Autonomous Vehicles in 2015

Autonomous Vehicles in 2015

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JapManEng

Original Poster:

7 posts

159 months

Friday 12th December 2014
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30316458

Coventry, Milton Keynes, SE London and Bristol all testing driver less cars in 2015?

Personally, I'm not convinced we'll see these live on public roads until at least the tail end of the trial (if indeed we do see them at all) but in my opinion, it's very important that if this is proven to be successful, car manufacturers must not get excited or carried away with this. Let me explain:

Vehicles should be made as they are at the moment and given the option to be automatically driven - not an automatically driven vehicle that can be manually overridden. In my experience, a manual process given to a machine or computer usually turns out better (complex number crunching for example is better done on a computer than it is with a piece of paper and a pen) but, it seldom works the other way around.

We've seen state side that cars can be programmed to drive themselves. I can see how this would be beneficial - making a long, boring drive on dull, uneventful motorway better for example. But you'll want the option to turn this "auto-drive" mode off when you reach a nice quiet section of mountain road. When you do switch this off, you want a to be left with a car to drive, rather than something that doesn't even resemble a car in terms of feel or handling.


Nihkasilma

4 posts

113 months

Wednesday 7th January 2015
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I think we will see this turn out to be very similar to how "Minority report" thought it would be. Cars which can take over in set areas; as you state Motorways. They will never fully become autonomous - as I'm sure this will affect the Americans rights/constitution in some way.

Laurel Green

30,770 posts

231 months

Thursday 8th January 2015
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Will these cars be allowed to take one's test in? On auto, obviously. yikes

cianha

2,165 posts

196 months

Thursday 8th January 2015
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We'll probably end up with a spectrum of "Automatomobiles" (to use Asimov's term), from totally autonomous Johnny Cabs, to self driven cars with optional self driving capacity.

The real test will be what happens after the first accident involving a self driven car.