Self-Driving Road Train
This project, called SARTRE for SAfe Road TRains for the Environment, is well underway, having carried out its first successful demonstration of its self-driving technology at Volvo's proving grounds.
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4. Comment rated too low. Show this comment Usdevildoggmc 1 year ago
REALLY?! A road train.... if we're talking about 1 LANE roads ok maybe... but just imagine a fucking centipede of cars on the road and there are those who are actually manually driving their Vehicles wanting to switch lanes or something.... you have to speed up around them?? and if someone fucks up at the head of the "Train" imagine the damage this can do to all the cars behind it... Europeans are so damn goofy man with these types of inventions we underestimate and offend how powerful the human Brain is.
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Driving behind the truck means less consumption, but also means more damage to car due to small rocks or stuff trucks throws onto the car.
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6. s1nn0cence 1 year ago
Really now? We've gotten to that point where we simply cannot be bothered to SIT ON OUR ASSES and turn a friggin wheel? THAT lazy?? Human kind deserves its fate.
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Of course you could you use a TRAIN. Which consumes less than 20% energy and is incredibly safer. Use the money of this useless research to make better trains... cars are dirty and expensive whatsoever.
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I like to drive my manual gearbox car!
I like the sense of control when sitting behind a wheel 
Enjoy your ride all! 
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Here´s the first layout of this idea : http://www.snotr.com/video/4242/Did_Not_See_The_Car
They have come a long way since then. 
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They will add trucks on the road for environment... that sounds somehow wrong.
Also, if one care's system fails, it can clearly be tragic at 90km/h :s
the whole idea is weird.
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so, there are certain areas some motoways cross where street signaling will make it compulsory to drive as such
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This misses the point of driving. The real train takes less space and fuel to transport people. The point of driving is being independent and going where you want to go.
On the other hand, remove the front truck and you improved safety at high speeds due to human error (but keep the override option, of course). Consequently, you can raise the speed limits.
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15. stepanstas 1 year ago
Next Volvo will develop a machine you can attach to your feet. So when you walk to work, you will simply follow the person in front of you, while reading a newspaper. 
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16. captain_obvious 1 year ago
The point here isnt the comfort of reading a newspaper while your in de drivers seat. The point here is that if you get a bunch of cars able to drive realy close behind each other you wil consume less fuel and with a big ass truck in front of you fuel usage will drop even more and you can fit more cars on the road.
Maybe in the future you wont need an extra truck and can just join a road train on the freeway that just formed and with all the route planners in their cars knowing where the driver is heading to, its easy if you know where he`s heading to and being able to just press follow him till XXXX and save a buch of fuel/cash.
btw unleaded petrol cost in The Netherlands = 2,14 U.S. dollars a litre!!!
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The bigger picture, how will this work practically? Do we all queue up for the next lorry train to leave from its stop? People are not going to bother with that, why wait when they can just drive straight away.
Maybe we just drive onto motorways and find 1 of these lorry trains to join?
Barring in mind many people that drive are idiots, at what point do they activate this auto drive if its done from already moving.
Also how many of these lorry trains will be continually driving up and down the motorway for people to connect to?
What about mechanical failures, something on the road causes a tyre puncture, etc?
What about people not connected to 1 of these trains having an accident and crashing into 1 of the front cars of the train?
These lorry train drivers will have to have a separate driving test to qualify for safe driving of this form of transport.
I can understand the concept but in real life, it will not work.
Just seems like they are trying to do something just because there is technology that allows the basics of it to work and not thinking of how best to use the technology.
By the time this becomes mainstream in purchased cars, there will be much better methods where the cars drive themselves for sections of road you request and also are aware of other cars around them etc.
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are these guys huge it is really a tiny car?
what if the truck driver went for nature call? guess every one has to go an pee then?
(92 votes)
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1. dragonon 1 year ago
Good project , i like it BUT i don't wanna drive at some truck's speed.