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Robotics Transportation Technology

BMW Says Self-Driving Car To Be Level 5 Capable In Five Years (reuters.com) 149

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
German carmaker BMW is on track to deliver a self-driving car by 2021, the company's senior vice president for Autonomous Driving, Elmar Frickenstein, said on Thursday. From a report: "We are on the way to deliver a car in 2021 with level 3, 4 and 5," Frickenstein told a panel discussion in Berlin, explaining the vehicle will have different levels of autonomy, depending on how and where it is used. A level 5 vehicle is capable of navigating roads without any driver input, while a level 3 car still needs a steering wheel and a driver who can take over if the car encounters a problem.
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BMW Says Self-Driving Car To Be Level 5 Capable In Five Years More

BMW Says Self-Driving Car To Be Level 5 Capable In Five Years

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  • Five years? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by freeze128 ( 544774 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:06PM (#54053089)
    Hell! I'm Level 5 right NOW.

    BTW: WTF is Level 5?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by wulfhere ( 94308 )

      I'm an old-timer, so I can understand not RTFA, but you didn't even RTFS?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Level 5, is do not ever say or write or even imply anything deragatory against NATO or CIA or NSA or else they'll level 5 you right off a cliff. Level 5 software warranty is really going to be interesting.

      Obviously the cars wont be running M$ because "Microsoft excludes all implied warranties and conditions, including those of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement." and "Except for any repair, replacement, or refund Microsoft may provide, you may not recover under this lim

  • blinker too? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Frederic54 ( 3788 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:14PM (#54053155) Journal

    It would be cool is future BMW have blinkers, because all the ones I see on the road do not!

  • Yawn. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ichijo ( 607641 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:24PM (#54053217) Journal

    the vehicle will have different levels of autonomy, depending on how and where it is used.

    So it's autonomous except when it isn't.

    Wake me when we have a car that's full-time Level 5.

    • Re:Yawn. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by b0bby ( 201198 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:29PM (#54053241)

      If it can drive 80% or more of a 200 mile trip, I'm buying one. I can handle the edge cases myself for a few more years.

      • Re:Yawn. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by MadCow42 ( 243108 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:34PM (#54053275) Homepage

        Well, that's only valid if the 80% or more of the trip that it CAN handle are known ahead of time. If the 20% of cases that it can't handle are "surprise, there's a deer on the road ahead!" or "surprise, the guy in front of you slammed on his brakes!", then you still have to sit there 100% of the time ready to react.

        you need 100% confidence that the care is fully capable of handling EVERYTHING that comes up for the next XYZ minutes/hours/miles/whatever to be able to really have a useful Level 5.

        Personally I'd rather be driving the car than sitting there prepared to take over just in case something goes wrong. Until I'm not needed at all for driving, I'll keep the control thank you.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Immerman ( 2627577 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:54PM (#54053447)

          At least far enough ahead of time to give you take a few minutes to wake up and figure out what's going on before you have to take control.

          I mean I'm totally fine with "hey, there's snow/mudslides/migrating crabs covering the road, and I'm not sure what to do, so I'll pull over while I wake you up to decide what to do."

          For the faulty, over-hyped present though there's far too much "I'm confused. Catch!" going on. Or worse, "I misunderstood what I thought I saw, goodbye." I'll keep control myself, thanks.

        • Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by BasilBrush ( 643681 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:55PM (#54053457)

          Reacting to stuff in the road in front of you like your 2 examples is the easy stuff where automation is already better than you are.

          • It's better except when it isn't, and when it isn't it's a lot worse.

            I saw something on TV the other day - self driving car totally failed to notice a roadsweeping van with a huge fluorescent sign on the back doing 15mph in the fast lane of a motorway. Carbon unit took over just in time. Now it probably shouldn't have been there...

            • The automated car doesn't have to be better than humans for every single case. It just has to statistically have less collisions and less fatalities than when the cars are people are driving.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by Anonymous Coward

                That would be the rational view. Humans are not rational. Autonomous cars will have to be much safer to be accepted by the public.

                If a human driver runs over a child, the driver will be charged with involuntary manslaughter. That is acceptable to society.

                If an autonomous vehicle kills a child, there is no-one who can charged with a criminal act. The public outcry will be enormous. The car manufacturer can only make it worse by telling the public that "statistically, our cars kill less children than human dr

          • Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by thinkwaitfast ( 4150389 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @06:32PM (#54054215)
            Flying is hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of pure terror.
            Pilots train long and hard for this.

            • Flying is hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of pure terror.

              OK, but this post is about driving not flying.
              And nobody gets to fly a plane (with or without autopilot) without extensive training.
              This is not the case with a car.

              • Does extensive training included dozens of hours of training, hundreds of hours of real world experience and all day tests?

          • The problem is even if you are paying attention to what's going on, by the time you realize "oh shit, it doesn't see that stalled car in my lane!!!" it may be too late. If I have to pay attention and constantly second-guess what the AI is doing, I'd rather just drive the car myself, possibly with an AI backup that can react if I fail to notice something.

      • 'Edge case' will be anything except divided highways in clear weather.

      • If it can drive 80% or more of a 200 mile trip, I'm buying one. I can handle the edge cases myself for a few more years.

        That's reasonable if it's 10 miles city driving, 80 miles on a clear highway and 10 miles of city driving at the end. And as long as absolutely nothing unexpected happens on the highway.

    • Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @05:35PM (#54053825) Homepage

      So it's autonomous except when it isn't. Wake me when we have a car that's full-time Level 5.

      Level 3: Within known, limited environments (such as freeways), the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks, but must still be prepared to take control when needed.

      When a level 3 car is driving, you're not. You will not be required to jump in and intercept or overrule the car. But it will be normal for the car to say "Your exit is coming up, please take over" or "The road markings are too unclear, please take over" or "There's road construction ahead, please take over" or "There's emergency services with sirens nearby, please take over" and so on and if you don't it'll pull over and refuse to drive. Unless you want clogged roads with pulled over SDCs, the driver has to be ready to take control within a reasonably short time. This is basically "I'll handle the best conditions", level 4 is "I'll handle all normal conditions" and level 5 "I'll handle all conditions". But they're all genuinely self-driving within those confines.

      • My car can back up out of the driveway under normal conditions` by itself, no computer required.

  • Doubtful (Score:3)

    by Arkham ( 10779 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:38PM (#54053301)

    Level 5 takes full autonomy to "all driving modes." That means the car is fully capable of driving itself anywhere in any condition, from a snowy, moonlit road to an unmapped desert. It should be noted that, at this point, Level 5 is theoretical. One Audi representative went so far as to describe it as "mythical." It's unlikely we'll see Level 5 autonomous driving in our lifetimes.

    http://mashable.com/2016/08/26... [mashable.com]

    Level 4 is definitely obtainable though.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      By that reasoning, humans can't handle level five either. How much less deadly does the new system have to be than the current system before delaying the change any further is tantamount to murder?

      • Since it can't be out there getting people into accidents that otherwise wouldn't be getting into them, it has to be damn near perfect. People keep saying that owners will want to pay the insurance for these but that it will be cheap, well insurance will only be cheap if the automaker pays for all damage or the occurrence of an accident is rare. Yet plenty of other people say they only have to be as good as the average driver, which means the same number of accidents and still expensive insurance. So whi

      • That's true, but as a human there are some roads I just won't drive on, or some conditions I where won't go out in. But if people do go out in those conditions (and aren't viewed as completely nuts), then the AI will have to handle them if you take away the controls.

    • Agreed. People have been spoiled by advances in computer technology driven by Moores Law. That is coming to an end. Just because your computer is 10000x faster than it was 10 years ago doesn't mean it will be 10000x faster 10 years from now. Same idea applies to any technology.

      • Just because your computer is 10000x faster than it was 10 years ago doesn't mean it will be 10000x faster 10 years from now.

        I'd still bet on speed increases similar to past decades continuing for another.

        Memory latencies alone could be increased by close to several orders of magnitude, and honestly that doesnt even require new technology... just current technology becoming cheaper and then applied to memory, which is inevitable.

  • TFA is rather skimpy on details.

    I presume that Level 5 is possible on clear roads, no precipitation and minimal biologic (humans and animals) interference. Say interstates and major thoroughfares.
    Level 4 would be city streets with a good opportunity for unexpected events where the driver has to take over following the event (ie an accident in front of the vehicle which necessitates high level decision (ie find alternate route, wait for road to clear, pull out shotgun to keep looters/zombies away).
    Level 3 w

    • Re:Would like to see what different levels mean (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ultra64 ( 318705 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @05:04PM (#54053547)

      Level 3: Within known, limited environments (such as freeways), the driver can safely turn their attention away from driving tasks, but must still be prepared to take control when needed.
      Level 4: The automated system can control the vehicle in all but a few environments such as severe weather. The driver must enable the automated system only when it is safe to do so. When enabled, driver attention is not required.
      Level 5: Other than setting the destination and starting the system, no human intervention is required. The automatic system can drive to any location where it is legal to drive and make its own decisions.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Arkham posted the SAE standard for the levels.

      https://mashable.app.box.com/s... [box.com]

      My understanding is that it's not valid to say "it can do level 5 in some conditions". Level 5 means no human interaction (think no steering wheel) under all situations that a human driver can currently handle.

  • I'm an advocate for:

    * Electric
    * Autonomous
    * Shared (ie I don't own it)

    vehicles. I like the potential for:

    * Quiet roads
    * Efficient travel (I'm a lead-foot)
    * No fumes
    * Shared rides even
    * Time to browse /. :)
    * TXT/IM/phone & drive legally
    * Clear the parked cars of the streets (more lanes, even more efficient)
    * Garage & driveway space freed up

    I'm just a little worried about people tampering with the smarts and picking you off. I know of two incidents where people who were about to "talk" within days /

    • Do you support hackable? Just a couple of years ago people were bringing out the proverbial pitchforks because manufacturers were building cars with non serviceable areas and people were demanding access to the things they own, bemoaning the slide to an ownership class and a renter economy. The same arguments that were applied to non hackable cell phones (I think I saw that one yesterday).

  • Just took a long trip using Waze/in car nav. In Nashville, Waze had no idea how to get to a starbucks I had programmed in. I found a parking lot, searched for starbucks near me, and it found one, in Atlanta! Overall both Waze and in car did a good job, missing probably 20% of the time. But 20% is completely unacceptable if they were steering. I had snow in DC area, which I am skeptical self-drive works acceptably. Numerous construction areas, again problematic. I got a feeling self drive is going to be like

  • Missing the point of Level 5 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thisisauniqueid ( 825395 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @06:30PM (#54054203)
    He's totally missing the point of the definitions. Level 3 is "can drive autonomously, in some conditions, with occasional human intervention". Level 4 is "can drive autonomously, in some conditions, without human intervention". Level 5 is "can drive autonomously, in any conditions that a human can drive in, without human intervention". Saying "We can do Level 3, 4, or 5, depending on the conditions" is saying "We can do Level 3".
  • I wonder how much weight, electricity, extra parts and cost is going to be shifted to the buyer. Tell me, what happens when one of these special parts break? This will also give the insurance companies a chance to devour you $$$ if you don't comply. I hope they keep the manual override option for another 10 years. Hopefully I'll be dead by then, and won't have to contend with the car crushing situation. I'm sure even the bare bone cars will not be cheaper. Why can't they just stick to making life easier in

  • Weather (Score:3)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday March 16, 2017 @07:47PM (#54054711)
    Not in all weather they won't. Only people in moderate climates will be able to use these.

  • Hopefully it won't drive like a BMW driver.

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