Introducing Navigate on Autopilot • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#21

Post by shiftpgdn » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #11

I'd be more impressed by this if they had fixed the problem where the car crashes into barriers at lane divergences. Kind of a turn-off to the whole thing until that's fixed, to be honest. Frankly I don't understand how the company hasn't been buried in lawsuits for this. https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/9pkvy0/psa_v9_...

Maybe the state should take responsibility and realize that poorly maintained and marked roads lead to accidents that cause injury, including death.

The Model X that hit the barriers in the Bay Area would not have happened if A. Lane marker painting had been kept under maintenance. They were mostly missing.

B. The crash barrier had been in place, instead it was missing from an earlier crash. The missing arresting system caused the car to strike the Jersey barriers with no safety controls. This is the equivalent of driving into a 6" wide concrete wall at freeway speed.

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#22

Post by dkoston » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #2

Very impressive. However these autopilot features are getting subjectively less impressive as time goes on. I want a bit more 'wow'. Autopilot is not so compelling if you live in Europe with 'analog' roads rather than the mix of well designed, nice and wide 'residential', 'street level' and 'interstate highway' roads that there are in the U.S.A. Reminds me of Space Shuttle launches, at the start of the programme peop…

You’re going to be disappointed for quite some time then. Most of the improvements to autopilot in the near future will be refinement of the cars reactions to sensor data and not new public facing features. They are closing in on the line where regulation does not allow for further “self driving” festures. Having the car change lanes itself is “self driving” and that’s why the driver must initiate the lane change. The same argument can be made about stopping at stop signs and red lights which is the next killer iteration of driver assist. Hopefully there will be enough data collected and good decisions made to allow for iterative improvements to driver assist features which would improve overall traffic safety.

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#23

Post by rohit2412 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

dkoston wrote: post #20

aerovistae wrote: post #11

I'd be more impressed by this if they had fixed the problem where the car crashes into barriers at lane divergences. Kind of a turn-off to the whole thing until that's fixed, to be honest. Frankly I don't understand how the company hasn't been buried in lawsuits for this. https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/9pkvy0/psa_v9_...

That actually is a part of v9 autopilot but Tesla is never going to put that in writing. The fixing of bugs like this without admission of guilt isn’t unique to Tesla. Apple, Google, Samsung, and many others do the same. The reason they haven’t been buried in a lawsuit is because these are driver assistance features, not self driving features. It’s the responsibility of the driver to keep control of their car at all…

> All self driving cars and driver assistance tools will be imperfect. The question is whether or not they are statistically safer than the average human

I disagree. If you're arguiung for driverless cars, the comparison should be with the average driver aided by a driver assistance system.

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#24

Post by dkoston » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #21

aerovistae wrote: post #11

I'd be more impressed by this if they had fixed the problem where the car crashes into barriers at lane divergences. Kind of a turn-off to the whole thing until that's fixed, to be honest. Frankly I don't understand how the company hasn't been buried in lawsuits for this. https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/9pkvy0/psa_v9_...

Maybe the state should take responsibility and realize that poorly maintained and marked roads lead to accidents that cause injury, including death. The Model X that hit the barriers in the Bay Area would not have happened if A. Lane marker painting had been kept under maintenance. They were mostly missing. B. The crash barrier had been in place, instead it was missing from an earlier crash. The missing arresting sys…

This is definitely a major challenge for driver assistance features. Poorly maintained roads are less of a burden to humans who can more easily account for flaws in road design or maintenance.

What is also a major issue is lack of design patterns on roads. Rather than using a standard set of merging lanes, circles, right and left turn lanes, etc, there are hundreds of variations across municipalities. What makes it worse is that even the patterns in a single municipality aren’t often followed. We notice this when driving on 290 from Austin to Houston where the turn lanes are sometimes marked with a white line on the left and other times marked with a yellow line.

It’s going to take a concerted effort by legislature to help driver assistance and self driving cars by adjusting roads to make them safer rather than the free-for-all we have now.

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#25

Post by rohit2412 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #15

ttarabula wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is still a super under appreciated point. The focus is often on full autonomy, but we don't need full autonomy in complex city driving environments to unlock a potential sea change in behavior. Imagine the impact of simply being able to trust your vehicle to do the heavy lifting for an hour to get you from, say, Sacramento to San Francisco, only needing to take control at the highway end points for 30 mi…

Waiving the confirmation still doesn't get you there; you still will have to pay attention the whole time and have hands on the wheel at this point.

And then people argue that Tesla does not do deceptive advertisement and everybody knows the legal and technical limitations of autopilot.

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#26

Post by dkoston » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

rohit2412 wrote: post #23

dkoston wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually is a part of v9 autopilot but Tesla is never going to put that in writing. The fixing of bugs like this without admission of guilt isn’t unique to Tesla. Apple, Google, Samsung, and many others do the same. The reason they haven’t been buried in a lawsuit is because these are driver assistance features, not self driving features. It’s the responsibility of the driver to keep control of their car at all…

> All self driving cars and driver assistance tools will be imperfect. The question is whether or not they are statistically safer than the average human I disagree. If you're arguiung for driverless cars, the comparison should be with the average driver aided by a driver assistance system.

I don’t understand what you disagree with. I’m not arguing for or against driverless cars.

I’m saying that our basis right now is whether or not driver assistance systems are making driving safer or less safe.

Driverless cars are currently only used in specific areas under tight regulation. They are not generally available and this article is about Teslas which are not self-driving, they have driver assistance features.

The original commenter above was making a remark about how the driver assistance features in a Tesla are “unsafe” due to a highway barrier accident.

I was making the counter argument that the driver was acting in an unsafe fashion by using driver assistance features as “self-driving”

I agree that if driver assistance features with a human driving are safer than driverless cars, driverless cars are not ready.

The point I was trying to make is that rather than talking about a single traffic accident, we have to look at the data. This is a law or large numbers thing, not penny press headlines.

I don’t think this a choice between driverless cars or not. We should be looking for the solutions which reduce traffic fatalities and injuries and also those which reduce the amount of hours wasted in traffic. Driver assistance features or self driving is only one angle for that. Improving road design patterns, building roads that actually follow the principles of psychology and fluid dynamics related to driving, properly maintaining roads, and other non technology related solutions are also potential factors for improvement.

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#27

Post by jcranmer » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #21

aerovistae wrote: post #11

I'd be more impressed by this if they had fixed the problem where the car crashes into barriers at lane divergences. Kind of a turn-off to the whole thing until that's fixed, to be honest. Frankly I don't understand how the company hasn't been buried in lawsuits for this. https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/9pkvy0/psa_v9_...

Maybe the state should take responsibility and realize that poorly maintained and marked roads lead to accidents that cause injury, including death. The Model X that hit the barriers in the Bay Area would not have happened if A. Lane marker painting had been kept under maintenance. They were mostly missing. B. The crash barrier had been in place, instead it was missing from an earlier crash. The missing arresting sys…

Sure, there is some amount of fault for the system needing more maintenance. But road conditions are often going to be far from perfect, and that crash is certainly not atypical conditions.

Either California can shut down the entire highway for a week until they replace the crash barrier, or Tesla can build their self-driving cars to be able to recognize only moderately faded white lines.

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#28

Post by moogly » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

wffurr wrote: post #4

Theodores wrote: post #2

Very impressive. However these autopilot features are getting subjectively less impressive as time goes on. I want a bit more 'wow'. Autopilot is not so compelling if you live in Europe with 'analog' roads rather than the mix of well designed, nice and wide 'residential', 'street level' and 'interstate highway' roads that there are in the U.S.A. Reminds me of Space Shuttle launches, at the start of the programme peop…

Interesting that you consider US highways and streets to be well designed, given that they are objectively substantially more lethal to their users than European roads.

There might be additional factors.

a) training and education - it is way more difficult and takes longer to get a driver's licence in Western Europe than in the US

b) mandatory vehicle inspections - I think this varies by state in the US, but even the strictest state legislation is still less strict than Western European countries when it comes to allowing dangerous vehicles on the roads

c) less regulation for truck drivers' work hours - I think in the past decade, sleep deprivation amongst transportation workers and the results thereof has received increasing exposure in the press, which is good, but awareness only goes so far

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#29

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18

amluto wrote: post #8

> Navigate on Autopilot can be customized to a driver’s preferences, including four settings for speed-based lane changes (Disabled, Mild, Average, or Mad Max). Mad Max is definitely a feature I want self-driving cars to have.

I agree, but to give Elon the benefit of the doubt for a moment, labeling it "Mad Max" may actually discourage people from setting their car to it (as people often perceive themselves to not be reckless), whereas labeling that setting something like "Often" may lead to it being selected more frequently. Of course, this can also backfire if people select "Mad Max" because it's the only one with a funny label.

[deleted]

Re: Introducing Navigate on Autopilot

#30

Post by quotemstr » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #8

> Navigate on Autopilot can be customized to a driver’s preferences, including four settings for speed-based lane changes (Disabled, Mild, Average, or Mad Max). Mad Max is definitely a feature I want self-driving cars to have.

It's a joke, just like the volume control going to 11. Fun is okay. Whimsy is okay. I've never understand why so many people disapprove of little bits of joy scattered throughout the world. Little moments of fun make life a more tolerable experience.