Honk if the car in front is connected
Connecting cars to the internet and to each other seems to be inevitable, whether or not you approve - and plenty don’t. Let’s face it, though, everything else is connecting to the internet, so why not your favourite drive? By 2017, according to ABI Research, a market watcher, some 50 million connected cars will be sold every …
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Re: Just my experience
That was in 1988! There a pilots flying right now born after that event
The last thing these systems need is an off switch, it's the lack of an off switch that will overall make the roads safer and protect you from Mr Dickhead BMW driver deciding to switch his off and go flying through automated traffic at 10mph
Re: Just my experience
are
and
150mph
I think I need a new keyboard (or typing lessons)
Re: Just my experience
Actually the BMW driver at 10MPH is probably more dangerous than the one doing 150MPH. At least the one doing 150 is probably paying attention to his driving, and not tweeting on his iPhone while shaving...
Re: Just my experience
«I have to wonder what your opinion is of the fly-by-wire systems»
I do not have any current or past rating on any fly by wire aircraft so I cannot speak from first hand experience. With that big caveat, it is not quite true that those systems will "deny" control to the pilot. Worst case all triple redundant systems will malfunction and you're left with some throttle and rudder control (on the FBW types I know, again not from first hand experience, the rudder is mechanically linked to the pedals), which in theory should be enough to maintain sufficient control that you can stand a good chance of landing the thing. Then again, you would have stayed in bed if you suspected that your day was going to go so wrong, so anything is a bonus.
The Habsheim demonstration flight that you seem to refer to ended up in a smoking hole precisely because some of the FBW technology had been disabled to make for a more spectacular low pass. It was caused by a multiplicity of factors, all of them with a human component, not by any fundamental flaw in the technology being used, regardless of what headlines the press might have wanted to have.
Those colleagues of mine who fly Airbuses are generally very happy with the beasts. They do say that it is a very different approach to flying a "normal" aircraft though, so it takes some getting used to.
With that said, FBW and automation are two completely different things. Modern cockpits have an awful lot of automation and technologies intended to ease the workload and improve the situational awareness of the pilots (and others involved in the flight, notably ATC, other traffic, and often your own company). This is regardless of the control design philosophy.
Again, there are thousands and thousands of man-hours put on by some *very* clever people behind all this technology, so hand-wave comments trying to rubbish it just look silly, with all respect. Things can and are improved, incrementally, all the time, but not because the base is not solid--it's in part because, amongst other considerations, you need to build on previous experience.
To get back to the subject, the same applies to cars. I happen to drive a car from a certain big German manufacturer that has pretty much every safety option I could find, and generally I am very impressed with the design and how unobtrusive it all is. Here I can talk from my own experience (unlike all the "I'll never drive a car that tells me what to do" brigade one finds in these forums, who clearly have never actually used any of this), and it really does make the driving safer, more relaxed, and less tiring.
Re: Just my experience
"I have to say I'm quite impressed at the quality of the automation we already have... I am also a commercial pilot "
No, you're quite impressed with the quality of automation you already have. I suspect the rest of us not on commercial air line pilot salaries have a rather more meagre experience of car automation.
Throwing complex technology into cars to benefit forest dwellers may seem good to you - for me it's simply something extra to pay for and to go wrong. And in my experience, ordinary headlights have a perfectly functional kick-up on the kerb side even on dipped beam that doesn't require a soddin' pooter, optical sensors, servo motors, and projector headlights. Likewise, lane departure prevention, more optics, sensors and buttock prodding actuators, when the intentionally raised cats eyes do a perfectly functional job.
The connected car is like the smart home: There's a tiny handful of good things in prospect, but 95% of the claimed benefits and opportunities are solutions in desparate search of a problem.
Re: Just my experience
"Modern cockpits have an awful lot of automation and technologies intended to ease the workload and improve the situational awareness of the pilots "
AF447.
Re: Just my experience
> AF447.
Yes, Mr. Coward, what about it? Please contact the BEA (+33.1.49.92.72.00) with any useful insights you might have.
Re: Just my experience
" No, you're quite impressed with the quality of automation you already have. I suspect the rest of us not on commercial air line pilot salaries have a rather more meagre experience of car automation. "
Ok, fair point, but someone has to pay and be the early adopters / guinea pigs so that the technology can be improved, costs lowered, and eventually be fitted into lower end models (not that what I drive is what I would consider flashy--on the contrary I prioritise functionality over looks and I prefer inconspicuous vehicles).
In any case, my point was that people should not be talking about stuff they have zero experience with in such dismissive terms as you find here.
Ignoring lessons
Doesn't sound as if they've learnt much from the experience of the aircraft industry. Airliners have already tried automating the easy stuff, relying on the principle that the meatware takes over if it all goes wrong; now they're finding that the pilots do so little actual flying that they've de-skilled to the point where they can't take over effectively. The same's going to happen with all these "safety aids" like lane control, road trains, removing the need for the driver to maintain situational awareness, etc.
I doubt the hard stuff like making cars fully autonomous is realistically anywhere close; not much sign of quadruplex redundant safety-critical systems being designed in, is there?
Re: Ignoring lessons
Oh, they've learnt all that very well. Once every vehicle has these systems on board, it's only a short step to saying "well, people just can't drive safely by themselves any more. Let's ban cars, and just have state-run transport". All these car-hating councils will love the chance to replace all the roads by bus lanes and trams. Except for the councillors/MPs in their ZILs of course.
Re: Ignoring lessons
«now they're finding that the pilots do so little actual flying that they've de-skilled to the point where they can't take over effectively»
No they're not finding that. With due respect, that's just utter bullshit from the sensationalist press. Please try not to talk about things you know absolutely nothing about.
P.S.: What is it with these car articles and the knuckle-dragging mucho macho IT brigade? Gentlemen, why are you pretending to be Michael-Ayrton Fucking Schumacherpaldi Mäkinen on a fucking web forum?
"check the status"?
"You’ll be able to check the status of your car long before you slip in behind the wheel."
What's a car's "status"? I can't think of anything that I want to ask my car before I get in. No doubt the car will just reply: "It's complicated".
Re: "check the status"?
"It's complicated and therefore expensive", in my experience.
Re: "check the status"?
fail to treat your car as a cheap appliance.
how about... tire pressure, engine and transmission oil levels, coolant levels, belt life remaining, etc... it would be nice to know my tires are outside optimal inflation range when i'm making my daily plan, so i can alot time to fix the issue and maybe diagnose why the status changed.
Re: "check the status"?
"how about... tire pressure, engine and transmission oil levels, coolant levels, belt life remaining, etc... it would be nice to know my tires are outside optimal inflation range when i'm making my daily plan, so i can alot time to fix the issue and maybe diagnose why the status changed."
I'm sure that kind of tech could be hacked into a car right now with a bit of engineering skill and an Arduino or something. I don't know how it requires a complete drive-by-wire system to work properly though.
Bunch of sensors and a transmitter, surely?
Re: "check the status"?
"What's a car's "status"? I can't think of anything that I want to ask my car before I get in."
Totally guessing, but maybe someone is thinking that you could say, plan a trip on Google Maps / Via Michelin and upload that to the car over the internet / Wifi, and the car will check whether there is sufficient fuel, correct tyre types and pressure, next service is not overdue, etc., etc.? Or it may simply be a new incarnation of pre-heat systems, or something like that.
As I say, totally guessing at possibilities. Yes, it probably is a bit of a silly gimmick--then again, it will either find a market (e.g., like Park Assist with some elder people / unconfident drivers) or it will disappear after a year or two.
Re: "check the status"?
> I'm sure that kind of tech could be hacked into a car right now
That technology already *is* on any relatively high-end car you can buy today. All of it, including tyre pressure readings.
CAR-2-CAR finally implements one of Mad magazines finest inventions.
The directional PA insult horn.
In the future.....
"Hey stupid in the Red Nissan. Put your f**king foot down or we'll be here all f**king night."
Without anyone else hearing it.....
Exciting times!
I'm cheap, so I won't have the whizbang tech until I can get it for cheap in a 10 year old car.
Which raises another question - how long will manufacturers keep supporting, patching, and updating these systems? Any sort of interconnected system like this is going to have its share of bugs and security holes that will need to be fixed. There are laws on the books (at least in the US) regarding repair parts availability that could concievably be extended to include patch support, but those generally only run for ten years. I'm not really looking forward to the prospect of having to junk a perfectly-mechanically-sound 11 year old car due to an unpatched security bug in some safety-critical telematics system.
Hopefully there will be an (offical or unofficial) way to disable all this stuff once it becomes unsupported so we can avoid this situation.
Patching will be handled like most Android OEMs handle patching; "buy a new car"
+1 for the driverless car
Speaking as someone who's face orbs are not to the required standard, A driverless car is something that can't come soon enough. I'm unable to obtain the required written (printed) permission slip to be in control of one, yet I can write the code that will do exactly that :)
Although it will have some downsides it's going to be mostly good.
There are always neighsayers of new tech which are often right before it's been developed.
eg. When satnav came out it was worse than what was before (a map) and so quite pointless.
But then introducing detailed traffic info into it and suddenly it's much better.
What interests me most about this is the feature that a car can take information from one car, store it and then pass on to one further up the road.
That's now invented a decentralised communications network - When they add the ability to short text over it it would could help stop any ISP censorship they have planned for the internet as people could hop their data from car to car.
Would it may be easier on motorways if the streetlights communicated with the cars though?
Pass a message to cars going the other way
I don't understand this bit of the article.
Surely a broadcast at the speed of light (in air, not vacuum), which is rebroadcast by a suitable car 500 metres back and so on (for a given TTL on the message), is more efficient than passing the message to a car going the other way at 100 kph and it rebroadcasting it in 30 seconds...
I can't see any reason that the direction of a cars travel would matter in the case of motorway traffic and congestion building up, any message can propagate through the network millions of times faster than a vehicle can move.
Re: the general idea, my commute isn't very interesting, I'd be more than happy to hand most of it over to a computer and have a snooze, or set off later, and start work in the car...
That doesn't mean that on some days I wouldn't want to drive myself, it's probably <75% of the time though.
Re: Pass a message to cars going the other way
«I don't understand this bit of the article.»
The problem: short comms range.
The solution: store and forward.
If you understand that you should be able to figure out the rest.
Anyone recall this idea of a group of cars "following the leader" with fixed spacing and braking
They called it (VW if memory serves) a road train
Of course if you pick had a decent and reliable train service at a reasonable price, and 1 person vehicles you could rent at the destination for the day you might not need a car at all.
But then no turkey votes for Christmas.
I dont want internet access in my car
My frigging internet bills are big enough. download music from the cloud? whats wrong with listening to the radio or even a usb stick, or other suitable in car systems? Watch movies? Let the kids count edsels (1 ice cream for each you spot) and back seat movies are only a distraction to drivers behind them - what the heck are those kids watching? Speed control? Excuse me, but there are already enough decisions taken out of my hands for me to be happy to lose this one as well. If the cops want to catch me, let 'em get in their cars and chase me.
Personal preference:
www.zeromotorcycles.com
I can appreciate the market potential of in-car connectivities and the potentials these bring - perhaps even silent and unobtrusive interventions to assist the driver.
On the other hand, creative chaos certainly has attractions?
Gone in Nano Seconds
Just I what I need. A car that can be stolen by remote control.
Idiots.
Who needs a cell phone?
When NZ introduced its cell phone laws, I wrote a submission saying that it was stupid to explicitly ban cell phone use while driving. I said that in a few years we could expect wireless hotspots in cars and people could use VOIP handsets that were not cell phones and thus not impacted by the law.
In this fast-changing world you should legislate against behaviour, not specific technologies.
Now as for safety... Bah! There is one and only one major contributor to safety in a car: the meat-sack behind the wheel. As soon as technology starts to take over safety, the driver abdicates resposibility to the technology and bad shit happens.
When bad shit happens, the motorist will obviously try to duck the blame. That invariably means a bunch of well paid lawyers starts dragging engineers through the courts.
So update policy like a computer mfg or update policy like a mobile phone mfg?
That said so far embedded software for control on cars seems to be built to a higher standard that that of either the average PC or phone in the first place.
Just went with the Toyota Highlander 2013 here
Backup camera. I find that is quite useful. Wish it had forward camera as well (but you know the idiots in California will watch the camera not the road.) We can get radar and all kinds of crazy cool stuff.
The only thing I don't like is that my old 70's vw only had eight wires. No computers, no spying. I still don't understand how people with mobile phones can't drive and deal with their phone, I had CB/HAM radio and never had a problem, even with a stick, cigarettes, gum, and a DR Pepper between the legs and a M1 Carbine out the window hunting for DEER. Maybe it's the TEXTING that's the problem?!
Anyway nanny state crap. The Toyota HL 2013 is just great. I had a Toyota Landcruiser 70's era last time I bought Toyota. That car (er jeep) kicked ass too. Had the top off and drove to Reno once after 4WD in desert wilderness deerhunting D4-D5 fun! I wouldn't take the Highlander into all that Manzanita bush though.. scratch city, I was better prepared back in the 70's to just deal with the jeep scratches/ rock dents Mostly though the SKID PLATES, and ultimately avoiding hitting a 50MPH axle snapper is what matters most ;o)
Oh yeah, almost forgot, I have a GEIGER COUNTER and no the Toyota Highlander 2013 I got is not hot. The radiation spike after 311 in California was hotter than this car is. Just the facts. It's background level.
The only complaint I am having is I have had to clear out some crap in the garage to make room for it. It's just bigger than you think for some reason. Even the hanging crap had to come down just to park it in there, I'll be shoveling the MFM drives and 286 circuit card boxes out of the way soon.
I still ain't got to go nowhere in it cause I been cleaning the Garage. lol
Maybe fix the ****ing roads first ?
none of this technology would mean a bean in (say) Birmingham, where the "roads" are more an assault course through open cast mines.
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