GM needs help from Congress to spin up production of smooth-dashed driverless cars.
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Congress debates allowing tens of thousands of cars with no steering wheel
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Could you not just bolt a steering wheel pedals somewhere to the interior, out of the way (but the pedals still accessible, in theory, by feet)? Is there anything explicit about these things actually being functional?
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Well, empowering Congress to decide on a technical issue; we can certainly expect a well thought and articulated outcome.
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from the article:
" For example, one rule requires that a brake "shall be activated by means of a foot control.""
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I am 100% supportive of AV but I do find that the photos of a controlless dash has a subconscious "wrong" feel to me. It is probably because of all those years sitting behind the wheel of a car.
I guess it is how lifelong sailors in the age of sail felt when they saw the first sailless steamships.
I guess it is how lifelong sailors in the age of sail felt when they saw the first sailless steamships.
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I really don't know how I feel about a completely autonomous vehicle with no way to intervene in case of a pending collision or accident that I can see about to happen. Even the best software locks up or has problems. I'd rather not gamble with my kid's life or anyone else's life that the software piloting this is 100% safe from issues or malicious interference from an outside source.
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There is a serious psychological barrier to sitting in a driver seat without any [illusion of] control. That said, I'm wondering if it [still] makes sense to have the seats face forward if there is really no driver option. Would rear-facing seats in the front be safer?
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The problem I have with no steering wheel is when the car breaks down, how will you be able to move the car is towing the only option? Also how will it do with parking in uphill garages or moving small increments on non mapped roads?
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It might actually induce less of a "that's wrong" feeling if they did what some concept cars did and turned those front seats around so that they faced the rear seats and put a table in between the two rows of seats.
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Steering wheels give you very fine steering input. I think that you'd find that a knob on the console would necessarily have much coarser control input than a steering wheel. Either you'd have many rotations of the knob between wheel stops, or you'd have extremely finicky steering input.
Plus, it's hard to lose track of where the steering wheel is, whereas a small knob on the console would require you to take your eyes off the road to locate some times.
I think it would be an okay solution if it was only very rarely used, but I feel like the times that you'd need manual input are probably the times you would also want very fine and accurate input.
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I think you might be right. It is so similar to a traditional car but not that it falls into some kind of car uncanny valley.
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20 years of 3d driving video games would like to say hi, and point out that a steering wheel is significantly better than anything else that we've come up with.
A knob is just a tiny wheel, one that will send you flying off the freeway if you go over a pothole with your hand on it.
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The early cars will be ride-hailing vehicles, so I assume the company would just send you another car and then it's their problem to figure out what to do with the old one. And they'll probably just refuse to go to non-mapped areas.
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I really like these "rolling lounge" concepts. They feel less like a car-car and more like a personal train-car.
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Beyond the potential life saving potential of well executed AVs, the ability to extend the years of mobility for the elderly seems like a very positive attribute.
My dad's got his wits about him, has a busy calendar, loves driving, but acknowledges that he's starting to lose the necessary reflexes for it. An AV would allow him the freedom he enjoys now without imperiling his own life or the lives of others.
My dad's got his wits about him, has a busy calendar, loves driving, but acknowledges that he's starting to lose the necessary reflexes for it. An AV would allow him the freedom he enjoys now without imperiling his own life or the lives of others.
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The driver in me agrees with you. I am a horrible front seat passenger as I am constantly pressing imaginary brake and accelerator pedals
Then I think I have no way of preventing a collision when I am in a cab, airplane etc. It's just a question of getting used to the idea. This generation will struggle for a long time but the kids of today and tomorrow will think it's the most natural thing to do. Hop in a car, key in/speak out destination address and then do your own thing.
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If this is true, then how come experts recommend children's car seats stay rear-facing for longer and longer periods of time?
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Yeah, that's why I said "(but the pedals still accessible, in theory, by feet)"
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I recall reading something about turning seats (slide in with it facing front, spin back to facing rear) presenting an insurmountable engineering challenge. Maybe that's what you're thinking of?
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I don't think that is the case. At least for trains rear facing seats are safer.
One issue is that not everyone can handle moving backwards however for a car there would be two forward facing and two rear facing seats so you could take your pick.
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It's odd that there are so many posts on here wanting to control what a car company can build. If you don't want a car without a steering wheel because it makes you feel unsafe then buy the one with the steering wheel. These are almost certainly going to be fleet operated and not personal anyway so then your choice is to not get into the fleet car. Car companies have decided to spend billions of dollars to develop AVs and have probably thought through any silly "what about cats" arguments you might think up.
The only question is what if any new regulations do they want to add to replace the old regulations. So if it say you "must have a steering wheel" the fight is between "you can have a steering wheel" or "if you don't have a steering wheel then the car must conform to sub section 1.3.4". This is just a trivial example but you get the idea.
Also, this is just a bill to allow them to build a limited amount of cars, not throwing the regulations away completely. No one knows what a good regulation would look like right now because AVs are still being developed. Their best bet is to up the number of allowed cars to be exempted and tackle it again when we know what the best way to regulate it. The incentives in the AV industry are strongly aligned to safety as ANY crash, even one that isn't the AVs fault, seriously damages the company in question.
The only question is what if any new regulations do they want to add to replace the old regulations. So if it say you "must have a steering wheel" the fight is between "you can have a steering wheel" or "if you don't have a steering wheel then the car must conform to sub section 1.3.4". This is just a trivial example but you get the idea.
Also, this is just a bill to allow them to build a limited amount of cars, not throwing the regulations away completely. No one knows what a good regulation would look like right now because AVs are still being developed. Their best bet is to up the number of allowed cars to be exempted and tackle it again when we know what the best way to regulate it. The incentives in the AV industry are strongly aligned to safety as ANY crash, even one that isn't the AVs fault, seriously damages the company in question.
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The "oh no, a passenger might intentionally crash the car by pulling on a steering wheel" bit seems a tad over concerned. I mean, it's not like we have a rash of people intentionally crashing cars with our current steering wheels.
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No need to insert ugly ad hominem and misogynistic views into the conversation. Keep it factual.
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I fully share your sentiment. There's something fundamentally at odds about getting into a vehicle with that layout and "relaxing" while it goes and does its thing.
I can see an exceptionally limited use for these kinds of vehicles in fully walled areas where no one can bring in any manually driven vehicles. Personally, I think these things are way too ahead of the times, since the state of the art in AV programming still can't cope with almost all of the "human interaction required" situations out there. One might have level 5 autonomy, but no autonomous vehicle yet can actually fully replace a manually driven vehicle for all occasions.
That's really the only thing this could be designed to do, and the state of the art is not there, and isn't likely to be there for quite some time. So these will not be personal vehicles for the masses until Level 5 can deal with all situations that a human can currently get into.
The fact that if tech and AV fans look at that and feel "off" about it tells me that it screams what the general population will fee. As much as the AV fans seem to object to the reality of autonomous vehicle popularity int he general public (which is exceptionally low, and far and away lower than EV's or cars with assistive driving tech), taking away the controls like that would make them DOA were it to ever be produced for the masses (at least today).
Things do change, but almost never as fast as most folks think it will or should. This "no controls" thing is an idea that's ahead of its time on far too many levels to be popularly accepted. But for large campuses, headquarters and other such places that can be made to be closed to the general public which need a personal transportation system, I can see some utility in them as long as the vehicle can handle all conditions that are very unlikely to arise within the space they'll be operating as well as it can those that are likely to be encountered.
It's going to be the unexpected stuff they encounter, and how well (or poorly) they handle that, which will likely decide whether these things become popularly accepted by 2035, or 2135. As it stands now, I'd not want to be riding in something like that, myself. Being a bit OCD about controlling my spaces/devices, I'd probably stroke out the second it started moving on its own.
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Way too early in the game to completely remove the option for "manual" override in self-driving vehicles.
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With current safety technology you'd still want front facing riders. However, as car design changes and the need to face forward changes it could become safe to face the rear.
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Never underestimate stupid. A passenger could easily get scared and try to correct the path of the AV to bad effect. Remember, the passengers might not even be licensed drivers. They can be the blind, the elderly, kids, etc. There is also the problem of crashing the AV and filing a lawsuit for a payout. There have already been several attempts to hit AVs to get a settlement.
What is the advantage of leaving the steering wheel for these AV companies?
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We don't even have working in use driverless vehicles to the best of my knowledge, and they already want to remove the old method of control? How about we transition to driverless vehicles with the option for self driving for when the self driving part inevitably fails?
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These are being intended for taxi fleets. You wouldn't be allowed to drive the taxi even if it had a wheel. If it fails it will stop and another remote taxi sent to get you.
BTW Waymo currently has limited geofenced trial taxi service in Phoenix. They use modified Chrysler minivans. You aren't allowed to sit in the driver's seat so the steering wheels and controls simply limit the usable space in the vehicle.
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The passenger might grab the wheel (issue?) is easily resolved by caging in the driver seat area, so you can't access it (without a key). While that would add expense, these things aint cheap to begin with.
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I don't think it is so much being a "Luddite" that is causing people to be hesitant about this, it is the logistical issues at hand. I believe the biggest problem with getting these vehicles on the road en masse will be the couple decades where the blend between classic manned vehicles and AVs will cause some growing pains.
For me, if *every* car on the highway was an AV, that is awesome, and I'd personally feel little concern. Each car talks to another, so if there is a failure (either mechanically or with the software) that requires the car to stop or pull over, every other vehicle for as far back as traffic goes will know about it and seamlessly flow around it. The cars will know if there is an obstacle on the road and pass along the info to all the other cars (heck, they might even be able to alert the Department of Transportation to expedite the fix!). With no one being in control, there is no one to maliciously run a red light or speed excessively to cause an accident. However, as long as there is a large percentage of manned vehicles on the road, it will be difficult. AVs will have some trouble being able to perfectly account for the randomness of a human driver, the spontaneous jerking of the wheel when someone sneezes, an intoxicated jerk who decides to tailgate an AV "just to see what happens" or any one of an infinite number of scenarios.
So yeah, while our kids (or their kids) will look at us and scratch their heads about why us stupid monkeys ever did things so laborious as actually manually piloting a vehicle, there are actual legitimate concerns that people should be aware of while the transition from one technology to another takes place. This isn't like the transition between using rotary phones to phones with dial pads, this is, as Monty Python says, "time for something completely different".
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