Lexus introducing hands-free highway L2 called "Highway Teammate"

[diplomat33]

Lexus is introducing "Highway Teammate" (horrible name!), a hands-free L2 driver assist for the highway, which Lexus says can "handle almost all aspects of highway driving from the on-ramp to the exit, such as merging into highway traffic, lane keeping, speed adjustments, lane changes, overtaking and maintaining vehicle-to-vehicle distance". Lexus is also planning to release more self-driving features via OTA updates:
First Lexus with self-driving system arrives in 2020

 

[malcolm]

Ugh - "Good job, Highway Teammate!"


"Your Plastic Pal who's fun to be with"
(copywrite Sirius Cybernetics)

 

[cucubits]

Good to hear Lexus is working on this too. The more cars driving themselves, the safer it will be overall.

I do hate the name though.

 

[ilyak]

"Highway Teammate"

I can practically smell the body odor and the Indian take-out ordered by the committee that decided on this name. Will be rather interesting to see how a generally conservative manufacturer approaches this though.

 

[Yang_H]

This is great. Hope Tesla can really speed up their FSD development as the competitors are certainly getting closer and closer to their autopilot. Our second car must have driving features at least as good as AP, and frankly I'm not going to limit the choice to Tesla only.

 

[J1mbo]

No detail on how (if..!) they do driver attention monitoring.

 

[diplomat33]

No detail on how (if..!) they do driver attention monitoring.

Most likely a driver facing camera since it is hands-free. That's the standard now that everybody is using (except Tesla).

 

[diplomat33]

This is great. Hope Tesla can really speed up their FSD development as the competitors are certainly getting closer and closer to their autopilot. Our second car must have driving features at least as good as AP, and frankly I'm not going to limit the choice to Tesla only.

Without a driver facing camera, Tesla can't offer hands-free driving until they achieve L4 autonomous driving. Depending on how long that takes, Tesla could be at a disadvantage as more and more companies are now offering highway "self-driving" like AP or NOA but with the added advantage of being hands-free.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I'm surprised that there isn't more detail as this is after all 2020.

Should be really interesting to see how the system compares with NoA.

I'd probably even rent one for a weekend just to try it out.

Actually it might be awhile before I'm able to do that. Apparently this vehicle is only going to be announced this year, and not necessarily available. Then it's unlikely to be available in the North American region immediately.

Lexus Will Introduce Hands-Off Driver Assist on a Car This Year

 

[vinny84]

I can practically smell the body odor and the Indian take-out ordered by the committee that decided on this name. Will be rather interesting to see how a generally conservative manufacturer approaches this though.

Without a driver facing camera, Tesla can't offer hands-free driving until they achieve L4 autonomous driving. Depending on how long that takes, Tesla could be at a disadvantage as more and more companies are now offering highway "self-driving" like AP or NOA but with the added advantage of being hands-free.

@diplomat33 I have been reading your posts for the past 20+ months. Clearly you do lot of reading/research and your posts are very informative. I truly appreciate your insights on the autonomous driving technology.

Speaking from your recent posts, it appears you are loosing/lost confidence on Tesla’s abilities to deliver autonomous driving technology. Correct me if I am wrong.

I have a 2018 MX 75D with FSD. All my previous cars were BMW. I wanted to sell my MX due to low real world mileage and wanted to lease a BMW X7. 2 things kept me from switching. Cluttered UI, Poor Driving Assistant Professional package in BMW. Like many of Tesla owners, I use Autopilot for over 90% of my driving and in my honest opinion, there is nothing remotely close to Autopilot on the market. BMW’s driving assistant system is a joke. Part of the reason is their autonomous autonomous technology is being built by a tier1 company (ZF). Apparently they do bare minimum. Their implementation was so poor that I changed my mind after 2 long test drives.

Tesla’s big advantage is vertical integration. I am not sure if any other automobile manufacturer owns all needed pieces required for autonomous driving in-house like Tesla does (chip, programmers, hardware)

Back to the topic. Lexus autonomous driving name is as good as their cars interior and exterior design. =)

 

[diplomat33]

@diplomat33 I have been reading your posts for the past 20+ months. Clearly you do lot of reading/research and your posts are very informative. I truly appreciate your insights on the autonomous driving technology.

Thanks. I've made it a point to try to educate myself as best I can on this issue because I used to be woefully ignorant.

Speaking from your recent posts, it appears you are loosing/lost confidence on Tesla’s abilities to deliver autonomous driving technology. Correct me if I am wrong.

I have not lost all faith completely but I have lost a little faith, yes. I would say that I am more realistic. That's because, as I have educated myself on the issue of autonomous driving, I've become more aware of some of Tesla's shortcomings in their approach towards FSD. One shortcoming that frustrates me is Tesla's decision not to use a driver facing camera. Because of that decision, we can't have hands-free AP until Tesla achieves safe FSD that does not require driver supervision. With a driver facing camera, we would have hands-free AP a lot sooner. Another shortcoming that disappoints me is the lack of lidar or additional radar. I firmly believe that the phantom braking problems and incidents with stopping cars could have been avoided with just one front lidar. So yeah, I think that just one extra sensor could have given us a much better AP experience sooner.

Don't get me wrong. I fully expect Tesla's camera vision approach to get better and to give us better AP. But I am also more educated about the limitations of Tesla's camera vision only approach. I am not buying Elon's optimistic timeline of being able to sleep in our Teslas by the end of this year.

I have a 2018 MX 75D with FSD. All my previous cars were BMW. I wanted to sell my MX due to low real world mileage and wanted to lease a BMW X7. 2 things kept me from switching. Cluttered UI, Poor Driving Assistant Professional package in BMW. Like many of Tesla owners, I use Autopilot for over 90% of my driving and in my honest opinion, there is nothing remotely close to Autopilot on the market. BMW’s driving assistant system is a joke. Part of the reason is their autonomous autonomous technology is being built by a tier1 company (ZF). Apparently they do bare minimum. Their implementation was so poor that I changed my mind after 2 long test drives.

Oh yes, I love AP. I think it is wonderful. I use it every chance I get. But AP is a driver assist system. It is not yet an autonomous driving system. There is a HUGE difference between driver assist and full autonomy. It is important not to confuse the two.

Tesla’s big advantage is vertical integration. I am not sure if any other automobile manufacturer owns all needed pieces required for autonomous driving in-house like Tesla does (chip, programmers, hardware)

Yes, I agree that vertical integration is a big advantage for Tesla as Tesla can develop the hardware in house, integrate the hardware in all their cars, sell the cars, develop the software and deploy the software directly to the fleet via OTA updates with no middleman. We've seen this AP2 and how quickly Tesla has rolled out cars with AP2 hardware and rolled out new AP features. In fact, even if Tesla does not achieve FSD, Tesla could have a strong lead in advanced driver assist features thanks to this vertical integration. The problem I have with Tesla is not in their vertical integration but in some of their FSD choices.

 

[MIT_S60]

This would be pretty sweet to be released with the RAV4 Prime, but I assume they'll keep it as Lexus only initially unfortunately.

 

[vinny84]

Thanks. I've made it a point to try to educate myself as best I can on this issue because I used to be woefully ignorant.



I have not lost all faith completely but I have lost a little faith, yes. I would say that I am more realistic. That's because, as I have educated myself on the issue of autonomous driving, I've become more aware of some of Tesla's shortcomings in their approach towards FSD. One shortcoming that frustrates me is Tesla's decision not to use a driver facing camera. Because of that decision, we can't have hands-free AP until Tesla achieves safe FSD that does not require driver supervision. With a driver facing camera, we would have hands-free AP a lot sooner. Another shortcoming that disappoints me is the lack of lidar or additional radar. I firmly believe that the phantom braking problems and incidents with stopping cars could have been avoided with just one front lidar. So yeah, I think that just one extra sensor could have given us a much better AP experience sooner.

Don't get me wrong. I fully expect Tesla's camera vision approach to get better and to give us better AP. But I am also more educated about the limitations of Tesla's camera vision only approach. I am not buying Elon's optimistic timeline of being able to sleep in our Teslas by the end of this year.



Oh yes, I love AP. I think it is wonderful. I use it every chance I get. But AP is a driver assist system. It is not yet an autonomous driving system. There is a HUGE difference between driver assist and full autonomy. It is important not to confuse the two.



Yes, I agree that vertical integration is a big advantage for Tesla as Tesla can develop the hardware in house, integrate the hardware in all their cars, sell the cars, develop the software and deploy the software directly to the fleet via OTA updates with no middleman. We've seen this AP2 and how quickly Tesla has rolled out cars with AP2 hardware and rolled out new AP features. In fact, even if Tesla does not achieve FSD, Tesla could have a strong lead in advanced driver assist features thanks to this vertical integration. The problem I have with Tesla is not in their vertical integration but in some of their FSD choices.

Well said!

 

[Yang_H]

I love the AP on my model 3 and I'm really curious to know which current or upcoming models from other manufactures have features close to or even better than Tesla AP. It seems that Tesla AP is still the best overall at the moment?

 

[vinny84]

I love the AP on my model 3 and I'm really curious to know which current or upcoming models from other manufactures have features close to or even better than Tesla AP. It seems that Tesla AP is still the best overall at the moment?

Generally speaking, as of now Tesla Autopilot is best of the best.

There is a talk that BMW is going to launch L3 early next year. They are going to use Mobileeye EyeQ5, Lidar, front and rear radar, and cameras. Aptiv is building technology for BMW.

 

[hugh_jassol]

Without a driver facing camera, Tesla can't offer hands-free driving

...but they do. Just don't use it (yet?). Elon I don't think ever said they intended it for this purpose - it is supposedly for robo-taxi use.

 

[diplomat33]

...but they do. Just don't use it (yet?). Elon I don't think ever said they intended it for this purpose - it is supposedly for robo-taxi use.

What do you mean? If we go hands free now, we get nags and get shut out of AP. And if we use an anti-nag device to go hands free, it is quite dangerous.

 

[hugh_jassol]

What do you mean? If we go hands free now, we get nags and get shut out of AP. And if we use an anti-nag device to go hands free, it is quite dangerous.

I was pointing out that the Model 3 does have a driver-facing camera. Tesla just hasn't turned it on, or even really said what it's intended purpose is yet. Hopefully, they can use it for a hands-free/attention feature

 

[diplomat33]

I was pointing out that the Model 3 does have a driver-facing camera. Tesla just hasn't turned it on, or even really said what it's intended purpose is yet. Hopefully, they can use it for a hands-free/attention feature

Right. But Elon has said it is for robotaxis NOT for monitoring driver attention. Of course, we can always hope that he changes his mind.

 

[hugh_jassol]

Right. But as far as we know, Tesla has no intention of using it to monitor driver attention. In fact, Elon has said "no". Of course, we can always hope that he changes his mind.

yes, I hope so... as it would really suck if cadillac/others can go hands-free and Tesla can't