The fact Cruise Automation deemed its self-driving Chevrolet Bolt EVs ready for journalists’ opinions is a merit all its own. The cars are far from ready for primetime, however, and Cruise knows this. Still, some issues showed the driverless revolution may be a smidge further out than many like to preach.
Reuters was one of many outlets invited to San Francisco for a 20-minute ride in a self-driving Bolt EV. During the ride, the publication noted the over-cautious nature of the software, sometimes slamming on the brakes if it predicted a pedestrian was prepared to cross in front of the car. The cars also didn’t go very fast with speeds capped around 20 mph.
Perhaps the most humorous instance was a taco truck. During the ride, construction workers ordering a standard curbside lunch brought the self-driving car to a halt. After over a minute of calculating a way to maneuver around the truck, the human driver disengaged the software and simply went around the vehicle. Wired experienced a similar situation when a public bus stopped on a one-way street. The self-driving car spent two minutes trying to figure out how to go around the vehicle, but eventually, the human took over.
That’s not to say the tests were a failure, however. The cars navigated congested streets, roundabouts, and went around plenty of other stopped cars with utmost caution. Still, we likely have some time before self-driving cars put humans in the back seat for good. Damn taco trucks.
Comments
So if you eliminate human’s totally, then AI controlled cars will be more sufficient. But then the AI car would realize it would not be required so it would just drive itself to a metal recycle plant. Maybe scratch the whole self driving car and spend the money to develop better mass transit systems. Bullet trains, gondola’s, etc. Move more people with less cost $$ and environmental impact. Not just fuel, energy to make tires, engines, plastic panels, etc to build a car.
Also never understood why large city dwellers need self driving cars or electric cars since they don’t drive anywhere, they walk. Cost too much to park, not enough parking when you go somewhere.
It’s not city dwellers who would want a self-driving car. It would be the daily commuters who live outside the city who get stuck in traffic that would want a self-driving car.
We’ve got a long ways to go yet baby.
Can the don’t charge at pedestrians software be over ridden, we have a problem with car jacking and having a car which will stop for these @@@ @@@@@ is not good.