Honda debuts its first-ever electric autonomous zero-turn riding lawn mower
electrek.co
electrek.co
When I got my riding lawn mower, they told me to make sure I varied my pattern.
I didn't, and after about a year and a half, I started to notice that I formed ruts in my lawn where I always followed the same path.
That mower looks very, very heavy. I would fear that always following the same pattern, or the same few patterns, would leave ruts and other visible patterns.
No mention of when "owners" of these autonomous mowers will start having to pay $$$/month for their cloudy features to keep working.
1) The system has to successfully detect an object. If this system fails, it will still run over whatever was in the way.
2) The system has to successfully ignore detections which were false positives. When this system fails, the machine will just stop working, which may require a remediation which may cost more than the labor needed to pilot the vehicle.
3) The assumption that the vehicle is safe to operate autonomously because it has safety features will create a lack of concern for safety around the vehicle. This lowered level of concern will result in an increased number of incidents when the safety systems fail, as people will have been operating under the assumption that they won't fail.
4) In the worst case, if the safety systems fail often, they will be disabled (if possible), leading people to believe the system might still be somewhat safe, but unbeknownst to them it's completely unsafe.
It would actually be safer to have no safety systems at all. That way everyone has to assume that the vehicle is unsafe, and therefore they will need to implement their own safety procedures, such as closing off the field it's being used in and not allowing anyone nearby into the field. This conscious fear of the device, combined with a conscious attempt to secure the area, will keep people safer.
1) The seat belt has to successfully detect when it's needed. If that fails, you hit the dashboard at 55mph anyway.
2) The seat belt must ignore false positives. If it cinches up inappropriately, people will struggle to get them working, or release them.
3) If people rely on their seat belts, they will do stupid things like drive off cliffs or into light poles, because people assumed that the seat belt would always work.
4) In the worst case, if the seat belt cinches up inappropriately, people will disable the seat belt, leading people to believe the system might still be somewhat safe... not sure how that follows at all.
It's better to not have seat belts (anti-lock braking, impact-safe dashboards, turn signals) at all. That way everyone has to assume that the vehicle is unsafe, and therefore they will need to implement their own safety procedures, like being 100% perfect drivers...
Lawns provide oxygen, filter rainwater, prevent soil erosion, and are better at absorbing / releasing heat energy than hard surfaces. But they take a lot of water to maintain -- in water-restricted areas, you're probably better off with more drought-tolerant vegetation that will have the same benefits.
The gas-powered lawn mower will always be bad for the environment.
What lawns provide over those are mostly aesthetic and functional, not ecological.
Getting rid of the lawn, and with it the lawnmower, is the clear ecological choice, even if not always the right personal choice. No koan or paradox involved.
Here in the Pacific Northwest many of us never water our lawns. They get plenty of water from rain except in the summer. In the summer they go dormant. That turns them brown, but doesn't harm them, and when it gets rainy again in the fall they turn back to green.
(x) down to a certain animal size.
Does it even try to detect sensitive wildlife?