
G.M. Unveils Its Driverless Cars, Aiming to Lead the Pack - elsewhen
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/business/gm-driverless-cars.html
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sithadmin
Cruise vehicles practically swarm the area where my office in South SF is. I
have to say that they're very annoying to drive around, because as the article
states, they do not react to surroundings in the same way a human driver
probably would. I've nearly rear-ended a couple myself. While I wouldn't say
their vehicles make driving more dangerous for human vehicle operators around
them, I do believe that they likely increase the risk of minor collisions.

~~~
Nomentatus
I'm going to argue that this is a feature, and you're already less likely to
die on the road, thanks to those annoyances. We've known that humans tailgate
like hell for decades, and haven't found a cure. Cruise vehicles have pointed
out that you (like almost everyone else) tailgate to a dangerous degree, and
have at least slightly changed that behavior. If that saves you from a violent
high-speed collision in a year or two, you owe them your life. Having a
sprinkling of more "ethical" vehicles around might be a good thing.

~~~
chiefofgxbxl
> We've known that humans tailgate like hell for decades, and haven't found a
> cure.

Haven't found a solution, or have found one and haven't implemented it? For
example, I've been recently pondering how to resolve tailgating. How about a
system like this:

Vehicles will be mandated to have distance sensors in both front and rear
(some already have this for sake of back-up cameras and auto-braking),
essentially a car sonar system. If your car is moving, it detects the distance
between you and those in front and in back. If you are traveling too closely
to the car in front of you (tailgating), your vehicle will be mandated to emit
a warning buzz sound in the cabin, which intensifies in strength the smaller
the gap. For someone tailgating you, perhaps a visual indication behind.

This way the closer one tailgates, the more audible (and possibly visual)
feedback a driver gets. Hopefully the audio is annoying enough that most
sensible tailgaters (oxymoron?) would back off.

Strengthen this with a visual indicator on the roof of the vehicle, perhaps,
so that if someone is tailgating, a light on the roof turns on indicating
such. Would make it trivial for police officers and traffic cams to notice. I
think part of bad driving behavior is the anonymity cars today offer: with
tinted glass and the feeling like you're in a safe, sound-proof cocoon, so
this visual indicator may help shatter that in a good way.

~~~
King-Aaron
I find turning on my Antilag is a good solution to tail-gaters. Nothing like
shooting fire at the car behind under deceleration to give you a bit of room.

~~~
Nomentatus
Let's just make it legal to equip your car with a flamethrower on the back as
long as the flames don't go out further than 20 feet while your car is
stationary, and it only activates when an inbuilt radar detects a tailgater
behind you.

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CruiseAway
WIRED talks a lot more about the drive itself, and isn't as positive about it.

[https://www.wired.com/story/ride-general-motors-self-
driving...](https://www.wired.com/story/ride-general-motors-self-driving-car/)

~~~
quirkot
This gets at something I was taught in driving school. Slow =/= safe. Sudden
stopping can be just as dangerous as any other tactic.

~~~
WillPostForFood
It depends what aspect of safe you are looking at. Higher speed = worse
accident.

[https://i.imgur.com/TFBOnG1.png](https://i.imgur.com/TFBOnG1.png)

Hopefully we can move to 100% autonomous cars, and then crank up the speed
because they are safer, have better reaction times, and are predictable.

~~~
dmix
Wow, just 10km faster significantly increases fatality rates. That's crazy.

Edit: oh it's for pedestrians, not drivers.

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siculars
So, G.M. has a decades long history of often doing the wrong thing when it
comes to safety in the name of profits. Ask yourself, would you trust these
folks to auto-drive you anywhere?

[http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/news/companies/gm-recall-
ign...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/news/companies/gm-recall-ignition-
switch-death-toll/index.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls)

~~~
apendleton
Honestly, probably, because the bar is so very low. Humans are terrible at
driving safely. We just accept it because until now we've had no alternative.
I don't think a newcomer would have to execute perfectly, or even particularly
well, to do better than the status quo.

~~~
Strilanc
The bar is actually pretty high. Making a system that fails less than once per
hundred thousand kilometers is not trivial.

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neom
Curious to know how long folks here think it will be till we see AVs rolling
around cities in America? I'm (literally) banking on less than 5 years, but
curious what others think.

~~~
wil421
To me autonomous vehicle means the car can drive me from point A to point B in
any weather condition a normal person would drive in. I doubt it will be 5
years.

If your are talking about a lower level of AV then I would expect some cool
stuff in 5 years.

~~~
Kluny
I'd be totally satisfied with just an advanced cruise control for highways
that gets you within a kilometer of your exit before handing back control.

~~~
esmi
In daylight and dry weather. As a CA resident this would allow the AI to take
over the vast majority of the miles I drive throughout the year.

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incompatible
Funny statement: “You don’t see any start-ups building iPhones,” he said.

Well, Apple don't license their software and would sue into oblivion anybody
who tried copying them. It's not hard to find start-ups building Android
phones, however.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
Apple is also sometimes called "the world’s biggest startup," and Tesla is
borrowing from the same playbook…

If I were at GM, I'd worry about that line from Palm CEO Ed Colligan: “We’ve
learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent
phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to
just walk in.”

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josephpmay
This comment is unfortunately not about the article, because I can’t view it
on my iPhone. The link automatically opens up the app, but then the app
doesn’t go to the article. Does anyone know how to get around this issue?

~~~
callalex
Uninstall the app since it’s just doing the job of a webpage anyway?

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cowmix
Why is GM (and others) allowed to test driverless cars in SF?

Didn't Uber get kicked out of SF for its driverless program and have to
relocate to AZ?

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1024core
Uber didn't get the required permit (which literally cost < $100) from the
state DMV.

Rules? Who needs rules? -- Uber's motto

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Dylan16807
It's less about flaunting rules and more about wanting their cars to be
classified a different way.

~~~
dmix
You mean it's more complex than not having the foresight to get a permit? You
don't say... So much reductionist criticism of these companies whenever these
issues come up on HN and elsewhere.

The issues are far more complicated. These companies, including AirBnB et al,
are not simply pushing the idea that "all regulations are bad" or "we're above
regulations". It's about pushing back in an effort for better regulations
appropriate for a modern industry. Typically they are designed for a previous
era or inefficiently pigeonholed onto entirely new concepts.

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n_plus_one
I've seen tons of Cruise vehicles on the roads of SF, clearly being driven by
a human.

~~~
agency
they always have a human in the driver's seat with their hands close to the
wheel but the one time I one was close enough to see the wheel was turning on
its own and their hands were just hovering over it

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fahayekwasright
Hope they are built in the US by union labor.

~~~
sctb
Could you please avoid generic ideological tangents, like the guidelines ask?
They don't lead to the kinds of discussions we're here for.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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mrfusion
Seems to be an artical about an upcoming event? Not really unveiling anything.

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danblick
Nah - this happened yesterday (the day before your post). It's unusual for
media to be allowed inside autonomous cars, and the conditions are usually
controlled. The conditions in this demo were fairly loose (difficult public
streets in San Francisco) and also involved relatively little intervention by
safety drivers. (Uber did a demo in SF once but it involved very frequent
human takeovers. Alternatively, Waymo had a recent demo on a closed course (I
think the one at Castle airforce base) and others in Arizona suburbs where
conditions are less challenging.)

Fwiw as a human driver I find driving in San Francisco to be pretty
challenging/stressful.

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gen3
Not going to lie, I'm not sure how much I would trust a GM driver-less car.

~~~
notyourwork
Ok so you are telling the truth, care to elaborate on the why part?

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bobcallme
The quality of many GM products has been questionable for ~20+ years. Remember
how poorly they handled the ignition switch recall[1]?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls)

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kolbe
GM invests in puff piece PR.

Waymo invests in self-driving tech. We'll see which one wins out.

~~~
jonknee
On the other hand, GM actually makes vehicles...

