No More Driving!

[Riley P]

Looks like we won't have to go through the pain of having to drive these Corvettes ourselves in the future!

I realize this article is about Tesla, but it's one step closer to having all manufactures make fully autonomous vehicles. Which kind of scares me a bit as I like driving but sometimes when on the highway, it would be nice to be able to take in the scenery properly or go on the forum for a bit or catch up on some work.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tesla-autopilot-test-drive-1.3291201

 

[Jeffer2013]

I thought that was why one brings the wifey along in case we wish to see the scenery in or outside of the car


\jeff

 

[Black 03 Z06]

Riley, I cannot imagine the stress of sitting there while the car drove itself. Like the nervous passenger, sometimes with good reason, slamming on the brakes on the non existent pedal. Watch the level of stress related heart attacks skyrocket. Everyone will be second guessing just what the car is doing. I wonder if computers can egg each other on into stoplight drag races, deadman curve adventures and road rage.

I think I would give up going anywhere.

 

[Riley P]

Hahaha. That would sort of be funny if "Rival" cars started to race each other. As opposed to current street racing, I imagine it would be a bit safer as other cars on the road would know a street race is going on and wouldn't get in the way.
But seriously, it would be nerve wracking to let the car drive. In the Tesla article, it states you can set the top speed. I think I would set it a 30 km/hr first, then if it works well, move up to 40, then 50, then 80, then highway speeds, then if it keeps working well and I get desensitized to the car driving itself, time for the automated street racing!

 

[Nik]

Can't wait for the mods on autonomous cars, 'reckless mode' here we come.

 

[smackYYZ]

They are getting good!

Audi has been demoing their self drive on tracks, hitting 149MPH!

 

[Riley P]

That is nuts. So, will there be a new racing series for cars without drivers coming up?

 

[smackYYZ]

BMW also has had a system they are working on for a while.


But these systems are all fine when they have an open track. Would like to see 10 or 12 of tehm launch from a start and see what would happen! Mayhem I hope!

 

[Rruuff Day]

Not this guy.... Not a chance. computers glitch. complicated or even simple programing sometimes just does weird things. This happens on all my computers and other than maybe losing a bit of work, no biggie. A glitch on the highway while your admiring the scenery inside or outside, there's no time to say "hmmmmm.... wonder why it did that". And what about the computer hacker factor. That's even closer to a real probability now that we have 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspots in our cars. The list of things that OnStar told me they can do remotely on the C7 now is scary. No wireless connection is truly safe. If they can hack into Nasa or the Nations defense department, how hard is it to hack into OnStar and set someone's airbag off just for a devious prank. Give a program steering and the rest of the controls For the first how many decades will the car still be dealing with the human factor. The driver in the next lane on the highway that is still in control and you just have that gut feeling that they are going to do something stupid and swerve out into your lane when you are side by side with them and there's only a guard rail to swerve into...... or the patch of black ice on Hwy 2 when the rest of the road is clear... will the autocar see it... or does it see the car ahead that fishtailed a bit when he hit it? Maybe the gravel truck ahead of you that throws a baseball size rock from between it's tires that is zeroing in on your windshield? Will the autocar guess which way to swerve to avoid it (real experience). I'm guessing that the developers may have taken these and every other possibility into consideration but I don't really want to have to guess at the ones they didn't. Thanks but I will stop when I want to admire the scenery any more than a quick look... and face it.... there's not much room in a vette to admire the inside scenery properly.... Even if this becomes commonplace while they still let me have a license, I will continue to drive myself... ok... call me an OCD control freak.... Wow.... that quick reply turned into a bit of a paranoid rant...hahahahahaha

Eric

 

[Gordon Skerratt]

Wonder who gets charged if there is an accident.

A friend flies an Airbus for a living and he says the most common words in the cockpit "What's it doing now" kind of scary.

 

[Riley P]

Volvo said that they would take full responsibility of any accidents while their cars are under autopilot.

That is quite the rant Led! And understandable. I want to continue driving and I like driving but don't get a lot of driving enjoyment from a lot of the long boring straights in Saskatchewan so autopilot would be nice for some places.
As planes haven't fallen out of the sky on autopilot, I really hope there's enough redundancy in the vehicles systems to keep them from having glitches.
As for hackers, that is scary. Not sure if we'll have to start buying antivirus for our cars each year or what.

 

[Keith Tedford]

I see the problems that we have had with home computers and computers in cars. Bought a new Apple computer for the wife earlier this year thinking that they were the greatest thing since sliced bread and all would be well. In less than four months, the hard drive died. I certainly don't want to be riding in one of these self driving vehicles any time soon. Trucking companies and such will love it. Look at all the wages that they will save. Of course, the vehicle manufacturers will assume ALL liability in the event of an accident. I wasn't driving the car. They will have figured out some way to weasel their way out of that one before full production begins.

 

[Rruuff Day]

Volvo said that they would take full responsibility of any accidents while their cars are under autopilot.

That is quite the rant Led! And understandable. I want to continue driving and I like driving but don't get a lot of driving enjoyment from a lot of the long boring straights in Saskatchewan so autopilot would be nice for some places.
As planes haven't fallen out of the sky on autopilot, I really hope there's enough redundancy in the vehicles systems to keep them from having glitches.
As for hackers, that is scary. Not sure if we'll have to start buying antivirus for our cars each year or what.

Well Riley, you may be right. And I can also relate to the long boring straight roads in Saskatchewan, but that being said, it does raise another question relative to yours and our 'straight but not so pristine' roads.... will the autocar be advanced enough to sense and avoid the humongous potholes too? There's not a lot of rubber between the asphalt and the rims on our babies.... hmmmmm... Nd besides...

Eric

 

[Riley P]

You mean holes like this? And, if the cars use the lines on the road to determine if they're in the right lane, what would they do when lines get messed like this!? Gotta love Highway 51 in Saskatchewan...... I'm so glad I didn't rip a tire off the car.

 

[smackYYZ]

Not this guy.... Not a chance. computers glitch. complicated or even simple programing sometimes just does weird things. This happens on all my computers and other than maybe losing a bit of work, no biggie. A glitch on the highway while your admiring the scenery inside or outside, there's no time to say "hmmmmm.... wonder why it did that". And what about the computer hacker factor. That's even closer to a real probability now that we have 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspots in our cars. The list of things that OnStar told me they can do remotely on the C7 now is scary. No wireless connection is truly safe. If they can hack into Nasa or the Nations defense department, how hard is it to hack into OnStar and set someone's airbag off just for a devious prank. Give a program steering and the rest of the controls For the first how many decades will the car still be dealing with the human factor. The driver in the next lane on the highway that is still in control and you just have that gut feeling that they are going to do something stupid and swerve out into your lane when you are side by side with them and there's only a guard rail to swerve into...... or the patch of black ice on Hwy 2 when the rest of the road is clear... will the autocar see it... or does it see the car ahead that fishtailed a bit when he hit it? Maybe the gravel truck ahead of you that throws a baseball size rock from between it's tires that is zeroing in on your windshield? Will the autocar guess which way to swerve to avoid it (real experience). I'm guessing that the developers may have taken these and every other possibility into consideration but I don't really want to have to guess at the ones they didn't. Thanks but I will stop when I want to admire the scenery any more than a quick look... and face it.... there's not much room in a vette to admire the inside scenery properly.... Even if this becomes commonplace while they still let me have a license, I will continue to drive myself... ok... call me an OCD control freak.... Wow.... that quick reply turned into a bit of a paranoid rant...hahahahahaha

Eric

Yes the computerization of our cars is getting extremely complicated.

I'm a living example, my 2011 Jetta TDI DSG, has been at the dealer now for 45 days straight and the issue started in August. The issue is occasionally ( usually within 5 days), once the car is warmed up and you turn left the system looses communication and the transmission goes into safe mode, which causes the DSG transmission to disengage the clutch, thereby loosing all propulsion. Not a good thing when your turning left with oncoming traffic, all you can do is concentrate on getting out of the way of oncoming traffic. The only way to get drive back is to reboot the system, which means coming to a complete stop, putting the car in park, shutting down and restarting the car. Just to make it more interesting, once it does it once, it will do it on almost every left hand turn unless you don't use any power through the turn and your going slowly.

I have no idea how much VW has spent trying to figure this out, they have sent VW Tech assist engineers out to work many days ( at least 6 man days ) on it, and are continually getting the dealership to try different things. They've replaced the rack and pinion ( since there is a sensor inside it), driven it for 100's of km with data recording equipment. They've detached all the wiring harnesses and test them and found one possibly bad wire which they repaired and are now piece by piece are replacing some of the networking wiring (canbus) between modules and possible other failure points. So right now they are waiting on new shifting linkage and a TCM canbus overlay.

It's like a ghost in the machine.

They have given me a free loaner while this is going on, and I've inquired when they are going to put the snow tires on my loaner for the winter!

To top it off, it is also one of the diesels which is involved with the whole scandal to top it off.

Oh I long for the days when our cars were simpler.

 

[Riley P]

Sounds like your car has Derek Zoolander issues.

But, hopefully they do get it figured out. Funny how we don't really need auto mechanics as much anymore as we more need computer techs to fix our cars.

 

[12cents]

Hi Riley,

You mean holes like this? And, if the cars use the lines on the road to determine if they're in the right lane, what would they do when lines get messed like this!? Gotta love Highway 51 in Saskatchewan...... I'm so glad I didn't rip a tire off the car.

That would qualify as a good road in places here (except of course it soooooo flat). We have secondary highways that I won't take the wife's car on, let alone the Corvette. And lines? What are those? Some roads here haven't seen a line in years. Now that would be interesting for these cars to handle. What about gravel roads?

 

[Rruuff Day]

You mean holes like this? And, if the cars use the lines on the road to determine if they're in the right lane, what would they do when lines get messed like this!? Gotta love Highway 51 in Saskatchewan...... I'm so glad I didn't rip a tire off the car.
View attachment 3547 View attachment 3548 View attachment 3549 View attachment 3550 View attachment 3551 View attachment 3552 View attachment 3553

hehe... yup... roads like that... I don't see 51 much but I know when I leave Red Deer and get on Hwy 12 east and hit the sask border, I cringe. And that's with my truck. Wouldn't take the vette on that road.

 

[Rruuff Day]

Yes the computerization of our cars is getting extremely complicated.

I'm a living example, my 2011 Jetta TDI DSG, has been at the dealer now for 45 days straight and the issue started in August. The issue is occasionally ( usually within 5 days), once the car is warmed up and you turn left the system looses communication and the transmission goes into safe mode, which causes the DSG transmission to disengage the clutch, thereby loosing all propulsion. Not a good thing when your turning left with oncoming traffic, all you can do is concentrate on getting out of the way of oncoming traffic. The only way to get drive back is to reboot the system, which means coming to a complete stop, putting the car in park, shutting down and restarting the car. Just to make it more interesting, once it does it once, it will do it on almost every left hand turn unless you don't use any power through the turn and your going slowly.

I have no idea how much VW has spent trying to figure this out, they have sent VW Tech assist engineers out to work many days ( at least 6 man days ) on it, and are continually getting the dealership to try different things. They've replaced the rack and pinion ( since there is a sensor inside it), driven it for 100's of km with data recording equipment. They've detached all the wiring harnesses and test them and found one possibly bad wire which they repaired and are now piece by piece are replacing some of the networking wiring (canbus) between modules and possible other failure points. So right now they are waiting on new shifting linkage and a TCM canbus overlay.

It's like a ghost in the machine.

They have given me a free loaner while this is going on, and I've inquired when they are going to put the snow tires on my loaner for the winter!

To top it off, it is also one of the diesels which is involved with the whole scandal to top it off.

Oh I long for the days when our cars were simpler.

Uggghhh.... Smack... that is just plain nasty... there are days when I miss the days of the 750 Holley and the chevy turboglide tranny....if I was experiencing your troubles, this would be one of those days. Good Luck.... I don't think I could ever turn left again....