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Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!
10

thread815-453842

Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Too early ... that was a fatality.

Tesla is still bragging that full self-driving is coming soon (they're suggesting this year, which presumably means 2019).

If they have thoughts of that happening in that timeframe, then their crash-avoidance / prevention ought to be near bulletproof well in advance of that date (so that they have time to validate it). Obviously, it's not.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Person driven vehicles do this most every day and for the same reason - the driver.
Welcome to every single time technology shifted.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"Person driven vehicles do this most every day and for the same reason - the driver."

Not my 'person driven vehicle' - ever. I've never hit anything. I'll put my driving skills and ability to handle any situation that arises against any computer anywhere. I don't believe a computer will ever be able to match a human's ability to handle the surprises that will inevitably pop up in the driving environment. Assuming a computer that advanced could be created, I believe it would pose a bigger danger than a few inattentive humans.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

A.I. is hard, especially outdoors.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

But, from the second link, the Tesla's algorithms are idiotic. The Tesla's algorithms have sufficient information to determine that the car cannot possibly fit under the incorrectly classified "overhead structure," even without a LIDAR. The computer had full information prior to the truck crossing the scene, and therefore, can easily determine that there's negative clearance. This is essentially the same kind of "here and now, ignore the past" processing that Uber's accident in Arizona, and the two Boeing Max accidents share.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

2
People are missing the whole point of an autonomous car. An autopilot in an airplane doesn't make it so I don't have to fly the plane; it makes it so I can focus on other things reducing task saturation, or it helps remove tedious operation allowing one to stay focused (same reason we have cruise control).

An autonomous car shouldn't replace the driver; it should supplement it. Essentially using it as a high-end lane keeping program so you can focus on more things at once. Being able to look over your shoulder during a lane change without worrying if the guy in front of you has just slammed on his brakes? Stuff like that.'

After having driven a SUV with adaptive cruise control this winter I've vowed my next car will have that feature. Fantastic for safety and convenience.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL, HI)

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

From Wired.

"GM Will Launch a Self-Driving Car Without a Steering Wheel in 2019"



2019? Morning or afternoon? Because my 3D-printed, fusion-powered, flying car is coming in the afternoon.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

People are missing the whole point of an autonomous car. An autopilot in an airplane doesn't make it so I don't have to fly the plane; it makes it so I can focus on other things reducing task saturation, or it helps remove tedious operation allowing one to stay focused (same reason we have cruise control).

No, Tesla called it "Autopilot" specifically to convince people that it could do more than it can actually do. Moreover, Tesla's Autopilot can't even do what should have been a basic feature of its object detection and collision avoidance. Nor, could Uber's system. In both cases, prior knowledge of an object moving into a collision intercept is neither implemented nor designed for. In both Tesla accidents, the sensors had to have detected the semi moving across the projected path of the car and basically threw away that vital information. Furthermore, as others have demonstrated, Tesla's software does not even perform rudimentary trafficability calculations that would clearly show that the car can't possibly fit under the "overhead structure" or couldn't possibly follow a path into a median divider, even if the lane markings allow it. These are the newbie errors that people in the industry have recognized for decades and why people spent the effort to implement Kalman filters and history files.

Additionally, Musk has been particularly pigheaded in refusing to even properly contemplating using a LIDAR, which would have definitively shown that the "overhead structure" isn't, and defective lane markings are not to be followed. Musk makes noises about using only what human eyes can sense, yet ignores the fact that the Telsa does use a radar, and almost all new cars use backup cameras and sonar.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote (IRstuff)

No, Tesla called it "Autopilot" specifically to convince people that it could do more than it can actually do.

I should have stated that both drivers and Tesla have missed the point. Or at least their marketing people did. I mean, good job I guess as it probably sells the car better but it definitely is a misnomer. After seeing videos of Tesla cars fail to avoid debris and other obstacles in the road it's definitely clear it can't be an "autopilot".

Going back to my aviation example. An autopilot will do a fantastic job of holding a heading or following a GPS but will happily run me right into a thunderstorm. Similarly, an "autopilot" in a car should require the driver to keep driving and basically just make it easier/safer for the driver to do so. Trying to take the driver out entirely isn't technologically feasible or practical IMO.

I also agree about the radar. I like Musk and he's a smart guy but he's not a perfect engineer/designer. The boring company tunnel seems particularly badly designed/implemented.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL, HI)

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

i think that we should be very careful automating a vehicle. for once, it will be very hard to design it in such a way that it will avoid harm as long as all kinds of unexpected situations can arise either from the driving environment or from other not always fully attentive drivers.

some forms of automation can be quite useful, like a automatic gearbox or automated lighting and windshield wipers. others not so, because it lets the driver direct his attention to other things then driving. even things like navigation can have that effect - i noticed that when driving pure on navigation instructions i sometimes have no idea how i got to where i am because i more or less just followed instructions. still navigation can of course be very useful, but it let's you drive with less attention then you should.

systems may improve over the years, but as long as traffic consists of both automated and human driven vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, road crossing dogs etc it will be very hard to make it perfect under all circumstances.

even trains that are more or less automated require a driver that needs to be constantly attentive and to more or less permanently demonstrate that he is fit and capable to control the vehicle.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

People are missing the whole point of an autonomous car. An autopilot in an airplane doesn't make it so I don't have to fly the plane; it makes it so I can focus on other things reducing task saturation, or it helps remove tedious operation allowing one to stay focused (same reason we have cruise control).

But assistance is not what the car manufacturers are shooting for as the end game. They are trying to achieve full autonomous operation with zero human intervention required.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

They are trying to achieve full autonomous operation with zero human intervention required.

Sure, but given the many incidents, even across unrelated industries, we're not hiring the right engineers with the tribal knowledge necessary to even achieve what was already achieved in the 1990s; we've obviously got a bunch of image processing whizzes that don't get the first thing about tracking objects.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

They're rediscovering that A.I. is hard. What few seem to realize is that A.I. outdoors is even harder.

The issue with being outdoors is the unlimited breadth of randomness and complexity. And such extremes are a common daily occurrence.

I suspect that if an unexpected obstacle such as an escaped-from-zoo rhinoceros were standing in the middle of the road, these idiot vehicles would crash right into it. Because "it wasn't in the database" or other such nonsense.

If it's not an escaped rhinoceros, it's heavy rain, or fog, or a cross-traffic truck, or a barrier that wasn't there yesterday, or construction, or children in yellow raincoats holding red and green umbrellas.

Humans can figure out the exceptions in a couple of seconds, while A.I. would be endlessly perplexed...



Basic navigation is, by comparison, essentially trivial. Accomplishing it safely is what's very hard.

It's easy to make comparisons with human drivers, including bad drivers and drunks, to make a valid point about averages. But the ruinous concentration of liability is something that few seem to be contemplating. Just that might need 10-15 years to sort out.



RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Any comparison to aviation autopilots is especially misleading in that these are not used to operate in the kind of close proximity to stationary objects and other vehicles that road vehicles are and always will be operated.

You don't taxi on autopilot.

Regards,

Mike

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

VE1BLL-
Your picture above is intriguing. It suggests to me that someone would probably one day create some type of visual obstacles, just like the one you show, with intent of conducting some malfeasance, just because they think it's fun. Whether it causes a traffic jam, or maybe multiple deaths, might not matter much to them. It would be a little bit like stealing a stop sign.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

But, I don't think this isn't even at the level of the AI, which is hard; we're talking just basic common sense obstacle avoidance, which was in better shape when I was in the field in 1994. Even dumb-as-a-rock target trackers running on quad C30's could coast a target on break-lock, because there was a teensy, rudimentary, track history calculation that told the tracker a target was moving at the certain speed across the scene and that if it disappeared, the tracker should try to maintain the same trajectory to attempt to re-acquire the target. This is contrasted with the Uber accident where the pedestrian was clearly detected by the sensor, processed and ignored, processed and ignored, processed and uh-oh, there's an object in my path!!! This was definitely stupider than the tracker we had 25 years ago that had no AI. Likewise, it's clear that the Tesla detected the truck and ignored it, detected the truck and ignored it, detected an overhead structure and ignored it.

What I'm getting at is that the front end processing isn't even passing relevant data to an AI to process, it's just throwing stuff away as if moving objects aren't relevant, regardless of whether there's an intercept trajectory or not. I don't care if it classifies it as a rhino or a oddly-shaped bicycle, if it's on a collision course, the AI should be sounding alarms after the 75% confidence level is reached.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Re. Seeing obstacles.

I explicitly advised my son to use the logic of looking for empty space (e.g. an empty road).

Drivers that are using the inverse logic, i.e. 'watching for other cars' are the sort that fail to notice motorcycles, bicycles, and other exceptions.

They're also the sort that'll make bad decisions when intersections are surrounded by tall banks of snow. i.e. "I didn't see the other vehicle." because their lane was surrounded by huge mounds of snow, they didn't see any reason not to, so they incautiously pulled out.

Same thing for pile-ups in fog.

These are the worst at most 10% of drivers. Most aren't this thick.

Based on some of the accidents with various self-driving cars driving into obstacles that caused it confusion (trucks, barriers, people with bicycles), it seems clear that they're using something related to the suboptimal inverse logic that I've described above.

Otherwise they wouldn't drive into non-empty road.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

This one came under the heading,
'In Vancouver they have this'.

Might be a useful approach to effectively block menacing autonomous vehicles from neighbourhoods.



RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Note also that the image is only at the correct perspective at one position on the road; if it were an Uber automated car, it might not even worry about it until it was too late anyway.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Yeah, it's a case of crying "wolf" too many times, eventually, the drivers will catch on and ignore, or they'll go down some other street and think a real child is a fake. People should know better.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

The single point perspective image only looks like a child from a single point above the pavement and then will appear to not be a child immediately after that. Successive images should be able to determine that the image is flat to the ground. Depending on the speed of the vehicle there may not even be a braking event.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

As I said before in an earlier thread on this subject, a self driving car MUST be able to successfully navigate the environment. Not 95% or 98% of the environment, but all of it, or it's a danger to its passengers and everyone else on the road. If the car is doing the driving, you cannot expect the human passenger to be ready to take over if it suddenly becomes necessary, whether it's called "Autopilot" or something else.

I'm all for driver assistance features, but self-driving features, I believe, will cause more dangers than they alleviate. Autonomous emergency braking - awesome! Lane departure warnings - great! Lane keeping assist - I'm leary. I probably won't ever get into a vehicle that is capable of steering itself, even if it's supposedly only to parallel park.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Yes, I believe Tesla is approaching this backwards. The navigation and steering on its own should only be added when the collision prevention logic - and that includes the "defensive driving" aspects that seemingly no one has thought of - is virtually bulletproof.

I have no conceptual objection to forward collision mitigation; I'd love to see systems that force drivers to use their turn signals; I wouldn't object to automated stop sign and red light stopping systems provided that they take into account what's behind the vehicle (don't slam on the brakes if the vehicle behind isn't going to be able to stop), motorcyclists everywhere including myself would love to see automated systems that hold the car stopped if the driver attempts to start moving ahead (or turning left) into the path of an approaching vehicle.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

And they are going to run out of money in 10 months according to Musk unless they economize.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)


RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

As indicated in the article cited by the OP, the Tesla Autopilot is an SAE Level 2 system, which requires the driver to be responsible for object and event detection and response (OEDR), not the car.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Yup. The problem is that the interface with the driver leads the driver to expect it to do things that it cannot reliably and consistently do.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

With 60 years since being issued with a driver's licence, just leave my steering wheel alone and let me be the brains behind the "safe driving" system- it has served me well thru'out this time.

It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"...the Tesla Autopilot is an SAE Level 2 system, which requires the driver to be responsible for object and event detection and response (OEDR), not the car."

I think they've revised the definitions since the last time I saw it. Active steering was considered Level 3 automation last time I looked. Regardless, they can say what they want, but once the car is doing the driving, it needs to be able to do the driving. If you expect the average person to remain alert and ready to take over at any moment for a car that is performing all the normal driving tasks, then you're going to be disastrously disappointed far too often.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

I'm with some of the others, I am not a fan of self-driving cars nor any other "automation" of the driving task. There are too many idiots not paying attention, that cause accidents even with a mostly aware and nominally intelligent (not artificially intelligent) set of drivers at the wheels. We need to make drivers sit up and pay attention, some kind of automated dope slap, or a detector that disables the ignition if your phone is not placed in the glovebox.

A better plan for AI in cars would be in a monitoring role, and use it to start actively limiting drivers, i.e. if the car you are driving detects that you are not paying attention to the road and causing near misses, it should pull over and call the police, who will then take your license away (burn it in front of you) and have your car towed. Given that us oldsters with clean driving records will be the only ones left who can drive (everybody else having forfeited their rights by trying to facebook at the wheel), and all the millenials (who aren't buying cars anyway) will then need rides, we will be able to absolutely OWN the car-for-hire thing, and charge exorbitant fees for our services.

I have a newish sports car, with some lane departure warning and blind spot monitoring features. These are sort of meh, to me. The lane departure cameras get spoofed by the lane markers that were imperfectly removed by the road crews during construction. When I make a left turn through a gap in traffic, the side monitoring camera beeps because it sees the distant car I'm turning ahead of. Navigation system always wants to put me on highway routes, even directing U-turns, even when the through road I'm on is known (by me, by reading maps that were printed on paper) to be shorter, and usually less trafficy since everybody else's nav systems are directing them to the crowded highway.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

I saw the same, IRstuff. I haven't found the 2014 version of that chart yet, but I believe it was the one posted in older thread on the same subject. I think I remember that Level 2 in the older version didn't include the "lateral...motion control" i.e. automated steering.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

(OP)
That's only Level 2 out of 5 levels of automation too (6 if you count Level 0 as no automation).

Tesla's fatal flaw is to let the marketing wank ("Autopilot") get in the way of engineering this system for safety (of both the Tesla drivers and everyone else on the road). There are simple ways they could monitor driver's attention to ensure that their BASIC safety features are not being abused. Compared to actually driving the car, that stuff is easy. Are the hands on the steering wheel? Are the eyes watching the road. Does this geofence indicate that this is a controlled access highway where the system is appropriate to use?

Instead they say things like:
  • "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars”
  • “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.”
  • "THE PERSON IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT IS ONLY THERE FOR LEGAL REASONS. HE IS NOT DOING ANYTHING. THE CAR IS DRIVING ITSELF.”
  • "Tesla drives itself (no human input at all) thru urban streets to highway to streets, then finds a parking spot”
https://www.autosafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018...

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

(OP)
HotRod10, I believe you were referring to this which I posted the last time this happened:

Quote:


Because no two automated-driving technologies are exactly alike, SAE International’s standard J3016 defines six levels of automation for automakers, suppliers, and policymakers to use to classify a system’s sophistication. The pivotal change occurs between Levels 2 and 3, when responsibility for monitoring the driving environment shifts from the driver to the system.

Level 0 _ No Automation
System capability: None. • Driver involvement: The human at the wheel steers, brakes, accelerates, and negotiates traffic. • Examples: A 1967 Porsche 911, a 2018 Kia Rio.

Level 1 _ Driver Assistance
System capability: Under certain conditions, the car controls either the steering or the vehicle speed, but not both simultaneously. • Driver involvement: The driver performs all other aspects of driving and has full responsibility for monitoring the road and taking over if the assistance system fails to act appropriately. • Example: Adaptive cruise control.

Level 2 _ Partial Automation
System capability: The car can steer, accelerate, and brake in certain circumstances. • Driver involvement: Tactical maneuvers such as responding to traffic signals or changing lanes largely fall to the driver, as does scanning for hazards. The driver may have to keep a hand on the wheel as a proxy for paying attention. • Examples: Audi Traffic Jam Assist, Cadillac Super Cruise, Mercedes-Benz Driver Assistance Systems, Tesla Autopilot, Volvo Pilot Assist.

Level 3 _ Conditional Automation
System capability: In the right conditions, the car can manage most aspects of driving, including monitoring the environment. The system prompts the driver to intervene when it encounters a scenario it can’t navigate. • Driver involvement: The driver must be available to take over at any time. • Example: Audi Traffic Jam Pilot.

Level 4 _ High Automation
System capability: The car can operate without human input or oversight but only under select conditions defined by factors such as road type or geographic area. • Driver involvement: In a shared car restricted to a defined area, there may not be any. But in a privately owned Level 4 car, the driver might manage all driving duties on surface streets then become a passenger as the car enters a highway. • Example: Google’s now-defunct Firefly pod-car prototype, which had neither pedals nor a steering wheel and was restricted to a top speed of 25 mph.

Level 5 _ Full Automation
System capability: The driverless car can operate on any road and in any conditions a human driver could negotiate. • Driver involvement: Entering a destination. • Example: None yet, but Waymo—formerly Google’s driverless-car project—is now using a fleet of 600 Chrysler Pacifica hybrids to develop its Level 5 tech for production.

It's a Level 2 vehicle but they market it like it's a Level 4 or 5.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

I found the older version quoted and linked to "Car and Driver's summary, anyway) in the "Self Driving Uber Fatality - Thread II":

Quote (Level 2 _ Partial Automation System capability: The car can steer, accelerate, and brake in certain circumstances. • Driver involvement: Tactical maneuvers such as responding to traffic signals or changing lanes largely fall to the driver, as does scanning for hazards. The driver may have to keep a hand on the wheel as a proxy for paying attention. • Examples: Audi Traffic Jam Assist, Cadillac Super Cruise, Mercedes-Benz Driver Assistance Systems, Tesla Autopilot, Volvo Pilot Assist.)


Maybe I misunderstand what they meant by it can "...steer...in certain circumstances." I took that to mean something like the lane keeping assist, that bumps you over and warns you if you cross a lane line, not something that is actively steering the vehicle as a normal function.

By the new definition, I'll include Level 2 in with Automation Levels 3 and 4 as being far more dangerous than nothing in my opinion, except in a controlled environment (roadways with controlled access for vehicles and no access for pedestrians, cyclists, animals, etc.) I don't believe Level 5 can be successfully achieved without some type of Terminator/Skynet scenario taking place.

Please don't misunderstand any of that to say I'm arguing against all automation. I'm all for adaptive cruise control, lane departure warnings, cross traffic warnings, blind spot warnings, automatic emergency braking, etc. that assist the driver. I think those are very helpful.

I was not pleased to find out that Google, Uber, etc. were surreptitiously putting autonomous vehicles out on the road without so much as a sticker that warns other drivers that a computer is driving the car. Cars driven by student drivers are required to have warning stickers, why not an experimental computer driver?

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Yep, that was it, Spartan5. I don't know whether the technical definition has changed with the revised definitions, but it certainly says something different to me than it did.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

The first issuance of J3016 was 2014, and Level 2 states: " Executes longitudinal (accelerating, braking) and lateral (steering) dynamic driving task when activated • Can deactivate immediately with request for immediate takeover by the human driver" which is clarified in the 2016 release with, "Lateral vehicle motion control includes the detection of the vehicle positioning relative to lane boundaries and application of steering and/or differential braking inputs to maintain appropriate lateral positioning."

In all versions of J3016, the driver "Constantly supervises dynamic driving task executed by partial automation system," my emphasis added. So, under no circumstances is a driver supposed to be doing ANYTHING else. If Tesla made that clear to the buyers, then most of the accidents are at least partially "driving while distracted."

THAT doesn't absolve Tesla of delivering crappy obstacle avoidance processing, and makes me wonder if there is yet a circumstance where a Tesla will happily plow into a moving, or stopped, vehicle, with minimal or no warning.



TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

IF the human driver "Constantly supervises dynamic driving task executed by partial automation system", then what's the point of having it? What they're describing is a fantasy; it will never happen that way in real life. Having to be ready to take control from the computer at any time would be more tedious than just driving. It's also a lot more dangerous, even if the person is paying attention, because there will natural tendency to hesitate, waiting for the computer to react before the person takes action.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

That's the definition for Level 2, specifically; Level 3 supposed "Performs the entire DDT," but the operator has to monitor for safe driving, and so forth, Level 5 is the only level that applies to driverless autos.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote (HotRod10)

IF the human driver "Constantly supervises dynamic driving task executed by partial automation system", then what's the point of having it? What they're describing is a fantasy; it will never happen that way in real life. Having to be ready to take control from the computer at any time would be more tedious than just driving. It's also a lot more dangerous, even if the person is paying attention, because there will natural tendency to hesitate, waiting for the computer to react before the person takes action.
Spot on!
The nearest analogy I can think of is the old school driver training cars with duplicated controls including steering wheel on the instructor's side. And being a driving instructor with student at the controls on the open roads is a stressful job, I'm sure.

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Autopilot on a mountain road. Firstly confused by car, then comprehensively confounded by curve: YouTube.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Isn't that one of the roads Tesla says not to use their system on? It would be interesting to put a HUD on there to let the driver see what the car thought the plan was.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Several times I could feel myself tensing on that drive up the road. Blazing past that PG&E convey was a bit unnerving. I've got a whole new respect for how I'm never letting an autopilot drive me.

BTW There are lots of eye-trackers out there that could easily detect how connected to the road a person behind the steering wheel is. Tesla could use that to bail-out on autonomous mode.

Nice eye-tracker example (YouTube)

Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote (hemi)

Spot on!
The nearest analogy I can think of is the old school driver training cars with duplicated controls including steering wheel on the instructor's side. And being a driving instructor with student at the controls on the open roads is a stressful job, I'm sure.
I took driver training in high school, my parents insisted on it to reduce insurance rates. I swear the instructor was on Quaaludes. He would buckle in, wedge himself against the door and light his pipe. All he ever said was left or right or pull over.

Re that Tesla video on the mountain road, all I could think was this thing is going so slow. I would be driving twice as fast and having fun at the controls. Hard to say how much at fault the autopilot was in the crash as the driver seems to have over corrected after the wheel ran off the right side. Obviously NOT a place to use autopilot. It's reactions seem quite sluggish.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

Autopilot on a mountain road. Firstly confused by car, then comprehensively confounded by curve: YouTube.

The Tesla system mostly uses camera imaging to follows painted lines on the road. I believe it is primarily using the white line on the right side.

In the first veer-off at the intersection the continuing line is not visible in the camera image but the visibility of the line on the side road is quite good. So, the car begins to turn because it decided the side road white line was the continuation of the line it was following.

As for the accident, it doesn't know what to do when the line visibility of all lines is severely restricted due to the crest in the road. It likely picked up on the line turning to the left, but lost track of it enough that it couldn't figure out how much meaning it basically turned a little left as it tried to find the line again.

Overall, the piss-poor performance demonstrated in that video is a clear indicator of how far away from full autonomy the Tesla system is despite Tesla touting it as almost ready for full deployment.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

What's shown and sold is a Level 2 system, not Level 5, so it should not be considered to be anything like a full autonomy system. Whatever Tesla has for full autonomy has no bearing here, particularly since Muck is always in sales mode.

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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

In somewhat the same way that Andrew Wiles 129-page proof of Fermat's Last Theorum actually wouldn't fit into the narrow margin of Pierre's old book; by the time they get the A.I. working to provide 'full autonomy' combined with sufficient safety to stay off the Evening News, they'll realize that the existing hardware (i.e. CPU, memory) is insufficient to run the required software. And probably by about the same proof-to-margin ratio.

The good news is that the present crop of vehicles, the ones that are supposedly 'full autonomy' ready, will probably have been recycled into toasters and refrigerators by then. So the liability should be minimal, so long as they don't promise that they'll solve this problem on any defined schedule.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

I'm not arguing the definitions of the automation levels. I'm just saying Levels 2 thru 4 should not be available to consumers to be driven just anywhere. If they want to test those systems, it should be done using persons doing this as a job (and considering how stressful and tedious it would be, they should be well compensated), and the vehicles should have stickers on them warning that a computer is driving.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

I don't really see Level 2 as being problematic, per se; it's not really that different than someone taking a Ferrari on the same road and trying to do 60 mph on curves that can't really be driven at anything past 30 mph. If you intentionally violate the operating envelope, then Darwin has to be applied. The consumers shouldn't be driving just anywhere, PERIOD, regardless of what's available.

Unfortunately, we can't ask the dead drivers, "WTF were you thinking was going to happen?"

That said, Tesla, and others, are still a long ways from having even a decent collision avoidance system, much less a decent lane following. Some other aspects of Tesla's system is problematic, since it seems to not care about the actual road it's travelling on; specifically, in the case of the Mountain View crash, the lane following failed, but Tesla has full GPS mapping, and the nav system surely knew that the road didn't go in the direction the lane following algo was following. Seems a bit ad hoc from a systems engineering perspective.

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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

HotRod10 - I also feel it's completely asinine to expect an average person to pay full attention to all driving tasks while a vehicle is driving itself. Assists that give you a "nudge" while you're driving are far different than self driving systems that might require a "nudge" from you.

IRstuff - I don't understand the point of your post. Considering Tesla's love of beta testing on their customers, I expect whatever lane following system was in use during that video is within one update of their current best system to perform that task.

VE1BLL - I would expect that too. "Sorry, we had the hardware requirements wrong and your car will never do that." Of course, given the current state of things a Tesla may never do it anyways.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"...it's not really that different than someone taking a Ferrari on the same road and trying to do 60 mph on curves that can't really be driven at anything past 30 mph."

It's completely different. If you want an analogy, it's like putting your 15 year old on the first day with his learner's permit behind the wheel, putting yourself in the passenger seat, and having him drive on a narrow, winding mountain road or an urban freeway at rush hour, figuring that if something happens that you can reach over and take the wheel. Just because I survived that with my dad, doesn't make it a good idea.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

(OP)
Regarding the GPS - I don't think it has the resolution or refresh rate to be able to provide valuable feedback to the algorithm. It could easily be used to set up geofences for where the system is appropriate to be operating (limited access highways).

Regarding eye tracking - Just allowing for the hands be off of the steering wheel for no fewer than 2 seconds would be a good start.

At the end of the day the biggest problem is deceptive advertising and marketing... IMO, the root of many of the problems facing society today. But I digress.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"Just allowing for the hands be off of the steering wheel for no fewer than 2 seconds would be a good start."

The Tesla requires a hand on the steering wheel - doesn't seem to have helped. The guy in the incident a couple years ago had his hand on the wheel, but was watching video (a movie, if I remember correctly).

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"At the end of the day the biggest problem is deceptive advertising and marketing..."

If they were honest about what was expected of the human passenger in the driver's seat, while the computer is driving, it would not be a selling point, because no one would use it.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"Regarding the GPS - I don't think it has the resolution or refresh rate to be able to provide valuable feedback to the algorithm."

The point about GPS is that the system should be aware of where it's going (i.e. map following as one input), and that there's no need to follow the other car that exited towards the right.

The raw GPS data is supposed to be combined with other inputs, such as previous curves and wheel speed sensors, to create a more-trustworthy fix than GPS alone. The usual Kalman filtering, etc.

For comprison: I've seen videos that indicate that some Bentley cars will downshift for an upcoming curve, based on a GPS-aided location (and a map of course) view of the path ahead. Also, some Mercedes will provide predictive illumination into (for example) the correct side for an upcoming roundabout, again using GPS combined with some dead reckoning.

Even my (fairly old) 2008 Mercedes correctly deduced my lane choice, going left or right at a split, in a tunnel under a harbour somewhere (i.e. no GPS signal). Apparently the GPS chip itself (probably uBlox) includes inputs for left and right wheel speed sensors, to detect not just motion, but the wheel speed differences implying direction choices. And the GPS chip itself provides the dead reckoning, built in. So I've read.

The Tesla appears to be blissfully unaware of where it is, and where it's going - at least in the immediate short term for planning the next curve. Presumably it has enough map-smart to know how to get where it's going. Supposedly it'll open your garage door for you as you arrive.

The best we can say is that they're not finished yet.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

(OP)

Quote (HotRod10)

The Tesla requires a hand on the steering wheel - doesn't seem to have helped. The guy in the incident a couple years ago had his hand on the wheel, but was watching video (a movie, if I remember correctly).
In this most recent case, the hands were not on the wheel for at least 8 of the ten seconds from the time Autopilot was activated until it drove itself under the semi. In the previous decapitation case, Autopilot was engaged for 37 minutes while the driver had his hands on the wheel for all of 25 seconds!

In an accident in May of last year, the driver had her hands off of the wheel for minutes at a time before the Tesla drove 60 MPH straight into the back of a fire truck that was stopped at a red light: https://www.apnews.com/9f1d761cf98b402dacd59ca18c3...

The manual says that "the system should only have been used on highways with clear lane markings, strict medians, and exit and entrance ramps." This is something that could easily be enforced by the GPS system at a minimum.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

I apparently was misinformed about the Tesla's hand-on-the-wheel requirements. Thanks for the correction, Spartan5.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Well, having perfected self-driving cars, they're now moving on with self-driving satellites.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Seems the error is all in the radar details. Every single satellite should be GPS'd and be required to update a public database every x seconds or minutes so running intercepts can be reasonably continuously calculated. Done right you could do nothing unless a sub meter intercept is discovered.

And the launch is going for today!

Quote:

The launch window opens at 10:30 p.m. EDT on May 23, or 2:30 UTC on May 24, and closes at 12:00 a.m. on May 24, or 4:00 UTC. A backup launch window opens on Friday, May 24 at 10:30 p.m. EDT, or 2:30 UTC on May 25, and closes at 12:00 a.m. on May 25, or 4:00 UTC. Falcon 9’s first stage for this mission previously supported the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission in September 2018 and the Iridium-8 mission in January 2019. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to land Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Approximately one hour and two minutes after liftoff, the Starlink satellites will begin deployment at an altitude of 440km. They will then use onboard propulsion to reach an operational altitude of 550km.

You can watch the launch live below, starting about 15 minutes before liftoff, and find out more about the mission in our pr

Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Consumer Reports: Tesla's New Autopilot Update Worse than Human Driver

https://interestingengineering.com/consumer-report...


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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Humans are terrible at monitoring automated task. After like 15 minutes, performance drops off drastically. It is like the designers are just ignoring how people work. I would expect even hands on the wheel, reaction times would be equal or worse than someone texting while driving. What is even the point of having autopilot if you have to keep your hands on the wheel?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote (HamburgerHelper)

What is even the point of having autopilot if you have to keep your hands on the wheel?

Sell cars to the masses who don't know better.

----------------------------------------

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

What is even the point of having autopilot if you have to keep your hands on the wheel?

Because it's a driving assistant; not unlike the acoustic collision sensors and ABS cars have now, or even power steering and brakes, for that matter.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"What is even the point of having autopilot if you have to keep your hands on the wheel?"

As with any other feature/gadget/gimmick, it's there to get people to pay more to buy the car instead of a cheaper competitor's car. In this case, there may be the added 'Elon Musk ego' factor contributing, as well, which could be the more dominant factor in the equation.

In order for it to serve the first function, it has to be a feature that buyers want (or think they want), so it had to be marketed as a capable of driving itself without 'supervision', even though it wasn't actually capable of doing so.

You state very well the danger with vehicles utilizing SAE's automation levels 2 through 4. Nobody wants to be, and almost no one is capable of, babysitting an autonomous vehicle while it's driving, being ready at an instant's notice to keep the car from doing something stupid and lethal.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

Because it's a driving assistant; not unlike the acoustic collision sensors and ABS cars have now, or even power steering and brakes, for that matter.

Once the car is doing the driving (very loosely speaking) then doesn't the driver behind the wheel become the assistant?

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote (Because it's a driving assistant; not unlike the acoustic collision sensors and ABS cars have now, or even power steering and brakes, for that matter. )


No, it's completely different. Autopilot does not assist the driver; it takes over the duties of the driver. Not sure about the collision sensors you mentioned, but ABS, PS and PB require action by the driver to engage.

One could argue that autonomous emergency braking is analogous to the active steering, but it doesn't take over any of the normal driving tasks from the person behind the wheel. It mitigates the effects of driver inattention, rather than being a contributing factor to it.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

Autopilot does not assist the driver

Quote (https://www.tesla.com/autopilot)

Autopilot advanced safety and convenience features are designed to assist you with the most burdensome parts of driving. Autopilot introduces new features and improves existing functionality to make your Tesla safer and more capable over time. ... Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.

Obviously, Tesla's sales people and customers possibly say and think differently.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Collision Avoidance and similar automated systems that monitor the local environment and assist or warn the human driver, or even take evasive action (braking and steering, with some intelligence to minimize other negative outcomes), are essentially nothing but positive.

But flipping it over, where a fundamentally flawed and inherently limited automated driving system assumes human oversight, that's simply a dumb mistake at the basic conceptual level.

Self-driving cars will soon supplant Russian dash cams as a primary source of YouTube car crash fodder.

And if they ever do achieve the level of Strong A.I. necessary for safe self-driving cars, it'll have significant applications way beyond self-driving cars.


RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"Obviously, Tesla's sales people and customers possibly say and think differently."

Customers? What part of that quote was from a customer? Of course the company line, at least officially, is that it's "designed to assist" and "features require active driver supervision". In reality, it doesn't "require" driver supervision; it apparently only requires a hand on the steering wheel to engage the system, then requires nothing for it to stay engaged until it runs under a truck or something.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote (IRstuff)

At least 4 dead ones and an unknown number of lucky ones think they bought a self-driving car.

I think that was my point - the 'official' company line is what you quoted, but the customers were led to believe differently. Why? Because if Tesla marketed them fully disclosing the limitations of the system, and what the human behind the wheel was expected to do, nobody would buy the car, or at least wouldn't pay extra for a feature that, if used properly, makes driving more tedious than normal.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

IRstuff,

It self drove. Just directly into a truck trailer.

I don't think we will have cars that can drive themselves well for awhile. What does it say when the controls for the 737 Max can't be put together correctly and that is a much more controlled environment?


Honestly, I think that the real solution is having all the cars talk to each other to make driving decisions. That is a much easier problem to tackle than trying to make each individual car capable of understanding of what is going on around it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote:

It self drove. Just directly into a truck trailer.

I could do that with cruise control; what does that prove? It's basically a line following robot, not unlike the ones my kids played with at Legoland, so if the line goes into the ocean, it merrily complies. People have demonstrated equal stupidity; the first Apple Maps did, in fact, result in people driving into the ocean or onto railroad tracks.

I would think the survivors, or some hungry lawyers would have already jumped on the possibility that the drivers were misled by Tesla sales people for a wrongful death suit; the possible payout would be staggering and tempting.

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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

(OP)

Quote (IRstuff)

I would think the survivors, or some hungry lawyers would have already jumped on the possibility that the drivers were misled by Tesla sales people for a wrongful death suit; the possible payout would be staggering and tempting.
Who's to say they haven't or that Tesla hasn't quietly compensated them?

Lawsuit charges Tesla of misleading consumers about safety of its Autopilot feature
Tesla Sued By Family Of Silicon Valley Driver Killed In Model X Autopilot Crash
Tesla autopilot called ‘dangerously defective’ in lawsuit by driver

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Quote (HamburgerHelper)

It self drove. Just directly into a truck trailer.

Quote (IRstuff)

I could do that with cruise control; what does that prove?

Since presumably you haven't, it proves you're smarter than Autopilot.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Exactly, but it also proves it's not "self-driving" by any stretch of the imagination and it proves that it's not much more than fancy cruise control with marginally useful lane-keeping.

As for those lawsuits, none of them address possible false statements made by Tesla or its salespeople; so they are likely doomed to fail, since they are concentrating on the mechanical and functional aspects of Autopilot

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RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

"...it also proves it's not "self-driving" by any stretch of the imagination..."

I wasn't arguing that. Obviously, it's not capable of that, but it was marketed as though it was.

"...it's not much more than fancy cruise control with marginally useful lane-keeping."

I agree, except for the "marginally useful" part. I would say "dangerously deceptive".

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

(OP)
IRstuff: The very first link says that the premise of the suit is "to prove that the company is misleading customers about the safety and sophistication of its Autopilot feature."

Aside from what's in the article and sort of seeing the actual lawsuits, what they do or don't address is pure supposition.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

What they say in writing "require active driver supervision" and "hardware for full self-driving" and all the fine-print disclaimers, including the one the user interface comes up with and that you have to acknowledge the first time you try to use Autopilot, might save their bacon legally, but that doesn't make it right.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

Just like with the FIU pedestrian bridge collapse, the damage to the company's reputation and the public's loss of confidence in the company, will be far more costly than the lawsuits or settlements.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

I dunno. Tesla has a lot of fanbois who will defend the company to the end and make excuses for the public malfunctions of Autopilot. There are also a lot of people who won't buy their products until they change their ways of doing business. Neither of those groups seems affected by this.

Tesla isn't going to back off Autopilot functionality unless a regulatory agency tells them to. The government seems to have bought into the concept of self-driving cars and seemingly has given several companies a free pass for their development, so I don't see that happening.

RE: Behold... the new Tesla Convertible!

HotRod10 - It seems like a significant ignorance of ENG 20x level analysis on the part of the FIU bridge designers led to its collapse. I can see where that would leave significant concerns. Not starting with a hand-drawn free-body diagram and roughing the loads and stresses to check the computer models is pretty concerning. Such a simple double-check.

In contrast, Tesla Autopilot seems to do exactly what I'd expect it to do with experienced drivers pushing the limits as the primary crash initiator. I think most potential customers look at them and decide that they aren't going to do that; so far the incidents are relatively rare, particularly with the self-selecting nature of Tesla customers.

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