A key Volkswagen exec is admitting that "fully autonomous" self-driving cars may never happen.

[ https://tinyurl.com/wr8arbr ]

There are lower levels of automation, which are supposedly having some success; these involve things like "geofencing" and other things done to the environment to help the computer along. What they're talking about here is Level 5 automation, where the vehicle is totally computer controlled and may not even have manual controls.

Quite frankly, I would prefer if we never got there.

Not to mention, if you're going to build a special road where optimal conditions are guaranteed and rogue drivers are not permitted to coexist on it ... we already have that; it's called a railway.

Yeah, personally I think what Tesla is doing is delusional. I don't think computer vision will ever be good enough, even if it's lidar-enhanced

Clearly you've never experienced UK rail travel! 

Only from watching videos. :)

Have you traveled on rail in Europe outside of UK? We were watching videos of railroad crossing activations and some of them stop traffic for some number of minutes before the train is even within sight of the crossing. What's with that?

I've experienced Irish rail travel. Kind of a shitshow when temps drop below freezing, but that's true of everything on that island. Nobody knows what to do about cold.

I've done rail through Holland...... Nothing special.

Clearly you've never experienced UK rail travel! 

I have experienced train travel in a wagon full of rail unionist leaders who boasted all the way how they were sucking up the funds of the government and the union to pay their whores and vices.

Nowadays I don't take the train anymore.

My pecular pedal car/bike thing hit a snag, or more specifically busted a weld. Neither the bike shop nor the welders I contacted really wanted to disassemble the thing to get at it, so it's being shipped back to the manfacturer. It's under warranty, but it's also a tiny company so it'll probably be 2-3 months before it comes back. In the meantime I bought studded tires on my regular bike and have been using that when it's not below zero and massively windy. The later's not a huge issue durng the summer but slightly moreso right now.

I would have used it as an excuse to buy welding equipment :)

That was in February ... are you back on the road yet?

I have, but the weather was nice enough so I've only taken it out a few times, in favor of my normal bike. And since my commute to work is almost completely gone (I go in maybe once a week), I've been doing more distance rides just to kill time - 30-45 miles. I may end up upgrading my road bike to something a little more comfortable to being in 3-4 hours at a time - but not until this fall or winter, once stocks for bikes have recovered and prices have gone down.