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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / Driving / January 2008Self-Driving Cars *Are* Coming
Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/728885,CST-NWS-driver07.article Self-driving cars could go on sale in 10 years TECHNOLOGY | 'This is not science fiction,' GM says January 7, 2008 BY TOM KRISHER DETROIT -- Cars that drive themselves -- even parking at their destination -- could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp. executives say. GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his speech to the driverless vehicles. ''This is not science fiction,'' Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development, said. The most significant obstacles facing the vehicles could be human rather than technical: government regulation and people's passion for the automobile and the control it gives them. Much of the technology already exists for vehicles to take the wheel: radar-based cruise control, motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, electronic stability control and satellite-based digital mapping. And automated vehicles could dramatically improve life on the road, reducing crashes and congestion. ''Now the question is what does society want to do with it?'' Burns said. ''You're looking at these issues of congestion, safety, energy and emissions. Technically there should be no reason why we can't transfer to a totally different world.'' The first use likely would be on highways; people would have the option to choose a driverless mode while they still would control the vehicle on local streets, Burns said.  Signature"Therefore, you are not worth my time... Have an excellent weekend, Sunshine. Truth be told, I'll be too busy to respond back to you. My fiancée and I will be too busy love-making!" - Carl Rogers, Message-ID: <kekKg.23278$gY6.2474@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com> > Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang > up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) So you'll become a sloth driver. It's the claybrooks of the world that will dictate the parameters of operation. If you thinking it will a 150mph superhighway you're dreaming. The reality is a dreary soviet style central control run by people who think they know what's best for you. >> Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang >> up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) > >So you'll become a sloth driver. Perhaps. But at least my Sloth won't be getting in anyone else's way, as everyone else will be equally Slothy. Under those circumstances, being a Sloth driver is better than being a NON-driver (or, as so many geezers become, an INCOMPETENT driver). Signature"You can all kiss my @ss!" - Carl Rogers, Message-ID: <IE1ej.2353$se5.298@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com> >>> Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang >>> up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > being a Sloth driver is better than being a NON-driver (or, as so many > geezers become, an INCOMPETENT driver). That's the arguement of sloth drivers, that it's that other people are too quick to accelerate and drive too fast. It seems to me you've just endorsed their world view and a mechanism to force it upon everyone else. :) >>>> Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang >>>> up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >endorsed their world view and a mechanism to force it upon everyone else. >:) Note that I don't subscribe to Brent's pessimistic world view; I was merely speaking hypothetically. As Donald Trump said in *The Art of the Deal*: "Cover the downside and the upside takes care of itself." Signature"You can all kiss my @ss!" - Carl Rogers, Message-ID: <IE1ej.2353$se5.298@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com> >> Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang >> up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >150mph superhighway you're dreaming. The reality is a dreary soviet style >central control run by people who think they know what's best for you. It's not going to happen in ten years and probably not in 50 years. It's just another "popular science" pie in the sky happy talk prediction that will never pan out. At least thirty years ago they said "fake" meat was just around the corner (made from SOY) that would rival real meat in taste and texture. It's still not here. How many articles have you read saying "solar" is *just around the corner*??? > On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:06:50 -0600, tetraethylleadREMOVET...@yahoo.com > > How many > articles have you read saying "solar" is *just around the corner*??? I know a guy who is working on a solar collector that's organic- molecule-based, rather than silicon-based. Making the silicon stuff for solar collectors is very expensive. Making the organic molecule film for that type of collector is stupid cheap in comparison. And the organic-molecule collector is already more efficient than silicon. He's working on the scale up. He seems to think it'll be production-ready in 3-5 years. From what I know, I want to buy the stock of the company that licenses his patent... ISTR someone saying once that the energy of an hours worth of sunlight hitting the Earth was equivalent to the entirely yearly expenditure of energy all across the planet. This implies that capturing even 1 part in 10000 of the solar flux would do a pretty damn good job of fixing our nation's energy deficit. Then there's the new nanowire Li ion battery tech. Couple that with the solar collector, and all of a sudden, your car has enough "go" to never need another drop of fuel, or another lump of coal, or a single split atom of U238. I wonder what it would be like. E.P. >> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:06:50 -0600, tetraethylleadREMOVET...@yahoo.com >> How many >> articles have you read saying "solar" is *just around the corner*??? >I know a guy who is working on a solar collector that's organic- >molecule-based, rather than silicon-based. Making the silicon stuff >for solar collectors is very expensive. Making the organic molecule >film for that type of collector is stupid cheap in comparison. And >the organic-molecule collector is already more efficient than >silicon. He's working on the scale up. Unfortunately, the "organic cells" don't last. Even the small-scale test facilities are unreliable. >He seems to think it'll be production-ready in 3-5 years. From >what I know, I want to buy the stock of the company that licenses >his patent... There's a sucker born every minute. >ISTR someone saying once that the energy of an hours worth of sunlight >hitting the Earth was equivalent to the entirely yearly expenditure of >energy all across the planet. This implies that capturing even 1 part >in 10000 of the solar flux would do a pretty damn good job of fixing >our nation's energy deficit. It can't in practice. There's an somewhat inconvenient term that defeats such fantasies: "practicality". In the first place; solar energy available at ground level is highly variable. Like wind energy, the _availability_ of the energy source doesn't match the demand. This means that "conventional" sources of electrical power have to be on standby to fill the need. That's why "alternative energy" is systemically very expensive: you need the conventional power anyway as a "backup" if you can't control the load. (Residents of the People's Democratic Republic of Kalifornia beware!) Wind/solar power co-generation capacity of more than about 5% produces network instability; resulting in outages and brownouts. (vis. Europe; especially Denmark and Germany) The generating capacity is largely "wasted" as well if you have too much that you can't use when you don't need it. You have to give it away; like the Danes do to Norway. Norway OTOH are smart: Their major electric production is from hydro. They take the surplus electricity provided "free" by the risk-ready Danes to pump water back up to storage. >Then there's the new nanowire Li ion battery tech. Couple that with >the solar collector, and all of a sudden, your car has enough "go" to >never need another drop of fuel, or another lump of coal, or a single >split atom of U238. Any technology that includes more than one buzzword in the description is probably a scam. :-) >I wonder what it would be like. Science-fantasy. A car battery would reasonably have to store about 60 MJ (~17 kWh) for daily commuting (equivalent to the nett energy available from burning 5 litres of diesel); be able to recharge in a few minutes at the usual vehicle operating temperatures (-20C to 50C) in order to be generally viable as a competitor to one driven by an internal combustion engine in daily cmmuting use. The battery would have to store about 5 times as much energy to be viable for passenger vehicles in general. 10 times as much is necessary to be on par in terms of vehicle range. Signature/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia \ / ASCII ribbon campaign | Great minds discuss ideas; X against HTML mail | Average minds discuss events; / \ and postings | Small minds discuss people. -- Eleanor Roosevelt On Jan 13, 1:13 am, Bernd Felsche <ber...@innovative.iinet.net.au> wrote: > >> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:06:50 -0600, tetraethylleadREMOVET...@yahoo.com > >> How many [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Unfortunately, the "organic cells" don't last. Since your first sentence is incorrect, the rest really doesn't matter. E.P. >On Jan 13, 1:13 am, Bernd Felsche <ber...@innovative.iinet.net.au> >wrote: >> >> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:06:50 -0600, tetraethylleadREMOVET...@yahoo.com >> >> How many >> >> articles have you read saying "solar" is *just around the corner*??? >> >I know a guy who is working on a solar collector that's organic- >> >molecule-based, rather than silicon-based. Making the silicon >> >stuff for solar collectors is very expensive. Making the >> >organic molecule film for that type of collector is stupid cheap >> >in comparison. And the organic-molecule collector is already >> >more efficient than silicon. He's working on the scale up. >> Unfortunately, the "organic cells" don't last. >Since your first sentence is incorrect, the rest really doesn't >matter. Convenient to not think; isn't it? How about providing some references to indicate that "organic cells" last more than 3 years? <http://www.quantsol.unibe.ch/%5Cpub%5Cpub_11.htm> Early cells lasted 150 days WITH encapsulation. <http://www.ipc.uni-linz.ac.at/publ/2007/2007-005.pdf> 6000 hours _shelf_ lifetime with encapsulation. <http://spie.org/x8666.xml> 2400 hours under 1-sun with controlled atmosphere. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TW0-4NH7DXW-3&_user=1 0&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVers ion=0&_userid=10&md5=1c0c11435b2ef08fd1ac510e56925732> 1800 _minutes_ under controlled atmosphere and illumination. How about providing some published references that show the energy efficiency to be greater than 10%? <http://www.physorg.com/news7076.html> Says 5.2% <http://www.ipc.uni-linz.ac.at/publ/2007/2007-005.pdf> Indicates about 3%; with efficiency dropping rapidly for large areas. NONE of the above show that the organic cells are more efficient than silicon (Silicon cell efficiency peaks at about 20%; with "cheap" cells producing around 15%). As the cells are still a long way from production, prediction of the costs of practical cells is folly. Signature/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia \ / ASCII ribbon campaign | Great minds discuss ideas; X against HTML mail | Average minds discuss events; / \ and postings | Small minds discuss people. -- Eleanor Roosevelt >Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang >up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) "Within the next 10 years" may as well mean "forever", at least with GM making the prediction. Expect flying cars and practical nuclear fusion at about the same time. SignatureThere's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can result in a fully-depreciated one. >>Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang >>up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) > >"Within the next 10 years" may as well mean "forever", at least with >GM making the prediction. Expect flying cars and practical nuclear >fusion at about the same time. When that happens, they'll *FINALLY* have given me a reason to buy some of their stock, or *gasp* maybe even one of their products. SignatureSarcasm is my sword Apathy is my shield >>>Look for them within the next 10 years. By the time I'm ready to hang >>>up my car keys, the technology ought to be perfected. :) [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >When that happens, they'll *FINALLY* have given me a reason to buy >some of their stock, or *gasp* maybe even one of their products. I wouldn't go that far. Toyota and Honda will have much better models available, and Ford will have a slightly better one available within the year (as well as 6 crappier ones). And Hyundai will have a cheaper one. SignatureThere's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can result in a fully-depreciated one. |
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