Bob Lutz "All cars will be driverless in 20 years"

[DerSpiegel]

I love and respect Bob Lutz, and now that I know that he smokes helluv killer dope, I love and respect him all that much more.

[Inspector Detector]

I hope so, given all the BS I have to put up with on a motorcycle, driverless cars can't be any worse than what I have to put up with now.

[McBanagon]

Optional driverless? Maybe. Mandatory driverless? In 20 years? Not a chance.

I'll be 63 in 20 years. No ***king way I'll let some goddamn robot drive me around.

[ptem]

I saw one of Google's cars driving on the freeway yesterday. It was a Lexus SUV/CUV. And a couple co-workers have seen Google driver-free Priuses on the road lately too.

There was a 'driver' who, while not driving per se, sure looked like he was paying attention to what was going on.

And maybe it was my imagination, but a lot of cars were changing lanes in the car's vicinity. Either to a) get a closer look, b) get the **** away from it or c) try to mess with the multitude of sensors.

[Swallow Doretti]

When I turn 80, I am going to make amazing predictions about the future...
Because.. I won't be there to have to eat my words.

He's right, though. And this isn't even accounting for what other affects a globally shrinking car market will have on the sector. It'll be interesting to see how long the French government willingly props up PSA, for example.

[leaftye]

I agree with Lutz if it's part time autonomous. It's already happening in regards to parking. I wouldn't be surprised if that rolls out on all cars, or at least all but the bottom end cars. I could see this rolling on toll roads too. But as far as 100% of all cars for nearly 100% of any commute, I really don't see that happening in 20 years. Not even 50 years. But it might happen in highly dense areas.

[venom600]

I'd take this over stupid self driving car





You actually meet other people and socialize and they even have dining area where you can have breafast or lunch

If all goes well, CA will have high speed rail around the time these cars come into effect.

[leaftye]

I'd rather not have a high speed train stopping at my door step.

[tjl]

4) Higher highway speeds - big argument in regards to low speed limits is that people can't handle situations at higher speeds - remove the person and the only reason to not have everyone cruising at 120mph is fuel consumption.

The sight line limit around curves or over hill tops would be reached on many roads before 120mph.

[TM87]

There would be a lot of benefit from this,espacially on the interstate. Imagine driving 120-150mph and not worry about teenagers on phones, soccermoms yelling at their kids ,boyracers,azzholes hogging the left lane etc etc.
This will hopefully drop the crash rate, lower the traffic jams and hopefully eliminate deaths from drunk driving etc.
Will it happen in 20yrs?? Maybe. Think 1992, and technology then and now.

[Nourdmrolnmt]

He's right for a myriad of reasons.

Fuel economy standards (yes a computer will be better than a human at this)
The 'inward' flight of the upcoming 'home' owners.
The ever connected nature of our society.
Machine Learning is only in its infancy.
20 years ago, AOL was brand new.

20 years is a LONG time.

[hardcore4life]

I'd rather not have a high speed train stopping at my door step.

Have you ever heard of the thing called " walking" , us Europeans have been doing that in the last 400.000 years

[1985Jetta]

I think this is a bad idea. I'm never going to trust a computer to drive a car for me.

[Air and water do mix]

Have you ever heard of the thing called " walking" , we Europeans have been doing that in the last 400.000 years

That's great if it's practical. Lay a map of Europe over a map of the U.S. and see why it might not be, though. Yes, it is that simple. In the northeast? Perhaps. In California? Probably not, though they apparently are willing to spend billions that they don't have to begin it.

[MatchStick]

I am for this, I choose safety over I love to drive.

as long as I can have a track car...

[Time for a GTI]

20 years is forever in silicon chip time. Every 18 months to two years processor speed doubles, until we get to the point that you can't shrink processors any more because of the physical size of circuits compared to resistance. IE, if you shrink it more the processor "leaks" electricity from one circuit to another. 20 years means at least 32 times faster processing than what we have today. At the higher rate it could be nearly 128 times faster.

Give lawmakers a chance to "save the children" etc. and yeah, every car will have it on there. Will it be mandatory to use it in every situation? Maybe not, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

That's exactly what I meant. I think it's possible that in 20 years every new car will have it as a feature. What I don't believe is that it will be mandatory to use it.

[leaftye]

Have you ever heard of the thing called " walking" , us Europeans have been doing that in the last 400.000 years

And a high speed train does what for city commuters? A pretty dumb thing to bring a high speed inter city train here since long distance driving is hardly the biggest benefit to society of autonomous vehicles. You might have had a point I could get on board thing if you mentioned light rail instead. Even if you did, I'd still prefer the type of autonomous vehicles I mentioned earlier. That is, vehicles you don't even have to own. It could be considered public transportation that you call up with a smartphone app. As it's automated, it'll get in line and automatically be routed, like rail once it's in motion, except it could use a much wider network of roads already in place. It would be an ideal role for electric vehicles.

[Air and water do mix]

That's exactly what I meant. I think it's possible that in 20 years every new car will have it as a feature. What I don't believe is that it will be mandatory to use it.

Gotcha. I hope you're right.

On a related note I'm keeping my Beetle 6 volt so that I can drive it as long as I have the ability and freedom to do so. Want to add mandated electronic gobbledygook to my car? Do you have it in 6 volt?

[Air and water do mix]

And a high speed train does what for city commuters? A pretty dumb thing to bring a high speed inter city train here since long distance driving is hardly the biggest benefit to society of autonomous vehicles. You might have had a point I could get on board thing if you mentioned light rail instead. Even if you did, I'd still prefer the type of autonomous vehicles I mentioned earlier. That is, vehicles you don't even have to own. It could be considered public transportation that you call up with a smartphone app. As it's automated, it'll get in line and automatically be routed, like rail once it's in motion, except it could use a much wider network of roads already in place. It would be an ideal role for electric vehicles.

That's where I see it going as well. It would be able to calculate how much range it had and when it needed a charge, would simply drive itself back to a charging station. I don't know if it would be implemented in 20 years (I doubt it) but I'd bet real money it will come at one point. Practical, silent, simple and environmentally friendly. Sounds good to me! Of course, Bruce Willis would be out of a job.

[Galrot]

That's great if it's practical. Lay a map of Europe over a map of the U.S. and see why it might not be, though. Yes, it is that simple. In the northeast? Perhaps. In California? Probably not, though they apparently are willing to spend billions that they don't have to begin it.

I've seen plenty of maps of the US and Europe, yet I don't understand why you say this should show me why it wouldn't work. Could you please elaborate?

[ih8tickets]

I think we need a crawling in traffic mode and thats it, I don't trust a computer, well more importantly the programmers to keep me safe in every eventuality.

This is where we get to the real Blue Screen of Death scenario...

If you want someone to drive you get a chauffeur :-)

[leaftye]

I think we need a crawling in traffic mode and thats it, I don't trust a computer, well more importantly the programmers to keep me safe in every eventuality.

Most likely it'll happen that way, although perhaps not literally. As I said earlier, one ideal place to start is toll roads. Some toll roads are single lane and lined by jersey barriers. Accidents would easily be contained, and it'd be more likely that several automated vehicles could get into a group.

Also, as I said earlier, we've seen automated parking systems. That will be another place for these systems to cut their teeth and earn our trust.

[Time for a GTI]

I think we need a crawling in traffic mode and thats it, I don't trust a computer, well more importantly the programmers to keep me safe in every eventuality.

I'll take stop and go traffic mode plus the friday night get me home from the bar mode please.

[Air and water do mix]

I've seen plenty of maps of the US and Europe, yet I don't understand why you say this should show me why it wouldn't work. Could you please elaborate?

Two words. Population density. We are spread out so much further than mainland Europe it's not even funny. That's why I was saying it could work in the Northeast, as it has similar population density to Europe. I'm in the midwest, where we're spread out so much further that it's not practical. You'd have to have immense amounts of track, you'd have to drive to train stations and leave your car and you'd need billions upon billions of $ to fund it that we don't have. Our society is one of freedom of movement and what trains we do have lose money. I don't know if there are any passenger rail systems in the U.S. don't bleed money.

Also, the map you have there is all of Europe, but I was speaking mostly of Western Europe.





It would've been nice to find similar maps, but I think the idea comes across. The high population part of Europe is both more dense and more centralized. In the U.S. the high population parts are less dense and at both ends of the country. It's simply not nearly as practical as it is in Europe.

[XiaoNio]

On a similar note, I've spoken with some Air Force staff who have made the assertion that the last fighter pilot has already been born. Their belief is that remote operated or autonomously operated craft are going to be the wave of the future. I don't disagree. The cost of training up pilots is immense and there's certainly limitations on performance involving the human factor.

The application for driving is immense. If you didn't want to learn how to drive, you wouldn't have to. A reduction in licensing and there would be fewer new, inattentive or slow to react drivers on the road. No fatigue or substance use limitations on driving.

[Shmi]

On a similar note, I've spoken with some Air Force staff who have made the assertion that the last fighter pilot has already been born. Their belief is that remote operated or autonomously operated craft are going to be the wave of the future. I don't disagree. The cost of training up pilots is immense and there's certainly limitations on performance involving the human factor.

The application for driving is immense. If you didn't want to learn how to drive, you wouldn't have to. A reduction in licensing and there would be fewer new, inattentive or slow to react drivers on the road. No fatigue or substance use limitations on driving.

Makes a bit of sense for fighter jets, as a huge limitation is what the human body can take.

As for substance use... would this really hold up? I met someone who was thrown in jail for being drunk at the wheel of his STI. However, the car was parked in front of his friend's house, and he ended up there after getting hammered and wanting somewhere to sleep. Still, the cop saw the key in the ignition, and although the car never moved or was even turned on, he went to jail for DUI.

While not exactly the same, "operating a motor vehicle" is pretty vague. Does sitting behind the wheel doing nothing constitute operation, since you're deciding to let the car take control? What if you're drunk, and need to intervene for some reason to take over manually? I could definitely see lawmakers throwing a fit and keeping drunk driving laws on the books, even for self-driving cars.

[SebTheDJ]

Thats stupid. I rather take a train or public transportation if i cant drive my own car

[Diamond Dave]

I remember when I was a freshman in high school and my science teacher said that in less than 20yrs, we would buy water in soda-sized bottles and the price would be the same or greater than soda. We thought he was mental.

[horsty69]

Bob Lutz has...

[robr2]

How would any of that help with debris in the road? I mean, maybe vehicle-to-vehicle communication would alert other cars AFTER a few have already hit the debris and caused a traffic jam.

My thought with vehicle-to-vehicle communication is that the GPS systems talk to each other in terms of varying each others' speed to allow lane changing. Car in lane 2 has to depart highway in 3 miles. It tells car next to it in lane 1 to adjust spacing and then it communicates with all the cars in lane 1. But at the same time, the 8th car back in lane 1 doesn't need to exit for 48 miles. It'll talk to cars in lanes 2-4 to get ready to adjust spacing so it can get out into the 100 mph+ lane.

I know the counterargument is, human drivers hit debris in the road and damage their cars all the time, so the computers may not be any worse. But the difference is that the automakers would be held liable if they promised the customer that the computer can handle any situation and there's no need to stay awake and alert.

Debris in the road is one of the big issues. The machine vision has to be able to determine if it's a plastic bag or a piece of lumber that fell off a truck. The programming is I'm sure terribly complicated and it'll take a while. Remember 10 years in technology is a lifetime to us. Did anybody ever think that 10 years ago we'd be walking around with little computers in our pockets?

[Rob]

The sight line limit around curves or over hill tops would be reached on many roads before 120mph.

Sightlines won't matter. The cars ahead will have already relayed information to yours, combined with GPS and probably satellite or aerial imaging. It's going to be a whole different world.

Cars won't even need to have windows anymore other than for passenger comfort. Think of the weight, cost and safety implications of not having to have glass installed anymore.

[rimtrim]

Debris in the road is one of the big issues. The machine vision has to be able to determine if it's a plastic bag or a piece of lumber that fell off a truck. The programming is I'm sure terribly complicated and it'll take a while. Remember 10 years in technology is a lifetime to us. Did anybody ever think that 10 years ago we'd be walking around with little computers in our pockets?

The thing is, some technology problems are about scale while others are about logic. Cellphones were a scale problem: How do we make computers small and powerful, how do we make wireless communication faster, how do we build infrastructure to support all that?

The hard part about self-driving cars is a logic problem, not a scale problem. How do we make computer vision and decision-making so reliable that we're willing to tell drivers they don't need to watch the road anymore? That's not a problem that "faster and smaller" will inherently solve. The progression toward better algorithms for these kinds of problems is not nearly as linear and predictable as the progression towards faster speeds and smaller sizes.

-Andrew L

[TrackMagicWS6]

Driverless cars in snow? Hilarious.

[horsty69]

Driverless cars in snow? Hilarious.

There would have to be some kind of track system in conjunction with self drive...either way I agree there are so many issues besides the technology...its all about the unknown conditions on the roadway...construction, animals, debris, water, snow...etc etc etc.

[VR6 GLX Man]

I'm gonna bump this thread in 20 years.

How do these driveless cars react to being brake checked or idiot drivers. I don't see all cars like this in 20 years.