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Comment by 57FkMytWjyFu | Hacker News Reader

This is like expecting Teslas to swerve for squirrels.

A 2-tonne vehicle making a dangerous manoeuvre and risking human lives for a squirrel is the same as an incredibly slow-moving, 5-10kg piece of plastic stopping its motor, in a garden, to protect a species vulnerable to extinction?

Not to mention, nobody wants to clean up a mangled animal from their garden, or spend hours getting it to a vet or rescue centre.

If you really want your hedgehogs, put your forests back.

The Scots have plenty of hedgehogs they don't want.

As a hypothetical owner of both a Tesla and an autonomous mower, i would not want my Tesla to swerve (at least in any way that might endanger me or other humans) for a squirrel, whereas I would probably want my autonomous mower to "swerve" to avoid a hedgehog, if not because i like little animals then just because i wouldn't want to clear up entrails off of my lawn

Out of curiosity, does your autonomous mower behave as idiotically has a autonomous vacuum like a Roomba? For a vacuum, that's okay, but for something on my lawn, I'd hate to see what the patterns in the grass would look like.

I clearly have no experience with one of these things, and just taking the worst of one and (most probably) improperly applying it to something else.

These auto mowers are so light they generally don’t make much of a pattern in the grass at all

It's not the weight of the mower that makes the patterns. it's the direction of the suction, the direction of the rotation and cut. Sure, the wheels can leave a depression, but it's the cut that is important.

There is no suction afaik, and they cut so regularly (my neighbours use it daily) so the pattern have no time to settle.

No, not at all.

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