The future of cars

from The Future Of Self-Driving Cars, by Colin Lecher in Australian Popular Science Magazine.

Car designer Chris Bangle has spent years designing forward-thinking vehicles, so now, with self-driving cars just legalised in California, we decided to pick his brain on what's next for the automobile that no longer needs its master.
Today's self-driving cars mostly look like the human-commanded variety; they just act automatically. But as they become more viable for mass consumption - by 2020, Bangle believes - they'll need to be streamlined. Here are some thoughts assembled from Chris Bangle Associates S.R.L. about what the car - if there is a "car" - might look like when it's ubiquitous, in 2050. There are three main categories that a discussion about self-driving cars can fit into, Bangle says.

YOU INSIDE OF CARS
It's the future. All that stuff in your car's cabin? You'd think we wouldn't need it, freeing us from the tyranny of the steering wheel forever. Theoretically, Bangle says, seating position could change several ways, making it closer to the way a bus is designed, for instance. But that doesn't necessarily mean everything we associate with driving will be done away with. As an example: "Do you have to wear seatbelts in a taxi? Yes. Do you drive the taxi? No."
There's also the matter of how far into the future we're talking about. A still-drivable self-driving car - in other words, one that functions both ways - might act as a stopgap toward a full-fledged driverless vehicle, but in the meantime, designers won't be taking anything out that's necessary for traditional driving.

CARS RELATIVE TO CARS
Self-driving cars (fully self-driving ones, since we've made that distinction) might not rely as heavily on "optical signals," Bangle says. Headlights, brake lights, other forms of automatic communication - those were created for humans, and if the humans deem them unnecessary, we might go without.
Bangle also points to the so-called "invisible Mercedes," which uses LED lights to blend into its environment. If we're not there to cause the accidents between cars, and if the cars can handle the driving on their own, why not put the cars out of our vision entirely?

CARS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Some of this category ties into our already-changing attitudes about cars. Younger demographics are less interested in cars, Bangle points out. If we make those cars self-driving, they might be seen by consumers as the same as an automated taxi, even if they own the deeds to those taxis. If that happens, we might want something else out of our cars: we don't care what a taxi looks like, after all, so maybe a point-a-to-point-b machine would be enough. Ownership in general gets "put into question" with self-driving cars, he says: what does a parking space mean when the car parks itself?
As Bangle sees it, that mindset might also have effects in advertising. Maybe car owners could earn money for featuring a company's logo. When we're not in control of cars, our sense of ownership could dwindle, at least psychologically. If that happens, we might be more open to using them for advertisements.

Those shifting attitudes don't make Bangle particularly upset. The field could use "some new references," he says. "I think self-driving cars can do that. They'll make us think again."

Most car accidents are caused by human error. So if we can design an AI to be more reliable than the human brain, we could design one to drive cars and massively reduce the incidents of car accidents and that includes fatal car accidents. Wouldn't that be great!

In fact, if and when AI gets proven to be so very reliable that it becomes even more reliable than the most competent responsible human driver, I predict it would become law that all cars be driven by AI and none from humans simply for safety reasons. Then the same will become true for trains, aircraft, ships, trucks, cranes, tractors, harvesters industrial saws and all heavy machinery -all will be driven by AIs by law.

AIs can be given advantages over humans such as lightning near-speed-of-light reactions and having massive amount of relevant knowledge of terrain and navigational skills etc that would all help it become a safer driver than any human.

My only concern here is the designers of such AIs might make the mistake of making the AIs totally dependent on GPS for navigation so that there is no backup if GPS one day fails for some reason. I hope the governments would have the good sense to make it law that, without exception, all such AIs must have reliable navigation alternatives to using GPS else I predict a disaster.

Self driving cars could also be significantly more efficient, especially in conjunction with other self driving cars.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Self driving cars could also be significantly more efficient, especially in conjunction with other self driving cars.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So you have 10 million self drive cars on the road and a big EMP pulse from somewhere hits, then what? How many accidents would that cause in 10 seconds?

Originally posted by sonhouse
So you have 10 million self drive cars on the road and a big EMP pulse from somewhere hits, then what? How many accidents would that cause in 10 seconds?

The first place self drive cars will be mass used, is for short commuter trips around city centers (as rental cars).

Originally posted by humy
No problem; providing the governments are not so stupid as to fail to insist that all AIs that drive cars, aircraft etc must all by law be given complete electromagnetic shielding which would protect from EMP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_shielding

this should be cost effective and give adequate protection.
-this is another thing that I ...[text shortened]... reliable alternative navigation for all such AIs to GPS navigation in case GPS completely fails.

"Google says human error was to blame for a crash involving its automated, driverless car.
The Internet giant says its modified Prius was being manually driven when it caused a five-car smash-up near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., last week.
Auto website Jalopnik.com first posted photos of the robotic car apparently crashing into the rear bumper of another Prius, sparking a chain reaction of fender benders. It was the first reported incident involving Google’s driverless car, which has racked up more than 250,000 km.
Jalopnik worried the crash was caused by a glitch in the self-driving car, which uses a roof-mounted camera, radar sensors and lasers to drive without human input. But Google says the car was not in auto pilot mode at the time of the collision.
“Safety is our top priority,” the company told Business Insider. “One of our goals is to prevent fender benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car.”
Earlier this year, Nevada became the first state in the U.S. to approve the use of driverless cars on the state’s freeways." ~http://www.thestar.com/wheels 29-Aug-2011

I'm hoping that driver-assisted cars will arrive before I'm too old to keep my driving licence, maybe another 10 years. I won't be around to see the totally automated no-driver version but I can foresee a lot of teething problems. Even today's cars become pretty deranged when their small computer systems fail ...

Originally posted by sonhouse
Actually, EMP shielding was tried in a specially built aircraft flown a few hundred miles from an actual H bomb test. It failed. It was a skin within a skin thing and just did not work, the emp pulse came through tiny cracks in the surface, like places where rivets were, solder joints and such. Any effective EMP shielding would cost more than the rest of th ainst a strong pulse. Besides, who would buy a car with two bodies built in and 8 inches thick?

EMP shielding was tried in a specially built aircraft flown a few hundred miles from an actual H bomb test.

the emp pulse came through tiny cracks in the surface,

Any effective EMP shielding would cost more than the rest of the car

and still wouldn't work against a strong pulse.

Besides, who would buy a car with two bodies built in and 8 inches thick?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Actually, EMP shielding was tried in a specially built aircraft flown a few hundred miles from an actual H bomb test. It failed. It was a skin within a skin thing and just did not work, the emp pulse came through tiny cracks in the surface, like places where rivets were, solder joints and such. Any effective EMP shielding would cost more than the rest of th ...[text shortened]... ainst a strong pulse. Besides, who would buy a car with two bodies built in and 8 inches thick?

http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/

Can we agree that the EMP discssion is not to the point?

The question most probably reaching us first is the judical one:

If a computer steered vehicle is causing an accident who is responsible? The driver or the company creating the car, or the company creating the software?

As long as the driver can overrule the system SHe shouold be responsible. But if not? Most saving scenarios need more computernetwork steered cars than human steered ones, since humans are much more unpredictable than computers and tend to ignore rules...

I see fully autonomous vehicles first where it is too dangerous for people to be.

Originally posted by Ponderable
If a computer steered vehicle is causing an accident who is responsible? The driver or the company creating the car, or the company creating the software?

Originally posted by Ponderable
Can we agree that the EMP discssion is not to the point?

The question most probably reaching us first is the judical one:

If a computer steered vehicle is causing an accident who is responsible? The driver or the company creating the car, or the company creating the software?

As long as the driver can overrule the system SHe shouold be responsibl ...[text shortened]... re rules...

I see fully autonomous vehicles first where it is too dangerous for people to be.

If a computer steered vehicle is causing an accident who is responsible? The driver or the company creating the car, or the company creating the software?