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How does the auto lane change work and what happens is you disable the sensors?

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This time l made a video about how the auto lane change works. Last few Autopilot tests gave me the feeling that de side repeater cameras are being used. We know they are active now, but it does not seem to be used in the auto lane change for now.
But then we took it a step further to see what happens if you block all the sensors...


P.S.: apparently I cannot create a topic in the video section to list all my videos in 1 topic, because of insufficient privileges. Any moderator can help me out in telling me how to go about this?
 
Good test. Definitely needs to be fixed before full self driving is turned on - you can't cause a crash with a few pieces of duct tape.

I'm not sure you can conclude the cameras are not used at all - maybe they work together somehow. Blocking only the cameras made some difference - yes?
 
P.S.: apparently I cannot create a topic in the video section to list all my videos in 1 topic, because of insufficient privileges. Any moderator can help me out in telling me how to go about this?
I think people can still post in existing threads but I don't think any new threads have been allowed there since the Video forum was closed nearly two years ago.
 
Good test. Definitely needs to be fixed before full self driving is turned on - you can't cause a crash with a few pieces of duct tape.

I'm not sure you can conclude the cameras are not used at all - maybe they work together somehow. Blocking only the cameras made some difference - yes?

After doing the second control test at the end, we concluded there was no difference in behaviour when only the cameras were taped off. Lane change only happens when the arcs disappear from the dash and at a distance of about 10m, which is roughly the distance the ultrasonics go (9m).
 
Auto lane change is not very safe operating on its own in my experience. Had to force it to stop once as it attempted to change lanes with another car very close to me (in the adjacent lane). Had it completed the lane change, I would've been bumper to bumper or hit the car behind/beside me. The range of the ultrasonic sensors is abysmal for blind spot monitoring. Tesla should have added short range radar like most car companies use for BSM, or they need to get the damn rearward side cameras functioning for auto lane change.
 
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Auto lane change is not very safe operating on its own in my experience. Had to force it to stop once as it attempted to change lanes with another car very close to me (in the adjacent lane). Had it completed the lane change, I would've been bumper to bumper or hit the car behind/beside me. The range of the ultrasonic sensors is abysmal for blind spot monitoring. Tesla should have added short range radar like most car companies use for BSM, or they need to get the damn rearward side cameras functioning for auto lane change.

We know that the side repeater cameras are active since the last update, only to be passively used to gather data. So, I expect that they will eventually be used.
 
This will be an issue for FSD. A fast approaching car (you are doing 60, he is doing 90) comes up one car behind you, pulls to the right to pass as you want to change lanes. To track that kind of driver might take radar or a much better rear camera. This scenario is commonplace here in Silicon Valley where almost 3/4 of our tech workers are from countries that do not obey driving laws.
https://www.quora.com/How-is-driving-in-the-US-different-from-driving-in-India
 
This will be an issue for FSD. A fast approaching car (you are doing 60, he is doing 90) comes up one car behind you, pulls to the right to pass as you want to change lanes. To track that kind of driver might take radar or a much better rear camera. This scenario is commonplace here in Silicon Valley where almost 3/4 of our tech workers are from countries that do not obey driving laws.
https://www.quora.com/How-is-driving-in-the-US-different-from-driving-in-India

Eventually all cars will obey the law if they are self driving. And if we could change all of them overnight, the whole FSD issue would be much easier tos solve. However, since we'll have many years where autonomous cars have to share the road with people driving their cars, there are many uncontrolled and unforeseen situations that the car needs to be able to react to.
One of the biggest issues I see for autonomous cars is that they can only react to a situation. Even with AI, the data needs to be analysed and reacted upon. Humans are very good at predicting other humans' behaviour. And our brain is a supercomputer that can do many more calculations per second than any existing computer can. Mimicking human capabilities is not easy. But maybe it's best we don't mimic human behaviour (imagine a fully autonomous road rage :-D)