Self-Driving Cars Would Cut Greenhouse Gases By 90 Percent

[Jamash]

That's not to say there aren't hurdles to overcome with such a system. Driverless cars would have to be efficiently scheduled to meet everyone's needs, and account for variances between short and long-distance road trips. But the good news is Americans aren't against driverless cars on principle - one study suggested 44 percent would consider buying a self-driving car in the next 10 years. Even if we don't go with the taxi route, that's very promising for the environment and our wallets.

In my mind, one of the biggest hurdles I've come across for self-driving cars is the moral dilemma of "Kill the Pedestrians or Kill the Passengers", that is the hypothetical scenario in which to avoid a crash and protect the car and passengers, the only available outcome is to swerve the car off the road and onto the pavement (unavoidably ploughing through pedestrians), or the opposite scenario in which a pedestrian suddenly steps out in front of the car and the only way to avoid killing the pedestrian is to swerve the car into oncoming traffic or of the road into a solid object or down an embankment etc. (both these scenarios assume that merely braking won't slow down the car enough to avoid a collision).

In both these hypothetical situations, the computer running the car is going to have to decide which humans' life is worth more and which human it will kill. Is a driverless car which makes decisions who to kill really something we want on our roads?

Who is responsible for the killing... the programmer who programmed the computer program for this situation (and what programmer would happily write a program where they are responsible for who it kills)? Is the company running the fleet of cars responsible for who it's vehicles decide to kill? Would any company undertake such a liability and responsibility? Could the car be deemed responsible on it's own and the death deemed an unaccountable accident?

Would the cars be fitted with an advanced visual recognition system so it could recognise and prioritise individuals on a case by case basis e.g. kill the passenger to avoid a child, but kill an old person to save the passenger, or would the car be programmed to protect it's customers at all costs and assign no value to pedestrians at all?

As infrequent as a scenario like this would be, it's not impossible and it will be interesting how the companies running these fleets of driverless cars (and the governments legislating them) will tackle this dilemma (apart from making the cars out of soft materials in pedestrian safe shapes and making sure they never travel fast enough to kill pedestrians or it's occupants), although unfortunately this question will probably be avoided and only tackled once enough people have been killed to generate sufficient public outrage and awareness to force an inquiry.

 

[weirdee]

And they're doing themselves no favors by making the cars look like children's toys.

that was mostly done to aid acceptance of the vehicles rather than having the appearance of a fleet of soulless autonomous machines with hundreds of independent brains learning in tandem

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Now, where this *could* be useful is if we went into the dense, urban areas that already have public transportation systems in place and replaced all those crappy, inefficient and graft-ridden dinosaurs that run on fixed schedules whether anyone is riding them or not with this sort of on-demand automated taxi service. *That* might actually be useful, not a pipe dream like replacing all personal cars.

I'm not sure if you're referring to buses or trains, but I imagine that both are probably still more efficient in the long run due to their weight-to-passenger-capacity ratio.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Fleet of taxies... you know that seems like a perfect start.
They got the endless money pot anyway, they don't need to convince the general consumer monkey to get it started, they get to control their vehicles and iron out all the kinks of their system, also things get to be road tested long long before shit goes into the wild with the unpredictability of actual users fucking their cars up.

The emission shit is all imaginary nonsense they pulled out of their ass and I see people are counter-arguing with more imaginary nonsense, but all that aside we can actually slowly get better public transport.

 

[Jadak]

In both these hypothetical situations, the computer running the car is going to have to decide which humans' life is worth more and which human it will kill. Is a driverless car which makes decisions who to kill really something we want on our roads?

Yes? You're talking about a situation where somebody is getting killed, regardless. Sure, I wouldn't want to trust a machine to make that choice, but I also wouldn't want people to make that choice, it's a shitty choice and one that is likely better suited to a machines ability to weigh the probabilities anyways, no matter which route they take, as opposed to whatever gut reactions people tend to make.

It's a dilemma, sure, but not one where the decision particularly matters unless it manages to kill both parties. Couple that with the net effect of overall safer driving, and not really an issue worth worrying about. One to work on, but not one to hold up anything.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm not sure the world is ready for a bunch of Johnny Cabs, thank you. (And this, in no way, reminds us of ATMOS, right?)

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

The danger of global warming isn't the current change to our climate, but the long term change, and the fact that the increase in average temp will continue even if humans suddenly went poof. There are multiple theories of course, but it's quite possible that life on this planet will no longer be sustainable without humans intervention at this point (after 30-50 years of continuous increases in global temp).SNIP

Nobody actually thinks this, and it doesn't even begin to make logical sense. Life on this planet includes things like thermophilic bacteria living miles below the ocean on the edges of hydrothermal vents. Nothing we do with our current technology, and no known change in climate within the realm of possibility is going to kill them. Or Tardigrades, or many other organisms that are tougher than you or, such as potato bugs.

Actually, I've read articles that suggest that if we dumped the right greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere at a suitably fast rate in a suitably long/short period of time (I think one prediction was something like twice our current rate over a period of 100 years), there was a possibility of creating a runaway greenhouse gas effect -- a warming planet putting more water vapor into the air, which warms the planet further, which puts more water vapor into the air, etc. -- that would, in effect, turn Earth into a second Venus.

I've never heard anyone reputable suggest that we're at that point already, but the idea that we could get there isn't exactly fringe. And nothing now living would survive a second Venus. Not even the thermophilic bacteria or the potato bugs.

 

[Strazdas]

Well that is unlikely, though its nice to see they are progressing.

*sigh*

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3151637/Are-electric-cars-damaging-region-Maps-reveal-EVs-WORSE-environment-gas-guzzling-vehicles.html

Why does no one ever consider that when you're powering a massive fleet of electric vehicle, all that electricity has to come from somewhere? And that somewhere often turns out to be a traditional power plant that's producing more emissions-per-mile than a traditional gasoline car?

Now, where this *could* be useful is if we went into the dense, urban areas that already have public transportation systems in place and replaced all those crappy, inefficient and graft-ridden dinosaurs that run on fixed schedules whether anyone is riding them or not with this sort of on-demand automated taxi service. *That* might actually be useful, not a pipe dream like replacing all personal cars.

First of all, dailymail... not even clicking that.

Secondly, While you still have a lot of output of greenhouse gases by using that, due to efficiency of conversion you would still win out. big plants are just more efficient than cars.

The proposal is for urban areas. though it would not be more efficient. Im yet to see a large city with public transport thats empty. the schedules are made in a way to catch the most people in. and they are adjusted constantly because of this.

Also Public transport is more efficient. Take a trolley (A bus that runs on electricity, we got them here i use them every day) with 70 people in them. now take 70 small cars with 1 people in each. who is going to consume more power to transport - the cars. because weight/person is high. who is going to take up more space in the traffic? once again, cars. Public transport when done well is unbeaten in efficiency of transportation. Of course it takes effort to do it well.

Yeah, it's an electric car, but where is the electricity coming? Certainly not from solar power farms. Most likely from thermoelectric power plants and I highly doubt that using more electricity will lower down the usage for those power plants. And that's way less power efficient than if a car used fuel right of the bat. Every time you transform one "power" into another, you lose a bit of it. So we go from heat to kinetic to electricity, only to go back from electricity to kinetic.
90% sounds way too much.

Not all power is fossil fuel, though. for example atomic power is environmentally friendly and realistic solution. Also there are significant chance that EU is going to actually finnish its "50% of electricity not from fossil fuels" plan by 2027.

Now, you talk about conversion. but in electric cards the conversion is actually very efficient in comparison. Car engines are very inefficient. 20% efficiency is extremely well designed engine. so you loose at least 80% (more in older or worse upkeep cars). meanwhile electric conversion to kinetic is far higher (not sure about percentage atm, sorry). And even those power plants that burn gas are much more efficient than gas car engines.

Yeah, I'm a petrolhead, and some people are fine with their car just being an A-to-B appliance, but personally I like driving, so I'd like my car to be more analogue, like a Ford Fiesta ST.

I think the world is big enough for both of us and you can enjoy your driving while i can be productive while being driven by a computer

In my mind, one of the biggest hurdles I've come across for self-driving cars is the moral dilemma of "Kill the Pedestrians or Kill the Passengers", that is the hypothetical scenario in which to avoid a crash and protect the car and passengers, the only available outcome is to swerve the car off the road and onto the pavement (unavoidably ploughing through pedestrians), or the opposite scenario in which a pedestrian suddenly steps out in front of the car and the only way to avoid killing the pedestrian is to swerve the car into oncoming traffic or of the road into a solid object or down an embankment etc. (both these scenarios assume that merely braking won't slow down the car enough to avoid a collision).

Always choose the driver. Cars have A LOT of built in safety features that means the driver is likely to survive, while the pedestrian is not. If safety of human is primary you take the less chance of death option and crash the car.

Is a driverless car which makes decisions who to kill really something we want on our roads?

Is a car driven by a human that makes decisions who to kill really something we want on our roads?
Well it happens. scarily often. In fact self-driving ones are far less likely to have an accident, statistically. Id rather take smaller chance of being killed than a higher one. and at least with self-driving cars we know the driver isnt drunk.

Who is responsible for the killing... the programmer who programmed the computer program for this situation (and what programmer would happily write a program where they are responsible for who it kills)? Is the company running the fleet of cars responsible for who it's vehicles decide to kill? Would any company undertake such a liability and responsibility? Could the car be deemed responsible on it's own and the death deemed an unaccountable accident?

If we assume the car drove appropriately and somone walked into the middle of the road then the pedestrian is. as it would be if i were to be driving the car myself. Also worth noting that accidents happen, even fatal ones, without having somone to blame.

 

[DrOswald]

Is a driverless car which makes decisions who to kill really something we want on our roads?

I really see no moral dilemma here that didn't already exist. The choice still has to be made, and what I can tell you for sure is that computers are a hell of a lot better at split second judgments than we are.

The self driving car has such clear and massive advantages on decision making in this sort of snap judgement scenario I almost can't take the question seriously. Everything from better sensors to perfect situation awareness to being able to actually process all relevant information in the available time frame. Hell, many of these types of "unavoidable" accidents are probably completely avoidable if a computer were in charge.

And it isn't like it will be some cold unfeeling calculation. What so many people don't seem to get is that software is created by people. In this particular case the idea is basically that the decision on what to do is made in advance under controlled conditions. Some person somewhere did still make the decision, just very far in advance and they set it up in such a way that they could make that decision with perfect situation awareness, far better data at their disposal and with ample time to consider the situation.

So my answer is absolutely yes. And the sooner we can transition from relatively shitty human drivers the better.

 

[DrOswald]

ITT:

Americans will moan about environment all the way, but NOTHING can make them leave behind cars and take a trolley. Who cares about public transportation being more efficient, safe and eco-friendly by orders of magnitude - people would rather die than be transported TOGETHER WITH ALL THOSE OTHER HUMANS OH THE HORROR.

Why does everyone assume that the US represent the world? In Sweden, we get most of our power from water and nuclear plants.

No, you import the most. The World indeed gets most of it's energy by burning shit at this point. It sucks, but it's true.

The problem with public transportation in many American cities is how spread out our cities are, which makes public transportation very inefficient. Public transportation is a hard sell when a two way ticket costs more than the gas to drive yourself and takes more than twice as long. I simply cannot afford to take public transportation.

 

[jklinders]

*sigh*

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3151637/Are-electric-cars-damaging-region-Maps-reveal-EVs-WORSE-environment-gas-guzzling-vehicles.html

Why does no one ever consider that when you're powering a massive fleet of electric vehicle, all that electricity has to come from somewhere? And that somewhere often turns out to be a traditional power plant that's producing more emissions-per-mile than a traditional gasoline car?

I mean, I understand that part of the emissions reduction is coming from a theoretical increase in efficiency vis-a-via the taxi system, but it's not going to be a *90%* increase in efficiency, not in a large, sprawling country like the United State where there's a significant rural population. The only way you get a 90% reduction in emissions is if you also assume that, by the time this all gets set up, we're using far more renewable energy than we are, which is a hell of a risky bet.

Now, where this *could* be useful is if we went into the dense, urban areas that already have public transportation systems in place and replaced all those crappy, inefficient and graft-ridden dinosaurs that run on fixed schedules whether anyone is riding them or not with this sort of on-demand automated taxi service. *That* might actually be useful, not a pipe dream like replacing all personal cars.

/thread.

I have no idea why people cannot understand that electricity needs some kind of source. Arguably switching completely to electric would in fact be worse as electrical generation form fossil fuels is anything but efficient and the anti nuclear crowd would never support moving to nuclear turbines no matter how badly we need to.

Canada has the same issues as the US when it comes to scattered populations. Not to mention this does not even come close to addressing industrial use which arguably is every bit as significant as personal vehicles.

 

[Denamic]

No, you import the most. The World indeed gets most of it's energy by burning shit at this point. It sucks, but it's true.

No, imports accounts for around 40%, which is a lot but not 'most'. And that imported energy is all hydro and nuclear, which my comment accounted for.