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History of autonomous vehicles essay
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Introduction to self-driving cars
Not long ago, when people talking about self-driving cars, most of them would feel that is far away from us. But today, we can see from news that many IT companies are already created their own self-driving technologies. Self-driving cars can use a variety of technologies, like GPS, radar, computer version, to avoid obstacle and explore surrounding environments. In order to drive safely, self-driving technologies include drifting warning, blind-spot detectors, enhanced cruise control and self-parking. The first self-driving technologies can be traced from 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University in 1984. At present, companies which are developing self-driving cars include Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, Volvo, Ford, Tesla, Baidu. Why do so many top companies want to develop self-driving
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In July 12, The New York Times reported a news: “Inside the self-driving Tesla fatal accident”, which again caused enormous debates on whether self-driving cars should be legal or not.
Usually, the opponents would hold such opinion: “There are potential for self-driving cars to go wrong”. Like reported in that news, the Tesla self-driving car went wrong, then hit a fence, caused the death of the driver. All software would appear errors, like errors which would appear in our operating systems, errors are possible to appear in the self-driving systems. What’s more, in the real world, there are thousands upon thousands situation would happen.
The opponents would also against self-driving cars because of personal privacy. The obvious point is that, if you use vehicles which is entirely control by a computer, your movements are extremely easy to be tracked by the company or a third party. Operating systems could be hacked, self-driving cars also do. Self-driving cars are facing with the serious privacy
For a while, Self Driving Cars, have never really been a thought, to be thought about in the driving industry. It has always been the regular transportation, like regular cars, trains and other types of transportation for getting around. It was crazy enough to have thought about self driving cars, but now to start to make and produce self driving cars, is even crazier. The question is, is it safe to have these cars on the road? Also what kind of hazards might these vehicles be for people who decide to purchase them? Bob Lutz from (www.cnbc.com) states that “"The autonomous car doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, doesn't text while driving, doesn't get road rage,". This shows that in Bob’s opinion, the self driving car, could be safer than the
Self driving cars are not a good idea because they cause people to be lazy. This means that with self driving cars, your license wouldn’t mean a lot. To put it in another way, the drivers wouldn’t really depend on their license due to the self-driving car. So when you get pulled over by the police, you get a ticket for something the car did.
Self-driving cars are now hitting a few roadways in America, and are showing people just a small glimpse into what could be the future of automobiles. Although Google’s self-driving cars are getting a lot of attention now, the idea of a self-driving car has been around for quite a while actually. These cars have been tested to their limits, but the American people have yet to adopt the technology into their everyday lives. A brief description of their history, how they work, and finally answer the question, will self-driving cars ever be adopted widely by the American public?
While there have been surveys to understand how people feel about self-driving vehicles, they only surveyed a little over a thousand, which isn’t comparable to the millions of people who actually drive cars (Degroat). Many, more than 70 percent, do believe that autonomic vehicles will reduce accidents, the severity of the crash, and help the fuel economy, nearly as many are concerned about the way the car will perform under unusual or unexpected circumstances, as compared to the way a human could react and perform, along with if the vehicle would have any system malfunctions (Degroat). Even though the car companies are working on the technology to make the cars safe and dependable, it would be easy for someone to “hack” into the vehicle to steal it, or take personal information from the vehicle like where they have been and where they plan to go (Degroat). Many also wonder how well the car will do under different climate and driving circumstances; will the car’s mechanics and equipment work well in a tropical or artic like environment, or how will it interact in New York City as opposed to a very rural and rugged environment like a farm. With the sensors and cameras attached to the car, will it be able to tell the difference and respond differently among other vehicles, pedestrians, and non-motored objects on the
Driverless vehicles, otherwise known as autonomous, automated or driverless cars, are no longer science fiction. The technology is here, and several companies are already testing them on the roads. A Total of forty-four corporations are working on autonomous vehicles, ranging from automotive industry stalwarts to leading technology brands and telecommunications companies. In this venture, Tesla Motors and Alphabet seem to be leading the way in the automotive industry with their recent releases of partially-autonomous vehicles. Despite early setbacks including the accidental death of Josh Brown, a forty year old Hollywood star, who was using the autopilot system in the Tesla Model when he crashed the vehicle, or Uber briefly suspending its own program after a self-driving car crashed in Tempe, Arizona, and the public’s outcry on the reliability of driverless cars, private companies working in auto tech are attracting record
While many people are all about autonomous cars and the benefits that they will bring to society, there are people who oppose driver less cars. Google has faced major censure from critics that are uneasy with the method that the automobile will u...
As more testing is done on it and new technologies, such as blind spots monitoring systems and lane departure warnings are added, self driving cars are becoming a reality. No doubt about it, these cars are much safer than human drivers. Unlike human drivers who are prone to getting distracted and can get under the influence, the cars are programmed to be aware of their surroundings at all times. They are able to make quick, fast decisions without hesitations; in the road, a slightest bit of hesitation can be lethal. Since self driving cars have direct access to GPS, they are able to locate the quickest route to the user’s destination and if more self driving cars are put onto the streets, there would be less road congestion as each vehicle can coordinate to ensure that traffic doesn’t build up. With such advances in technology comes major benefits and with self driving cars comes the elimination of human error, the cause of a majority of road incidents; the option of using self driving cars should definitely be considered.
After reading the article I have concluded that the idea of self-driving cars sounds more so than ever like a plausible reality rather than another eccentric sci-fi topic. Aside from morality and subjective perceptions on the practice of self-driving cars I believe that the most major problem would the financial effect self-driving cars can have on America's financial infrastructure. The implementation of self-driving cars would almost quickly eliminate millions of jobs that would be made obsolete, unemployment rates would rise exponentially but that's not where the obstacles stop. Although this was not mentioned on the cons list it was hinted at. Self-driving cars have little to no security measures so that begs to question as to how software developers will combat hackers and software
In an article he wrote, he talks about why he never would ride in a self-driving car. He says that although he never drives and only gets rides from others, like a taxi, he still would never ride in a driverless car because the car does not have anything to lose if the car crashes, but people do so they are going to care about safety more [4]. The problem with looking at it that way it that he is expecting that having a reason to pay attention while driving it going to make the driver always pay attention and not make any mistakes, but they are just human. They are bound to make mistakes, for example, the fact that 90% of car accidents are caused by human just shows that humans are not perfect drivers no matter how much they have at stake. Also the car may not have anything to loss, but the company making the program that drives the car will. If the car that they make and sold to you, with a program installed that was designed to get you somewhere safely, were to get you hurt or killed that would make a large number of people question the companies technology. They do not want people to get injured and killed by their cars, for moral and marketing reasons, so they are going to be very sure that the car is safe before putting it on the market. Also people do not realize that the self-driving cars are getting put through more than just driving on normal
Researchers have indicated that 1.2 million people a year across the world die in automobile accidents and those such accidents cost the United States $300 billion a year. Self driving cars are predicted to dramatically reduce traffic accidents and fatalities(Will Knight). The benefits of self driving cars are that you are going to be able to save more time and you would have hands free and also you can chat with your friends, basically you can do whatever you would like and it would be an advantage on our safety. These self driving cars have a mode on what decisions to make when an accident happens. You would also save money since you are not going to use gas, we would probably be less likely to be stuck on traffic ,there would also be less
Finally, if an accident were to occur involving a self-driving car, the question of “who is responsible” is raised. This is a difficult question that needs to be addressed with laws that govern liability in these situations.
Self-driving cars are the wave of the future. There is much debate regarding the impact a self-driving car will have on our society and economy. Some experts believe fully autonomous vehicles will be on the road in the next 5-10 years (Anderson). This means a vehicle will be able to drive on the road without a driver or any passengers. Like any groundbreaking technology, there is a fear of the unforeseen problems. Therefore, there will need to be extensive testing before anyone can feel safe with a vehicle of this style on the road. It will also take time for this type of technology to become financially accessible to the masses, but again alike any technology with time it should be possible. Once the safety concern has been fully addressed
An example from Tesla illustrates that the technology is not yet ready for fully autonomous driving: a Tesla driver died when his car with partial self-driving features crashed into a turning truck that it did not recognize as an obstacle. It is important to note that the self-driving feature involved in the Tesla crash was explicitly not meant for fully autonomous driving. The driver had been warned several times to put his hands back on the wheel. However, the accident illustrates that more programming and engineering is required to make cars fully autonomous. Despite these challenges, the rate of progress on self-driving car technology suggests that the goal is within reach. People also complain that they are expensive, and having cars make decisions is bad. An ethical dilemma like this should give us pause. The more that we allow technology to interact with us in the world, the more we force technology to confront ethical dilemmas. In the case of self-driving cars, we are literally placing a potential killing machine (a 2-ton vehicle) in the control of a computer.
It might be hard to see where the self-driving car could have issues with safety but an interesting question arises when an accident is unavoidable. The question posed is “How should the car be programmed to act in the event of an unavoidable accident? Should it minimize the loss of life, even if it means sacrificing the occupants, or should it protect the occupants at all costs? Should it choose between these extremes at random?” (ArXiv). This is a very interesting question surrounding ethics. I’m not sure if there is a right answer to the question, which could stall the self-driving car industry. Before self-driving cars are mass produced a solution needs to be found to the question about unavoidable accidents. Although this question is a problem, there may not be a need to address the problem. It is said that “"driver error is believed to be the main reason behind over 90 percent of all crashes" with drunk driving, distracted drivers, failure to remain in one lane and falling to yield the right of way the main causes.” (Keating). Self-driving cars could eliminate those problems entirely and maybe with all cars on the road being self-driving cars, there would be no “unavoidable accidents”. Safety is the main issue the self-driving car is trying to solve in transportation and seems to do a good job at
Automotive executives touting self-driving cars as a way to make commuting more productive or relaxing may want to consider another potential marketing pitch: safety (Hirschauge, 2016). The biggest reason why these cars will make a safer world is that accident rates will enormously drop. There is a lot of bad behavior a driver exhibit behind the wheel, and a computer is actually an ideal motorist. Since 81 percent of car crashes are the result of human error, computers would take a lot of danger out of the equation entirely. Also, some of the major causes of accidents are drivers who become ill at the time of driving. Some of the examples of this would be a seizure, heart attack, diabetic reactions, fainting, and high or low blood pressure. Autonomous cars will surely remedy these types of occurrences making us