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Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

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Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#281

Post by nradov »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #41
moxious wrote: post #12

It speaks to the trends of the day that an article which says something patently obvious to people in the tech field is considered news. This reality seems like it may pose a problem though, as some people's business models and valuations depend on this article being wrong. The thing is, we don't need full level 5 to get useful stuff out of this line of tech development. But in terms of the futurist vision of driverl…

Exactly. I park in a very small space in a busy city. While backing out I must monitor the street, pedestrians, and the cars parked to the front, back, and side of me. Just this week, I missed one of those variables and cost myself $500 in damage. This is something a backup camera and automated system can and already does easily help with, and is a major efficacy leap. Small steps like this can really add up. What I…

Audi is trying to integrate red light timers into their cars. Of course this requires cities to integrate their traffic light control systems so it won't happen soon.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/240264-hands-audis-excit...

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#282

Post by dsfyu404ed »

PeterisP wrote: post #232
rayiner wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im skeptical you can do real autonomous driving without context. In DC, we have roads that flow one direction part of the day and another direction the other part. We've got roads that will be shut down unpredictably when there is a diplomatic event. We've got constant construction, where a two lane road might be reduced to one lane with a human holding a sign or using hand signals to usher cars through on their turn…

For a self driving car, it's sufficient if its understanding of weird situations is limited to detecting "yep, I'm in a weird situation, I'm going to stop now and wait for a remote human to take control". The situations you describe are rare - I've once had a diplomatic event that required weird rerouting and twice had cases where traffic was regulated by hand signals due to some crash on the road, but that means jus…

>"yep, I'm in a weird situation, I'm going to stop now and wait for a remote human to take control".

Not that's not sufficient.

If ten people did that in a critical area during a high demand hour it would be a news story and there would be criminal charges depending on the details.

If you redefine "sufficient" to include stopping your car on the George Washington bridge because it's confused by a construction zone it still doesn't solve the backup you cause.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#283

Post by bluGill »

mikeash wrote: post #151
frahs wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing worth mentioning (even though I agree with the gist of your point) is that machines make the same mistakes consistently. This is pretty rare for a human. Imagine 10% of the cars on the road are autonomous and they all make this same mistake.

There are a lot of road design features that come from the fact that humans do make certain mistakes consistently. For example, the US's love affair with four-way stops comes from drivers' inability to safely navigate uncontrolled intersections, even when there's no particular reason they couldn't. Stoplights usually have a delay between the red light for one direction and the green light for the next direction becau…

I wonder if in the future the law will say self driving cars can ignore all those signs when the car chooses to. Obviously there will be a lot of legalese about it, but most signs can be safely ignored already if you understand all the hazards - this is why people tend to just slow down at stop signs not come to a complete stop.

This is better for the environment, there is a lot of energy lost in a full stop for a stop sign that could be saved: less air pollution/CO2 to deal with.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#284

Post by flunhat »

ilaksh wrote: post #265
flunhat wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo's self driving tech is definitely not anywhere near level 5 capability (if that were true, they'd rule the world right now and we'd all be using their tech). From Waymo's Wikipedia article: >As of 28 August 2014, according to Computer World Google's self-driving cars were in fact unable to use about 99% of US roads.[57] As of the same date, the latest prototype had not been tested in heavy rain or snow due to s…

You know 2014 was three years ago right?

The point is that they're not at level 5 capability yet, and won't be for another 3 years at least (by their deadline, 2020).

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#285

Post by rsync »

throwawayjava wrote: post #150
nradov wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military UAVs have a high crash rate. There's no autopilot which could have successfully landed an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River.

And no autopilot would intentionally ram a plane into the side of a mountain. These edge-cases are uninteresting IMO.

"These edge-cases are uninteresting IMO."

On the contrary, these edge cases are by far the most interesting thing. Not just tabloid-interesting, but in terms of generating usable data.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#286

Post by gordon_freeman »

rsync wrote: post #280
gordon_freeman wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't understand Toyota's product strategy here. They are like Apple in car manufacturing (not comparing in design but in reliability and sheer quantity of products). So I'd assume they'd understood the demand for the electric cars for some time now and would have come up with electric cars which have great reliability and are cheap. But all they have done is introduced Mirai which only sells 100 a month and a…

I think an even bigger conundrum is Nissan ... They produced and delivered a popular, well received electric car and have been selling them since 2010 . I assumed we would, after a few years, see electric Jukes and 350z and an Infiniti model. Maybe a electric GT-R as a "halo" model. Something ? Anything ? Instead, seven years went by and they have managed to (almost) release a second-generation Leaf.

Indeed, very disappointing. Even bigger threat for these Japanese automakers is becoming irrelevant once the car companies which don't have ride-sharing platform of their own start becoming just a commodity and wafer-thin-margin businesses. They need to pivot hard in future or else the Teslas and Waymos will overthrow them in a decade or so.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#287

Post by rsync »

simonh wrote: post #3

I'd not come across the different levels of autonomous driving before. 0 No Driving Automation 1 Driver Assistance 2 Partial Driving Automation 3 Conditional Driving Automation 4 High Driving Automation 5 Full Driving Automation From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Levels_of_dri...

"I'd not come across the different levels of autonomous driving before."

Levels 2-4 are the death zone (or "deadly valley"). These are the levels at which people will die unnecessarily.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#288

Post by Robotbeat »

bergie3000 wrote: post #260
Animats wrote: post #173

Toyota got into autonomous driving late. Then they hired Gil Pratt from MIT. Pratt used to run the MIT Leg Lab, which Raibert ran before Boston Dynamics, but Pratt didn't do much there. It's clear that autonomous driving can be made to work, because Google/Waymo is doing it. It's hard and expensive and it takes a lot of sensors. It also takes extensive testing. Waymo drives 25,000 autonomous miles a week. Volvo has l…

> They don't make battery electric cars. They've been selling partial-electric cars since at least 2014. The Prius Prime allows for electric-only driving up to about 30 miles per charge. That's enough for my commute. I got 3500 miles on my first tank of gas.

Really since 1997 at low speeds.

Toyota has put a small battery and electric motor in their cars for 20 years now capable of propelling the vehicle at low speeds.

But if you're trying to build an actual electric vehicle, you don't want a small battery as that puts you on the worst part of the discharge rate and battery life curve. A larger battery in the same vehicle reduces the "C" rate and is much kinder on the battery plus gives you much more power to work with and ability to handle a much higher charge rate.

Big battery wins, long-term. Small battery is a false economy except on hybrids.

I think the lack of appreciation of this (and lack of availability of inexpensive batteries) has hampered a lot of carmakers. Address that (super cheap batteries so you can put a 500 mile battery in if you want), and virtually every "problem" with electric cars goes away or is dramatically reduced.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#289

Post by blahblab »

patrickaljord wrote: post #256
nihonde wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the companies you mentioned, only Toyota is a top ten automaker, and is indeed number one by many measures. I guess you think experience and a track record of phenomenal success is a disadvantage. I could agree with you in some contexts, but not this one. The autonomous car hype is the emperor’s new clothes, and Toyota is not your average industrial behemoth. Those guys literally wrote the playbook on nimble m…

> Of all the companies you mentioned, only Toyota is a top ten automaker, and is indeed number one by many measures. Sounds a lot like what people were saying about Nokia in 2007. It had near monopoly and was really good at executing pre-iphone smartphones, however they were never as invested in software as Apple or Google were and we all know how this ended.

Hell you can do an apples to apples comparison. Honda said the same thing about both autonomous driving and EV. They are waaaaaaay behind the curve and are hoping that FUD can keep people from buying their competitor's offerings.

Re: Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is “not even close”

#290

Post by vertex-four »

pg314 wrote: post #261
DoubleCribble wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, isn't it? Humans rely on auditory information to enhance situational awareness so you'd think that would factor into the design of a machine that needs as much situational awareness as possible. For example, emergency response vehicles announce their arrival and direction often long before any visual contact is made. How will deaf autonomous cars recognize incoming emergency responders if the view is obstruc…

Are deaf people allowed to drive? How do you think they handle these situations?

According to a quick google, noticing that other cars are pulling in/slowing down usually works if they can't see the emergency vehicle. Still, it's not "perfect", but then Hearing drivers are far from perfect either, and there's plenty of failsafes before an accident happens.
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