.

[lektrode]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

Florida turns out to be a No-Fault (but ours) state. Good to see back, Brother Lek.

+1 Brother don

y'oughta see how 'no fault' functions out here - where appx 20% have zilch (nor license, plates, registration, inspection, sobriety and drive like there's nobody else on the road but them, with a bad attitude/loud muffler to boot, typically with several outstanding warrants for all of the above, if not worse)

not only does insurance cost about double what it would cost in a state like NH, but then the $10000 (mandated min personal injury liability, which doesnt even cover a 1hour trip to the emergency room) threshold that must be passed before one can sue for above that is easily bypassed/exceeded by use of the right doctor and massage therapy - since afterall, 'soft tissue damage' cant be disproven - so what happens is there's a lot of rear-enders - and an ever funnier thing? - supposedly we have one of the lowest incidences of collision, with one of the highest payout ratios for bodily injury??? - now just how does THAT happen?

i'll tell you how it happens: the unintended consequences of state mandates, thats how.

and ya know whats even funnier still?
how the apologists want to blame the uninsured for driving up the rates - hows that ? - how can the uninsured drive up the rates for The Rest of US, since they DONT/CANT FILE CLAIMS?

methinks liability insurance should be a function of the drivers license, as in: want to get a drivers lic?
you MUST carry 100,000, abs min, in liability and show cross-referenceable proof, (which could be confirmed with the clik of a mouse on a webified dbase) to even apply for a license.

fail to pay the premiums and its canceled immediately, with notification to the DMV

just like the banks do it with homeowners insurance.

why is this one so hard for the political class to comprehend?

[Polish_Silver]

Main Consequence: Mass unemployment

This system will roll out very quickly, and wages of truck drivers, taxis, will drop quickly. Then there will be automated letter delivery, etc.

IT is "progress" but social costs will be huge in terms of displaced people.

I question whether human "drivers" will be needed at all.

For "emergencies" which are by definition rare, and hard to prepare for?

[shiny!]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

+1 Brother don

y'oughta see how 'no fault' functions out here - where appx 20% have zilch (nor license, plates, registration, inspection, sobriety and drive like there's nobody else on the road but them, with a bad attitude/loud muffler to boot, typically with several outstanding warrants for all of the above, if not worse)

not only does insurance cost about double what it would cost in a state like NH, but then the $10000 (mandated min personal injury liability, which doesnt even cover a 1hour trip to the emergency room) threshold that must be passed before one can sue for above that is easily bypassed/exceeded by use of the right doctor and massage therapy - since afterall, 'soft tissue damage' cant be disproven - so what happens is there's a lot of rear-enders - and an ever funnier thing? - supposedly we have one of the lowest incidences of collision, with one of the highest payout ratios for bodily injury??? - now just how does THAT happen?

i'll tell you how it happens: the unintended consequences of state mandates, thats how.

and ya know whats even funnier still?
how the apologists want to blame the uninsured for driving up the rates - hows that ? - how can the uninsured drive up the rates for The Rest of US, since they DONT/CANT FILE CLAIMS?

methinks liability insurance should be a function of the drivers license, as in: want to get a drivers lic?
you MUST carry 100,000, abs min, in liability and show cross-referenceable proof, (which could be confirmed with the clik of a mouse on a webified dbase) to even apply for a license.

fail to pay the premiums and its canceled immediately, with notification to the DMV

just like the banks do it with homeowners insurance.

why is this one so hard for the political class to comprehend?

I hear you.

In South Africa, liability insurance is priced into gasoline at the pump. Everyone who drives has insurance. Those who drive more use more gas, therefor pay more into the insurance fund. If you're injured or your vehicle is clobbered in an accident, your medical and repairs are covered through the insurance fund. If you want extra insurance you can buy it on the side.

[don]

Re: Auto-Driving: What Are the Consequences?

think the problem might be the insurance guys - FIRE