Will driverless cars help remote resorts?

I’ll never give up my gas, turbochargers or 3rd pedal [emoji58]

abc said:

#1 is largely subjective. The "planning" that goes into charging is the same as people plan to stop for gas and food. Still, NOBODY ever mention the "inconvenience" of having to stop for food! Yet it's a HUGE DEAL to plan to stop to charge the battery!!!

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I'm not following this logic. When I go on long road trips I never "plan" on food, I pretty much just eat wherever I want (if I even need to stop for food).

The same cannot be said of charging an electric vehicle. Unless you're in California, where the government has spent a ton of taxpayer money on charging stations, you're gonna' be in a world of hurt charging across Nebraska having no idea where the closest charging station is.

abc said:

#2 and 5 is related. One may even say they are one and the same.

While the "gas up time" is shorter than charging time, that's not counting going to the bathroom and worse, stopping for food and drink. In reality, just about most people found the total trip time is longer than what google map indicates.

#1 is largely subjective. The "planning" that goes into charging is the same as people plan to stop for gas and food. Still, NOBODY ever mention the "inconvenience" of having to stop for food! Yet it's a HUGE DEAL to plan to stop to charge the battery!!!

Electric vehicle has one and only one real big issue, limited range. That limit is slowly increasing. Still, every mitigating measures are viewed as huge and insurmountable "inconvenience" or worse.

I've been a foot soldier since the early days of internet commerce. I've observed the exact same reaction back then. I can't help but laugh at the repeat in this new cycle.

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So how long does it take to recharge fully?

kbroderick said:

Thinking about some of the car-rental threads I've seen, this also raises an interesting question about car rentals: will one-way rentals (and their absurd fees) be a thing of the past? Just add six/eight/whatever hours for the car to drive itself back to the point of origin, and you can fly into Jackson, drive to Big Sky and on to Bozeman, and not pay the one-way fee.

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Would a battery last the 6-8 hours of driving you mention or can it plug itself back in?

Smellytele said:

So how long does it take to recharge fully?

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Anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight...depending on the type of charger being used, specific car model, etc.

Smellytele said:

Would a battery last the 6-8 hours of driving you mention or can it plug itself back in?

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It can plug itself back in when needed.

Keep in mind it’s not yet legal for a car to drive itself without a driver. So I’m not sure if that feature is actually implemented. But the (computer) logic is prety clear to implement. (I’ve actually work on a self driving forklift, which does exactly that)

BenedictGomez said:

The same cannot be said of charging an electric vehicle. Unless you're in California, where the government has spent a ton of taxpayer money on charging stations, you're gonna' be in a world of hurt charging across Nebraska having no idea where the closest charging station is.

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Wrong!

YOU may have “no idea” where the next charge station is. But the car knows!!!

speden said:

They will have redundant systems like GPS, cameras, LIDAR, etc., but there will be situations where they don't know what to do. They will probably deal with this by telling the driver, "I can't function here, you need to take over". And if the driver doesn't respond, then the car would try to pull over and stop in a safe place. The part that scares me are the cases where the car doesn't know there's a problem and just plows into something without even slowing down. I think this has happened to cars that rely on a single sensor system, such as only using a camera to save money. I'd want a car that used multiple sensors and redundant computers.

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Dated video but they blamed the human ....

mikec142 said:

This kinda gave me a chuckle. So by this reasoning, you don't ride ski lifts because it gives away control of your personal safety. I know that earning your turns is an increasingly popular thing, but this is a bit extreme :beer:

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LOL . I know the risks of riding a lift I had a friend waiting for the next chair only to watch it fly off the bullwheel :-o as it swung around . So yeah stuff happens . Lifts are a known and fairly predictable ....you get on ride up ,get off ...repeat . Nobody is coming down 5' away from you in the opposite direction at 50mph .

I guess my "autonomous" car phobia goes back to my teens . I was skiing with a couple friends and one of their friends suggest we run out to get food when lift shutdown at 4:30 ''Old Doe Mountain" in Pa. Well if any of you are familiar with the old "Opal Manta" Imagine packing 6 people into that compact . On the way back we were stopped at a train crossing . Assshole driver decides to go around the gates, floors it in 4cylinder with 6 people ...#@#$%^&*(........ I was on the train side in the back watching my life pass before me ,train missed us by inches. I felt all my organs liquify and run into my feet I was numb for an hour . I wanted to do serious harm to that asshole but was so weak I sat in the lodge by the fireplace for an hour .

I don't let anyone drive when I go anywhere unless I know them very well .

Hmmm, I wonder if my self driving electric car goes to the Hermitage, do the chargers still work?

Doesn't matter, just hanging at ms for the next 3 days. Postponed Dartmouth, Tenney, Middlebury due to crap conditions. Car doesnt need to go far at all, blah!!!

Siliconebobsquarepants said:

I don't let anyone drive when I go anywhere unless I know them very well .

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OK, so no buses. But what about all the other driver around you?

And how about airplanes? I mean, "pilot error" is not unheard of.

And if you were the passenger on that plane that landed in the Hudson river, your life is in the hand of someone you don't "know very well". Or do you prefer yourself at the control?

When I was in Colorado for 3 weeks this past Christmas, I happily rode in the car of my host. She used to be a professional driver, a couple decades of driving vans and buses in the snow of Summit county. On stormy days, I trust her driving more than myself!

Thing is, driving is largely an experience thing. The more you drive in snow, the better you know how to handle it. Computers can absorb "experience" extremely fast. "Experience" encountered by other computers just like "him"! That makes computer pretty decent drivers in very short time.

abc said:

OK, so no buses. But what about all the other driver around you?

And how about airplanes? I mean, "pilot error" is not unheard of.

And if you were the passenger on that plane that landed in the Hudson river, your life is in the hand of someone you don't "know very well". Or do you prefer yourself at the control?

When I was in Colorado for 3 weeks this past Christmas, I happily rode in the car of my host. She used to be a professional driver, a couple decades of driving vans and buses in the snow of Summit county. On stormy days, I trust her driving more than myself!

Thing is, driving is largely an experience thing. The more you drive in snow, the better you know how to handle it. Computers can absorb "experience" extremely fast. "Experience" encountered by other computers just like "him"! That makes computer pretty decent drivers in very short time.

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Haha . Bus's Can't help but think of "Raph Kramden" when I think of bus drivers,no offence to anyone out there.
I get your passion and you're most likely you are right in the long run . I will take years on convincing for me though.

I do feel anxious when I fly as a passenger but I personally know a bunch of commercial airline pilots. I never finished my power rating but have 800 hrs in gliders my instructors were airline pilots.

Hmm? How often does my computer freeze up and I have to reboot it? I deal with it because when it does it won't kill me...

Or how many times has a engine light come on and the mechanic tells me "oh it was only a bad sensor"? What if it was a sensor reading the edge of the road or another vehicle?

jaytrem said:

225 miles, better send it with a full tank of gas.

Another interesting thought on rentals would be what about younger people who currently pay the higher rate. Would be no reason for that anymore.

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Why, can't the thing drive itself to a full-serve gas station and fill itself up? :grin:

Smellytele said:

Hmm? How often does my computer freeze up and I have to reboot it? I deal with it because when it does it won't kill me...

Or how many times has a engine light come on and the mechanic tells me "oh it was only a bad sensor"? What if it was a sensor reading the edge of the road or another vehicle?

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You realize that just about any car made since the mid-80s is at least partially computer-controlled, right?

And yes, failures can happen. I had a Suburban that would misread the wheelspeed sensors and engage ABS when it shouldn't have at 5 or less MPH while parking. But that's an exception, not the rule, and things have generally gotten better (plus that particular Suburban had been flogged prior to my ownership and was kinda a POS). Just like a ski lift, an autonomous vehicle would presumably detect the fault and require that you address it before further operation (or only operate in manual override/bypass mode).

Yes, recharge time is an issue. It's not a common case, but I've done several vacations where I drove 8+ hours to get to where I was going (and in a couple of cases, drove an average > 2 hrs/day between destinations). The most recent was a trip from Montana to Oregon last April; I did the drive out, and the drive back each in one day (and the drive back involved Hood River -> PDX -> Montana, so it was even longer); with the 36-gallon tank in my F-150, that's a one-stop trip. Even allowing for being able to leave the rig unattended at a charger (versus standing near it while fueling), I'd have been waiting a lot longer than the snack and bathroom break to recharge. But range, charging tech, and availability of charging stations will improve over time. As noted, you don't generally have to plan fuel stops for most vehicles anymore; you can generally assume that you'll have gas stations within fifty miles or so, at least along an interstate corridor. Ride a motorcycle with a small tank or drive a diesel and things get a little more dicey, but still not to the level of looking for a charging station. Honestly, if I could get 600 miles (normal usage, unladen) out of a charge, I could probably live with an hour for a quick, partial charge or an overnight full charge.

Actually, there's no requirement that driver-less cars need to be electric cars.

It's just the current offering of best driving computers are mostly on the electric vehicles. But I'm not entirely convinced that's the end game.

abc said:

YOU may have “no idea” where the next charge station is. But the car knows!!!

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How lovely that the car will know precisely where, 14 miles round trip out of my way, to go!

Fixing the long charging time will probably be easier than getting fully autonomous driving. To reduce charging time they can do things like use a higher voltage. Porsche is coming out with an electric car that uses an 800 volt battery pack (double the more typical 400 volt packs), which should cut recharge time in half. Another interesting approach would be to use a supercapacitor to grab a lot of energy from a charging station very fast, and then transfer it to the batteries while you're driving.

I'm waiting to hear stories about home mechanics electrocuting themselves poking around in these electric cars.

speden said:

Another interesting approach would be to use a supercapacitor to grab a lot of energy from a charging station very fast, and then transfer it to the batteries while you're driving.

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Would speed-charging ultimately decrease the overall life of the battery?

A supercapacitor you can charge and discharge extremely fast without damaging it, since it's not storing energy via a chemical change, but just as static voltage. But they suffer from charge leakage, so aren't great for long term storage of energy.

Charging a lithium ion battery too fast does damage it. They can reduce that effect by slowing down the rate of charging as the battery is getting close to being full. So you can get to 80% full pretty fast, but then have to slow the charge rate way down to get the last 20%. They also have to control heat, so some of the newer battery packs are liquid cooled to keep them in the optimum temperature range to prolong life and give the best performance.