Featured Geohot will sell a semi-autonomous driving kit this year

Riding shotgun in a DIY self-driving car
Only 1 test vehicle with about 100 hours of real world autonomous driving at the time of that writing. If he gets it right, 1K seems like a small price to pay for semi autonomous car. The Prius with advanced tech package has all the hardware.

 

I wonder what Insurance companies would think of this mod? They are very cautious in my experience. For example, my insurer would not insure me if I "modified" my gen2 by buying 205 tyres instead of the standard 195s. The 205s are 25% cheaper. Maybe there might be a niche market for an insurer to cover vehicles with this mod where others wouldn't. Time will tell.

To me the really big one though is fully autonomous driving because then the car can be used more fully. For example the car I share with my wife could come autonomously from her work car park to pick me up and take me somewhere, and then it could go back and be ready to bring her home again at the end of the day.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

100hrs testing . . . so that's less than ~ 3K miles testing - based on average commute of under 40miles/day, & average speed under 30mph. Number comparison crunching for fun ; So - the new system has roughly 1 three hundred thousandth the over (1,000,000,000) 1B miles tesla has logged on their semi autonomous setup under both actual & test track driving conditions. And they're saying it's "about" as good. I'm wondering how wide their reliability swings - until it no longer meets that "about as good" comparison. And how big is their insurance rider?

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Dash cams also don't move your car around for you without your input either.

This seems like one of those "too good to be true" things. Either it won't work at all, or it's very hit and miss, to the point that most people won't bother using it.

Not saying it couldn't work as advertised, but it just screams "scam" to me. Like those fuel additives which supposedly give you greater mpg without changing your driving habits.

 

+1

I hope it works, but I will not be buying one. Tesla still needs some work but is much further along. Google is the other big player, and other auto companies are all working on it. I believe both camera, radar, and sonar may be needed for a truely great system. If the system this guy is selling works well, some company will buy him out and put it in cars with better sensors.

 

In addition to autonomous driving, we need to fully develop and implement vehicle to vehicle communication. That will greatly improve safety beyond what radar and sonar supply with line of sight visuals only.

 

There is insufficient information to evaluate this product. Way too much hype about how wonderful it is and too little technical data. But the BMW i3-REx system is optically based and has good and bad points. Driving into shadows toward the sun and cresting an overpass can give a false positive but this is easily handled.

Bob Wilson

 

I would never call the i3 system self driving. bmw is targetting 2021 for their system
BMW’s Bold Plan to Make a Fully Self-Driving Car by 2021 | WIRED

 

I was never looking for self-driving as much as accident and collision avoidance. The same technology Toyota had in 2009 for $2,000 AFTER you buy $6,000 of 'car bling.' The functional equivalent of TSS-P withheld from the Level 2 ECO.

In fairness, lane following would be nice but I really want to avoid hitting or being hit. The reason: Fatality confirmed on I-65 crash | Local News | decaturdaily.com

John Connor Strickland, 21, was killed when the 2006 Ford Ranger he was driving struck a 2007 Volvo stopped in traffic and went airborne before continuing off of a bridge. Strickland was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Volvo was not injured. The drivers of two other vehicles also involved in the crash were not injured, Trooper Curtis Summerville said.

The wreck occurred on the southbound lane of the I-65 bridge at mile marker 336, north of Priceville. The northbound and southbound lanes were closed while troopers worked the scene, Summerville said.

The crash occurred at approximately 3:50 p.m.​

Sunday, October 9th, 2016. This is the type of accident that TSS-P and the BMW i3 safety package do.

Bob Wilson

 

Yes, I think this geohot is trying to do what tesla's system does. BMW has radar cruise and other safety systems as does toyota/lexus. BMW is working with mobileye and intel to design a better system than tesla has now, but that won't be out for 5 years.

Mobileye - Our Vision. Your Safety.

Semi-Autonomous Cars Compared! Tesla Model S vs. BMW 750i, Infiniti Q50S, and Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG - - Car and Driver