NVIDIA Unveils "First" AI Computer for Level 5 Driverless Vehicles

[kwest2]

States that the new PX 3 is 10x as powerful as the PX 2 system. Commentary seems counter to what Tesla is preaching. Will be interesting to see who ends up correct. And I think the Model 3 has a pared down version of the PX 2, or do we know if that's confirmed yet?

NVIDIA Announces World's First AI Computer to Make Robotaxis a Reality

 

[gregincal]

I was stuck on a freeway behind an accident last night. The freeway was closed such that after an hour a highway patrol car had to come along instructing people through a loudspeaker to turn around one by one and drive the wrong direction on the freeway back to the last exit, where we merged with all the traffic being directed off the closed freeway. This is actually the second time this year that this is happened to me (the first time there were armed bank robbers that had abandoned their car on the freeway ahead!). I thought, gee, I wonder when cars will be able to follow verbal directions from authorities like that. Not any time soon.

 

[voip-ninja]

Someone should run a poll on whether or not they think level 5 autonomy is possible on Model 3 hardware that's going out in cars they are building today.

Elon Musk says YES but I think the TMC brain trust would vote NO. It doesn't seem possible with the hardware that's in the car.

 

[Phrixotrichus]

States that the new PX 3 is 10x as powerful as the PX 2 system. Commentary seems counter to what Tesla is preaching. Will be interesting to see who ends up correct. And I think the Model 3 has a pared down version of the PX 2, or do we know if that's confirmed yet?

NVIDIA Announces World's First AI Computer to Make Robotaxis a Reality

That article holds no factual value. It's just marketing blabla

 

[Cosmacelf]

I was stuck on a freeway behind an accident last night. The freeway was closed such that after an hour a highway patrol car had to come along instructing people through a loudspeaker to turn around one by one and drive the wrong direction on the freeway back to the last exit, where we merged with all the traffic being directed off the closed freeway. This is actually the second time this year that this is happened to me (the first time there were armed bank robbers that had abandoned their car on the freeway ahead!). I thought, gee, I wonder when cars will be able to follow verbal directions from authorities like that. Not any time soon.

Exactly. Truly driverless cars need a level of AI that is way, way beyond what the engineers are currently working on. The current tech is a bunch of image and video recognition coupled with coded rules. To actually replace humans (like in a driverless taxi), you'd need speech recognition and natural language understanding. We are talking artificial cognition here. There isn't even a roadmap to that yet.

 

[stopcrazypp]

States that the new PX 3 is 10x as powerful as the PX 2 system. Commentary seems counter to what Tesla is preaching. Will be interesting to see who ends up correct. And I think the Model 3 has a pared down version of the PX 2, or do we know if that's confirmed yet?

NVIDIA Announces World's First AI Computer to Make Robotaxis a Reality

Actually, since the announcement of PX2 Nvidia already said the PX2 configuration Tesla is using is not enough. This new announcement doesn't really change that.

Inside the NVIDIA PX2 board on my HW2 AP2.0 Model S (with Pics!)

Note that we do not know exactly what configuration Model 3 uses (no teardown yet). IIRC, the code suggests 2x Parker and 1x discrete Pascal GPU (vs 1x Parker and 1x Pascal in Model S AP2.0).

 

[jhs_7645]

I was stuck on a freeway behind an accident last night. The freeway was closed such that after an hour a highway patrol car had to come along instructing people through a loudspeaker to turn around one by one and drive the wrong direction on the freeway back to the last exit, where we merged with all the traffic being directed off the closed freeway. This is actually the second time this year that this is happened to me (the first time there were armed bank robbers that had abandoned their car on the freeway ahead!). I thought, gee, I wonder when cars will be able to follow verbal directions from authorities like that. Not any time soon.

The irony to this is that a driverless car probably would not have caused the accident in the first place.

 

[lunitiks]

Read it and weep:

NVIDIA Announces World's First AI Computer to Make Robotaxis a Reality

The computational requirements of robotaxis are enormous -- perceiving the world through high-resolution, 360-degree surround cameras and lidars, localizing the vehicle within centimeter accuracy, tracking vehicles and people around the car, and planning a safe and comfortable path to the destination. All this processing must be done with multiple levels of redundancy to ensure the highest level of safety. The computing demands of driverless vehicles are easily 50 to 100 times more intensive than the most advanced cars today.

 

[powertoold]

Honestly, all people want right now is a reliable AP2. Tesla can't even keep in a lane consistently. Level 5 still seems 5+ years away.

 

[WileyTheMan]

I read somewhere that it's likely the CPU can be upgraded in the Model 3, so I'm not so worried if that's true.

 

[voip-ninja]

I read somewhere that it's likely the CPU can be upgraded in the Model 3, so I'm not so worried if that's true.

The Model 3 platform was probably designed so that the AP guts could be revised on the assembly line as newer components become available.

Whether or not it would be cost effective to try to upgrade it yourself is really stretching things.

You are making a lot of assumptions, such as;

• The new mainboard has compatible interfaces with what is on the car you bought.
• Similarly with cooling system.
• That the Tesla software will automatically recognize the new hardware and use it in a car that didn't come from the factory with it.
• That the supporting hardware such as cameras, LIDAR, etc., remain compatible and meet minimum specifications and will work... if they don't work that you will be able to cost effectively upgrade and replace all of those components.

Based on the much less sophisticated iDrive systems in BMW and the cost and complexity of upgrading those to new versions I think it's a bit of a pipe dream that you will be able to easily upgrade the AP system in an early model Tesla 3. You will end up being better off selling the car and getting a new one with the upgraded guts.

The fluid state of AP is why I would never give Tesla a $3,000 check to maybe someday deliver something approximating self driving on the Model 3.

Far better off keeping the money in my pocket and swapping out the vehicle in 3-5 years when they actually have something on the market that works.

 

[teddytoons]

Yeah. I don't want to swap out my vehicle in 3-5 years. I paid for full autonomous driving upfront because I'm reasonably sure that Musk will deliver it even if my car needs a hardware upgrade. I base this belief on what he's done in the past with these cars. (Yes, I understand it's just a belief)

 

[Chewy3]

I was stuck on a freeway behind an accident last night. The freeway was closed such that after an hour a highway patrol car had to come along instructing people through a loudspeaker to turn around one by one and drive the wrong direction on the freeway back to the last exit, where we merged with all the traffic being directed off the closed freeway. This is actually the second time this year that this is happened to me (the first time there were armed bank robbers that had abandoned their car on the freeway ahead!). I thought, gee, I wonder when cars will be able to follow verbal directions from authorities like that. Not any time soon.

I hypothesize that Tesla (and other autonomous vehicle providers) will have remote control centers with operators that can take command when a vehicle flags it needs assistance (either by traffic anomaly or triggered manually by public servant)

Unmanned vehicles are 20+ year old industry. If they can do planes, cars will be no problem.

 

[boiler81]

I'd like the option of having my car be able to FSD, but don't think the current hardware suite will every be certified to allow. It's just doesn't have the sensor and processing technology to provide the redundancy and reliability needed, so I'm hanging on to my money for FSD option.

 

[oktane]

Yeah. I don't want to swap out my vehicle in 3-5 years. I paid for full autonomous driving upfront because I'm reasonably sure that Musk will deliver it even if my car needs a hardware upgrade. I base this belief on what he's done in the past with these cars. (Yes, I understand it's just a belief)

I doubt Tesla will ever upgrade any cars. It simply is not financially feasible to do so. They won't give you a cent unless the courts force it, sadly.

 

[kwest2]

I doubt Tesla will ever upgrade any cars. It simply is not financially feasible to do so. They won't give you a cent unless the courts force it, sadly.

Well based on the Electrek article that >35k bought the full self driving package, I imagine Tesla would at least make good on upgrades for them. For cars that don't have the FSD option, I doubt Tesla would upgrade them if it's needed. I think it's prudent for us as buyers of the Model 3 to wait on the upgrade until Tesla can prove it can deliver true FSD, if ever. The extra $1k in cost for the post-purchase upgrade is fair price to make the hedge of not wasting $3k on nothing.

 

[voip-ninja]

I doubt Tesla will ever upgrade any cars. It simply is not financially feasible to do so. They won't give you a cent unless the courts force it, sadly.

If the car needs thousands of dollars of hardware upgrades to make FSD work, say in 2-3 years time, I'd say it's a 50/50 proposition if they do the upgrade or just refund the people who paid the $3000 up-front for FSD. The hardware alone for FSD could easily cost more than that, not even including the cost of installation.

Tesla does have a history of bending over backwards to do things like this, but I don't know that they will continue to do so when they have 500K+ vehicles out on the roads in a couple of years.

 

[lunitiks]

The black leather jacket on stage @Nvidia's GTC2018-conf today (Oct' 10, 2017)
GPU Technology Conference

Fascinating stuff, really. Couple of quotes wrt capability:

• "The amount of computation is absolutely nuts."
• 400 CPUs / basically 10 racks of servers / about 20.000 watts, shrunk down to 500 W
• "Arcitectual compatible to everything that we've done so far with Level 3 and Level 4."
• "It's going to enable for the very first time the ability for all of these development projects to finally hit the road and go to production."

Not necessarily HW-related, but also note the announcement of "Nvidia Drive IX SDK", which basically enables fusing of exterior and interior (driver) sensing. This should enable convenience and business features like sensing who you are when approaching the car, adjust your seats and other preferences for you etc.

 

[teddytoons]

I doubt Tesla will ever upgrade any cars. It simply is not financially feasible to do so. They won't give you a cent unless the courts force it, sadly.

When a couple of Teslas caught fire after having the battery peirced by road debris, a titanium plate was designed to mitigate that problem and those plates were installed on all Teslas. No small expense or feat.

 

[chilman408]

When a couple of Teslas caught fire after having the battery peirced by road debris, a titanium plate was designed to mitigate that problem and those plates were installed on all Teslas. No small expense or feat.

A safety issue versus a nice to have.