Tesla uberbulls often like to say that Tesla is the leader in self-driving because while it doesn’t have a commercially available autonomous ride-hailing service like Waymo, it doesn’t rely on geo-fencing and mapping like Waymo.
They argue that if Tesla wanted to do that it could, but it prefers to focus on an autonomous system that could drive anywhere, anytime, without mapping.
However, it is questionable that they could do it if they wanted to because they still haven’t done it on a project much simpler than Waymo’s operations in Pheonix and other cities: the tunnels under Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Convention Center Loop is The Boring Company’s first full-scale loop project currently in commercial use.
Elon Musk’s tunneling start-up completed the $50 million project in just over a year.
A Boring Company Loop system consists of tunnels in which Tesla electric vehicles travel at high speeds between stations to transport people within a city. The Boring Company said that it was working with Tesla to use its self-driving system inside those tunnels, which would enables to get rid of the current drivers and lower the cost of operation.
However, 2 years and several more tunnels connected to the Loop later, The Boring Company is still using drivers in the tunnels.
The thing that I don’t understand about self driving is the need for it to be this high tech super computer thing.
Especially in the case of a tunnel why not just have it drive on a wire like robots and fork trucks in factories do currently.
Outside of the system to track the wire all you need are the sensors which a lot of new cars already have for keeping distance with variable cruise control and automatic braking.
Or hell it’s a tunnel just make it a conveyor belt like the car wash.
Or i don’t know, maybe some sort of electric underground tram system. You can even give it a fancy sci-fi name like “rapid subterranean transit system.”
All those things have too much friction. What you really want are some metal rails…
Oh maybe we can chain a bunch of cars together so they can accelerate and brake in synch.
And if the wheels were metal on the metal rail, it’d be even lower friction
I bet it could be retrofitted to have a system like the “WEDway” at George Bush airport in Houston.