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Comment by shawabawa3 | Hacker News Reader

Motorway only, with eye tracking and disables if you aren't looking forward

So basically adaptive cruise control

Adaptive cruise control is automatic speed adjustment, with you doing the steering. This adds automatic steering and removes the need to keep your hands on the wheel. Hands-free is the big differentiator from existing lane-keeping systems.

What else am I going to do with my hands while staring at the road? Even if I could get a hands-off upgrade in my existing car, and I wasn't opposed to car subscriptions, I wouldn't pay this price. Just give me normal level 2 driving.

The idea is that you can keep them in your lap, which tends to be a more relaxed position than actively gripping the wheel. It may not be your thing, which is fine. But I do a 10hr road trip a few times a year, and personally would see a benefit.

Personally I could care less about automating driving on surface streets. I'm a fan of just about anything that makes the long hauls easier.

Adaptive cruise control with lane keeping (ie. you don't need to keep your hands on the wheel) is already a thing in many cars.

ACC with LKAS is not the same as "you don't need to keep your hands on the wheel". AFAIK, It's only GM (Super Cruise), Ford (Blue Cruise) and Mercedes Benz (Drive Pilot) who have ACC systems that are designed to be completely handsfree on select motor ways.

"Don't have to firmly grip the steering wheel" is a thing. You're supposed to keep your hands loosely on the wheel, following along while the car takes the lead on turning the wheel.

The Ford thing is "hands in your lap," and is publicly advertised that way. It's far rarer.

Very few in the US (the MachE mentioned in the article is one with BlueCruise, SuperCruise from GM exists as well) and only one in Europe.

From the article: “…become the first to offer hands-free driving capabilities on roads in the UK – a first for the whole of Europe, as well.”

O_o I rented a hyundai a few weeks ago that had acc with steering, throttle, and braking. I tested the hands free mode on the interstate and it worked very well.

No Hyundai is sold with a hands free driving option. You were operating the vehicle incorrectly and unsafely.

https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-is-hyundai...

"To be clear, HDA 2 is not a hands-free driving system. If the driver takes their hand off the steering wheel for several seconds while HDA 2 is active, the system will warn the driver with a message in the instrument cluster that reads, "Keep hands on steering wheel." If the driver keeps their hands off the steering wheel, the message will reappear with an audible warning. After the second message, if the driver does not take hold of the wheel, a new warning message will appear, and the system will deactivate."

And for £18/month. Subscriptions for car features need to die.

Owning one of these cars I can tell you it's not worth the money. Drops out of hands free mode every few minutes.

The only way I'm paying a goddamn subscription for something like this is when it gets me from A to B without me needing to pay any attention beyond setting the destination and watching a movie.

I live in the US but disagree entirely. Works solid where I’m driving, rarely dropping out. I bet I get an average of 55min hands free per hour of interstate driving and it is very smooth. Would definitely pay monthly for the convenience, but so far it’s still free from purchase for me.

If it doesn't work, under the Consumer Rights Act you need to ask for your money back, paying for stuff that doesn't work encourages companies to half-arse things.

Everyone would rather pay $0/month rather than $18/month, but those aren't the choices actually being offered. Realistically it's either $x/month or $y upfront. Seeing tesla's track record of selling "full self driving" as an upfront charge, I prefer the subscription model more because it allows me to stop paying if the feature ends up being a dud.

Subscriptions for self-driving actually make sense, since the company is probably taking on liability if the car crashes or something else goes wrong.

Just makes sense for self driving to have a "combined" subscription that is or functions as insurance.

It is called insurance and is a heavily regulated thing.

Actually I think they're onto something, the company being required to get insurance [too] means they have more financial skin in the game. A crash when the car is being driven by the company's algorithm should be paid for by the company and not the driver. Same as if any other engineering defect causes an accident.

> Actually I think they're onto something, the company being required to get insurance [too] means they have more financial skin in the game.

No, a company that is liable has skin in the game, insurance mitigates rather than enhances that—its the whole point of insurance, swapping out risk for a fixed cost.

OTOH, the insurer then has skin in the game.

In bulk, there's no real difference between the company getting insurance for the user, versus the company being insurance for the user.

Either way, the cost they pay will be directly related to how safe it is. They have almost all the skin in the game.

Insurance as it currently exists makes no sense if the human 'operator' is not actually driving the car.

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