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Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

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Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#211
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have to weigh the energy of the impact against the pitch introduced by braking. You need the bumper to take the hit, so that it and the crumple zones can do their job. Eh? The vast majority of real frontal impacts will be under heavy braking. If a few degrees of dive under brakes is enough to compromise the crumple zones' effectiveness then your car is bad (and I don't believe any Teslas are bad in this way.)

I mean, this advice is pretty firmly held for hitting things like animals. Albeit for other reasons -- it helps prevent them from going over the hood and towards the windshield. Generally the pitch won't matter that much in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Only when the pitch would angle the front bumper completely under the other vehicle, which I admit isn't much of a concern. And not really a concern at all in vehicl…

Accelerating into an animal to increase car's pitch is something I had heard growing up in deer country, but it seems to be a myth: http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-da...

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#212
post #122

Here is my armchair diagnosis: right before the car veers towards the barrier it drives through a stretch of road where the only visible lane marker is on the left. Then the right lane marker comes into view at about the point where the lane starts to widen out for the lane split. The lines that will become the right and left lane markers of the split left and right lanes respectively are right next to the van in fro…

That's probably right or very close to what is happening, but what I cannot understand: what about damn black-and-yellow barrier board right in front of the car closing in at the speed of 60mph? Some sensor should have picked up on that.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#213
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why people use this thing. The cars are nice, and justify their purchase on their own, without this autopilot feature. But I don't think you can do good autopilot without lidar. People shouldn't use it.

I really don't think the cars are that nice... this is a side from the main issue here but the build quality is poor and the design is bland - both internally and externally (That massive big iPad like screen - yuck!).

The big Youtuber that rebuilds salvage Teslas made the point that almost every Tesla owning Youtuber has a video showing their car getting hauled away on a tow-truck. One of the possible reasons that Tesla service dept. doesn't provide maintenance history on salvage cars is because the amount of service would reflect poorly. It doesn't seem uncommon for a model S with 80,000 miles to have several door handle replacements, at least one whole drive unit replacement, battery contactor replacement, an infotainment system replacement, in addition to all the recall/redesigned components that are replaced before failure. I still think Tesla's are quite nice, but a bullet-proof Honda they are not.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#214
Tesla says that the driver needs to be constantly watching the road in autopilot mode. But what kind of autopilot is that? If I have to constantly pay attention, I might as well just drive. I think it's safer, too, since I am bad at paying attention for something that rarely happens.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#215
post #67

> Previous autopilot versions didn't do this. 10.4 and 12 do this 90% of the time. I didn't post it until I got .12 and it did it a few times in case it was a bug in 10.4. This is why the idea of self-updating cars terrifies me. I'd never allow autopatching on a production server - Why would I allow it on hardware I'm betting my life on?

"Move fast and break things". Taken literally.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've actually moved quite a bit away from "100%" direct control. Anti-lock brakes were the first such system. Before, you had to pump the brakes in an emergency, a practice that was difficult to execute even without the shock of an impeding accident. That system alone certainly saves thousands of lives every year.

The average driver will probably never actually experience abs. It's a good failsafe that is rarely employed...if it is, you definitely realize it

Unless you live in the US in the Midwest or New England area, then the likelihood of you never having experienced ABS kicking in is likely to be 0%. Braking on ice is not the most fun experience.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#217
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else would people be using it for? It's a "drive my car for me while I send this text" mode that allows you to take your attention off the road every few seconds. Otherwise, the system makes no sense at all.

Once you're engrossed in your phone, you're not taking attention off the road for a 'few seconds'. You're essentially letting autopilot drive for you. Which Tesla explicitly says you're not supposed to do.

Agreed.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#219
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fewer dead people sounds good.

I don't know about that. Let's talk unemotionally about it. People die. Not all of them live until natural death. That's ok. That's how life works. There is plenty of good that comes from this. Is a goal of keeping every person alive until X# (90? 100?) a good one? I'm not sure it is. Simply saying "people dying is bad" isn't a very reasoned thought if you take away the assumption that everyone agrees with this.

Sure, fewer people dying is a bit undifferentiated if you want to go for ethical discourse. I would probably be okay with a few extra dead people if that increased the overall happiness of the remaining people. I'm not sure that having people die in traffic is a good way to achieve that.

Re: Another Tesla on autopilot steers towards a barrier

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a human can navigate current roads, why shouldn't a computer be able to? We may need to develop a new types of sensors for vehicles, but that seems like a better/easier plan than installing beacons on every road, everywhere. And what about beacon maintenance? Seems like most cities have a hard enough time keeping up with pot holes, lines, etc. as is.

If a human can write a novel, why shouldn’t a computer be able to?

They probably need to be able to reproduce before they can write a compelling novel.
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