A Car That (Really) Drives Itself:

[BMWDave]

A Car That (Really) Drives Itself: The 2008 Opel Vectra
Date Posted 08-25-2005

RUSSELSHEIM, Germany ? General Motors is preparing to launch a revolutionary self-driving system on the 2008 Opel Vectra.

The car will be capable of piloting itself at speeds up to 60 mph in heavy traffic without any input from the driver sitting behind the steering wheel.

GM claims the system, called Traffic Assist, will make driving safer and more relaxing. It uses lasers, a video camera and plenty of computing power to "see" signs, bends, other vehicles and lane markings, and to control the engine, steering and brakes to keep the car in the correct position on the road and maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front.

The system is to become available on more models by the end of the decade ? initially other cars on the Epsilon platform, including the next Saab 9-3, Cadillac BLS and Saturn Aura. Whether it will be launched in the U.S. will depend on whether administrators deem it safe ? product liability laws are different in America.

GM expects the package to be about 50-percent more expensive than conventional active cruise control radar equipment, which controls distances but cannot steer the car.

What this means to you: No, it's not April Fool's Day; GM really has developed a self-driving system. Great for traffic jams, but we're not sure about a car driving itself at 60 mph!

[giant_mtb]

What is this world coming to.  <_<

GM should get their heads out of their asses and build some better cars before they worry about their customers not being able to drive the cars themselves.

The system would not make driving more relaxing...it would scare me even more.  I wouldn't be able to trust a freakin' computer to pilot me down the highway amongst other cars going 60 MPH.

[280Z Turbo]

A computer CANNOT replace a good driver. Driving is too complicated!

You thought a sensor going out was bad before!!

[bobwill]

My professor for Comp-Sci 214, and 434 was telling an interesting story in one 434 class about how a person from his local bank called them with a survey about online banking, and would he be willing to do it.
His answer was No.  She then asked if he had any fears of computers.  His response was explaining that he had a Masters degree in Computer Science, he programs them for a living; yes he's terrified of banking over the internet!  :)
Much in that same vane I don't really trust modern computer programs to navigate on their own.

[Raghavan]

Where's the driving fun?

[280Z Turbo]

This old joke has never been more appropriate.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.

In response to Mr. Gates' comments, General Motors issued the following press release (by Mr. Welch himself, the GM CEO).

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.

2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.

3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.

4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.

5. Amiga would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.

6. Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.

7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.

8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.

9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.

10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

11. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

13. They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.

14. There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.

15. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.

16. Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM!

17. If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!

18. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.

19. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganise the ignition for a few days before it worked.

20. You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.

[giant_mtb]

lol    

[bobwill]

The thing that's stupid about Bill Gates' comments on computers is that at the time he was comparing an immature technology to a mature technology.
I mean, we can't keep pushing transistor size down, we're approaching the physical limit of the size of the atoms used to make the tranistors.

Cars skyrocketed in improvements for the first 50 years as well, no they didn't improve at the rate of Moore's law but still.

Even now, you can see where ever since Windows 95, as far as person's interface with the PC you can see it as little more than a gradual refinement.  No real amazing breakthroughs are appearant unless you look at the internal components and understand how much better they are.

I openly admit I'm a geek. :D

[Tom]

I used to wonder when this would be invented.  I really doubt it will work.  A computer can't see everything need to drive.  What happens when the first one malfunctions?  Imagine what kind of lawsuits will be created!  I wish GM would take they money and build a good compact car priced under 12k.

[JYODER240]

I don't think the majority of people would trust thing to drive them at 60+, but it could be useful in traffic jams. If every car was equiped with it it would probably make traffic jams less severe.