Westfield article on Autocar

[Alan Cutler (Adge) - Dorset AO]

49 minutes ago, Kit Car Electronics said:

You could move to sunny Essex 

In theory a quick test of a torque limiter could be done remotely, but in practice it probably wouldn't be easy. Do you have an OBD conbector fitted to your loom? Maybe we could do a test at Stoneleigh...

Rather like sunny Somerset I'm afraid 

Yes I've got an OBD port on my loom, under the dash. Aiming to get to Stoneleigh, that gives you 6 months to work your magic if you fancy it.

[tolf]

So that's why Westfield are not interested in supplying parts to people, £30m is by far a more attractive option:

 Westfield now builds autonomous battery-powered pods, the sort of self- driving shuttle that will apparently be taking over our city centres, business parks and university campuses in the near future. According to Turner, Westfield is a market leader in a sector that will be worth £925 billion by 2025. It has already sold £30 million-worth of the things, at £150,000 a pop, to the South Korean government. 

 

Bet they wont supply parts in South Korea though !

[Kit Car Electronics]

12 minutes ago, Ian Tolfree (tolf) - North London AO said:

So that's why Westfield are not interested in supplying parts to people, £30m is by far a more attractive option:

 Westfield now builds autonomous battery-powered pods, the sort of self- driving shuttle that will apparently be taking over our city centres, business parks and university campuses in the near future. According to Turner, Westfield is a market leader in a sector that will be worth £925 billion by 2025. It has already sold £30 million-worth of the things, at £150,000 a pop, to the South Korean government. 

 

Bet they wont supply parts in South Korea though !

At least with a 9 hour time zone difference, they won't be expecting to get through to parts on the phone easily...

[tolf]

23 minutes ago, Kit Car Electronics said:

At least with a 9 hour time zone difference, they won't be expecting to get through to parts on the phone easily...

[Thrustyjust]

Can imagine the factory having dog sandwiches at lunchtimes 

[DonPeffers]

On 11/6/2017 at 12:45, Lyonspride said:

 

TC becomes necessary if you want to sell cars to people who can't drive and aren't "car people", just look at BMW and Audi, more driver aids than you can shake a *****y stick at. Dead customers tend to lead to bad press.

Last night on TV I saw an Audi advert with the tag line  'Clown proof'.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

On 11/7/2017 at 13:06, Thrustyjust said:

LSD wont stop you going into a hedge, it just leaves 2 black lines before going into said hedge.....................

LSD will make you more likely to go through the hedge that an open diff. My first Westfield had an LSD and in the hands of a driver who'd never driven RWD before, it happily took him off at a roundabout because when he opened the throttle BOTH rear wheels span up and off he went. My current Westfield has an open diff and if you give it too much power it spins up the unloaded wheel and you don't spin off quite so readily.

[Steve (sdh2903)]

Oops. Self drive is the future

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41923814

[CraigHew]

14 minutes ago, sdh2903 said:

Oops. Self drive is the future

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41923814

To be fair, the automonous shuttle stopped as programmed and the lorry backing out of an alley continued until it nudged into the shuttle.  Human to blame

[Thrustyjust]

Shows that the shuttle is partially to blame, as it has no avoidance system in it , to prevent a crash, even if it was a human in the other vehicle. If a human was driving, it would have turned the wheel and driven around the reversing vehicle or reversed out of trouble. The computer just shut down and had nothing more to give................

[DonPeffers]

So who's first to try Dubai's automated drone flying taxi?    https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/26/dubai-volocopter-passenger-drone-test/

I like the line ' And since they'll be offering something new, they want passengers to feel safe by equipping each flying taxi with back-up batteries and rotors, as well as a couple of parachutes'.

[Steve (sdh2903)]

It'd be an interesting research project to find out the statistics of automatics vs humans in cases of incidents and accidents. How many lives or incidents saved by the quick thinking of a driver or pilot vs how many caused.

Take for example Captain sully and his crew. All lives saved by thinking out of the box. The computers all said a return to land was possible. If it was an autonomous aircraft there's every possibility the outcome could have been different. It's been proven that several recent air crashes have been primarily caused by pilot's reliance on automatics.

I personally can't see the benefits of autonomy away from say the monorails you see at airports such as Gatwick. But the tech companies have invested billions so must know something we dont.