Expert: The center of Prague will be a nut for Elon Musek’s self-driving cars
“Established carmakers were afraid that their train could run a bit in the area of autonomy and would be skipped by ‘faster’ startups. After several incidents, however, it seems that top-level autonomy will not be possible right away, ”says scientist Jiří Matas.
Although world media headlines suggest the opposite, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is not just about what he will do with Twitter. The focus of his interest is primarily at Tesla. For several years now, Musk has been promising that his Tesla electric cars will achieve full autonomy – that is, automated steering, when the car does not need a driver at all. And he repeated the same goal for Tesla this year.
“There is probably nothing to question, the question is where and how it will be. In some US states with pleasant weather and standard wide roads, such as Nevada or Arizona, I think Tesla will get permission to drive completely autonomously in certain areas. But I would rather see the Tesla project around the waterfront in Prague, the Old Town, the winding streets where the cat’s heads are, here and there a detour. Old Prague is quite different in terms of the autonomous system trained in the United States, and that can be a problem, “says Jiří Matas, a scientist and professor at FEE CTU, in the footage Stopáž.
Matas is one of the greatest Czech experts in computer vision. You have been developing systems for Toyota self-driving cars with students for 20 years. Autonomous cars, for example, have been evolving since the 1970s, and it is possible to distinguish what level of “self-driving” we are talking about.
“Three levels are important for the average driver. The lowest levels are actually known assistance functions such as monitoring the distance between cars or the driver’s microsleep. On the other hand, the highest one is already so advanced that the car does not even have to be for the driver. And in the meantime, the level is ‘I have to have my hands somewhere near the steering wheel, be careful, but I don’t drive’. In my opinion, such a level is not very advantageous for the driver, because he must be ready to take over the control within a few seconds, so he constantly monitors the context and does not rest much, “explains Matas.
Many players in the area embarked on self-driving taxis. It is already available in Arizona, USA, where it is operated by the Google company Waymo. A boat cruise is available in San Francisco. In China, startup Pony.ai recently obtained a license to operate 100 autonomous taxis. When will I see them in the Czech Republic?
According to Jiří Matas, wider and faster enforcement of autonomous cars will be a matter of finance and regulation. “Autonomous cars will not save people money for a long time. Having a car where I don’t have to pay attention to driving and work instead will be a bit more expensive, because I will have to have more advanced systems, “says the teacher, who holds a special prize in the AI Awards for raising the Czech Republic’s profile in the world of artificial intelligence.
I would add that convincing European regulators to let a car drive on the roads without the “certain” human operator at the wheel will, according to him, be more difficult than, for example, in the USA.
However, the motivating factor in promoting autonomous vehicles may be lower consumption or less will to learn to drive. “In Europe, the number of people with a driving license is declining. When I went to the gym, most of my classmates were looking forward to the driver’s license and preparing for it so that they could come for it on their 18th birthday. Today it is a concern and a lot of people are not interested in cars, they only expect a clear function from them, from point A to point B. That is why it occurs to me that autonomous taxis are the fastest to use, ”says Matas.
He expects highly autonomous vehicles to gain ground faster in closed or specially designed communities – for example, at last year’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo, automated e-Palette autonomous vehicles drove athletes around the Olympic Village.
“The ideal environment for developing a similar type of transportation is the scattered neighborhoods for people of retirement age that I’ve seen in Florida. You control who and what can go there, they are centrally managed communities. The roads there are practically like tracks, constantly maintained. Most of the population is over the age of 70, when their reactions slow down, a similar type of transport would solve their many needs. Without a car, you can do almost nothing in the United States, ”explains the expert.
Is the “gold autonomous fever” over? What will the traffic look like in which they will mix classic and highly autonomous cars? And what is the biggest car vision in the area? Listen to the whole interview with Jiří Matas at the beginning of the article.
Footage
The only podcast you have to listen to this week if you can’t keep up with twitter and want to keep track. Presented by Jan Kordovský (@korda).
Summary of the most important events, analysis with the editors List News, interviews with guests, glosses. Every Friday on Podcasty.czin the News List and in all podcast applications.
Archive of all episodes of Footage can be found here, other podcasts List News here. What should we improve? What part did you enjoy the most? You can send us your observations, suggestions and tips to [email protected].