Robotaxi vs robo chauffeur?

[gmta10101]

Just got access to the beta and am thoroughly impressed. One thing that has been bothering me is its aggression or hair trigger response, and not just quick turns or fast committed maneuvers. The micro aggression in following behind someone at a specific distance, you can feel every miniscule change in acceleration its doing all the time.

I usually drive like a granny, I prefer to sacrifice speed over a quality smooth drive. I find the beta to be great.. at being a taxi.. and when I say that I mean super stressful accelerating and decelerating and lane changing last minute etc.

I'm hoping that there may eventually be some mode beyond chill like a chauffeur mode where it prioritizes extremly low changes in acceleration, making an incredibly smooth and gracefully drive at the expense of weaving in and out of traffic and destination time.

The more and more we talk about robo taxis the more I think of how I feel being in a hectic cab in the middle of a busy city having the driver go nuts around every bend.

 

[redmunds]

What's your following distance set to? Make sure it's not 1 or 2. I crank mine up to 6 or 7.

 

[gmta10101]

I think I'm on 4 or 5, with NOA I found the large follow distances to cause everyone to tailgate me, I'll try it again now and see if it helps FSD

 

[AndrewZ]

I think the challenge is in tuning these things to create a smooth experience while also having the commit and aggression necessary to pull off maneuvers in moving traffic, same with people's complaints about the vehicle not slowing down at an acceptable rate after speed changes etc

If you ramp up the braking aggressiveness for this, it will likely lead to a jarring experience in other situations.

If you ramp down the aggressiveness of the accelerator, you'll likely see regressions in pulling off stuff like Chuck's ULT, lane changes, etc

 

[gmta10101]

What's your following distance set to? Make sure it's not 1 or 2. I crank mine up to 6 or 7.

Just wanted to reply with my feedback
After changing the follow distance to 6, mode to chill and speed setting to 0% offset its actually calmed down quite a bit.

I haven't had any disengagements other than navigational errors. It does seem that the follow distance has more of an effect than any of the other settings for aggression.

Feels way smoother now

 

[voyager]

Interesting question...
Boundaries between SAE Level 5 automated drive and deploying robo-taxis are blurred.
It may explain the differences in what to expect between developers like Waymo and administrators...

 

[JulienW]

Interesting question...
Boundaries between SAE Level 5 automated drive and deploying robo-taxis are blurred.
It may explain the differences in what to expect between developers like Waymo and administrators...

There is no SAE Level for Robotaxis. That graph is a little misleading. Here is the actual SAE J3016 graph. Waymo and all Robtaxies are L4 system. L5 is probably at least a decade away.

 

[legendsk]

Robotaxi vs robo chauffeur?​

Robotaxi = Contract Employee
Chauffeur = Salaried employee
Tesla Model Y LR = Slave
Optimus =

 

[voyager]

I didn't want to suggest that robo taxis represent some sort of SAE level of automation,
Nevertheless, the eternal pitch by companies like Waymo and Cruise is fully automated ride-hailing
without any steering wheel present anymore...

However, I agree that those ride-hailers don't expect to ferry people in poor weather conditions for now.
So, they're SAE Level 4 at best.

 

[JulienW]

I didn't want to suggest that robo taxis represent some sort of SAE level of automation,
Nevertheless, the eternal pitch by companies like Waymo and Cruise is fully automated ride-hailing
without any steering wheel present anymore...

Read the "Example Features" (last line) of Level 4. It is not a "pitch" but exactly what Waymo and Cruise are.

 

[Tam]

I didn't want to suggest that robo taxis represent some sort of SAE level of automation,
Nevertheless, the eternal pitch by companies like Waymo and Cruise is fully automated ride-hailing
without any steering wheel present anymore...

However, I agree that those ride-hailers don't expect to ferry people in poor weather conditions for now.
So, they're SAE Level 4 at best.

Waymo has been taking riders in fog and rain but not snow, tornado, sandstorm...

 

[JulienW]

Waymo has been taking riders in fog and rain but not snow, tornado, sandstorm...

L4 allows you to define and limit the ODD since snow might exceed the ADS's OEDR abilities if not a limited ODD. I'm sure a tornado would trigger L4's MRC. Although that might not be enough and there can be no real Fallback, so get out and .

 

[voyager]

What’s so intriguing about self-driving vehicles is that they open up a whole terra incognita between personal-owned cars
and ride-hail cabs. If cars will become autonomous, there is no need to actually own them. They can pick you up and drop
you off wherever and whenever you need them to — which makes them utilitarian rather than objects of TLC. And exactly
this leaves the door wide open for TNCs (Transport Network Companies) to exploit them.

 

[voyager]

"In many cases, the companies are resolving problems by sending a human rescue driver to extricate the vehicle rather than having remote operators give the vehicles guidance on how to move on, as they do when they encounter rare road situations. The companies have been loathe to give details about these incidents, but it appears they are doing this out of an abundance of caution. If they are not 100% sure that the remote advice approach will be safe, they choose to leave the vehicle stalled until the rescue driver can resolve things. Human driven cars don’t have such problems. It may be that the teams need to work on being able to remotely resolve almost any problem, possibly even using full remote driving, something that some companies do but which Waymo and Cruise wish to avoid."

Waymo And Cruise Push Back In Battle With San Francisco

San Francisco is opposing and questioning the robotaxi services operating on its streets. The companies object and the debate heated up at the oldest self-driving event

www.forbes.com

 

[JulienW]

"In many cases, the companies are resolving problems by sending a human rescue driver to extricate the vehicle rather than having remote operators give the vehicles guidance on how to move on, as they do when they encounter rare road situations.....

An interesting situation is when people put a construction cone on the hood of the car. The car can't drive and even a human car wouldn't drive this way. Of course a human can easily get out and move the cone off the hood and set it on the sidewalk. However this is impossible for a robotaxie UNLESS it is driven by Optimus Bot.