Bear Down Wildcats

Good news for Tucson in my view. TuSimple LLC, a Chinese start-up is locating an engineering facility in the Old Pueblo near Grant and the 10. It'll specifically develop self driving truck systems using a pathway between Nogales(transshipping location) through Tucson to Phoenix. Five loaded trucks driving at "Level 4"(an "aversion only" driver inside, otherwise the truck is autonomous) scheduled for 2017/18; then within 5 years 25 trucks driving at Level 5----no one inside.

http://tucson.com/business/developer-of ... e2f89.html" target="_blank

Most in the emerging autonomous vehicle industry project fully autonomous Level 5 cars within 5 years. Wuh! You guys feel you're going to be ready to let your car drive itself with you and your fam inside in 5 years? Ever? Progress, efficiency/convenience, jobs-----or too dangerous?

Uber and Waymo have self driving cars in Phoenix.

Uber had a crash some time back, but think they resumed. Waymo is looking for volunteers in the East Valley to ride along.

EOCT wrote:Good news for Tucson in my view. TuSimple LLC, a Chinese start-up is locating an engineering facility in the Old Pueblo near Grant and the 10. It'll specifically develop self driving truck systems using a pathway between Nogales(transshipping location) through Tucson to Phoenix. Five loaded trucks driving at "Level 4"(an "aversion only" driver inside, otherwise the truck is autonomous) scheduled for 2017/18; then within 5 years 25 trucks driving at Level 5----no one inside.

http://tucson.com/business/developer-of ... e2f89.html" target="_blank

Most in the emerging autonomous vehicle industry project fully autonomous Level 5 cars within 5 years. Wuh! You guys feel you're going to be ready to let your car drive itself with you and your fam inside in 5 years? Ever? Progress, efficiency/convenience, jobs-----or too dangerous?

Sounds good. Can we just sit in the back seat with a cooler full of beer and crack them open all the way to the arena?

Merkin wrote:Uber and Waymo have self driving cars in Phoenix.

Uber had a crash some time back, but think they resumed. Waymo is looking for volunteers in the East Valley to ride along.

Thanks, Merk. I'd read this about Phoenix and several other cities. I believe they all have a trained human "operator"(not a customer of Uber or Waymo) who has the responsibility to take avertive action whenever he/she feels necessary. It would be terrific to know the statistical driving experience of the various sponsors of self driving engineering, but I'd guess the sponsors keep that close to their vests and share only with the regulative agencies involved so as not to spook the population.

Here are the various classifications regulatory authorities use for levels of autonomous driving experimentation:

Level Name
0 No Driving Automation
1 Driver Assistance
2 Partial Driving Automation
3 Conditional Driving Automation
4 High Driving Automation
5 Full Driving Automation

I'd guess the Phoenix situation is level 3 because I've read that current experimenters are rare at level 4. The Tesla experimentation, one of the most advanced, is estimated at levels 2 and 3. Only level 5(estimated 3-6 years in the future) experimentation can be conducted without a vehicle without a person inside.

There's a large group of domestic and international sponsors. They're all vehicle manufacturers and most are doing their own thing and using different companies as partners for their engineering development of software and hardware. Interesting.

My questions to any Bear Down readers reading my drollery is to ask if you think you'd buy and drive the full-on automated car in the future, even with your family inside. Attitudinal surveys currently find mostly "worriers" and a large group of "Never!!s and "Hell no!!"s.

Engineer's viewpoints would be especially interesting, huh?

The vast majority of car accidents are human error. Autonomous cars will be a big jump forward in auto safety but we have a ways to go. We are buying a Tesla Model 3 within the next 6 months but will probably pass on the Enhanced auto pilot because it costs $5000. It's another $3000 for the full self driving. Many of the features aren't available yet but they should be soon. I would love to get it but that is more than we want to spend. When the technology is more mature and the costs come down, I will definitely use it.

I have seen the Waymo vans in Mesa and they have 2 drivers. I think the interesting part of this technology is all of the deep neural network learning. Over time they will get smarter and smarter and be really more effective than humans. I know Tesla has committed to driving a car autonomously from S.F. to NYC before the end of the year.

Watch this video from the Tesla site and it gives you a good idea how many decisions the autopilot has to make. We take it for granite that we are making all of these decisions when we drive. Love the self parking at the end.

I think the most interesting issue is who will own the data. To maximally exploit the potential efficiency gains of self-driving cars, they're going to have to be networked. Records of every trip made by every "driver" would be extremely valuable, and a serious privacy issue.

Pretty sure Tesla is already recording every trip. I'm not sure if you can opt out or not.

I'm pretty sure killing off people with self-driving cars is Skynet's backup plan.

84Cat wrote:Pretty sure Tesla is already recording every trip. I'm not sure if you can opt out or not.

84, I'd guess they're recording every trip to capture data during the time the driver has the automated feature on. And learn from that data. I really liked your earlier comment "I think the interesting part of this technology is all of the deep neural network learning."

So fascinating this future world(make that "now" world) of AI and machine learning! I'm an artist by avocation so I love the non-linear world. But to model non-linear relationships using powerful computing to examine and learn from deeper and deeper networks of data----like an auto would encounter driving by itself----and then make safe decisions-----wow! As an idiot MBA, it passes way over my head---but I'm fascinated.

Can those wacky engineers even get us to convincingly safe cars? And as we Bear Downers think about where we seem to be with our current engineering investigation would we be willing to put our kids and ourselves in these machines to cruise over to a hoops game in the future? With hands off the steering wheel and foot off the brakes?

For the geeks with a Tesla bias:

first person in history to be killed by a self driving car

How many people were killed today by human drivers. I can't wait to be able to go out drinking and having MY car drive me home. Yeah, I know I can take an Uber but it is a pain in the ass to deal with going back the next day to get my car. I'd rather just drink at home. I would trust an autonomous car over the average distracted driver. In my 30 min commute to and from work, I guesstimate 50% of people are on their phone.

Hot take: Bitch jaywalked

Abide by the guidelines and grids of the road and live.

Might sound callous, but I’ve almost run into/over more asshole jaywalkers in my life where I’m not at fault, but I’m the one who has to live with the guilt, and that’s fucking bullshit.

JMarkJohns wrote:Hot take: Bitch jaywalked

Abide by the guidelines and grids of the road and live.

Might sound callous, but I’ve almost run into/over more asshole jaywalkers in my life where I’m not at fault, but I’m the one who has to live with the guilt, and that’s fucking bullshit.

same here. Tucson is the US capital of jaywalking it seems. I've almost plastered dozens of people throughout the years darting through traffic.

We need to treat jaywalkers like the public scofflaws they are. They welcome accidents. The invite injury and even death.

This woman didn’t deserve to die. But she didn’t do her part to prevent it.

I saw a woman weaving her way through 7 lanes and 45 mph traffic pushing a goddamned shopping cart with two kids in it.

Where the fuck is the officer making an example of her? That’s far worse than driving 55 in a 45.

Testing of self-driving trucks moves forward in Tucson after Uber fatality


http://tucson.com/business/testing-of-s ... aign=share" target="_blank

Good. we need these tests to move forward.

I'd love to see in my lifetime a highway full of self-driving cars.

PieceOfMeat wrote:Good. we need these tests to move forward.

I'd love to see in my lifetime a highway full of self-driving cars.

When I was a kid in the 1960s I used to think that cars should be self driving back then. My advanced technical mind was thinking putting flexible bumpers on the cars along with guides on the ground like Autopia at Disneyland.

I've heard worse ideas

This presentation is mind blowing

For me it’s about old and disabled people. They shouldn’t have to be shut-ins because they can no longer drive. I do hope there are real breakthroughs in the short term. My mom can’t really drive anymore (Parkinson’s) and it’s only a matter of time until my dad won’t be able to do so either. I’m cheering for whichever company can achieve it as safely and quickly as possible.

ByJoveByJingle wrote:For me it’s about old and disabled people. They shouldn’t have to be shut-ins because they can no longer drive. I do hope there are real breakthroughs in the short term. My mom can’t really drive anymore (Parkinson’s) and it’s only a matter of time until my dad won’t be able to do so either. I’m cheering for whichever company can achieve it as safely and quickly as possible.

The potential efficiencies of driverless vehicles integrated with sophisticated traffic management are mind-boggling. Could save the American metropolis of the future.

Still, I dunno. I'm sorta tyrannized by experience. All my/our really scary, close calls were resolved by maneuvers I doubt an autonomous vehicle could make. My wife is a stone cold boss behind the wheel. She once landed a chopper with a dead engine, with no damage to ship or crew. Personally, I want her calling the ball. Statistically and big number-wise, I should probably want otherwise.

dovecanyoncat wrote:The potential efficiencies of driverless vehicles integrated with sophisticated traffic management are mind-boggling. Could save the American metropolis of the future.

Still, I dunno. I'm sorta tyrannized by experience. All my/our really scary, close calls were resolved by maneuvers I doubt an autonomous vehicle could make. My wife is a stone cold boss behind the wheel. She once landed a chopper with a dead engine, with no damage to ship or crew. Personally, I want her calling the ball. Statistically and big number-wise, I should probably want otherwise.

Self driving cars and traffic management would make everything amazing...but only if 100% of all traffic on the road is self driving and part of the management system. If there's even 1 human driver on the road it could mess it all up.

I’m gonna get a classic car with no tech so when the grid goes down I can still get around.

A Series 1 E Type fastback, please:

One of my close friends from U of A works for Luminar who is on the fore front of really cool laser technology to help with driveless cars.

Check them out here and bunch of information on their technology. Its really interesting

https://www.luminartech.com/technology/index.html" target="_blank

Merkin wrote:

This is all so closer than I realized prior to yesterday.

Took a spin in my buddy’s Tesla yesterday. Wow oh wow.

I’m really surprised at why Tesla is having so many difficulties, the tech and engineering in those vehicles are impressive. They should be killing the coupe market.

Like it’s practically already autonomous if you tap the wheel every few minutes

It's still less autonomous than you think. The software still has a hard time dealing with random encounters and things out of the ordinary. Like a sudden lane closure or unpredicted construction or other things being in the way still have the car kick over control to driver.

Nova explores self-driving cars

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/loo ... d=76310526" target="_blank

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/1688 ... -show-2018" target="_blank

General Motors plans to mass-produce self-driving cars that lack traditional controls like steering wheels and pedals by 2019, the company announced today. Its a bold declaration for the future of driving from one of the country’s Big Three automakers, and one that is sure to shake things up for the industry as the annual Detroit Auto Show kicks off next week.

The car will be the fourth generation of its driverless, all-electric Chevy Bolts, which are currently being tested on public roads in San Francisco and Phoenix. And when they roll off the assembly line of GM’s manufacturing plant in Orion, Michigan, they’ll be deployed as ride-hailing vehicles in a number of cities.

A little off topic, but germane to today's car tech: I've been shopping for a hybrid SUV to replace our hybrid sedan in order to go on the average dirt road more than just an accidental distance, and I find the level of tech in Toyota candidates problematic. The consumer demand for synching the car computer to ones phone, combined with the processing needs of the car itself cause today's cars to be battery hogs. If that hoggyness is further combined with hybrid systems, which have smaller 12 volt batteries, there's frequent 12v battery death for a number of reasons. For the life of me I don't share peoples' need to run a car via a phone or to have 24/7 car-phone chat/updates detailing head pressures or port temps or when this fan has turned off or if in the middle of my sleep cycle one tire has lost 1 pound of air pressure. It's getting to the point that people have to keep their fobs in Faraday bags in order to keep their cars from stalking their phones and draining the battery.

Driverless cars are way down my list of must-haves. I want a robust, efficient and dependable vehicle with good safety systems and AWD.

Merkin wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 7:39 am

I knew this story was bs since you can't drive a Tesla without someone being in the driver's seat

The first crewless electric cargo ship begins its maiden voyage this year


https://www.engadget.com/yara-birkeland ... 1hl_sqMRs0

That constitutes grounds to shoot the car in the back, right?

Saw this commercial last night during the OSU game.

Driving for almost 50 years, can't imagine ever letting go of the wheel.