Q.Driverless cars - How does the future look for the enthusiast?

[URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/profile/11"]Kaiserketkar[/URL] The ad made me realise one thing. The self driving technology can be a boon for the specially abled who may not be able to be independent now. Though the self driving is not entirely needed, I feel as most most of the controls have already moved to drive by wire, we can let a customer customize the controls according to their convenience. A person who does not have proper mobility for the lower limbs can get alternative controls on the steering. I understand these have always been done earlier,but they were expensive and still restrictive. With the drive by wire technologies , we can look into much simpler inputs like finger touches. For all you know we can also control our cars like the touch screens. I don't have any issues in simplifying driving and make it more convenient. The automatic gear boxes, cruise controls are such systems which improve the convenience and still let us be in control. I still feel the human brain is required for driving if not always at least in urgent situations. Even aircrafts, where the autopilot technology started have still not moved landing to automatic ILS, in spite of all technologies being available for it. The ILS may land, but there have been situations of sensor errors, cross winds and other unexpected situation where pilot intelligence has come into use. Similarly, there may be millions of difference situation and responses which would still need some amount of human interference in autonomous cars.

[QUOTE_NODE]"[B]Originally posted by MotuSid"[/B] Audi's put out a new advertisement promoting its Audi Piloted Driving - I am not sure if I should be happy or sad about it. It seems to compare those who can't drive to dinosaurs. Anyway, check it out [/QUOTE_NODE] Audi adverts seem to be going quite tangent these days. This is the second ad, after the Quattro ad... "Predicting the weather, but seriously, why?" I guess I'm still the dinosaur, so I didn't quite get what that ad intended to portray. Yes, [URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/profile/40"]Praveen[/URL], I agree the need of the hour right now is to make cars run on alternative sources of fuel, more specifically renewable energy sources. That should be the priority. However on the same lines, considering the condition of city roads, not exactly driverless cars, but IOT based traffic management systems, more efficient public transport systems are just as important. And maybe, just maybe, driverless cars [let's make that driverless automobiles] might be one step towards that.

[USER="18"]MotuSid[/USER] It is quite a creative ad, I'd say. I hope it doesn't come to a situation where only a handful of cars would be sold to the actual enthusiasts while the rest of the 'mainstream' customers would be happy with driverless ones. I feel car companies should focus their R&D more on cars running alternative fuel sources and only after that is achieved should they go for driverless cars. What do you think?

[QUOTE=Arjun;n18096] I hope they don't mean that we drivers would also be extinct like the dinosaurs soon :([/QUOTE] The breed of people who love driving may soon become rare, there's no way they will go extinct. There will always be people looking for danger, thrill and adventure - all of which can be experienced when driving a car

[URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/profile/18"]MotuSid[/URL] I don't know what to make out from it,but it surely makes you smile. The T-Rex point of view used for an ad was quite cool. I hope they don't mean that we drivers would also be extinct like the dinosaurs soon :(

Audi's put out a new advertisement promoting its Audi Piloted Driving - I am not sure if I should be happy or sad about it. It seems to compare those who can't drive to dinosaurs. Anyway, check it out [video=youtube;I2j2-DqcPfM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2j2-DqcPfM[/video]

[URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/profile/11"]Kaiserketkar[/URL] Ford, the brand known for making great driver's cars has just betrayed us all. Ford has announced that it is working on a fully autonomous for mass volumes which can be used by ride sharing products to induct into their fleets. They are expected to be ready with their cars by 2021. They have already begun testing some of the technologies and would be working on improving and enhancing them for the final product. [IMG]https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/filedata/fetch?filedataid=8255&type=medium[/IMG] For now, they are using retrofitted Fusion Hybrids with LIDAR , RADARS and Cameras on boards. Initially Ford would use them to ferry people inside their campus by 2018 before going for further road tests. They believe they would have a better car than Google and Apple as they have a rich heritage making cars. They said the future stands in autonomous cars and that their focus would be changing from the number of cars they are selling to the number of services they are providing with their cars. They are focusing on the Ford Mobility platform to improve vehicle connectivity during mobility. [IMG]https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/filedata/fetch?filedataid=8256&type=medium[/IMG] Source [url]http://auto.ndtv.com/news/id-1458869?type=news&id=1458869&category=News[/url]

Uber launched it's self-driving pilot program in Pittsburth today with four self driving vehicles available to passengers. They're not completely autonomous though- initially two people, a driver and an engineer will be sitting in the front seats to intervene when required. [IMG]https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/filedata/fetch?filedataid=8254&type=medium[/IMG] Uber gave a ridealong to reporters and according to Reuters: "The Uber car safely - and for the most part smoothly - stopped at red lights and accelerated at green lights, travelled over a bridge, moved around a mail truck and slowed down for a driver opening a car door on a busy street. All without a person touching the controls. But the Uber driver and the engineer in the front two seats did intervene every few miles." Although there are quite a few companies in the race to introduce driverless cars, by integrating the concept with it's ride-services app, the Uber driverless car will probably be the first encounter for many people with this technology. And just for that Uber gets the advantage. [SIZE=9px][[URL="http://fortune.com/2016/09/14/uber-self-driving-cars-pittsburgh/"]Source[/URL]][/SIZE]

[URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/profile/6"]Roshun[/URL] yes. I agree. Even I don't want my office commute as boring as travelling in the office elevator. Even the few seconds spent in the elevator feel so long, I wonder how a person can spend a whole long commute in such a device. However, from what many predict, regular cars would go extinct like horse carts did many years back. I really wonder how it would survive in not so perfect conditions like flooded roads that we are having in India now days. If they have the option to give control to the driver and occasionally also offer an autopilot it would be desirable. But what I am worried is if the future would entirely remove the option to drive. We may have some stupid tribunals banning human driven cars claiming they are unsafe and forcing us to shift to autonomous cars.

[URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/profile/40"]Praveen[/URL] Driver and car insurance was one thing I had considered would be going. But, we also need to consider that car may be damaged by non accident means too. We have heard about accidents in parking lots while lifting the cars, trees falling on parked cars, and ofcourse flood damage. These things would keep the insurance industry going . We would be having ideas like the present jailbreak for iPhone. The cars would come from the showroom to follow traffic rules and speed limits and then we would have jail breakers who would enable us to get over these. A simple example is the BMW i3 which has a software limited fuel tank volume limiter to abide to emission norms. However, most users have hacked it and modified it to take in more fuel. In terms of accident, again the company would try to deny responsibility. We recently had Tesla accident which ended up in a fatality. The car was on autopilot mode and couldn't detect a truck as the truck was light grey in colour and almost the same colour as the background. Even though I expect a of teething issues, I feel driver less cars would be taking over eventually. The idea for using it for terrorism was not thought of earlier.It can certainly used as car bombs. It also makes me think, would we have unmanned tanks and aircrafts fighting wars ?

[USER="12"]Arjun[/USER] I feel some changes in the law will also have to be made. I am pretty sure autonomous cars won't be cent percent accident-free and when the inevitable happens, who will be blamed? And, what about insurance coverage? What about security? Hacking a car and strapping it with explosives doesn't sound like an impossible idea if the cars can drive themselves, does it? The thinking may be Hollywood-ish but give it a thought. What with the rampant violence and terrorism going on and considering the general scheme of things in our society, it doesn't seem too far-fetched. I think the engineering that goes on into the car's dynamics and driver involvement will also take a back seat. The suspension and other technologies used for comfort will take a priority. Who knows, one day passengers will be completely isolated from the outside world and the in-car entertainment and the travel time would be the only things that'd count in a car, don't you think?

[URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/profile/12"]Arjun[/URL] I, for one, am not in favour of autonomous driving. If that were the case, I would be using buses, metro and such public transport instead of my own car. Or even an Uber or Ola. I think autonomous driving will take the fun out of driving. Future cars will be electrics / hybrids, but they will still have that fun to drive factor. Once we start having autonomous cars, we might as well as forget the skill of driving. These things will just be appliances or devices that transport you from one point to another. Horizontal elevators or moving pods if you have to describe them. Sure, the importance of coffee makers and infotainment systems in the car will gain precedence in reviews like you said. But, at the end of the day, an enthusiast is going to be a really sad person, if all the fun of driving is taken away from him.

With 19 companies working hard to make Self Driving or Autonomous cars, it brings a question to my mind. What will be the impact of this on our life and our economy? [QUOTE_NODE]"[B]Originally posted by kaiserketkar"[/B] There’s not one, not even five, there’s 19 companies attempting to make driverless cars a reality by 2020. Here are the ones in the race: Tesla: Should be ready by 2018 Uber [collaborating with Volvo]: launching driverless taxis in Pittsburgh soon Toyota: Should have a driverless car by 2020 BMW: Project i20 should be a fully autonomous car ready by 2025 Volvo: Intends to use semi-autonomous features to make their cars deathproof by 2020 Nissan: Should have a driverless car by 2020 Ford: Stresses on affordable driverless cars by 2021 GM [partnering with Lyft]: ready to make driverless cars available on demand with the ride-sharing service Daimler Benz: Along with cars, aiming for driverless trucks by 2020 Audi: A7 already drove 550 miles driverless Honda: should offer a driverless car by 2020. Hyundai: Surprisingly behind the competition. Will have autonomous features by 2020, but fully driverless car only by 2030. PSA: Ready to have fully driverless cars by 2020 Besides the auto majors, there are quite a few tech companies also developing autonomous cars:Google: autonomous cars almost ready. Refinements and clarifications on regulations holding them back. Apple: rumored to be working on a driverless car, but like all things Apple, everything’s hush-hush. Bosch: has a host of driverless technologies, will have a fully autonomous car by 2020. Faraday Future: will have electric fully autonomous cars production ready by 2020. LeEco: The Chinese Tech company also developing a fully autonomous car the LeSee. Baidu, China: by 2018 With so many companies in the fray, the next decade is going to be the driverless decade! [/QUOTE_NODE] For now these are the popular ones. 1. Google Car [ATTACH=CONFIG]n17116[/ATTACH] 2. Apple Car [ATTACH=CONFIG]n17117[/ATTACH] 3. Tesla Model S [ATTACH=CONFIG]n17118[/ATTACH] 4. India's very own driverless Nano [ATTACH=CONFIG]n17120[/ATTACH] These are the positives that come to my mind. [LIST=1] [*]Lesser stress: We will be less stressed during our office commute. However, even though we would not be driving, being stuck in traffic is stressful too. I have experienced that even in a cab when I am not driving, being stationary is frustrating. [*]Safer roads: This would be a very long term thing, when we can expect all cars to be replaced by self-driving ones. In this scenario, all the cars would be following a fixed set of rules that they would not break, and we can be certain that we would have safer roads. [*]Saving time: You would not have to go to drop your kids to school. You can just seat them in the cars, and the car will drop them. However, this would take time to adopt and would work only if people start trusting the cars that much. [*]Faster delivery times: For long haul trucks, where we needed to schedule break hours for driver to sleep and have food, we can have trucks which can run longer continuously. Many accidents related to driver’s stress and falling asleep on the wheel can also be avoided. [*]Better utilization of commute time: As we need not drive, we can do something else while commuting. Like working on an article like this. [/LIST] Some negatives: [LIST=1] [*]Job loss: Many professional drivers will lose their jobs. From chauffeurs, taxi drivers, truck drivers may lose their jobs. The numbers I believe would be in millions. This would have a major impact on the economy. [*]Boredom: You would just become a passenger in the car. There will be a lot of boredom during travel. This however, can be avoided by managing to use the time for some other things. [*]The newer generation would never know the joy of driving. They would never need to learn to drive. [*]Those who use taxis/cabs and enjoy speaking to the driver would miss that. We would socialize lesser and would be busier with virtual socializing. [/LIST] This got me thinking how the future car reviews would be like if they are autonomous. [LIST=1] [*]No one would be able to comment on the handling of the car. [*]The comfort would be a major factor. [*]No steering, engine response, and gear shift feel. [*]A lot more observation would be needed to find the gear box behavior and how smooth the gearshifts are. [*]A lot of focus would be on the in car entertainment and the comfort and convenience features. [*]Number of charging points, food parcel tray, usb ports, would be major factors. [/LIST] Pour in with your ideas how the future would look like with the driver less cars. Related Posts : [URL="https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/posts/5373-driverless-tata-nano-made-in-india"]https://www.zigwheels.com/forum/post...-made-in-india[/URL]