EV cars, would you, wouldn't you?

[durbster]

kambites said:

The day will certainly come when they are no longer used for practical transport; I think there will always be a few weird enthusiasts who keep them on the road for fun.

Yep, agree with that. If people are happy to keep hundred year old steam trains running for fun then I can well see petrol cars being the same in a few generations time. We're a nostalgic nation.

I can't wait for fully automated cars to take over from everyone who hates driving, as it'll make the roads safer and more enjoyable for those of us who love it.

[otolith]

I think the ability to use IC engined cars on the road will be pretty restricted - certainly I can see them being completely excluded from cities in the medium term.

[CorvetteConvert]

ORD said:

CorvetteConvert said:

Correct, i had to eat my words about EVs after i had a drive in a Tesla and after i used a Leaf as a courtesy car for a few days. ORD, the Tesla was amazing fun and my regular car was a 996 turbo at the time.
Heel and toe is all very well but less and less relevant on our public roads.
Many modern auto/dsg 'boxes are as much fun as a manual imo and the truth is they change cogs quicker than we can.

Ah. We like very different things about driving Explains it. I heel and toe to the shops (to use an old PH cliche). I also disagree completely re dual clutch boxes - quicker but nothing like as much fun; and torque converter boxes should not be allowed in any car that is supposed to be driven for enjoyment.

(As a final nail in the coffin of us having nothing in common, I dont like turbos, even 911 Turbos.)

Oh well, you only like about 30 of my cars then!!

[mat205125]

kambites said:

Devil2575 said:

One day the only cars with manual gear boxes and internal combustion engines will be in museums.

The day will certainly come when they are no longer used for practical transport; I think there will always be a few weird enthusiasts who keep them on the road for fun. Same as with things like steam powered cars today, really.

We'll be racing them around Goodwood, fuelled by a fermented blend of vegetables and sunflower oil.

[Guvernator]

durbster said:

I can't wait for fully automated cars to take over from everyone who hates driving, as it'll make the roads safer and more enjoyable for those of us who love it.

See I love the thought of automated cars as a lot of people aren't interested in driving, just getting from A to B so this would remove those people who would rather be texting\reading\checking there make-up from being a danger on the road, hell I'd even make use of it when returning from the pub.

HOWEVER I can't realistically see how they'd manage to mix autonomous cars with self driven ones on the same road. Cars driven by logic mixed with cars driven by irrational humans frightens me, we are a long way from getting a computer to work out what a random human might decide to do while driving.

[kambites]

Guvernator said:

Cars driven by logic mixed with cars driven by irrational humans frightens me,

More than cars driven by irrational humans mixed with cars driven by other irrational humans?

[CorvetteConvert]

Hey ORD, on a lighter note, tell me you wouldn't like a V8 with 7,011 naturally aspirated cee cees, a sports car that weighs just 1,450 kgs (or the same as a Golf), with a 6-speed manual gearbox, 566 bhp and over 500 lb/ft at your disposal. Which revs cleanly from 1,500 rpm to 7,000 rpm! 0-100 in 8.5 seconds and 200+ mph up top.
Mind you, if you don't like Porsche 911 turbos, one of the finest sports cars ever sold to the public, then i am not sure if anything anywhere will ever float your boat, never mind a Tesla or Leaf!

[pherlopolus]

Guvernator said:

HOWEVER I can't realistically see how they'd manage to mix autonomous cars with self driven ones on the same road. Cars driven by logic mixed with cars driven by irrational humans frightens me, we are a long way from getting a computer to work out what a random human might decide to do while driving.

Already happening in america, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_ca... old news now...

[kambites]

CorvetteConvert said:

Mind you, if you don't like Porsche 911 turbos, one of the finest sports cars ever sold to the public, then i am not sure if anything anywhere will ever float your boat, never mind a Tesla or Leaf!

I don't like 911 turbos and I'd love a Tesla.

[ORD]

CorvetteConvert said:

Hey ORD, on a lighter note, tell me you wouldn't like a V8 with 7,011 naturally aspirated cee cees, a sports car that weighs just 1,450 kgs (or the same as a Golf), with a 6-speed manual gearbox, 566 bhp and over 500 lb/ft at your disposal. Which revs cleanly from 1,500 rpm to 7,000 rpm! 0-100 in 8.5 seconds and 200+ mph up top.
Mind you, if you don't like Porsche 911 turbos, one of the finest sports cars ever sold to the public, then i am not sure if anything anywhere will ever float your boat, never mind a Tesla or Leaf!

It certainly has a lot of the things I like! Perhaps a bit powerful (in particular, torquey) for my tastes, but otherwise great. I absolutely love the engine in the E90 M3, love the 2.7 in the 981 Cayman / Boxster and love the 3.8 in my car; but I have never liked a turbo engine - I find all the effortless shove a bit dull once you get used to the thrill of the sheer pace. I also have plenty of time for V8s in GTs, but I usually prefer 6s in sports cars (although that V8 sounds more towards the M3 end of the spectrum - revvy like a 6 rather than lazy).

[Guvernator]

Didn't realise we where so advanced in getting automatic cars to react quickly enough to irrational human behaviour, I thought we were a ways off that kind of processing power so that is interesting news.

However as suggested above, the problem will then become, do we allow "unsafe" humans" to drive? I can rapidly see humans being banned from driving in the next 50 years.

[kambites]

I think the big problem with autonomous cars is that someone has to make a conscious decision on the correct course of action in difficult situations when programming the car; there is arguably a large difference, both legally and morally, between making a snap decision on whether to run over a cyclist or hit a lorry coming the other way and sitting in an office programming a computer to make the same decision.

[SteveSteveson]

kambites said:

I think the big problem with autonomous cars is that someone has to make a conscious decision on the correct course of action in difficult situations when programming the car; there is arguably a large difference, both legally and morally, between making a snap decision on whether to run over a cyclist or hit a lorry coming the other way and sitting in an office programming a computer to make the same decision.

The thing with autonomous cars is that they should never get themselves in to that situation in the first place. Most accidents happen when people don't leave enough space to avoid the accident and drive to close or too fast or don't concentrate. Automated cars won't do that. In the situation given the automated car would avoid being that close to the cyclist that the situation would arise of being in the path of a lorry, even if the lorry made some swerve across the road.

[pherlopolus]

yes Autonomous cars will have much better situational awareness, be able to see 360deg 100% of the time and never get tired.

My Qashqai is supposed to be able to tell when the car 2 cars in front is stopping, even when the car in front hasn't started to stop yet. All it does is bingbong at you to warn you, same with blind spot warnings (although dont work so well in rain being camera driven)

[kambites]

SteveSteveson said:

The thing with autonomous cars is that they should never get themselves in to that situation in the first place.

They should be able to avoid the vast majority of such situations, but there's no way they could avoid all of them.

[otolith]

SteveSteveson said:

kambites said:

I think the big problem with autonomous cars is that someone has to make a conscious decision on the correct course of action in difficult situations when programming the car; there is arguably a large difference, both legally and morally, between making a snap decision on whether to run over a cyclist or hit a lorry coming the other way and sitting in an office programming a computer to make the same decision.

The thing with autonomous cars is that they should never get themselves in to that situation in the first place. Most accidents happen when people don't leave enough space to avoid the accident and drive to close or too fast or don't concentrate. Automated cars won't do that. In the situation given the automated car would avoid being that close to the cyclist that the situation would arise of being in the path of a lorry, even if the lorry made some swerve across the road.

And I think that in a situation in which something else is going to hit it, and it cannot avoid it without hitting something else, it will maintain course and brake hard. I think the "van full of kittens or Nazi war criminal on the pavement" moral choices are above an EV's pay grade.

[kambites]

otolith said:

And I think that in a situation in which something else is going to hit it, and it cannot avoid it without hitting something else, it will maintain course and brake hard. I think the "van full of kittens or Nazi war criminal on the pavement" moral choices are above an EV's pay grade.

I suspect the final solution will be made on the basis of legal imperative rather than common sense. Basically "what is definitely not going to get us sued". Interestingly, that could well mean that cars make difference decisions in different countries.

[Terminator X]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Is it really a future that the majority want though. I'm horrified at the thought of it.

TX.

[otolith]

Terminator X said:

Is it really a future that the majority want though. I'm horrified at the thought of it.

Why?

I mean, I don't want my hobby taken away either, but rationally, do you love driving enough to accept the preventable deaths of a couple of thousand people a year in the UK or over a million worldwide?

Manually operated cars will be on the road for a good while yet, I think.

[Devil2575]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I don't think they'll need to be banned, in the same way that they haven't banned people from driving to work in a Steam traction engine or riding in a coach and horses. It happens so infrequently that there is no need to stop people doing it.