Having just put 1000 (more) miles on my van this week - I'd LOVE to have a self driving car. Don't get me wrong - I love a road trip. I love the feeling of driving. I'm one of those nuts who will get in the car just "to go for a drive". But I also would love to be able to sail the chair around, have a chat with my family, or even stretch out and take a nap. sign me up.
It's interesting to think on what the interior of self-driving car might look like, but I am not very impressed by this one. Panels on the doors? That's ridiculously awkward. Also, glossy floors and seats that look like they are floating are dumb whether or not the car drives itself. You know what would be revolutionary? A Persian rug, sitting pillows, a hookah, stained-glass lampshades, a mini-fridge, and a VR headset for each passenger. If I have an hour commute, I don't want to feel like I am trapped inside an iPod.
Forget the interior; what about the exterior? Why should there even be a concept of front and back anymore? It's not like there's a transmission that dictates in which direction the car moves fastest. For single gear electric motors whose direction is dependent on the direction of the current, can't we imagine a perfectly symmetrical vehicle that doesn't have a concept of reverse? LED lamps means that either side can shine red or white. If no driver is required, then we needn't worry about sitting in the driver's seat. Therefore, with all these factors, front and rear are meaningless. Perhaps from an aerodynamics perspective it makes more sense to have a dedicated front end, but aerodynamics aren't a big consideration for commuter type vehicles anyway, as the fuel economy is mainly dictated by stopping and starting, and not drag at high speed. Anyway, I think I'm the only person left on planet earth who isn't looking forward to the day when everyone can watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians on their morning commute. I have very few pet peeves I loath more than driving behind a minivan that contains children watching a video of some sort. At least driving forces us to focus on something. I find it hard to believe that we'll have a better attention span for anything once our main barrier to TV watching during non-work hours is removed.
For any four-wheeled vehicle there will be two wheels that turn (or turn more). Doing it any other way leads to radical instability. For any vehicle with more than one axle, one of the axles will absorb 80% to 95% of the braking duties. For any vehicle that travels through a fluid such as air, there will be a favored aerodynamic direction. Aerodynamics does not reward symmetry. Brakes go in front. Wheels that steer go in front (this is why anyone driving a forklift any great distance does it in reverse). Streamlining goes in front, K-tail goes in back.
Except for the aerodynamics, the other problems are easily solvable by a little extra hardware and a little extra software. You put four wheel disk brakes (which many performance cars already have), then let the computer decide which two get the most pressure. Then you put four wheel steering, with similar computations. Sure it would add expense, but these things are already going to be phenomenally expensive for a while. The aerodynamics, as I already noted above, are problematic, but not as problematic as it might seem. You only really need a fast back when you're racing, and nobody is racing a self driving car for fun on the weekends. Drag is dependent on speed, and I can't see anyone building a performance car that is autonomous (beside Tesla, but that's an ego thing), because what's the point?
Here's where you're wrong. but there's no reason to solve them. There are no vehicles that are ambidextrous. Not even Amazon's warehouse bots are ambidextrous. There's zero need here other than "it would be neat if." Right. Sure. And they're the exact same size, right? The rear discs aren't any smaller than the front? And the venting is symmetrical, right? And the geometry of pad and spindle are symmetrical, right? This is just physics: You put the front brakes in the back and you've doubled or tripled the weight of your back brakes for no reason other than "I don't believe in 'back.'" Never mind the fact that you now have to gusset against two different directions of stress, rather than one or the fact that the design of brake pads is asymmetrical to improve cooling, reduce ablation and minimize weight. It also isn't up to the computer as to which gets more pressure - when you decelerate the center of gravity shifts forward. It just does. This is why you turn tighter if you accelerate into a corner; the CoG moves backward. So you can either design for efficiency or you can refuse to choose. Except that the added complexity of steerable, driven wheels adds an easy 150% to the assembly weight of an unsteerable wheel. And you're never going to use it. It's possible to parallel park a 4-wheel-steered vehicle such that it can't be unparked - it was a going concern with Mules. Disc brakes and CV joints aren't cutting edge by any stretch of the imagination. The expense isn't in the management which is also old hat. The expense is in the physical components. Also not true. Aerodynamics determine fuel efficiency and once you're in a turbulent regime (in air, anything over 7mph) you're there. The overwhelming majority of aerodynamic improvements instituted in the past 50 years are all about efficiency - that's why spoilers are generally articulated these days, so they don't cost you 10MPG when you don't need them to. Gentle reminder: I have a degree in this shit and have built 4 electric cars. I don't do it anymore but I did the hell out of it for a while. Symmetrical cars buy you nothing and cost a whole lot from a physics standpoint, not an electronics standpoint.Except for the aerodynamics, the other problems are easily solvable by a little extra hardware and a little extra software.
You put four wheel disk brakes (which many performance cars already have), then let the computer decide which two get the most pressure.
Then you put four wheel steering, with similar computations.
Sure it would add expense, but these things are already going to be phenomenally expensive for a while.
You only really need a fast back when you're racing, and nobody is racing a self driving car for fun on the weekends
You know what would be a real trip? Autonomous motorcycles. My wife and I were positing a Zip Car like service with auto-mopeds that drive up to your house when you need them, but you must drive them yourself. Since they are so light and slow, they are far less likely to kill people when in autopilot.
Okay, more precisely put: They're using weight where the people go in order to use the geometry the way it's intended. Yes, they're dinking with the steering column to accomplish their balance. That's why it's wobbly as fuck at low speeds - they don't have the balance one would get from riding it. If you take that bike and try to put a person on it, that weight needs to move. It can't stay where it is. There's an easier way... but it's about as dorktastic as a self-driving Vespa.
That's an interesting point. Forwards and backwards might be arbitrary when the human isn't the head of the motorized horse. Now I wonder about anterior/posterior symmetry in aerodynamics... I'm not going to be watching the Kardashians. I'm going to be replying to your grumpy comments.
The thing I find really interesting about the Mercedes is not its current interior, nor the interior that will result out of this endeavour. Rather, it's that Mercedes is one of the first companies to realize that if you take the driving part of auto driving out of the equation, that it fundamentally changes what cars are and how we interact with them. The car becomes a living space - yet another room in our daily lives, instead of a container in which we must sit forward and pay attention to the road. Your ideal is an interior focused on relaxing. It's not much of a stretch to imagine people working in their self-driving cars, creating a space that is not unlike an office (edit: like thenewgreen). Or groups of people hanging around and drinking. In a way, it's a development that is already perfected by RV's. But instead of requiring your DD buddy Jim who drives most of the road trip, he's allowed in on the fun of doing anything else but driving.
I disagree. the magic transforming interior has been a staple of concept cars forever. Nash sold "transforming" interiors from '36 until their dissolution in '61. It's also worth pointing out that Maybachs (made by Mercedes) have had highly non-automotive back seats since 2009: The difference between the Maybach and the Mercedes concept is that the Maybach has been approved by the NTSB; this is what usually happens when concepts meet regulation.
Yeah, and to make this monstrosity work, the author specifically notes that it's bigger than a Maybach, which is a considerable feat, given that a Maybach 62 is longer than my Silverado by a whole foot. No production passenger car will ever be as big as this F015 for a multitude of reasons. The problem is that if you turn your seat around in an actual functional sedan, you're knocking knees with the person in the back seat. It's not as if car makers have been making the back seat intentionally small for these past 100 years. It's that it doesn't work. Articles like this are what happen when Wired writes about cars, because their transportation reporter seems to not know a lot about cars. (I'm not sure I've yet read a "technology" story about driverless cars that hasn't pissed me off.)The difference between the Maybach and the Mercedes concept is that the Maybach has been approved by the NTSB; this is what usually happens when concepts meet regulation.
I agree that RV's would be a good place for designers to look. They should also take cues from non-mobile spaces that are multi-purpose. IMO this Mercedes concept falls pretty short assuming the premise. I need a place where I can eat, sleep, work, and socialize. I don't see much reason there needs to be four permanent seats. Two, of them should be collapsible.
Didja see all the foot smears on their magic white appliques? Thing is, seats that swivel and excess instrumentation are a staple of concept cars going back to the '30s. What will set apart a driverless car from other driverless cars is the experience of riding in it. It sounds like Mercedes isn't quite ready to talk about that. A shame, really - I'd expect them to be pretty good at this. Meanwhile their prototype doesn't look much different from the way Mercedes concepts always look, Wired-gasm notwithstanding.
I think the car you are looking for was already prototyped: If I have an hour commute, I don't want to feel like I am trapped inside an iPod.
-Funny, I saw this and thought to myself, "wow it looks so clean. I could probably be very productive in an environment like this."
Many of the more luxe vehicles of the Gilded Age were made this way. One would buy a rolling chassis from Duesenberg and then hire a coachbuilder to put a cockpit on it. I believe Rolls Royce worked with this model for a while. Modern conversion vans are made the same way.
That's an enormous car. I understand your thinking, I'd rather have a couch and my own personal touches too.