teslamotorclub: Tesla Model 3 Fully Autonomous ? part 1

Do you guys think the Model 3 will be fully autonomous straight from launch ? Or maybe they will be prepared for a 2020 or later Software upgrade to it ?

What do you guys think ?

I have already started a POOL Thread here:

Tesla Autopilot - Fully autonomous (POOL)
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It doesn't matter when the technology itself is available, without regulatory approval in the various markets, that feature won't be offered. Same reason the rearview cameras (in lieu of rearview mirrors) on the Model X prototypes did not make it to the production vehicles.
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I suspect the hardware will be in the Tesla lineup by 2018, but the software and regulations will not be ready.
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BluestarE3 said: ?

It doesn't matter when the technology itself is available, without regulatory approval in the various markets, that feature won't be offered. Same reason the rearview cameras (in lieu of rearview mirrors) on the Model X prototypes did not make it to the production vehicles.
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So many people don't realize this or are choosing to ignore it.

We are a loooooooong way away from seeing any sort of commercially available "fully autonomous" vehicle. Google has been doing it for a decade+ and is nowhere near perfecting the technology. Not even close.

It is going to be so difficult to radically transition from something that has not changed since cars were invented. We can't even get rid of mirrors in favor of cameras... what makes you think we're going to get rid of human-controlled driving that not only requires a TON more cameras, but also an artificial intelligence that makes decisions based on what those cameras see?

Now, let's say you do create the perfect system. How do you convince the 50-60 year-old lawmakers that grew up before computers were even invented that it's safe and viable?

We may have a good system in a few years, but I doubt I'll ever live in a time where I can take a nap in the back seat while the car pilots itself.

Keep dreaming, people.
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Elon Musk is pretty optimistic about the prospects, but even he says 5-6 years until it is viable, and 10 years before regulatory approval. I suspect he knows more about it than us.

I will be impressed when they can get lane following to work during a snow storm.

Thank you kindly.
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eisbock said: ?

Now, let's say you do create the perfect system. How do you convince the 50-60 year-old lawmakers that grew up before computers were even invented that it's safe and viable?
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Hey, I'm 57; electronic computers have been around a lot longer than me; and I already think autonomous cars are safe and viable.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwji1IuriKvMAhWpw4MKHYUeATEQFghYMAc&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcs.fit.edu%2F~ryan%2Fintro%2Fcomputers.html&usg=AFQjCNEjQB-YmzIKYb5DcdOaaUc11M4X4g&sig2=xnH4XJq48IAU5H8Saa_UCg&bvm=bv.120551593,d.eWE
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vortexz said: ?

Do you guys think the Model 3 will be fully autonomous straight from launch ?
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It could be but not turned on. Only eight U.S. states have enacted legislation to progress toward autonomous vehicle operation with half of those located in the southwest. The statistical data that Tesla has gathered look good so far, but approval and details are still way off in the future. That's the way I read it.
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More importantly, most (all?) states have no laws against fully autonomous vehicles. The car will still need to be drivable by humans (so no removal of the steering wheel & pedals), but otherwise it's just a fancy cruise control. Law changes are really only required for a car that's going to forgo standard controls and safety equipment.

The main issue is liability when there's an accident. Car owners are going to be mad when their autonomous car gets in an accident and they find out that they're responsible for the damage instead of the car company. This is where laws need to be updated.
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The driver will always be responsible...period. At least in our lifetimes. Look at the aeronautic industry. When I was flying regularly, once I was in the air the autopilot was able to fly to my destination including all course deviations, fly the approach, and I did not have to touch the controls until the flare for landing. However, if anything ever went wrong I was the one responsible...not the airplane. The technology for self landing airplanes has been around for a long time but the responsibility and liability is always on the pilot in command. I see autopilot autos in the same light.

Dan
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eisbock said: ?

So many people don't realize this or are choosing to ignore it.

We are a loooooooong way away from seeing any sort of commercially available "fully autonomous" vehicle. Google has been doing it for a decade+ and is nowhere near perfecting the technology. Not even close.

It is going to be so difficult to radically transition from something that has not changed since cars were invented. We can't even get rid of mirrors in favor of cameras... what makes you think we're going to get rid of human-controlled driving that not only requires a TON more cameras, but also an artificial intelligence that makes decisions based on what those cameras see?

Now, let's say you do create the perfect system. How do you convince the 50-60 year-old lawmakers that grew up before computers were even invented that it's safe and viable?

We may have a good system in a few years, but I doubt I'll ever live in a time where I can take a nap in the back seat while the car pilots itself.

Keep dreaming, people.
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I agree. The lawyers haven't even gotten started on this. And if you think they're going to let this by without taking a LARGE chunk of flesh, you're all dreaming. I can see a situation where the current autopilot gradually becomes more and more capable. Eventually it will drive entire routes, stop at traffic signals, avoid other traffic and navigate. But it will still be with the proviso that you're in command and should have your hand on the wheel at all times. And then, slowly legislation will permit, and perhaps even require, "hands-off" in gradually widening sets of circumstances.

I also forsee autodrive-only lanes cropping up on major highways. And eventually large freeways will become auto-drive mandatory. These lanes/roads would be faster, closer spaced and much higher capacity. You will program your exit prior to entering the lane/road and the system will take charge of entering & exiting for you. While on the auto-drive lanes/roads manual control will be disabled.
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Jersey Shore Tom said: ?

Hey, I'm 57; electronic computers have been around a lot longer than me; and I already think autonomous cars are safe and viable.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwji1IuriKvMAhWpw4MKHYUeATEQFghYMAc&url=http://cs.fit.edu/~ryan/intro/computers.html&usg=AFQjCNEjQB-YmzIKYb5DcdOaaUc11M4X4g&sig2=xnH4XJq48IAU5H8Saa_UCg&bvm=bv.120551593,d.eWE
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Okay, before practical commonplace PCs were invented. The kind of computers aspiring politicians would be using. They certainly weren't supercomputing the latest poll results!

You're also in the minority. People who understand and embrace new technology from that era typically didn't go into politics!
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I think we'll see additional autonomous features before we see an announcement for the car being fully autonomous.

This might include automated valet parking, a mechanical charging connector (as they've already demonstrated) to enable connecting/disconnecting without the owner present, etc. The mechanical connector for charging is needed, because if you summon your car from a place that it needs more range to get to, then it will have to charge along the way.

Because of this, my guess is that we'll see Supercharger 2.0 stations before we see fully autonomous driving. As you pull in, the charging cable will connect itself.

I think Elon has talked about a fully autonomous car in 2 years with a lot more built in redundancy, but I don't think that's the model 3 right away. It will likely come out on the Model S/X and then make its way down to the model 3 another 3-5 years later.

I do also think they'll have to be careful with the wording of "fully autonomous," because it will still have weather related challenges, especially with snow and ice. In those conditions, I could envision some of these features being disabled.
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sandpiper said: ?

I agree. The lawyers haven't even gotten started on this. And if you think they're going to let this by without taking a LARGE chunk of flesh, you're all dreaming.
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No worries though.

People don't want to be responsible for their self-driving cars.

Google has been quoted as saying that the creator of the car should shoulder the insurance burden of autonomous cars (which is easy to do, when you don't yet sell a car, and you have billions in the bank).

A company is a much larger chunk of flesh for the lawyers to latch onto. I think they'll be fine with such a shift.

Currently, Tesla has made no such similar statement But autopilot really is just a glorified cruise control, so it's not yet necessary for them to do so yet. We'll see which way they're leaning when we get to full-autonomy. I'm guessing they will fight to keep liability on the owner, since they probably can't afford to self-insure like Google.
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I personally don;t

Dan Detweiler said: ?

The driver will always be responsible...period. At least in our lifetimes. Look at the aeronautic industry. When I was flying regularly, once I was in the air the autopilot was able to fly to my destination including all course deviations, fly the approach, and I did not have to touch the controls until the flare for landing. However, if anything ever went wrong I was the one responsible...not the airplane. The technology for self landing airplanes has been around for a long time but the responsibility and liability is always on the pilot in command. I see autopilot autos in the same light.

Dan
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Saying means that you do not think there will be fully autonomous cars. Because otherwise who is responsible when nobody is in the car? While I think it's going to take a minimum of 10-15 years to get there, saying there won't be self driving cars in the next 50 years is something I don't believe. You are talking about autopilot, which is where we are now. Full autonomy is something else entirely.
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The technology isn't the issue, the regulatory environment is. And that environment is at least partially informed by liability issues, which is a giant hornet's nest just waiting to get poked. Tesla is already poking it with respect to autopilot, and the very name autopilot is in some sense an indication of where things stand: Tesla calls it autopilot specifically to distinguish the fact that you are still the pilot. And lurking behind that is the ugly nebula of liability, wherein gigantic lawsuits and a whole new cottage industry for lawyers may potentially lurk.

In my opinion, until the regulatory agencies address who is liable when these systems fail (and they will) and property damage or personal injury results (and it will), most manufacturers will actually be afraid to market and push these features forward in any but the simplest and most basic ways. And that, in and of itself, may also explain why no manufacturers are fielding anything remotely like autopilot; it;s not because they can't build it, it's because they don't have the temerity to expose their organizations to the liability mess that is bubbling and broiling in that cauldron, waiting for the poor soul with the fortitude (or foolishness) to ladle out some of the brew.
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gregincal said: ?

While I think it's going to take a minimum of 10-15 years to get there, saying there won't be self driving cars in the next 50 years is something I don't believe.
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Thank you!! If I am still around in 50 years then I will gladly concede the point...seeing as though I am over 50 now! Never said it wouldn't happen, just not in my lifetime.

...but thanks again for the compliment!

Dan
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Dan Detweiler said: ?

Thank you!! If I am still around in 50 years then I will gladly concede the point...seeing as though I am over 50 now! Never said it wouldn't happen, just not in my lifetime.

...but thanks again for the compliment!

Dan
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Well, you did say in our lifetimes ;-)
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ttupper92618 said: ?

The technology isn't the issue, the regulatory environment is. And that environment is at least partially informed by liability issues, which is a giant hornet's nest just waiting to get poked. Tesla is already poking it with respect to autopilot, and the very name autopilot is in some sense an indication of where things stand: Tesla calls it autopilot specifically to distinguish the fact that you are still the pilot. And lurking behind that is the ugly nebula of liability, wherein gigantic lawsuits and a whole new cottage industry for lawyers may potentially lurk.

In my opinion, until the regulatory agencies address who is liable when these systems fail (and they will) and property damage or personal injury results (and it will), most manufacturers will actually be afraid to market and push these features forward in any but the simplest and most basic ways. And that, in and of itself, may also explain why no manufacturers are fielding anything remotely like autopilot; it;s not because they can't build it, it's because they don't have the temerity to expose their organizations to the liability mess that is bubbling and broiling in that cauldron, waiting for the poor soul with the fortitude (or foolishness) to ladle out some of the brew.
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In Tesla's case it's pretty clear that autopilot leaves responsibility with the actual driver. However, the NHTSA has placed the first stake for fully autonomous vehicles: On February 4, 2016, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) advised Google by letter that the artificial intelligence system piloting the Google self-driving cars can be considered the driver under federal law.

For a real fully autonomous vehicle any accident where the car's software is at fault is exactly the same as an accident caused by failed brakes. There is no human driver, so they can never be at fault. The owner of the car could potentially be at fault if the accident was due to negligent maintenance, and the manufacturer is at fault if it is due to a flaw in the software.
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I think it will be an incremental process taking place over the next few decades. Push it too fast, and it doesn't take many serious accidents attributed to autonomous driving to unleash an army of lawyers that will force the regulations back to the stone age. It's easier to sue a person than a computer. Never mind the overall safety statistics.

Roads, especially line markings, signs and signals will have to improve to support any sort of fully autonomous driving. We'll need exceptional computer vision with high level of redundancy from sensors and systems all working perfectly in all weather conditions (3d visual coupled with radar, proximity, precise gps, etc.). I wouldn't be surprised if some roads will be certified or even designated for autonomous use, and others will not.
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eisbock said: ?

We are a loooooooong way away from seeing any sort of commercially available "fully autonomous" vehicle. Google has been doing it for a decade+ and is nowhere near perfecting the technology. Not even close....Keep dreaming, people.
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A little factual information and hard data goes a loooooooong way when it comes to figuring out how close Google is to perfecting self-driving technology.

Have a look at this annual report from Google required by the State of California:
Request Rejected

In the 4th quarter of 2014, their self-driving cars required operator intervention due to a failure in the autonomous technology every 785 miles. By the 4th quarter a year later in 2015, that number was up to 5,318 miles. See the following graph:

So, in the quarter ended almost 4 months ago, Google's cars drove on average 5,318 miles between incidents where the autonomous system had to be overridden by the operator.

Please elaborate on how this is "not even close" to perfecting self-driving technology.

Concerning "We are a loooooooong way away from seeing any sort of commercially available fully autonomous" vehicle... I guess it depends on your definition of loooooooong. Looks like Singapore will have commercially available autonomous vehicles later this year. Very loooooooong wait indeed

nuTonomy to Test World's First Fully Autonomous Taxi Service in Singapore This Year - IEEE Spectrum

RT

P.S. Not very smart to bet against the software guys. They have all the money now...
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Pando said: ?

I think it will be an incremental process taking place over the next few decades. Push it too fast, and it doesn't take many serious accidents attributed to autonomous driving to unleash an army of lawyers that will force the regulations back to the stone age. It's easier to sue a person than a computer. Never mind the overall safety statistics.

Roads, especially line markings, signs and signals will have to improve to support any sort of fully autonomous driving. We'll need exceptional computer vision with high level of redundancy from sensors and systems all working perfectly in all weather conditions (3d visual coupled with radar, proximity, precise gps, etc.). I wouldn't be surprised if some roads will be certified or even designated for autonomous use, and others will not.
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I would agree with this. I think you're probably spot on about certified roads. I'm envisioning a specific lane on highways with sensors that support autonomous driving. This would help with things like bad weather when not all of the road markings can be identified.
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eisbock said: ?

Now, let's say you do create the perfect system. How do you convince the 50-60 year-old lawmakers that grew up before computers were even invented that it's safe and viable?
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Technically the computer (electric and general purpose) was invented about 70 years ago The ENIAC
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Also, I don't think anyone can yet predict what can take place when multiple autonomous cars are sharing the same roadway in a close proximity, all going at a high rate of speed. When something unpredictable happens (such an animal or a person running into the lane), how will the whole "train" of fast moving autonomous cars react as a whole? We may see massive chain reactions when cars just continue to pile on top of each other, since the system cannot see far enough to make an observed decision to proactively pull over if they see brake smoke ahead. This may be improved by having some sort of communication between the cars so other cars coming up behind will get a fair warning to start slowing down. It's one thing to slow the car down by radar (like today's autopilot), but entirely another for 20 fast moving autonomous cars trying to swerve around an accident scene. This would be scary, like a train without the tracks.

Also, any time systems are using same or similar algorithms there is potential for massive oscillations through the systems.

Sorry, I'm just thinking out loud.
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Booga said: ?

I would agree with this. I think you're probably spot on about certified roads. I'm envisioning a specific lane on highways with sensors that support autonomous driving. This would help with things like bad weather when not all of the road markings can be identified.
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Booga,
I don't believe that the implementation of self driving will require "any" additional elements added to the road (i.e. embedded sensors, etc.), the cost would be too high. Everything needs to be in the car, since there would be no way to change any significant portion of the roads to comply with what "the car" needs.

I used to wonder about how cars would handle things like wet pavement, where you literally cannot see the lane markings, or snow covered roads where everything is under a couple inches of snow. People even have trouble driving in those conditions. I read recently (forgot where) exactly how they are able to get the cars to work in those conditions. It's not GPS, since that can be off by many meters. The way they do it is that the cars that drive around before hand take high resolution LIDAR of the surroundings, and also high definition camera images of the surroundings. A combination of the two is used. If there are no lane markings visible, the software compares the current camera video feed to prior recorded video to compute distances to a set of known objects in both images. Things like street signs, benches, trees, even surrounding buildings. So even if there are no road markings visible, this level of processing can pinpoint a vehicles location to within something like 5 cm.

So if you know where the car is within that error margin, and you know where the road and all road markings are within that error margin or better, then any road markings are nothing more than a "nice to have".

I'm not saying this solves all problems, just illustrating how road markings are not as important as they might first seem.

And having said all that, I do believe that the rollout will be incremental. Perhaps happening on selected freeway lanes (carpool lanes), then migrating over to the other freeway lanes. Then making their way to non-freeway roads as the software improves. I could also envision limited geographic "autonomous regions" where cars are allowed to operate. Think "last mile to the train station" kinds of vehicles, where the roads they use to get to the destination are mapped out well in advance. I know for a fact that Uber is heavily involved in just this.

RT
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I also wonder if all 48 contiguous states would need to enact legislature? Consider a trip from New York to Florida and one of the states has not enacted legislature. What then when you have an accident in a state with no autonomous driving and it's determined the car was running autonomously?

Or, the system is smart enough to tell you that you're in a state, where you need to grab the steering wheel, yolk, joy stick or whatever it's called by then.
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As Elon has mentioned more than once, level 4 autonomy will be available in ~2 years (same time M3 will be produced). With another 1-2 years for legislation to pass.

Now with that being said and after doing research on the software aspect, I think 2 years will be plenty of time to have the hardware and software capable of level 4 autonomy (not level 5). Tesla has logged millions of miles thus far with autopilot on the S and X. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla has more data logged each month than google has over 6 years. This data is KEY for legislation being passed. 1-2 years seems reasonable considering the massive amount of data being logged statistically proving autonomy is far better than human drivers by multiple factors.

Even if this time frame is 2x as long due to EM's sometimes overly optimistic schedule, we are looking at 2022 for lvl 4 legislation approved autonomy. Has anyone seen mobileeye's upcoming tech presentations? Mind blowing to say the least.
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Topher said: ?

will be impressed when they can get lane following to work during a snow storm.
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I was impressed how well autopilot worked in a recent Houston-area rainstorm. Visibility was low and AP worked as traffic slowed from 65 to 20 mph.

I agree with those who predict that autonomous driving HW will soon (3-5 years) be in place and limited areas will permit full exploitation. Until it is legal everywhere, safety aspects will be mandatory on all new vehicles. Current Tesla-level autopilot features will be commonplace in 5 years of so.
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Does no one here actually like to drive? I mean i think it would be cool for the car to drive itself sometimes, but i still want to be able to when i want. Im afraid of self driving cars quickly becoming mandatory. Could we not have it where you have choice to drive when you want to just with the computers making it it impossible to crash? Could that not be a possible compromise?
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theboom1 said: ?

Does no one here actually like to drive? I mean i think it would be cool for the car to drive itself sometimes, but i still want to be able to when i want. Im afraid of self driving cars quickly becoming mandatory. Could we not have it where you have choice to drive when you want to just with the computers making it it impossible to crash? Could that not be a possible compromise?
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You aren't the first one to state this, and it makes me curious: what sort of factors do you think would drive such technology to be mandatory? I don't see such a thing as at all likely in a free society, and I'm wondering how you feel that would come to pass.

Edit: It seems to me the likely outcome that full automation features would be optional as a feature in most cars offering the ability.
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Dan Detweiler said: ?

The driver will always be responsible...period. At least in our lifetimes.
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Well that's strange since the driver is not always responsible during my lifetime. I can direct you to a ton of legal decisions where the driver was found not to be negligent due to a failure in the mechanics of which the driver had no control, resulting in a finding of product liability.

ttupper92618 said: ?

In my opinion, until the regulatory agencies address who is liable when these systems fail (and they will) and property damage or personal injury results (and it will), most manufacturers will actually be afraid to market and push these features forward in any but the simplest and most basic ways. And that, in and of itself, may also explain why no manufacturers are fielding anything remotely like autopilot; it's not because they can't build it, it's because they don't have the temerity to expose their organizations to the liability mess that is bubbling and broiling in that cauldron, waiting for the poor soul with the fortitude (or foolishness) to ladle out some of the brew.
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I strongly disagree. Tesla, Mercedes and others are pushing it out as fast as they can build it. The race is on when it comes to self-driving cars and people are fooling themselves if they think companies are purposely sitting on the sidelines due to liability concerns. These companies have insurance policies that cover product liability. Tesla pays a fortune for insurance. If Tesla gets sued over an autopilot accident, their insurer steps in to defend and indemnify. Product liability insurance is big business. No car manufacturer is running scared of lawsuits, except perhaps VW since insurance covers unintentional acts or omissions, and not intentional acts, especially fraudulent ones.

Also, it's not the passing of legislation that will slow it down. That can be done relatively fast. What will take time is getting all the old non-autonomous vehicles off the road since, like airbags, autonomous driving will eventually be mandated in even the basic car. But, as they say, be very careful what you wish for... because if you love to drive like I do, it will soon (20 years?) go the way of riding a horse down the road. Self driving will be prohibited, except in designated, very limited, recreational car driving areas only. And if you just turned 50 like me, you know that it wasn't all that long ago that kids sat on phone books in cars instead of booster seats, no one wore seat belts, and "air bags" was breathing into a paper bag the supermarket gave you (since there were no plastic bags) and then popping it to scare your family. 50 is not that old and I just turned it. I laugh when people say how long things will take since I consider myself young! and we're moving much faster with technology with each passing year. Yes, it will probably be 20 years when all the cars are self-driving but it will probably be less than 5 years when the first ones do.

I so look forward to getting in my car and driving to work, to my cabin, and just around town. I dread the day that I will have to get in my car, tell it where to go, and have it take me there. After a few drinks, and once a while at other times, of course, but it's not going that way folks. The writing is on the wall and it's the insurance industry that stands to benefit big time -- yet some here think they are concerned about liability... ha! The insurance industry is salivating at the bit about the money they will save during the transition and before legislation is hopefully imposed curbing rates due to the drop in accidents. They want self-driving now! And they will (are) the ones lobbying for the legislation. Tesla has it almost mastered already. Yes, drivers will be behind the wheel for the foreseeable future, but the insurance industry knows better than anyone else that humans make far more mistakes than machines and the faster they can get machines involved and doing more than humans, the better for insurers.

Products Liability and Driverless Cars: Issues and Guiding Principles for Legislation
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I think that once autonomous driving becomes more commonplace in freeways and limited access highways, there will be a pivot point when manual driving will actually be prohibited on some sections of the roads. This will lead to increased speeds, closer distances between cars, and at some point the reaction time becomes too short for normal human drivers to cope.

People will of course be able to manually drive, just not on some roads.
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Pando said: ?

I think that once autonomous driving becomes more commonplace in freeways and limited access highways, there will be a pivot point when manual driving will actually be prohibited on some sections of the roads. This will lead to increased speeds, closer distances between cars, and at some point the reaction time becomes too short for normal human drivers to cope.

People will of course be able to manually drive, just not on some roads.
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I just cannot understand the hysteria about mandated autonomous driving; I don't follow where that logic comes from. Is it likely that there will be vehicles that are capable of autonomous driving? Sure. Is it possible that insurance companies may come to provide discounts to those who use autonomous modes so as to incentivize it? Maybe. I don't see, however, how we get from that to some minority report "I'm a puppet not allowed to drive my own car" future.

Listen, the flu shot is a great idea, but you are not required to take one. You are not required as a an ADULT to take any vaccine, in fact, and you can walk right into an Ebola hot-zone if you want to and that's just fine. Skiing the black diamond run when you are just a beginner is a bad idea, too, but there is no law banning you from doing it. It isn't a good idea to eat a big mac with fries every day, but if you want to, you can. And you can follow it with 12 ding-dongs, a 6 pack of coke, and a pint of Jim Beam - all very bad ideas that can kill you... yet nobody is keeping you from doing it just because its stupid.

My point is that things which are dangerous or bad for you don't necessarily imply that some nanny-state is going to deprive you of them just because there is the availability of something better or safer. People conflate the existence of safety mechanisms with a reduction in freedom, and they especially conflate mandates targeted at protecting the safety of minors and others with a restriction on their own personal freedoms. But these things are not one and the same. Yes, they do overlap: you cannot throw your kid in the bed of the truck with only a lawn chair to sit on and then do 70 on the interstate, and yeah, maybe that cramps your parental style... but saying it is not OK for you to endanger the life of your child is a long, long way from dictating to you that you aren't permitted to go drive an ATV at break-neck speed across the desert. You see the difference?

Listen, long before we have fully autonomous driving that anyone might think to mandate, we will have active safety systems that mitigate the risk of accidents even in cases of mind-numbing stupidity. And that will mean that truly autonomous driving will exist in the realm of convenience and economic value (e.g. a fleet of self-driving taxis vs. paying lots of drivers), not in some nebulous public safety realm.

Just my 2 cents worth.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

I just cannot understand the hysteria about mandated autonomous driving; I don't follow where that logic comes from. Is it likely that there will be vehicles that are capable of autonomous driving? Sure. Is it possible that insurance companies may come to provide discounts to those who use autonomous modes so as to incentivize it? Maybe. I don't see, however, how we get from that to some minority report "I'm a puppet not allowed to drive my own car" future.
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Nice rant.

I wasn't talking about not being able to drive your own car. I was talking about some sections or types of roads being designated to be used exclusively for autonomous driving. Very real possibility. You can go on it, at your own risk, but you may not have the reflexes to keep up. Or you may get a fine just like if you went solo on a carpool lane today.
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theboom1 said: ?

Does no one here actually like to drive?
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Certainly not for my daily commute. That got very boring a long time ago.
And for a road trip, I'd rather be a passenger and be able to look around.

Im afraid of self driving cars quickly becoming mandatory.
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I can't see full-autonomous mode ever being mandatory. Too many people (like you) are afraid of giving up control to allow that. But I do see two big changes in the near future:

Autonomous safety features will become mandatory. All manufacturers have already committed to including automated "Emergency braking" for new cars (reference). I see crash avoidance (steering in addition to braking) being required soon after.

Eventually, HOV lanes will be converted to "autonomous electric vehicle" lanes. This will be a much longer-term change, but I see this as much more likely (or at least a much earlier first-step) than having entire highways become autonomous-only.

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To answer the original question, I expect the Model 3 to have autopilot 2.0 hardware at start of production. I think the software will be capable of fully autonomous driving on divided limited access highways at least.

I can hardly wait!

GSP
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ttupper92618 said: ?

all very bad ideas that can kill you... yet nobody is keeping you from doing it just because its stupid.
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What about bad ideas that can kill other people? You are prohibited from smoking indoors. You are required to get your car inspected. You have been and will soon again be required to vaccinate your kids. You are prohibited from riding your bike on the highway. Are those things wrong? Should you be allowed to do stupid things that endanger others?

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Human braking reaction time is around 1/2 second at best. Autonomous driving could drop that to 1 millisecond. That represents 44 feet at 60mph.

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In my small county, the most common arrest type is driving while under suspension. People who have lost their license (i.e. dangerous drivers) who still drive, because they need to get to work, and that is the only way. Being able to switch their cars to 'autopilot only' would be a huge win. Another problem we have is a large population of aging drivers. Autopilot on shared cars could be the thing that allows them to stay in their home.

Thank you kindly.
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Here is a small bit of a post I made on another thread:

-There are some people that think that self driving cars will be mandatory within the next 30 years or so but im hoping that at least on certain vehicles like trucks or sports cars, that we will still have the option to drive when we want to, just with the computer on in the background making sure you cant crash. I feel like this would satisfy the people that need the flexibility and utility that comes with a truck or the fun of driving a sports car as well as the people that want the benefits that come with self driving cars like very little crashes. What are your thoughts on this idea?-

Now to add to that, what I'm basically saying is have it so the driver can basically "play" driver. They can control the speed and where they actually go but if they mess up any or don't react quick enough, the computer will fix it.

The obvious need for this is for sports cars, but another very valid need is the practically thing for trucks. Don't know if you all have experience in this area but I do; what about pulling a trailer? You going to teach a computer to pull a trailer? How to launch and retrieve a boat? Park the trailer exactly where you want? It's a truck so pull into your yard exactly where you want so you can unload your lumber? Pull around to my back porch so I can unload my new couch. What if you have a dirt driveway? This can also apply to any vehicle just in different ways, not just trucks.

My point is that there are many things we use our vehicles for other than to get from a to b. So we have to let the driver at least play driver just keeping it safe with computers. I can understand making self driving only, mandatory on interstates to increase speed and avoid traffic jams, but off the interstate, we have got to be able to control our vehicles.
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I think the issue of whether autonomous driving will be mandatory or not is a little up in the air. What is for sure is it will take a long time.

Personally I believe this timetable (all dates from today):

Level 4 autonomous driving (still needs a driver in the car) hardware/software: 3-5 years
Congressional approval for hands off driving: 6 years
Level 5 driverless cars: 10-15 years
Congressional approval: 10-15 years as well (basically in sync)
All new cars built MUST have autopilot as an option by law: 15 years

....After a certain amount of time where driverless and autopiloted cars are on the road and show that driver cars are indeed more dangerous (not a question really) this is where Congress may or may not have cars be REQUIRED to be driven autonomously if capable: 25 years

I agree with the others that the issue isn't freedom, but safety of others. You can do a dangerous act relatively freely in America as long as it doesn't endanger others. Even grabbing the car parallel, you could say that tires with some tread are mandatory because in the rain, a slick tire will hydroplane and you know the rest. This is a risk to others on the road.

Like I said, It's up in the air on the mandatory nature, but I do believe Model III will AT LEAST have Level 4 autonomy hardware. It won't work in bad conditions, off main paths, and could even disable (pullover) if it doesn't understand something, but software can turn this to Level 5 over the years.....hopefully
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Pando said: ?

Nice rant.

I wasn't talking about not being able to drive your own car. I was talking about some sections or types of roads being designated to be used exclusively for autonomous driving. Very real possibility. You can go on it, at your own risk, but you may not have the reflexes to keep up. Or you may get a fine just like if you went solo on a carpool lane today.
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Read the thread - I'm responding to the general tone as a whole.

I disagree that it is a liklihood we would have any major roadways that would be autonomous only. There are multiple assumptions in that

Topher said: ?

What about bad ideas that can kill other people? You are prohibited from smoking indoors. You are required to get your car inspected. You have been and will soon again be required to vaccinate your kids. You are prohibited from riding your bike on the highway. Are those things wrong? Should you be allowed to do stupid things that endanger others?

***

Human braking reaction time is around 1/2 second at best. Autonomous driving could drop that to 1 millisecond. That represents 44 feet at 60mph.

***

In my small county, the most common arrest type is driving while under suspension. People who have lost their license (i.e. dangerous drivers) who still drive, because they need to get to work, and that is the only way. Being able to switch their cars to 'autopilot only' would be a huge win. Another problem we have is a large population of aging drivers. Autopilot on shared cars could be the thing that allows them to stay in their home.

Thank you kindly.
Click to expand...

I agree with pretty much every point you made. My argument wasn't with the value of autonomous modes,it was with the fear which some people have that the existence of this technology will impair their ability to drive the car themselves if they wish to. I think that fear is largely unfounded; sure, there will be some fully autonomous cars. But I highly doubt we will see regulatory agencies attempt to mandate that you are not allowed to drive the vehicle. It is much more likely that the automated safety systems of the car will so reduce the likelihood of an accident that it will be difficult to crash one even if you try.
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Adrien said: ?

I agree with the others that the issue isn't freedom, but safety of others. You can do a dangerous act relatively freely in America as long as it doesn't endanger others. Even grabbing the car parallel, you could say that tires with some tread are mandatory because in the rain, a slick tire will hydroplane and you know the rest. This is a risk to others on the road.
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I question the basic assumption that having a human operator of a vehicle will, in 10 years, be any riskier than having a car driving fully autonomously, for the simple fact that active safety systems will be the first systems deployed. That is, long before we have cars that can reliably autonomously drive themselves, we will have cars that can reliably keep you from stupidly smashing your car into someone else. Therefore, by the time we have fully automated cars (L5), the risk from human drivers and their errors will already have been almost entirely subjugated. One then has to question why, in such an environment, anyone would consider that absolutely depriving people of the opportunity to pilot the vehicle would even be necessary.

What I think is far more likely is that in 20 years or so, most cars will be capable of driving themselves, and the concept of operating a vehicle oneself will be seen more as a charming anachronism than as a risk to other people.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

What I think is far more likely is that in 20 years or so, most cars will be capable of driving themselves, and the concept of operating a vehicle oneself will be seen more as a charming anachronism than as a risk to other people.
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Fair enough. I do believe in such a case many people will not choose to learn how to drive and eventually self driving cars could die off naturally over a very long period of time. But yes, it makes sense that the only thing that will be mandated is that cars prevent accidents. However, I do think carpool lanes could potentially be replaced by autonomous only lanes with higher speed limits (human drivers would just mess up the flow of traffic).
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How does the AP decide course of action given a "no win" situation?

Something/someone is going to get hit. Take the hit head-on since the car knows it can survive since the crash is determined to be within it's safety parameters? Hard veer and potentially collide with a non-involved car? Hard brake and potentially be rear-ended (not due to someone following too close but because the reaction by AP is so quick, the human driver behind you cannot follow suit?)

How will it make these decisions? Dog crosses the road...wreck the car or hit the dog?
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Seir said: ?

How does the AP decide course of action given a "no win" situation?
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Way better than a human. Generally slamming on the brakes is the best course of action. People swerving to avoid collisions generally causes more and worse accidents (including turning a fender bender into a fatal accident) than it solves. AP will have tons of safety data to evaluate to determine the safest course of action, versus a human's generally flawed instinct.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

Read the thread - I'm responding to the general tone as a whole.
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Check again. It sure looked like you responded directly to me, as you quoted me first.

ttupper92618 said: ?

I disagree that it is a liklihood we would have any major roadways that would be autonomous only. There are multiple assumptions in that
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It's like someone saying 100+ years ago that it's unlikely that there will be motorways dedicated for cars only: "we would still need roads for horse carriages also!"

As I said earlier, it's likely to be a very gradual process. Technology is constantly being refined. It will happen in certain sections of the roads, certain lanes, little by little, until it's being expanded to more roads.

My grand-grandchildren could be the last generation of drivers. For their children seeing someone manually driving on a major road may look weird. That's not to say that they couldn't get a license if they wanted to as a hobby or go off-roading, just that they may not need to drive to live a productive life. Just like cars replaced horses a few generations before.
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Seir said: ?

How does the AP decide course of action given a "no win" situation?
How will it make these decisions? Dog crosses the road...wreck the car or hit the dog?
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Given time to think it over, how would you make that decision?

Personally, I wouldn't consider it "no win", I would consider it "minimize injury & damage as best you can". Hit the brakes to avoid the dog, and hope the car behind is paying attention and can slow down to avoid hitting you.

Now pretend you're a programmer who has thought about all of these scenarios. You program the car to follow the same decision making process.
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bgarcia said: ?

Now pretend you're a programmer who has thought about all of these scenarios. You program the car to follow the same decision making process.
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The Tesla autopilot is being trained at the rate of Million miles a day (which I find dubious) to solve all driving problems. Even so, it is not as if we would have no input if it was all being done by programmers. AP will make the choice that we want it to, because we programmed it to.

Seir said: ?

Hard brake and potentially be rear-ended (not due to someone following too close but because the reaction by AP is so quick, the human driver behind you cannot follow suit?)
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Not an issue. Humans respond to brake lights the same whether the car in front is auto-piloted or human driven. If they rear-end the car, they were following too closely. No different than now.

Thank you kindly.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

Click to expand...

Try that on the 405.
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Pando said: ?

Try that on the 405.
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Not a problem...

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RubberToe said: ?

Not a problem...
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Good one!

How 4 People Dined on the Closed 405 Freeway
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ttupper92618 said: ?

Listen, long before we have fully autonomous driving that anyone might think to mandate, we will have active safety systems that mitigate the risk of accidents even in cases of mind-numbing stupidity. And that will mean that truly autonomous driving will exist in the realm of convenience and economic value (e.g. a fleet of self-driving taxis vs. paying lots of drivers), not in some nebulous public safety realm.
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This is great stuff here. I had previously supposed that once autonomous cars were proven much safer than normal cars, that laws might mandate that humans no longer be allowed to drive. Kind of how the NHTSA mandated forward collision avoidance on all cars starting in 2022. For safety reasons.

What Tupper is essentially saying is that if you have a car that is proven to be 100x safer than a human driver when running autonomously, it is by default the ultimate "back seat driver". You no longer need to have a law that says "humans cant drive", you just have a law that says that humans can drive, but the autonomy system must be running and monitoring what is going on and take over to prevent anything really bad from happening. So conceptually it will let you drive 100mph, but not let you intentionally or unintentionally rear end someone at that speed.

To get back on topic, I don't believe that the Model 3 will have any features more advanced than the S and X. Those are more expensive cars, so anything new that will go on the 3 will show up on the S and X in a hardware refresh prior to the debut of the 3. So maybe late 2017 we see the hardware show up on the S and X that supports essentially "full autonomy", and the same hardware also being on the 3, either on the base model, or more likely as a pricey option. Then, with all the hardware present, Tesla "turns on" capabilities as both the underlying software support it, and the legal framework allows it.

This gets back to the quote from Elon (I believe) where he said they didn't need Lidar. That they could do it all with radar, cameras, and software. That would obviously be much cheaper, but you just need to be absolutely certain that you get the hardware platform correct from the start, so you don't need another hardware refresh to get to full autonomy.

RT
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RubberToe said: ?

This gets back to the quote from Elon (I believe) where he said they didn't need Lidar. That they could do it all with radar, cameras, and software. That would obviously be much cheaper, but you just need to be absolutely certain that you get the hardware platform correct from the start, so you don't need another hardware refresh to get to full autonomy.

RT
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My thoughts and hopes exactly. I believe I read somewhere they have 100 Hardware engineers to the 50 software engineers for AP. First comes first so hopefully they'll have Level 4 hardware in the car and later we just need updates. Comon MOBILEYE
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RubberToe said: ?

So conceptually it will let you drive 100mph, but not let you intentionally or unintentionally rear end someone at that speed.
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Tupper makes a good point. But first, I suspect when regulators have control over the limits on how you can drive, not exceeding the speed limit will be near the top of the list. Second, even if not, 'real drivers' won't accept even Tupper's reasonable compromise. They (I think) want the risk. It depends on how much the believe the system, I guess, they might be able to convince themselves that there is still a risk.

Thank you kindly.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

My point is that things which are dangerous or bad for you don't necessarily imply that some nanny-state is going to deprive you of them just because there is the availability of something better or safer. People conflate the existence of safety mechanisms with a reduction in freedom, and they especially conflate mandates targeted at protecting the safety of minors and others with a restriction on their own personal freedoms.
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Sorry, but this has the feel of a strawman. Do you accept it is illegal to drive 100 mph through town? Do you find it acceptable that most governments require that your car have working brakes if you are going to drive it on public roads? Aren't they restrictions on your right to drive as dangerously as you wish?

Right now even after the tremendous decrease in the death by automobile over the past 30 years in the US, it is still one the top ten causes of death for every age group except those under 1. Autonomous driving will cut that by 80 or 90 percent. It will be mandated not to protect you from yourself, but to protect everyone else on or near roadways from YOU.
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Jersey Shore Tom said: ?

Sorry, but this has the feel of a strawman. Do you accept it is illegal to drive 100 mph through town? Do you find it acceptable that most governments require that your car have working brakes if you are going to drive it on public roads? Aren't they restrictions on your right to drive as dangerously as you wish?

Right now even after the tremendous decrease in the death by automobile over the past 30 years in the US, it is still one the top ten causes of death for every age group except those under 1. Autonomous driving will cut that by 80 or 90 percent. It will be mandated not to protect you from yourself, but to protect everyone else on or near roadways from YOU.
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It's not a straw-man argument at all. Please note that I never stated anything about blatantly unsafe driving practices. I merely pointed out that unsafe human behaviors don't somehow of necessity result in the abolition of them. Regardless, this is irrelevant to the point.

My suggestion is that the "fully autonomous or nothing" argument is flawed - it represents a false dichotomy. Such an argument boils down to the premise that we cannot make transport safe without completely removing human operators from the equation, and I think that this premise is flawed and that as an idea it exists in tension with many complicating factors, one being that it fundamentally disregards the needs people have for a sense of personal agency. It is thus both irrational as an argument, being based on a false premise... and also in conflict with human nature.

In simple terms, any vehicle capable of autonomously navigating the roads safely while dealing with pedestrians, non automated transport (bicycles, etc) and all the other road hazards that can arise... Is a system equally capable of allowing a human operator a level of control while simultaneously preventing accidents. Indeed, those sorts of active accident avoidance systems will be standard on most cars long before true autonomous behaviors are, and as a result the vast majority of safety gains will actually accrue long before the advent of L4 autonomy.

I don't think safety is somehow uniquely tied to full autonomy... or that it cannot be achieved without exclusively autonomous modes. IMO that's not a logical premise at all, and is more properly seen as a reflection of bias.
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RubberToe said: ?

This is great stuff here. I had previously supposed that once autonomous cars were proven much safer than normal cars, that laws might mandate that humans no longer be allowed to drive. Kind of how the NHTSA mandated forward collision avoidance on all cars starting in 2022. For safety reasons.

What Tupper is essentially saying is that if you have a car that is proven to be 100x safer than a human driver when running autonomously, it is by default the ultimate "back seat driver". You no longer need to have a law that says "humans cant drive", you just have a law that says that humans can drive, but the autonomy system must be running and monitoring what is going on and take over to prevent anything really bad from happening. So conceptually it will let you drive 100mph, but not let you intentionally or unintentionally rear end someone at that speed.

To get back on topic, I don't believe that the Model 3 will have any features more advanced than the S and X. Those are more expensive cars, so anything new that will go on the 3 will show up on the S and X in a hardware refresh prior to the debut of the 3. So maybe late 2017 we see the hardware show up on the S and X that supports essentially "full autonomy", and the same hardware also being on the 3, either on the base model, or more likely as a pricey option. Then, with all the hardware present, Tesla "turns on" capabilities as both the underlying software support it, and the legal framework allows it.

This gets back to the quote from Elon (I believe) where he said they didn't need Lidar. That they could do it all with radar, cameras, and software. That would obviously be much cheaper, but you just need to be absolutely certain that you get the hardware platform correct from the start, so you don't need another hardware refresh to get to full autonomy.

RT
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See this is exactly what im talking about! I completely agree 100% with this guy. You should be able to drive, but the computer watching over you to protect you. If you think about it will be kinda cool. You can drive but don't have too worry about damaging your pride and joy of a car. Its possible we could even be able to go much faster and enjoy high speed driving because the computer will make it completely safe.
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This is true if you're only looking at safety. However, autonomous driving allows other benefits, such as higher speeds at closer vehicle distances, etc. I believe that there will be a point where human drivers (I'm talking about average folks, not experienced racecar drivers), due to slower reflexes, will be incapable of being in the same traffic flow with autonomous cars, and if they are they would seriously impede it. For this reason I suggested earlier that there will be sections, or lines, on the roadway that will be designated for the exclusive use of autonomous driving.
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I see so many people saying this will never happen due to regulations...so many people are also so convinced it won't happen anytime soon. Do you even read studies on the subject? Do you know what the law of accelerating returns is? These sort of technologies don't take decades to mature anymore, rather just years. We're not in the 1900's anymore.

Do some research on just Google's progress alone. It's incredible what the software and hardware is already doing, TODAY. These cars are driving thousands of miles without needing intervention, up from hundreds of miles just a few months ago, not even years. This is on regular roads, even dirt roads! Within a few years that number will be past hundreds of thousands of miles without needing intervention. Whether or not you choose to accept it, the reality is we are VERY close to these systems being able to drive fully autonomously "generally" full-time.

Have all states passed legislation that allows cars to drive themselves fully autonomously on highways?? Are Tesla cars doing this right now as we speak? They can simply integrate the full autopilot tech into the Model 3 with a stipulation that you must be alert at all times and be ready to intervene. They made the same exact warning for autopilot, yet you see how well it works already.

Don't fight the future... embrace it!
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I fully support the implementation of autonomous driving and new technology. I do hope though that as this technology is implemented there is always room for human operators to drive vehicles of their choice, with or without a computer's monitoring. You can see my avatar. I would hate to be told I could no longer enjoy driving her from time to time solely based on the fact that the technology required to operate on these modern roads didn't exist in 1969 when she was built. There has to be middle ground somewhere.

Dan
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Seir said: ?

How does the AP decide course of action given a "no win" situation?

Something/someone is going to get hit. Take the hit head-on since the car knows it can survive since the crash is determined to be within it's safety parameters? Hard veer and potentially collide with a non-involved car? Hard brake and potentially be rear-ended (not due to someone following too close but because the reaction by AP is so quick, the human driver behind you cannot follow suit?)

How will it make these decisions? Dog crosses the road...wreck the car or hit the dog?
Click to expand...

Ummmm, if you slam into a car in front of you, you were following too close. Doesn't matter how quickly the autopilot can hit the breaks, if you're giving yourself sufficient time to stop by spacing properly given the current driving conditions, then it isn't an issue. Chain car wrecks happen today because of multiple drivers tailgating or driving too closely, no autopilot required.
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RubberToe said: ?

So, in the quarter ended almost 4 months ago, Google's cars drove on average 5,318 miles between incidents where the autonomous system had to be overridden by the operator.

Please elaborate on how this is "not even close" to perfecting self-driving technology.
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Well... if you're talking about eliminating the steering wheel & pedals, I'd say this is still a long way from perfecting it. What were the potential consequences when the driver had to override? Probably mostly minor accidents or close calls? Probably some majors? Maybe a fatality?

Right now, in the US, people drive 3.2 trillion miles per year. At one "incident" per 5000 miles that's 640 million incidents per year. What is an acceptable rate? 1 million? 10 thousand? Any engineer or programmer will tell you that the cost & difficulty of eliminating bugs/issues increases exponentially as the number of bugs in the system decreases.

It's easy to say that the system has to be "as good or better than a person". But public opinion & courts are probably more sympathetic to a human who causes an accident and kills or injures themselves or others, than they would be toward a machine built by a big company. A jury intuitively understands the argument "We're all human and make errors." . They won't be so kind to a machine when a some 6 year old kid is killed on the road by an automated car. Would you like to the be the defense attorney arguing that "this was a corner case that the machine wasn't programmed for" and that, "yes, a person would likely not have run the kid over but that statistically 2 other kids were saved when this one died". It would ring a little hollow while the mother is sitting there in tears.

I'm sure that each individual google tester is really impressed with their machine as they happily tool around in California for 5000 miles. But the law of large numbers is still happily waiting on the bench and will have to be dealt with before the end of the game.
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theboom1 said: ?

Does no one here actually like to drive?
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Depends on the situation. Driving is a chore when your trip is a chore.

I like driving on twisties. I don't like being stuck in traffic. Long stretches (8-12 hours) of prarie can get to be tedious and fatiguing, even if I kinda like the meditation of it.
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RubberToe said: ?

Booga,
I don't believe that the implementation of self driving will require "any" additional elements added to the road (i.e. embedded sensors, etc.), the cost would be too high. Everything needs to be in the car, since there would be no way to change any significant portion of the roads to comply with what "the car" needs.

I used to wonder about how cars would handle things like wet pavement, where you literally cannot see the lane markings, or snow covered roads where everything is under a couple inches of snow. People even have trouble driving in those conditions. I read recently (forgot where) exactly how they are able to get the cars to work in those conditions. It's not GPS, since that can be off by many meters. The way they do it is that the cars that drive around before hand take high resolution LIDAR of the surroundings, and also high definition camera images of the surroundings. A combination of the two is used. If there are no lane markings visible, the software compares the current camera video feed to prior recorded video to compute distances to a set of known objects in both images. Things like street signs, benches, trees, even surrounding buildings. So even if there are no road markings visible, this level of processing can pinpoint a vehicles location to within something like 5 cm.

So if you know where the car is within that error margin, and you know where the road and all road markings are within that error margin or better, then any road markings are nothing more than a "nice to have".

I'm not saying this solves all problems, just illustrating how road markings are not as important as they might first seem.

And having said all that, I do believe that the rollout will be incremental. Perhaps happening on selected freeway lanes (carpool lanes), then migrating over to the other freeway lanes. Then making their way to non-freeway roads as the software improves. I could also envision limited geographic "autonomous regions" where cars are allowed to operate. Think "last mile to the train station" kinds of vehicles, where the roads they use to get to the destination are mapped out well in advance. I know for a fact that Uber is heavily involved in just this.

RT
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That's creative - I wasn't aware of taking high resolution images/mappings of the area for the cars to consider. The challenge with a system like this, which is easily resolved IMO, is that it might require relatively frequent scans/updates to make sure the data hasn't expired. This might be due to an accident, construction, or even something like a burst fire hydrant.

I'm curious to see what the industry comes up with. I think that the industry will have to work together at some point, but it's clear that at least right now, Tesla is the leader in this.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

...Indeed, those sorts of active accident avoidance systems will be standard on most cars long before true autonomous behaviors are, and as a result the vast majority of safety gains will actually accrue long before the advent of L4 autonomy.
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I test drove a 2016 Honda Civic Limited the other night that had automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, and lane keeping assist -- all on a high volume / low cost ($27K MSRP) car.

We're looking at the Civic as a commuter for my wife between now and Model 3 Delivery Day (outside of Chicago). We were impressed with the tech (even though it made me want a fully autonomous car), and it looks like a nice fit for her highway-heavy commute.

While these features aren't standard on the Civic, it is available on several different trim levels (EX, EX-T, EX-L, and Limited). I bet it will be standard on the Civic EX (and above) in a few years.
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Seir said: ?

How does the AP decide course of action given a "no win" situation?

Something/someone is going to get hit. Take the hit head-on since the car knows it can survive since the crash is determined to be within it's safety parameters? Hard veer and potentially collide with a non-involved car? Hard brake and potentially be rear-ended (not due to someone following too close but because the reaction by AP is so quick, the human driver behind you cannot follow suit?)

How will it make these decisions? Dog crosses the road...wreck the car or hit the dog?
Click to expand...

What do you do as a human?
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brianman said: ?

What do you do as a human?
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Briaman,
You are assuming that Seir is a human. How do you know that it isn't the upcoming Model 3 AI simply mulling over the tough decisions that will be required when it is turned loose in the world?

RT
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Personally, as long as it can handle my daily commute with stop and go traffic on the highway and some poorly paved curvy backroads plus roundabouts then I'm happy. I'd also prefer not to drive off a road and hit a tree or a deer even if weather conditions are horrible if at all possible.
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Dan Detweiler said: ?

The driver will always be responsible...period. At least in our lifetimes. Look at the aeronautic industry. When I was flying regularly, once I was in the air the autopilot was able to fly to my destination including all course deviations, fly the approach, and I did not have to touch the controls until the flare for landing. However, if anything ever went wrong I was the one responsible...not the airplane. The technology for self landing airplanes has been around for a long time but the responsibility and liability is always on the pilot in command. I see autopilot autos in the same light.

Dan
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Indeed. You may not be piloting the aircraft directly, but you are still in command of it. Airline pilots nowdays are more managers than pilots. Kinda makes the title "Captain" more appropriate, really. Captain tells computer what to do, computer says "aye aye" and does it.

Of course airline pilots are there mostly just in case something goes wrong. And what's happening lately is that the pilots haven't got as much experience because they mostly just manage the autopilot. There are few Captain Sully's left. That might be something we face on the road. Someone's car may still have a steering wheel and pedals, but would they know what to actually do if they had to take over? Even if trained, how recently have they actually driven a car?
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Not understanding various guidance gestures/whistles from emergency workers, road construction workers, or police, the autopilot car would just sit paralyzed at intersections, crash sites and orange-cone mazes blocking all traffic. The car would not recognize various types of road debris in its path, choosing to stop instead of moving through those that are actually safe (e.g. styrofoam) or that can be easily moved aside by a person. Many types of ad hoc detour signage would be missed by the car.

Of course some of the car's limitations can be accommodated if consumers demand changes to law and convention - i.e. traffic cop must use a device to signal specific car to stop, go and to take appropriate path.
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Zenmaster, I've actually seen multiple autonomous driving demos that have addressed a few of your concerns already by mobileye and others.
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JeffK said: ?

Zenmaster, I've actually seen multiple autonomous driving demos that have addressed a few of your concerns already by mobileye and others.
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For example?
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I really see two kinds of autonomous technology being discussed here. Some people are talking about autonomous technology as an adjunct to human operators. In this role, the technology would supplement human skill for safety purposes, and could completely stand in for the human operator for mundane driving tasks.

The other application being discussed is where the human is removed completely from the equation and where they are not even allowed to 'drive' the vehicle in any sense of the word. Proponents of this scenario imagine a world where it is either impossible to operate such a vehicle because it lacks physical controls, or because it is actually illegal to do so.

I think the former application is already arriving in the form of systems such as Tesla's autopilot feature, and I think it is obvious at this point that this technology will continue to evolve. On the other hand, I consider it very unlikely that we will see widely adopted automation of the second type at any point in the next 20 to 25 years if ever. There are many reasons for this, and I can only name a few here. That said, one must realize that it's going to take that much time at least for non-autonomous vehicles to largely be off the road merely from a replacement cycle perspective. More importantly, there are large technical problems remaining to be solved in order to allow these vehicles to be truly capable under the full range of conditions that would be required for that kind of automation. These technical challenges go way beyond the often cited concerns related to poor road conditions, the absence of physical markings, etc. and instead exist in the realm of contextual understanding and the capacity to exercise judgment.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

I consider it very unlikely that we will see widely adopted automation of the second type at any point in the next 20 to 25 years if ever.
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Agreed. It's all hype. Musk has said he wants the car to deliver itself, unassisted, to your door, cross country. I can't see how a knowledgeable engineer can make such a statement due to the humongous gap existing in real-world awareness A.I. Tech would need several successive breakthroughs - a jump many orders of magnitude ahead of today's conventions - while that progress is typically only on the order of one breakthrough every 10 years. As simple as the driving task may seem, the actual identification, judgement, and experience required to effectively predict, to plan and to negotiate is on the same order of complexity as that which would allow effective replacement of human professions.
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Cross country is extremely simple in the grand scheme of things, more so than you might think. The vast majority is highway driving which is fairly straightforward with two year old technology. The newer systems are geared more toward city driving, following signs, street markings, and street signals. Even if you left it at that alone it makes a perfect taxi like service you barely need complex parking skills. Also don't forget companies like Mobileye are collecting data from all the manufactures using their products. That's tens of millions of miles of data. The city driving tech is already being proven out today and in two years time it'll be even better. Deep neural networks can be trained to be better and faster than humans at recognition. With the sensors they can see more and react faster than any person. Youtube has a few videos on the current state of technology from mobileye and competitors.

It's not as far away as you think. Heck simply staying in your lane via a robot using neural networks was demonstrated nearly 25 years ago. We've come leaps and bounds since then.
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JeffK said: ?

The vast majority is highway driving which is fairly straightforward with two year old technology.
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The actual problem of autonomous driving requirements *has never been* that which is needed to address the vast majority of driving (time/distance wise). The vast majority of driving problem solving is, comparatively speaking, infinitely more trivial to address than the much broader scope of possible situations that can occur.
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The 10 percent of real world driving conditions that require independent thought and judgement represent a hurdle that may easily consume 90% of the effort. Keep in mind I am not saying there will be no fully autonomous use cases. Indeed, I argue that over time as the technologies evolve these scopes will grow wider and wider. However, the realization of a go anywhere fully autonomous vehicle, as some here have suggested, is orders of magnitude greater in difficulty than assistive technologies that can offload the majority of driving tasks under limited circumstances. The idea that one can draw an arrow straight between these two problem states is naive and doesn't reflect the difficulty of these problem states.
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I recommend some of you check out the mobileye youtube channel
Mobileye
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Luke42 said: ?

Depends on the situation. Driving is a chore when your trip is a chore.

I like driving on twisties. I don't like being stuck in traffic. Long stretches (8-12 hours) of prarie can get to be tedious and fatiguing, even if I kinda like the meditation of it.
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I agree with you! Being stuck in rush hour traffic would be less irritating with autopilot. I also drive once or twice per year between Denver and Kansas City on I-70. Pure prarie the whole way! Autopilot would be fantastic for that trip.
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[QUO="ttupper92618, post: 1511554, member: 46381"]The 10 percent of real world driving conditions that require independent thought and judgement represent a hurdle that may easily consume 90% of the effort.[/QUOTE]
How do you explain Google's most numbers that it they are averaging over 5,000 between human interventions and only one accident ever where their car was at fault. Sure doesn't sound like 10% of real world driving can't be done done by computer yet, more like ~.5%. With the amount of data Tesla can collect everyday, if Tesla and Google shared data today it would be <.01% within a couple of months.

This is the information age, these types of systems are can and do so exponential improvement.
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Jersey Shore Tom said: ?

How do you explain Google's most numbers that it they are averaging over 5,000 between human interventions and only one accident ever where their car was at fault. Sure doesn't sound like 10% of real world driving can't be done done by computer yet, more like ~.5%. With the amount of data Tesla can collect everyday, if Tesla and Google shared data today it would be <.01% within a couple of months.

This is the information age, these types of systems are can and do so exponential improvement.
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It's very easy to explain that. They are:

- not driving in heavy rain
- not driving in snow
- not driving on ice
- not driving in most other kinds of inclement weather
- not driving on unimproved (dirt) county roads
- not driving in the idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required.

In short, they aren't driving in the real world conditions truly autonomous vehicles (vehicles with no human control inputs) will need to master to be useful in huge parts of this country, much less the world.

When these systems finally do master those first 5 tasks above - and I do believe they someday will - there still remains those idiosyncratic circumstances of point 6 where real judgment is required. And a truly autonomous vehicle - one with no human inputs - would need to be able to deal with them also. I'll give you some examples when I'm not tapping this out on a tiny touch keyboard.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

It's very easy to explain that. They are:

- not driving in heavy rain
- not driving in snow
- not driving on ice
- not driving in most other kinds of inclement weather
- not driving on unimproved (dirt) county roads
- not driving in the idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required.
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Any evidence they are not doing these things?

okay, they are probably not doing a lot of this: - not driving on unimproved (dirt) county roads. But I doubt a significant percentage of other folks do a lot of it either.
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Jersey Shore Tom said: ?

Any evidence they are not doing these things?

okay, they are probably not doing a lot of this: - not driving on unimproved (dirt) county roads. But I doubt a significant percentage of other folks do a lot of it either.
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Google Self-Driving Car Project
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Nearly every one of those situations is taken care of in the new mobileye work...

That's my point. The easy stuff was mastered years ago. Those situations have been the more recent focus and model 3 is still two years away.

Look from 2005:

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ttupper92618 said: ?

Google Self-Driving Car Project
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Thanks for the link. After looking through Google's site, I can buy an argument that they are not doing much on dirt roads.

I see nothing that says or implies that they are not driving in bad weather.

As far as " not driving in the idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required." I don't think it is possible to drive on public roads and not encounter idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required on a regular basis.

I suspect neither of us is going to convince the other, so perhaps it would be best to agree to disagree.
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We can't have human drivers not just because of accidents - but traffic.

LA, DC, Houston, South FL - imagine it all goes away because computers make appropriate undistracted decisions. Sorry but human drivers suck and traffic goes away without them. Also the energy use plummets 20% by getting rid of wasteful humans. And most people want to do something else while driving anyway.
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David_Cary said: ?

We can't have human drivers not just because of accidents - but traffic.

LA, DC, Houston, South FL - imagine it all goes away because computers make appropriate undistracted decisions. Sorry but human drivers suck and traffic goes away without them. Also the energy use plummets 20% by getting rid of wasteful humans. And most people want to do something else while driving anyway.
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Um not true, a lot of people like to drive, we just can't help it if you car is crappy and boring to drive.

With the exception of in the middle of downtown or on a freeway during busy traffic, do you think humans should still be able to drive? Because I thing we NEED to be able to control our vehicles.
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Jersey Shore Tom said: ?

Thanks for the link. After looking through Google's site, I can buy an argument that they are not doing much on dirt roads.

I see nothing that says or implies that they are not driving in bad weather.

As far as " not driving in the idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required." I don't think it is possible to drive on public roads and not encounter idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required on a regular basis.

I suspect neither of us is going to convince the other, so perhaps it would be best to agree to disagree.
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This article from August 2014 is a bit old, but Google said it couldn't handle heavy rain or snow or potholes.
Hidden Obstacles for Google�s Self-Driving Cars
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For those who were wondering how it handles in bad weather conditions

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If you want to see where Tesla and other auto manufactures are going check out the talk on sensing from Mobileye

For a roadmap of where Mobileye is going from from early 2015

Specifically obstacles and snow are mentioned in the second video. Having experience with deep neural networks myself I find this stuff extremely interesting.
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Jersey Shore Tom said: ?

Thanks for the link. After looking through Google's site, I can buy an argument that they are not doing much on dirt roads.

I see nothing that says or implies that they are not driving in bad weather.

As far as " not driving in the idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required." I don't think it is possible to drive on public roads and not encounter idiosyncratic, dangerous, or life threatening conditions where complex situational awareness is required on a regular basis.

I suspect neither of us is going to convince the other, so perhaps it would be best to agree to disagree.
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Don't be so sure we are that far apart; I try to be reasonable, and I'm quite aware of the doubling function involved here, and how quickly things are advancing. I am, accordingly, aware I may be very wrong, and I may wind up being overly-pessimistic.

In general terms, I'm really not arguing that we won't have a technical capacity which would allow a large percentage of driving tasks to be done autonomously - maybe even in 4 or 5 years - I think we will. But I'm not sure we will have 100% coverage in my lifetime. I think there will continue to be edge cases which mean cars will still need human input in those circumstances, and that in turn means that most cars will continue to have human-operable controls.

We'll see.
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You know this whole subject may come down, not to a matter of will we have the technology. That is just a matter of time. The question may very well come down to will we ever WANT to totally give up the driving experience. I would hope that driving autonomy would be a tool that could be used to make certain driving experiences safer and more efficient. That being said, we all know that there are times...many times...where the driving experience is a visceral one that stimulates the senses and is enjoyable in and of itself. I hope it doesn't come down to an all or nothing scenario.

Dan
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I think we all have different definitions of "fully autonomous".
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zenmaster said: ?

I think we all have different definitions of "fully autonomous".
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I don't see how that's possible. There can be various degrees of autonomous driving, but "fully autonomous" by definition means that the car must be capable of driving itself with no human involvement whatsoever (i.e. nobody needs to even be inside the car).

Now it's certainly possible for a fully autonomous car to have restrictions on where it can drive (just as a human driven car has restrictions on where it can drive depending on the capabilities of the car or driver).
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ttupper92618 said: ?

Don't be so sure we are that far apart; I try to be reasonable, and I'm quite aware of the doubling function involved here, and how quickly things are advancing. I am, accordingly, aware I may be very wrong, and I may wind up being overly-pessimistic.

In general terms, I'm really not arguing that we won't have a technical capacity which would allow a large percentage of driving tasks to be done autonomously - maybe even in 4 or 5 years - I think we will. But I'm not sure we will have 100% coverage in my lifetime. I think there will continue to be edge cases which mean cars will still need human input in those circumstances, and that in turn means that most cars will continue to have human-operable controls.

We'll see.
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I'm not quite sure what you mean by 100% coverage. As I pointed out in my previous post human driven cars don't have "100% coverage" meaning that they can drive anywhere in any conditions. But when will we get to the point where a car can drive without any occupants and transport people who do are not capable of driving (under reasonably normal conditions)? Because that's the game changer.
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I don't think a car needs absolute full autonomy to take over the responsibilities of say an uber or taxi driver. There's not even complex parking involved. Doing that alone would be a huge accomplishment.

I'd be perfectly happy if it could get me from the end of my driveway to the outside of a parking garage at work. It's my daily commute that's incredibly boring, I get distracted because I'm so bored. I really feel like this is why people have accidents close to home, they're so used to the drive they get bored and no longer drive defensively.

Of course we should all have the ability to manually drive, I'm not a fan of Google approach of not having a steering wheel especially if the car is going to be as fun to drive as the Model 3 is going to be.
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gregincal said: ?

I don't see how that's possible. There can be various degrees of autonomous driving, but "fully autonomous" by definition means that the car must be capable of driving itself with no human involvement whatsoever (i.e. nobody needs to even be inside the car).

Now it's certainly possible for a fully autonomous car to have restrictions on where it can drive (just as a human driven car has restrictions on where it can drive depending on the capabilities of the car or driver).
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Exactly this - this is I think the area which causes confusion. From my perspective, an autonomous vehicle that can only operate safely in, say, 30% of the conditions it may encounter... is not autonomous. Here's why: road conditions change, sometimes severely.

I grew up in the midwest so perhaps I have a perspective that people native to more sunny regions may not. It would take hours to expound upon the number of times, in my youth, I found myself shoving cardboard and rock salt under the drive wheels of my (or a random stranger's) car while trying to extract the vehicle from a snow drift... or even to just get out of the parking lot at work after a snow plow had been through, or after an unexpected plunge in temperature had turned light rain into ice.

And that sort of variability in real world conditions is why it is unreasonable to expect that fully autonomous vehicles will really be workable unless their limitations closely approximate a human driver. As a thought experiment, what happens to the commuters who got to work in their autonomous Google cars (with no human controls) when that sudden ice storm makes the car decide it cannot safely drive? They don't go home, I suppose. What happens when a snow plow leaves a 1 foot column of snow all the way across the intersection where the car wants to turn? I guess it doesn't, and just gets stuck there. What happens when rain causes flooding, and the vehicle finds itself in rising waters, and needs to get out? Does it shut down, because the driving conditions are unsafe?

The questions involved here range from convenience factors to safety.

My point here is that in the real world, limitations of the sort you describe will cause consumers to reject the technology, because it will be both inconvenient and occasionally unsafe. And that burden - the burden required to overcome consumer objections - will be much higher for vehicles that don't allow human input (like Google's cars), because people will expect them to be more capable than another vehicle of a similar class.

What I expect to see, really, is an approach much more like Tesla's - I expect to see autopilot features get better and better, such that the conditions in which they can reliably autonomously drive increase until the point that in day to day conditions, they will mostly be able to drive unassisted. However, there will still be conditions in which a human will have to intervene. And that brings us back to where we started, because by definition, a vehicle that requires human input, no matter how infrequently... is not a fully autonomous vehicle.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

My point here is that in the real world, limitations of the sort you describe will cause consumers to reject the technology, because it will be both inconvenient and occasionally unsafe. And that burden - the burden required to overcome consumer objections - will be much higher for vehicles that don't allow human input (like Google's cars), because people will expect them to be more capable than another vehicle of a similar class.

What I expect to see, really, is an approach much more like Tesla's - I expect to see autopilot features get better and better, such that the conditions in which they can reliably autonomously drive increase until the point that in day to day conditions, they will mostly be able to drive unassisted. However, there will still be conditions in which a human will have to intervene. And that brings us back to where we started, because by definition, a vehicle that requires human input, no matter how infrequently... is not a fully autonomous vehicle.
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But to take a different point of view of customer acceptance. You talk about somebody who could drive their own car choosing a no-control driverless car, but how about the ability to not own a car and summon one at any time, the ability of an elderly person no longer able to safely drive, and person coming home after a party with a couple too many drinks to be able to get to where they need to go without the incredible expense that goes along with having human taxi drivers. Doesn't having those abilities compensate for some of the other tradeoffs? The question is at what stage a car is considered to be reliable enough to be able to meet those needs, where having human takeover simply isn't possible.
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gregincal said: ?

I don't see how that's possible. There can be various degrees of autonomous driving, but "fully autonomous" by definition means that the car must be capable of driving itself with no human involvement whatsoever (i.e. nobody needs to even be inside the car).

Now it's certainly possible for a fully autonomous car to have restrictions on where it can drive (just as a human driven car has restrictions on where it can drive depending on the capabilities of the car or driver).
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Exactly. However since driving necessarily involves a human element - directions after main road, gesturing around traffic, etc we would have to force the public to accommodate the so called "autonomous" car's limitations in order for it to function in the same set of circumstances as a human driver would be expected to function. Many places and situations where humans have no problem navigating and problem solving will have to be made "robot friendly" in order for the car to understand what to do. Since all that is not forthcoming in the near term...
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zenmaster said: ?

Exactly. However since driving necessarily involves a human element - directions after main road, gesturing around traffic, etc we would have to force the public to accommodate the so called "autonomous" car's limitations in order for it to function in the same set of circumstances as a human driver would be expected to function. Many places and situations where humans have no problem navigating and problem solving will have to be made "robot friendly" in order for the car to understand what to do. Since all that is not forthcoming in the near term...
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Although in all fairness, I bet a computer can do a lot better job than a ton of drivers I've observed in unpredictable situations. The greatest challenge for the computer isn't figuring out what to do, it's dealing with all the stupid stuff the human drivers decide to do.
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gregincal said: ?

Although in all fairness, I bet a computer can do a lot better job than a ton of drivers I've observed in unpredictable situations.
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Even if the computer could do a better job than a human in unpredictable situations, it still would not be sophisticated enough for full autonomy. The problem is that completely predictable and human-understandable situations occur where a relatively dumb car would fail to identify and/or understand the required task(s). The public would need to provide robot cars special guidance and concessions in order for them to not be late or disruptive to other traffic.

gregincal said: ?

The greatest challenge for the computer isn't figuring out what to do, it's dealing with all the stupid stuff the human drivers decide to do.
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Like for example where single-lane traffic is stopped and the car in front is motioning for the autonomous car to go around, due to a stall. But the car in front's view is obscured by something, and actually there is a cop gesturing for traffic to stop.
Or when a 4-way traffic light is out with heavy traffic, but drivers are not moving through in any order.

Here's some completely predictable situation where a human would always succeed yet an autonomous car would fail:
After some heavy rain, a shallow stream runs through crossable road / A not-so shallow stream is runnng through the road
Road near construction site has a bunch of nails scattered
Cop simply says clear the area or go back the way you came
Narrow parking decks with various unmarked entrances and exits, where drivers must take turns moving
Access gates with remote attendants
Blind driveway
Sign or light at same angle as sun or reflecting sun
Something insubstantial like a thin piece of electrified wire is dangling ahead in car's lane
A tornado is crossing the road just ahead
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gregincal said: ?

But to take a different point of view of customer acceptance. You talk about somebody who could drive their own car choosing a no-control driverless car, but how about the ability to not own a car and summon one at any time, the ability of an elderly person no longer able to safely drive, and person coming home after a party with a couple too many drinks to be able to get to where they need to go without the incredible expense that goes along with having human taxi drivers. Doesn't having those abilities compensate for some of the other tradeoffs? The question is at what stage a car is considered to be reliable enough to be able to meet those needs, where having human takeover simply isn't possible.
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And that's fine for the old people and the people that want to summon cars, you should just have to accept that their are going to be some cases where the computer is not going to know what to do and then your going to be stuck. Those who want to drive should be able to. There will be computers to make it just as safe as a drverless car and to take over in crazy traffic to keep it flowing.
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zenmaster said: ?

Or when a 4-way traffic light is out with heavy traffic, but drivers are not moving through in any order.
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This is one of the cases I thought of where people do badly, because by law you are supposed to take turns. I find it very frustrating how badly people handle this situation. I think a computer car could probably do OK, though. It creeps forward when it thinks it should and observes how the other cars react.

zenmaster said: ?

Here's some completely predictable situation where a human would always succeed yet an autonomous car would fail:
After some heavy rain, a shallow stream runs through crossable road / A not-so shallow stream is runnng through the road
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Given the number of idiots who drive their cars into streams crossing the road and end up needing to be rescued from their flooded cars every winter around here I again dispute the fact that humans handle this at all well.

zenmaster said: ?

Road near construction site has a bunch of nails scattered
Cop simply says clear the area or go back the way you came
Narrow parking decks with various unmarked entrances and exits, where drivers must take turns moving
Access gates with remote attendants
Blind driveway
Sign or light at same angle as sun or reflecting sun
Something insubstantial like a thin piece of electrified wire is dangling ahead in car's lane
A tornado is crossing the road just ahead
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I think the toughest ones where you have a mix of autonomous cars and humans is where people figure out what to do through direct communication. They look at each other or motion. Although there would be a learning curve, at least autonomous cars should behave more predictably than humans. A lot of the other ones are simply a matter of having good enough sensors. Theoretically sensors could do a much better job than a human at sensing things like a thin piece of electrified wire or a tornado and or even something silhouetted against the sun.

I don't expect this to happen in 2 years or 5 years, but I don't see why all of the problems mentioned here couldn't be solved in 10 or 20 years. So I'm between the people who think that the Model 3 will be ready for fully autonomous driving and those who don't think it will happen in current people's lifetimes. While I imagine my 6 year old son will learn to drive I don't think it will be long after where you start getting large numbers of people who never do.
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theboom1 said: ?

And that's fine for the old people and the people that want to summon cars, you should just have to accept that their are going to be some cases where the computer is not going to know what to do and then your going to be stuck. Those who want to drive should be able to. There will be computers to make it just as safe as a drverless car and to take over in crazy traffic to keep it flowing.
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Yep sure, although that's spoken by people that have already taken the trouble to learn how to drive and want to exercise that skill. If autonomous cars become common people will probably eventually stop bothering to learn (actually the number of young people learning to drive has already been steadily declining for years).
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I think this thread has gotten out of hand with some absurd situations which humans fail miserably at and sometimes die. If the computer determines that something is unsafe then it's probably a good chance that it is unsafe. Can a computer generate an alternate route when need be?: Yes. Does an AI need to see ALL possible situations before being able to make correct decisions?: No, that's not the point of AI. AI tries to figure it new inputs and situations.

ttupper92618 has an example of helping someone dig their car out of the snow... obviously that person you helped would act exactly like the autonomous car, I'm assuming that person was human right? Would you extrapolate and say all humans shouldn't drive because that person wasn't able to get out? That doesn't make any sense. Can an autonomous car call for help like a human could?: You bet it can.

Human's often make poor decisions. If an autonomous car pulls over to the side of the road because conditions become unsafe then if a human is in the car then they can always override this, but if not why would the car attempt continue? Why not pull over, alert the owner to the location, situation, and wait it out?

I think there's some lack of knowledge here on the current state of the technology. Human to human communication for example is being looked at in numerous contexts already, Google cars can interpret cyclists hand gestures, the Mercedes concept car can alert pedestrians they can pass, etc.

Autonomous driving is coming and it's coming fast. You won't have to wait 20 years. There will be millions on the road by 2020.
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vortexz said: ?

Do you guys think the Model 3 will be fully autonomous straight from launch ?

[
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Not the slightest chance. I will be surprised if full autonomy (choice of front or back seat) is achieved in a car sold at retail by 2030.
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Sharkbait said: ?

It could be but not turned on. Only eight U.S. states have enacted legislation to progress toward autonomous vehicle operation with half of those located in the southwest. The statistical data that Tesla has gathered look good so far, but approval and details are still way off in the future. That's the way I read it.
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The data collected by Tesla today has little benefit in achieving full autonomy because it does little to solve the many edge cases. The data contributes to good lane keeping, which is primarily mobileye's invention.
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On the contrary, the data collected by all mobileye partners is aggregated. They've been collecting data for YEARS. They have tens of millions of miles full of situations and human responses.

That's definitely more driving than I've personally done in my lifetime.
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Tesla has made it clear that they are keeping their own database. Mobileye's desire is to aggregate data from all users because it is in their interest to do so. It is not in Tesla's interest ,as the technology deployment leader, to be "one of the gang".

Tesla's deal with mobileye is likely:

1) Tesla does not share its user data with mobileye, and is working to add other (non-mobileye) data to the dataset.
2) Tesla pays mobileye for its IP related to car location
3) Mobileye stops talking about Tesla.

Tesla and mobileye are natural frenemies: They have both shared and competitive interests.

But as I said, this data is clearly used primarily for lane keeping. Tesla can derive statistics such as autopilot miles driven per air bag deployment, but this does little to solve the many difficult problems encountered when attempting to implement a fully autonomous car.
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JeffK said: ?

I think there's some lack of knowledge here on the current state of the technology. Human to human communication for example is being looked at in numerous contexts already, Google cars can interpret cyclists hand gestures, the Mercedes concept car can alert pedestrians they can pass, etc.
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I didn't say it wasn't being worked on, obviously it is. I said it was a tricky problem. There are a wide variety of ways people communicate with each other, and especially getting people to understand what the car's intentions are is a difficult problem. That said, humans don't always communicate successfully with each other, and I'm sure it's a solvable problem.
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@JeffK

Do you really have such a crappy car that you hate driving that much? Why do you want everyone to ride around in a mindless autonomous pod? Why can't you see that many people want and NEED to be able to control their vehicles? The computer will make it perfectly safe and to regulate traffic so what's the deal?
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JeffK said: ?

Human's often make poor decisions. If an autonomous car pulls over to the side of the road because conditions become unsafe then if a human is in the car then they can always override this, but if not why would the car attempt continue? Why not pull over, alert the owner to the location, situation, and wait it out?
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I thought I had made it pretty clear that I believe we will see autonomous vehicles soon. What I don't believe is that we will see wide-spread adoption of fully autonomous vehicles that do not allow human operator input. You can think of this as a contrast between Google's model and Tesla's (current) model. Google wants to entirely eliminate the human as operator from the equation; their next generation vehicles don't even have a steering wheel, as an example.

The edge cases you seem intent on dismissing are actually the most important ones, because they frequently represent life or death situations. Like this one, as an example:

It was doubtless unsafe to drive in those conditions. However, NOT doing so would have been even more unsafe. And it is this aspect of human judgement which is the major issue with respect to fully autonomous vehicles.

It all boils down to the model we champion. I think Google's model - and the model of all of those who pontificate about how humans are dangerous and should not be allowed to operate a vehicle - is a fundamentally naive one that doesn't consider the real impacts and outcomes. The more likely outcome is "creeping automation" - automation that assumes more and more of the driving task, but which may not ever fully replace human drivers in all contexts.
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theboom1 said: ?

@JeffK

Do you really have such a crappy car that you hate driving that much? Why do you want everyone to ride around in a mindless autonomous pod? Why can't you see that many people want and NEED to be able to control their vehicles? The computer will make it perfectly safe and to regulate traffic so what's the deal?
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I'm confused. Since you didn't quote a post I went back over the whole thread and couldn't find a single post where he suggested that non-autonomous driving should be outlawed. This is the second time you've made a similar post, but you seem to just be threatened by the idea that there might be people who don't ever want to drive themselves.
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gregincal said: ?

This is the second time you've made a similar post, but you seem to just be threatened by the idea that there might be people who don't ever want to drive themselves.
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People anxious about driving will really appreciate autonomous capability when crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge here and perhaps other roads I'm sure:

Chesapeake Bay Bridge Drive-Over Company Charges $25 To Anxious Customers

Those who adapt survive.
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As I said my wish for the model 3 is simply to cover not only highway driving, which the Model S does now, but to cover city driving and neighborhoods to prevent accidents and take care of monotonous driving such as driving to work in the morning when I'm tried and probably don't have the best judgement and fastest reflexes.

As far as total 100% autonomy with no steering wheel, that's not for me. You'd have to pry the Model 3 space ship like steering controls from my cold dead hands and wipe the smile off my motionless face. I'm looking forward to Model 3 Ludicrous mode with so much anticipation, it's stressing me out.

In most futuristic sci-fi movies with autonomous driving the main character always has to engage manual controls before the real action ensues.
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ttupper92618 said: ?

I thought I had made it pretty clear that I believe we will see autonomous vehicles soon. What I don't believe is that we will see wide-spread adoption of fully autonomous vehicles that do not allow human operator input. You can think of this as a contrast between Google's model and Tesla's (current) model. Google wants to entirely eliminate the human as operator from the equation; their next generation vehicles don't even have a steering wheel, as an example.

The edge cases you seem intent on dismissing are actually the most important ones, because they frequently represent life or death situations. Like this one, as an example:

It was doubtless unsafe to drive in those conditions. However, NOT doing so would have been even more unsafe. And it is this aspect of human judgement which is the major issue with respect to fully autonomous vehicles.

It all boils down to the model we champion. I think Google's model - and the model of all of those who pontificate about how humans are dangerous and should not be allowed to operate a vehicle - is a fundamentally naive one that doesn't consider the real impacts and outcomes. The more likely outcome is "creeping automation" - automation that assumes more and more of the driving task, but which may not ever fully replace human drivers in all contexts.
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I agree with the creeping automation. However, I think we look at things from the opposite sides. You say that having a vehicle that doesn't allow a human to take over is undesirable. I don't really care whether a human can take over. The point is whether the car requires a licensed, capable and alert driver ready to take over at any time. Because having cars that don't require that would be a really huge advance and allow all sorts of things that aren't possible today. And the level of reliability and risk required of such a vehicle is something that people would need to decide. The point for me is not whether it is desirable, because it seems abundantly clear to me that it definitely is. The question is how long will it take before it is possible. The creeping automation case there is that we will probably start with fully driverless cars in cities and slowly expand where they can travel.
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I agree with the idea that autonomous car will mostly be copilots, the system will alert or completely take over if imminent danger is detected, but for the most part it will be there running on the background making minor adjustments without the human driver noticing them. Sure in 5 years, it might be possible for a car to fully drive itself, yet most people will not active fully autonomous driving because they will not trust it, even if under most circumstances it's the safest alternative.

Technology advances faster than what human are able to adapt to it. If fully autonomous driving becomes widely accepted and use it won't be because it's safer or because legislation allows it, but because human will trust it, which I think will be the newest generations, those who grew up with fully autonomous cars.
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gregincal said: ?

I'm confused. Since you didn't quote a post I went back over the whole thread and couldn't find a single post where he suggested that non-autonomous driving should be outlawed. This is the second time you've made a similar post, but you seem to just be threatened by the idea that there might be people who don't ever want to drive themselves.
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I have talked to some people that feel that their should be no human controls like steering wheel and pedals installed and they think that that way is the best way and everyone should follow suit. That's the impressions that I got from him due to the way he argued some of the points made. Some people feel that if you want to drive then your out of luck in the future and yes I do feel threatened by them because driving is something I enjoy doing deeply. But if I assumed incorrectly of you then I apologize.
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I don't care how advanced the cars become, even if they get to the point to them being able to drive without anyone in them. I just want to be able to control my vehicle for the fun of my sports car, the utility of my truck, and the flexibility knowing that there WILL be times where the computer is not going to know what to do. I still want to be able to put my car in autopilot and be able to fully drive on it's own, but them switch it of when i want to and the computer keep it safe and mitigate traffic in the background.
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theboom1 said: ?

I still want to be able to put my car in autopilot and be able to fully drive on it's own, but them switch it of when i want to and the computer keep it safe and mitigate traffic in the background.
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I agree. Not so much like a 'rocket' but perhaps more like a modern day Airbus or Boeing.
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I don't think anybody has to worry about somebody coming and taking their cars away from them. Even something like an autonomous only lane on the freeway is probably 20 years away at best.
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teslamotorclub

Thứ Bảy, 7 tháng 1, 2017

Tesla Model 3 Fully Autonomous ? part 1

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