Interesting Article on AVIA dropping Self Driving

[richincle]

The Verge just posted an article about how the AVIA (which Tesla is not a member of) is dropping self driving. Thoughts?

 

[diplomat33]

The Verge just posted an article about how the AVIA (which Tesla is not a member of) is dropping self driving. Thoughts?

Yeah, this is not new. As the article mentions, Waymo also dropped any references to "self-driving" last year. There has been a recent shift in the AV industry to try to avoid the term "self-driving" because it is deemed misleading. The problem is that "self-driving" is too often used to describe all kinds of different systems, from advanced driver assist to actual autonomy. It can be confusing to the general public. It's not just Tesla, there have been other companies that used "self-driving" to describe their ADAS in an ad. There have also been journalists who used "self-driving" inappropriately. So, as the article mentions, the industry wants to standardize the language to be clearer on what is a driver assist and what is truly autonomous.

I think we are seeing a shift to terms that focus on the responsibilities of the driver. So for example, we see terms like "hands-off", "eye's on" for many of the advanced driver assist systems to describe what the driver can and should do. Mobileye describes Supervision as a L2+ "premium driver assist" that will be hands-off but eye's on the road at all times whereas they describe their future consumer AV as L4 and "eye's off". We also see Waymo use terms like "rider-only" as a way of expressing the fact that the customer is simply a rider and is not responsible for any driving.

I like this move by the AV industry to try to move away from the term "self-driving". As long as we have some cars with advanced driver assist and some cars that are fully autonomous, it will be very important that the public understand which is which. We will see if this makes Tesla change their name of full self-driving or not.

 

[TresLA]

This is probably a good step. As an industry and as a society, the language and concepts for what exists between “lane keeping assist” and “sleep in the backseat” AV just haven’t been standardized. We didn’t/don’t know what we didn’t/don’t know.

As understanding catches up to the reality and imaginations of those advancing the industry, this should be less of an issue. But until we see and understand what’s more advanced than lane keeping (on winding roads) but still can’t make its way across the USA on public roads without interventions, society will keep thinking the next step after what their car can do now is drive without a driver at the steering wheel… and be disappointed when it can’t yet.

 

[EVNow]

There has been a recent shift in the AV industry to try to avoid the term "self-driving" because it is deemed misleading. The problem is that "self-driving" is too often used to describe all kinds of different systems, from advanced driver assist to actual autonomy. It can be confusing to the general public. It's not just Tesla, there have been other companies that used "self-driving" to describe their ADAS in an ad. There have also been journalists who used "self-driving" inappropriately.

As brand specialists will tell you, dilution of such terms is inevitable.

Anyway, if you can’t get FSD working, just alter its meaning

 

[Daniel in SD]

Thoughts?

I hate it but it is what it is. The term self-driving has become meaningless. This is why I often use the term "robotaxi" because at least that hasn't lost its meaning yet.
"self-driving" was already on a list of deprecated terms in SAE J3016.

P.S. I'm still trying to find an unambiguous term for SAE L3 to avoid offending the SAE haters.