A robotic arm that refuels cars in service stations has been launched in the Netherlands.

-kalos (October 22, 2014, 02:44 AM)

Key notes in this article:

• Scans a tag on the car and then looks it up in a database to determine the position and angle of its fuel neck
• Does not work on cars with locking fuel caps- which is highly recommended and commonplace in urban areas to prevent theft.
• Expensive technology that hypothetically increases convenience without doing anything major to save time. Station must up-front the cost.

Point 1 is another valid solution to what I mentioned before- that the arm must somehow locate where the car is fuelled at, open the hatch and remove the cap, and then insert the nozzle. Simply retrieving the car's data from a database is a valid solution of course, but this adds a tremendous administrative burden in that every time a new model of car comes out the database must be updated to support it. And it will not work at all with vehicles that have been significantly altered- and I know a good many trucks that have relocated their fuel tanks for a variety of reasons.

Point 2 is a problem that could in theory be addressed by having the robot reach around to be near the driver and request the key. But this adds incredibly to the complexity of the system, as the arm now has to be able to reach halfway around the vehicle without hitting it, accept an object from a human, then return it to the human when it is done. Robots can do this part at least, but its not nearly as easy as it sounds from an engineering standpoint.

Point 3 is that there is little to no incentive for stations to actually adopt this. The only advantage is that customers will not have to leave their car to use the system, it does not change the fuel dispensing rate nor does it add any real value to the process. It'd be a different story if it was used on a full service island, since it could handle the fuel while the attendant takes care of other tasks. Or even eliminate the attendant entirely, with the attachment for another $250,000 that allows it to automatically wash the windows check the oil and put air in the tires.

Back to auto-pilot cars...

http://time.com/3517110/end-human-driving/

Let’s Fix It: Let’s End Human Driving

My prediction is that it doesn't end well...

If it were just purely the technology as a tool, I'd be cheering. But it's not. The IoT will ensure it turns into a dystopian, hellish nightmare. And not that the IoT itself is bad - same deal there - just a tool - but I think more than a couple people here know the sinister side of computer control -- the people behind the scenes.

Again - cool technology - but serious doubts about how it will actually be used/abused.

-Renegade (October 22, 2014, 07:16 AM)

I'm actually okay with elimination of manual driving in daily life.

However, I am not okay with cars that are designed without mechanically linked operator controls. I've seen way too many computer malfunctions to trust a computer driven car that I can't wrench the wheel away from it or stomp on the brake and make it stop before going off the cliff that it can't see.

Long as a car still can be driven on full manual, the convenience of automatic driving makes it worth pursuing.

Especially in the cities. Parking in NYC is said to be unbelieveably expensive, and even in an upstate small town I would have no problem at all having my car drive itself to the parking lot at my workplace after dropping me off at the concert hall a few blocks away for a show. Saves me the $10 I would have to pay for parking, and it'd even be able to drive me home again after the show when I've had a bit to drink.

But I'd better be able to take manual control if I see a need to, and it cannot have the ability to ignore that input.

That's the beauty of Ethanol. Its a perfect solution... for the people promoting it.

"Its environmentally friendly"

Yet the MPG penalty causes you to burn significantly more GASOLINE per mile, my previous car the difference was on the level of a 25% increase in gasoline consumption as it dropped from 40 MPG to only 30 MPG when using 10% ethanol. Look at that! It takes 15% more GASOLINE when using E10 fuel over straight gas.

"Its cheap and easy to make."

Okay, Ethanol costs somewhere around $3 per gallon to make when done right. And okay, I'll give that a great deal of ethanol is a byproduct of other processes it is a really cheap addition to a tank of gas to keep the price from going to the moon.

But are you really saving money? Not only is there the problem with the MPG penalty, but it really does eat up the car's components and probably is an attempt by someone somewhere to sabotage older vehicles in the country's motor fleet to force people to buy new all the time. You'll spend more on repairs.

Oh and the way the subsidy on ethanol fuel works is the more ethanol they can squeeze into a gallon without breaking people's stuff, the more they get government handouts for helping the environment.

So while the pump is supposed to be dispensing E10, 10% ethanol, in practice it will run as high as 15% without notice.

Even better would be some type of data exchange when the nozzle is inserted.  I guess avoiding an electric current would be paramount with the proximity to the gasoline.  Perhaps some kind of magnetic field data doodad.  Your car would get a record how much gas at what price was added to the tank and the pump would get your ID for debit.

That way if someone snatched your plate you wouldn't be financing their joy rides as they stuck it on one car after another.

Also I was thinking there should be some way to detect the equivalent of octane in the fuel and adjust the spark advance settings in the ignition computer system.  I have been thinking about that because I see Miami cops tromp on the accelerator and their cruisers sound like crap.  The spark advance is not right.  It makes me wince every time I listen to the engine fighting itself.  No doubt they put low octane fuel in cars with high compression engines.

I don't know how difficult the octane detection would be.  But once known the spark advance intelligence should not be difficult to program.

-MilesAhead (October 20, 2014, 11:21 AM)

Or they need to change the air filter- when the cops stomp on it the motor is starved out.

Most ECM engines already try to run the timing as advanced as the engineers at the factory measured that engine design as being compatible with, then retard the timing slightly when the knock sensor registers spark knock or when the crank position sensor registers that the shaft was slowed instead of accelerated- indicating a too-advanced condition.

The way I would do this is attach a QR code reader to the gas nozzle, and a placard containing a user-changeable QRcode right next to the fuel tap. So you insert the nozzle into the car and pull the trigger completely like normal, and it automatically scans the QR code, approves the transaction, and dispenses fuel.

Then people who don't want to participate in this system can simply remove the QR code from the pouch, and if you need to change what account it bills to at the pump you can easily switch QR codes by sliding them out of the pouch and putting another in its place.

Hmm. I wonder if this can be made to work with bitcoin...