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Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

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Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#81

Post by [deleted] »

cma wrote: post #79
toomuchtodo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.3 million people a year die in car crashes. Humans are woefully unqualified to pilot heavy machinery on a daily basis. Tesla’s Autopilot reduces crashes by 40% according to the NHTSA, so I can’t agree with your binary argument. Whether you trust others is immaterial; statistics will be the final arbitor. If Autopilot still causes fatal accidents, but fewer fatal accidents than humans alone, how could you argue agai…

Wasn't that with the old, better, auto pilot?

[deleted]

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#82

Post by danso »

Currently, the Tesla autopilot page has this as its top headline:

> Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars

Followed by this:

> All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.

http://web.archive.org/web/20180323054727/https://www.tesla....

Getting past the arguments of whether Tesla should be calling this "Autopilot", is its claims about hardware true? Is the failure to detect stationary objects like a firetruck or a gore point solely as a result of currently-inadequate software? Because it doesn't sound like the sensor suite is anywhere near the AVs of Waymo or Uber.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#83

Post by mirimir »

mdorazio wrote: post #74
mirimir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it also apparently can't detect stationary semi trailers or fire trucks. So expecting it to detect a little gore point is iffy. But why can't it?

It's mostly due to limited sensors and immature algorithms. If you think about a sharp left turn with a wall on the right side of the road, there is a "stationary object" (the wall) in front of the vehicle throughout the turn that will be detected by radar and cameras. In order to navigate a situation like this, an autonomous vehicle has to have additional decision-making in place to effectively override "stationary…

I can see how cameras are basically useless. And also radar, because it just reports relative velocities. And without angular resolution, how could the system distinguish stationary objects on the sides from those straight ahead? Maybe there could be multiple highly directional radar "guns", operating at different frequencies.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#84

Post by omarforgotpwd »

danmaz74 wrote: post #34
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to learn how to use it properly and pay attention. I use it a lot and it can drive from San Francisco to LA pretty much without stopping. But every once in a while it does mess up and you just need to make sure you're watching and ready to take over quickly. I agree that it's good enough that people might stop paying attention, but they just need to realize that they have to hold the software's hand in these…

It you have to pay attention as much as if you were driving, then, what's the point of autopilot?

Trust me, it's still a huge relief. A day and night difference. Try it on a long drive, like LA to San Francisco and you'll see what I mean. It kind of feels like you're in the passenger seat rather than the drivers seat, but you can still grab the controls if you need to.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#85

Post by Dylan16807 »

mdorazio wrote: post #74
mirimir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it also apparently can't detect stationary semi trailers or fire trucks. So expecting it to detect a little gore point is iffy. But why can't it?

It's mostly due to limited sensors and immature algorithms. If you think about a sharp left turn with a wall on the right side of the road, there is a "stationary object" (the wall) in front of the vehicle throughout the turn that will be detected by radar and cameras. In order to navigate a situation like this, an autonomous vehicle has to have additional decision-making in place to effectively override "stationary…

> But once you do that, it gets tricky to determine when you should ignore the "stationary object" and when you shouldn't.

That's not tricky. You never ignore it. A stationary object means that you will have to either stop or turn. You don't know which one yet, but you definitely know you'll have to take an action. If you haven't decided by some close point, you just pick one.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#86

Post by JKCalhoun »

carlivar wrote: post #44
doe88 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I don't know I feel ambivalent about autopilot right now, as most on HN I always crave for new technologies, but the fact that something very dangerous can be very good most of the time and very bad occasionally make me weary of using it altogether. I know that's irrational because most often then not it probably saves you from your own mistakes. Also, if Tesla intends to shield itself behind a beta status for…

It's not irrational at all. I drive our family 2018 Honda Odyssey, and it's already "saving me from my own mistakes" by beeping angrily when I signal for a lane change and there's someone in my blind spot. Works really well. It also has a notification light on each side of the car to indicate blind spot object presence, so I have to miss that first. The question seems to be which is better: 1) A car very intelligentl…

For me, you nailed it. Just more 1 above please.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#87

Post by danso »

nodesocket wrote: post #67

Just my opinion, but I don't think the local bay area ABC I-TEAM news can be trusted as a realiabe primary source. Seems like they are "cashing in" on a national story.

Has anything in their past exclusives on this story been disputed?

Victim who died in Tesla crash had complained about Autopilot: http://abc7news.com/automotive/i-team-exclusive-victim-who-d...

I-Team investigates why CalTrans didn't fix safety barrier before Tesla driver died there: http://abc7news.com/automotive/exclusive-i-team-investigates...

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#88

Post by jv22222 »

I am a huge fan of Tesla.

What I am noticing right now is that if I were able to afford a Tesla today, there is no way I would use Autopilot.

I will still buy a Tesla if I can ever afford it, I'll just leave autopilot well alone.

I don't know what gets me back from this mental place that seems to be firmly set in my mind now.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#89

Post by Shank »

danso wrote: post #82

Currently, the Tesla autopilot page has this as its top headline: > Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars Followed by this: > All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. http://web.archive.org/web/20180323054727/https://www.tesla.... Getting past the arguments of whether T…

> Getting past the arguments of whether Tesla should be calling this "Autopilot", is its claims about hardware true?

Tesla actually hasn't called that Autopilot -- they refer to it as "full self driving" and not in the same category. But...is it true? It's vaporware right now, so we can't really say.

Obviously, in a purely hypothetical landscape, even with cameras you should be able to emulate what humans can do and have 100% attentiveness. That is to say, humans don't have lidar and radar, yet humans do drive. So, if you can achieve human levels of perfection and have 100% attentiveness, it should be possible to beat out crash statistics based on the fact that many are caused by failure to respond on the human side accurately or fast enough.

This is all hypothetical, though. All of it comes down to computer vision/software, which is really hard to do. It's possible, but not yet done.

Re: Tesla crash in September showed similarities to fatal Mountain View accident

#90

Post by yashap »

z6 wrote: post #7
bobsil1 wrote: post #3

Gore point stripe faded: https://imgur.com/a/xHq57 Street View: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6346515,-122.104109,3a,75y,8...

No real excuse for Tesla, but seriously why are our roads so bad. This is one of the wealthiest areas in the world and a busy stretch of road.

It’s kind of by design. America, compared to a lot of other western nations, has structured society to funnel more wealth into corporations, individuals and the military, and less into most other government functions. There are plenty of advantages to this strategy, but well maintained roads aren’t one of them.

Wealthy individuals/corporations but poor roads (and other government infrastructure/services) isn’t unexpected, it’s more or less the goal.

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