Slashdot Asks: Look and Interior of Future Self-Driving Cars? 103
In the not-so-distant future, pending regulatory approvals, self-driving cars will be everywhere. A handful of top companies are working to improve the reliability of their autonomous vehicles as we speak. But what about their design?
What are some changes that you think could be made to the exterior and interior of a self-driving car? If someone is not required to steer the wheel, do they even need to look ahead? One can argue that seats in the car should be rearchitected to face each other. Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk suggested this week that in two years, his automaker firm could explore cars "with no steering wheels or pedals." What would you like to see in a self-driving car?
What are some changes that you think could be made to the exterior and interior of a self-driving car? If someone is not required to steer the wheel, do they even need to look ahead? One can argue that seats in the car should be rearchitected to face each other. Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk suggested this week that in two years, his automaker firm could explore cars "with no steering wheels or pedals." What would you like to see in a self-driving car?
Seats? Where we're going, we won't need seats. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Agreed. Even avoiding an accident will often require rapid accelerations like braking and swerving that will be none too kind to an unsecured occupant.
Re: Seats? Where we're going, we won't need seats (Score:2)
I could see interiors with lay flat seats similar to what you see in business class for airlines, with a foldout desk as well.
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I think you actually nailed it. If self driving cars really do begin to exist at a reasonable cost to operate then "the suburbs" that we know now will look like a dense city. Semi-wealthy people (middle class) will be able to live anywhere they want and the extra commute cost will be nothing compared to the cost of living savings by moving to the middle of nowhere. McMansions with acerage will pop up everywhere and anywhere and there will be little need to "live work play" "downtown" because everything wi
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Why have a house? Just let the self-driving vehicle take me between places while I sleep/watch tv/play videogames.
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I think you actually nailed it.
Yep. +1 Insightful.
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You're going to have your work cut out for you trying to fraudulently sue a car manufacturer and their high-dollar corporate lawyers (since any collision will be a product failure, and nothing to do with the owner/perator) when they have multiple full recordings of the event from several different angles and different kinds of sensors. Potentially including sensors and cameras in other nearby cars as well, if such fraud attempts become popular enough to justify a coordinated defense.
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Big-screen TV. Swimming pool. Bowling alley.
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Bowling in a car, now *that* I want to see. Yes! Perfectly down the line, it's gonna be a strike... and gutterball, because car just changed lanes and the ball tried not to.
Dance floors will have a similar problem, but with more broken bones.
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But it sure will be hilarious to watch. :-D
Sitting is good. (Score:2)
Personally I'd want to keep the wheel and pedals (possibly retractable) for the occasional times when they're needed (e.g. off-road excursion for camping, unloading cargo in the back yard, etc.)
What I would like to see though is a comfy recliner driver's seat that can rotate 180* to face anywhere within the car when not locked into driving position - such as is found in some RVs.
For the rest of the car, I suspect chairs and couches will prevail, possibly with some tables and such as well. Beds perhaps, but
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Personally I'd want to keep the wheel and pedals (possibly retractable) for the occasional times when they're needed (e.g. off-road excursion for camping, unloading cargo in the back yard, etc.)
I don't own a truck. But when I need a truck, I rent one. Home Depot offers pretty giant pickups for $20 for a couple of hours and you can throw all sorts of shit into the bed like trees and lumber and gravel and actual shit. U-Haul is like $20 a day for smaller trucks, but you can't be as abusive towards them or you'll have to pay extra.
Point being, on the rare occasions when you need something other than your robocar, rent one. And if you need that sort of specialist vehicle too often for renting to be ec
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Why rent a whole different vehicle when you can plug in a USB steering wheel to take manual control of the car you already have? Just because you don't want to have to carry a carload of party or gardening supplies to the back yard doesn't mean renting a truck is justified. Much less camping - a weekend's camping gear can take up way less space than a person. Such a system could potentially even have an intermediate "steering a horse" mode, taking the user input as a recommendation while still automatica
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and with a network exposed computer built and programmed by lowest bidder 'engineers', you'll NEED alcohol to keep your sanity intact.
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Placebo steering wheel... (Score:2)
...please.
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With those big coloured buttons that make squeaking sounds when you press them.
Less change than you'd think... (Score:2)
I think they'll still have a forward-facing seat. If not a steering wheel and pedals, then a "sidestick" joystick for fine maneuvering. Any other interface would be tedious for parking the vehicle exactly where you want it.
I don't think all self-driving vehicles will be rented taxis. People are too impatient and won't want to wait 5 minutes for a taxi to show up to their suburban home. Plus people tend to use cars like a big purse -- they're never completely emptied -- and don't really want to share sea
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Maybe something like a Rauch and Lang Electric Brougham from the early 1900s. Front seats swivel, driving joysticks are in the rear seat area.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xtLz... [blogspot.com]
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Yes, and if for no other reason than some people will get motion sickness facing backwards.
For those who are about to jump up and shout, "But what about trains? People don't get sick on them facing backwards.", the difference is the method of travel. Trains do not make 90 degree left and right turns or have short spaces to make turns. The curves on track tracks are long and loping which is a gradual change.
A compromise would be to allow the s
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or maybe we just don't pander to the few wusses out there when designing things. they can take the special bus
Re:Less change than you'd think... (Score:4, Informative)
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nope, common in children, pregnant women, and those taking certain medications, says the AMA.
And you have no proof whatsoever that just because a person is "high susceptible to motion sickness" that facing backwards in a car would be a problem. More like they should stay off ships and roller coasters.
You've got nothing...
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nope, common in children, pregnant women, and those taking certain medications, says the AMA.
Straight from the 2015 study on motion sickness [nih.gov].
You've got nothing...
Kindly tell the doctors who did the study you know more than they do.
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To be fair, that line is the throwaway at the beginning of the paper like "X number of people in the United States suffer from X." The actual reference gives a 404 at Wiley's site. So there's no easy way to tell what that number is based on.
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He's pulling random stuff out of his ass that have nothing to do with the fallacious assertion that car seats need to face forward. Indeed all infants in cars are REQUIRED to face backwards by law in the USA. Somehow the infants are not traumatized...
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Pulling stuff out of my ass? I literally gave you a study created by real scientists who explicitly corroborated the person's assertion 1/3 of people in this country are susceptible to motion sickness.
Further, what evidence do you have that babies aren't traumatized by sitting backwards? Does throwing up not count?
Still further, no one ever said anyone would be "traumatized". That's simply you moving the goalposts and asserting something which wasn't even in the discussion in the first place.
It's as if fa
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go find a study about people facing backwards.
and realize all infants have to face backwards in car by law, and most babies are relaxed by car ride.
you have no facts whatsoever to back your absurd assertion that car seats need to face forward. they don't, and most people will be fine with it.
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Right, , and even if true that could be from a roller coaster or centrifuge. Conflating that with an assertion car seat need to face forward is stupidity.
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I teach sailing. The rule on the boat is, you never, ever, mention sea sickness.
Many people will get sick if you talk about it. Motion sickness has a very strong psychosomatic component.
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I don't think that steering wheel is going to be as easy to get rid of as folks think. It's likely to be difficult to get a disabled vehicle out of the way without being able to reach in through the window and steer while a bunch of hefty bystanders push. Likewise, some sort of mechanical brake will likely be present even if it isn't needed for normal driving.
Other than that, it's probably going to be many decades before vehicles can handle all reasonable driving situations on their own. Road's covered w
Re:Less change than you'd think... (Score:4, Insightful)
In an ideal world a self-driving car would be like the London hansom cabs of old, get in, state the destination, and off you go.
Unfortunately I expect that it'll be 30 years before the technology is ready for that lack of control by the occupant. So long as the occupant may be required to intervene, at least one person will be in the literal driver's seat, facing forward, with full controls at their disposal.
Interiors of self-driving cars are going to largely resemble modern vehicles, accounting for the vehicle's dimensions. The only place I see room for a deviation are minivan and full-sized van chassis, where it may be possible, eventually, for the front seats to face rearward so that occupants can face each other. Even the modern CUV craze with taller vehicles relative to their width and length doesn't offer enough room for rear-facing front seats with current designs.
Now, if the technology matures to where occupants don't need to control the vehicle, some older chassis designs might well make their appearances again. The Carriage body, basically the horse-drawn wagon with two rows facing each other, tall inside, with cargo in back and the driver sitting up high in front might be ripe for a return in an automobile body depending on tastes. It could be comfortable and if it doesn't require human interaction might make the car more like a traveling parlor, allowing the occupants to sit fairly comfortably for the journey akin to having a berth on a train. But a whole lot has to happen before that could be possible, and again I see 30 years before that's really practical.
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People are too impatient and won't want to wait 5 minutes for a taxi to show up to their suburban home.
Why would they have to wait? If you're using one regularly, just schedule it. And it can wait a bit if you're not ready - no driver and battery powered means a lot less money is wasted if it has to sit for a bit waiting on you. Just summon it 10 minutes before you're ready to go, and get to it when you get to it.
Hell, if it becomes a thing, I'm sure that scheduling apps will add in a "request taxi" feature to make that request X minutes before your reminder to leave.
As a taxi business, if I know I tend to d
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Sorry Rei (Score:1)
Sorry Rei. Nice fantasy, but your self driving Tesla aint gonna happen.
No. Just no. (Score:5, Insightful)
They are getting way ahead of themselves here. The car may be autonomous, but it still isn't a train. A train never comes to a sudden stop like a car will. It is physically impossible to stop that much mass on a dime. Trains ride on rails where, outside of California, they are very careful to only have one train on the track at a time. If a large animal walks in front of a train (most animals being smart enough not to), then it ends very badly for the animal and the passengers are likely to never know about it.
What happens when you're riding along, everyone gathered around the center table and ignoring the road, when the car hits black ice and slams into a wall? Or the deer jump in front? The seats in modern cars have a lot of engineering to fool you into thinking that you have a lot of freedom of movement, while constraining you into a safest possible position. The backwards facing seat may be fine, but I don't think the "work area" concept will go far. Side sitting seats are asking for shattered spines.
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Also, someone will still be "driving" the car so will want to be looking forward. There will probably be some sort of hand controller for two reasons:
(1) Fine parking positioning.
(2) Telling the car what to do/deviating from the pre-programmed route. A quick jab on the joystick would tell it to "turn right at the next intersection" or "stop at the next available space."
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What ever it looks like it still has to pass all the crash test safeties. That means you'll have to be seated and fasten your seatbelts and return your tray table to its full upright and locked position.
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What ever it looks like it still has to pass all the crash test safeties. That means you'll have to be seated and fasten your seatbelts and return your tray table to its full upright and locked position.
Will I have to move my seatback three inches forward to be in compliance?
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Agreed. The options will be forward facing or backward facing, likely bucket seats to help with side collisions. Seatbelts will still be mandatory, and there won't be tables or hot tubs. Seats won't swivel or lay flat.
If you can't survive a 50mph crash in the car, it's not going to make it to market.
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If the idea of a rolling living room were practical, SUVs would already be built that way. It's not like road tanks need more than one driver.
Musk is just on his regular mission of attention whoring to keep Tesla in the news every damn day.
Sure bet this will happen (Score:2)
I predict one of the first major adopters of self-driving cars will be the sex-work industry. Legal or not they will do tricks in tinted-window cars that are programmed to just drive some tour for a half hour.
Safe and no need for room rents. And less visibility in neighborhoods that will complain to the police about them.
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It's been done...
https://www.newsweek.com/cops-... [newsweek.com]
Think of airline seats (Score:2)
cram as many people into a single vehicle as possible to maximize efficiency and route planning to maximize profits.
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Why change anything? (Score:2)
Re:Why change anything? (Score:4, Funny)
car where the person in the driver seat has no control over the car.
It's been done for planes, see the Boeing 737 MAX 8.
One-seat commuter pod (Score:2)
I can totally see a on-demand one seat commuter pod. Whistle for one, it shows up, I sit down with a docking station for my phone and ignore the world while it drives me to/from work. I'd probably nap, watch movies, or read Slashdot while moving. If they wanted to link up in a caravan or train for efficiency on the freeway, that might be interesting.
For the family car, I'd much prefer a two-forward/two-backward seat configuration so we can all talk. I'll put up with motion sickness issues. Sitting backwards
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Re: One-seat commuter pod (Score:2)
It won't be mandatory and there will still be plenty of pedestrians for you to annoy.
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Yay for you. You go do that.
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I can totally see a on-demand one seat commuter pod. Whistle for one, it shows up...
Maybe it shows up. After dropping you off it would have to go out and pick up another person, so you have just doubled the number of cars on the road at the busiest time of day. Why not put your dream to the test by using Uber to commute for a couple of months; I doubt self-driving cars would be any cheaper than Uber.
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Are you sure? Given how many cars I see going both directions, I'm not convinced commuter pods couldn't be doing laps all day.
BTW, I'm not at all sure I'm right either. I hope people have done traffic measurements and can do some simulations of whether this works or not. It's too complicated for me to guess.
I don't use Uber because it's about twice as expensive as driving myself. If we use a smaller vehicle (so there's lower capital costs) and avoid paying a driver, it sure seems plausible that could be off
Self-Driving Cars (Score:2)
If the cars drive themselves, maybe we could just travel in a cocoon-like safety-bubble within it. If a wreck happens, we'd simply get out, phone up our other 3D-printed self-driving car to come pick us up. We'd take our crashed car home to melt down to make another 3D-printed car for later.
Also, maybe these cars can be like the sphero droid from Star Wars - no wheels. Just a big rolling ball, with us safely inside.
Nope (Score:1)
Self driving cars is a fad, its a thought, its an idea.
It will never hit practical usage.
I can think of a dozen horrible scenarios every time I get behind the wheel that all the computing power and sensors in the world won't be able to prevent. All the tests are done in near perfect conditions, in such limited amounts that occasionally hitting a pedestrian is seen as an accident.
When these self driving cars start running over kids and pets in residential neighborhoods, learn they aren't amphibious as they
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And a couple of shift levers [pinimg.com].
Backwards motion sickness (Score:4, Interesting)
Trains (and some buses) already have a number of backward-facing seats. Some of my friends are prone to motion sickness, and they always opt for forward seats, as the backward seats make the condition worse. We're evolved to more forwards so it's easy to imagine how this happens.
OTOH, backward seats would give you much better support in a head-on collision (barring whiplash from bad headrests). But if we're going fully self-driving, I'm sure we could have more options. I'm not a big fan of sitting.
Here is What We Are Trying to get to (Video)... (Score:1)
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Car Scene (Total Recall) [youtube.com]
Define "not so distant future" (Score:1)
What is your definition of "not so distant future" because we will not be seeing Level 5 autonomous vehicles outside of very controlled environments for DECADES. If you believe otherwise, you do not understand the technology, regulatory environment, social acceptance or any other aspect of the bill of goods that has been sold under the guise of self-driving cars. We are very near the peak of inflated expectations for this technology hype cycle and the trough of disillusionment is around the next curve.
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Elon Musk says there will be one million Level 5 robotaxis out by next year on the streets. Don't you believe him?
"urban" (Score:2)
The first generation will be nice. Plush seats, video displays, maybe even an honor bar style vending machine. Then the companies running them will get tired of cleaning up vomit on Saturday morning, finding the soiled baby diapers, dog poo and other excrement, and trying to keep the graffiti and knife cuts in check. Then they'll get the city bus treatment. Hard plastic seats, no extra niceties. Just get in and deal with a miserable experience.
Unless you go with the "upgraded" service at 10X the cost of nor
Lots of cushions (Score:1)
Don't look at it with a black light! (Score:2)
I'm going to say -- Sticky. That's what the interior will be.
Enjoy your ride sharing, folks.
Luxury/Limo Style. That, or Utilitarian. (Score:2)
Luxury seating for privacy to the occupants, and to facilitate people traveling as a group. Swiveling seats (or pods) to look at or away from the other occupants.
Beyond that, a utilitarian version. Almost like a typical cab or Cop car: Rubber floors for ease of wash-out. As indestructible as possible seats to minimize repair and cleaning costs.
For safety: a seat that cradles the occupant with built-in air-bags so that no matter the angle of impact, the occupant will be "safe".
Cup holders, phone chargers and