Automakers beg NHTSA to add red tape, slow autonomous driving progress

[calisnow]

In a comical turn of events, the Global Automakers Association (which notably does not include Tesla, Google or Mercedes - three technology leaders in autonomous driving research) publicly asked the NHTSA to add regulations and red tape in order to slow down adoption of autonomous driving technology. Of course they claimed their concern is only for the safety of the driving public.

"Fully self-driving cars may be the future of the automotive industry, but they aren’t yet up to the demands of real-world driving, several people told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during a public meeting Friday. ... A slower, more deliberative approach may be needed instead of the agency’s rapid timetable for producing guidance for deploying the vehicles, according to an auto industry trade association. In January, the federal agency announced that it would begin work on writing guidance for deploying the vehicles. Officials have promised to complete that guidance by July.

There are risks to using guidance to deviate from the government’s traditional process of issuing regulations and standards, Paul Scullion, safety manager at the Association of Global Automakers, told the meeting hosted by NHTSA."

Hmmm...

Experts tell US agency to slow down on self-driving cars

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

Slow down! I can't keep up they say! Tough.

 

[Beryl]

Irritating. Hope they feel the backlash and hear from the "experts" who can show that autonomous driving features are indeed safety features.

 

[HookBill]

Slow down! I can't keep up they say! Tough.

Pretty much what they are saying.

 

[Model S M.D.]

Stoppit Tesla! Autopilot is way too awesome, we cannot possibly catch up.

Ridiculous...

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Well, that's a cry for help if I ever saw one.

 

[LegalCounsel]

Perhaps they should show videos such as these to the decision-makers and if they still agree with the lobbyists:

 

[HookBill]

Perhaps they should show videos such as these to the decision-makers and if they still agree with the lobbyists:

Oh, no, they can't do that. Why confuse video evidence with manipulative imagination.

 

[FlatSix911]

Keep going ... pedal to the metal!

Google’s self-driving car vs Tesla Autopilot: 1.5M miles in 6 years vs 47M miles in 6 months

We’ve covered how Tesla’s approach to self-driving cars differs from Google’s. The former is incrementally introducing more advanced autonomous features to eventually get to full autonomy, while the latter thinks it is safer to make the jump to completely autonomous driving once the technology is at maturity.

The two companies also have different approaches to hardware. Google relies on LiDAR, while Tesla thinks it’s unnecessary and that a combination of cameras and radars should do the job. Only time will tell which strategy will turn out to be the most successful, but in the meantime, Tesla shared a rare data point that gives us some perspective on the two programs.

Unlike Tesla, Google shares monthly reports on its self-driving car program (please Tesla, take example). The company releases its cumulative miles driven on autonomous and manual modes, as well as accident reports (when there are any) and sometimes they write about new technologies they are implementing. Our colleague Stephen Hall keeps track of the autonomous miles driven by Google’s SDCs:

As you can see, it recently reached the 1.5 million miles mark last month. That’s since the beginning of the program in 2009.

While Tesla doesn’t share similar data for its Autopilot program, for some reason, over the weekend the company decided to release the total miles driven with Autopilot by its fleet since its introduction in October 2015.

The company confirmed that 47 million miles were driven while the Autopilot was activated. When first introducing the new features, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla’s fleet was adding about 1 million miles of data every day, which indicates that the company might be pulling data even when the system is not actively controlling the car.

Google’s self-driving car traveled 1.5M miles in 6 yrs, while Tesla’s Autopilot traveled 47M miles in 6 months

Of course, Google’s miles were city miles, while the Autopilot is for highway driving which gives a distinct advantage to Tesla in term of racking up data in miles. Although Google is lagging behind for real-world miles, the company is quick to add “simulated-miles” with over 3 millions a day, without leaving the lab.

They also pull data differently based on their hardware (LiDAR vs Cameras), but the main difference is that Tesla has about 70,000 vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware on the roads, while Google currently operates only 54 prototypes. Google uses both its cute prototypes (picture above) and Lexus RX450h SUVs equipped with Google’s system. The vehicles are located in Mountain View, CA, Austin, TX, and Kirkland, WA. While Tesla’s fleet is spread out across the world.

It certainly makes for an interesting race to fully autonomous vehicles. Last year, Elon Musk said that he expects Tesla’s level-4 fully self-driving technology to be ready in about 2 years, while Google is vague about its timeline to bring its system to market, but it expects the cars will be on the road by 2020. The Sooner the better. Just this weekend, we watched a Model S with Autopilot autonomously avoid a collision with a truck [Video].

 

[calisnow]

I think these requests for red tape are an indication that autonomous driving is a really difficult nut to crack - and that some companies have a big technological advantage building up over others - it can't just be purchased as an off-the-shelf product by a third party supplier - yet.

 

[Drivin]

We should eliminate all government restrictions.
Car makers test everything completely before they send their cars out so things like autopilot and the proper latching of seats in an accident will always be perfect.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

We should eliminate all government restrictions.
Car makers test everything completely before they send their cars out so things like autopilot and the proper latching of seats in an accident will always be perfect.

Your slight would only make sense if an organization other than Tesla discovered the seat latch issue...

 

[calisnow]

We should eliminate all government restrictions.
Car makers test everything completely before they send their cars out so things like autopilot and the proper latching of seats in an accident will always be perfect.

Your sarcasm is noted - your reading comprehension skills we are not sure of yet. The point of the original post is that there seems to be an obvious ulterior motive for some automakers to press for more regulation than what already exists (nobody is claiming - not me or anyone else on this thread - that there should be zero government regulation) - that ulterior motive is that many automakers simply don't possess autonomous driving technology that is nearly as advanced as Tesla. It is thus in their best interest to throw up as many legal roadblocks to the rapid deployment of autonomous driving technology because they will soon be at a severe competitive disadvantage.

 

[Drivin]

Your slight would only make sense if an organization other than Tesla discovered the seat latch issue...

meh.
sending something out that was not adequately tested is the point.

that is like saying "oh good, we found out before anyone else that autonomous testing could cause head on collisions in a particular case...all good, right?"

 

[satoshi]

So if the Global Automakers Association makes a BS safety claim, that's a problem worth critically thinking about.

But if Tesla makes a BS safety claim (Re: Parts Ban), then everyone is hunky dory... the double standard is killing me.

 

[TexasEV]

This shows that the dealers aren't the only ones in the auto industry who depend on rent seeking.