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Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

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Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#71

Post by cowmix »

dotancohen wrote: post #37
colordrops wrote: post #3

This is probably happening a lot more than the number of reports mentioned in the article indicates. It happens to me every other day in my Model 3. It's also not binary - sometimes it slows down more quickly than other times, or stops too suddenly when a car is stopped in front of you. Seems real easy to get rear-ended. I've only got autopilot, not FSD. It's very conservative. It always considers someone to be in fr…

For what it's worth, I've tried and failed to reproduce this on my Model 3. I've driven next to trucks, motorcycles, under overpasses, under very-low overpasses, near pedestrians, and even passed camels and horses on the side of the road. No phantom braking. That said, when using the lane-assist, I do prefer to keep my foot on the accelerator pedal anyway. To increase range, I try not to get into regen at all unless…

I was driving to Las Vegas with my father (in my Model Y) and I was telling him, "I've never experienced this so-called phantom braking..." A literally 3 seconds later I experienced it and few times later in the next hour or so.

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#72

Post by robonerd »

klyrs wrote: post #49
nrjames wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, only if the lane markings aren't visible. It's pretty good at identifying where the lanes are.

> No, only if the lane markings aren't visible That's... most of Canada, thanks to the snowplows. Good to know.

Besides the plows and grit, this CBC article claims the paint they choose has something to do with it:

> Most of the paint is environmentally friendly but being water-based, it rarely lasts more than a year, especially on the province's busiest roads and highways.

> "The paint used for highway striping eventually wears down as a result of the wear and tear from vehicle traffic as well as the effects of necessary winter maintenance activities," said a spokesperson with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.

> The provincial government only uses oil-based paint in cold weather. The bulk of road work is completed during the summer months, so it seems unlikely many fresh painted lanes this year will survive the winter.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/disappearing-ro...

I'm not sure about the paint composition matter, but at least I can attest to the road lines in Canada being very poor. I've driven most of the Trans-Canadian Highway (all of it west of Quebec) and the line paint was virtually nonexistent for much of even this road.

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#73

Post by TrevorJ »

kube-system wrote: post #8
TrevorJ wrote: post #2

How much better than a human driver does a self-driving system need to be before we as a society will accept fully autonomous vehicles? That seems like the key question which we are spending very little effort trying to understand. Until we have a national conversation about this, I suspect self-driving will be an intractable problem.

A human driver is no longer the null hypothesis they have to beat. Most vehicles in the US are now sold with collision avoidance systems. The alternative to an autonomous vehicle is a vehicle with the combined efforts of humans + automated systems. Also, until there's a SAE level 5 vehicle in existence, we're comparing different sample sets. The situations humans crash most often in are many of the same situations wh…

What I'm 'driving at' (hehe) here is that there's a lot of daylight between what the math says, and what people are likely to accept.

We are, for better or worse, somewhat comfortable with the fact that a human driven semi truck will occasionally wipe out a minivan.

It's not clear to me at all that we as a society are, or will ever be comfortable with a computer-operated semi-truck doing the same.

No amount of "Well, the number say this truck is statistically safer when driven by a computer..." will move the needle on that, IMO.

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#74

Post by justapassenger »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #59

They should give drivers a simple way to notify Tesla exactly when phantom breaking happens. E.g. use the mic and when Tesla users say ‘Tesla phantom’ it would send the flagged data to a central repository to train against. Regardless of your feelings towards Tesla, we need someone to figure out safe self driving before the effort is halted and humanity has to wait a century before a new generation tries again (like…

> They should give drivers a simple way to notify Tesla exactly when phantom breaking happens

Even assuming that Tesla will review all the cases, it’ll be likely useless. They just try to throw ML at whole problem e2e, and that’s what you end up with. Solid performance for 90% of the cases, ok for 5% and absolutely bonkers for last 5%. That’s just how modern ML works, you’ll never get complete solution, and will be always chasing edge cases. That works ok for showing ads, less ok for driving deadly machines.

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#75

Post by mpalczewski »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #6
colordrops wrote: post #3

This is probably happening a lot more than the number of reports mentioned in the article indicates. It happens to me every other day in my Model 3. It's also not binary - sometimes it slows down more quickly than other times, or stops too suddenly when a car is stopped in front of you. Seems real easy to get rear-ended. I've only got autopilot, not FSD. It's very conservative. It always considers someone to be in fr…

>Seems real easy to get rear-ended. Which, in this age of cheap ubiquitous dash-cams, isn't nearly as likely to be the "inconvenient waste of time but zero financial risk" deal it used to be Edit: Since apparently this needs explaining, insurers will consider evidence and happily doll out blame to a party that does something dumb in proportion to their fault (with slight variations per differences in law from state t…

> Which, in this age of cheap ubiquitous dash-cams, isn't nearly as likely to be the "inconvenient waste of time but zero financial risk" deal it used to be

Chance of permanent injury or death is not negligible. e.g. get rear ended by a semi, or just suffer from whiplash that doesn't go away.

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#76

Post by mirekrusin »

colordrops wrote: post #3

This is probably happening a lot more than the number of reports mentioned in the article indicates. It happens to me every other day in my Model 3. It's also not binary - sometimes it slows down more quickly than other times, or stops too suddenly when a car is stopped in front of you. Seems real easy to get rear-ended. I've only got autopilot, not FSD. It's very conservative. It always considers someone to be in fr…

More bugs flying closer to the Summer?

I guess that would fit "bug" definition?

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#78

Post by a-dub »

smt88 wrote: post #34
a-dub wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i recently rented a late model rav4 and described the experience of radar cruise (on an admittedly challenging road) to be "like having a drunk lead-footed teenager at the wheel." lots of overaggressive acceleration and deceleration, with all too frequent state changes. personally i'd rather just have regular cruise and something that will drive the car competently at low speeds in heavy congestion.

I currently drive a 2021 Rav4 Prime and it's not like that at all. The adaptive cruise control is smooth and never makes mistakes. Lane assistance is helpful but not as close to flawless, mostly due to poorly marked lanes.

was it on flat roads or more challenging terrain?

it was apparent that it was a very simple system that did not attempt to do any estimation beyond what was immediately visible to the sensors. so if there was a change in the pitch of the road, it would immediately react as the sensors became occluded and then regained their field of view.

maybe in situations that challenging, it should complain and force manual control.

rav4 primes look like awesome vehicles by the way... if i were going to get a late model green vehicle, it would definitely be on my shortlist.

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#79

Post by olyjohn »

antiframe wrote: post #15
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems real easy to get rear-ended. Which, in this age of cheap ubiquitous dash-cams, isn't nearly as likely to be the "inconvenient waste of time but zero financial risk" deal it used to be Edit: Since apparently this needs explaining, insurers will consider evidence and happily doll out blame to a party that does something dumb in proportion to their fault (with slight variations per differences in law from state t…

I don't understand what you mean. You seem to be implying that if a driver rear-ends you he can use his dash-cam to show you were at fault? Most places I've driven it is the following car's responsibility to maintain a safe distance which includes being able to stop if the car you are following suddenly stops. Yes, brake checking is a thing and could complicate any civil suit, but mechanical (now software) failure wo…

Yeah they should be following further back. There's no excuse to rear-ending somebody. If your car can't stop as fast as a heavy-ass Tesla, you need to be following further back. If you hit someone brake checking you, you were following too close.

You never know when someone might need to do a full, 100% brake slam to avoid something.

Re: Tesla’s ‘phantom braking’ problem is getting worse

#80

Post by TrevorJ »

robonerd wrote: post #10
TrevorJ wrote: post #2

How much better than a human driver does a self-driving system need to be before we as a society will accept fully autonomous vehicles? That seems like the key question which we are spending very little effort trying to understand. Until we have a national conversation about this, I suspect self-driving will be an intractable problem.

Beating the national average never should have been seen as the finish line. The average is dragged down into the gutter by a minority of drivers who choose to engage in very poor behavior, like driving drunk, speeding, making unnecessary trips at night and bad weather, street racing, etc. By simply avoiding these few behaviors, it's easy to put yourself well above the average. (inb4 "everybody thinks they're better…

I don't disagree, but that's not quite the problem space I am curious about.

My thesis is that as a society we've accepted that humans make mistakes and will kill people on the road. I suspect that society will be much less willing to accept that sort of thinking when it's an AI-driven vehicle making the mistakes, no matter how much better at driving it is. I suspect we will always want, or need someone (as opposed to some thing) to blame when the worst happens.

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