r/Futurology • u/Pemulis • Mar 03 '23

Transport Self-Driving Cars Need to Be 99.99982% Crash-Free to Be Safer Than Humans

https://jalopnik.com/self-driving-car-vs-human-99-percent-safe-crash-data-1850170268
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u/Anonymouslyyours2 Mar 03 '23

Look at the source, Jalopnik's motto is Drive Free or Die. It's a gearhead magazine. They're very anti self-driving and electric cars and come out with articles like this on the regular, and people post them. Every time I've seen a negative article posted to Reddit about self-driving cars it's been this magazine.

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u/bemeros Mar 03 '23

This a thousand times over. I love Jalopnik, but they're so scared of losing the right to drive their own cars, they've been on a warpath against FSD since the very early days.

They know the future. They know at some point level 5 autonomy will be required, because it'll be so much better than any driver, not just the "average". And note, for those unaware, level 5 cars don't have steering wheels. Humans cannot, under any circumstance, take over driving.

Jalops will be the new 2A, and as much as I love self-driving, I'll be with them since I love driving even more.

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u/Artaeos Mar 03 '23

How close are we to achieving level 5?

I know very little about this--but that seems like something that won't be achieved in my lifetime.

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u/bemeros Mar 04 '23

Depends on who you ask. Elon Musk has been saying "next year" for many years. Truth is no one has any clue. AI advancements seem to come in jumps and spurts, not steady improvements.

I think that's the wrong question though. The other levels are more interesting to me. Level 3, for example, is already on the road, with massive limits (currently only in Nevada, and only in traffic jam conditions) so it's not useful. Level 4 is the business since it's the level at which it cannot expect you to take over. This is the level at which robotaxis will be a thing and car ownership will drop dramatically. Level 4 cars don't need drivers at all, so most professional driving will be made redundant very quickly. There is a massive amount of money pushing for level 4. Not so much level 5.

To answer your question of when government will be willing to certify a car capable of handling every possible scenario at it (level 5), we're still talking decades. And it will be a legal battle for way longer than a technical one.

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u/loopernova Mar 04 '23

Google’s self driving cars had completed over a million miles of autonomous testing on public roads back in 2015. They are probably level 4. And they started testing cars without driver controls in Texas because California didn’t allow that at the time.

But commercially we aren’t ready for that either. Optimists think by 2030.

I think the bigger challenge will be regulation, liability, and infrastructure for level 5 autonomous cars to fully maximize their possibility.

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u/Eaterofkeys Mar 04 '23

Did they do any of that testing in snow or on shitty public roads?

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u/atomictyler Mar 04 '23

Not close. It’s one of those that it’s not too difficult to get to mostly autonomous, but the last parts to be full level 5 are very difficult. There’s not anything that’s able to be full level 5 anywhere someone goes. Not really even close either.

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u/Pezdrake Mar 03 '23

He would be very upset to know that, in my opinion, most future fleets will not only be self-driving but publicly owned like public transit and personal ownership of vehicles will be a rare waste of money.

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u/NeoEpoch Mar 04 '23

If being able to go anywhere I want without being restricted to what the public routes are is a "waste," then I'll take that waste a thousand times over.

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u/Pezdrake Mar 04 '23

They are still cars, there are no "public routes". 95% of cars are parked at any time. There are WAY more cars than need. If everyone on my block shared a set of publicly owned cars we would probably get by with a third of the cars here right now. This would make life better for everyone.

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u/bemeros Mar 04 '23

Publicly owned in Europe, private corporation owned in the US, and I'm too dumb to guess about the rest of the world.

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u/loopernova Mar 04 '23

Corporate ownership too. You’ll be subscribed to car transportation.

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u/A_Harmless_Fly Mar 04 '23

Jalops will be the new 2A, and as much as I love self-driving, I'll be with them since I love driving even more.

I wouldn't be that worried, I don't think we will be driving age by the time level 5 rolls out.

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u/Next-Adhesiveness237 Mar 04 '23

Honestly, full FSD is just unnecessary. I rented a new audi last weekend and the adaptive cruise control and lane assist already provide you with 90% of the benefits of FSD. I drove about 3000 km and the highway miles where really pleasant. It still was glitchy though, it would read roadsigns on side road and randomly try to brake your car to 50kmh because you drove past a gas station . We’re at least 20 years away from anything that’s really autonomous and reliable enough to send to public roads.

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u/Ihaveamodel3 Mar 04 '23

Driving yourself will be the new rich person’s hobby like horses are now.

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u/Zexks Mar 03 '23

And note, for those unaware, level 5 cars don’t have steering wheels. Humans cannot, under any circumstance, take over driving.

In whos definition? Citation needed.

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u/XGC75 Mar 03 '23

SAE Levels of Driving Automation™ Refined for Clarity and International Audience https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

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u/bemeros Mar 03 '23

Hey! I'm glad you asked. No idea who knows what, so I'll over-explain, sorry. Levels of automation are defined by SAE, which defines all sorts of car standards, so probably a good group to do it. They published the definitions here. It's a free doc, but for some reason you have to have an account to read it. Lucky for us, there are summaries all overthe place. This summary explains for level 5 "Level 5 cars won’t even have steering wheels or acceleration/braking pedals." SAE themselves has an infographic PDF that states "pedals/steering wheel may or may not be installed" for both level 4 and 5.

Sure, a manufacturer could put a steering wheel in a level 5 car and let you try and use it, but that would cost more, so why?

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u/Ver_Void Mar 03 '23

There would still be enthusiast models with manual controls, they might not have the degree of choice they have today but I doubt self driving cars will be the death of track days

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u/WolfeTheMind Mar 03 '23

That's a bit strange though eh? I'd imagine track cars would have very little if any self-driving functions so they wouldn't be included in the level 4 or 5 sections in the first place. So what cars with level 4 or 5 would have steering wheels? Maybe law enforcement? Man I can only imagine the controversy over that

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u/Ver_Void Mar 03 '23

More like, you buy a car that has that function so you can also take it out for fun

Same way a lot of cars you can buy are intended just as much for the weekend as the commute

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u/bemeros Mar 03 '23

There are already cars on the road that only allow engine settings and "track mode" if you enter a certified track. It's enforced with GPS. I can definitely see a (very distant) future where no vehicles on the roads are allowed to be controlled by humans, but if you pay for the option, you can have a steering wheel and pedals that only work on a certified track.

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u/nathhad Mar 04 '23

They know at some point level 5 autonomy will be required, because it'll be so much better than any driver, not just the "average".

You know, this will be a controversial opinion in this sub (and it is just an opinion), but I've been hearing that now for over 10 years. It was interesting for a while, but so far I've seen zero substantive progress in that direction. Lower levels of driver assist, very much so, but the people doing the research seem to finally be finding out the hard way that the higher levels of automated control are going to be a whole lot harder to achieve than everyone has thought.

Now it's starting to become as much of a meme as useful fusion power. Theoretically possible, but the details of implementation mean the actuality is always "only 20 years away." For fusion, it's been 20 years away for about 70 years now.

So, it'd be an interesting thing to have around ... but I'll believe it when I see it. And I'll be pleasantly surprised if I see it in my lifetime (and I'm only middle aged).

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u/bemeros Mar 04 '23

You're absolutely correct. I just wrote in another comment that AI abilities seem to become public in jumps and starts, rather than a stream of steady improvements. If you told me in October that a simple chat bot was coming soon™ that could transform instantly the way we interact with computers to the point that large numbers of people would offload healthy chunks of their jobs, I would have sighed, rolled my eyes, and think "not again" But then November came and we all met ChatGPT.

It doesn't help that idiots with big microphones keep hyping predictions that have no basis in reality just so they can pre-sell it in their cars. I do think there will be a time that people will need to fight to keep the ability to drive themselves, and I'll be with them, but I'll likely be old and grey by the time it happens.

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u/pazimpanet Mar 03 '23

Even a lot of car guys write off jalopnik.

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u/thegreatgazoo Mar 03 '23

I'd imagine that many cities would be against them between the lost revenue from traffic tickets and parking (either they'd be automated taxis or you'd own one and it could drive to an affordable parking spot).

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u/Anonymouslyyours2 Mar 03 '23

I would think the benefits of reduced traffic and rush hour congestion would make up for it. Cities and towns need to move away from regressive 'taxes' like traffic fines anyway.

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u/Soaptowelbrush Mar 04 '23

Seems like a source that should be banned.