Driverless car invades China, threatens pedestrians

You probably won't see this blazing across the Mojave desert in the next DARPA Grand Challenge, but this driverless luxury car may soon be chauffeuring a select few through the streets of China -- at what expense to other drivers and pedestrians, we're not so sure. The vehicle itself is an FAW Hongqi (Red Flag) HQ3 sedan equipped with two cameras to relay information to an onboard computer, which'll supposedly navigate its way down streets, make turns, and adapt to its environment. In a demonstration at the Northeast Asia Investment and Trade Expo, the car topped out at a paltry 37 mph, but it apparently has a maximum speed of 93 mph, though we really can't blame them for being a little hesitant to test it.

[Via Techdirt]

[DooM @ Sep 12th 2006 5:39PM]

Lol, thats scary

[ming @ Sep 12th 2006 5:41PM]

haha, this is actually really, really funny; I can only imagine the choas that this car will create when some hardware malfunction takes places during operation.

[James @ Sep 12th 2006 5:46PM]

What is scary is the human driver! What about all the human malfunctions? drinking, drugs, old, pressing the gas instead of the brake, road rage....etc!

[Mike @ Sep 12th 2006 7:37PM]

Yeah, Asian drivers would be better off (and certainly move faster)! :)

Too bad this thing is probably using designs stolen from the top tier auto mfr's.

[pandlcg @ Sep 12th 2006 5:52PM]

If any of you have ever walked across streets in Beijing you would know that it cant get much scarier in terms of avoiding traffic. Cars, not pedestrians, have the right or way.

[Todd @ Sep 12th 2006 5:56PM]

Staff cars of Party members mow down pedestrians all the time over there – They all have those opaque windows, how would one know if its a driverless model?

[Reg @ Sep 12th 2006 6:03PM]

"Finally - help for Asian drivers!!"

Hah!

Actually, this now creates a whole new breed of bad Asian drivers. Those who didn't drive bad before (albeit very few) now will with the "help" of this auto.

[All Your Lost Socks @ Sep 12th 2006 6:18PM]

Greeeaat. I'm almost less worried about the impact on Chinese pedestrians (who should be used to it by now) than I am about how easy it will be to tamper with/compromise these things.

[oven @ Sep 12th 2006 6:19PM]

cameras.......plus gps I hope, wouldn't it be nice to know that there is a lake in front of you while you are travelling 93 mph.

on second thought, it would have to have this in order to get to and destination in the first place

[akijikan @ Sep 12th 2006 6:20PM]

where's the "I for one..."?

[kevin @ Sep 12th 2006 6:29PM]

WEAK!
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/02/vws-golf-gti-53-plus-1-is-fully-autonomous/

[villainy @ Sep 12th 2006 6:42PM]

akijikan, this is not slashdot

[Bob @ Sep 12th 2006 6:54PM]

How come they can't even make proper cars (yet), but already come up with this?

It doesn't look half bad either (from this angle).

[Warhorse @ Sep 12th 2006 7:04PM]

Ok, so this auto drives safley, but the crazy drivers around you still don't change. Mr. Road rage will still blow through a red light because he is late for work, will the response time still meet or exceed that of a meat driver?

[John Wilkes Booth! @ Sep 12th 2006 7:06PM]

Yeah... wtf? two cameras, no laser scanners, and one computer? The DARPA team needed multiple laser scanners, about 7 pentium blade servers, and lots of hardcore engineering to navigate the desert. This simply will not work!
-Taylor

[Schr�dinger Loved Dogs @ Sep 12th 2006 7:29PM]

Not to beat an incredibly dead horse, but it needs to be said.

In Communist China, car drives you!

[Alex @ Sep 12th 2006 7:37PM]

Enough with the bad Asian driver comments already--I didn't know engadget was frequented by so many racist pricks. Bad drivers come in every ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

[Tacklebox @ Sep 12th 2006 7:35PM]

Sure it may be great, but a couple months down the road...

"Take me home."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave..."

[softgun @ Sep 12th 2006 8:00PM]

Damn you guys are EDGY! You're spouting off Asian Driver quips?! Hell yeah it turns me on when geeks bring up generic racial jokes from 1993. They're funny because they're TRUE oh lol rofl ABC BBQ

Hey let's keep this going:

Mexicans are all illegal immigrants!!

How's that for EDGY?! I should be on Mind of Mencia.

[oven @ Sep 12th 2006 8:05PM]

I wonder if this thing 'can' be driven, is there a steering wheel, pedals, drivers seat?

does it fill its own gas tank? can it handle low light/night time driving?

does two cameras mean one for forward and one for reverse?

I want to know more!

[JehovaHimself @ Sep 12th 2006 8:35PM]

Alex/Softgun

"I didn't know engadget was frequented by so many racist pricks."

At least we (the pricks) have the candor to make slight of fairly widely accepted circa 1993 stereotype surreptitiously without the need for overt, slanderous candor or even blatenly, unsubstantiated racist remarks about all persons of a particular race (i.e. Mexicans in your example).

I for one am ashamed of you Softgun. You have learned nothing from watching Mind of Mencia; your unwitty retort is not on the caliber of the typical viewers loyal to Mind of Mencia.

If you can't write anything witty, then don't write anything at all...Dee-dee-dee!

[flamer's grill @ Sep 12th 2006 8:44PM]

Brilliant! Launch sketchy technology in a market that does not value human life. Work out the kinks. Cost: a few hundred people in a sea of a billion - a very very small price to pay for an effective beta test. Eventually they'll perfect it and launch it in the Western world, where we at least have the pretense of valuing the individual.

[Bpao @ Sep 12th 2006 8:56PM]

Haha. JehovaHimself tries to lunge and just ends up looking like a pedantic asshole.

verbosity is not clever

[CF @ Sep 12th 2006 9:08PM]

Only white people are serial killers, pedophiles, and freaks. I think I definitely prefer the the "bad driver" stereotype.

[FelixPerro @ Sep 13th 2006 5:59PM]

Tsk. Tsk.

Why can't you "racist pricks" and "pedantic assholes" just all get along?

Stick to the topic people. Has anyone found any other articles in English for this new car. The only ones I have found are in Chinese.

Thanks.

[Crazyjamaican46 @ Sep 12th 2006 9:36PM]

As an immigrant, a U.S citizen, and a frequent international buisness traveler, I can attest to the fact that these comments are not racist but are entirely truthful. In many other countries ( Jamaica included) Stoplights, trafic laws, and road signs are more of a suggestion than concrete legal restrictions and regulations. People in thos nations have been driving for far less time than most U.S citizens. The state of their roads is just sad. Highways commisions are practically nonexsitant, and the Police are just as bad. Noone seems to care. U.S. Tourists are petrified to drive in many other countries. Driving is literally a health hazard. So these commenters are not racist and everyone who thinks they are shoud do a little damn research before assuming everyone is either a racist or a bgot. Lighten up a little bit. People who consantly strive to be politicaly correct are annoying as hell.

[michael @ Sep 12th 2006 9:49PM]

"Only white people are serial killers, pedophiles, and freaks."

It's diversity that makes us rich :)

[micropterusdolomieu @ Sep 12th 2006 10:27PM]

I agree with carzy jamaican I must add people these rotten days are blindly dumbassed with PC excuse me while I puke some more and yes China men are shitty drivers I should know I grew up in the lower east side of new york and also google Fung Wa bus flips over see Very shitty no good !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Garrett @ Sep 13th 2006 7:19PM]

WOW! I'm watching out now!

[Beentochinaandyou? @ Sep 13th 2006 12:44AM]

I think you should all also know that the number one cause of accidental death in china is motor vehical related, love the country, but this is on more example of the napoleonic complex/selflessness view
Peace!

[Beentochinaandyou? @ Sep 13th 2006 12:46AM]

And the comment about pedofiles and freaks,etc, is ignorant. Say what you like, but educated people know better.

[Me @ Sep 14th 2006 11:24PM]

I for one welcome our new pedestrian flattening driverless car overlords!

[volcomguy21 @ Sep 13th 2006 2:54AM]

i have been waiting for this for a longggggggg time i knew it was coming hopefully they find a way to make this cheep and reliable and included in most cars

[Tobias @ Sep 13th 2006 5:16AM]

Well I for one see a fatal flaw with this system.

To this day and age I have yet to witness a car fuel itself, how can any selfrespecting dignitary fuel his own driverless car?

This just cannot be. But, China will overcome.

China must bring us the self fueling car next!

[Karel Jansens @ Sep 13th 2006 8:21AM]

For those who think this autonomous car thing is cutting edge stuff, here's a wakeup URL:

http://www.argo.ce.unipr.it/ARGO/english/

This was done back in 1998, boys and girls. With a paltry Pentium I pc, running Linux. By Italians!

[Magus @ Sep 13th 2006 8:54AM]

HAHA good point tobias, but i;m sure china has to have some equivalent of full cervice gas stations.

Jansens, its not really that its the first of its type or an amazing breakthrough. Its just that its designed for mass market not a standalone vehicle.

[Chris @ Sep 13th 2006 10:47AM]

Um... is the car's name pronounced 'honky' ?

Maybe they were the ones to fire the first race joke salvo... haha.

[Eric @ Sep 13th 2006 7:36PM]

Actually, there is no question that this would make the streets much SAFER here in China. I live in Shanghai, and driving (riding, actually, as I don't drive) is one of the most harrowing things you can do here. Every single driver seems to practice the "he who gets there first, wins" method of driving (along with the "weave and probe method of finding any available spot to jam your car at full speed"), and it applies equally to bikes, peds, animals, and any other moving object. Hilarious!

[softgun @ Sep 13th 2006 12:36PM]

haha JehovaHimself

OK ok ok so you just basically said, "my genuine racist remark was morally/cuturally superior to your sarcastic racist remark" hahahahah


*snort*

hahahaha

oh man. You went all "geek" and tried to be verbose about racism. You're like one of those bad awkward characters on "The Office" or "Arrested Development".

Oh and btw Mind of Mencia doesn't teach anything, just FYI. It just makes fun of ALL races (a twisted form of affirmative action)...and, that's it. It doesn't break through any barriers or stereotypes - if it did, THEN it would be teaching something. And in case you didn't get it (which you di'int!!) then you would have understood that I was clowning/oversimplifying Mencia's humor - even though I still watch the show sometimes > : )

Nice try, JEHOVA - get the %$#@% outta here, boooyyy

[macona @ Sep 13th 2006 1:25PM]

oven: Two cameras. One forward and one monitoring the passengers to make sure they a good little commies...

[Steve @ Sep 13th 2006 4:58PM]

I have been to China and I have to agree with some of the posters here -- this won't present any more danger to Chinese pedestrians than a lot of the existing drivers. There are some good, responsible drivers over there, but there are also lots of complete nutcases. Within an hour of arriving in Beijing for the first time, for example, I found myself in a cab doing about 50MPH down a narrow back alley filled with pedestrians who were scrambling to get out of the way. That was more extreme than most Chinese driving, but not by as much as you'd think.

It is not about race. My girlfriend is Asian and she has never been in an accident. It is about experience. Mass ownership of cars is a new phenonemon in China and therefore cars are being driven by people who not only have no prior driving experience (think teenagers on learner's permits) but, more importantly, don't even have experience as car PASSENGERS on crowded roads. The average westerner knows quite a lot about road etiquette long before they're old enough to drive.

[borgie @ Sep 13th 2006 9:25PM]

you racist pricks never drove a day in Asia. Asian drivers has the highest level of driving skills; or else they would DIE. Normal white drivers can't last a friggin minute in Asian streets; they will either die or kill someone. Just ask some REAL expats in China, HK or Taiwan and see if they have the balls to drive. If you have the skills to drive right through the middle of the road with horizontally packed with 4 cars and 20 bikes and not huring yourself or anyone else, then fucking TALK. You ignorant white kids has no frigging clue what you're talking about. The "Asian" driver you see on the street are women; who only dare to drive in the US cus white drivers are pussies. Most women don't dare take the road in Asia. So STFU until you actuall DROVE in lawless Asian street backed with cars, trucks, motobikes, bicycles and people jay-walking randomly without killing anyone day in and day out. White kids are the dumbest pricks int the world I swear.

[Beentochinaandyou? @ Sep 13th 2006 10:10PM]

Borgie do you wanna tell us little about yourself?

[Derek @ Sep 14th 2006 2:56PM]

I am absolutely alarmed by the number of irrelvant, largely inflamatory comments posted, which bear no relationship whatsoever to the car at hand. The HQ3 is built in a FAW-Toyota joint venture plant, and is largely a LICENSED copy of a Japanese-domestic market Toyota Majesta, using the same V8 engine found in our Lexus LS430. The car is marketed as a mid-to-upper level vehicle in CHina, designed to compete primarily with the BMW 5 series built in Shengyang, and the Audi A6 built in Changchun. As you can tell, those joint venture projects are clearly paying off, as much of the licensed technology has now been transferred to domestic design. As for allegations of "copying", contrary to what the rest of the world thinks, most Chinese car enthusist are outraged at the level of piracy in the industry, and on many Chinese language car forums, there are very critical posts about this practice. It is likely then that in due course, many of the manufacturers will start coming up with more original designs. I can't comment on the auto-drive system, but it does seem a bit inadequate, given the limited number of cameras... having said that, the HQ3 should drive like a dream, in fact, much like its Lexus LS430 cousin... :)

[George @ Jan 30th 2007 3:49AM]

This is, for sure, a lot safer than human Chinese drivers.

Chinese car audio products at low wholesale prices:
http://www.chinavasion.com/index.php/cName/car-audio-car-stereo/