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U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#471

Post by didntknowya »

Animats wrote: post #302

Right. As I've pointed out previously, Tesla seems to be unable to detect sizable stationary obstacles that are partly blocking a lane, especially if they don't look like the rear end of a car. In addition to emergency vehicles, Teslas on autopilot have plowed into freeway barriers and a street sweeper. That's the usual situation for first responders, who usually try to block as little of the road as possible but oft…

it'd say it's more just a fancy cruise control with obstacle detection than a true "self driving" system

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#472

Post by kube-system »

ajross wrote: post #395
kube-system wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla does not offer a vehicle that does not require human drivers (not even momentarily). Tesla's autopilot and FSD systems are both SAE Level 2, which means the human is still in operation of the vehicle at all times . All of Tesla's driving assistance technologies require a human to monitor operation of the vehicle and intervene if necessary. The fact that they have given anyone an impression otherwise is problema…

> The fact that they have given anyone an impression otherwise is problematic. Good grief. This meme will not die. The car literally tells you to keep your hands on the wheel every time you engage autopilot, yells at you if you don't, will lock you out of the system as punishment if you don't comply, and if you really seem disabled will bring the car to a stop and turn the hazards on. It simply will not operate witho…

Because the effectiveness of those warnings are diminished by mixed messaging and peer pressure from non-owner passengers.

There are plenty of people who have been convinced that those safety features/warnings are “just there for lawyers” and have attached items to the wheel to defeat the safety lockouts in order to show off their “self driving car” to their friends.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#473

Post by kube-system »

ajross wrote: post #401
vkou wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are exactly zero Tesla drivers in the world who don't know these rules. Just stop with the nonsense. Please. Tesla's marketing also knows that there are exactly zero drivers in the world who follow those rules, but that doesn't stop them from overselling the capabilities of what they ship.

Stop it. Please. Again, there are no Tesla drivers who have been misled about the capabilities of the system. The people who have been mislead are folks like you who read arguments on the internet and don't drive these cars. Go try one and see how the system works. It doesn't permit the kind of confusion that everyone constantly assumes. It just doesn't.

There are many instances of people defeating the lockout system. Social media is full of these types of demonstrations. Plenty have the attitude that it is okay to do this. Some have died while showing it off.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#474

Post by ajross »

kube-system wrote: post #473
ajross wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop it. Please. Again, there are no Tesla drivers who have been misled about the capabilities of the system. The people who have been mislead are folks like you who read arguments on the internet and don't drive these cars. Go try one and see how the system works. It doesn't permit the kind of confusion that everyone constantly assumes. It just doesn't.

There are many instances of people defeating the lockout system. Social media is full of these types of demonstrations. Plenty have the attitude that it is okay to do this. Some have died while showing it off.

"Defeating the lockout system" wasn't the discussion at hand. The contention upthread is that Tesla drivers did not know that they needed drive the car.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#475

Post by jazzyjackson »

shrimpx wrote: post #416
quartesixte wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for starters, they’re taking out the radars that other cars rely on to accomplish this.

In other parts of this thread, people are suggesting that these crashes are the radar's fault and deploying their vision-only system will fix the problem.

I don’t see how you can blame a radar for your vision system not being able to classify a fire truck (not to mention the unforgivable act of ignoring objects it can’t classify)

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#476

Post by asdff »

HALtheWise wrote: post #418
asdff wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how its even possible for these cars to be crashing. My car beeps like a missile is locked on when I am coming too close to an object I might hit. Just a simple sensor in the front. If my car can beep and give me enough time to slam on the brakes, why can't Tesla's do the same?

You're probably referring to parking sensors, which are typically ultrasonic sensors mounted to the bumpers. Unfortunately, ultrasonics have both a limited range of ~20ft for practical uses, and more damningly, a relatively wide field of view with no ability to distinguish where in the field of view an object is. While 20ft range is more than enough to give you time to slam on the brakes in your garage, it's basicall…

It's not a parking sensor and there isn't anything on the bumper as far as i can tell. It's toyotas precollision system that uses a simple radar and a cheap camera. It even brakes for you if you don't.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#477

Post by kube-system »

ajross wrote: post #474
kube-system wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many instances of people defeating the lockout system. Social media is full of these types of demonstrations. Plenty have the attitude that it is okay to do this. Some have died while showing it off.

"Defeating the lockout system" wasn't the discussion at hand. The contention upthread is that Tesla drivers did not know that they needed drive the car.

The widespread defeat demonstrations are evidence of the pop-culture misunderstanding of the situation and owners’ willingness to:

1. concede to peer pressure and/or

2. doubt of the validity or seriousness of those warnings/lockouts

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#478

Post by Animats »

oaw-bct-ar-bamf wrote: post #389
icelandicmoss wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like part of the problem with the kind of autopilot crashes you describe here is how inexplicable they are to humans. Whilst humans can be dangerous drivers, the incidents they cause generally have a narrative sequence of events that are comprehensible to us -- for instance, driver was distracted, or visibility was poor. But when a supposedly 'all-seeing always watching' autopilot drives straight into a large…

In my opinion the underlying assumption autopilots are built with are wrong. It is assumed that the road is free to drive on. Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around. I would feel safer if the algorithm would assume the negative case as default and only give the „green light“ once it determined that the road is…

In my opinion the underlying assumption autopilots are built with are wrong. It is assumed that the road is free to drive on. Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around. I would feel safer if the algorithm would assume the negative case as default and only give the „green light“ once it determined that the road is free to drive on.

I agree, but it will up the false alarm rate in a system without good depth perception for all objects. This is tough with cameras only. Reflective puddles are a problem; they're hard to range with vision only. Anything that doesn't range well, which is most very uniform surfaces, becomes a reason to slow down. As you get closer, the sensor data gets better and you can usually decide it's safe to proceed.

Off-road autonomous vehicles have to work that way, but on-road ones can be more optimistic.

Waymo takes a hard line on this, and their vehicles drive rather conservatively as a result. They do have false-alarm problems and slowdowns around trouble spots.

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#479

Post by Varriount »

sangnoir wrote: post #454
oaw-bct-ar-bamf wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the underlying assumption autopilots are built with are wrong. It is assumed that the road is free to drive on. Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around. I would feel safer if the algorithm would assume the negative case as default and only give the „green light“ once it determined that the road is…

> Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around. The problem with Tesla's "No LIDAR ever, cameras are good enough" approach is that it fails to detect emergency vehicles: they filter out stationary items out of radar signal as noise[1],and Tesla's ML models probably can't reliably identify oblique vehicles and semi t…

What is the reasoning behind "no lidar"? Cost?

Re: U.S. opens probe into Tesla’s Autopilot over emergency vehicle crashes

#480

Post by MaxikCZ »

Varriount wrote: post #479
sangnoir wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only when the vehicle computer detects a known object on the road that it knows should not be there it is applying brakes or trying to steer around. The problem with Tesla's "No LIDAR ever, cameras are good enough" approach is that it fails to detect emergency vehicles: they filter out stationary items out of radar signal as noise[1],and Tesla's ML models probably can't reliably identify oblique vehicles and semi t…

What is the reasoning behind "no lidar"? Cost?

The stated reason is "your eyes dont shoot lasers, so a camera is good enough". But the implied reason is cost for sure. With how fast the price of lidar drops, and its abilities increase (think solid state lidar), I wonder how long until first tesla with lidar rolls down the production line, or if Elon is too proud to ever allow that
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