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Maybe, in a few decades it will get there. Not likely to happen in most texags posters lifetimes.

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Think of where tech was 30 years ago. It's moving way faster than your timeline. Technology doesn't advance in a linear fashion.

There are certain places in some cities it could make sense near term, imho. Picture; manhattan, San Fran, or part of Washington DC for example (reaching out from the mall to Georgetown/Alexandria even). The commonality would be areas with limited entry/exit points, dense traffic, and heavy rail/bus transit systems already in place. Of course, you'd really need to clean up crime and also decrease manned vehicle traffic, imho, as well as things like bicycle traffic (which would be a fringe benefit).

I'm really not an advocate but could see it working if that stuff happened. I think it will happen more in European cities that have banned cars from some places already first, though, frankly. It's tough to see democrats agreeing to the improvements/reduction in crime etc. necessary in our cities for that to happen any time soon.

hph6203 said:

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That it will, but it will not take decades.

The person I'm responding to has gone from it will not happen, to it will happen but as a function of government dictate that seemingly adapts the roads to fit an autonomous vehicle rather than an autonomous vehicle that fits to the road, as he has said our roads are not built for autonomous vehicles and if I'm recalling correctly he has said computers are not capable of parsing the necessary information to effectively drive a car on our roads and never will be.

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My point is that the regulators move at a glacial pace.

I could easily see them taking over a decade to get the regulations in place to fully allow it.

The other thing that will hinder it is public acceptance. Which will partially drive the regulators.

Not everyone is on board will all cars being self driving. They will push back against it and the regulators will listen.

Hell, the tech part will easily be done before they get their **** together.

nortex97 said:

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There are certain places in some cities it could make sense near term, imho. Picture; manhattan, San Fran, or part of Washington DC for example (reaching out from the mall to Georgetown/Alexandria even). The commonality would be areas with limited entry/exit points, dense traffic, and heavy rail/bus transit systems already in place. Of course, you'd really need to clean up crime and also decrease manned vehicle traffic, imho, as well as things like bicycle traffic (which would be a fringe benefit).

I'm really not an advocate but could see it working if that stuff happened. I think it will happen more in European cities that have banned cars from some places already first, though, frankly. It's tough to see democrats agreeing to the improvements/reduction in crime etc. necessary in our cities for that to happen any time soon.

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The weird thing is that the European regulators are much better than ours...

It'll happen there first because their regulators won't put up as many roadblocks.

I don't know about 'better' but they have significantly limited ICE vehicles already, and all vehicles in certain areas, a lot more in their inner urban areas, and until very recently also had regulated a lot of consumers/subjects into much smaller vehicles by tax policy etc. This is also a knock on effect of having so many streets so small as they go back so much longer historically, but also being politically left of us.

Again, not really a pertinent longer discussion, but some of their regulations (such as with diesel particulate emissions) arguably have been better, yet on the whole the differences are largely cultural and history based, imho. Smaller, slower roads and very fast/consistent highways lend themselves more to AI driven cars, imho.

So what does Texas A&M and Elon Musk want to do? Bore two interconnected tunnels under the A&M campus sites and transport 3000 students per hour on new-fangled Tesla EV transit busses?

JayM said:

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So what does Texas A&M and Elon Musk want to do? Bore two interconnected tunnels under the A&M campus sites and transport 3000 students per hour on new-fangled Tesla EV transit busses?

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I can so see Elon doing that.

He has helped the entire planet change what vehicles use for energy, and if anyone can do this, a la "eff it, why not," it's someone with F'k you money.

Teslag said:

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Quote:

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Maybe, in a few decades it will get there. Not likely to happen in most texags posters lifetimes.

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Think of where tech was 30 years ago. It's moving way faster than your timeline. Technology doesn't advance in a linear fashion.

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JayM said:

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So what does Texas A&M and Elon Musk want to do? Bore two interconnected tunnels under the A&M campus sites and transport 3000 students per hour on new-fangled Tesla EV transit busses?

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A college campus seems like a great spot to develop and trust his bussing system. In fact, TAMU seems like a great place to do a lot of his development.

He could build tunnels, test rockets, test transit systems, test autonomous cars and probably get a lotta student input, local capital, political capital, positive community engagement.

Do it, Aggies

Are you actually trying to make some kind of point?

Who?mikejones! said:

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JayM said:

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So what does Texas A&M and Elon Musk want to do? Bore two interconnected tunnels under the A&M campus sites and transport 3000 students per hour on new-fangled Tesla EV transit busses?

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A college campus seems like a great spot to develop and trust his bussing system. In fact, TAMU seems like a great place to do a lot of his development.

He could build tunnels, test rockets, test transit systems, test autonomous cars and probably get a lotta student input, local capital, political capital, positive community engagement.

Do it, Aggies

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I'm sure he could do a lot of stuff out at RELLIS. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute would love it.

No Spin Ag said:

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JayM said:

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So what does Texas A&M and Elon Musk want to do? Bore two interconnected tunnels under the A&M campus sites and transport 3000 students per hour on new-fangled Tesla EV transit busses?

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I can so see Elon doing that.

He has helped the entire planet change what vehicles use for energy, and if anyone can do this, a la "eff it, why not," it's someone with F'k you money.

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He's trying to get this going. I'm sure A&M, the state and some fed money will be needed to do it. It's kind of a big deal. And when he sends a spur out to RELLIS, it will be a very big deal. The RELLIS thing is my thought. I don't think they are planning on doing that. But RELLIS is where the new mini nuclear reactors will be I think.

Teslag said:

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Are you actually trying to make some kind of point?

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He for some reason thinks only EVs can be autonomous. He loves his Devastating and Utopia is just around the corner quotes because he can't come up with better discussion points. He also should change is name to AntitechnoAg because he for some reason thinks that technology advancement either can't happen or shouldn't happen.

Who said the metric was all cars?

Europe is absolutely not going down this path first. Tesla is approved to operate their supervised system in every state in the U.S. Europe they are not. They have been working for a year to get it approved and it's not expected until next year, around the same time China permits it.

Waymo is approved to operate in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, soon to be Austin and Atlanta and has done non-commercial testing in New York. They are already doing 100,000 paid driverless rides every week. To my knowledge there's not a single Level 4 operator in Europe.

PlaneCrashGuy said:

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Kansas Kid said:

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Yeah but it used to be you were told you have to worry about them burning your house down. Now, it has been upgraded to your house having a bomb go off.

We ignore the fact that gasoline, once it is vaporized, is designed to explode because gasoline fires never burn down a house or other structures.

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Have you figured out how to quickly extinguish an EV fire yet? A simple "no" will suffice.

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Maybe this was already discussed...
https://apnews.com/article/tesla-semi-fire-battery-crash-water-firefighters-7ff04a61e562b80b73e057cfd82b6165

50,000 gallons of water. Plane dropped fire ******ant. Fire reached 1000 degrees F.

Sounds like an emphatic no to me.

Teslag said:

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Quote:

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Maybe, in a few decades it will get there. Not likely to happen in most texags posters lifetimes.

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Think of where tech was 30 years ago. It's moving way faster than your timeline. Technology doesn't advance in a linear fashion.

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True but AI research in particular has a boom/bust history.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter

hph6203 said:

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Who said the metric was all cars?

Europe is absolutely not going down this path first. Tesla is approved to operate their supervised system in every state in the U.S. Europe they are not. They have been working for a year to get it approved and it's not expected until next year, around the same time China permits it.

Waymo is approved to operate in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, soon to be Austin and Atlanta and has done non-commercial testing in New York. They are already doing 100,000 paid driverless rides every week. To my knowledge there's not a single Level 4 operator in Europe.

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Well, since I was only talking about cars, I was.

But, you do you.

There's a difference between widely available autonomous vehicles and all cars being autonomous.

I'm saying that autonomous vehicles will be relatively ubiquitous before decades from now.

He's saying that autonomous vehicles won't be available for decades.

You're making commentary about all cars, which was not the point of discussion.

Help me out here.

We have a closed transportation system of sorts. A railroad network. We can't seem to make those vehicles autonomous. I wonder why? The lack of advancement towards autonomy on our rail network is more than 'only' money.

bobbranco said:

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Help me out here.

We have a closed transportation system of sorts. A railroad network. We can't seem to make those vehicles autonomous. I wonder why? The lack of advancement towards autonomy on our rail network is more than 'only' money.

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Can you say powerful unions?

Just like the ports could be largely automated over the next 5-10 years but the union walked out to ban/greatly limit automation.

Just to be clear you're asking why the conductors specifically haven't been replaced by an automated system?

hph6203 said:

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Just to be clear you're asking why the conductors specifically haven't been replaced by an automated system?

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Nope. Not even close. Go back your pie in the sky dreams.

And your reply reveals you have no clue the duty of a train conductor which brings into question your ability to intelligently discuss autonomous vehicles.

Kansas Kid said:

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bobbranco said:

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Help me out here.

We have a closed transportation system of sorts. A railroad network. We can't seem to make those vehicles autonomous. I wonder why? The lack of advancement towards autonomy on our rail network is more than 'only' money.

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Can you say powerful unions?

Just like the ports could be largely automated over the next 5-10 years but the union walked out to ban/greatly limit automation.

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Nope.

bobbranco said:

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Kansas Kid said:

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bobbranco said:

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Help me out here.

We have a closed transportation system of sorts. A railroad network. We can't seem to make those vehicles autonomous. I wonder why? The lack of advancement towards autonomy on our rail network is more than 'only' money.

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Can you say powerful unions?

Just like the ports could be largely automated over the next 5-10 years but the union walked out to ban/greatly limit automation.

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Nope.

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Nope meaning what? Non-US ports are ahead of us with automation so there is absolutely opportunity here that the unions are blocking.

I asked you to clarify what you were asking, and instead of doing that you just gave some non-descript response, which is not uncommon for people such as you. It is endless snark, little substance. You're not exhibiting your knowledge, you're just using obscurity to portray yourself as knowledgeable. That is not me saying you are not, but you're doing a terrible job of showing it.


My intuitive answer to your question is that the addressable market of rail automation is exceedingly small relative to the automation of autonomous driving. 3% of workers in the U.S. are employed as their primary source of income as drivers of automobiles, a non-insignificant proportion of workers also make money part time doing the same. 30% of all workers have some form of driving required by their occupation. That is a much larger addressable market than freight rail, and doesn't even get into the markets created by radically reducing the cost of road transport for goods and services, nor the addressable market of individuals that would switch their driving habits from personal driving to driving services.

Basically, despite the relative complexity the potential reward of automating road transport far exceeds the potential reward from automating rail transport. You're talking about trillions of dollars annually in potential for automating road transport, what is the potential reward for automating rail?

I'm not knowledgeable about trains. I did not grow up wearing a tiny little conductor hat, blowing a train whistle, and going chugga chugga, chugga chugga choo choo for fun. If you have a different perspective feel free to share it rather than acting like you're the supreme keeper of knowledge that must keep that knowledge to himself.

hph6203 said:

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I asked you to clarify what you were asking, and instead of doing that you just gave some non-descript response, which is not uncommon for people such as you. It is endless snark, little substance. You're not exhibiting your knowledge, you're just using obscurity to portray yourself as knowledgeable. That is not me saying you are not, but you're doing a terrible job of showing it.


My intuitive answer to your question is that the addressable market of rail automation is exceedingly small relative to the automation of autonomous driving. 3% of workers in the U.S. are employed as their primary source of income as drivers of automobiles, a non-insignificant proportion of workers also make money part time doing the same. 30% of all workers have some form of driving required by their occupation. That is a much larger addressable market than freight rail, and doesn't even get into the markets created by radically reducing the cost of road transport for goods and services, nor the addressable market of individuals that would switch their driving habits from personal driving to driving services.

Basically, despite the relative complexity the potential reward of automating road transport far exceeds the potential reward from automating rail transport. You're talking about trillions of dollars annually in potential for automating road transport, what is the potential reward for automating rail?

I'm not knowledgeable about trains. I did not grow up wearing a tiny little conductor hat, blowing a train whistle, and going chugga chugga, chugga chugga choo choo for fun. If you have a different perspective feel free to share it rather than acting like you're the supreme keeper of knowledge that must keep that knowledge to himself.

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You asked if conductors, the guys who manage schedules and people, are the the roadblock to automation. Clearly you are out of your league.

You would not understand the complexities. Railroads are easy to automate in a closed system. Obtaining a closed system is near impossible. Hint: Airport people movers are generally the closest to automated vehicle systems because these APM systems are closed loops and there is sufficient redundancy. When there are breakdowns the task to retrieve vehicles is not automated.

But for a starter, here you go. Think about it. Don't expect me to train you.
Weather.
Nature.
Grade crossings.
Pedestrians.
Animals.
Accidents.
Maintenance.
Equipment failure.
Roadbed slump and other failures.
Bridge failures.
Derailments.
Trains.

Enjoy your dreaming about autonomous cars.

YouBet said:

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bobbranco said:

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Kansas Kid said:

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bobbranco said:

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Help me out here.

We have a closed transportation system of sorts. A railroad network. We can't seem to make those vehicles autonomous. I wonder why? The lack of advancement towards autonomy on our rail network is more than 'only' money.

---

Can you say powerful unions?

Just like the ports could be largely automated over the next 5-10 years but the union walked out to ban/greatly limit automation.

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Nope.

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Nope meaning what? Non-US ports are ahead of us with automation so there is absolutely opportunity here that the unions are blocking.

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There are not robots that can fully automate ports.

Not gonna continue with a port derail.

We just saw a massive rocket literally land itself back on the same tower it launched from and people on this thread are outright dismissing the ability of a car to drive itself down a road.

And the rocket and car are being built by the same guy no less.

Just described a whole lot of things that are relevant or analogous to autonomous road vehicle issues without addressing the argument I made back at you. If anything what you're doing is showing that the perceived complexity difference between automating rail and road automation is not nearly as large as a person might initially assume.

The amount of money and effort put forward to solve an issue is relative to the cost savings/reward derived from the solution. For freight the cost savings relative to cost of producing pails in comparison to road transport. What you basically did was say that rail has all of the same recognition problems as automobiles with the benefit of not needing complex navigation and control. The counterpoint is that rail has limited options in addressing those issues whereas road transport has more avoidance strategies (i.e. it can turn to avoid collisions). In other words the perception of relative simplicity due to the fact trains run on tracks may not result in the actual simplicity you're portraying it as.


What is your perception of the total potential savings derived from automating the operation of a freight train? Again, it appears to be less than 1% of the benefit derived from automating road transport, so if the perception of the cost to automate road transport is less than 100x (or whatever real factor it is) then the incentive to resolve the road transport is greater than the incentive to resolve rail transport, and the reality is that if road transport is resolved it has the appearance of a system that would be generalizable to multiple different systems, including rail, meaning that the benefit from solving it may not be limited to just road transport. Tesla is utilizing the work they've done for automating road transport in their humanoid robots, meaning not only is it possible that it could be extended to rail transport, but also to manual labor.

Tesla driver lives down to the stereotype:

Kansas Kid said:

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PlaneCrashGuy said:

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Kansas Kid said:

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Yeah but it used to be you were told you have to worry about them burning your house down. Now, it has been upgraded to your house having a bomb go off.

We ignore the fact that gasoline, once it is vaporized, is designed to explode because gasoline fires never burn down a house or other structures.

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Have you figured out how to quickly extinguish an EV fire yet? A simple "no" will suffice.

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I sure hope as a guy with the name planecrashguy you never get in a plane because if they crash, the consequences are way worse than a car crash. Ignore the probability of said crash because all that matters are the consequence according to you. I assume you want to ban all planes as well.

Also, go show me an explosion of an EV. This is the EVidians trying to exaggerate the narrative. I can show you gasoline explosions and have seen one first hand in a refinery.

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Tons of electric vehicle fires, other posters provided for you.

You have never seen a gasoline explosion in a refinery unless you saw a storage tank catch fire.

Units can catch fire or explode but this a really weird way to word something for anyone with a refining background

Teslag said:

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We just saw a massive rocket literally land itself back on the same tower it launched from and people on this thread are outright dismissing the ability of a car to drive itself down a road.

And the rocket and car are being built by the same guy no less.

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According to Wikipedia:

Quote:

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Falcon 9 first-stage boosters landed successfully in 353 of 365 attempts (96.7%)

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No humans on board so no major risk of human life but would you ride in an airplane with that kind of landing success?

Teslag said:

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We just saw a massive rocket literally land itself back on the same tower it launched from and people on this thread are outright dismissing the ability of a car to drive itself down a road.

And the rocket and car are being built by the same guy no less.

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We know we know. The future's so bright you gotta wear shades.

Perpetually denying positive things are going to happen without any point of argument why they won't doesn't make you smart, or wise, it just means you're a wuss that is unwilling to exhibit any expectation of anything. Not that surprising, because your analysis is derived entirely from the thinking of others. Your posts could be constructed by a well trained parrot.

ntxVol said:

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Teslag said:

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We just saw a massive rocket literally land itself back on the same tower it launched from and people on this thread are outright dismissing the ability of a car to drive itself down a road.

And the rocket and car are being built by the same guy no less.

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According to Wikipedia:

Quote:

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Falcon 9 first-stage boosters landed successfully in 353 of 365 attempts (96.7%)

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No humans on board so no major risk of human life but would you ride in an airplane with that kind of landing success?

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Apples and hand grenades