Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the self-driving car killed a pedestrian several years ago, the initial sentiment on this site for the first few hours was essentially "those dastardly pedestrians, darting into traffic at the last second, how are you supposed to avoid them?" It took several hours for enough information to percolate through to make people realize that the pedestrian had been slowly and quite visibly crossing the road and the sel…
(Assuming I know which accident you're referring to) The car that killed the pedestrian in Florida wasn't using supervised full self driving, he was using autopilot (which was basically adaptive cruise control at the time).
Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
371–380 of 410 posts
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not convinced. The debris is clearly visible to the humans a long way off and the adjacent lane is wide open. Avoiding road debris is extremely common even in more congested and treacherous driving conditions. Certainly it's possible that someone texting on their phone or something might miss it, but under normal circumstances it could have been easily avoided.
I feel Waymo's LIDAR might have worked here
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#373Guy in the video calls it a "girder", but it is almost certainly a trailer ramp: https://www.proxibid.com/lotinformation/54574457/2006-murray... That was my hunch, but Google Lens was able to ID it. Possible that Waymo vehicles can do this too, but that must take some serious compute and optimization to do at highway speeds.
https://www.proxibid.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage...
It's huge, far bigger than it looks in the video. You would have to be asleep at the wheel to miss it.
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly no, not in the middle of the road, but plenty on the side. The only things I come across in the middle of the roads are paper bags or cardboard for some reason. But also, I doubt you would break your swaybar running over some retreads
Driving I-5 up to Portland I had to dodge a dresser that was standing upright somehow in the middle of the lane. The truck in front of me moved into the other lane revealing that thing just standing there, I had to quickly make an adjustment similar to what this tesla should have done. Teslas also have lower bellys, my jeep would have gone over the debris in the video no problem.
Probably good parable for Waymo vs Tesla here. One is generalized approach for entire world while another is carefully pre-mapped for a small area.
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#375I would try to pass it between the wheels and would crash the same. At least for me there was nothing indicating there is not enough clearance.
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Assuming I know which accident you're referring to) The car that killed the pedestrian in Florida wasn't using supervised full self driving, he was using autopilot (which was basically adaptive cruise control at the time).
No, this was the Uber that ran over the homeless women in Arizona.
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#377Guy in the video calls it a "girder", but it is almost certainly a trailer ramp: https://www.proxibid.com/lotinformation/54574457/2006-murray... That was my hunch, but Google Lens was able to ID it. Possible that Waymo vehicles can do this too, but that must take some serious compute and optimization to do at highway speeds.
A lot of photo's on that page, this is the ramp in question: https://www.proxibid.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimage... It's huge, far bigger than it looks in the video. You would have to be asleep at the wheel to miss it.
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What if there is no debris the other 999 times, and the system works fine? This argument makes no sense. I take it that you're saying that if we provide the Tesla a road which contains nothing to hit, it won't hit anything? Well, sure. Also, not interesting. In a real world drive of almost 3000 miles there will nearly always be things to avoid on the way.
> I take it that you're saying that if we provide the Tesla a road which contains nothing to hit, it won't hit anything? Not quite. I am saying that basing the judgment on a rare anomaly is a bit premature. It's a sample size of 1, but I base this on my own driving record of 30 years and much more than 3000 miles where I never encountered an obstacle like this on a highway. > Also, not interesting I would have liked…
https://abc13.com/post/loose-spool-involved-in-crash-near-be...
This was the 5th time in two months.
Now 2018 might have been a record year, but there have been a number of others since then.
Fortunately for us all, drivers don't have to go through Houston to get from CA to NY, but you're likely to encounter unique regional obstacles the further you go from where everything is pre-memorized.
As we know 18-wheelers are routinely going between Houston and Dallas most of the way autonomously, and a couple weeks ago I was walking down Main and right at one of the traffic lights was one of the Waymos, who are diligently memorizing the downtown area right now.
I'll give Tesla the benefit of the doubt, but they are not yet in the same league as some other companies.
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
FSD isn't just about the lack of lidar, it's the only system that can be employed everywhere, without any prior special mapping, by private owners. So far, there are no other manufacturers of vehicles available in the US who are meaningfully competing in this space.
Its the only system the manufacturer is willing to let it be employed everywhere. I bet Waymo would work better everywhere but they are safety conscious and care about liability.
Except you'd need to map "everywhere" in high-fidelity 3D, save it somewhere in the car, and have it accessible near-realtime. The real reason Waymo can't service "everywhere" is that their approach doesn't scale.
And don't get me wrong - it's clearly a better service where it works (at this point in time), but it'll realistically only ever work in pre-mapped cities. Which of course would remove a ton of drivers and accidents, so still a win.
Re: Tesla influencers tried coast-to-coast self-driving, hit debris before 60 miles
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it decided it was a harmless plastic bag or something.
I've made that mistake before and the "plastic bag" cut my brake lines. Now I try to avoid anything in the road that shouldn't be there.