Tesla's Autopilot needs to be shut down and NHTSA needs to do their due diligence

[croman]

Bottom line: HW2 is operating better than ever thanks to 17.9.3 and presumably will be even better with the latest pending update. Thus the OP is way off his rocker and we should let this thread die the death it deserves. HW2 is still trying to kill us but its ever so graceful at it now.

 

[electracity]

While mobileye provided a camera with great object recognition, what to do with that information was/is all Tesla software.

Nope. Mobileye is a distributed system, with each processor doing image recognition and tagging objects. If Tesla was only using mobileye sensors, they would not need to put a mobileye processor on their main board to train their new system. What mobileye also apparently provided to Tesla was the mapping, with Tesla keeping ownership of their map data.

AP1 mapping was obviously not completely successful, but AP2 seems worse. This is why the new cars have trouble when they can't follow lane lines.

Full self driving requires precise mapping, not just following land lines and the car ahead. That is why google does precision mapping of the 3D environments where their cars self drive.

Tesla will get the driver assist features back as they further develop AP2. But there is little to suggest a quick path to level 4/5.
Mobileye, on the other hand, is ready to deploy their next gen system (according to their published plan). Tesla is likely not using mobileye because they could not get a sufficiently proprietary agreement. Intel is not going to pay $15 billion for mobileye and have the best mobileye tech tied exclusively to Tesla.

Also, there is just no way Tesla developed vendor agnostic software. There is just no way they switch to Nvidia and maintained most of their development work. The reason this situation is not a complete mess is that their car competitors are either old, slow companies or startups without consumer products.

 

[dhanson865]

The only person I'm even less likely to click disagree is ingineer, but that individual tends to be just the facts kind of person. In fact it's so fact based that I have no idea if it's a he or a she. I know there is at least one female Tesla hacker, but I don't know their username.

fwiw his name is Phil Sadow and you can find plenty mentions of his work using his public name and associating it to the nickname "ingineer". Just in case someone thinks I'm doxing him. He's already a public figure.

 

[somnambule]

Full self driving requires precise mapping, not just following land lines and the car ahead. That is why google does precision mapping of the 3D environments where their cars self drive.

Humans drive without precise mapping. So there's existential proof that precise mapping is not an absolute requirement for self driving.

Mobileye, on the other hand, is ready to deploy their next gen system (according to their published plan). Tesla is likely not using mobileye because they could not get a sufficiently proprietary agreement. Intel is not going to pay $15 billion for mobileye and have the best mobileye tech tied exclusively to Tesla.

Tesla has publicly said why they broke off with MobilEye. It's not because Tesla wanted a proprietary agreement, but because MobilEye wanted Tesla to commit to unfavorable terms. See this article for details. Among the MobilEye demands Tesla cited were (quoted from the Tesla PR):

• Raising the price of their product retroactively
• Demanding an agreement to extremely unfavorable terms of sale and
• Demanding that Tesla not use data that was collected by its vehicles’ cameras for any purpose other than helping MobilEye develop its products
• Requiring that Tesla collaborate on Tesla Vision and source future vision processing from them until at least level 4

The reason this situation is not a complete mess is that their car competitors are either old, slow companies or startups without consumer products.

The whole situation is a product of the nascent nature of the field. It doesn't make sense to talk about whether the situation would be a mess or not under different circumstances given the situation wouldn't exist under different circumstances.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I wrote something up earlier and it was all lost due to a careless keystroke and a browser setting that somehow became disabled.

If Apple released an iPhone 8 w/totally different hardware but also rewrote iOS from the ground up, called it iOS 11 (10.2.1 is the latest right now) but iOS 11 shipped with a whole bunch of major basic features broken or totally missing and it was extremely unreliable vs. previous iOS versions, is that excusable? There's no regression?



I finally found a quote I was looking for from Google's self-driving cars rack up 3 million simulated miles every day.

Sure, Tesla definitely had internal testing of AP2 before release, but if they had an extensive regression test suite (that some baseline like AP1 passed) and did something like the above and did NOT allow AP2 code to reach and be activated on customer cars until such an extensive suite passed, then we probably wouldn't have what appears to be very broken functionality.

Did Tesla do something like the above? Probably not.

I can kinda see where the OP's coming from re: his mentions of NHTSA. Given that Joshua Brown died in May 2016 and AP2 hardware I believe rolled out in Oct 2016 w/no working AP software, all/virtually all the NHTSA investigation stuff would've had to focus on AP1 hardware and software, which is obviously not the same as AP2.

In industry speak, regression has a very specific meaning, and if you are writing a completely new software suite that is trying to match the general functionality of a previous one, then the testing you are doing is by definition not regression testing, but rather non-regression testing.

Basically you are validating software for doing general functionality, no different from testing new software (even if you name it similar to your old software).
Non-regression testing - Wikipedia

Given the OP claims he is an engineer, then it is fair game to hold him to the correct usage of the term. Of course if he was just a member of the general public, it is fine to just use "regression" loosely. This by the way has nothing to do with whether it is "excusable", just proper usage of the term.

 

[electracity]

Tesla has publicly said why they broke off with MobilEye. It's not because Tesla wanted a proprietary agreement, but because MobilEye wanted Tesla to commit to unfavorable terms. See this article for details. Among the MobilEye demands Tesla cited were (quoted from the Tesla PR):

• Raising the price of their product retroactively
• Demanding an agreement to extremely unfavorable terms of sale and
• Demanding that Tesla not use data that was collected by its vehicles’ cameras for any purpose other than helping MobilEye develop its products
• Requiring that Tesla collaborate on Tesla Vision and source future vision processing from them until at least level 4

How dare mobileye expect to make money and protect their IP! Don't they know they are a mere pawn in the great Tesla drama?

The list above supports my assertion that Tesla could not get a sufficiently proprietary agreement. And now we know why: Mobileye is worth $15 billion, and Tesla wanted to pay the equivalent of hundreds of millions.

What would Musk do if he was CEO of Mobileye? Would he commit his company to play "second fiddle" to a single company? I expect that Mobileye feels that Tesla got way too much credit for the success of AP1. Apparently Intel agrees.

The owners of Mobileye became extremely wealthy by NOT tying themselves to Tesla. Unfortunately for Tesla mobileye was dealt a fabulous hand that every rational person would play to maximum advantage.

I also suspect that Musk is a real pain in the ass as a company's premiere client. Being told that they were expected to deliver autonomous cars in 2017/18 was probably the last straw.

Personally I would happily take my billions and not be part of Musk's ever changing vision.

 

[somnambule]

How dare mobileye expect to make money and protect their IP! Don't they know they are a mere pawn in the great Tesla drama?

The list above supports my assertion that Tesla could not get a sufficiently proprietary agreement. And now we know why: Mobileye is worth $15 billion, and Tesla wanted to pay the equivalent of hundreds of millions.

What would Musk do if he was CEO of Mobileye? Would he commit his company to play "second fiddle" to a single company? I expect that Mobileye feels that Tesla got way too much credit for the success of AP1. Apparently Intel agrees.

The owners of Mobileye became extremely wealthy by NOT tying themselves to Tesla. Unfortunately for Tesla mobileye was dealt a fabulous hand that every rational person would play to maximum advantage.

I also suspect that Musk is a real pain in the ass as a company's premiere client. Being told that they were expected to deliver autonomous cars in 2017/18 was probably the last straw.

Personally I would happily take my billions and not be part of Musk's ever changing vision.

Is that you, Amnon Shashua?

I don't know about you but retroactive price increases, restrictions on what Tesla can use data gathered from their own cars for internally etc. seem like unreasonable demands from MobilEye to me. I haven't seen any claims from MobilEye that Tesla demanded any exclusivity from them. If they did, I'd agree with you that that's unreasonable. But other than your speculation (which contradicts what has been said publicly by the companies involved), I see nothing to suggest your perception is accurate.

Here's my perception based on the public statements from both companies: Tesla realized the pace of progress from ME was too slow for their goals and started internal development. ME found out about it and severed ties in an effort to maximize disruption for Tesla in the hopes of retaining at least the other customers. Certainly logical actions from all parties involved. Just not consistent with the view you've been suggesting.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Is that you, Amnon Shashua?

I don't know about you but retroactive price increases, restrictions on what Tesla can use data gathered from their own cars for internally etc. seem like unreasonable demands from MobilEye to me. I haven't seen any claims from MobilEye that Tesla demanded any exclusivity from them. If they did, I'd agree with you that that's unreasonable. But other than your speculation (which contradicts what has been said publicly by the companies involved), I see nothing to suggest your perception is accurate.

Here's my perception based on the public statements from both companies: Tesla realized the pace of progress from ME was too slow for their goals and started internal development. ME found out about it and severed ties in an effort to maximize disruption for Tesla in the hopes of retaining at least the other customers. Certainly logical actions from all parties involved. Just not consistent with the view you've been suggesting.

Great analysis. I agree both companies made logical actions, but then Mobileye's demands were unreasonable (as you say, likely purposefully to maximize disruption to Tesla). The only angle I would add to it is how much collaboration happened with nVidia behind the scene (Tesla had a nice business relationship with them from using the Tegra chip for the infotainment system and Elon presented with the nVidia CEO at the GPU conference in 2015). I'm sure Mobileye was very uncomfortable with that, given nVidia was developing a direct competing system to Mobileye's.

 

[Electroman]

This is like Intel demanding that all 'data' that were processed by their CPU chips belong to them.

 

[croman]

Tesla needs better attorneys....

 

[FlyF4]

This reminds me of a zillion other laws. I grew up in the sixties. I didn't wear a bike helmet, now it is the law. I played in the street. Now there is a law against it. I didn't have a seat belt in my car for at least the first 300,000 miles. Now it is the law. I didn't ride in a child safety seat. Now it is the law. I chewed on lead pencils in school. Now lead pencils are unlawful. Do I need to go on? I'M STILL HERE AND HEALTHY. Yea yea yea, I'm sure folks make a case that new laws save lives, but where does it end?

Now you want to make a law to take away a feature for everyone else that you don't like. So, don't use it, but stop trying to take it away from me. Being at the top of the list for most dis-liked postings should say something about what people think.

Maybe the next post will be to suggest a law that I don't have sex with the wife without taking a blood test every night?

I do apologize for the sarcasm. This just pressed my eject button !

 

[JohnSnowNW]

This reminds me of a zillion other laws. I grew up in the sixties. I didn't wear a bike helmet, now it is the law. I played in the street. Now there is a law against it. I didn't have a seat belt in my car for at least the first 300,000 miles. Now it is the law. I didn't ride in a child safety seat. Now it is the law. I chewed on lead pencils in school. Now lead pencils are unlawful. Do I need to go on? I'M STILL HERE AND HEALTHY. Yea yea yea, I'm sure folks make a case that new laws save lives, but where does it end?

Now you want to make a law to take away a feature for everyone else that you don't like. So, don't use it, but stop trying to take it away from me. Being at the top of the list for most dis-liked postings should say something about what people think.

Maybe the next post will be to suggest a law that I don't have sex with the wife without taking a blood test every night?

I do apologize for the sarcasm. This just pressed my eject button !

And people survive wars, that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to avoid them...

 

[shonline]

How dare mobileye expect to make money and protect their IP! Don't they know they are a mere pawn in the great Tesla drama?

The list above supports my assertion that Tesla could not get a sufficiently proprietary agreement. And now we know why: Mobileye is worth $15 billion, and Tesla wanted to pay the equivalent of hundreds of millions.

What would Musk do if he was CEO of Mobileye? Would he commit his company to play "second fiddle" to a single company? I expect that Mobileye feels that Tesla got way too much credit for the success of AP1. Apparently Intel agrees.

The owners of Mobileye became extremely wealthy by NOT tying themselves to Tesla. Unfortunately for Tesla mobileye was dealt a fabulous hand that every rational person would play to maximum advantage.

I also suspect that Musk is a real pain in the ass as a company's premiere client. Being told that they were expected to deliver autonomous cars in 2017/18 was probably the last straw.

Personally I would happily take my billions and not be part of Musk's ever changing vision.

Are you a owner of a Tesla?

 

[EarlyAdopter]

This reminds me of a zillion other laws. I grew up in the sixties. I didn't wear a bike helmet, now it is the law. I played in the street. Now there is a law against it. I didn't have a seat belt in my car for at least the first 300,000 miles. Now it is the law. I didn't ride in a child safety seat. Now it is the law. I chewed on lead pencils in school. Now lead pencils are unlawful. Do I need to go on? I'M STILL HERE AND HEALTHY.

I'd recommend reading up on survivorship bias.

The logical fallacy here being the people who died as a result of those things not being laws are not around to remind us of that fact.

 

[essmd]

It's threads like this that make me question if Fully Autonomous Drive vehicles will ever be approved for use in our country...by any manufacturer.

Assisted-Driving technology such as Tesla AP1 and now AP2 has already proven to me to be safer than human driver alone, but I really question if taking the driver out completely will ever be viable and safe.

The Tesla FSD Demo video makes it look so easy, but that is under ideal conditions, which does not represent at least 50% of the roads in the U.S.

While I am glad I got upgraded to a HW2, I feel confident that not purchasing the $3K upgrade for FSD was a good move, since Tesla will not give a refund if full regulatory approval does not occur, but I will be sure to pay $4K if it is approved and I consider it safe.

I may be more stringent that the regulators for approval of the product.

 

[CHG-ON]

http://www.thedrive.com/news/7915/watch-this-tesla-autopilot-2-0-fail-terribly-in-a-model-s

That video shows the car making a quick move across the oncoming lane. It is beyond clear that Tesla's design and testing approach is reckless. Imagine if the car was going faster. How does this not get caught in simulation or using simulators? How does this not get caught on test tracks? Using your customers as Guinea pigs is bad enough but now you are using them to check for massive system regression? This video clearly shows that these cars regressed so far that Tesla's entire process needs to be investigated. Especially around regression testing.

NHTSA needs to quickly reverse their stance on Tesla's autopilot at least long enough to actually do their homework, look into these issues and drive toward a solution that protects the public, makes sure the right things are happening at these companies. They need to due their due diligence, go talk to actual experts in ALL of these areas and not be so wowed by Mr. Musk. That fox owns the hen house and is going to get those hens killed. Musk's mantra that he is statistically saving lives is not only wrong but his system is putting the public in danger.

The Solution

• Create a Scenario Matrix that cars will be officially tested to. Ensure this matrix covers a minimum amount of scenarios that ensure driver and public safety. Gather folks from these companies, automakers, the insurance industry, traffic engineering, NHTSA, academics and people who actually know how to create, design and test to a massive exception handling matrix like this. Most likely from DoD, NASA or Boeing. Ensure these standards are met before releasing any updates.
• Bring that systems engineering experience into these companies. Commercial IT has never used most best engineering practices. Yeah I know they make tons of money and really cool apps, games and websites. The fact is that Commercial IT rarely even looks into exception handling (cases where things do not go as planned) let alone a massive effort like this. That includes identifying them, designing to them and testing them. They lack the experience in doing this and their tools don't support it.
• Stop this massively avoidable process of using customers and the public as Guinea pigs. Musk says he needs 6 BILLION miles of it to collect the data he needs. Look at what that means. Innocent and trusting people being used to not only gather the first sets of data, most of which is for ACCIDENTS, then they are used to regression test after a system change. The reason for the 6 BILLION miles is that most of the data collected is repeat. They have to drive billions of miles because they are randomly stumbling on the scenarios. The solution here is to use the matrix described above with simulation and simulators to do most of the discovery and testing. That can be augmented with test tracks and controlled public driving. (Note - By Guinea pigs I mean the folks driving cars with autopilots engaged. Gathering data when they are in control is prudent.
• Ensure the black box data is updated often enough to gather all the data for any event (many times a second) or make sure the black box can withstand any crash. In the McCarthy/Speckman tragedy Tesla said they have no data on the crash. That is inexcusable. Also pass regulations that give the proper government organizations access to that data while ensuring it cannot be tampered with before they do so.
• Investigate the McCarth/Speckman crash. Determine if that car contributed to the accident. That includes any autopilot use as well as why that battery exploded and caused so much damage so fast. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-responsibility-does-tesla-have-tragedy-michael-dekort

I am a former systems engineer, program and engineering manager for Lockheed Martin. There I worked on aircraft simulation, the Aegis Weapon System and was Software Engineering Manager for all of NORAD. I was also the whistleblower who raised the Deepwater Program issues - IEEE Xplore Full-Text PDF:

Oh bullshit.

 

[FlyF4]

I'd recommend reading up on survivorship bias.

The logical fallacy here being the people who died as a result of those things not being laws are not around to remind us of that fact.

You're taking this post too seriously. I don't have to read up on anything

 

[EarlyAdopter]

You're taking this post too seriously. I don't have to read up on anything

I don't see anything wrong with taking preventable deaths, particularly of children, seriously.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

It's threads like this that make me question if Fully Autonomous Drive vehicles will ever be approved for use in our country...by any manufacturer.

Assisted-Driving technology such as Tesla AP1 and now AP2 has already proven to me to be safer than human driver alone, but I really question if taking the driver out completely will ever be viable and safe.

The Tesla FSD Demo video makes it look so easy, but that is under ideal conditions, which does not represent at least 50% of the roads in the U.S.

While I am glad I got upgraded to a HW2, I feel confident that not purchasing the $3K upgrade for FSD was a good move, since Tesla will not give a refund if full regulatory approval does not occur, but I will be sure to pay $4K if it is approved and I consider it safe.

I may be more stringent that the regulators for approval of the product.

Short of withholding approval to protect jobs of professional drivers, the problem would be purely technological. Make a good autonomous system, and then have it tested in the real world until the statistics pop and government signs on the dotted line.

 

[xyeahtony]

the NHTSA should start investigating the hundreds of traffic accidents daily caused by human drivers vs the 1 every so and so months that happens while AP is "running."