Model X self-driving on freeways?

[tander]

So this might not be a surprise to other people, but it sure was to me when I heard Musk say "So I think we are making some really good progress on the autopilot side, and I am confident that in less than a year you will be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exits without touching any controls." at the shareholder meeting yesterday. Maybe most people already assumed this but to me that seemed like kind of a huge announcement and step forward, a bit surprised that nobody else found it exciting. Anybody else catch that?

 

[Kevin Harney]

So this might not be a surprise to other people, but it sure was to me when I heard Musk say "So I think we are making some really good progress on the autopilot side, and I am confident that in less than a year you will be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exits without touching any controls." at the shareholder meeting yesterday. Maybe most people already assumed this but to me that seemed like kind of a huge announcement and step forward, a bit surprised that nobody else found it exciting. Anybody else catch that?

All that requires is Active Cruise control and Lane sensing. Most luxury cars have those available already. Should be fairly easy to put them together.

 

[ecarfan]

All that requires is Active Cruise control and Lane sensing. Most luxury cars have those available already. Should be fairly easy to put them together.

I think what Elon described requires much more than that. He seemed pretty clear in his description that the car would be capable of self-driving on freeways. That has to include the capability to automatically change lanes as needed when transitioning between freeways and be able to accurately sense not only vehicles to the front and rear but also to each side, as well as temporary lane closures.

You are thinking too small. I predict that what he was describing will include the ability for the car to automatically follow the navigation route you input for the freeway section of the journey even when multiple freeways are involved.

 

[tander]

Yeah I mean it seems like a lot of luxury cars are sort of on the brink of this stuff when you add up auto stopping and lane departure warning etc, so I don't know maybe all of them will be coming out with that next year. But I'm just kind of surprised that nobody thought that sounded like a big deal. If he really wants to knock people's socks off with the X, a true highway autopilot system would be a heck of a way to do it.

 

[timf]

I'd rather be amazed when a highly advanced system is revealed than underwhelmed by nothing more than basic driver assist technology, so until then I'm going with the expectation that the Model X will have adaptive cruise and lane keeping at least at the level of my current car. If it turns out to be bigger then that's even more to be excited about, and if not at least I'm not sacrificing features for the sake of going electric like I would be with the current Model S.

 

[tander]

I'd rather be amazed when a highly advanced system is revealed than underwhelmed by nothing more than basic driver assist technology, so until then I'm going with the expectation that the Model X will have adaptive cruise and lane keeping at least at the level of my current car. If it turns out to be bigger then that's even more to be excited about, and if not at least I'm not sacrificing features for the sake of going electric like I would be with the current Model S.

Well if Musk's quote turns out to be true it sounds like you are pretty well set to have your expectations surpassed, from on ramp to off ramp is a pretty good leap over anything I know of right now.

 

[timf]

Well if Musk's quote turns out to be true it sounds like you are pretty well set to have your expectations surpassed, from on ramp to off ramp is a pretty good leap over anything I know of right now.

Yeah, knowing how he works there's little chance he'll settle for the "good enough" option, otherwise these features would already be available. The Model X is already going to be a knockout, this would just be icing on the cake.

 

[cgiGuy]

I had an Infiniti with adaptive cruise, lane departure prevention, and collision avoidance system. Aside from the cruse control, it was all pretty worthless. The lane departure (which did use a camera mounted in the rear-view mirror) would only work on a 3 degree or less departure from the lane and then would apply brakes on the opposite side of the departure direction very subtly. This was enough to maybe give you an extra second or 2 before it would continue out of the lane. No connection to the steering at all.

 

[Zythryn]

So this might not be a surprise to other people, but it sure was to me when I heard Musk say "So I think we are making some really good progress on the autopilot side, and I am confident that in less than a year you will be able to go from highway on ramp to highway exits without touching any controls." at the shareholder meeting yesterday. Maybe most people already assumed this but to me that seemed like kind of a huge announcement and step forward, a bit surprised that nobody else found it exciting. Anybody else catch that?

Many cars already do most, if not all of this.
This is the only aspect of the MS that is lacking.
If Musk is going to knock it out of the park with a much higher level of driver assist, great.
I will be happy if we just catch up to what else is already out there.

 

[cgiGuy]

Many cars already do most, if not all of this.
This is the only aspect of the MS that is lacking.
If Musk is going to knock it out of the park with a much higher level of driver assist, great.
I will be happy if we just catch up to what else is already out there.

Many cars can go from onramp to offramp of a highway without you touching the controlsl? Which ones? Or even one? Aside from Google's test cars.

 

[tander]

Many cars can go from onramp to offramp of a highway without you touching the controlsl? Which ones? Or even one? Aside from Google's test cars.

Yeah I think people are missing the depth of Musk's statement, to me it implies a significantly higher capability than that what any mass auto maker is doing now, I mean if you connect the dots he pretty much said that the MX is going to be able to drive itself on highways...a pretty big step forward, and not that far away. I guess it's one of those believe it when you see it things but to me that was the single biggest statement of the whole shareholder's meeting.

 

[ElSupreme]

Many cars can go from onramp to offramp of a highway without you touching the controlsl? Which ones? Or even one? Aside from Google's test cars.

I bet any working car with a good alignment could do this onramp to offramp without controls!

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Yeah I think people are missing the depth of Musk's statement, to me it implies a significantly higher capability than that what any mass auto maker is doing now, I mean if you connect the dots he pretty much said that the MX is going to be able to drive itself on highways...a pretty big step forward, and not that far away. I guess it's one of those believe it when you see it things but to me that was the single biggest statement of the whole shareholder's meeting.

You need to check the statement carefully. "Be able to" doesn't mean "will always". Around here you could easily merge and adaptive cruise between ramps in most sections of the Interstate.

In light traffic there's no reason to think that it changing lanes would be any significant problem. Since a smart car would be thinking well ahead like a good driver I'd expect it to communicate any maneuvers that it's considering. E.g.g.
"Moving left: construction"
"Moving left: police"
"Moving left: skunk"
"Braking hard: moose"

 

[Zythryn]

Many cars can go from onramp to offramp of a highway without you touching the controlsl? Which ones? Or even one? Aside from Google's test cars.

Infinity QX50. Test drove one a few weeks ago. Amazing safety technology.
All you need to be able to go from highway on ramp to off ramp is lane keeping and adaptive cruise control.
Now, if you go further to switching lanes and weaving through traffic, sure, that would be new. But since we don't have even the most basic form of adaptive cruise control, I'm not going to let myself get my hopes out of control.
If it arrives, I'll be thrilled.
If basic adaptive cruise control arrives, I'll be happy.

 

[Joel]

I'd rather be amazed when a highly advanced system is revealed than underwhelmed by nothing more than basic driver assist technology, so until then I'm going with the expectation that the Model X will have adaptive cruise and lane keeping at least at the level of my current car. If it turns out to be bigger then that's even more to be excited about, and if not at least I'm not sacrificing features for the sake of going electric like I would be with the current Model S.

It depends on your definition of highly advanced system. The Model X will be able to do exactly what Elon Musk described. The wow factor is dependent on the integration of the driver warning systems. More specifically, how much data the system communicates to the driver (i.e., use of the center console, driver side console, back up camera, etc.)

 

[callmesam]

Elon said previously that Tesla was as far ahead, or further than any other company in Autopilot.

Nomenclature is important as Google refers to driverless and recently exhibited their tiny electric runnabout that goes 25mph and has no manual controls.

This is a 90% automation announcement an Autopilot system that will use multiple failsafes and redundancies including GPS, maps, Google and Waze traffic speeds, public roadway photo capture and more.

Google is adding LIDAR to their suite and Tesla is on record claiming 100% realtime environment capture is overkill. You can do more for less with radar and camera setups.

Time will tell, but both products fill a niche.

Google is transportation as a service TAAS and Tesla is private ownership/co-op style ownership.

 

[cgiGuy]

Infinity QX50. Test drove one a few weeks ago. Amazing safety technology.
All you need to be able to go from highway on ramp to off ramp is lane keeping and adaptive cruise control.
Now, if you go further to switching lanes and weaving through traffic, sure, that would be new. But since we don't have even the most basic form of adaptive cruise control, I'm not going to let myself get my hopes out of control.
If it arrives, I'll be thrilled.
If basic adaptive cruise control arrives, I'll be happy.

The QX is what used to be the EX, and that's what I drove for 3 years. Sorry.. but Infiniti's Lane Departure isn't anywhere near what is required for even the basic task you mentioned. It won't keep you in the lane for even the slightest curve. It's simply designed to slow your "drift" on a straight lane.

Quoting directly from the Infiniti QX50 page: "

If the vehicle drifts unintentionally towards the lane markers, the system first sounds an audible warning, then lightly applies selected brakes to help you ease your vehicle back into its lane."​

​

Additionally, the page shows a video and says "2008 Infiniti EX shown" which tells me it's the same as a few years ago. [video]http://www.infinitiusa.com/content/dam/infiniti/vehicles/2014/qx50/gallery/videos/lane-departure.mp4[/video]

But agreed.. adaptive cruise would be a welcome "soon" addition to the MS.

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Google is transportation as a service TAAS and Tesla is private ownership/co-op style ownership.

Also, Google is focusing on the low speed ( <25 mph) and Tesla is focusing on highway speeds. Maybe they have a partnership and will share autopilot tech "down the road."

 

[JohnQ]

This is a big challenge. There are bridges where lane markers disappear, construction zones with lane shifts and jersey barriers, heavy rain where cues are obscured, speed limits that vary based on conditions, etc. As others have mentioned, this is much more complicated than what is in any current vehicle.

 

[Joel]

This is a big challenge. There are bridges where lane markers disappear, construction zones with lane shifts and jersey barriers, heavy rain where cues are obscured, speed limits that vary based on conditions, etc. As others have mentioned, this is much more complicated than what is in any current vehicle.

Currently, it is easier for a car to have autonomous driving on the highway than on a city street. The technology is in current cars. I've rode in it. It's the same technology that will be in Tesla's in the future.

 

[cgiGuy]

Currently, it is easier for a car to have autonomous driving on the highway than on a city street. The technology is in current cars. I've rode in it. It's the same technology that will be in Tesla's in the future.

What make/model?

My Infiniti's lane departure/intelligent cruise would shut down around dusk because the sun would shine into the camera and it could't detect road markings or distance from car in front.