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Originally Posted by mayuresh Following reports are worth a read for people following this space.
KPMG has published a fresh report: "Self Driving Cars : Are We Ready?"
On legal frameworks in the US, a few states have passed bills to allow autonomous vehicles on roads for testing purposes, while some other bills on self-driving vehicles are in the process, though not yet passed.
Some of the consumer survey results (surveys are US based):
- Surprisingly Google is the leading brand, preferred to buy an autonomous car from, despite no experience of making and selling cars, distantly followed by Nissan.
- "Handling" is regarded as most important factor by most respondents, followed by safety, regarding what they expect the most out of autonomous cars
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Thanks for sharing the link to the KPMG report. I read through it, its pretty interesting.
Couple of things that I noted in particular:
KPMG calls it a "disruptive technology" and "disruptive innovation". Which suggest that it will totally change the way we think about cars, including whom we buy them from, how we use, whether we would still owe a car, or would move to a more order a car when you need one.
Even so, KPMG does acknowledge that it still remains to be seen if there is a market to start with. Also, the whole eco-system, including legistative issue is compelety untouched yet.
I was surprised at the apparent price premium people seems to willing to pay for such a car, although KPMG also notes that what people say in survey they are willing to pay and are willing to pay in reality could be something compeletely different.
The other thing I noticed is that KPMG included as one of the advantages an assumption on these cars getting you to your destination quicker. They mention special dedicated "autonomous car lanes" that would get you pass the congested freeways. If that hadn't been included the results would have been a lot less favourable. And it's a big leap, infra-structure, legaslation as well as from a technology point of view. All the car manufacturers are developing this technology independently from one another.
If you want to introduce a special lane where self drive cars drive together in one long train like fashion with little room between them, bumper to bumper you need to have a standardised technology and interaction between all the cars. So far, I have not even heard of any of the car developers collaboration on anything like this.
Also, my own experience with "special lanes" such as lanes for car pools is not that favourable. But theoretically autonomous driven cars that interact with oneanother should be able to do better, of course.
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Originally Posted by Rehaan I liked seeing the smaller details in this video - eg. how the electronics have mapped out and calculated the speeds of other cars on the road as well :R |
From what I know calculating the speeds of the other cars is pretty straightforward. They use (doppler) radar, which will give speed and direction of other cars. You know your own car speed and direction, so its an easy calculation.
What I would wonder about is what happens when you get dozens of cars in the same area all with radar beams shooting out to all directions. There must be maze of interferention problems that need solving.
Jeroen