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NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

arstechnica.com

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Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#311

Post by buvanshak »

abalone wrote: post #79

> During the 18-minute 55-second segment, the vehicle provided two visual alerts and one auditory alert for the driver to place his hands on the steering wheel. These alerts were made more than 15 minutes prior to the crash. Whoah. So there were NO alerts for 15 minutes prior to the crash. Compare this with Tesla's earlier statement: > The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in…

About "hands not detected on the wheel part", it seems that the car only detects steering torsion, and it is possible that the driver actually had hands on the wheel, but just didn't provide any steering input.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#312

Post by uncoder0 »

Fricken wrote: post #308
uncoder0 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. Built an autonomous car in 2007 that wouldn't hit that wall.

Were you using the Velodyne 64s? Cruise, who uses the 32 laser velodynes avoids highway/freeway speeds because their lidar doesn't have the range to reliably detect obstacles at that distance.

SICK LMS 2xx. Weakest link was the java microcontrollers we had to use because we were majority funded by SUN. My favorite part was the old elevator relays we found in a junkyard and used for a bunch of the control system. You could hear the car 'thinking' and know what it was about to do.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#313

Post by crazygringo »

Wow. I will say that, when you look straight-on in Street View, it does look disturbingly like a valid lane to drive in -- same width, same markings at one point [1]:

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4106804,-122.075111,3a,75y,1...

If it were night and a car in front blocking view of the concrete lane divider, it doesn't seem too difficult for a human to change lanes at the last second and collide as well. (And indeed, there was a collision the previous week.)

There's no excuse for not having an emergency collision detection system... but it also reminds me how dangerous driving can be period, and how we need to hold autonomous cars to a higher standard.

[1] Thanks to comments by Animats and raldi for the location from other angles

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#314

Post by jakecopp »

Pfhreak wrote: post #299
txcwpalpha wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is exactly why all of these articles recently about how "great" it is that Tesla sends out frequent OTA updates are ridiculous. Frequent, unpredictable updates with changelogs that just read "Improvements and bug fixes" is fine when we're talking about a social media app, but is entirely unacceptable when we're talking about the software that controls a 2 ton hunk of metal flying at 70mph with humans inside…

This seems testable. IANAAE (I Am Not An Automotive Engineer), but why can't you run both the new and old code side by side and if the actions they take are materially different investigate further? Like, if in one case the new code would want you to move left, and the old code goes straight, one of those behaviors is probably wrong. If the driver corrects, then the new code is probably correct, but if the driver doe…

A/B testing self-driving car software to find bugs? Would probably work great, but that is also terrifying!

But you're right, if you're really going to do a full roll out, may as well test it on a subsegment first - I'd hate for it to be used as a debugging tool though.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#315

Post by akira2501 »

Pfhreak wrote: post #299
txcwpalpha wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is exactly why all of these articles recently about how "great" it is that Tesla sends out frequent OTA updates are ridiculous. Frequent, unpredictable updates with changelogs that just read "Improvements and bug fixes" is fine when we're talking about a social media app, but is entirely unacceptable when we're talking about the software that controls a 2 ton hunk of metal flying at 70mph with humans inside…

This seems testable. IANAAE (I Am Not An Automotive Engineer), but why can't you run both the new and old code side by side and if the actions they take are materially different investigate further? Like, if in one case the new code would want you to move left, and the old code goes straight, one of those behaviors is probably wrong. If the driver corrects, then the new code is probably correct, but if the driver doe…

> but why can't you run both the new and old code side by side and if the actions they take are materially different investigate further?

Because there are no closed facilities that you can use to actually perform any meaningful test. You could test "in-situ", but you would need an absolutely _huge_ testing area in order to accurately test and check all the different roadway configurations the vehicle is likely to encounter. You'll probably want more than one pass, some with pedestrians, some without, some in high light and some in low, etc..

It's worth noting that American's drive more than 260 billion miles each _month_. It's just an enormous problem.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#316

Post by mcguire »

drag0nballz wrote: post #141
TheLoneAdmin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder about the future of self-driving cars. I would think that the first thing that should be programmed in is to not run into objects that are not moving. IMO, maybe the roads need to be certified for self-driving. Dangerous areas would be properly painted to prevent recognition errors. Every self-driving system would need to query some database to see if a road is certified. If not, the self-driving syst…

This is a Tesla issue. Waymo uses Lidar and most likely won't run into walls.

I don't know that the issue is LIDAR, but rather distinguishing a stationary object in front from stationary objects to the side.

Does Uber use LIDAR?

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#317

Post by gscott »

wpdev_63 wrote: post #309
gscott wrote: post #302

Wait until the Government can just remotely drive your car into a barrier, it will be great!

Why would the government ever do that?/s Did you hear what happened to the whistle blower that leaked vault 7? Apparently he had a bunch of child porn on his computer[0]. Crazy huh? [0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/05/ex-cia-employee-...

There was probably an extra thumb drive of child porn for Snowden but he escaped capture.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#318

Post by mcguire »

metalliqaz wrote: post #139
Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

But why would it speed up beyond the speed limit?

If it's like other smart cruise controls, it sped up to the set speed after following a slower car.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#319

Post by dannyw »

sologoub wrote: post #296
Animats wrote: post #42

NTSB: • At 8 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was following a lead vehicle and was traveling about 65 mph. • At 7 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla began a left steering movement while following a lead vehicle. • At 4 seconds prior to the crash, the Tesla was no longer following a lead vehicle. • At 3 seconds prior to the crash and up to the time of impact with the crash attenuator, the Tesla’s speed increas…

> Cars are special to the vision system. Wonder if the barriers can be modified to look like another car to these systems, but still remain highly visible and unambiguous to human drivers? Part of the overall problem is that these roads were not designed for autonomous driving. This is much like the old paver roads were fine for horses, but really bumpy/distractive to car wheels and suspensions. Overtime, we adapted…

Machine vision is perfectly capable of detecting these barriers, as well as LIDAR.

The fault here isn’t with road design. The fault here is with Tesla shipping Autopilot without any support for stationary objects, AND their delusional and (should be criminally reckless) decision to not use LIDARs.

A car without ABS or power braking is not legal to be sold today. We need to apply those standards here: anything more than cruise control (where the driver understands they need to pay attention) needs to have certain safety requirements.

Re: NTSB: Autopilot steered Tesla car toward traffic barrier before deadly crash

#320

Post by buvanshak »

falcon620 wrote: post #99
beenBoutIT wrote: post #38

Anyone here actually think Elon uses autopilot?

I think he's a psycho (could be a good thing, wait) who cares about two things: a) Tesla making enough money to make Space X work b) Being able to establish a colony on Mars, using Space X I think he's super honest about the Mars stuff. I also think he's being super deceptive about the Tesla stuff. Is that ethical or not? I don't know. From his larger point of view (risk of earth annihilation vs a bunch of rich ameri…

>I think he's super honest about the Mars stuff. I also think he's being super deceptive about the Tesla stuff.

If he is super deceptive about X, then there is really no reason to believe, or incredible naive to believe that he is super honest about Y for all Y

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