Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations waross on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Tesla Autopilot Update 3

Status
Not open for further replies.
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
I see this statement in the article-
"Some critics have said it's past time for NHTSA to stop investigating and to take action, such as forcing Tesla to make sure drivers pay attention when the system is being used".
How the hell do you do that? I guess you could play 'Love Shack' over and over, that should keep them from falling asleep.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Autopilot operation has to be activated manually - it's just like setting cruise control in a normal car.

I haven't driven a Tesla but I have driven a couple of rental Toyota cars with their "safety sense" system which includes distance-keeping cruise control and active lane-keeping assistance. It will not let you go hands-off for more than a couple of seconds before it starts giving warnings to hold the steering wheel. I did not push my luck to see what would happen if I ignored them.

Meanwhile, despite Tesla offering CYA warnings about always having to pay attention while using Autopilot, it is not hard to find photos in Tesla's own website showing no hands on the steering wheel. Scroll down. First picture.
And I'm sure plenty of people misunderstand the phrase "full self-driving capability" (scroll down further) without reading the fine print.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Driving in autopilot with your hands on the wheel sounds like using cruise control with your foot on the gas.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Nevertheless, the software is still defective, if the speculations about the Gardena crash are correct. Tesla's lane following routine is extremely dumb, and was implicated in the Silicon Valley crash as well. In the latter case, another Tesla owner drove the exact same stretch of road and their Tesla likewise veered toward a concrete barrier because it was following lane markers on only one side of the lane, and the speculation is that in the Gardena incident, the Tesla followed an exit ramp lane marker and left the freeway at freeway speed.

The stupidity comes from the fact that the lane-following routine ignores both the map navigation function as well as detected cars from the proximity detectors. In the Silicon Valley case, the lane following routine should have noted that the lane direction was not consistent with either the fact that the freeway turned nor the fact that all the surrounding cars were going in a different direction than the Tesla. In the Gardena case, assuming that the speculation is correct, the routine likewise ignored the fact that its map navigation would have known there was an exit lane. Clearly, if that's true, then Tesla has done nothing to improve the lane following routine in nearly two years.

The label "Autopilot" should be stricken from Tesla's vocabulary, permanently, because people clearly think it means something totally different. Of course, the issue is that semi-automation is possibly much worse for the driver than no automation; people cannot maintain vigilance if there's no active engagement required. With cruise control, you still need to actively steer the car and avoid the other cars on the road, but simply requiring you to monitor the system with no active problem to work will cause loss of attentiveness in around 15 minutes.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm pretty sure I'd fall asleep well before 15 minutes was up. I hope, but doubt, that somebody at NHTSA or IIHS is doing the correct analysis on the safety statistics of these systems, rather than Musk's bland assertions that ignore all factors other than miles driven.

Read this and weep.
None of the lane keepers really worked properly, although the Tesla 3 was pretty good on flat roads. It would be interesting to know how a human driver would measure up in the same tests.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
In the rental Corolla (with Safety Sense) that I drove last week, I tried the lane-keeping function - it can readily be turned on or off, independently of the cruise control - and found it annoying. It only works properly if there is a readily apparent painted line on both sides of the car. If the paint is worn or covered with dust or debris, or if there is a guardrail but no painted line, or if there is a drop-off into a ditch but no painted line, it doesn't work. But this system makes no attempt to lull the driver into inattention.

Re encouraging the driver to pay attention - I don't think this is possible without actually giving the driver something to do. You can require the driver to keep in contact with the steering wheel as a proxy for paying attention. Most of the lane-keeping systems do this, although seemingly Tesla allows much longer periods without contact. You can also use a camera to watch the driver's eyes as a proxy for paying attention. GM SuperCruise does this but that system is also geo-fenced to operate only on roads in which its proper operation has been validated ... which Tesla should have the technology to do (the cars all have navigation and are connected to the internet whenever it's available), but they don't.

That article linked to above, is scary.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I'm beginning to think we're going to have to install some sort of machine-visible devices (road signs and lane markings) along roads before general purpose AVs become a realistic proposal. The DAT people I chat with say that they are making good progress and that we ain't seen nothing yet.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
[sarcasm=TRUE]
I live in a place called Canada.
Those who have heard of this place may have also heard that it snows here.
People who have seen snow, quickly notice that snow is white, and tends to be opaque.
Canadians who want lane-keeping systems in their cars are, IMO, insane.
For 8 months of the year that system could kill me.


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Well, that's one of the cases I was thinking of. If the roadside system continually broadcast the centre of each lane's location as a series of points then driving down the road merely becomes an exercise in dead reckoning from absolute position updates. They'd have to be quite frequent. Differential GPS should be accurate enough for that.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Good luck with installing those along every unpaved country lane!

"Level 4" systems that only work on motorways and other such main roads, I can see that happening.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
"Just because it is called Autopilot doesn't mean it is an autopilot. It isn't."

Maybe pilots are a little more diligent in their use of it... autopilot works pretty well... and they have a couple of added degrees of freedom.

dik
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The base station is precisely the issue; the standard base station has ever worsening performance beyond ~100 km, so the country, or even the world would need a truckload of base stations to get meaningful accuracies. Note also that the base station needs to have RF access to the DGPS receiver to get the corrections to the receiver, which makes DGPS exceedingly difficult in the mountains or even heavy forests; on one trip, even my ordinary GPS couldn't get a fix because of tree cover, so that's another problem. SBAS, which is the satellite based version of DGPS, does not have cm-level accuracy, more like 2.5-m, and even then, it has similar issues with mountains, forests, and urban canyons.

Airplane autopilots have it much easier, I think; there aren't road shoulders, concrete barriers, etc. to contend with, nor are there 100 other airplanes flying on the same course only a few feet apart from each other. Moreover, collision avoidance is done at multiple levels, assuming you have the correct transponders, and the warnings have much more margin than with cars, and you have certain protocols for maneuvering. I suspect that if flying cars ever actually got off the ground, pilots would find their autopilots as woefully inadequate as Tesla's.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I rent cars all the time, and use every feature available. I find the driver assist features to be interesting but not infallible. Each car model is different. They are getting better, especially in the last year or two. Some constantly weave back and forth within the lane, which kept me awake especially when traffic is nearby, this is particularly scary on roads with oncomming traffic. Others are smoother but experience a "DUH" moment when the lane line just dissapears at an exit. Most will try to take every friggin exit - it's amlost comical. Most seem uncomfortable going in a straight line and need a line to hover near. None anticipate curves by looking ahead like my driving instructor taught. Most give you a bag of shit when you take your hand off the wheel (but who would EVER DO THAT???) Could it keep me alive if I drifted off or got distracted? Yes. Should I plan to be distracted or sleepy? NO.

My general take is that "autopilot" is poorly suited to your typical half-assed USA drivers who text, yell, comb, sip, read, snooze, get lost, have poor eyesight, go too fast, go too slow, tailgate, apply lipstick, play with their guns, search for buttons, wear high heels, drink, light cigarettes, pour hot coffee in their laps, flick ashed, play music for their neighbors (shall I go on???). It is at best a poor marketing gimmick and at worst a method of suicide by car. I'd say that your average driver who is at best marginally capable of reading signs and is currently driving distracted anyway won't be improved by lane assist but the better cruise control will help us all.

Adaptive cruise control was more consistent and useful, I have high hopes for this feature improving traffic flow in congested areas.

Oh ya - if you can't park or back your boat trailer, you should have your license revoked.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

EnzoAus
  • Locked
  • Question
Callide Power Station C4 Generator Failure Update 6
2
Replies
30
Views
144
Richard Baum
Richard Baum
MartinLe
  • Locked
  • Question
Tesla "autopilot" disengages shortly before impact 9
8 9 10
Replies
187
Views
371
IRstuff
IRstuff
GregLocock
  • Locked
  • News
First Tesla Autopilot deaths court case 1
2
Replies
20
Views
48
IRstuff
IRstuff
LittleInch
  • Locked
  • Question
China eastern airlines crash update
Replies
1
Views
9
debodine
debodine
JohnRBaker
  • Locked
  • News
Tesla's giant 'recall'...
2
Replies
23
Views
25
Alistair_Heaton
Alistair_Heaton
Back
Top