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Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

nytimes.com

71–80 of 254 posts

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#71
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a new car in Sept 2014. It uses radar to do adaptive cruise control all the way down to stop and go. It also uses camera's to sense the lanes and steer to keep lane. Also handles emergency braking and people cutting me off. So basically, I choose the on-ramp and off-ramp and the car does the rest on the highway. I feel like it's the midpoint between a manual car and an autonomous car. After a few months of u…

I had something similar on an infiniti a few years back. Literature on the 200C seems like it has the same "lane departure" protection. I don't recall that ever steering to follow the turns in freeways though.

It will to a certain extent. It's a powerful tug on the wheel and will follow the curve all the way through. You still need to keep your hands on the wheel or it yells at you.

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#72

Does anyone know what my car insurance rate would do if I got a car that will let me nap or read a book on the way to work? That is one major issue I haven't seen addressed.

I don't think insurance companies know how to price it yet. If it works, insurance costs should go down. If it fails randomly, well....

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#73
post #57
post #43

"Mostly self-driving" just seems crazy to me. As soon as the car is able to drive on a major highway, you're going to have "asleep at the wheel" issues, and the car cannot simply hand back control to the driver. There have been times when I've misjudged my level of tiredness. Drifting out of lane is a good marker that you've screwed up and need to pull over immediately and sleep. Does Tesla have some way to determine…

A co-worker and I were just talking about this. My take on the situation is that this could be partially alleviated if the car were to refuse to get off of the highway until after the driver manually took it out of autopilot. If the driver doesn't respond, skip the exit and stay on the highway sending out alerts until the driver responds. Not exactly optimal, but I feel it may be the safest route. It would be interes…

It could also just pull over on to the shoulder and activate the hazard lights. It'll probably also sound an alarm in the cabin.

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#74
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get your job to let you work from the car on the way into the office for whatever face time you need, and you're on your way to cutting down the total time devoted to your job/commute.

But we are in a community currently in recoil from remote workers. On HN in the past week I have seen at least half a dozen front page articles about how remote doesn't work or how to do work life balance when remote. If people just cannot function without having their molecules in physical proximity to their bosses molecules you still get stuck with the dumb commutes.

You wouldn't be a remote worker if you're still going in for daily face time.

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#75
I'm not positive on this but I believe Tesla either uses technology or licenses patents directly from Mercedes-Benz regarding their whole "self-driving" and "autopilot" marketing here.

Case in point: my current car does a variety of self-driving tasks such as:

- Autonomous braking

- Active lane keeping assist to steer you in the lane if the radar and cameras detect you are swerving

- PRE-SAFE collision prevention plus that will autonomously brake if it detects an imminent impact

- Pedestrian awareness system that will autonomously brake if it detects a pedestrian is entering the range of the long, medium and short range radar

- Distronic Plus that will accelerate and brake according to both the vehicle in front and behind you from 0 mph up to 100mph

- Attention assist that employs various sensor to detect drowsiness and alert the driver audibly and via haptic feedback if it's time to take a break.

- Active blind spot assist that will audibly, visually and via haptic feedback alert the driver that a car has entered your hotspot and prevent you from entering that particular lane

So while the Tesla camp is and should be excited about "self-driving" enhancements, Mercedes-Benz has been doing this for well over 2 years now with some of the technology above even becoming standard features on non-high end Mercedes vehicles such as the S-Class with the appropriate packages.

I don't really see much but hype with respect to Tesla's announcement.

Good link here: http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/benz/safety

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#77

I'm not positive on this but I believe Tesla either uses technology or licenses patents directly from Mercedes-Benz regarding their whole "self-driving" and "autopilot" marketing here. Case in point: my current car does a variety of self-driving tasks such as: - Autonomous braking - Active lane keeping assist to steer you in the lane if the radar and cameras detect you are swerving - PRE-SAFE collision prevention plu…

There's quite a few manufacturers that have this technology other than Mercedes

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#78

It looks like Tesla is just trying to play catch up with some other companies. Volvo already has a car with self driving technology, Chrysler also has a very good near-self-driving system.

As mentioned elsewhere, this will be rolled out as an OTA update, people wont have to replace their cars for this

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#79

I'm not positive on this but I believe Tesla either uses technology or licenses patents directly from Mercedes-Benz regarding their whole "self-driving" and "autopilot" marketing here. Case in point: my current car does a variety of self-driving tasks such as: - Autonomous braking - Active lane keeping assist to steer you in the lane if the radar and cameras detect you are swerving - PRE-SAFE collision prevention plu…

There's quite a few manufacturers that have this technology other than Mercedes

Not all of it, some of it - yes. In particular, the Blind Spot assist systems are prevalent in a few different manufacturers.

The more advanced "self-driving" systems are all Mercedes-Benz technology that is part of their high-end vehicles (and not a standard option). Remember, Mercedes-Benz holds over 80,000 patents on this stuff and more coming all the time. There's no doubt they are pioneers in vehicle safety systems including self-driving cars.

Edit: Mercedes-Benz actually omitted quite a few even more advanced "self-driving" features from their new S-Class since, even though the technology was ready, regulatory requirements and drivers themselves were not ready for pure self-driving vehicles. (Taken from an intervew with Marc Andreessen on the new technologies in the S-Class).

Re: Elon Musk: Tesla cars will have “autopilot mode” by summer

#80

I'm not positive on this but I believe Tesla either uses technology or licenses patents directly from Mercedes-Benz regarding their whole "self-driving" and "autopilot" marketing here. Case in point: my current car does a variety of self-driving tasks such as: - Autonomous braking - Active lane keeping assist to steer you in the lane if the radar and cameras detect you are swerving - PRE-SAFE collision prevention plu…

I believe they all get it from mobileye with some manufacturers getting an exclusive license for some period of time.
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