Uber v Taxis
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/83575880/worlds-first-selfdriving-taxis-debut-in-singapore'>http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/83575880/worlds-first-selfdriving-taxis-debut-in-singapore</a></p>
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<p>So Stuff are reporting this - basically a full trial of driverless taxis in singapore, albeit with a minder initially. The company is looking at deployment in 2018 -- amazing that we are about to move into production so soon. Not vapourware!</p> -
My expectation is most people will move towards subscription based transportation ie driverless uber. This will be particularly attractive for young singles / couples, maybe less so for families - I know I could make it work if the price was right (really, its just about ensuring car seats and stroller storage which is easily solved)<br>The benefits (for me) of subscription would far outweigh those for ownership<br>- No outright expense required<br>- No Garage or OSP required<br>- No Insurance<br>- No Maintainence / Running Costs<br>- No driving aimlessly looking for Parking at loaded shopping centers<br>- No more drink driving!<br>- Statistically safer driving meaning less road deaths over time<br>- No requirement for a drivers license<br>- Ability to be productive/consuming en route<br>- Completely new types of car services would be feasible... they'd be more likely novelty but they would differentiate competitiors (ie a car that has a movie/music library service or office facilities, food, flat beds (for long hauls)<br><br>I expect car ownership becoming a luxury in the future... millenials are already unlikely to own a car and this will tick their boxes, especially those that live in cities where the public transport is not quite adequate (in fact, perhaps public transport gets phased out over time)
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That is a pretty big fail. Can't use the "same colour as the sky" defence from the other incident.
The article is from September, but apparently this happened in January. Interesting that it took so long to come to light.
Typically the Tesla cars are reporting back fairly regularly, so going dark for 6 months would surely be picked up?
Could it be the data wasn't getting out of China through the regular internet setup?
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@NTA said in Uber v Taxis:
Could it be the data wasn't getting out of China through the regular internet setup?
Quite possibly, which you expect would mean the car wasn't getting updates to the OS either.
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@antipodean I think I'll choose to ride in manned cabs for now
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@NTA said in Uber v Taxis:
That is a pretty big fail. Can't use the "same colour as the sky" defence from the other incident.
On the plus side, it stays bang on dead centre in the lane. So for all bar the last half second that software is functioning perfectly.
This is sort of the thing that annoys me - and will more so in the future with self drive. That video will be on the news, it'll be viral, it'll be front page. The 2,000 identical instances where a drunk driver, a sleeping driver, a guy texting, changing the radio, trying to answer his phone etc do exactly that wont be.
I'd be more alarmed if we were choosing between pretty good self drive & perfect humans, but we are choosing between pretty good self drive & staggeringly poor drivers with bad attention spans & reflexes that, compared to a computer, are pigshit. Self drive dopesn't have to cause zero deaths, it just has to cause 10% fewer than the alternative
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@canefan said in Uber v Taxis:
@antipodean I think I'll choose to ride in manned cabs for now
Just as dangerous in China. From Hyatt to train station in Shanghai I counted three lanes painted on the road and five lanes of traffic at one point.
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@gollum said in Uber v Taxis:
Self drive dopesn't have to cause zero deaths, it just has to cause 10% fewer than the alternative
Not sure about the 10%, I think it'll have to be an order of magnitude safer due to the perception of control.
What is good is I can really see US insurance companies driving the change. If you have to pay out $$$ for each death associated with the car, it becomes an offset to the cost of the self driving package.
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@nzzp said in Uber v Taxis:
@gollum said in Uber v Taxis:
Self drive dopesn't have to cause zero deaths, it just has to cause 10% fewer than the alternative
Not sure about the 10%, I think it'll have to be an order of magnitude safer due to the perception of control.
I agree for the public to accept it & the press not to go mental it needs to be above 10%, more like 90%. But for it to actually be a good idea 10% is fine.
Which is why I expect China to be a mile ahead of the west in self drive pretty fast, as their standards are bad & no one will bitch about it. IE because their driving is so bad, the bar for self drive is pretty low. And no matter what the government can just impose it (more or less).
It's one of those where ther public should simply be forced to accept it once it gets to a threshold where its better than the alternatives (same deal with say vaccines).
If you rely on the public to decide if something is better for them it'll never happen. Everyone thinks they are awesome drivers, same way everyone knows someone who's kid spontaneously combusted from a measles jab or for whom rescue remedy cured their cancer. The public are fucking idiots.
In China they'll just impose it & they'll cut 10% of road deaths straight away, 20% the next year, 50% the next etc. While the the west will run footage like the above & talk about the madness on Chinese roads. Then in 20 years Didi Chuxing with have a market cap 5x Apple.
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We used Uber heaps when we were recently in Melbourne on holiday. Cheap as and super easy. Had a bit of an issue trying to do an advance booking for our early ride to the airport but that was due to our hotel's location.
We got a couple of cars that were a tad smelly (no worse than the odd taxi tbh) but the rest were excellent. Saved a lot of money and only used Uber when we needed to go outside of the free inner city trams. Made for a super easy visit.
Had a laugh with my bro as the wife and I learnt about the rating system. In Melbs (not sure if this is world-wide) an average or ok ride would get 4 stars. If you are giving someone 3 stars then that's considered pretty shit - to the extent they might follow up with you to try and get a better rating!
Only had two instances of surge pricing and on both counts it worked out way cheaper than a taxi would have.
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@Paekakboyz said in Uber v Taxis:
Only had two instances of surge pricing and on both counts it worked out way cheaper than a taxi would have.
not a big user as i just use a local company as i know they're cheap
used uber the other night and didn't really know about the surge shit. got buttfucked nearly 3x.. 65 bucks for a 9.5km ride home. not happy
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I'm one of those luddites who knows very little about Uber, so some of you will have a better idea of how true some of this is or not...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11760148
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Scare mongering by an industry stooge is my take on that. Uber's long term business model will remove drivers as a cost, and hopes to be as close as legally allowed to be a driverless transport monopoly.
When/if they crack that then the profits will come rolling in, as it will change how people use transport and have services that guys like in that article haven't even thought of yet.
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Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars: Which Lives to Save in a Crash
Would you ride in a self-driving car that has been programmed to sacrifice its passengers to save the lives of others, in the event of a serious accident?
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Wouldn't be too worried about the car "sacrificing its passengers" if they're built to the same specs as a Tesla:
Tesla Model S driver walks away from crash with a truck at 'tremendous speed'
Earlier this week, the fact that the Tesla Model S broke the machine used to test the roof structure of...
Earlier this week, the fact that the Tesla Model S broke the machine used to test the roof structure of cars during a round of tests by US regulators came up again on social media despite having happened over 3 years ago. Coincidentally, a Model S owner put the roof to the test today in an unfortunate real world scenario when he crashed into a truck on the Autobahn in Germany.
The Model S lodged itself under the truck and despite the severity of the impact, the driver reportedly was able to get himself out of the car and walk to safety – though his injuries were described as “serious,” but not critical.
The vehicle crashed into a truck used to shield a construction site that a company was about to set up. The speed of the Tesla at the time of the impact was described as “tremendous” by a local news report, which is not uncommon on the German Autobahn where speed is mostly unrestricted.
The details of the circumstances of the crash are scarce based on the current reports, but the main theory is that the driver was unable to merge into the right lane soon enough to avoid the truck.
The Bruchsal fire brigade arrived and secured the scene quickly. They reached out to Tesla’s technical support to make sure to deal with the electric vehicle properly, but the battery pack appeared to be mostly intact and didn’t catch on fire, so they simply dug the car out from under the truck in order to tow it.
It resulted in some spectacular pictures of parts of the truck sitting on top of the Model S (pictures by EM via Badische Zeitung):
After the release of the Model S’ crash test results in 2013, Tesla announced that the vehicle broke the testing machine:
“Of note, during validation of Model S roof crush protection at an independent commercial facility, the testing machine failed at just above 4 g’s. While the exact number is uncertain due to Model S breaking the testing machine, what this means is that at least four additional fully loaded Model S vehicles could be placed on top of an owner’s car without the roof caving in. This is achieved primarily through a center (B) pillar reinforcement attached via aerospace grade bolts.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave the Tesla Model S a 5-star safety rating in each category.
While most of the news reports about Tesla crashes have revolved around the Autopilot, they are rarely about the cars’ passive safety features, which have been credited by owners involved in spectacular accidents for saving their lives.
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@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Uber v Taxis:
Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars: Which Lives to Save in a Crash
Would you ride in a self-driving car that has been programmed to sacrifice its passengers to save the lives of others, in the event of a serious accident?
Never bought into that line of thought. Nobody's going to program in software that counts passengers and makes a decision based on the number of casualties, they will just build code that will stop and evade as best as possible when confused. Exactly how it is now with human drivers.
And Hooroo, once the computers are driving the most dangerous drivers will be humans, and the computers will be the best at avoiding them too.
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@Kirwan said in Uber v Taxis:
@Baron-Silas-Greenback said in Uber v Taxis:
Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars: Which Lives to Save in a Crash
Would you ride in a self-driving car that has been programmed to sacrifice its passengers to save the lives of others, in the event of a serious accident?
And Hooroo, once the computers are driving the most dangerous drivers will be humans, and the computers will be the best at avoiding them too.
I completely agree that humans will be the most dangerous just as they are now. My concern would be in not having control in a situation where a dangerous human was driving towards me and I had no control on the outcome (Which I am assuming through probablilty that the auto driver would make a better decision)
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@Hooroo said in Uber v Taxis:
I completely agree that humans will be the most dangerous just as they are now. My concern would be in not having control in a situation where a dangerous human was driving towards me and I had no control on the outcome (Which I am assuming through probablilty that the auto driver would make a better decision)
Its a valid concern, too. Thing is, the computer is going to react faster than you and take the most probable safe outcome
I watched that video Tesla released of the full autonomous mode and I realised how nervous I was. This was out on suburban/rural roads, and there were people and other vehicles everywhere. Fucking hell I don't know if I could do that
