The EV Revolution, Stage One

[matthew1]

Self driving doesn’t have to be 100% safe effective, it needs to be safer than driven cars.

Well put. Like this: You don't have to run faster than the bear, you only have to run faster than your friend.

[matthew1]

More thoughts on snow/fog: maybe cars just won't run in those conditions (delay), or run slowly. What percent of miles driven are in those conditions in the US? Two percent? One tenth of one percent? Air travel copes with this just fine by using delay, and the country doesn't fall to pieces.

I lived in Seattle for 7 years and rarely ever saw fog thick enough to cause driving problems. And I've lived in Denver since 1988, with the exception of my Seattle years, and would say falling heavy snow is not common when compared to overall miles driven.

These conditions are outliers, and they'll get solved like outliers of anything are.

[volvolugnut]

When it snows in the South, where it rarely snows, most schools and many businesses close until the streets are clear again. Those who do go out driving in the snow benefit from the reduced traffic which makes the driving safer because there are fewer other vehicles to run into.
Perhaps the response to poor road conditions by automated vehicles could be to expand vehicle spacing and enforce reduced traffic on the roads.
volvolugnut

[BlackBart]

My counter there would be the sensors can’t see, can’t differentiate, there’s a foot of snow, so the whole system would have to shut down.

We could have diesel-smoke-blowing bro trucks that are self-driving - that has nothing to do with electrification as a power source.

But good arguments all around.

You ever notice on Star Trek how the elevator doors never failed, or a fuse didn’t blow when someone was only half sent by the transporter?
“OOP, hang-on, I’ll get your buddy back, we just have to hook up the VIDATREK here and see where the problem is. I think we can get most of him back.”

[volvolugnut]

Yes, you are right. When the sensors can't see the road lines or edges, they are useless.
Those coal rollin' bro trucks always seem to be out when road conditions are bad.
volvolugnut

[abscate]

The utility mapping guy who was in front of house the other day had a hand held gps that mapped to within a cm

I don’t think mapping is a problem any more. Note that failure of the GPS is easily handled gracefully with essentially a lookup table to bRing the car to a safe place and stop

[BlackBart]

failure of the GPS is easily handled gracefully with essentially a lookup table to bRing the car to a safe place and stop

Whoo, I mistook that for a lock-up in the middle of the freeway!

[matthew1]

Another EV benefit (Level 5): when cars today are in a line at a red and it turns green, it can take a long time to get moving if you're say 10th or 20th. That's because us humans are good at general-purpose stuff, like finding food, eating, reproducing, making art, fighting, etc. At driving we're particularly horrible.

Often that line of cars will take each car .5-1.0 second to get moving, and if even one human is busy on their phone, the whole thing is blown and you won't make the light.

Watching this every morning on University after I drop my son at school is my own quiet horror. I look down the whole line.

EVs however will get started almost at once. Again, this is Level 5 EVs I'm talking about. The throughput for a stoplight will go up 2x, 5x, even 10x? maybe. The acceleration will be higher, further improving the throughput.

Same with merging onto a freeway, where about half of all humans piloting cars in my estimation tend to think it's a time of relaxed integration into a big slow lazy car river, an automobile operator's annoyance that gets in the way of finding out how Suzy and Bob's marriage is going (Facebook). This causes stop and go traffic on freeways in dense areas.

[abscate]

EVs however will get started almost at once. Again, this is Level 5 EVs I'm talking about. The throughput for a stoplight will go up 2x, 5x, even 10x? maybe. The acceleration will be higher, further improving the throughput.

You don’t have stop,signs with evolved self driving cars…..

The naysayers claim the electric grid csnt handle the residential load of EV, saying we need 4x more electricity ( insert stupid you tubes here)

Here’s my math, please criticize

Average commute 15 miles from three sources.
Average EV gets 3 miles per kWhr
Average home electricity consumption 30kWhr

So each EV needs 10 kWhr per day for commuting, and thus an additional 33% of load to residential grid.

[matthew1]

Q

Can I ask why you think there will be ev-only fast lanes on freeways?


A

Because Level 5 EV cars can be networked and synched, it makes it easy to run them like a train -- closely spaced -- and they can travel this way much faster and safer than highway transportation today does it. In rural areas with little traffic I can see a column running at 100mph+, while the formation achieves significant aerodynamic benefit (think NASCAR drafting).

Individual cars can join/leave this formation easily and quickly, no human hesitation causing braking, slowdowns, and accidents.

I'd look to Texas to be the first to do something like this because they've got lots of land, and they're in the business of building gigantic new highways between cities, both public and for-profit stretches.