
Why Our Company’s Trucks Won’t Carry Lidar - sethbannon
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/why-our-companys-trucks-wont-carry-lidar
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forapurpose
> A fully loaded truck moving at highway speed needs a lot of space to stop,
> at least 150 to 200 meters, and the long-range lidars now available can’t
> sense things in sufficient detail that far ahead. ...

> Reliability is also limited. I mentioned that we use components that are
> automotive grade, that we’re certain will work over the lifetime of our
> vehicles, in all the various conditions we require. Lidar isn’t there yet.

That makes me think how inefficient it is for every vehicle to carry its own
lidar, radar, etc. Why not pay once for high-quality sensors built into the
highway infrastructure, and have them feed data to passing vehicles. It would
solve the lidar range problem, among other things.

One obvious challenge would be that smaller roads would not be outfitted with
the sensors. Perhaps automated driving would be disabled in that case.

~~~
wahern
> Why not pay once for high-quality sensors built into the highway
> infrastructure, and have them feed data to passing vehicles.

Collective action problem.

~~~
forapurpose
I'm not sure what you mean. We collectively built the roads, for example, and
the guard rails and road signs; it's hardly impossible.

~~~
wahern
There's far less contention regarding the scope and design of those things.

It's not impossible to do what you say. But do you live in the United States?
This isn't a country does compromise and cooperation very well, especially not
now.

A more recent example is cellphone technology. Europe forced standardization
of cell technology early on and so cell service (especially 2G and 3G) spread
much more quickly and consistently than in the U.S. But there was much more
innovation in the U.S.[1] because companies had more degrees of freedom. CDMA
lost the standardization wars but won the technology wars, and arguably that's
because companies could build out CDMA in the U.S. and Asia.

I don't think there's an objective answer to which model is preferable, not
for cellphones nor for autonomous driving. But relative to Europe the United
States clearly prefers market-driven solutions. The mantra is that the
government isn't supposed to "pick winners and losers" in a competitive market
place. It may seem obvious that it's better to cooperate on building a shared
infrastructure, but unless and until there's a consensus that such shared
infrastructure offers not only the most social utility but that its the "best"
approach (imagine all the details!), it's not likely to happen here.

And that's without considering who will pay for such infrastructure.

[1] At least, that's the common wisdom. Which is all that matters when
discussing political viability.

~~~
forapurpose
I think you make good points, but I wouldn't assume that the current U.S.
political situation will persist. The right wing in the U.S. didn't assume
that and acted to change the formerly more centrist situation to a more
polarized one, and from a more active government to a now radically inactive
one.

> There's far less contention regarding the scope and design of those things.

There is less contention now, when they are mature solutions deployed decades
ago. I expect that the situation was much different at the time they were
proposed.

