Technology

I don't understand how cars would work on their own with no input from a driver small-scale

I understand being able to type in "Drive to Walmart" and it can back out of your driveway and go to Walmart, but then what? It goes into the parking lot? It finds the first available space? What if you just wanted to go there to pick something up curbside? How can you tell it to go to a specific stall? What if you're disabled and need to go to the handicap space? How can it tell if your authorized to use that space?

There's so many little nuances that I don't understand not being able to have a steering wheel to take control of and manually do things at some point.

I wonder if this came from engineering or the marketing department.

I'm getting "Let's do this, and if it fails (which it will), it'll look like we're really confident in our self-drive and are a challenger in the market" vibes.

Even if you have excellent self-drive, there is no logical reason not to have a backup steering wheel just to intervene in case. Tbh, I had no idea they were even in the self-drive market which may be their true problem. No one really knows.

From the article, the cars will be used as autonomous taxies. It is too bad. I was hoping that by removing the steering wheel, GM would have to add in the most important important self driving car feature: a release of liability. I will not fully trust autonomous car controls until I stop being legally responsible for the actions of my car.

I fantasize about the day that I could get into a self driving car and just shout a destination at it, then go there. My commute is over an hour a day and I could use that time for myself. I don't think that day will be here soon.

These companies need to demonstrate that their vehicles are capable (more capable than MOST drivers), and they need to do it transparently. Whats more important to me, would be the manufacturer taking the liability, licensing, and most importantly take responsibility for their mistakes (again openly).

There isn't a chance in hell I'm buying a car without a steering wheel.

OceanGate Titan on wheels.

I can’t wait to drive with a 20 dollar Logitech gaming controller instead

I'm pretty sure the technology is not ready to go this far

That's very interesting, actually. Because manufacturers of self-driving cars say they're only drive-assisted, not autonomous. To dodge liability for their cars causing accidents. If the car is without a steering wheel and therefore fully autonomous, and the car runs somebody over, is the car gonna go to jail?

We've all seen this episode of Silicon Valley.

From the article, this looks like it's for GM's "Cruise" program, which is already out there in limited scope in a couple cities. It's aself-driving car service limited to a small area of San Francisco and.. I want to say Austin?

They're already operating vehicles that are essentially "self-driving" now. This is about rolling out a new class of vehicle using the same technology, but without the human controls.

I don't know a lot about the service, or what, exactly it does, but I suspect it works well because the area the vehicles operate in is extremely limited and the vehicles can have an incredibly detailed, and up-to-date map of that area. I'd also wager the area selected is free of most obstacles and has only one type of terrain, i.e., "downtown low-speed streets" or similar.

That said, I can't imagine the NTSHA will allow a vehicle on the road without any sort of manual emergency control mechanism in place. Though, it may be very rudimentary, like others have suggested, a joystick and a throttle/brake intended to get the vehicle somewhere safe so people can get out.

And what happens if something unexpected (e.g. badly signalized road works) comes up? With current implementations you can you take over. But what do you do without wheel?

No fucking thank you

Having just seen several Cruise vehicles being recovered by human drivers, this is quite early for such a request. I think the hype cycle is drying up for them and they need to keep pretending they're doing better than they really are.