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Muted Auto Industry response to Tesla's Full Self Driving move - why?

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Did you have an accident this week?

Seriously? I'm agreeing with this statement:

Humans do much more right than they do wrong when driving.

It's patently obvious. Again, if we did more thing wrong than right when driving we would not make it to our destination! Daimler thinks we're all a bunch of imbeciles for being concerned that our teenage kids are more likely to die from an automobile accident than any another cause! Don't worry parents because: We're doing things right more than wrong when driving and that's good enough. Technology can reduce those 35,000 people killed on the roads in the US in a year (there's only 8,760 hours in a year) but we're doing more things right than wrong as humans.

What kind of logic is this? It's nonsensical.
 
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From the slick Daimler powerpoint:

That's hilarious. Tell me one area of driving where humans make no errors? But it gets even better:

We are now in bizarro land talk. If we did more wrong than right our cars would forever be in the body shop and us in the hospital or worse.

35,000 people killed a year on the roads and Daimler is praising us!

They don't even see what's coming. It reminds me of Blackberry saying people like physical keyboards.

I do, however, think drivers will be in the driver's seat for some time yet - perhaps a couple of years. That only makes sense as to how this technology will evolve and be proved safe to the public. And meanwhile Daimler is pumping out vehicles without even $50 backup cameras while producing these slick videos with points in their powerpoint presentation that are deserving of a comedy routine and not serious thought.

To be charitable to Benz:

1 - That video is two years old - just two years ago nobody outside Tesla's dev team knew how capable the system was that they were about to unleash on customers and thus change the timeframe and competitive landscape. I imagine Benz has had a re-think since then.

2 - Trying to be charitable again, I think what Benz meant but did not explicitly state is that the AI problem of achieving parity with humans in the tasks which humans do not make errors in - is a much harder problem than simple driver assist programs.

Being a guardian angel for situations where humans screw up is easy. Human looks at telephone and forgets he is about to rear-end the car in front of him. That's easy - radar gun, problem solved. My 12 year old Infiniti had that problem solved. Backing out of a driveway and forgetting to look for cross traffic. Again, easy - check the radar signatures.

But where humans don't "make mistakes" is where they are paying attention and their vastly superior sensor integration and scene interpretation makes sense of a barrage of incoming data to safely navigate a road crowded with other moving cars. I think that is what Benz meant by "future automation" - because it's a harder nut to crack.
 
Nobody cares about the "horsepower" internet flame fight except a few P85D owners on a nerd forum. The story that matters when selling cars to customers is that the P85D is/was crazy stupid fast and the competition had no answer for it. You and I are fringe nut cases - we are irrelevant to the story that sells cars.
The point was not whether anyone cares about the P85D owners who didn't get what they paid for. The point was Tesla promises X performance and delivers 60% of the performance. You personally don't care because you didn't pay for it.

So - same goes for Autopilot 1.0 - nobody but some angry nerd somewhere remembers that Tesla mentioned some details about AP 1.0's capabilities that didn't come true. The angry nerd doesn't take the time to think about how Tesla overdelivered on the key features, that the competition has no answer for it yet, that Tesla's sales are increasing at a geometric rate, and that Tesla just leapfrogged itself with 2.0.
Overdelivered on what? Driving with AP1.0 takes more mental effort than without. In areas where there are no Teslas traversing the roads regularly it is not usable (I just did a 6400 mile round US trip, in most places it was useless). In places populated with Teslas it actually works suprisingly well, however that is actually it's drawback. Because it seems to work so well 99.9% of the time, your brain learns to trust it and the the 0.1% of the time AP screws up you end up in an accident. After a few close calls I pretty much stopped using AP1.0 for anything but stop and go highway traffic. Self parking is only useful in some corner case situations, other times you end up with scratched up rims and or car.

AP 2.0 is most certainly not vaporware - it's in everyone's cars - you,
You may want to familiarize yourself with the definition of vaporware.
Vaporware - Wikipedia

You don't matter - you're not the target and you're not most customers.
I know, I only bought 3 Tesla's so far. Maybe that's is, the target market is people who haven't had one yet, possibly cannot afford one, but they can sure get passionate about the cause.

What matters is the test drive where Jim-the-dentist puts his hands in his lap and the Tesla salesperson says "navigate to the other side of town on surface streets" and then Jim is blown out of his mind as the Tesla drives itself through surface streets over to Starbucks.
If you or other forum members were in the back seat on that test drive and started going "Um, excuse me - if it were raining heavily right now this could not happen. I must point out as well that regulation 534.x21 in the vehicle code specifies, Mr. Dentist, that you may not leave the driving seat. Now may I give you a presentation about Level 3/45 autonomy and after that a history lesson of Mr. Musk."
Until Jim the dentist dies in an the 0.1% chance accident, or maybe when he summoned his car to pick him up from his house at his office and the car totaled itself and Tesla says "read the fine print - doesn't work sometimes, you should have known there was a chance of rain".
 
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Because they have this attitude:



And they don't realize it's coming much sooner than they anticipate. As I posted in another thread:

“Ninety-four percent of crashes on U.S. roadways are caused by a human choice or error,” NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said in a statement. “We are moving forward on the safe deployment of automated technologies because of the enormous promise they hold to address the overwhelming majority of crashes and save lives.”

The NHTSA is pushing automakers to remove humans from driving as much as possible because of this 94%.

And this:

U.S. regulators are eager to accelerate development of robotic driving systems to reduce traffic fatalities, which topped 35,000 in 2015.

35,000 death last year alone! Compare that to US casualties from other causes the vast majority of which we are not on the brink of preventing, or at least significantly reducing.

“In the 50 years of the U.S. department of transportation there has never been a moment like this, a moment where we can build a culture of safety as a new transportation technology emerges,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a Washington press conference on Tuesday. “Today we put forward the first federal policy on automated vehicles, the most comprehensive national automated vehicle policy that the world has ever seen. It is a first of its kind, taking us from the horseless carriage to the driverless car.”

The guidelines include a 15-point Safety Assessment governing the "safe design, development, testing and deployment of automated vehicles," the agency said late Monday.


That was 10 weeks ago. I say it's coming within months. It will start with a driver in the seat but the vehicle will do pretty much everything, as Tesla has shown in their videos. The NHTSA will not hold this back. They want it out and they want Tesla to lead the way (or anyone really but Tesla is the first to have full L5 hardware, including processors, on its vehicles) to show that we have the technology today to prevent a death that is happening right now -- due to human error! Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens. As a parent with teenage kids, it's my number one fear in life. That says a lot.


Demonstrating a single autonomous drive in a video is much different than making it work for everyone. Tesla implies you will be able to use AP2.0 for car sharing and ride hailing for your family, which implies unattended driving (no drive in the car). Notice how they promise nothing, but imply things which they must know will never be possible in the AP2.0. Yes, they will blame regulations, or whatever else, but bottom line AP2.0 will be incrementally better than AP1.0. Blind spot warning will actually work most of the time (underdelivered AP1 feature). It will find the parallel parking spot 90% of the time instead of AP1.0 10% of the time It will work somewhat better in areas unpopulated with Teslas (which either just have a lot of learned data, or are hand curated, or both). It will do a few extra tricks like actually get out of your garage and meet you at the curb (something promised for AP1.0 but never delivered unless your curb is 90 deg to your garage and within some feet) but of course all those tricks at your own risk like today's summon or auto-park. Driver or owner will still be responsible for 100% of the damage the car causes, and fine print will still say you have to be prepared to take over at any time. And all that in just 1-2 years.

Btw, just to clarify, I am a big Tesla fan. Awaiting my 3rd one which will make our hosehold all Tesla. I'm just a realist, and don't buy into the hype (ok, maybe "anymore" is appropriate here).
 
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MIT Technology Review has some really interesting articles about this subject (but is down right now - and I am not sure if you can get full articles without being subscribed). In recent months they have covered both the non-Tesla view (from GM, Google and others) - talking about the many challenges not yet solved, and also some of the moral issues.

When a human kills a pedestrian, or another driver there is the assumption that an error was made resulting in a death. An AI has a much more real chance of having to evaluate - squash one person or crash into one or more vehicles risking more people. In reality we probably do make that panicked evaluation in a crash situation - but not consciously. The net on the other hand will be making a 'conscious' decision.

I recently got my AP1.0 CPO, in large part because having followed the technology for a while, I am not convinced AP 2.0 will ever be cleared for Level 5 autonomy - so I might as well enjoy a cheaper vehicle now and get AP 3.0 or 4.0 later.

Gates is quoted as saying we over-estimate what is possible in the next 2 years, while under-estimating what is possible in the next 10. Yet he, and many of his peers believed that speech would be a primary input device within a matter of years - in the late 80's!

I suspect we will find that to achieve Level 5 'autonomy' in the near term, we have to adjust expectations and for all vehicles and some/much signalling to cooperate. Right now we are trying to automate a transit system which nobody in their right mind would build new in it's current state. Let's put inexpert operators in charge of increasingly fast vehicles, with no constraints on their direction and speed of travel other than advisory signs and lights - and let's allow them to add new distractions to their environment every year - madness.

If cars 'talked' to each other, they could advise "I'm braking now", or "There is a 3 foot obstruction in the right-hand edge of the right lane, 30 yards ahead of me" - instead of each (fleet of) car(s) trying to separately evaluate the environment and work out why and what the vehicle in front is doing. Yes there is the "follow me off the cliff - or into the bridge parapet" issue to deal with - but my point is that cooperation will drive safer vehicles, not massive independent effort to build 15 versions of a wheel. When governments wake up to that, we will see the communication and interaction standards being defined and mandated to to simply the puzzle.

Of course the question becomes "what of humans"? The reason the early AP cars are doing this today is because they have to account for wet-ware piloting their ICE projectiles. To that, I suspect you will see city block and lane designations which will effectively be "Autonomous Only" - where the traffic flows can easily be signaled to reroute, slow down, etc as required for safety and other reasons.

If we continue to try to make the car replicate the human driving experience we are pursuing the right end game, with the wrong strategy (IMO). If we want safe, driver=less transportation we should design a system to do just that, not try to adapt a very broken system (100 deaths per day in the US, road rage, horrendous commute times, major pollution issues).

Just my 2c.
 
Where can I buy a full self driving Tesla? And in which country am I allowed to use the full self driving on a public road? And which insurance company gives me coverage while the car is driving itself?

*crickets-chirping*

Why should carmakers react to vaporware?

In 2017 they will be busy with relevant stuff, like building a 350 kW supercharger network: German OEMs Plan 350 kW Fast Charging Network Across Europe | Electric Vehicle News
 
I believe that on "known" streets that are well documented, level 5 can and will be obtained by AP2 hardware / software. But.... as an example.... I drop my kids off school day mornings and have to traverse an unmarked parking lot (other than parking spaces) and pull up to a particular cone as directed by one of the teachers. When picking them up a teacher walks back through the line of cars and tells you which cone # to pull up to where your children will be waiting. That's just one corner case I would like to see in action. \"/.
 
Well, if we have autonomous cars delivering kids to school, then the protocol at school will adapt to it.

People always bring up "how's the car going to drive in bad weather?" --- if the weather is that bad, then no one dhould be driving.

If AP2 rates as vapourware (btw, it is functioning in cars now, collecting data), then so do all the promised items from the other auto companies, including the promised charging network.

AP2 HW may or may not be sufficient for L5. The hardware will be supplemented anyway for added safety concerns. L4 will be amazing on its own. Also, I fully expect the deep learning to function better in all circumstances. See the Mobileye demos, where the car navigates traffic cones, and even off road.
 
Tesla is a small boat that can maneuver quickly. The big auto makers are like the Titanic and need a lot of time to turn just a little bit. Tesla has been successfully selling Model S now for 3-4 years and we have still to see viable competition from anyone else. Even the Bolt will have limited production. I would say it's for the same reason. Change takes time when you are a behemoth.
 
One last example is the numerous German cars claiming 300+ miles range by 2018 on vapormobiles - by which time we conceivably could see a 120D with 400 miles plus.

Please keep in mind that some (most? all?) of the German mileage claims are made against the European NEDC evaluation cycle rather than the EPA cycle. "300 miles range" in NEDC is probably something like 210-220 miles range EPA. So in 2018 these German EVs will deliver range comparable to a 2012 Tesla Model S60.

Alan

P.S.
Here's why Chevy Bolt's Opel twin promises a longer range
UK 2016 Nissan LEAF Range Of 155 Miles Shows Ridiculousness Of NEDC
 
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So - same goes for Autopilot 1.0 - nobody but some angry nerd somewhere remembers that Tesla mentioned some details about AP 1.0's capabilities that didn't come true. The angry nerd doesn't take the time to think about how Tesla overdelivered on the key features, that the competition has no answer for it yet, that Tesla's sales are increasing at a geometric rate, and that Tesla just leapfrogged itself with 2.0.

I don't see the connection here. I absolutely love autopilot for what it is, and I'm grateful for an easier commute every day I drive. But I'm also reminded regularly that Summon isn't anything like what Elon promised; just this morning I walked across a quarter mile parking lot after skiing to get my car, a perfect private property use case for what Elon described in the presentation.
 
To say that 1.0 came anywhere close to delivering on promises is a vast overstatement.

Hands free from on ramp to off ramp - Ha
Summon on private property - Ha

When blindspot detection - a very very simple thing - doesn't really work, the shame of AP 1.0 is exposed. Anyone who thinks AP 2.0 is going to deliver level 5 autonomy really falls into that fool me once, shame on you.....

Sure AP has its uses, just nowhere near what was PROMISED!
 
Even if it is, I don't think people are paying thousands of dollars so that their cars can collect data.

Actually, I am. I believe VERY strongly in the social value of autonomous driving cars given how many people are killed in accidents from careless or reckless driving. The fact that the car is electric was secondary in my buying decision. Anything I can do to further the progress of self driving, I'm going to do - I'm happy to be a "beta" tester if it will help bring any higher degree of self driving to the market.
 
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Even if it is, I don't think people are paying thousands of dollars so that their cars can collect data.
Actually, I am. I believe VERY strongly in the social value of autonomous driving cars given how many people are killed in accidents from careless or reckless driving. The fact that the car is electric was secondary in my buying decision. Anything I can do to further the progress of self driving, I'm going to do - I'm happy to be a "beta" tester if it will help bring any higher degree of self driving to the market.

If you really are willing to do "anything you can do" and pay thousands of dollars just so Tesla can collect more data without any benefit to you, why are you not offering to pay for people to upgrade their current AP1 cars to new AP2 ones? Instead of buying your new Tesla, pay 2 or 3 people to upgrade instead - 2 or 3 new AP2 cars collecting data for the same money you're spending on buying only a single AP2 car. Or maybe you didn't really mean "anything I can"? ;)
 
If you really are willing to do "anything you can do" and pay thousands of dollars just so Tesla can collect more data without any benefit to you, why are you not offering to pay for people to upgrade their current AP1 cars to new AP2 ones? Instead of buying your new Tesla, pay 2 or 3 people to upgrade instead - 2 or 3 new AP2 cars collecting data for the same money you're spending on buying only a single AP2 car. Or maybe you didn't really mean "anything I can"? ;)

Yeah, ya got me. Congrats.

I should have said "with my consumer dollars". But then again, I didn't know we were in a debate club instead of a car site.
 
Tesla is a small boat that can maneuver quickly. The big auto makers are like the Titanic and need a lot of time to turn just a little bit. Tesla has been successfully selling Model S now for 3-4 years and we have still to see viable competition from anyone else. Even the Bolt will have limited production. I would say it's for the same reason. Change takes time when you are a behemoth.

It is not only a matter of size but also that Tesla is a company rooted in software development, so while others can try to hire software expertise, Tesla staff (including the CEO) already has a solid background in software development and deployment, and autonomous driving is about nothing else than that.

This leads to for example these differences with traditional car makers:
1) Traditional car makers will only "offer" you to buy their latest car from new to get their latest software, Tesla will simply beam it to your current car as a free update.
2) Traditional car makers are used to develop mechanical systems that evolve very slowly and incrementally - a mentality that is largely obsolete for a BEV, Tesla is used to working with software and electronics, where improvements happen at an exponential rate (e.g. Moore's law). So to make up for their very limited, actual improvements traditional ICE makers make yearly cosmetic changes to their cars, otherwise no one would be able to tell any difference. Tesla on the other hand make actual improvements to range, acceleration and AP-capability.
3) Today it is Tesla and not someone else who has their fleet of cars collecting data for AP-training - an advantage that has little to do with company size or with ICE versus BEV.
 
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It is not only a matter of size but also that Tesla is a company rooted in software development, so while others can try to hire software expertise, Tesla staff (including the CEO) already has a solid background in software development and deployment, and autonomous driving is about nothing else than that.

This leads to for example these differences with traditional car makers:
1) Traditional car makers will only "offer" you to buy their latest car from new to get their latest software, Tesla will simply beam it to your current car as a free update.
2) Traditional car makers are used to develop mechanical systems that evolve very slowly and incrementally - a mentality that is largely obsolete for a BEV, Tesla is used to working with software and electronics, where improvements happen at an exponential rate (e.g. Moore's law). So to make up for their very limited, actual improvements traditional ICE makers make yearly cosmetic changes to their cars, otherwise no one would be able to tell any difference. Tesla on the other hand make actual improvements to range, acceleration and AP-capability.
3) Today it is Tesla and not someone else who has their fleet of cars collecting data for AP-training - an advantage that has little to do with company size or with ICE versus BEV.

Now this makes me want to buy TSLA. But I get in trouble buying anything I'm overly enthusiastic about.

Still, the competitive advantages and barriers to entry seem huge. Autonomous driving could be the app that kills ICE cars more quickly than electric cars alone.