Autonomous Cars Are Their Own Drivers

[Towpack]

I am certainly not anti-tech or against progress. I work, live with use IT and electronics everyday but, personally I just wouldn't want full autonomy in any vehicle I owned. That's not to say it won't have it's uses of course such as public transport, freight delivery etc. I delight in the lack of electronics in a 80 series but I also welcome it on my road bike with advanced electronic traction control, power selection options and ABS etc which make the thing safer and, to some degree, easier to ride. The march of technology is relentless and in the electronics/IT industry it advances far quicker than in most other areas. The capability for full autonomy is here now and it can't be uninvented so it's coming wether anybody likes it or not. The challenge of applying it to our increasingly overcrowded roads is still a big one though. JMO

 

[Shayne]

If only Google develop this technology I think that would be a legitimate concern. But I think Apple and especially Facebook have the desire and power to run the earth too, and there's a few more years of battle in them yet before we all need to take to our cabins in the mountains.

I don't think so Rob , was it Peugeot that started the return your car to our dealership for servicing because it is designed to die if you don't BS ?

That particular form of exploitation was defeated by a boom in obd scanners or whatever you want to call them . I would not be surprised at all to learn cars are already being sold without mention that manufacturers have a live link to the engine management system .

Come to think of it Hummer actually advertise the onestar , onstar , 1star something like that which is hardwired in three separate ways and if you pay a subscription they will phone to tell you why the engine light is on .

 

[Rob Cowell]

I don't think so Rob , was it Peugeot that started the return your car to our dealership for servicing because it is designed to die if you don't BS ?

That particular form of exploitation was defeated by a boom in obd scanners or whatever you want to call them . I would not be surprised at all to learn cars are already being sold without mention that manufacturers have a live link to the engine management system .

But the point is, when they are found out they lose out. Look at how much VWs cheating is costing them. But they only lose out if there are alternatives.

I know the live linking is a topic manufacturers have been agonising over for some time. I was at a conference about 5 years ago where the ethics and commercial possibilities were being discussed by a large European manufacturer. Its got potential as a service differentiator. We know your brake light is out. We know where you park in the day, so we'll send someone out to fix it for you. The technology has been in use for quite a while in, err, less commercial environments, for predicting when components will fail. Not just that wheel bearing is 50,000 miles old, but how much vibration has it experienced? How hot has it got? We've got 5 vehicles in a compound and one needs to drive 100 miles in difficult conditions right now, which is least likely to break down?

Someone could be doing it, but the risk for any company is keeping that quiet. The perception when I last looked at this was it was the GPS element that people worried about more than having their ECU hacked on the fly. It would be pointless doing it unless quite a few people involved in the analytics knew about it, such that they could get value from the data. And if one of them isn't happy for some reason and blabs, you stand to lose a huge amount of market confidence, and there is plenty of competition waiting to step into your shoes.

Again I think these are services that lots of people, not least the sort of people who drive 20+ year old Land Cruisers don't want. But as no one is suggesting trying to retro fit this technology to old cars I don't think it matters.

 

[clivehorridge]

Mmmmm, cars with their own on line SCADA system. Interesting.

 

[StarCruiser]

Interesting that Rolls Royce have full telemetry on their engines. Thus came out with the lost Malaysian Airlines plane when they were able to tell at what time the data ceased, many hours after the plane's transponder was turned off.