NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 35,712
... I like the Hyperloop idea. It's a closed system so you wouldn't have non-SDC vehicles, pedestrians, fallen trees, etc. Let me drive to a tube entrance, load my car into a pod, zip to close to my destination with no control on my part, and then unload and drive the last mile. Sure, it's got drawbacks such as sabotage, earthquake damage, etc., but are those insurmountable? It's definitely not as far along as SDCs, but you still may get to a working system eventually, rather than never.
For the last last miles off the hyperloop, I think a human driver with driver assistance safety features is probably best. The human needs to be alert, so I don't think an SDC with human overseer is a better idea...
Most of the fatal accidents happen in town and not on the freeways, as I recall. The Hyperloop could not help that.
Meanwhile, Waymo is forging ahead, just cut a deal with Jaguar for tens of thousands of iPace electric SUVs.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/0...-will-go-classy-for-20000-electric-robotaxis/
They appear to be the only one forging ahead. It will be extremely interesting to watch.
One serious accident with the leader in SDC, then that seals the fate of this nascent technology.
Meanwhile, Toyota has paused its SDC testing on public roads. Today, NVIDIA, the chip maker that designs special chips for AI algorithm such as used in the Tesla Model 3, also suspends its self-driving tests. Shares of NVIDIA dropped 7.8%, and that of Tesla 8.2%.