IIRC it costs roughly $2 million per mile to repave a road. Half a billion dollars would then be 250 miles. That's absolutely nothing compared to how many millions of miles of road there are in the country.
This is why "smart roads" can't work like people were dreaming of in the 80s.
dculberson said:In reply to ebonyandivory :
Several million per state when there's trillions of dollars flowing through our economy every year is not much.
I'm a little dismayed by that reply but sometimes people become accustomed to being robbed.
ebonyandivory said:dculberson said:In reply to ebonyandivory :
Several million per state when there's trillions of dollars flowing through our economy every year is not much.
I'm a little dismayed by that reply but sometimes people become accustomed to being robbed.
Happens every day with every single product you purchase from any decent sized company. Why do you single out government for wasting your money?
If any of you purchased a new car, it's pretty safe to say that more of your money is going to wasteful things than your tax dollars are wasted. And much of our tax dollars are wasted trying to prevent waste- just to keep track of government dollars here, anyone working on those projects are required to log their hours every single day. What a waste of work time, but it's all to prevent waste. And that's not even the waste I care about in the large company.....
We need to build a autonomous vehicle that require no driver!
What should we call it?
HumanDrive.
???
Cool project. They should get the guy out from behind the steering wheel though. It makes me think they don't trust their own tech. 
Hey! How about that Leaf that finished an atonomous 230 mile drive?
In reply to alfadriver :
Why do I single out government for wasting money?
Maybe because no one forces me to buy a pair of $120.00 sneakers that cost $7.00 to make. Have you ever been forced at the point of a gun to buy a new car?
Most times I get to allow (or not) who overcharges me. Try to choose not to comply with the government taking your money... I dare you.
noddaz said:Hey! How about that Leaf that finished an atonomous 230 mile drive?
Wait, a thread had posts not directly related to the original title? You don't say!
In reply to ebonyandivory :
Still, your money is less wasted with the government than it's wasted for every single thing you buy. BTW, I challenge you to not buy food. Need to eat, don't you?
While you can grow your own food, most don't- at least enough to survive on all year round.
And I'd bet you are almsot forced to buy that at one of the big box stores- Kroger, Albertsons, etc. They waste more of your money you use to survive than the government does.
I'm still pretty adament that the government wastes more money trying to prevent waste than anything else it does. Thanks to people so upset about government waste.
{reee-aaaaakk, ree-aaaaakk, ree-aaaaakk, ree, ree, ree}
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In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :
I think a nice rule might be to limit off topic posts to two. You get two off topic posts in a row, after that, make your own thread. Of course, some discretion is required. If a thread has been answered and is drifting off topic and it's just humor, then let it roll.
I'm just amazed a Leaf made a 230 mile trip on a single charge. Nissan's website says max range is only 226, is this the prototype for a new battery pack option?
06HHR said:I'm just amazed a Leaf made a 230 mile trip on a single charge. Nissan's website says max range is only 226, is this the prototype for a new battery pack option?
All of the pictures that I've seen show a 1st gen Leaf, which had a max range of 107 miles for the 2016 model year. So either they modified the Leaf a ton, they took some breaks to charge it, or it was a second gen car that drove really slowly and saw the range extended a bit as a result.
Cynic that I am, my money is on the last scenario. They say it completed the trip, but I haven't heard how long it took, or anything like an average speed. If it averaged 20mph because it was processing it's surroundings and making decisions that's a bit different than navigating at normal speeds and fitting into the flow of traffic.
06HHR said:I'm just amazed a Leaf made a 230 mile trip on a single charge. Nissan's website says max range is only 226, is this the prototype for a new battery pack option?
It's a test car, they probably put in extra batteries. And that's 100% ok- I see this more as a test of autonomy than battery range.
Autonomy could probably derive a ton of extra range vs regular human driving as well. I've seen people drive that are literal spazzes with their right foot or whose throttle % is tied to the volume of voice they're using. Once the human doesn't have the option to control acceleration, it will probably be tailored towards efficiency except in cases of accident avoidance. I mean, my old 01 Insight would do 95mpg @ 45 mph right from the factory. Doesn't mean i got 95mpg because it was boring as hell! But if a robot was driving it, it probably would. And I guess all the people who want autonomy would be happily dodo-birding into their phone anyway and would be fine with it.
In reply to Vigo :
Yeah, but what efficiency should we maximize? Why straight "mileage" efficiency? Otherwise, biking is probably the most efficient transportation? Shouldn't we take time into consideration?
https://cafe.foundation/v2/tech_lib.php
go down to "Fuel Efficiency of Small Aircraft" (or straight to the PDF). That's a technical paper by B.H. Carson from which is derived a "Carson Speed", which is loosely defined as 'The Least Wasteful Way of Wasting".
Cars don't quite map over to the same drag shape and/or fuel use as aircraft. But, the short of it is, The least wasteful way of wasting is by going 30% faster than the speed that gives you the most range. If that is 45mph, then you want to go 60. If it's 50mph, then you want to go 72mph. This, of course is based on aerodynamics, engine mapping, and gearing for a car... which makes it a bit more difficult.
_ said:In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :
I think a nice rule might be to limit off topic posts to two. You get two off topic posts in a row, after that, make your own thread. Of course, some discretion is required. If a thread has been answered and is drifting off topic and it's just humor, then let it roll.
We're a collection of drifters of threads.
sleepyhead the buffalo said:In reply to Vigo :
Yeah, but what efficiency should we maximize? Why straight "mileage" efficiency? Otherwise, biking is probably the most efficient transportation? Shouldn't we take time into consideration?
If you're looking at maximizing efficiency, then fuel expenses go right out the window. My time is billable at $2/minute. From an efficiency standpoint, it makes the most sense to drive as fast as the roads will allow. If I could average 130mph on my drive to work instead of 45mph, the time saved would be more valuable than the fuel used.
That would be the ideal goal of autotonomous cars: raising the average traffic speeds to something faster than humans can reliably maintain. This would save time, and also reduce congestion because the average time a car is on the road is lower. Time is the ultimate nonrenewable resource, and space is a close second. You WOULD need smart communication for this to happen.
In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :
With autonomy, you also get to use the terrain as an input, in theory that means using the down hill parts more. At least theoretically- it's one of those things that are talked about a lot trying to improve real world economy. Like for gas cars, let the battery drain out until you get to a hill you know is coming up and the fuel is going to be turned off.
I've not seen any real world data quantifying the benefit, but I know the idea is very much out there.
BTW, with all of the extra stuff in the car- there was another battery, for sure. From what I know, that era of autonomy hardware does suck energy- especially over the +6 hours it would have taken to go that far. It's getting better, but it does not run for free.
As for the Leaf, it either made multiple stops to recharge (easily 5, Gen1 Leafs had ~80 miles of range and god knows how much power those computers took up), has been heavily modified (obvious) or was hypermiling- or a combination of all 3. Even if it was only going up to say, 35MPH this is still a great leap forward for autonomy so i'm miffed they would be so cagey about it.
In reply to alfadriver :
Oh, like the whole physical "water battery" systems? I think the hyperloop inventors/dreamers had the same concept of using long downward slopes as huge regen and braking locations.
In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo and Knurled. :
I've never heard of these papers, but I love the idea you guys showed of "time" being the real, final resource.
As for "least wasteful way of wasting"- an idea I really like!- I suppose it would come down to either blisteringly-high speeds or staying 35mph and below to prevent drag losses, followed by replacing lights for roundabouts, more left turns and proper city planning to reduce congestion. All things which us Yanks are unparalleled at.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
"Least wasteful way of wasting" could also be described as the way the US assisted in ending WWII. It wasn't strictly manpower or firepower or strategy or tactics, it was logistics: crank up production and put supply chains in place to ensure that nobody was ever wanting for anything. It was wasteful from a strictly materiel-vs-results point of view, but the production capability was cheap in comparison to the other factors involved. Tanks and planes and shells and bullets and rations are cheap and easily replaced, in comparison to the losses in men and territory if soldiers and pilots and sailors don't have enough to defend what they've claimed, let alone have the initiative to advance.
It is no small thing that both the war in the Pacific and the war over England can be condensed down to "destroy the enemy's logistics chain". And it was the destruction of Germany's production capability and Japan's access to oilfields that did the most damage.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
Yes- basically only really charge the battery when the fuel is off. So if you know the terrain, you can run the electronics off the battery, and just charge it when you are going down hill or braking. For EV's and Hybrids, the idea of max charge during decels is already there- the hard part is to really integrate the braking pedal and make more electricity than heat. F1 cars have been learning a lot about this over the last few years.
Right now, decel focused charging is rolling out- as it's not super hard to do. But when you add the smarter cruise systems that actually know the terrain, you can really add to that. It's not huge, but every percent counts. In theory, you can do the same with the a/c system, but it's harder to match given the demand.
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