Autonomous Car Progress

[Daniel in SD]

"NHTSA said existing regulations do not currently bar deploying automated vehicles as long as they have manual driving controls, and as it continues to consider changing other safety standards, manufacturers may still need to petition NHTSA for an exemption to sell their ADS-equipped vehicles."

Sounds contradictory to me...

There may be vehicle configurations that the NHTSA hasn't considered in their new rules. For example the Cruise and Zoox vehicles have rear facing front seats so they don't have front airbags (though I imagine that configuration is considered in the new rules).
I don't plan on reading it though, it's 155 pages long! (https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.g...t-Protection-Amendment-Automated-Vehicles.pdf)

 

[diplomat33]

There may be vehicle configurations that the NHTSA hasn't considered in their new rules. For example the Cruise and Zoox vehicles have rear facing front seats so they don't have front airbags (though I imagine that configuration is considered in the new rules).
I don't plan on reading it though, it's 155 pages long! (https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.g...t-Protection-Amendment-Automated-Vehicles.pdf)

This might help. From the first page of the NHTSA regulation:

This final rule makes clear that, despite their innovative designs, vehicles with ADS technology must continue to provide the same high levels of occupant protection that current passenger vehicles provide. The occupant protection standards are currently written for traditionally designed vehicles and use terms such as “driver’s seat” and “steering wheel,” that are not meaningful to vehicle designs that, for example, lack a steering wheel or other driver controls. This final rule updates the standards in a manner that clarifies existing terminology while avoiding unnecessary terminology, and, in doing so, resolves ambiguities in applying the standards to ADS-equipped vehicles without traditional manual controls. In addition, this final rule amends the standards in a manner that maintains the existing regulatory text whenever possible, to make clear that this rule maintains the level of crash protection currently provided occupants in more traditionally designed vehicles. This final rule is limited to the crashworthiness standards to provide a unified set of regulatory text applicable to vehicles with and without ADS functionality.

In short, the old rules for passenger safety assumed the car had a steering wheel and pedals. The NHTSA is updating the rules to apply equally for cars with and without manual controls. So AVs are allowed to remove the steering wheel and pedals now but they must still comply with the passenger safety standards.

 

[EVNow]

"NHTSA said existing regulations do not currently bar deploying automated vehicles as long as they have manual driving controls, and as it continues to consider changing other safety standards, manufacturers may still need to petition NHTSA for an exemption to sell their ADS-equipped vehicles."

Sounds contradictory to me...

It is nuanced.

Doesn't bar <> Allowed.

 

[voyager]

Look, this is all nice:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1502688067928297474

When will Cruise operate AVs during the daytime? Or is there a slight chance:
manually or assisted operated between let's say 6AM and 12 PM, and during the night fully autonomous??

 

[Doggydogworld]

Look, this is all nice:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1502688067928297474

When will Cruise operate AVs during the daytime? Or is there a slight chance:
manually or assisted operated between let's say 6AM and 12 PM, and during the night fully autonomous??

Cruise drives test vehicles all over the city 24x7. Their driverless service is only a subset of the city (1/4th?) and only at night. They claim "tens of vehicles" in the driverless service. That's more than Waymo One uses in Phoenix, again showing SF even at 3 AM is a better market than Chandler. I figure they'll expand the driverless service area before expanding the hours, but others say the opposite. They still can't charge for rides, which may slow their expansion plans.

 

[ThomasD]

Have they said what the projected cost of a ride will be

 

[bradtem]

Have they said what the projected cost of a ride will be

Nope. Cruise can't even charge yet I think. Waymo can and will shortly. In Chandler they are slightly below an Uber. I think they will try many prices.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Nope. Cruise can't even charge yet I think. Waymo can and will shortly. In Chandler they are slightly below an Uber. I think they will try many prices.

I posted it up thread, but Cruise was approved to collect fares at the same time as Waymo was approved. What they can't do is charge fares without a safety driver.
Autonomous Car Progress
Here's another report:
California issues permits to Cruise, Waymo for autonomous vehicle service

 

[Knightshade]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1503488884142977041

I thought Mobile eye was a leader?

How bad is their system if BMW is hoping switching to someone else gets them to L3 in 2025?

 

[Supcom]

Maybe Qualcomm offered a sweeter deal.

 

[diplomat33]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1503488884142977041

I thought Mobile eye was a leader?

How bad is their system if BMW is hoping switching to someone else gets them to L3 in 2025?

There is nothing in the article about BMW thinking that Mobileye's system "sucks" as the reason for the switch. There could be a host of reasons why BMW decided to switch that have nothing to do with Mobileye. Mobileye is a leader in ADAS. Over 40M cars use a Mobileye chip. And as you can see below, there are plenty of companies who do believe in Mobileye. So assuming Mobileye "sucks" just because one company decided to switch to Qualcomm is jumping to conclusions IMO.

 

[heltok]

All these changes between suppliers take so much time for the engineers. Probably they change the scope of the project back and forth also and need to scrap so much code they have done. Sometimes they even switch languages and their engineers have to take courses in cuda, c++, rust and other things that they later decide they will just outsource anyway. And by the time they have something to demo for management Tesla has already had something better in production so they cannot really demo it to get PR for future products and they have to change the scope and maybe change the hardware again. They have a few systems like this up and running:

Problem is that so many different teams compete for time using it. The sensor team wants to use it, but the integration team has booked it for the next week, then the control team, then the lidar team wants to try a new lidar and the infotaiment team needs to try it before their next milestone so they can send the order to bosch. Also the hardware breaks all the time, there are bugs galore, the GPS needs to be manually reset after each firmware update, so many manual switches and most teams don’t really know what half of them do. And the logs are consuming gigabytes of SSD usb disc that nobody really knows where they are and many teams accidently forgets them at their department as they seem useful.

Meanwhile Tesla are using normal production cars, a developer can update the neural network in the developers own car OTA and he can test it while he drives home. Logging happens over wifi while he is home and is uploaded to his computer when gets there the next day. Hardware has been the same for the last three years, all bugs and kinks are worked out. The entire system is modular most hardware and software is made inhouse.

 

[Terminator857]

BMW motto: The ultimate driving machine.
Mobileye: You don't need to drive.
Sounds like goals are opposite.

 

[EVNow]

I thought Mobile eye was a leader?

How bad is their system if BMW is hoping switching to someone else gets them to L3 in 2025?

There is nothing in the article about BMW thinking that Mobileye's system "sucks" as the reason for the switch. There could be a host of reasons why BMW decided to switch that have nothing to do with Mobileye. Mobileye is a leader in ADAS. Over 40M cars use a Mobileye chip. And as you can see below, there are plenty of companies who do believe in Mobileye. So assuming Mobileye "sucks" just because one company decided to switch to Qualcomm is jumping to conclusions IMO.

From what I’ve read, Mobileye offers more of an end-to-end solution compared to Qualcomm, which is more customizable. Now this is just the marketing angle - actual product performance and features will be another story.

Anyway, then there is NVidia too in the mix. It’s a competitive landscape with shifting strategies and partnerships.

BTW, can’t make out from the article. What exactly is BMW planning to offer in 2025 ? The same traffic jam L3 low speed BS or something better ?

 

[EVNow]

Here is a much better article with details.

Basically, BMW will become part of the software IP owning partners, rather than just a downstream consumer of Mobileye. Interestingly they retain the right to all the REM map details collected from their Mobileye partnership.

BMW, Qualcomm And Arriver To Collaborate On New Driver Assist And Automation

In November 2021, Qualcomm announced that its new Snapdragon Ride compute platform for advanced driver assist systems (ADS) and partially automated driving (ADS) had been selected for future BMW vehicles.

www.forbes.com

 

[diplomat33]

Waymo is obviously happy with the new NHTSA rule as the CEO confirms on Twitter that they are integrating the 5th Gen into the new Zeekr driverless robotaxi currently in development. The new NHTSA rule will allow companies like Waymo, Cruise and Zoox to move forward with their "no steering" robotaxi vehicles.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1503771564994560002

PS: Yes, the image in the link is the Zoox robotaxi, not the Waymo robotaxi. A bit confusing. Tekedra linked to the Tech Crunch article which uses an image of the Zoox vehicle.

 

[Jeff N]

I don’t think this has been posted here although it’s a month old. Made me laugh.

 

[Dewg]

Well this will be interesting...

Tesla Receives More Bad News for Its Driver-assist Autopilot - TheStreet

Tesla's collection of biometric data using its cabin-facing camera is under scrutiny

www.thestreet.com

 

[Terminator857]

I don’t think this has been posted here although it’s a month old. Made me laugh.

Quote: We just miss the date by a year or six.
For FSD it is going to be 10+ year miss.

 

[Knightshade]

Well this will be interesting...

Tesla Receives More Bad News for Its Driver-assist Autopilot - TheStreet

Tesla's collection of biometric data using its cabin-facing camera is under scrutiny

www.thestreet.com

Not really.

Tesla tells you in writing on the screen of the car it's doing it, and requires you to agree to let them do it, AND it doesn't send Tesla any biometric info either- it processes the video feed in real time in the car, the only info Tesla ever gets is if you had any strikeouts from not paying attention- it doesn't send Tesla anything biometric.

It's a nonsense class action to try and make some lawyers some money.

Ford and Caddy and many others also use in-car cameras for driver attentiveness tracking- but they don't make nearly as big a headline when you sue them I guess.