Autonomous Vehicles (new job ?)

You wouldn't want Volvo's equipment contaminating your testing.

I thought I read Volvo's stuff would have interviened 1 sec. before impact. So probably still a bad accident, maybe still death.

1s can loose a decent amount of speed.
Braking at 1g (which is very hard braking for a decent car with decent tyres) for 1s is about 35km/h (22mph)
That can be enough to make a huge difference to an impact.

Can’t say if it would have saved the person. I’d guess having a bicycle beside you could worsen the impact (put forces thru a smaller area)
Certainly something went seriously wrong for this not to be detected. Even if the system mistook her for something else (not a person) an impact was going to happen that should be avoided.

Yeah, I was thinking about that when posting, and came to the conclusion an impact would still happen (haven't seen the speed posted, but figured 35mph minimum). Doesn't take much speed to kill a pedestrian with an SUV, especially if it results in running over them. So maybe still death. Probably bad injuries.


If it were another vehicle, it'd be very different though.

Volvo stuff would detect way more than than 1 second from impact however I’m told that on that era model that the city breaking is disabled over 50kmh.

intervened 1s before impact probably means the stock system would have 'seen' the pedestrian before that and at t-1s it would have done something. 40mph vs 20mph would have made a big difference.
Not sure about Volvo, but the Germans have systems that swerve; 1s is plenty of time to miss the pedestrian (wonder if the bike's rear tire would have registered in the system)

What if the system brakes hard or swerve or whatever evasive action to avoid running over a dog and then resulted in a vehicle crash that end up killing the occupants of the vehicle or caused some other accidents?

That would suck.

I'm not particularly happy with Honda's automatic safety features... while in traffic, I'm approaching the car ahead who is stopped or slowing..., I checked and saw that I'm safe to change lane so that I can just keep going, but if I change my lane too late(get too close to the vehicle in front of me), my Honda Clarity would actually end up trying to brake when I end up in the other lane! It just doesn't know that I'm steering away from the vehicle ahead and thought I'm about to crash! Now that's dangerous because vehicle behind me in the other lane may rear end me!

Anyway, so far this safety feature has caused me more trouble than saved me.

My brother in law has a new Model S and his car has often stopped itself on the road for no apparent reasons. Not sure what the sensors saw...

I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry. Still, until the day we can produce quality computers and software that'll never crash, how can ever we expect to be able to build autonomous computer based cars that'll never crash? Makes me wonder...

there was an article in a car magazine (Motor Trend or Road & Track most likely) where the car violently just swerved itself and the guy was at a loss like your friend in the Tesla
Turns out the MT/R&T guy had someone following him and said something to the effect of 'how'd you see that guy and react so fast', so sometimes the systems work as designed when the person in the drivers seat curses out their hi-tech wizardry

Interesting..., it quite possible my bro in law wasn’t very vigilant....

If that’s the case, system should give explanations to the driver what happened when it took over control. Model S does have bunch of cameras so should be able to display what the car avoided on that giant flat screen for the driver.

I had a thought recently. When driving through certain cities up the east coast and mid-west, I've seen certain places where they have, basically separate express lanes, either for, I believe, special paying passengers, or to add more lanes during rush hours (one way in the morning, then open opposite in the evening?)

Anyway, my thought was, why don't they have autonomous modes for one lane of traffic, just for electric vehicles that's designed to go much faster, and then have the driver take control once they reach their destination. It's much easier for cars that only have a single lane choice to go faster and follow in front/behind.

I think they tested this concept several years ago with a line of Ford Crown Victorias in some kind of setup, but that wasn't exactly the same thing.

If the car reaches the destination area and the driver doesn't respond, then it will pull over to a side area until the driver wakes, up etc.


Yes, there's a lot of reasons why this wouldn't work that well, but just wanted to put it out there.

Yeah, in theory, autonomous highway driving should be simple, but look at that exploding Model X that hit the center divider...

I really don't understand why cars like Teslas can hit the center divider at a fork road. If you don't know which way to turn, then at least slow down and stop at the fork... or just pick one and go. Why go in the middle? Sensor didn't sense that you're about to hit something?

There are also Teslas that drivers accidentally drive into a GYM... confusing the gas pedal with brakes really shouldn't happen with Teslas. If sensors and cameras are already built-in, the car should be able to make a judgement call that the driver is mentally impaired to command the vehicle to drive into buildings!

I can understand it's hard to spot pedestrians or bikers on the road, but hitting center dividers and crash into buildings? Not sure these are oversights or tech challenges...

I think before we go full autonomous, I'd like to see a autonomous car race of some sort. Ideally let these systems drive an Indycar or F-1 car... or be part of the Formula E car or something...

I'd feel better about autonomous cars if I can see them reliably finishing races and perhaps even beat out human drivers.

Prove it on the track 1st before you sell these things...