Tesla 'beta testing' safety critical software on the road????

[mtdoc]

The ethical thing to do is to disclose it in each anti competitor message or pro Tesla message like this one.

He's posting on an internet forum, not pretending to give an unbiased opinion and he's not selling Tesla's. Your selective evoking of some imaginary ethical issue belies your motives given own well known anti-Tesla bias. One could just as easily say it is unethical for someone to criticise Tesla without disclosing their political affiliations. Either is absurd IMO and I would think that any advocate of free speech would agree.

[zapta]

I would think that any advocate of free speech would agree.

Nobody is calling for banning his speech so it's not a free speech issue.

We criticise him for consistently posting pro his employer content without disclosing it.

If you think that this practice is OK than we disagree on this one.

[mtdoc]

Nobody is calling for banning his speech so it's not a free speech issue.

Hmm, so you believe the only way to inhibit free speech is to ban it. OK - got it. One more thing we disagere on. 

[cimmo]

And yet another thread devolves into a trivial, pointless and irrelevant argument due to one particular individual's compulsion to inject his mere personal opinion into every thread he can.

I guess it is difficult making 4600 posts and also having valid, on topic content in those posts.

[helius]

What would you call one individual's compulsion to inject his own personal ignore list into every thread he posts in?

I guess it is difficult making 4600 posts and also having valid, on topic content in them.

With practice you may get better at it.

[retrolefty]

And yet another thread devolves into a trivial, pointless and irrelevant argument due to one particular individual's compulsion to inject his mere personal opinion into every thread he can.

I guess it is difficult making 4600 posts and also having valid, on topic content in those posts.

 Some kind of virus must have hit this site, so much recent posting of noise/judgement/ideology. Maybe the server should be looked at? I'm here for fun and enjoyment.

[ovnr]

Do you really expect that everyone posts "OH HELLO DEAR I WORK FOR $COMPANY. DO NOT BE ALARMED JUST BECAUSE I QUITE LIKE MY EMPLOYERS PRODUCTS; IT CAN'T POSSIBLY BE THAT I STARTED WORKING THERE BECAUSE I LIKE THEIR STUFF. BY THE WAY WE HAVE A SPECIAL ON TEACUPS THIS WEEK, STOP BY WWW.SERIOUSLY.COM AND CHECK THEM OUT" in their signature?

This is a goddamn electronics forum, and besides, everyone has a bias. I avoid ST products - because one of them had a really shitty datasheet which bit me (grrr, grumble). Thus I'm going to recommend any other solution.


Unless people start actively advertising here - which is against guidelines anyhow - I don't care.

[cimmo]

What would you call one individual's compulsion to inject his own personal ignore list into every thread he posts in?

Do YOU have anything pertinent to add to this thread - about Tesla's 'autopilot' feature?
Or are you here, just like some others, to have an argument about trivialities?

If so - if all you have to offer is noise, then I can add you to my sig (and I'll also tweak my notch filter).

I guess it is difficult making 4600 posts and also having valid, on topic content in them.

With practice you may get better at it.

Injecting nothing but irrelevant off topic noise to a discussion is not something I want to 'get better at' doing.
That's what the youtube comment section is for.
However, in this case, since this thread has already been killed, something needed to be said about why it died.

[Someone]

Do you really expect that everyone posts "OH HELLO DEAR I WORK FOR $COMPANY. DO NOT BE ALARMED JUST BECAUSE I QUITE LIKE MY EMPLOYERS PRODUCTS; IT CAN'T POSSIBLY BE THAT I STARTED WORKING THERE BECAUSE I LIKE THEIR STUFF. BY THE WAY WE HAVE A SPECIAL ON TEACUPS THIS WEEK, STOP BY WWW.SERIOUSLY.COM AND CHECK THEM OUT" in their signature?

This is a goddamn electronics forum, and besides, everyone has a bias. I avoid ST products - because one of them had a really shitty datasheet which bit me (grrr, grumble). Thus I'm going to recommend any other solution.


Unless people start actively advertising here - which is against guidelines anyhow - I don't care.

Look at this example from Intel:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/legal/intel-social-media-guidelines.html
Disclaimers do not have to be long or complicated, and if you don't want to have that sort of simple boilerplate in posting then don't discuss things you have an economic interest in!

[encryptededdy]

I think they'd be much better off calling it "Auto-Steer" or "Automatic Lane Keeping" rather than "Autopilot". As others have mentioned, this feature isn't particularly new, with systems like Mercedes' Distronic Plus with Steering Assist already being avaliable for a few years.

While it's true that this system operates similarly to an Aircraft's autopilot, I think it's very possible that many will assume "Autopilot" is the same as "Autonomous Driving", even though they are completely different.

[tom66]

It is called autosteer. The suite of functions is called autopilot

[cimmo]

Attempting to put this thread back on topic, I am interested to know why Tesla have not engineered this system with any GPS integration. From what I understand, it is a purely stand alone system, using on board sensors (optical/radar/ultrasonic?) only.

It seems to me that in the short term, while this is a 'beta', then a perfect solution to all these events where Autosteer is being used against Tesla's recommendation is to have a whitelist of appropriate highways and the vehicle will only permit Autosteer if the GPS position correlates with that whitelist.

Why haven't Tesla done this?
Was it too difficult to integrate GPS functionality at this point in development?
Is this a case of marketing superceding engineering?

[tszaboo]

happy now ?  so sad that post 5999 had to be about legal mumbo jumbo... the world really has become a stinkhole.

Tesla is doing something unique, a high profile, a car manufacturer exclusively making electric cars. You have all eyes on you. Every misstep the company makes is going to be on the news, and going to be discussed, with people acting like (well) people.
The fact that we are discussing it means we are interested, and most of the cases jealous. They are really good cars.
Now, to offset all the good things I said, and return the balance, I'll put this here (wasnt self driving BTW):

[Mechanical Menace]

Attempting to put this thread back on topic, I am interested to know why Tesla have not engineered this system with any GPS integration. From what I understand, it is a purely stand alone system, using on board sensors (optical/radar/ultrasonic?) only.

What happens when you can't get a signal, or the map thinks a left turn is following the road or vice versa (a very common occurrence with SatNavs), or it's expecting a 60 limit and it's gone down? I could see GPS being a useful addition to the tech but no matter if it's in a Tesla or any other vehicle it needs to work without.

As a side note this isn't the first driver assist tech to cause problems with people who expect too much from it. Cruise control caused crashes from people who thought it did more than maintain a constant speed...

[cimmo]

Attempting to put this thread back on topic, I am interested to know why Tesla have not engineered this system with any GPS integration. From what I understand, it is a purely stand alone system, using on board sensors (optical/radar/ultrasonic?) only.

What happens when you can't get a signal, or the map thinks a left turn is following the road or vice versa (a very common occurrence with SatNavs), or it's expecting a 60 limit and it's gone down? I could see GPS being a useful addition to the tech but no matter if it's in a Tesla or any other vehicle it needs to work without.

We are not talking about making an AUTONOMOUS vehicle (yet), just something that can steer itself, sometimes - when everything is working properly. If any of those hypotheticals you suggested occur, then it can and should simply disable Autosteer. If all it's sources of information (including GPS) do not agree to a high enough level, then it just tells the driver to do the work (I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I cannot do that - drive it yourself).

This software should never have been released without some automatic method to disable it in city streets and winding country roads. And using GPS position data to disable Autosteer on roads where this function is currently not safely capable of working reliably (as even Tesla themselves admit) would have been a viable solution.

Which is why I asked that question - why didn't Tesla do this?

[Mechanical Menace]

We are not talking about making an AUTONOMOUS vehicle (yet)

I never said we were. I said idiots will be idiots, always have been, and always will be.

Which is why I asked that question - why didn't Tesla do this?

Because as I said relying on GPS adds more chance of serious errors. Have you never used a SatNav or Google maps? If you have and never had one seriously mess up multiple times on a journey you're very, very lucky. FFS they all have warnings about not relying on them 100% and following local road laws but people still blame them for their fuck ups. By your logic satellite navigation and cruise control should never have been introduced because idiots cause crashes using them incorrectly even after numerous warnings, or no vehicles should be allowed that don't automatically shut down when someone starts driving like a moron...

[tom66]

Attempting to put this thread back on topic, I am interested to know why Tesla have not engineered this system with any GPS integration. From what I understand, it is a purely stand alone system, using on board sensors (optical/radar/ultrasonic?) only.

No, it does use GPS. Watch the intro of autopilot. The GPS sensor is enhanced--whatever that means. Data is gathered and shared with the mothership as drivers use autosteer.
I am surprised they have not geofenced it to be honest. It will probably come back and bite them.

[CatalinaWOW]

Back to an earlier post.  What should the performance standard for an autonomous vehicle be?  The opinion was that it needed to be better than a very good driver, as measured by some undetermined metric.  I don't understand why.  An argument could be made that it would be criminal to not require autonomous driving if the performance is better than the average driver.  If not required then more injuries and deaths will occur than would otherwise happen.  I wouldn't want to be in the position of endorsing death and injury.

This will be a difficult argument over the next couple of decades.  Will people be tried for negligence if they choose not to use the autonomous driving function and someone is hurt?  The metrics will be important because it has been demonstrated in numerous surveys that nearly all drivers think they are better than average.  The insurance companies have data to show that to be incorrect.  But the metrics for autonomous driving will be difficult to collect because the obvious measures - accidents/mile, fatalities/mile etc. take vast amounts of on the road operation to accumulate.  How will all of these metrics apply to individual cases.  Maybe the person involved really is one of the superior drivers.  How would you prove that?

[cimmo]

Perhaps it's not all bad?


From video description:
"Was travelling a little under 45 mph. There was some rain, but roads were pretty dry. I was watching stopped traffic to my right.

I did not touch the brake. Car did all the work. Sadly no audio, because I had an Uber passenger and Washington has strict privacy laws about recording conversations."

[helius]

From the video it certainly looks like a radar collision-avoidance system, like the one Mercedes offers.
The possibility that autonomous driving technologies will be required is quite real:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/06/09/ntsb-collision-avoidance-all-cars/28724575/

[Gyro]

I've been keeping my head down a bit after seeing as my topic seems to have stirred up a storm, thankfully now calmed.

I'm curious about what this system actually feels like in practice, lane changing on indicator activation etc. Tesla have instructed drivers to keep their hands on the wheel, but it must be really weird to have it moving 'autonomously' in your grip, how strong is it, how easy to override etc. It just all sounds a bit counter intuitive.

Looking again at the video that the BBC story cited, the one where the car hit bump or whatever and veered towards the oncoming car. OK the guy shouldn't have been using it on that road, but watching the video he only seems to have had about 1.5 seconds of bleeping to react and take control, presumably the same could happen on the freeway. I've driven the I-280 quite a lot between Sunnyvale and SFO and some parts are NOT a good road surface, potholes everywhere (even makes some of our UK roads look good  ). I'm wondering how it works in practice and whether comfortably cruising drivers might be required to take over control at very short notice without 'over-reacting' in the process.

I guess it is something that has been thought through and documented, but feels like a trap for the unwary - presumably at some point Teslas will become hire cars in pollution conscious California  Presumably this also applies to all the other manufacturers' active steer systems that have been mentioned too.

Not having had the opportunity to drive one (and probably not likely to), I'm just curious about the 'mechanics' of driving with such a system.

[tom66]

I've been keeping my head down a bit after seeing as my topic seems to have stirred up a storm, thankfully now calmed.

I'm curious about what this system actually feels like in practice, lane changing on indicator activation etc. Tesla have instructed drivers to keep their hands on the wheel, but it must be really weird to have it moving 'autonomously' in your grip, how strong is it, how easy to override etc. It just all sounds a bit counter intuitive.

Looking again at the video that the BBC story cited, the one where the car hit bump or whatever and veered towards the oncoming car. OK the guy shouldn't have been using it on that road, but watching the video he only seems to have had about 1.5 seconds of bleeping to react and take control, presumably the same could happen on the freeway. I've driven the I-280 quite a lot between Sunnyvale and SFO and some parts are NOT a good road surface, potholes everywhere (even makes some of our UK roads look good  ). I'm wondering how it works in practice and whether comfortably cruising drivers might be required to take over control at very short notice without 'over-reacting' in the process.

I guess it is something that has been thought through and documented, but feels like a trap for the unwary - presumably at some point Teslas will become hire cars in pollution conscious California  Presumably this also applies to all the other manufacturers' active steer systems that have been mentioned too.

Not having had the opportunity to drive one (and probably not likely to), I'm just curious about the 'mechanics' of driving with such a system.

It's implemented using the power steering motor, as the car uses electric power steering. Apparently it feels somewhat like heavier steering but anything more than a light movement will disengage the autopilot. It can detect whether your hand is on the wheel, it probably does this using micro movements and sensing the reaction force.

The car didn't hit a bump in the road. The car was going up a hill into a curve and so the wheels had some bias that the AP was compensating for. When the AP disengaged the wheel jerked because the road started driving the car instead of the computer. This is why the autopilot function shouldn't be used on non divided highways until the software is improved.

[zapta]

I saw today a Tesla on state route 85. License plate was   "W  EQ  VA".  Smells like an EE.

[Marco]

I find it very curious how easily the regulator in my own county so readily waved this through.

Do they just not want to be seen to oppose something fashionable or is it a question of Elon knowing the right secret handshakes?

[Gyro]

It's implemented using the power steering motor, as the car uses electric power steering. Apparently it feels somewhat like heavier steering but anything more than a light movement will disengage the autopilot. It can detect whether your hand is on the wheel, it probably does this using micro movements and sensing the reaction force.

Ah, thanks, I suspected it might be something like that (similar to the brake pedal immediately disengaging cruise control). Yes, I suppose it's really easy to implement with the modern motorized steering systems (as opposed to the older pump driven ones). I guess setting the optimum manual steering input threshold it is going to be the key to getting it to feel right.

This is why the autopilot function shouldn't be used on non divided highways until the software is improved.

Hmm, yes I fully understand that one. Maybe still asking a lot of the intelligence of the 'average' driver (taking a cross section of the driving population). Maybe drivers buying cars with such systems are a bit above the average.   Let's not go there!