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Semi- Autonomous Cars Scare the Shit Out of Me. Last month, I was driving down the interstate, somewhere near the southern corner of Virginia, when a thunderstorm opened up above me. Suddenly, a wall of water appeared a hundred yards ahead.
In a split second, I had zero visibility, a slick road, and a shitload of anxiety. So I let go of the wheel and felt the car find the lane. It was Volvo’s semi- autonomous driving technology at work, and it scared me to death. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The Volvo V9. 0 station wagon that the company let me test for a week is supposed to be one of the safest and most sophisticated cars you can buy.
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But the idea that the car could see the road when I couldn’t, that the sensors would take over when I activated the Pilot Assist mode, it frightened me. Even though the whole point of the feature is to help the driver avoid steering off the road or plowing into another car, I found myself too anxious to fully trust the semi- autonomous technology that was keeping me safe. Dvd The Walk (2015) Downloads Online.
But I’m an anxious person. Someone braver would realize that this next step towards a fully autonomous vehicle represents a complete technological revolution, one that would save countless lives in the years to come.
Intellectually, I believe this, too. Hurtling down the interstate at 7. Volvo’s computer vision and seemingly robotic steering wheel broke my brain.
Let’s back up and go over the details of Pilot Assist, the semi- autonomous function I tried out on several hundred miles of highway. Volvo has offered a version of Pilot Assist on its cars since 2. To engage feature, you just tap the cruise control button on the steering wheel and then scroll over to the Pilot Assist option. It shows up as a green steering wheel on the dash as well as the head- up display. To disengage it, you just tap the brakes. I first tested it in a Volvo XC9. Pong with an SUV, since the technology would stop you from going off the road by bouncing you back in the other direction.
Which is neat, but not necessarily mind- boggling. In 2. 01. 6, Volvo announced the second generation of the technology, an upgrade that qualified it as a Level 2 form of autonomous driving, according to SAE International’s scale. This, I was told, was the business. The new, more advanced Pilot Assist II currently comes standard on the Volvo S9. V9. 0 and XC9. 0. That’s not bad for a station wagon that starts at $5. Computers and sensors, my friend.
Behind the Volvo V9. The feature will also maintain a minimum distance between you and the car in front of you. The new Pilot Assist II works great on the highway, but it also performs surprisingly well on windy country roads. The 4Th Poster (2017) Movie Rating. You cannot, however, take your hands off the wheel. If you do, the car will catch you and put the feature on standby until you grab the wheel again. Even if your hand is touching the wheel and not moving, the Volvo instructs you to apply steering or Pilot Assist will turn itself off.
You’d think this would be annoying, but keeping my hand on the steering wheel actually made me feel safer and more alert—which is probably the point. The Pilot Assist II feature will only work under 8. Pilot Assist I, which only worked at speeds up to 3.
It’s all fun and games until you realize that you’re not paying attention to your driving—or at least not paying attention like you used to. I found myself scrolling through playlists on Spotify through the built- in Apple Car. Play. I stared off into the distance longer than I ever would’ve if I didn’t trust that the car wouldn’t let me crash. And when I caught myself drifting, my instinctual reaction was to overcorrect, and slam myself into the center of the lane. This is what’s always worried me about the transition to autonomous driving. For at least a few years, humans either won’t trust the cars to get them safely to their destination or they’ll trust the cars too much, believing that the semi- autonomous technology can do more than it can.
This will be a real worry at least until we see an SAE Level 4 full, self- driving automation that will let a car completely control the trip. As former Gizmodo writer Alissa Walker argued last year, though, the humans in the car will still be at risk as long as they have the capability to override autonomous driving system, especially if they’re drunk.
Truthfully, the Firefly fleet didn’t need a steering wheel or pedals because it was being tested as a Level 4 self- driving car. Waymo, the company that spun off from Google’s self- driving car division, retired all 5. Firefly prototypes, however, in favor of 6. Chrysler minivans that are now conducting public testing in Phoenix.
We don’t yet know if the company will eventually ditch the steering wheel and pedals on those vehicles. We do know that more autonomous cars will appear on roads all over the world in the few years. Waymo, the new Alphabet company that grew out of the self- driving car team at Google, has been testing its self- driving cars on public roads for years now. More recently, Uber has started testing its own autonomous vehicles, and Lyft plans to offer rides in self- driving cars by the end of this year.
So in the near future, expect to see a lot more Level 2 cars like the Volvo V9. I would wager, expect to see more distracted drivers. If Volvo’s succeeded, however, that won’t lead to more road casualties, since its cars’ safety features are becoming so much more sophisticated. At the end of the day, it wasn’t Volvo’s technology that scared me. I could see myself developing bad habits and over trusting a technology that still has real limits.
This is actually why Volvo and some other companies plan on skipping Level 3 models, which offer full, self- driving capabilities but require a driver to be present. Manufacturers are eyeing a straight jump to Level 4 functionality. That way people won’t be confused about which autonomous features any given car had and which ones it lacked. I know I was confused with the Volvo V9.
I don’t like to feel confused while driving at high speeds. Then again, I’ll probably die before the self- driving takeover is complete. This technology isn’t for me.
It’s for my kids and future generations of Americans. That is, if there’s even an America left by then.