Driverless cars in New Zealand

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Driverless cars in New Zealand - thoughts?

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343 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1793842 2-Jun-2017 17:07

Driverless cars outside of highly controlled roads, such as modern motorways, will be a long time in coming to NZ. At the moment its just a futurists wet dream.

There are so many drawbacks, such as not being able to work in the rain, see black cars or cyclists. On our roads its going to be a long time before they can operate because of minimal road markings.

The existing fleet is not going away any time soon, there will still be decades of ordinary cars out there, its like the other pipe dream of us all in electric cars.

Imagine driverless trucks on the existing picton to chch run. not a chance. If they do run soon, it will be on things like waikato expressway, controlled motorways easily monitored with regulated and defined road markings.

I think we are suckered in by the promise and not aware of the reality of them at present.

blakamin

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#1793922 2-Jun-2017 19:24

Ge0rge:

before needing a 30min break, which must be taken out of the truck.

My turn to be pedantic ;) From NZTA:

Rest time means all time that is not work time, is at least 30 minutes long and is not spent in a moving work vehicle.

Bold is mine.

Nothing stopping you sleeping in your truck during the break.

And while you can only drive for 13hrs, a shift can be 14... because you have to have an hour off during the day. And that hour is unpaid.

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/roadcode/heavy-vehicle-road-code/information-for-heavy-vehicle-drivers/work-time-and-logbooks/

See below.

Ge0rge:

As for tyres blowing out - I would say it would be the same people that change them now - Beaurepairs get a call from the truck as it knows the left rear inner tyre on axle 5 has lost pressure...

TimA:

The product i support has API's to all of the tire servicing crews. If in the case a blowout occurs they get a notification and a location of the truck.

Both of which are handy... if you're on SH1 and have 4 hours to kill. Happened to me various times of day/night with 4 hours being the minimum wait. What happens in the SI? On your way to New Plymouth or Napier? At least an old-school driver can still change a wheel.

Let us face facts, it will be quite a few years before NZ has driverless trucks that get any further than Auckland or Wellington motorways.

They sure as hell aren't going to NP or Palmerston North until all those roads are upgraded.

tdgeek

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#1793943 2-Jun-2017 20:02

netspanner:

Driverless cars outside of highly controlled roads, such as modern motorways, will be a long time in coming to NZ. At the moment its just a futurists wet dream.

There are so many drawbacks, such as not being able to work in the rain, see black cars or cyclists. On our roads its going to be a long time before they can operate because of minimal road markings.

The existing fleet is not going away any time soon, there will still be decades of ordinary cars out there, its like the other pipe dream of us all in electric cars.

Imagine driverless trucks on the existing picton to chch run. not a chance. If they do run soon, it will be on things like waikato expressway, controlled motorways easily monitored with regulated and defined road markings.

I think we are suckered in by the promise and not aware of the reality of them at present.

You should watch the Youtube video posted in this thread. Self Drive is not The Jetsons or what you see in a 2300AD sci fi movie. Its todays tech. it sees cars, infrastructure, bicycles, roads, signs, GPS. If you looked at it from a tech POV, its meh, boring. Its not new.

Lastman

306 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1794628 4-Jun-2017 19:33

I can't wait for driverless cars to be the norm for safety and reduction in vehicle nuisance issues but I tend to agree with Netspanner that they are still a fair way off for most of our roads.

Other enhancements such as automatic breaking should improve road safety in the meantime. The age of our vehicle fleet may continue to be a problem though.

tdgeek

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#1794757 5-Jun-2017 08:52

Lastman: I can't wait for driverless cars to be the norm for safety and reduction in vehicle nuisance issues but I tend to agree with Netspanner that they are still a fair way off for most of our roads.

Other enhancements such as automatic breaking should improve road safety in the meantime. The age of our vehicle fleet may continue to be a problem though.

Why is that? Our roads may nit be billiard tables but they are roads that all cars use. A below average road driven by a better driver, aka driverless, is still safer than a human, and on a dodgy road, even more so

gzt

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#1794765 5-Jun-2017 09:10

That's the problem, the better driver does not exist yet. All the work on sensor technology and platform tuning is worthwhile, but the platform ready or not is still awaiting an AI capable of the task we do every day.

tdgeek

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#1794767 5-Jun-2017 09:18

gzt: That's the problem, the better driver does not exist yet. All the work on sensor technology and platform tuning is worthwhile, but the platform ready or not is still awaiting an AI capable of the task we do every day.

Why does it need to be AI?

To me, it needs to know how to go from A to B, how to avoid obstacles, how to navigate around obstacles such as a stalled vehicle, it needs to see and obey road rules and lights, and signs, and it needs to know where the road is, the centreline, the edge, how many lanes it has at its disposal. It doesnt need to think, it needs to obey.

However, there are probably more challenges it needs to cope with, I'll try to look for them as I drive today. Id probably prefer a dumb machine that drives and deals with situations as coded, rather than thinks about what to do. At least if it works within coded instructions, that also include a "cant deal with this unknown, ill pull over"

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alasta

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#1794794 5-Jun-2017 10:17

Lastman: I can't wait for driverless cars to be the norm for safety and reduction in vehicle nuisance issues but I tend to agree with Netspanner that they are still a fair way off for most of our roads.

Other enhancements such as automatic breaking should improve road safety in the meantime. The age of our vehicle fleet may continue to be a problem though.

Autonomous emergency braking, lane departure warning and blind spot monitoring would be fantastic if they were prevalent across the fleet. The problem is that the people who are safety conscious enough to buy vehicles with these features are not the type of drivers who are likely to ever need them.

Given the shocking state of our vehicle fleet it will take many years for this existing driver assistance tech to flow through to higher risk drivers, so upcoming driver assistance tech will take many years more.

Lastman

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Ultimate Geek

#1794799 5-Jun-2017 10:25

tdgeek:
Lastman: I can't wait for driverless cars to be the norm for safety and reduction in vehicle nuisance issues but I tend to agree with Netspanner that they are still a fair way off for most of our roads.

Other enhancements such as automatic breaking should improve road safety in the meantime. The age of our vehicle fleet may continue to be a problem though.

Why is that? Our roads may nit be billiard tables but they are roads that all cars use. A below average road driven by a better driver, aka driverless, is still safer than a human, and on a dodgy road, even more so

Driverless cars are unlikely to be approved for dual carriageway roads (esp. rural or "b" roads) until they test as being virtually flawless in negotiating the myriad of circumstances and obstacles that these roads can present. Given that the technology is still really only on test on highway type driving I can't see it happening soon.

Also getting the parliamentary and legal framework in place and necessary roading infrastructure takes time.

In agriculture new technology almost always involves changing the growing infrastructure and the analogy would be our roads will need, at least some, modification.

Linuxluver

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#1794922 5-Jun-2017 14:11

tdgeek:

Linuxluver:

dclegg:

It'll make driving in Auckland a helluva lot safer, I'm sure. Auckland drivers are the worst! Far too aggressive and impatient.

It's not just Auckland, believe me. There is a certain kind of driver to be found everywhere. Immature. Ego-driven. Careless. Thoughtless.

Plus nice people who are easily distracted, poor drivers, look ahead and not around, in a rush, crying kids in the back, the list goes on. The human brain is wonderful but I prefer a brain that does one thing, has eyes in the back of its head, and roof, and sides, etc. And it follows the Road Code 100%

Yep. I agree.

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gzt

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#1794938 5-Jun-2017 15:30

This was a link originally so made it an embed in case anyone else missed it:

This is really good, but I'm not overly impressed. The presenter/journalist along for the ride is enthusiastic that's very entertaining and emphasises the progress made. No questions at_all are asked about the serious limitations of the system and how far it has to go. It's great, but it's light infotainment.

The car at one point pulls up behind a bus at a bus stop. The Nissan guy has to take over. The Nissan guy explains this is currently a limitation. The car can't tell the difference between a vehicle pulled over for a particular purpose and a line of traffic.

Nissan guy also takes over at the end of the demonstration ride, no doubt for similar reasons.

gzt

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#1794945 5-Jun-2017 16:18

Azzura:
What is the gov going to do about the lost wages and lost income tax, gst (other taxes) that came from these wages.

As more and more things become "automated". It is eventually possible....no one is working to buy the products. Or enough people have no money cause there are not enough jobs.

Does the gov do basic living income? Tax the company using these automated equipment/vehicles? Do they tax the people still working even more?

Those are good questions, but the guys in the video claiming a fleet of self driving trucks crossed Europe are exaggerating a bit.

The purpose of that exercise was platooning, aka motorway convoys with a short distance between each vehicle to minimise wind resistance and reduce fuel cost.

Every truck had a driver with hands on the wheel as an integral part of the system. No attempt to replace the driver. As far as I can see the purpose of that tech is driver assistance to allow very short following distances. In convoy the trucks are wireless linked and the required braking reactions at that distance are handled autonomously.

Ge0rge

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#1794996 5-Jun-2017 18:21

Lastman:

Snip:

Also getting the parliamentary and legal framework in place and necessary roading infrastructure takes time.

It would seem that the legal framework is already in place:

https://goo.gl/WMrzAF

"The minister said New Zealand had special advantages that could appeal to the industry. One he cited was a quirk in New Zealand's transport law that meant there was no requirement for vehicles to have a driver."

gzt

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#1795005 5-Jun-2017 18:41

tdgeek:
gzt: That's the problem, the better driver does not exist yet. All the work on sensor technology and platform tuning is worthwhile, but the platform ready or not is still awaiting an AI capable of the task we do every day.

Why does it need to be AI?

To me, it needs to know how to go from A to B, how to avoid obstacles, how to navigate around obstacles such as a stalled vehicle, it needs to see and obey road rules and lights, and signs, and it needs to know where the road is, the centreline, the edge, how many lanes it has at its disposal. It doesnt need to think, it needs to obey.

However, there are probably more challenges it needs to cope with, I'll try to look for them as I drive today. Id probably prefer a dumb machine that drives and deals with situations as coded, rather than thinks about what to do. At least if it works within coded instructions, that also include a "cant deal with this unknown, ill pull over"

Why does it need to be AI? The reason that Tesla driver on autopilot was decapitated when his car drove under a semi truck at high speed. It needs to deal with novel situations.

Which brings up another danger apparent from the leaf video and reactions to it. Human overconfidence in the technology.

tdgeek

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#1795034 5-Jun-2017 19:45

gzt:
tdgeek:

gzt: That's the problem, the better driver does not exist yet. All the work on sensor technology and platform tuning is worthwhile, but the platform ready or not is still awaiting an AI capable of the task we do every day.

Why does it need to be AI?

To me, it needs to know how to go from A to B, how to avoid obstacles, how to navigate around obstacles such as a stalled vehicle, it needs to see and obey road rules and lights, and signs, and it needs to know where the road is, the centreline, the edge, how many lanes it has at its disposal. It doesnt need to think, it needs to obey.

However, there are probably more challenges it needs to cope with, I'll try to look for them as I drive today. Id probably prefer a dumb machine that drives and deals with situations as coded, rather than thinks about what to do. At least if it works within coded instructions, that also include a "cant deal with this unknown, ill pull over"

Why does it need to be AI? The reason that Tesla driver on autopilot was decapitated when his car drove under a semi truck at high speed. It needs to deal with novel situations.

Which brings up another danger apparent from the leaf video and reactions to it. Human overconfidence in the technology.

AI. I can't see how that relates to driverless. Driverless needs the ability to see, and avoid obstacles. Go A to B. Be aware off the correct actions to take in an impending accident. There is a very finite need there. It doesn't need to reason and learn, it needs to understand physics of the vehicles and avoidance.

The Tesla autopilot isn't the Leaf. the Leaf will have stopped. For any driverless to drive under a vehicle is severely lacking testing.

The Leaf did well. Its not prime time, it did not know how to deal with a bis stopped in the driving lane, thats pretty easy. There will no doubt be many other situations it isn't programmed to manage.

The overconfidence I don't follow. Its clearly not ready for prime time, but its well on the way there. It needs to be coded with physics and decision making for accident avoidance, and off course getting around a stalled bus. I feel there is am under confidence theme. Maybe as many like to drive? But a swag of self drives will be far safer than a swag of humans. We drive bad, doing watch the road, get distracted, over confident, don't obey the rules, and we cause accidents and death on daily basis. Reaction time is low, decision making capability is low.

I get the feeling that some feel the self drives will be all over the place causing mayhem. We already have that!

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