Trusting Tesla Autopolit

[Thumper]

Just as some current features are unavailable when the sensors are covered with snow, I suspect the drive assist features may be compromised under certain driving conditions. The car will probably alert you that you are on your own. In good weather with well defined lanes and shoulders, the self drive should work quite well and be trustworthy.

 

[ArtInCT]

Hopefully the situation an traffic conditions will set the bar for trusting autopilot aids.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

According to Elon's latest comments, you may not have any choice--which I think would spoil the experience once you have faith in the system.


[video]https://youtu.be/qXADb8gE9RU?t=32m2s[/video]

He said that autopilot will NOT require the driver to have their hands on the wheel, and only in response to a reporter he said that maybe Tesla will put up an alert to simply make sure the driver is awake and paying attention, because the question was specific to how Tesla would ensure against distracted drivers with this technology. But he clearly said that Tesla is not considering requiring the driver's hands on the wheel. And I agree, to do so would defeat the purpose of Autopilot.

 

[Stoneymonster]

He said that autopilot will NOT require the driver to have their hands on the wheel, and only in response to a reporter he said that maybe Tesla will put up an alert to simply make sure the driver is awake and paying attention, because the question was specific to how Tesla would ensure against distracted drivers with this technology. But he clearly said that Tesla is not considering requiring the driver's hands on the wheel. And I agree, to do so would defeat the purpose of Autopilot.

Not only that, he raised an interesting point that I hadn't heard made before: if you require the person to check-in with hands on the wheel, if they suffer a loss of consciousness, the autopilot cannot stay on and (presumably) do something safe. I doubt they have a plan for what that safe thing is, but it does turn the safety aspect of requiring hands on the wheel on its head a bit.

 

[caps04]

My experience with TACC may help in understanding on how we'll (I'll) adopt to Autopilot. At first, I was 50-50 if the car will brake when the car ahead brakes. I would sometimes brake myself if I thought it's taking a microsecond too long. Now, after 10 days of using it, I trust it will work and let it do its thing; if the blue cruise control sign is on. Now that's one thing I always have my eye on. I wish it was more prominent (like the instrument cluster lighting up or something) so that I don't have to constantly look down.

But overall, I trust it with my life as much as I trust the car will brake if I apply brakes.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Not only that, he raised an interesting point that I hadn't heard made before: if you require the person to check-in with hands on the wheel, if they suffer a loss of consciousness, the autopilot cannot stay on and (presumably) do something safe. I doubt they have a plan for what that safe thing is, but it does turn the safety aspect of requiring hands on the wheel on its head a bit.

Agreed. Elon said the other manufacturers have it backwards and he's 100% spot on! Other cars will disengage lane keeping if they detect your hands off the wheel. So if you black out, suffer a seizure or other emergency scenario where you take your hands off the wheels, the other cars will turn off lane keeping right at the moment when it's needed the most. I think this could potentially be a great safety feature that Tesla could market.

 

[R²B]

Would a crash that ocurred as a result of an autopilot bug be considered a manufacturing defect covered under a Tesla warranty?

 

[Stoneymonster]

Would a crash that ocurred as a result of an autopilot bug be considered a manufacturing defect covered under a Tesla warranty?

Are there any precedents for what happens with errors under normal cruise control? Toyota unintended acceleration maybe?

 

[CHG-ON]

I've been very happy with TACC as implemented thus far. It always brakes, though it feels a little late and too hard for me at times. I always have my foot at the ready because I'll never trust it fully. I really like that I can rest my foot on the go pedal and it doesn't impact TACC at all. That way, my foot is always where it should be. I will admit to crossing my legs on the wide open freeway a few times.

Aside from emergencies, the self-steering makes me nervous. If I'm not steering, accelerating or braking, what's the motivation to keep me fully engaged? I find my lane-keep assist to be very inaccurate. It goes off all the time when I am not crossing a lane and sometimes doesn't go off when I get lazy on an empty freeway and don't signal a lane change. I would assume lane-kep would be an integral part of self-steering. That's got to be better.

Re: emergency braking, I get false alarms all the time. The last thing I was is for the car to slam on its brakes when not needed, causing the poor guy behind me to plow into my rear. I set mine to the most sensitive setting to see what it would do. But I have not found a consistency yet. It falses when I am approaching a large object, like a truck, at a moderate speed with plenty of time for braking and has not gone off when somebody has pulled right in front of me or slams their brakes on and I have to brake hard. It seems to react much more to larger vehicles and not small ones. So I think more work is needed here.

I think for these things to truly work well, we will need V2V communication and that's a very long way off. But I love that we are trying to push the envelope.

 

[Spidy]

Agreed. Elon said the other manufacturers have it backwards and he's 100% spot on! Other cars will disengage lane keeping if they detect your hands off the wheel. So if you black out, suffer a seizure or other emergency scenario where you take your hands off the wheels, the other cars will turn off lane keeping right at the moment when it's needed the most. I think this could potentially be a great safety feature that Tesla could market.

Yeah, but you don't get sued for those things. And in all other situations those manufacturers will say: "Why did you not have your hand on the steering wheel?". Meanwhile Tesla will have a much harder time defending stuff like that if something happens.

 

[Stoneymonster]

Yeah, but you don't get sued for those things. And in all other situations those manufacturers will say: "Why did you not have your hand on the steering wheel?". Meanwhile Tesla will have a much harder time defending stuff like that if something happens.

For better or for worse, this is where the industry is going, and fast. I expect there will be a lot of lawyers involved making a lot of money.

 

[billarnett]

... overall, I trust it with my life as much as I trust the car will brake if I apply brakes.

That's pretty risky, IMHO. There are known situations where it does not brake at all. If you're not ready to take over in those cases then you WILL have a rear-ender. And I'm not sure any of us can say exactly what all those situations are. Maybe 7.0 will be better. But *I* won't trust it with my life without a LOT more evidence.

 

[caps04]

That's pretty risky, IMHO. There are known situations where it does not brake at all. If you're not ready to take over in those cases then you WILL have a rear-ender. And I'm not sure any of us can say exactly what all those situations are. Maybe 7.0 will be better. But *I* won't trust it with my life without a LOT more evidence.

I do trust for it's designed for: Highway driving. I have done a few hundred miles where it braked and accelerated as expected. Again, the blue cruise control thing has to be on and in those situations I don't see any reason it would fail. Now if it's on cruise and there is a car stopped dead ahead in my path, I wouldn't wait for the chance that TACC will get a lock on it just in time so in those cases, I would take over. But that's not the scenario I'm talking about (TACC has to have a lock on first).

 

[REBroker]

TACC earned my trust after I felt it wouldn't at all, and it took just seven to ten days. Just this morning I was in a very heavy traffic jam for half an hour, while raining, and I left it all to the car to take the pain, it handled it marvelously. I tend to use it a lot, and I do cross my legs next to my seat when in easy/safe situations. With that said, I am always alert and paying attention, many times at traffic lights I decide to break myself as the car would just wait too long to make the stop. Other times there's just no one in front of me at a red light and the car is just gunning it, , so if you are not alert, it will keep going through the red light and cause lots of trouble. One thing for sure, every time I use TACC I wish the car could also control the wheel, I can't wait for that feature and I'm hoping it's useable in any situation above a certain speed, that way if I'm driving on a 55MPH road that is not highway, I could still engage it.

 

[robby]

With respect, your comment that if an aircraft autopilot fails to "steer" and aircraft, the pilot(s) have plenty of time to react is simply wrong. For example, I have often done a fully automatic approach in heavy airliners down to a landing with zero visibility. If the autopilot fails in the latter stages there is perhaps, a second or so sometimes, to react. Like the Tesla, the autopilot in an aircraft requires constant close monitoring.

Thanks for the correction. I didn't realize autopilot on an airplane did things like that. From the way Elon talks about "highway" autopilot, I thought his analogy was that of a plane cruising along at 35k feet, adjusting speed and orientation. That's why I was downplaying the danger of airplane autopilot relative to that of a car on a congested highway.

 

[R²B]

So I've been thinking.....other than the obvious coolness factor and perhaps the life saving emergency applications, I'm wondering how much real world utility autopilot will have. Trying to keep my hands in my lap and fighting against decades of driving habits and instinct to grab the wheel seems like it'll be more stressful and unnerving then just manually driving the car.

 

[cgiGuy]

He said that autopilot will NOT require the driver to have their hands on the wheel, and only in response to a reporter he said that maybe Tesla will put up an alert to simply make sure the driver is awake and paying attention, because the question was specific to how Tesla would ensure against distracted drivers with this technology. But he clearly said that Tesla is not considering requiring the driver's hands on the wheel. And I agree, to do so would defeat the purpose of Autopilot.

I'm not sure he clearly said no hands.. it sounds like he repeated back what the reported said when asked, "Some competitors require you to put your hand on the wheel every now and again. It sounds like you don't have that in mind here." Elon's reply was, "Um.. we don't have that in mind.. um.. " Then he goes on to talk about if someone falls asleep you don't want it to not steer because that's backwards. Then goes on later to say "If we see that there's no hand force on the steering wheel for some period of time, we might issue a visual and auditory alert."

So, what it sounds like to me is that he's saying they may require hand force on the wheel or you'll get warnings, but if your hand is off the wheel it will still steer--incase you're sleeping or distracted. That means IF you take your hands off the steering wheel it's not going to like it (and will nag you), but it's not going to disable autopilot and coast you into a tree. Sounds like hand(s) required in that scenario.

 

[andrewket]

I understood it to mean that if you take your hands off the wheel for a prolonged period of time it will alert you. So occasionally you'll have to put your hands on the wheel just to tell the car you're still there and in control.

 

[donv]

The Boeing 777 (maybe the 747-8 as well, I don't know) has a warning if there is no activity by the pilot for some period of time-- maybe 15 minutes. The warning has to be acknowledged or more warnings start to go off. I think this is what Elon had in mind.

 

[Westweb]

One of the most common accidents, at least in my experience. Is when someone makes a left turn when it is not safe or clear, cutting off an oncoming car.
Why can't the sensor(s) detect that when you have your left turn signal on and you are accelerating, to check for oncoming car(s) and if not clean either stop the car or alert the driver.
Would seem simple to implement with the existing equipment built into the car already. Would sense the speed of the oncoming traffic along with distance.
Must be missing something.