Re:Driverless cars are further away than you think
by a_bonobo on Thursday October 24, 2013 @12:54AM
(#6603472)
>Modern cars have fewer mechanical linkages than you might think.
Even better, the more software and chips there are in your car the "better" the bugs get. Friends of mine had fun problems with a new Audi A5: about 10 times, it randomly turned off while driving taking about 20 seconds to come back, and handling a car with power-steering with the engine off is very hard! AFAIK, that problem hasn't been solved yet.
I've googled around a bit and here's someone with an 2000 Audi TT that just randomly turns off because the engine speed sensor broke: http://www.audiforums.com/forum/audi-tt-7/help-2000-tt-rando...
Re:Driverless cars are further away than you think
by ygra on Thursday October 24, 2013 @03:55AM
(#6603890)
At least in Germany though, steering and braking have to be mechanically connected which maybe limits innovation in that area a bit (or reduces incidents where you cannot control your car anymore).
There are solutions to your proposed problem. You could require the car be taken into a shop for updates. This would make the update gradual (so the eggs are never all in one basket) and it would let mechanics ensure the update was applied correctly. You could also design the software to have a core that is never updated. It would monitor basic things like "Am I going too fast?" "Can I brake in time for any obstacles?" etc. Google uses this strategy IIRC.