Ford announces fully autonomous vehicle by 2021

[simon varley]

must confess I didn't see that one coming. awesome news.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/...mous-cars-2021

[BENT_8]

Meet George Jetson, His boy Elroy.....

No thanks, i like to drive.

[simon varley]

agreed. but there's certainly a market for this in the CBDs

[Wretched]

Originally Posted by simon varley

agreed. but there's certainly a market for this in the CBDs

Goodbye Taxis

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by Wretched

Goodbye Taxis

Not necessarily. Theres still people who wont own cars, people who use taxis due to lack of parking spaces, people drinking on a night out.

I'm sure the 'driver' would still need to be sober and licensed etc to be behind the wheel.

Personally, as someone who does enjoy driving I still could do without having to drive to work and back around a 2.5 hour return trip so I'd love it for this reason.

[Wretched]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

Not necessarily. Theres still people who wont own cars, people who use taxis due to lack of parking spaces, people drinking on a night out.

I'm sure the 'driver' would still need to be sober and licensed etc to be behind the wheel.

Personally, as someone who does enjoy driving I still could do without having to drive to work and back around a 2.5 hour return trip so I'd love it for this reason.

True, but my interpretation of the article is that Ford are aiming to rival Uber, with automated cars essentially, therefore another player in the taxi/uber battle. During business hours in Melbourne CBD, I think this would be an ideal solution, short trips here and there where PT doesn't apply. The car would ideally know where to go too without the passenger having to direct it.

[malazn mafia]

And imagine if they named it Falcon with Autopilot ...

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by Wretched

True, but my interpretation of the article is that Ford are aiming to rival Uber, with automated cars essentially, therefore another player in the taxi/uber battle. During business hours in Melbourne CBD, I think this would be an ideal solution, short trips here and there where PT doesn't apply. The car would ideally know where to go too without the passenger having to direct it.

On short trips it would be cool if the car could drop you off then go back home by itself and come back later to pick you up. Saves on parking and door dents in carparks!

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

And imagine if they named it Falcon with Autopilot ...

Hopefully the system is more reliable than that and doesn't require a wookie beating it with a hammer to get it to function.

[MrEL]

Jimmy Cab from Total Recall.

[simon varley]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

I'm sure the 'driver' would still need to be sober and licensed etc to be behind the wheel.

maybe not. if it's fully autonomous and doesn't even have a steering wheel there's nothing the driver can do anyway. Would need a legislation change here I'm sure but just imagine - no designated driver!

[mik]

Awesome in one way, scary as hell in another .
If they can pull off the successful fully autonomous vehicle, I reckon it will open up a whole new market, think of the oldies that still have their marbles but are to scared to drive themselves, people with disabilities, this will be a good thing.
It probably opens up a can of worms though, you can see people abusing the system.
"Okay car" ....... "take kids to school and return",
"okay car" ..... " go to the bottle shop and get me beer and return".
Just joking, but humans are good at finding ways to abuse the system, interesting times ahead.

[Junkyard-Dog]

I'm amazed by the technology but I can see why so many are apprehensive. How long will it take before somebody hacks it and tells a car full of people to veer into a semi-trailer?

If there is one thing I'm sure of it's this: humans will never cease finding new and terrible ways to kill one another.

[cheap]

Bring it on!

What's the bet that assertive drivers will scare the crap out of these drones, the drones will go into a passive avoidance mode, pulling over idling by the side of the road whilst their occupants are safe and late watching the world pass them by.

[The Snout]

Originally Posted by mik

Awesome in one way, scary as hell in another .
If they can pull off the successful fully autonomous vehicle, I reckon it will open up a whole new market, think of the oldies that still have their marbles but are to scared to drive themselves, people with disabilities, this will be a good thing.
It probably opens up a can of worms though, you can see people abusing the system.
"Okay car" ....... "take kids to school and return",
"okay car" ..... " go to the bottle shop and get me beer and return".
Just joking, but humans are good at finding ways to abuse the system, interesting times ahead.

Yeah it's coming whether it's 2021 or 2051. 100+ years ago people said why give up my good loyal horse for one of those automobiles that breaks down all the time. There's no definitive transport era, just the era we live in at the time.

And like any advancement in society there will be a certain amount of responsibility on the user not to abuse it. Will be up to future generations to figure out that stuff as it crops up.

Cheap autonomous transport that the oldies/disabilities can order up to get around, there will be a time when they'll say how did they cope without it.

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by Wretched

True, but my interpretation of the article is that Ford are aiming to rival Uber,

The first paragraph of the article..........

"Ford Motor Co plans to offer a fully automated driverless vehicle to commercial ride sharing fleets such as Uber in 2021, "

[HO 3]

Although I feel very underwhelmed by all this, it might make car ownership more viable in my older years and hopefully gopher free. ..............and come service time send the car to the dealer by itself.

Cheers Mick

[mr smith]

Fully automated will never happen. Imagine if a car company was liable for every accident one of its vehicles had? Bankrupt in a year...

[simon varley]

I think the trick is going to be to convince everyone that autonomous cars aren't 100% safe, but that they are 100x safer than human driven cars

[Blue Shadow]

That will be great for a Sunday cruise. Me, i'd rather steer and speed up or brake myself

[CyberWasp]

I can't wait to get one and have it making money for me, driving people around on busy Saturday night in the city.
Then I can spend Sundays cleaning all sorts of stains, (most of them unknown to science) from the interior.
Where do I sign up?

[Crazy Dazz]

What a pile of horse****.

Nair also said Ford, unlike many of its competitors, has no plans to offer highly automated, but incremental systems that would still require drivers to take the wheel.

Translates as:
We're miles behind everyone else on driver-assistance technologies, and no plans on how we're going to catch up, so I'm just sprouting a bunch of crap to cover that up and pretend we're not techno-dinosaurs.

You've also got to remember that EVERYTHING in the USA is driven by lawsuits, so this is never going to happen. The liability issues are too horrendous to contemplate.

[Crazy Dazz]

In fact, knowing Ford, "Autonomous" probably just means chaining a Mexican to the steering wheel.

[GTMOND]

Hmm one word describes autonomous vehicle BORING.

[FalconXV]

Originally Posted by malazn mafia

And imagine if they named it Falcon with Autopilot ...

Yeah I've been drawing an electric, autonomous Falcon really need to learn how to render it somehow🤕

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

In fact, knowing Ford, "Autonomous" probably just means chaining a Mexican to the steering wheel.

No it will have to be a Canadian.

Donald is building a wall.
Actually I think it might be Pablo doing the building?

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by simon varley

must confess I didn't see that one coming. awesome news.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/...mous-cars-2021

And GM have "the Bolt"

Imagine having to listen to his political rants on your trips between pubs.
And I thought Somalian drivers who don't speak a word of Engrish were painful.

[Grunter]

Originally Posted by mr smith

Fully automated will never happen. Imagine if a car company was liable for every accident one of its vehicles had? Bankrupt in a year...

https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/

plus

What's interesting about the following, is how quickly the predicted times from various manufacturers have reduced.

Autonomous Car Forecasts

This page lists the most recent predictions about when driverless cars will be available on the* market:

Ford CEO announces fully autonomous vehicles for mobility services by 2021
Mark Fields, Ford’s CEO announced that the company plans to offer fully self-driving vehicles by 2021. The vehicles, which will come without steering wheel and pedals, will be targeted to fleets which provide autonomous mobility services. Fields expects that it will take several years longer until Ford will sell autonomous vehicles to the public.
Source: Reuters, 2016-08-16

Volkswagen expects first self driving cars on the market by 2019
Johann Jungwirth, Volkswagen’s appointed head of Digitalization Strategy, expects the first self-driving cars to appear on the market by 2019. He did not claim that these would be Volkswagen models.
Source: Focus, 2016-04-23

GM: Autononomous cars could be deployed by 2020 or sooner
General Motor’s head of foresight and trends Richard Holman said at a confererence in Detroit that most industry participants now think that self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020 or sooner.
Source: Wall Street Journal, 2016-05-10

BMW to launch autonomous iNext in 2021
At their annual shareholder meeting, BMW CEO Harald Krueger said that BMW will launch a self-driving electric vehicle, the BMW iNext, in 2021.
Source: Elektrek, 2016-05-12

Ford’s head of product development: autonomous vehicle on the market by 2020
Raj Nair, Ford’s head of product development, expects that autonomous vehicles of SAE level 4 (which means that the car needs no driver but may not be capable of driving everywhere) will hit the market by 2020.(Source: autonews, 2016-02-27)

Baidu’s Chief Scientist expects large number of self-driving cars on the road by 2019
In an interview session, Andrew Ng, the chief scientist of the Chinese search engine Baidu expects that a large number self-driving self-driving cars will be on the road within three years, and that mass-production will be in full swing by 2021.
(Source: Quora, 2016-01-29)
First autonomous Toyota to be available in 2020
Toyota is starting to overcome its long-standing reluctance with respect to autonomous driving: It plans to bring the first models capable of autonomous highway driving to the market by 2020.
(Source: Wired.com, 2015-10-08)

Elon Musk now expects first fully autonomous Tesla by 2018, approved by 2021
In an interview by Danish newspaper* Borsen, Tesla’s founder Elon Musk accelerates his timeline for the introduction of fully autonomous Teslas by 2 years (!) compared to his estimate less than a year ago (October 2014). He now expects fully autonomous Teslas to be ready by 2018 but notes that regulatory approval may take 1 to 3 more years thereafter.
(Source: Borsen Interview on youtube, timeline: 8:06-8:29, recorded on 2015-9-23)

Driverless cars will be in use all over the world by 2025
US Secretary of Transportation stated at the 2015 Frankfurt Auto show that he expects driverless cars to be in use all over the world within the next 10 years.
(Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2015-09-19)

Uber fleet to be driverless by 2030
Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, has indicated in a tweet that he expects Uber’s fleet to be driverless by 2030. The service will then be so inexpensive and ubiquitous that car ownership will be obsolete.
(Source: Mobility Lab, 2015-08-18)


Older Forecasts

Next generation Audi A8 capable of fully autonomous driving in 2017
Stefan Moser, Head of Product and Technology Communications at Audi has announced that the next generation of their A8 limousine will be able to drive itself with full autonomy.
(Source: motoring.com.au, 2014-10-22)

Tesla CEO expects true autonomous driving by 2023
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla estimates that “five or six years from now we will be able to achieve true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination”.* He then added another 2 to 3 years for regulatory approval.
(Source: Huffington Post, 2014-10-15)

Jaguar and Land-Rover to provide fully autonomous cars by 2024 says Director of Research and Technlogy
At the 2014 Paris Motor Show Dr. Wolfgang Epple, Jaguar and Land Rover’s Director of Research and Technology said that about fully autonomous driving: “For Jaguar and Land Rover it will happen within the next 10 years”.
(Source: Drive.com.au, 2014-10-03)

Fully autonomous vehicles could be ready by 2025, predicts Daimler chairman
Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Daimler, predicts that fully autonomous vehicles which can drive without human intervention and might not even have a steering wheel could be available on the market by 2025.
(Source: The Detroit News, 2014-01-13)

Nissan to provide fully autonomous vehicles by 2020
Andy Palmer, the Executive Vice President of California-based Nissan Motors Ltd., has announced that Nissan will make fully autonomous vehicles available to the consumer by 2020. These cars will be able to drive in urban traffic. In contrast to Google’s cars, Palmer claimed that they will not need detailed 3D maps for local navigation.
(Source: Nissan Motors, 2013-08-27)

Truly autonomous cars to populate roads by 2028-2032 estimates insurance think tank executive
At a meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Robert Hartwig, President of the Insurance Information Institute estimated that it will take between 15 and 20 years until truly autonomous vehicles populate US roads.
(Source: The Detroit News, 2013-02-14)

Driverless cars coming to showrooms by 2020 says Nissan’s CEO
During this years’ CES, Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan said that driverless cars will be ready for showtime by the end of this decade.

[reds89]

computers crash,vehicle computers go ga ga when they detect problems especially low volts,jumbo jets and the like have back up computers and still fall out the sky,i think for me personally i wouldnt like the idea of sitting in a car driven around by nothing but a computer of some sort,like somebody said,hackers could have a field day if that way inclined.

[mik]

The main doubt that is in my mind with the current batch of cars with some auto drive function is i still have my doubts they get enough road information to be fully Autonomous .
How would it be if every single car had its own little beacon that sends a signal out to every other vehicle in the immediate area X amount of distance somewhat like aircraft , and the car also receives some form of signal from sensors in the road telling the car precisely where it is on the road .
I dont think this would be too hard to do, and it might open up a whole new series of industries .
Imagine if all those cateye reflectors on the road had small blue tooth module or something similar or an infra red beam or something every x amount of distance to communicate with vehicles , it would be an extra form of Autonomous redundancy .......... or am i up the fairies again .