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How many Jiga-watts?
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1.21 for the servos alone
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So many questions.
Why a DeLorean? (Besides the obvious. I’m guessing it was only due to the obvious.)
It seems like an autonomous electric vehicle could detect road conditions (e.g. ice and water on roads) and the precise slippage of wheels, and independently rotate each wheel in a highly specific way to enable perfect control for that exact set of conditions.
But can it currently do that at all? (Is this all just preprogrammed stunts at this point? Is it just assuming, or planning on assuming, the existence of certain conditions based on vehicle performance, rather than responding?)
How good can it theoretically get at detecting and appropriately responding to road conditions, in real time? (Or does it need to? Can sets of preprogrammed responses always work when the car is sliding in a particular way?)
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Seems like the whole point of this demo is to gather enough data to try and answer many of your questions. Obiously, they chose a DeLorean simply for the cool factor.
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Earlier in the vid, I saw the driver using what looked to me like a dead man’s switch, but both his hands were up at near the end, so it’s not that.
But those empty-eyed fake smiles on those dude’s faces. Oh wait. No, those are real smiles. I have feeling that smiles for (a) man is bad for mankind.
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But if you want the cool factor a black Pontia Trans Am will be a better choiche for an autonomous car!
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I had been thinking about this recently. Someone should start a formula racing league using entirely autonomous cars. Aside from the skill of the pit crew, the skills of the programmers would be on display, instead of a driver. Training a car to react at high speeds in unpredictable traffic seems similar to what we expect them to do on public roads.
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That would turn pretty quick into something like the race in On the Beach, I think.
Could be fun to watch, though.
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Where we’re going, we don’t need drivers.
That final slide off the roundabout and along the aisle of cones was stupendous.
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Really good point, though I wonder if it would quickly devolve into creating maneuvers that throw off the other cars rather than avoidance. First team to perfect the PIT maneuver dominates competition!
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