Is No-Radar Cause of Crashes?

[Vettepartz]

I have been watching the news on TV and they are reporting Tesla crashes when drivers are in Autopilot and approach emergency vehicles that have red flashing lights. It looks as if some governmental agency is opening an investigation since there have been about 11 crashes. I had not heard of this in the past when radar was still in use. Has anyone gotten any new info on this?

Moderator, if this is in the wrong section, I apologize and would ask that you move it to the correct place.

 

[nicholb]

The dates of all the crashes listed that I have seen on the reports are a couple years ago so the cars involved were using radar. According to Tesla that is part of the reason for the failures and vision only will work better.

I would also say most if not all the crashes involved people using AP where they should not be (according to Tesla's instructions on when and where it can be safely used) or they were not paying attention as is required when using AP.

 

[Grandpa Gebis]

Like most negative new articles about Tesla/Tesla drivers, I'd say this is just FUD mixed with dumb drivers who think Autopilot something more than L2 driver assistance.

 

[nicholb]

I find it funny that ~11 crashes in a +3 year period warrants an investigation. The current cars are not even running the same software as was the ones involved. I wonder how many plain old cruise control related accidents occured in the same time period.

 

[Big Earl]

Likely the opposite. Removing the radar will almost certainly eliminate these types of collisions. All of these crashes have taken place in vehicles with radar, which as Tesla has pointed out recently, provides a lot of bad, misleading and conflicting data that often has to be ignored.

It's worth mentioning that our Cadillac ELR with Mobileye radar cruise control will also happily run right into the back of stopped traffic if that traffic is stopped when it enters the radar's view. It will even accelerate into the back of stopped traffic if a moving car in front of the Cadillac changes lanes to reveal said stopped traffic. Why no crashes in these cars with Mobileye radar cruise? Likely because some Tesla drivers get more complacent when using Autosteer and don't pay full attention to the road ahead.

 

[Tam]

I have been watching the news on TV and they are reporting Tesla crashes when drivers are in Autopilot and approach emergency vehicles that have red flashing lights. It looks as if some governmental agency is opening an investigation since there have been about 11 crashes. I had not heard of this in the past when radar was still in use. Has anyone gotten any new info on this?

Moderator, if this is in the wrong section, I apologize and would ask that you move it to the correct place.

Multiple NTSB investigation has acknowledged the RADAR limitations that the system does not brake for stationary obstacles.

If you look up Tesla's Owners' Manual for the word "stationary", it's mentioned there too.

It's explained in this article below:

Why Tesla's Autopilot Can't See a Stopped Firetruck

Semiautonomous driving systems are designed to ignore unmoving obstacles because otherwise, they couldn't work at all.

www.wired.com

2014 to 3/2021 Tesla Model 3 & Y North America cars have both cameras and a RADAR and they both can see obstacles fine. The problem is software. How can humans have the capacity to write a program for RADAR and cameras to avoid obstacles for cars? It's too difficult so others have added LIDAR which made that task much easier.

Google/Waymo started in 2019 with the aid of LIDAR and 3 years later it had a blind person sat on the driver's seat as the system drove itself.

Then again, same deal with a blind man in a Firefly without pedals and without a steering wheel.

Waymo has started its public driverless rides without any safety drivers tagging along since 2019 and it has not collided with any obstacles.

Tesla doesn't believe in LIDAR because it is a "crutch". It believes in pure vision because if humans can use vision so can the machine.

 

[tinman1356]

the Biden administration has a hard on for tesla, I think it is because he does not bowl down to government rules

 

[Darmie]

the Biden administration has a hard on for tesla, I think it is because he does not bowl down to government rules

I don't know. Play silly games, get silly prizes.

Fiat Chrysler gets $30M fine for paying off union leaders

On Tuesday, a federal judge fined Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) $30 million after the legacy OEM admitted to paying off leaders from the United Autoworkers (UAW) union. “There is a need for this sentence imposed to reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law and...

www.teslarati.com

I know this is not the government but it's really hard to tell them apart under this administration.

 

[Tam]

the Biden administration has a hard on for tesla, I think it is because he does not bowl down to government rules

It's very disappointing that Tesla Full Self Driving still can collide with the garage in a smart summon.

Side collision:

Frontal collision:

One main reason that I bought Full Self Driving is to avoid collisions whether with a garage or first responder vehicles.

If that cannot be fixed, at least the public needs to be educated about what they bought.

And that's what the government is for: If Tesla doesn't take time to educate its owners, the government can investigate and implement an interim remedy.

 

[Ptheven]

the Biden administration has a hard on for tesla, I think it is because he does not bowl down to government rules

More because Elon's a lying pusbag who's been getting away with it for way too long and isn't going to stop unless it hurts too much to keep doing it.

 

[Atari2600]

the Biden administration has a hard on for tesla, I think it is because he does not bowl down to government rules

I thought it was due to Tesla not being a union shop. I don't see why Tesla cannot make vision + radar work. Why can they not take info from both?

 

[Big Earl]

I thought it was due to Tesla not being a union shop. I don't see why Tesla cannot make vision + radar work. Why can they not take info from both?

The answer to your question can be found in this very informative presentation by Andrej Karpathy.

 

[mrbulk]

Hmmm, I wonder if the AI computer responds faster/better if it doesn't have to choose between conflicting radar and vision data every time a split-second decision comes up?

 

[RobDickinson]

I have been watching the news on TV and they are reporting Tesla crashes when drivers are in Autopilot and approach emergency vehicles that have red flashing lights. It looks as if some governmental agency is opening an investigation since there have been about 11 crashes. I had not heard of this in the past when radar was still in use. Has anyone gotten any new info on this?

Moderator, if this is in the wrong section, I apologize and would ask that you move it to the correct place.

All these crashes are from cars equipped with radar using radar.

Radar sucks with static/non moving objects. So radar didnt help in these situations at all.

Also drivers being drunk or watching movies also didnt help.

 

[CapsEngineer]

Radar sucks with static/non moving objects. So radar didnt help in these situations at all.

No, radar doesn't inherently suck with non-moving objects. It's the fusion of the radar information with the visual information that is causing the problem.

For example, ground penetrating radar and terrain following radars are both good at detecting stationary object. SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) is also good at detecting stationary objects.