Yes. You’re making my point. The ODD limit can be hit instantly without prior warning by traffic conditions or weather which effectively requires a fallback ready driver? It can’t really MRM on a limited access highway if there is a heavy smoke on the roads.
If the ODD limit can be hit instantly without prior warning then it cannot work for L3. With L3, the human might be reading or watching a movie but needs to be the fall-back ready user when prompted. So the human will need some time to stop what they are doing, regain situational awareness and resume control. That only works in situations where the L3 can give the human sufficient advance notice. So L3 only makes sense in an ODD where there is enough time for the human to react. So any ODD limit that can happen without warning cannot be an ODD limit for L3.
L3 must be able to handle everything in the ODD that happens quickly and must only need to ask the human to take over when it can give sufficient advance notice. Also remember that L3 relies on the human to do the fallback. If the human cannot do the fallback, L3 will likely be in trouble. That is why L3 requires robust driver monitoring to make absolutely sure that the human is able to do the fallback.
So the manufacturer who wants to do L3 will need to design their L3 and select the proper ODD to make sure that the L3 can safely handle everything inside the ODD and that the human can safely take over every time with enough advance notice.
By when to you expect personally owned L4 on the highway that can handle all weather and traffic situations either by being awesome or teleops so that the driver need not to be fallback ready and can sleep? Seems at least 10 years away to me at this point.
Teleops at highway speeds is too risky IMO. So L4 highway will simply need to be awesome, as you put it. I think that is a big reason why Waymo is not doing driverless on highways yet, despite testing on highways for over a year now. Waymo knows that the Waymo Driver needs to be able to safely handle all highway scenarios without any remote assistance at all, ie it needs to be awesome.
I do expect L4 highway that can handle all traffic situations in good weather in a few years. L4 highway in all weather might be 10 years away.
It also seems to me you’d be able to hit L3 a lot sooner, if the OEM:s want to leave the cozy L2 “driver is always responsible“ because you can limit the L3 ODD to a fraction of what the L4 ODD would be?
Yes, you can do L3 in a more limited ODD, like traffic jam assist. That is what I am saying. But if you want to do a bigger ODD, like all highways from on ramp to off ramp, all weather, at full highway speeds, then I think you basically need L4 so that I think doing L4 highway makes more sense.
Finally. in order to build the L4 with fallback that you are proposing you need to build L3 DDT fallback, so why not release that first in a more limited ODD (which it enables) to get some revenue?
Perhaps the reference to L4 asking the human to take over when leaving the ODD confused you because it sounds like L3. The key difference is that with L4, human fallback is optional but with L3, human fallback is required.
Example: L4 highway approaches highway exit. It asks the human to take over. If human takes over, L4 is off, and human resumes driving. If human fails to take over, L4 does the fallback. It pulls over as soon as it is safe to do so. L3 approaches the highway exit. It requests the human take over. The human must take over since the L3 cannot do the fallback. See the difference?
So you don't need to do L3 human fallback in order to do L4. You can build L4 to do its own fallback. L4 does not require human fallback. Human fallback is optional in L4.
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