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Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

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Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#31

Post by marcosdumay »

oneJob wrote: post #4

Tesla has stated publicly they believe that within three years their cars will be capable of full autonomy, and expect it to take another two years to receive regulatory approval. By fully autonomous they state you will be able to walk outside, have the car approach to meet you, it will open and close the door for you, you can fall asleep, and several hours later wake up at your destination. Yes, Tesla is taking an i…

Google is going for a cars as a service business, Tesla is going for a cars as a product business.

That means that Google is happy with cars that only work most of the time, and only goes to some routes, as long as they are fully authonomous and reliable when they work.

Tesla, by its side, is happy with cars that are not fully autonomous, as long as they work every time, and can go to any route.

Of course their products are different, and they'll not become alike if none of them change their business.

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#32

Post by rev_bird »

slyall wrote: post #20
oneJob wrote: post #4

Tesla has stated publicly they believe that within three years their cars will be capable of full autonomy, and expect it to take another two years to receive regulatory approval. By fully autonomous they state you will be able to walk outside, have the car approach to meet you, it will open and close the door for you, you can fall asleep, and several hours later wake up at your destination. Yes, Tesla is taking an i…

"...the Google cars look like something one buys for their four year old niece or nephew. " You have to stop thinking like some guy from Mad Men and more like somebody buying AWS instances. Imagine that instead of buying a single car that you drive everywhere you instead reserve a car for your daily commute, you might get various options, eg: $500/month - Tesla Sports car, 30min journey, unshared occupancy $300/month…

> $125/month - 8 seat van, 40min journey, shared, up to 1 vehicle change

This is interesting -- it's basically a little autonomous bus, for essentially the same price as a regular one, that might pick up/drop off at a more convenient location, minus someone there to supervise. I kind of like having a bus driver.

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#33

Post by c22 »

keehun wrote: post #19

I've always wondered how autonomous cars would handle the first and last quarter mile of the journey. I'm talking specifically like portions of the trip like the driveway, getting out of the parking ramp, or navigating small alleyways where the car could be parked (where GPS could be weak in the city). Things like even knowing which entrance to go to. Will fully autonomous will ever be able to take us from A to B 100…

The car can drop you off at your destination and then go park wherever it's convenient. It can take as long as it wants since you're no longer waiting on it, so it doesn't have to worry about navigating "unparkable" areas. It could go to a networked garage where the cars stack side by side without space even for the doors to open. If your visit is short it could just drive around the block a few times. Alternatively, it could go pick up another passenger.

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#34

Post by ghaff »

kordless wrote: post #3

> A full robocar product is only workable if you would need to correct it in decades or even lifetimes of driving. I had a conversation about this with friends in Germany a few months back. In most societies, a mistake that causes suffering to another individual is usually 'blamed' on the person causing the suffering. In many cases where causality is obvious, this assignment of blame is fairly straightforward. Exampl…

It's an interesting question in that properly maintained and properly driven automobiles do have accidents that are clearly no one's fault--skidding on a patch of ice, deer running into the road, etc. Perhaps a more skilled or more cautious driver could avoid such an accident--or not. I'm hard-pressed to think of many other examples where a product used as intended will nonetheless cause harm to the user or others with some finite probability--but aren't considered the fault of the manufacturer. Pharmaceuticals and other types of medical equipment probably come closest. (Though drug companies certainly face lawsuits for side effects all the time.)

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#35

Post by sandworm101 »

oneJob wrote: post #4

Tesla has stated publicly they believe that within three years their cars will be capable of full autonomy, and expect it to take another two years to receive regulatory approval. By fully autonomous they state you will be able to walk outside, have the car approach to meet you, it will open and close the door for you, you can fall asleep, and several hours later wake up at your destination. Yes, Tesla is taking an i…

> will open and close the door for you, you can fall asleep, and several hours later wake up at your destination.

Not going to happen. Seatbelts and upright seats meant for crashes are not going away even if the robots do all the driving. And I have yet to see any attempt at a robocar capable of understanding and interacting with today's chaotic and haphazard parking rules.

Heaven help us should all passengers be required to sign user agreements and watch in-car safety vids, but that could be a reality. I've got a BMW that already asks me to "agree" a contract for the navigation system every time I start.

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#36

Post by revelation »

Animats wrote: post #28

The Tesla "autopilot" is comparable to what BMW[1] and Mercedes[2] have been shipping for years. Self-driving is much harder. The first-order problems of driving on a empty road were solved by the DARPA Grand Challenge, ten years ago. The second-order problems involve dealing with other road users. That's hard, and that's what Google is working on, with considerable success. So is the CMU/Cadillac consortium, which h…

I agree that Teslas system is nothing special and more of a marketing win. But Google desperately needs to ship something that isn't a cool video or a swell PDF if they want to be relevant in this space.

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#37

Post by [deleted] »

Animats wrote: post #28

The Tesla "autopilot" is comparable to what BMW[1] and Mercedes[2] have been shipping for years. Self-driving is much harder. The first-order problems of driving on a empty road were solved by the DARPA Grand Challenge, ten years ago. The second-order problems involve dealing with other road users. That's hard, and that's what Google is working on, with considerable success. So is the CMU/Cadillac consortium, which h…

[deleted]

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#38

Post by ghaff »

revelation wrote: post #36
Animats wrote: post #28

The Tesla "autopilot" is comparable to what BMW[1] and Mercedes[2] have been shipping for years. Self-driving is much harder. The first-order problems of driving on a empty road were solved by the DARPA Grand Challenge, ten years ago. The second-order problems involve dealing with other road users. That's hard, and that's what Google is working on, with considerable success. So is the CMU/Cadillac consortium, which h…

I agree that Teslas system is nothing special and more of a marketing win. But Google desperately needs to ship something that isn't a cool video or a swell PDF if they want to be relevant in this space.

Based both on what I've read and discussions with people who have some personal familiarity with the space, the issue is that, to date, Google is apparently not interested in anything incremental. (Which is also the reason that they haven't been able to work with the auto makers.) However,that means that Google won't have anything commercial for a long time--like decades--if their criterion remains robo-taxi levels of autonomy.

Re: Why Tesla's Autopilot and Google's car are entirely different animals

#40

Post by duaneb »

urvader wrote: post #39

The point everyone is missing is the reaction time of a driver compared to a computer is so different. A computer have millions of cpu cycles to estimate the best decision during the time a human haven't even understood there will be an accident.

You're comparing # of cpu cycles to time taken to "understand" something. If the CPU can make a wrong decision REALLY REALLY quickly it's still gonna be wrong, whereas the human will have a continuous gradient of moving towards decision making.
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