irenesbob

I recently had a situation while driving that made me wonder what a self-driving car would do in that situation. I was driving along on a 2-lane road with a 55 mph speed limit, going maybe a few mph over. A few hundred feet ahead I saw what could have been a patch of wet road, a newly patched section of blacktop or a huge pothole. From experience and still-good vision I ruled out the first two and in a split second decided what evasive action to take before being swallowed up by the crater. I braked a bit, letting onward cars get past, then accelerated making a quick dash into the oncoming lane, got around the big, deep pothole and quickly swerved back into the proper lane - no impact, no damage done. Would autonomous cars see this as a pothole that could rip the suspension and tires apart or would it just see it as a darker patch of roadway and charge ahead until eaten up? Thoughts?

mplsbrian

Autonomous/self driving cars would, in their current iteration such as in my B9 S4 which is equipped with Driver Assistance package, definitely not see that pothole. I have personally been in situations where I have had to intervene and avoid road hazards just like you've described. This is one of a hundred reasons why these features are, currently, marketed as "Advanced Driver Assistance Packages" and require you to keep your hands on the wheel, automatically turn off and beep at you if human control is not detected e.g. steering inputs every 15 seconds or so, etc.

Now, that isn't necessarily what you are asking about: ADAP cars are not "self driving" by the idealist's definition of the word. They will not allow you to install a swivel chair in your driver's seat and retract a motorized steering wheel into the dash while the car's brain takes over a la Minority Report or many concept cars and retro-futuristic fantasies depict.

But, that is the eventual goal: remove human error from the equation, automate the highways, advance technology to the point where it can create a perfectly reliable 3D map of the road including surface imperfections and potholes, frozen car turds that would obliterate a bumper if struck, bad pavement, ice, animals, etc and navigate safely around all of them without putting the occupant or other vehicles at risk. We are decades away from that but that is what everyone is developing towards, one small step at a time.

irenesbob

Thanks for the intelligent reply. My concern is that although the development of completely self-driving cars is as you say decades away, the incremental steps might well encourage or promote a generation or two of drivers who are less cognizant and involved than they need to be until all the cars and roads are ready for fully self-driving vehicles. What I mean can be seen in the current situation where people no longer “know/remember” a loved one’s phone number or address. When they have something to say or a question to ask they assume that the robotic “Alexa” (or whoever) will handle the details of making sure that their message or call reaches the correct recipient. Sitting in a car at the wheel but not fully committed to full-time driving of the vehicle will IMO lead very quickly to a number of vehicles on the roads with drivers whose minds, reflexes and such are diverted to things other than driving. When I taught my two daughters to drive back in the 1980’s I insisted they not touch the radio controls while driving. To show them what would happen, I would let them do it while I was driving then show them what “almost” happened during the “distraction”. Eager as they were to not have to listen to the tune they hated at the moment, they actually could see that a light could change, an animal could enter the roadway or whatever in that brief interruption of concentration.
Given that most of the US roadways we drive on are probably many decades away from being properly signed, mapped and such I cannot imagine fully autonomous driving for a long time. It is one thing for one self-driving car to be able to sense what another self-driving car will do when in proximity or on a path toward contact, but for a self-driving vehicle to be able to get in the head of the driver of an old-tech manually driven car is not something I see easily happening. For many years to come humans, flawed as we are, will likely have the upper hand in knowing what is going on around them, provided they do focus. That is the real issue and what I fear most in the step-by-step transition to fully autonomous cars being the only ones on the road. When I drive in NYS’s Finger Lakes (trips to Watkins Glen raceway for example) the occasional Mennonite horse-drawn buggy is fun to look at, but scary in terms of them and my B9 A4 sharing the roadway.

mplsbrian

Yes, there is that concern, and there is also the concern about the moral implications of the technology itself e.g. the Trolley Problem (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem and Moral Machine). Even if a threat is detected and brakes are applied instantly to the fullest limits of available traction, there is fundamentally both an underlying physics problem and an ethics problem and so does your self-driving car careen off the cliff to the left and kill you, or skid into the cyclist on your right and kill him? Suppose it's the cyclist who the reaper comes for... who gets charged in the resulting court case, you or Audi?

There are many challenges ahead for autonomous driving technology. The numbing of driver attention/awareness, especially among younger generations who grew up with nothing else will surely be one of them. The same is already true of people who can't get anywhere without a GPS and can't back an MT car out of a parking spot without destroying the clutch, because they grew up that way.

iggawiggy

This is why I think ultimately self driving cars won't work. I don't like this constant march to taking more and more control away from the human element, when it's just simpler for the driver to pay attention.

What good is an autonomous vehicle when the roads are crumbling? The units may be advanced, but the medium they ride on hasn't. Big problem.

AudiDan2018

I believe the 2019 A8 has a suspension option which uses cameras to recognize imperfections in the road and adjusts ride quality accordingly. I would assume this same technology is in the pipeline to be able to recognize road issues and avoid them without human interaction. Who knows what the future will hold.

I will say, we have a long way to go. I have a 2018 Prestige with DAP and when using Traffic Jam Assist, if someone comes into my lane just fast enough, I have to intervene and brake. I was even in a fully autonomous car in Vegas this year and was shocked how similar it behaved to the A4. We're not as far along as I thought when it comes to self driving. By no means should people be posting the videos on YouTube I see where no one is in the driver's seat (Tesla people).

cuke2u

The new focus also has this suspension technology and I believe the Mondeo, or the fusion in your country, can now be specified with this? But we are only on level 3 autonomous, with the Audi A8. yes there is quite a way to go...

jcallip1

When you go to the dealer in 2025 or 2030 there won't be a steering wheel in the car!!!!!

irenesbob

I hope that is not true. How I will I drive to my daughter's summer home that in on a 5 mile public dirt road with no speed limit posted, no lights and then her own 1 1/2 mile private dirt road. If I were to drive only in built-up areas in 10-15 years then maybe no steering wheel will be needed. Oh well, I probably won't be alive at that time anyway - let the ones left here deal with it all I guess lol

cuke2u

Cars can already see in the dark, A8, and drive to the GPS location. So your 5 miles journey should not be an issue in the future, once we get to level 5...