Still Waiting for Elon's Blog Post on Autopilot Update...

[flashflood]

The time-based steering nag is stupid. Think about your own experience with highway driving: it is *far* more likely that you will need to suddenly brake than suddenly steer, yet there's not a cruise control system on earth that requires you to tap the brakes once a minute to prove you're paying attention.

Today, with my pre-AP P85, I routinely knee-drive with coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other when conditions permit. It would absolutely be safer to do this with AP than without, but sounds like 8.0 will force me to do the less safe thing. For safety.

 

[Zybd1201]

I read through Elons post and I am quite confident we will experience a fair number more of already excessive false braking events after this change.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

This is IGNORED nags. And the beep version. So....... First nag is just a display with no beep. Doesn't count. Second nag is the beep. IF you do nothing with this, then that would count.

That not only makes sense to me, based on my experience you really do need to be available and in control by the time you get a beep nag.

And if you ignore 3 of those in an hour (don't touch wheel etc.) then you should have to pull over. IMHO

This is what makes the most sense to me, and matches my interpretation of everything I've read so far. I do hope that it turns out like this.

My issues for me personally are two-fold:

1. When on autosteer, I always have my hand on the wheel, but I grip it lightly with almost no torque. Thus, it doesn't trip the torque sensor, so I get the nags.
2. I (nearly) always miss the first visual-only nag because I'm watching the road. The small banner with the blue icon just isn't noticeable enough in my peripheral vision. As soon as I hear the beeps of the 2nd audio+visual nag, I gently nudge the wheel. I have never gotten to the 3rd stage alert where the car begins to slow.

Reading the transcript from Elon, he said:

Something I think will be quite significant is that if the user ignores repeated warning to keep their hands on the wheel, if it ignores the audible alarm more than 3 times in an hour then the driver will have to park and restart in order to enable Autosteer.​

The underlined phrase, if interpreted literally, means that the 3-times-in-an-hour count occurs if you ignore, i.e. do not respond to, the audible alarm, which is the 2nd nag. To ignore the 2nd nag, you have to get to the 3rd nag.

So my interpretation is that to invoke this have-to-park-to-reenable-AP behavior, you have to:

1. Either do not have hands on the wheel or grip it too lightly.
2. Ignore the 1st visual-only nag, which will now supposedly be much more noticeable, including white flashing border on the instrument cluster.
3. Ignore the 2nd audible+visual nag.
4. Get to the 3rd nag where the car begins to slow.
5. Repeat the above at least 3 times within a 1 hour period. (Possibly 4, since the statement from Elon says "more than 3 times").

This means to me that within a 1 hour period, you have to get to the audio+visual+slowing level of alert at least 3 times, which should be very unlikely unless you're REALLY not paying attention.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I read through Elons post and I am quite confident we will experience a fair number more of already excessive false braking events after this change.

Yeah, I would have preferred more of a detect plus confirmation where the two sensor technologies worked in parallel. But, until we have the extra frontal cameras we can't really do that adequately.

To me this entire thing feels like "We're going to try this, but we're not entirely sure if it will work", but they're taking baby steps in only data gathering in 8.0 before actively using it in 8.1

I really hope Model 3 people are appreciative of all the work us Model S owners are doing for AP. All the driving and data collection we're doing for them.

 

[Zybd1201]

I agree. I wouldn't be too worried about the change in nag policy. It is not going to affect anyone properly using the system and is honestly still not enough. They should be doing more to address this issue and I suspect there was some bargaining based on legal' recommendations because at some point Tesla really does become negligent if they don't implement some reasonable approach to assure the car is system is being properly supervised. It really is a minimal action required by Tesla when put in context of the potential of 400,000 of these things "driving themselves" on the roads soon.

 

[Dr Doom]

what's everyone opinion of the hardware for autopilot 2.0? Musk's comments seem to hint that they may be not needing a triple camera and will instead depend more on the radar. could that mean that autopilot 2.0 could have been rolled on new cars this past month? people wouldn't know that they had more radar hardware installed.

 

[Spidy]

The time-based steering nag is stupid. Think about your own experience with highway driving: it is *far* more likely that you will need to suddenly brake than suddenly steer, yet there's not a cruise control system on earth that requires you to tap the brakes once a minute to prove you're paying attention.

Today, with my pre-AP P85, I routinely knee-drive with coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other when conditions permit. It would absolutely be safer to do this with AP than without, but sounds like 8.0 will force me to do the less safe thing. For safety.

You can only brake or steer if you are actually looking on the road and see what is happening. That's the point of the nags. With TACC you have to steer so you are looking anyway.

 

[krazineurons]

what's everyone opinion of the hardware for autopilot 2.0? Musk's comments seem to hint that they may be not needing a triple camera and will instead depend more on the radar. could that mean that autopilot 2.0 could have been rolled on new cars this past month? people wouldn't know that they had more radar hardware installed.

Where did you read Musk's comments on not needing additional cameras? Electrec is still finishing third part of the transcript.

 

[Seashepherd]

This is what makes the most sense to me, and matches my interpretation of everything I've read so far. I do hope that it turns out like this.

My issues for me personally are two-fold:

1. When on autosteer, I always have my hand on the wheel, but I grip it lightly with almost no torque. Thus, it doesn't trip the torque sensor, so I get the nags.
2. I (nearly) always miss the first visual-only nag because I'm watching the road. The small banner with the blue icon just isn't noticeable enough in my peripheral vision. As soon as I hear the beeps of the 2nd audio+visual nag, I gently nudge the wheel. I have never gotten to the 3rd stage alert where the car begins to slow.

Reading the transcript from Elon, he said:

Something I think will be quite significant is that if the user ignores repeated warning to keep their hands on the wheel, if it ignores the audible alarm more than 3 times in an hour then the driver will have to park and restart in order to enable Autosteer.​

The underlined phrase, if interpreted literally, means that the 3-times-in-an-hour count occurs if you ignore, i.e. do not respond to, the audible alarm, which is the 2nd nag. To ignore the 2nd nag, you have to get to the 3rd nag.

So my interpretation is that to invoke this have-to-park-to-reenable-AP behavior, you have to:

1. Either do not have hands on the wheel or grip it too lightly.
2. Ignore the 1st visual-only nag, which will now supposedly be much more noticeable, including white flashing border on the instrument cluster.
3. Ignore the 2nd audible+visual nag.
4. Get to the 3rd nag where the car begins to slow.
5. Repeat the above at least 3 times within a 1 hour period. (Possibly 4, since the statement from Elon says "more than 3 times").

This means to me that within a 1 hour period, you have to get to the audio+visual+slowing level of alert at least 3 times, which should be very unlikely unless you're REALLY not paying attention.

I don't read it this way. Here's the transcript:
----------
'There also a large number of important improvements. Something I think will be quite significant is that if the user ignores repeated warning to keep their hands on the wheel, if it ignores the audible alarm more than 3 times in an hour then the driver will have to park and restart in order to enable Autosteer.

One of the ironies that we’ve seen is counter intuitive and a lot of people on the consumer watchdog sites and in some cases on regulatory sites have assumed that Autopilot accidents are more likely for new users. In fact, it is the opposite. Autopilot accidents are far more likely for expert users. It is not the neophytes. It’s the experts.

They get very comfortable with it and repeatedly ignore the car’s warnings. It’s like a reflex. The car will beep at them, they tug the wheel, the car will beep at them, they tug the wheel, and it becomes an unconscious reflex action. So we will see half a dozen or more, sometimes as many as 10 warning in one hour continuously ignored by the driver. We really want to avoid that situation."
----------

Now read the third sentence in the third paragraph: The car will beep at them, they tug the wheel,...later he says:mWe really want to avoid this situation.
So, if a driver IGNORES the audible alarm three times per hour, then it's game over. Contrary he then writes that 'the car will beep at them, they tug the wheel', the car...bla bla."
Wait, so tug is defined as a hard, sudden pull. That's what we were supposed to do, right? Not a hard pull, but a bit of a pull to show that the driver is alert.

But tugging after an audible alert means the opposite of IGNORING the audible alert. If the driver doesn't do any action, then he ignores the audible alert. So what is the driver supposed to do to not ignore the audible alert instead of tugging? Hold the steering wheel and lick it??

Assuming Elon meant ignoring the visual, not audible alert:
Do I now have to look at the dashboard all the time? How is that safe? That may would work with a heads up display, but obviously Tesla doesn't have a heads up display, a technology that is must have in any cutting edge vehicle (or helmet). Only other option is to keep my hands on the steering wheel all the time. **** that (pardon my French).

Anyway, paragraph 1 and 3 are contradictory IMHO. Honestly I don't have a clue what he's trying to say. I think he's talking about ignoring the VISUAL warning.

 

[Seashepherd]

NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/b...updates-could-have-prevented-fatal-crash.html

Tesla Motors is readying improvements to its Autopilot technology that might have prevented an accident in May that took the life of an Ohio man, Tesla’s chief executive said on Sunday. The man was killed when his Model S car driving in Autopilot crashed into a tractor-trailer.

 

[davidc18]

Maybe if they didn't nag people when there was nothing wrong people wouldn't ignore there nags....

If they want people to pay attention to the nags, they'd only nag when they actually needed input.

+1 ^^^^^^^ I have said this many times. The un necessasry nagging is causing an unsafe situation. More nagging will not 'fix' it.

 

[davidc18]

The time-based steering nag is stupid. Think about your own experience with highway driving: it is *far* more likely that you will need to suddenly brake than suddenly steer, yet there's not a cruise control system on earth that requires you to tap the brakes once a minute to prove you're paying attention.

Today, with my pre-AP P85, I routinely knee-drive with coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other when conditions permit. It would absolutely be safer to do this with AP than without, but sounds like 8.0 will force me to do the less safe thing. For safety.

+1 ^^^ Yes, you are absolutely correct that they are making the system less safe by doing this.

 

[u00mem9]

I'm ok with the nags limits as long as the audio-mute level bags are not what we are counting here (beep is 1 past that right?)

I would point out though, the current autosteer functions much worse when you have your hands on the wheel. Your hands don't provide a predictable reaction force, so the control system makes more corrections and wanders. Makes sense if you understand the system. Not much of an issue on multi lane highways, but on a single lane + that little wiggle that happens over crests, it basically makes the system not worth tolerating the poor steering.

 

[sillydriver]

This thread needs a title change now.

Maybe the Mods can merge this thread with "Firmware 8.0 information leak" which consists of an almost identical discussion, creating a "Firmware 8.0" sticky thread.

 

[sillydriver]

Here's one thing I wonder about and I would love to hear others' thoughts. AP can be thought of as TACC plus autosteer. Obviously most of autosteer needs to be done optically because radar can't see painted lines. I assume TACC functionality has shifted to be primarily radar-based where it was optical with radar confirmation before. My question is whether radar has any role, or any new role, in autosteer? If not, then we needn't worry about this new and probably not yet completely debugged shift to radar messing up autosteer behavior vs. 7.1. Then our exposure to potential bugs in the new system entirely involves TACC, where what we should be watching out for is just false positives in emergency braking behavior. Or does radar now have a role in autosteer also? If so, what is it? What potential steering bugs should we be watching out for?

 

[Electroman]

I see someone has never dealt with Tesla before...

As funny as this seems to be I would rather be a Tesla driver and wait for another week than a BMW or Mercedes or GM or any dinosaur auto driver and keep waiting for another decade.

 

[Saghost]

Here's one thing I wonder about and I would love to hear others' thoughts. AP can be thought of as TACC plus autosteer. Obviously most of autosteer needs to be done optically because radar can't see painted lines. I assume TACC functionality has shifted to be primarily radar-based where it was optical with radar confirmation before. My question is whether radar has any role, or any new role, in autosteer? If not, then we needn't worry about this new and probably not yet completely debugged shift to radar messing up autosteer behavior vs. 7.1. Then our exposure to potential bugs in the new system entirely involves TACC, where what we should be watching out for is just false positives in emergency braking behavior. Or does radar now have a role in autosteer also? If so, what is it? What potential steering bugs should we be watching out for?

It sounded to me like Tesla is planning to engage Autosteer as accident avoidance under some circumstances, which works likely involve radar data.

I didn't see anything that suggested to me routine lane following would be based on radar - though if the whitelist is comprehensive and detailed enough, it might become possible to stay in the lane based purely on measuring your location relative to the list objects kinda like Vietnam era aircraft navigation. No one has mentioned doing anything like that so far.

 

[NOLA_Mike]

Here's one thing I wonder about and I would love to hear others' thoughts. AP can be thought of as TACC plus autosteer. Obviously most of autosteer needs to be done optically because radar can't see painted lines. I assume TACC functionality has shifted to be primarily radar-based where it was optical with radar confirmation before. My question is whether radar has any role, or any new role, in autosteer? If not, then we needn't worry about this new and probably not yet completely debugged shift to radar messing up autosteer behavior vs. 7.1. Then our exposure to potential bugs in the new system entirely involves TACC, where what we should be watching out for is just false positives in emergency braking behavior. Or does radar now have a role in autosteer also? If so, what is it? What potential steering bugs should we be watching out for?

Well, supposedly the update will adjust where the car sits in its lane based on proximity to other vehicles in adjacent lanes. I would assume that this would, at a minimum, utilize data from the ultrasonic sensors if not radar too.

I believe they also indicated that it would "auto steer" to avoid an accident at the last minute?

I think it's all tied together so intimately that you can't expect major changes to TACC to not potentially affect auto steering.

Mike

 

[Az_Rael]

Transcript Part 3 is up:
Transcript: Elon Musk’s press conference about Tesla Autopilot under v8.0 update [Part 3]

 

[proven]

Assuming Elon meant ignoring the visual, not audible alert:
Do I now have to look at the dashboard all the time? How is that safe? That may would work with a heads up display, but obviously Tesla doesn't have a heads up display, a technology that is must have in any cutting edge vehicle (or helmet). Only other option is to keep my hands on the steering wheel all the time. **** that (pardon my French).

Well, presumably the flashing white border on the dash screen will probably be quite visible in your peripheral vision compared to the tiny little warning we have now.