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Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

arstechnica.com

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Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#121

Post by eclipxe »

close04 wrote: post #90
zaroth wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife’s car has a similar long list of “features” (Mercedes DISTRONIC package with active lane keeping) and it is nothing even remotely comparable to driving my TM3 with autopilot. Those cars do not steer themselves. The difference between having to steer the car and not having to steer the car is extreme. It totally changes the way you drive. Instead of looking down your lane and keeping the car centered, you scan…

> The difference between having to steer the car and not having to steer the car is extreme Assuming you keep your hands on the wheel as required what exactly is the difference? I only found it to be a distraction as it takes me considerably longer to reengage (in less than expected situations) as the human driver after a period where I just let go a little.

There is a massive difference in the driving experience. How long did you try it for?

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#122

Post by bunderbunder »

Animats wrote: post #49

Waymo keeps plugging away. Each year, for the last few years, the number of miles between disconnects they report to the CA DMV has doubled. Three more doublings, and that number will be bigger than average miles between accidents for human drivers. Then they can ship a product. Nobody else is even close. This problem is slowly being solved, by normal engineering practices. The "fake it til you make it" players are b…

> Three more doublings, and that number will be bigger than average miles between accidents for human drivers. Then they can ship a product.

They can ship a product that can drive under the conditions they're testing under. Which would be appropriate for autonomous taxi service in certain municipalities, but presumably not for the general market.

Granted, that's been their business plan for a while now.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#123

Post by obastani »

wil421 wrote: post #67
Animats wrote: post #49

Waymo keeps plugging away. Each year, for the last few years, the number of miles between disconnects they report to the CA DMV has doubled. Three more doublings, and that number will be bigger than average miles between accidents for human drivers. Then they can ship a product. Nobody else is even close. This problem is slowly being solved, by normal engineering practices. The "fake it til you make it" players are b…

At least Tesla has an actual product you can buy? Where’s Waymos product? Will they sell to consumers or the incumbent car makers? I agree with your statement about Tesla’s marketing of self driving. My Grand Cherokee isn’t so far off their mark. It has lane assist, adaptive cruise control with stop, parallel and back in parking. I’d bet Jeep could do summon and more stuff on the highway.

So did a lot of rocket companies, until SpaceX came along and revolutionized the market. As far as I see it, Tesla is building a state-of-the-art driver assist product, but the approach they are taking is unlikely to reach full autonomy for a very, very long time. Waymo, while in a much higher risk position, has the chance (however large or small) to completely revolutionize the way we commute.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#124

Post by aeternus »

0815test wrote: post #33
peeters wrote: post #32

I've always found that half the issue is with the name: Autopilot. On an airplane, autopilot means you can take your focus off of both the physical and mental act of moving the plane through the air, and if it needs you to intercede there is pretty much no emergency in which you wouldn't have a few seconds to react. In a car, Tesla's Autopilot simply doesn't give you that. If you are reading and your autopilot exits,…

> I've always found that half the issue is with the name: Autopilot. ...In a car, Tesla's system simply doesn't give you that [taking your focus off] Yes, exactly. It's a level-2 ADAS - it's about helping you deliver correct inputs to the car, not about autonomous driving in any real sense - regardless of how advanced it might be in a technical sense , or how well-behaving in a best-case scenario! More like the fly-b…

I think the issue is that most people have a misconception about autopilot in a plane due to movies.

Real autopilots don't work like that, they are typically extremely simple and in many cases, mechanical PID loops. 99% of all autopilots have almost zero intelligence nor electronic sensors of any kind. Only the best of the best, like CAT3 autoland systems are anything close to what you see in the movies.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#125

Post by ypzhang2 »

zaroth wrote: post #96

I’ve read so many of these articles obviously written by someone who has no hands-on experience with the Tesla Autopilot and what it actually does for the driving experience. Maybe Tesla will get to a point where my TM3 will drive me to work while I nap, or use my phone. One thing that’s pretty amazing is that if they can get to that point, it will come as a free automatic software update or an available for purchase…

Issue is Autopilot is more of a feature that is geared towards convenience.

You are doing all of the driver attention work, but someone who activates Autopilot isn't required to. I think a lot of the argument against Tesla is that Autopilot isn't doing enough in that arena.

GM's Super Cruise is a lot more feature-full with regards to driver attentiveness. It might not be as useful in terms of being able to be used everywhere, but its definitely more well-rounded in terms of forcing driver attentiveness.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#126

Post by Retric »

pbreit wrote: post #40
martythemaniak wrote: post #30

There's a few things to keep in mind when discussing self-driving tech. 1) Self driving tech doesn't exist today. It simply does not. There's lots of people working on it and they are using different strategies, but it is not clear how long it will take, which strategy is technically superior, which strategy is more economical, etc etc. There's a lot of very strong opinions floating around (LIDAR is essential! No, vi…

I don't have a huge problem with the supposed goalpost movement. I am wondering though if drivers need to keep a fairly close eye on things what the true benefit of self-driving is in near future.

It’s more obvious is you break it into smaller jumps.

Cruse control requires you to pay close attention etc, but you can avoid making a lot of minor speed corrections, which makes long drives less taxing. Adaptive cruse control takes this one step further again reducing cognitive load. Lane following might not seem like much, but represents a huge number of tiny course corrections.

I could go on, but even if you can’t read a newspaper the reduction in stress and muscle fatigue really adds up.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#127

Post by joshuamorton »

leesec wrote: post #116
FireBeyond wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least Tesla has an actual product you can buy? What self driving product do they have? Elon's "Oh yeah, we will have full self driving coast to coast in [8 months]" is horseshit to the point of "How is he allowed to say this on an earnings call?" Other competitors, widely recognized to be ahead of Tesla estimate 5, more likely 10 YEARS. Coast to coast? Your Tesla will navigate a Pittsburgh winter storm on poor r…

How are you going to say Tesla doesn't have a product and then go on to list a bunch of worse products as if they are better? Tesla has effectively incorporated Lane Keep Assist/Automatic Cruise Control into a single product called Autopilot that has vastly better software than other similar products. Simply put, if other companies had a product that would have allowed for billions of miles to be driven hands free fe…

>Tesla has effectively incorporated Lane Keep Assist/Automatic Cruise Control into a single product called Autopilot that has vastly better software than other similar products.

Is it? This[1] implies that, contrary to what you say, most other manufacturers do offer equivalent features in equivalent luxury vehicles. Tesla might have gotten beaten many of them by a year or so, and might sell more Xs than Toyota sells high-trim Lexus's, but neither of those things really say anything about the quality of the driving technology. And from what I've seen, Tesla's isn't particularly spectacular.

[1]: https://www.cars.com/articles/which-cars-have-self-driving-f...

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#128

Post by sliken »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #52
pjkundert wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... working on this stuff day and night ... —- in California . I’ve been driving for 40+ years, millions of km, 1/2 during winter. Now, Elon is a Saskatchewan boy, so he should know better. Perhaps he’s forgotten. Winter driving is at best 1/2 vision dependent, often much less. Many times, you have to actively ignore your vision (everything you see is “moving” sideways). Quite often, you’re modulating your throttle t…

When the first snowstorm hits it never ceases to surprise me how the dynamics of the road change - not just the friction, but the number of lanes and where they go all change as people give their best guess, which over the next 2000 cards becomes codified. If you have self-driving cars following the old lanes you're going to have accidents.

Dunno, I think of the people that follow other cars as sheep. In my subaru I can pick any lane I like, and often the one with the least travel has the best traction. With snow tires and a subaru I can handle just about any conditions up to where the snow lifts up the car off the tires.... which I've had happen. Digging compressed snow out from under a car is no fun.

So often I see a giant line of cars behind the plow, slipping and sliding along, then I pick the deepest snow lane with the most fresh snow and it's just fine.

Generally it's not the lane you pick, but the safe speed for that lane. Sure that might vary per lane, but with today's sensors and electric motors the autonomous driver should be more accurate at quantifying that than a human. After all a computer could easily say apply 50HP to each wheel (one at a time) for 10ms or similar to quantify where the dynamic/static threshold is.

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#129

Post by mtw »

Animats wrote: post #49

Waymo keeps plugging away. Each year, for the last few years, the number of miles between disconnects they report to the CA DMV has doubled. Three more doublings, and that number will be bigger than average miles between accidents for human drivers. Then they can ship a product. Nobody else is even close. This problem is slowly being solved, by normal engineering practices. The "fake it til you make it" players are b…

Waymo is ahead but only as a Taxi service in dense urban cities. Tesla however can deliver one day that will self drive 90% of the time. Many, especially in North America will only want the later. In North America, a car is still seen as a freedom enabler, one that lets you go to the beach, go on a hiking trip, and go on a few offroad track in a park during weekends. All of these will not be possible with a Waymo car but still possible with a Tesla Model S/3/X

Re: Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago

#130

Post by Robotbeat »

lutorm wrote: post #37
kec wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a plane can only get a GPS fix to within a 15m radius that's no big deal, whereas if a car has a 15m fix it's running down pedestrians on the sidewalk. Planes also don't have a habit of flying in tunnels or urban canyons where obtaining a gps fix is even more problematic.

Planes already have a problem with GPS outages or military jamming exercises. Imagine if all cars within a 100 mile radius all of a sudden would stop working.

...that's why you develop systems designed to bring them to a safe stop (in addition, stable IMUs can assist for several seconds, plenty of time to come to a safe stop). That should be standard on all autonomous systems, TBH.

And BTW, there are 4 GNSS systems, each run by a different country/entity. The odds of them all failing at the same time is very small.

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