
Volvo's Self Driving Pilot in Hands of Customers - Lind5
http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/volvos-selfdriving-program-will-have-redundancy-for-everything
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Animats
_" When Volvo does sell a self-driving car, it will accept full legal
responsibility for any accidents that may come. And that is reasonable,
because we told the customer he could do something else while the car drives
itself.”_

Yes.

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Hortinstein
does this mean you can be drunk in the car?

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squeaky-clean
It's fine to get on a bus or get in a taxi while drunk, I don't see any reason
a 100% autonomous car should be any different... in theory. The dilemma here
is can the person take control of the vehicle?

Being able to get hammered, and then pass out in the back seat of your car
while it drives you home is the dream. But in the slim chance it does get into
an accident, there needs to be a way to prove you really were blacked out in
the backseat, and the car crashed on its own. And not that you drunkenly
grabbed the wheel and tried to do a u-turn to McDonald's.

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throwaway6497
It is really fascinating to see the self-driving car space. I have been
assuming that Google is way ahead of everyone else, and that other tech
companies literally didn't stand a chance including Apple.

If traditional car companies are not too far behind Google, and are able to
confidently compete in this space, then Apple definitely has a chance to
compete in this space.

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sien
When self-driving cars become a reality over the next 10 years it's probably
going to reduce the number of cars sold massively.

Many or most adults in the developed world currently own a car. If you can
share them even between, say 3 people the number of cars required will
plummet. There are credible predictions around as well that even say up to 10
people might be able to share a car.

There is already over capacity in car production globally. Self-driving cars
are likely to drive that even further.

It's not a good market for a company that isn't in the game to be going in to.
Google are different because they seem to be selling the technology to enable
other manufacturers to sell self-driving cars.

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sauwan
I disagree. While the number of cars may plummet initially, when you share
cars between multiple people, the mileage on those cars is going to increase
dramatically. Shared cars may end up hitting 300,000 miles in 5 years rather
than 15.

Unless self driving cars dramatically increase the lifespan of the average
car, things will balance out in a few years.

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pbhjpbhj
Do first owners sell their cars because they become unusable or because they
become unfashionable or some other reason?

In two car households does the second car primarily get purchased for use when
the first car is sitting idle but just in the wrong location?

Might there be a change in ownership as a sort of "buy-to-let" system comes in
where owners wouldn't be able to buy an autonomous vehicle but afford it as
they send the vehicle out to work doing deliveries/taxiing people during the
times they don't need it?

It seems quite hard to predict how autonomous vehicles will change things; a
lot of it will depend on regulations on how they're manned - will a driver
with a license still be required at all times? Will there be new licenses?
Will autonomous vehicles have extra restrictions on their speed or which roads
they use? Will there be protectionist laws to prevent them picking up and
taxiing people? The surrounding legislation will probably be as important to
the way the evolution of car use happens.

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protomyth
> Take the company’s latest active safety feature, an emergency steering
> system in the 2017 S90 that senses if the car’s about to leave the road and
> takes control.

I wonder what happens if I am actually stearing for the ditch?

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semi-extrinsic
This is a great point. Imagine if you're driving manually going 20 on slippery
ice, and a child slips and falls off the pavement into the road in front of
you. The car, for whatever reason, does not "see" the child. You decide you
don't have enough stopping distance, so your response is to steer the car off
the road or into another car. But then some "safety feature" decides to stop
you from doing that, and hits the child instead.

The fallout would probably result in a multi-decade setback for
(semi-)autonomous cars.

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Johnny555
Of course, the chances of such a clear-cut moral dilemma are likely worse than
the chances of winning the lottery. Besides, if the ice is so slippery that
you can't stop, it's likely too slippery to steer off the road.

There are very few legitimate reasons for someone to purposely steer off the
road at highway speeds, but many reasons for the car to prevent it.

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nitrogen
_Besides, if the ice is so slippery that you can 't stop, it's likely too
slippery to steer off the road._

Have you driven on a slippery road? It's much easier to steer than to stop.
That is why cars have ABS, for example.

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d99kris
I'm really impressed of what the team has achieved. I worked with Erik back in
2006-2007 and he's a very smart guy. Back then the team working on "active
safety" was quite small, and the company (under Ford) was not given a lot of
R&D budget, so I did not expect them reaching this point within 10 years. But
many things have happened since.

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dosshell
This is Volvo's official information page (including a promotion video):
[http://www.volvocars.com/au/about/innovations/intellisafe/au...](http://www.volvocars.com/au/about/innovations/intellisafe/autopilot)

