Blog Musk Says Cars Will Detect Hand Gestures, Listen for Sirens

New details on Tesla Vision emerged over the weekend.

The camera-based vision system to power Tesla’s Full Self Driving feature is able to deliver interesting information to the driver. In a post to Twitter on Tuesday, Musk said Tesla Vision will have the ability to detect turn signals, hazards, police and ambulance lights, and hand gestures.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1414435086548733952

Musk was replying to a video from an FSD beta tester Eli Burton that showed the system detecting brake lights. Musk also said the cars will eventually listen for sirens and alarms to react to emergency vehicles.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1414436167639093248

Tesla’s camera-based system is an approach that differs from others developing self-driving systems using radar. Earlier this year the company announced the transition to Tesla Vision. Starting last May, Model 3 and Model Y vehicles built for the North American market stopped being produced with radar, instead relying on camera vision and neural net processing for the Autopilot and FSD.

Consumer Reports has reinstated the 2021 Tesla Model 3 with pure vision Autopilot as a “Top Pick” after a top safety designation from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

 

[MichaelP90DL]

Hand gestures? Cool. How will the car react when somebody flips the middle finger at the driver?

 

[Dan D.]

Hand gestures? Cool. How will the car react when somebody flips the middle finger at the driver?

The car won't care. That's driver2driver communication. When there is a V2V middle finger then ask again ; )

 

[Zacster]

It should just fart in response...

 

[paaltio]

Not THAT hand gesture.

I smell huge self-supervised learning and automatic labeling potential!

 

[uujjj2]

Federal Vehicle Code, 2030 edition:

"All autonomous cars must have a pop-up finger for V2V communication which can be seen clearly by both human and autonomous drivers from a distance of 10 meters. Autonomous vehicles receiving a V2V signal must act appropriately as specified in FMVSS Section 4.32."

 

[johnm]

I'm not sure siren detection has to be particularly good. What does a human do when they hear a siren? I think about my only action is to look more aggressively for flashing lights.

What are the possible actions the car can take on hearing a siren? It is already looking everywhere. Maybe it could lower a threshold for flashing light detection? Are there some intersections with poor visibility where it would make sense to slow down? Anything else?

 

[ThomasD]

 

[ThomasD]

 

[techlogik]

Hey, I take a lot of what Elon Musk says with a grain of salt, too... but I applaud him for trying. While he seems to overestimate what his companies can achieve in a given time, it *still* tends to result in positive outcomes. This overestimation is typical of overachievers.

Maybe FSD is a big failure, but:

• Tesla's cars are great
• The Super Charger network is ahead of everyone else
• SpaceX is kicking butt
• Many people seem to be happy with StarLink

I'm sure there are many more positives to add to that list.

What about the boring company and that great underground high speed transport systems? I mean, Walt Disney had this figured out and dreamed of it 50yrs ago...and......NADA....

 

[DDSTEVE]

Why is everyone here assuming that this will work on current Tesla cars? They already had HW2, 2.5 and 3, this is probably HW4 knowing how Elon works.

Also, note that "detect hand gestures" does not mean "react to hand gestures."

From the FSD v9 videos, seems like they should be focusing on "detecting huge concrete columns" first.

Good point! Driving down the road to my house the car sees every plastic garbage can but does not see the brick mail boxes at every house right on the curb.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

View attachment 684484

If I'm following this correctly, it appears to say that taking up residence at a YMCA is a positive experience ...

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Everything that comes out of this man's mouth is a shameful lie and should be reported as such. Tired of all the useless promises, undelivered features, and constant excuses from a man who, just last week, declared that "AI is really hard." Does the richest man in the world need a wambulance to put his mouth back in sync with reality?

 

[iwannam3]

The cars will listen…

Will this use the existing in-car microphone, or will it require an additional external microphone fitted?

As a mere human, I am sometimes fooled by siren like sounds in the music being played. A clever system will be able to subtract the cars‘ audio from the signal.

Cue the usual concerns of privacy advocates “Tesla is eavesdropping on our conversations“. A few hoops to jump through there.

The speaker for pedestrian warning could be used as a microphone for exterior sounds. Has a diaphragm, a coil and a magnet so it can turn sound into electrical signal.

 

[father_of_6]

The speaker for pedestrian warning could be used as a microphone for exterior sounds. Has a diaphragm, a coil and a magnet so it can turn sound into electrical signal.

But it can't do both at the same time (pedestrian warning AND ambulance hearing). I guess though no one would hear that pedestrian warning over an ambulance anyway.

 

[gearchruncher]

The speaker for pedestrian warning could be used as a microphone for exterior sounds. Has a diaphragm, a coil and a magnet so it can turn sound into electrical signal.

This does not mean that the signal runs backwards through an amplifier and into an A/D converter.
I mean, sure, it could if the changed the HW, but at that point put a microphone in.
The speaker is only on about 5% of cars anyway.

 

[dgatwood]

Also, in two years, the company will be making cars without steering wheels or pedals at all.”

Source

Tesla promises ‘one million robo-taxis’ in 2020 | Engadget

Two days ahead of its first-quarter earnings disclosure, the company had an event to explain its autonomous technology to investors.

www.google.fi

All they have to do is build two of them, and they've technically fulfilled that requirement. They don't even have to be capable of driving.

 

[ScoobyDoo82]

Everything that comes out of this man's mouth is a shameful lie and should be reported as such. Tired of all the useless promises, undelivered features, and constant excuses from a man who, just last week, declared that "AI is really hard." Does the richest man in the world need a wambulance to put his mouth back in sync with reality?

How do you really feel? Lol j/p. I can understand your frustration. I wouldn’t go as far as to call him an outright liar though. I would agree that he over promises A LOT.
Oh, and let’s talk about the meme stock tweets. That was straight criminal. The SEC surely hates him.
I tend to take it all as joke now. It’s funny. My neighbor and I yell “2 weeks” back and forth to each other all the time. It makes the Elon BS easier to swallow.