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

nytimes.com

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

#51

Post by scott_karana »

ohsnap wrote: post #44
stevecalifornia wrote: post #29

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…

Just curious, do you still keep your eyes on the road with adaptive cruise control? Or do you tend to do other things?

I'm guessing he still keeps his eyes on the road, since poor merging by other drivers could plow into your side, something the active braking won't avoid.

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

#53

Post by thret »

superuser2 wrote: post #22
acadien wrote: post #17

"self-driving car" and "car capable driving itself on highway under optimal conditions" are 2 totally different things. The real excitement comes when I can tell my car to go pick up the kids from school or drop me off at the airport and then drive itself back home. Anyways this is a great step in the right direction but its not the game changing tech we're all waiting for.

The real excitement is when I can put those requests in to a network of public infrastructure and have them executed at roughly the same cost as driving for myself.

And we have our first day, week and month without fatal accidents.

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

#55

Post by hkmurakami »

cjensen wrote: 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…

Toyota definitely has technology to detect whether the driver is asleep and wake up the driver. (I am not sure if this technology has hit the market yet so I can't comment on what the implementation is)

You can then wake up the driver by actuating the seat or sounding an alarm.

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

#56

Post by heyheyhey »

cjensen wrote: 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…

> Does Tesla have some way to determine wakefulness or to safely pull over if the driver fails to respond?

Not sure about Tesla but the technology DOES exist and some cars do currently have it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_drowsiness_detection

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

#57

Post by stdgy »

cjensen wrote: 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 interesting to see what other strategies people come up with.

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

#58

Post by Cookingboy »

Hytosys wrote: post #24
acadien wrote: post #17

"self-driving car" and "car capable driving itself on highway under optimal conditions" are 2 totally different things. The real excitement comes when I can tell my car to go pick up the kids from school or drop me off at the airport and then drive itself back home. Anyways this is a great step in the right direction but its not the game changing tech we're all waiting for.

Judging by the article, "under optimal conditions" is an exaggeration. There was no citation of problems during traffic conditions. My father sits through 2-4 hours of Los Angeles rush hour each day, and this is absolutely a game changer for someone like him. This is stellar.

There are already cars that have this feature, he should look into them.

What Tesla is releasing at this stage brings absolutely nothing new to the table.

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

#59

Post by orblivion »

tfe wrote: post #32

Wow, I didn't realize they had been building in the necessary sensors all along. To just light this up one day for the existing fleet with an OTA update is nothing short of astounding.

Particularly since they didn't price the cars to include this feature.

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

#60

Post by Hytosys »

rimantas wrote: post #30
Hytosys wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the article, "under optimal conditions" is an exaggeration. There was no citation of problems during traffic conditions. My father sits through 2-4 hours of Los Angeles rush hour each day, and this is absolutely a game changer for someone like him. This is stellar.

This is solving the wrong problem. Car self-driving through 2-4 rush hours does not solve the problem. Not having 2-4 rush hours would.

How is my use case a "wrong problem"? I'm providing a legitimate application of this limited technology and you're dismissing it with a distracting, unfounded argument.
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