[msb-alumni] Driverless Cars Aren't Taking Over the Roads Yet, but Progress Is Clear
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2020 17:16:22 -0500
BlankON TECH. Driverless Cars Aren't Taking Over the Roads Yet, but Progress Is
Clear. By
Shira Ovide.
The dream of computer-driven cars taking over the roads remains a fantasy. But
slowly, and
maybe more modestly than tech idealists imagined, driverless vehicles are
getting real.
After a period of funk that included a pandemic-related freeze on road tests,
driverless car
developments have been coming thick and fast in the last few weeks.
Waymo, which is part of the same company as Google, recently expanded its
driverless taxi
service in Phoenix -- and without a person in the driver's seat in case
something goes
wrong.
General Motors' driverless car company will also soon remove human minders from
its
self-driving test cars in San Francisco.
Tesla has said it will soon turn on software features that shift many of its
cars on the
road into driverless test vehicles.
For now, driverless cars operate in isolated cases. It will be many years
before they are
reliable, affordable and widespread in all road and weather conditions. And I
continue to
worry that optimism about driverless cars will make people and policymakers
avoid hard
choices on inefficient and road clogging transportation and hold out instead
for
computer-piloted vehicles to solve everything -- which they won't.
But progress is progress.
Recent developments point to promise for driverless car technology if we stay
realistic
about what it can and can't do.
Oliver Cameron, the chief executive of the driverless car company Voyage, said
one challenge
facing this kind of technology is that people -- assuming they aren't drunk or
distracted,
which happens too often -- are fairly adept at handling circumstances on the
road they've
never seen before. Computers are not.
One example Cameron mentioned is the apparently not uncommon problem of a
driverless car
encountering a flock of wild turkeys. A human driver might honk or inch forward
to try to
shoo away the birds, but Cameron says Voyage's computer system doesn't know
what to do
besides freeze in place.
"It sounds really simple, but you have to reliably stop or navigate around any
and all
obstacles," he told me.
There are a zillion other scenarios like this that are individually uncommon
but
collectively make reliable self-driving cars tricky. And there is little room
for error when
lives are at stake.
So Voyage is starting "humble," Cameron said. The company recently revamped its
customized
computer-piloted taxis to operate without a backup driver, and vehicles operate
only in two
retirement communities. Low speeds, relatively simple road conditions and a
small geography
that Voyage computer systems have mapped in advance remove some of the
complications and
risk. And for seniors, access to door-to-door car service can materially
improve their
lives.
Even confined to fairly niche cases, Voyage deals with complexities that boggle
the mind.
The cars have backup systems to the backup systems. Settings prevent riders
from grabbing
the steering wheel or pressing the gas pedal while the car is in self-driving
mode. (We all
know people who would do this in a robot-piloted car.)
Voyage also has people standing by who can take over cars remotely if they're
needed.
I asked Cameron when driverless cars are going to hit the roads in large
numbers everywhere.
He was hopeful but guardedly so given how driverless car backers have misjudged
the
technology's difficulty.
"The optimist in me says things are only going to accelerate from here,"
Cameron said. Then
he paused and said he couldn't give me a timeline. "It's a non-answer," he said.
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- » [msb-alumni] Driverless Cars Aren't Taking Over the Roads Yet, but Progress Is Clear - Steve