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Geofencing Will Enable L5

semiengineering.com

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Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#11

Post by kube-system »

martythemaniak wrote: post #5

I think the L4/L5 debate can be greatly helped by people realizing that the majority of human drivers on the road are not L5-capable. A sizeable chunk are L3s and not many are L5s. The way it works is that people simply don't go out in conditions they don't feel comfortable in (snowsquals, etc) and will never attempt areas they think are beyond them (comfortably driving in suburbia, but never attempting to drive in N…

> people simply don't go out in conditions they don't feel comfortable in (snowsquals, etc) and will never attempt areas they think are beyond them

Regarding snow squalls, I don’t think it is a reasonable interpretation of L5 to say that the vehicle must be “smart enough” to do things it physically is incapable of doing. I think the difference between 4 and 5 is that 4 may refuse to operate in scenarios that the vehicle could otherwise safely operate.

Part of human refusal to drive is also a significant advantage to human judgement: if the road is a sheet of ice and the car is sporting all-season tires, even an L5 should refuse to operate.

The bad drivers you talk about are an L4 not an L3. L3s can just stop driving the car at any moment, the human equivalent is like someone suffering a medical emergency while driving.

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#12

Post by vuln »

brk wrote: post #6

IMO, some of the earliest truly L5 applications outside of very specific areas are going to require not only a geofence, but some amount of in-environment learning from a human driver at the wheel. This may involve some kind of conditional unlocks of L5 capabilities, in the same way that some hypercars require the owner to attend a driving school in order for the manufacturer to tell the ECU to operate at full capaci…

>hypercars require the owner to attend a driving school in order for the manufacturer to tell the ECU to operate at full capacity.

Do you have more information on this? I’ve never heard of additional classes to unlock different driving modes. I know some US cars come with a “red key” that will automatically change the car to its most aggressive tune, but doesn’t require any classes 700+HP.

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#13

Post by nradov »

dheera wrote: post #8
nradov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even China seems to have trouble keeping animals, pedestrians, and cyclists off of freeways. In practice the road operator would have to put up fences and build access control points at every on-ramp. Not easy or cheap even with high levels of authoritarian control.

> Even China seems to have trouble keeping animals, pedestrians, and cyclists off of freeways. In China specifically, it depends on how much they care about a particular issue. They have no trouble keeping animals and pedestrians off the high speed rail tracks, or keeping public away from military installations, for example.

Well that has nothing to do with a country's level of authoritarian control. Most liberal democracies also manage to keep unauthorized people out of military bases.

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#14

Post by knorker »

narrator wrote: post #9

One thing that bugs me about L5 is the designers of the spec think it's awesome that L5 takes the steering wheel away. Why? It seems like a downgrade. I'd never buy an L5 car because sometimes I want to drive, and break the speed limit a little.

That takes away the societal benefits of L5, though.

That's one of the main problems with self driving in general. It's a completely different system if 99% are self driving instead of 100%.

L5 is about transport, where everything can be 10-100x more efficient if everone is FSD. But if even 1% decide to take the wheel then it's instant gridlock everywhere.

If you want to drive, and have fun, we'll have racetracks for that.

You saying you want to take the wheel every now and then is like saying sometimes you want to ride your horse on the 8 lane highway. Uh... no. I'm sure it's great (well, in the analogy it is), but you ruin the whole purpose of the highway.

Or "sometimes I just want to drive on the traintracks". Ok... so all trains have to yield to you, inconveniencing maybe tens of thousands of people, after knock-on effects?

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#15

Post by BobbyJo »

knorker wrote: post #14
narrator wrote: post #9

One thing that bugs me about L5 is the designers of the spec think it's awesome that L5 takes the steering wheel away. Why? It seems like a downgrade. I'd never buy an L5 car because sometimes I want to drive, and break the speed limit a little.

That takes away the societal benefits of L5, though. That's one of the main problems with self driving in general. It's a completely different system if 99% are self driving instead of 100%. L5 is about transport, where everything can be 10-100x more efficient if everone is FSD. But if even 1% decide to take the wheel then it's instant gridlock everywhere. If you want to drive, and have fun, we'll have racetracks for…

> L5 is about transport, where everything can be 10-100x more efficient if everyone is FSD. But if even 1% decide to take the wheel then it's instant gridlock everywhere.

If that were true we'd never get to L5. We'd need a hard switch over before L5 was deployable, and L5 needs to be deployable before there would ever be a hard switch over. Deadlock.

The hard truth is, self-driving is going to have to share the road for decades before human drivers are phased out completely, and, that being the case, there is no reason for them not to have steering wheels for the time being.

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#16

Post by xnx »

narrator wrote: post #9

One thing that bugs me about L5 is the designers of the spec think it's awesome that L5 takes the steering wheel away. Why? It seems like a downgrade. I'd never buy an L5 car because sometimes I want to drive, and break the speed limit a little.

Same reason you don't directly control the elevator going up and down.

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#17

Post by AlotOfReading »

martythemaniak wrote: post #5

I think the L4/L5 debate can be greatly helped by people realizing that the majority of human drivers on the road are not L5-capable. A sizeable chunk are L3s and not many are L5s. The way it works is that people simply don't go out in conditions they don't feel comfortable in (snowsquals, etc) and will never attempt areas they think are beyond them (comfortably driving in suburbia, but never attempting to drive in N…

L1-L4 don't inherently have anything to do with safety or anything else. They're simply terms to define different divisions of responsibilities between humans and computers while driving. L5 mostly exists to have a term for "it's a computerized chauffeur without caveats". An L4 system with shitty safety metrics is still L4, simply unsafe. Likewise, a superhumanly safe L4 system still isn't L5.

The whole level system isn't applicable to humans, except that humans are almost universally as capable as hypothetical L5 systems by definition.

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#19

Post by kelseyfrog »

narrator wrote: post #9

One thing that bugs me about L5 is the designers of the spec think it's awesome that L5 takes the steering wheel away. Why? It seems like a downgrade. I'd never buy an L5 car because sometimes I want to drive, and break the speed limit a little.

This is an excellent up-selling opportunity. Just make steering wheel functionality a subscription-based add-on.

Re: Geofencing Will Enable L5

#20

Post by AlotOfReading »

narrator wrote: post #9

One thing that bugs me about L5 is the designers of the spec think it's awesome that L5 takes the steering wheel away. Why? It seems like a downgrade. I'd never buy an L5 car because sometimes I want to drive, and break the speed limit a little.

Nothing in J3016 requires removing the steering wheel for L4 and L5. They're simply called out as optional because the vehicle can drive itself without steering input. Whether steering wheels exist on those kinds of vehicles in the future is entirely up to the decisions manufacturers and regulators make.
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