Right now, cars are very much designed with human drivers in mind. Not just the controls, but the windows, the crumple zones … the whole shebang. So are the roads, for that matter.

What would cars and roads look like if they were completely designed around autonomous control look like?

For now the roads won’t change much. They can’t, as a transition to the majority of autonomous cars would require them to be safe on current roads. I can see how there’ll be new markings on the roads that the autonomous cars can read to help them stay navigate around better, especially in things like car parks. More so with underground parks as well, as GPS won’t work there.
As for the cars themselves, a fully autonomous one wouldn’t need the passengers all sitting forwards, the seats could face rearwards as the humans aren’t involved in operating it any more. And as you can imagine there’s big advantages in having rearwards-facing seats in a crash.
I reckon there’ll be a point where there’s enough of them on the roads so that they will have to communicate with each other to better co-ordinate positioning on the roads. For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them. And that’d be more energy efficient as well due to reduced aerodynamic drag.
I also reckon it’ll make parking easier, for example going to the shops. Just call for a car on your phone, it arrives at your home and takes you to the shopping centre. Once you exit the car, it can park itself with far less of a gap than a human can reliably manage, especially as the doors don’t have to open.

Stuff like that.

dv said:

Right now, cars are very much designed with human drivers in mind. Not just the controls, but the windows, the crumple zones … the whole shebang. So are the roads, for that matter.

What would cars and roads look like if they were completely designed around autonomous control look like?

Look like a Japanese factory. Only faster.

Once change with driverless vehicles is that they would only be designed to go 120 km/hr or so, not racetrack speeds of 400 km/hr.

So wheels can be smaller and lighter for starters.

mollwollfumble said:

Once change with driverless vehicles is that they would only be designed to go 120 km/hr or so, not racetrack speeds of 400 km/hr.

So wheels can be smaller and lighter for starters.

Lighter and smaller than what?

Current road cars are not designed for speeds of 400 km/h either.

mollwollfumble said:

Once change with driverless vehicles is that they would only be designed to go 120 km/hr or so, not racetrack speeds of 400 km/hr.

So wheels can be smaller and lighter for starters.

I think there’s fewer than five cars that you can buy that are capable of those speeds. It’s not really a big factor.

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

Once change with driverless vehicles is that they would only be designed to go 120 km/hr or so, not racetrack speeds of 400 km/hr.

So wheels can be smaller and lighter for starters.

I think there’s fewer than five cars that you can buy that are capable of those speeds. It’s not really a big factor.

> I think there’s fewer than five cars that you can buy that are capable of those speeds

Wheels on passenger cars, and all the associated suspension and body stiffening and steering etc. are all way over-designed for Australian road speeds.

mollwollfumble said:

Spiny Norman said:

mollwollfumble said:

Once change with driverless vehicles is that they would only be designed to go 120 km/hr or so, not racetrack speeds of 400 km/hr.

So wheels can be smaller and lighter for starters.

I think there’s fewer than five cars that you can buy that are capable of those speeds. It’s not really a big factor.

> I think there’s fewer than five cars that you can buy that are capable of those speeds

Wheels on passenger cars, and all the associated suspension and body stiffening and steering etc. are all way over-designed for Australian road speeds.

Nope, they are as good as they have to be to meet the various crash test & longevity requirements.

You wouldn’t need traffic lights and roundabouts. Driverless cars could easily interleave through intersections without even slowing down.

dv said:

What would cars and roads look like if they were completely designed around autonomous control look like?

boxes in tunnels

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

What would cars and roads look like if they were completely designed around autonomous control look like?

boxes in tunnels

Having crossed the English Channel via the Chunnel I would not like that.

Tamb said:

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

What would cars and roads look like if they were completely designed around autonomous control look like?

boxes in tunnels

Having crossed the English Channel via the Chunnel I would not like that.

maybe but just call it a Musk Branded Hyperloop and millions of whackjobs will be all in

SCIENCE said:

Tamb said:

SCIENCE said:

boxes in tunnels

Having crossed the English Channel via the Chunnel I would not like that.

maybe but just call it a Musk Branded Hyperloop and millions of whackjobs will be all in

Especially if it’s “green”

Tamb said:

SCIENCE said:

dv said:

What would cars and roads look like if they were completely designed around autonomous control look like?

boxes in tunnels

Having crossed the English Channel via the Chunnel I would not like that.

I would say canyons rather than tunnels. They wouldn’t need to be covered over. Just some heavy duty walling to keep out anything that was not autonomous cars. They’d have to be dedicated, separated roadways for the exclusive use of such vehicles. Probably funded by their own separate tax/toll regime.

Would they stop to allow wildlife to cross the road?

roughbarked said:

Would they stop to allow wildlife to cross the road?

yeah could be disruptive to traffic flow
whatever the progression, good chance it will be to put machines, or technology if you like between man and nature

all helps with the collective indifference by whatever name

transition said:

roughbarked said:

Would they stop to allow wildlife to cross the road?

yeah could be disruptive to traffic flow
whatever the progression, good chance it will be to put machines, or technology if you like between man and nature

all helps with the collective indifference by whatever name

Duplicating the road system sounds both impractical & unaffordable.

Spiny Norman said:

For now the roads won’t change much. They can’t, as a transition to the majority of autonomous cars would require them to be safe on current roads. I can see how there’ll be new markings on the roads that the autonomous cars can read to help them stay navigate around better, especially in things like car parks. More so with underground parks as well, as GPS won’t work there.
As for the cars themselves, a fully autonomous one wouldn’t need the passengers all sitting forwards, the seats could face rearwards as the humans aren’t involved in operating it any more. And as you can imagine there’s big advantages in having rearwards-facing seats in a crash.
I reckon there’ll be a point where there’s enough of them on the roads so that they will have to communicate with each other to better co-ordinate positioning on the roads. For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them. And that’d be more energy efficient as well due to reduced aerodynamic drag.
I also reckon it’ll make parking easier, for example going to the shops. Just call for a car on your phone, it arrives at your home and takes you to the shopping centre. Once you exit the car, it can park itself with far less of a gap than a human can reliably manage, especially as the doors don’t have to open.

Stuff like that.

> For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them

not sure about that, maybe if you couple them all directly together, but then that would be more like a train

safe braking distances (minus reaction times) don’t much change, same applies

transition said:

Spiny Norman said:

For now the roads won’t change much. They can’t, as a transition to the majority of autonomous cars would require them to be safe on current roads. I can see how there’ll be new markings on the roads that the autonomous cars can read to help them stay navigate around better, especially in things like car parks. More so with underground parks as well, as GPS won’t work there.
As for the cars themselves, a fully autonomous one wouldn’t need the passengers all sitting forwards, the seats could face rearwards as the humans aren’t involved in operating it any more. And as you can imagine there’s big advantages in having rearwards-facing seats in a crash.
I reckon there’ll be a point where there’s enough of them on the roads so that they will have to communicate with each other to better co-ordinate positioning on the roads. For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them. And that’d be more energy efficient as well due to reduced aerodynamic drag.
I also reckon it’ll make parking easier, for example going to the shops. Just call for a car on your phone, it arrives at your home and takes you to the shopping centre. Once you exit the car, it can park itself with far less of a gap than a human can reliably manage, especially as the doors don’t have to open.

Stuff like that.

> For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them

not sure about that, maybe if you couple them all directly together, but then that would be more like a train

safe braking distances (minus reaction times) don’t much change, same applies

They’d be communicating with one another. One brakes and they all brake, there would be a small lag but the distance between vehicles would take this into account.

sibeen said:

transition said:

Spiny Norman said:

For now the roads won’t change much. They can’t, as a transition to the majority of autonomous cars would require them to be safe on current roads. I can see how there’ll be new markings on the roads that the autonomous cars can read to help them stay navigate around better, especially in things like car parks. More so with underground parks as well, as GPS won’t work there.
As for the cars themselves, a fully autonomous one wouldn’t need the passengers all sitting forwards, the seats could face rearwards as the humans aren’t involved in operating it any more. And as you can imagine there’s big advantages in having rearwards-facing seats in a crash.
I reckon there’ll be a point where there’s enough of them on the roads so that they will have to communicate with each other to better co-ordinate positioning on the roads. For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them. And that’d be more energy efficient as well due to reduced aerodynamic drag.
I also reckon it’ll make parking easier, for example going to the shops. Just call for a car on your phone, it arrives at your home and takes you to the shopping centre. Once you exit the car, it can park itself with far less of a gap than a human can reliably manage, especially as the doors don’t have to open.

Stuff like that.

> For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them

not sure about that, maybe if you couple them all directly together, but then that would be more like a train

safe braking distances (minus reaction times) don’t much change, same applies

They’d be communicating with one another. One brakes and they all brake, there would be a small lag but the distance between vehicles would take this into account.

the vehicles ahead and behind of any example are still potential obstacles, and anything on the road could be or become an obstacle, of the real world of things that might happen, that the vehicles communicate and that results in a high degree of conformity of distance between and speed (acceleration and deceleration also) is the idealized outcome, not representative of worst case situations

much as the idea of convergence of distance and speed conformity is appealing, it doesn’t much accommodate situations that go outside the idealization

> For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them

You can actually do that now, or nearly. With two cars, when the car in front brakes at for example from 100 km/h at half the maximum braking force and the car behind brakes at full force, even about a meter between cars at speed is sufficient that the reaction time for the car behind doesn’t cause a collision. Pretty amazing.

They don’t tell you that in driving school, though. And don’t try that with three cars.

transition said:

sibeen said:

transition said:

> For example there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a line of them doing 130 km/h down the highway with less than a metre between them

not sure about that, maybe if you couple them all directly together, but then that would be more like a train

safe braking distances (minus reaction times) don’t much change, same applies

They’d be communicating with one another. One brakes and they all brake, there would be a small lag but the distance between vehicles would take this into account.

the vehicles ahead and behind of any example are still potential obstacles, and anything on the road could be or become an obstacle, of the real world of things that might happen, that the vehicles communicate and that results in a high degree of conformity of distance between and speed (acceleration and deceleration also) is the idealized outcome, not representative of worst case situations

much as the idea of convergence of distance and speed conformity is appealing, it doesn’t much accommodate situations that go outside the idealization

I’m happy to report that I get transitions point at first reading, and I am in total agreeance.

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

sibeen said:

They’d be communicating with one another. One brakes and they all brake, there would be a small lag but the distance between vehicles would take this into account.

the vehicles ahead and behind of any example are still potential obstacles, and anything on the road could be or become an obstacle, of the real world of things that might happen, that the vehicles communicate and that results in a high degree of conformity of distance between and speed (acceleration and deceleration also) is the idealized outcome, not representative of worst case situations

much as the idea of convergence of distance and speed conformity is appealing, it doesn’t much accommodate situations that go outside the idealization

I’m happy to report that I get transitions point at first reading, and I am in total agreeance.

I’m so glad, I’m so glad.

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

sibeen said:

They’d be communicating with one another. One brakes and they all brake, there would be a small lag but the distance between vehicles would take this into account.

the vehicles ahead and behind of any example are still potential obstacles, and anything on the road could be or become an obstacle, of the real world of things that might happen, that the vehicles communicate and that results in a high degree of conformity of distance between and speed (acceleration and deceleration also) is the idealized outcome, not representative of worst case situations

much as the idea of convergence of distance and speed conformity is appealing, it doesn’t much accommodate situations that go outside the idealization

I’m happy to report that I get transitions point at first reading, and I am in total agreeance.

My vehicle is relatively dumb compared to what a future autonomous vehicle would be yet…

https://www.isuzuute.com.au/d-max/safety

Link

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

the vehicles ahead and behind of any example are still potential obstacles, and anything on the road could be or become an obstacle, of the real world of things that might happen, that the vehicles communicate and that results in a high degree of conformity of distance between and speed (acceleration and deceleration also) is the idealized outcome, not representative of worst case situations

much as the idea of convergence of distance and speed conformity is appealing, it doesn’t much accommodate situations that go outside the idealization

I’m happy to report that I get transitions point at first reading, and I am in total agreeance.

I’m so glad, I’m so glad.

exactly, it’s not like carriages on trains do not communicate with each other, transmit information if you like, have mechanical signal transduction

but then trains never derail

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

transition said:

the vehicles ahead and behind of any example are still potential obstacles, and anything on the road could be or become an obstacle, of the real world of things that might happen, that the vehicles communicate and that results in a high degree of conformity of distance between and speed (acceleration and deceleration also) is the idealized outcome, not representative of worst case situations

much as the idea of convergence of distance and speed conformity is appealing, it doesn’t much accommodate situations that go outside the idealization

I’m happy to report that I get transitions point at first reading, and I am in total agreeance.

I’m so glad, I’m so glad.

I’m glad you’re glad you’re glad.

SCIENCE said:

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I’m happy to report that I get transitions point at first reading, and I am in total agreeance.

I’m so glad, I’m so glad.

exactly, it’s not like carriages on trains do not communicate with each other, transmit information if you like, have mechanical signal transduction

but then trains never derail

And even if they did, no-one would be hurt.

so in summary working from home and remote learning would not only go most of the way to solve pandemic and global warming, they would also save lives in and of themselves thereby forcing population density higher and worsening pandemic and global warming

The Rev Dodgson said:

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

I’m happy to report that I get transitions point at first reading, and I am in total agreeance.

I’m so glad, I’m so glad.

I’m glad you’re glad you’re glad.

:)