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U.S. opens formal safety probe for Autopilot - 2021 Aug 16

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Perhaps we could get an option for plain old dumb cruise control so our expectation for what the car will and won't do will be clear cut and consistent. I have no interest in trying to guess what the car may or may not do. I really hope actual self driving exists by the time I need it (not so long now, I'm afraid) but I don't see these intermediate systems adding significant value to the driver over dumb cruise control. Of course then I'm peeved that there isn't a clutch and gear shifter to play with.
 
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how would the 'optics' appear if the company had to admit that adding a MORE manual mode, since their auto mode has problems?

dont expect to see a button like this from elon's company. his ego wont allow it.

but I agree, it should be there. and then people can know its the old school style cruise control and sometimes, it would make more sense to use that vs a smarter one. smarter that has bugs is not really smarter, is it?
 
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That is odd since it will be mandatory in the EU beginning mid 2022.
Also of note, the EU will be requiring a "drowsiness and attention warning system" as well.
Regulations over here don't follow EU in many cases. Even the AEB testing standards are different than the EU (this was covered in previous discussions in the forum), critically the brake burnishing is different:
New Car Assessment Program (NCAP)

We also see this in other features like matrix headlights (which many luxury makes already offer in Europe) and cameras in place of the side mirrors (I know the Honda E has it already).
 
When are they starting a probe on all the crashes that happen because so many cars don't have emergency braking ?

Making emergency braking mandatory would be the biggest safety enhancement in a century for automobiles..
making RELIABLE emergency braking.

if its the phantom style, uhhh, thanks but no thanks. better to turn it off than have it jam the brakes and have the guy tailgating rear-end you.

if it can't be trustable, its worse than not having it.
 
The need to ignore stationary objects was a radar-based issue. Radar reflections can inflate the size of small objects, so the convex bottom of a soda can could appear to be a huge obstacle. As I understand it, Tesla had to program AP to ignore those stationary signals or cars would be spontaneously braking all the time.

Tesla has gone to vision-only systems in the latest FSD-BETA iteration, and presumably it is good enough to solve the problem of crashing into stopped vehicles encroaching in lanes. If so, you would think they could push this vision-based crash avoidance to the rest of the fleet as a safety enhancement of Autopilot, since the cameras are all the same.
 
The need to ignore stationary objects was a radar-based issue. Radar reflections can inflate the size of small objects, so the convex bottom of a soda can could appear to be a huge obstacle. As I understand it, Tesla had to program AP to ignore those stationary signals or cars would be spontaneously braking all the time.

Tesla has gone to vision-only systems in the latest FSD-BETA iteration, and presumably it is good enough to solve the problem of crashing into stopped vehicles encroaching in lanes. If so, you would think they could push this vision-based crash avoidance to the rest of the fleet as a safety enhancement of Autopilot, since the cameras are all the same.
There are reports that the vision-only cars are phantom braking, too. I think some of those reports are in this very thread.
 
Tesla themselves told the California DMV about the issues dealing with a range of things from static objects on the road to stopped emergency vehicles, and they said in November that they don’t expect any significant improvements to the system’s Object and Event Detection and Response. We’ve seen the latest versions of FSD Beta happily drive towards Road Closed signs and concrete/steel pillars.

The camera system might even be implicated here as the NHTSA mentioned most of these accidents are happening at night, and the new one in Orlando follows that trend. But there might be other nighttime factors in play besides lighting conditions.
 
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Tesla themselves told the California DMV about the issues dealing with a range of things from static objects on the road to stopped emergency vehicles, and they said in November that they don’t expect any significant improvements to the system’s Object and Event Detection and Response. We’ve seen the latest versions of FSD Beta happily drive towards Road Closed signs and concrete/steel pillars.

The camera system might even be implicated here as the NHTSA mentioned most of these accidents are happening at night, and the new one in Orlando follows that trend. But there might be other nighttime factors in play besides lighting conditions.
There are reports that the vision-only cars are phantom braking, too. I think some of those reports are in this very thread.
Phantom braking will continue to be a bugaboo, but I would prefer the system that won’t crash into stopped cars surrounded by flashing lights and cones.

BTW FloridaJohn, is it just my imagination, or have more than half of Tesla’s accidents occurred in Florida?
 
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Looks like theres a new report of a car on Autopilot crashing into emergency crews, this one in Orlando. Or at least the driver is claiming the car was on autopilot


Looks like another case of the cop/firetruck partially blocking a travel lane by sticking a corner of their vehicle partially into the lane.

I don't understand why they think parking to partially block a travel lane is better than either just staying completely on the shoulder, or if truly necessary, blocking the entire lane which should also require upstream cones blocking the entire lane.

This practice of LEOs and FDs sticking part of their vehicle partially in a travel lane is f-ing stupid.
 
Looks like another case of the cop/firetruck partially blocking a travel lane by sticking a corner of their vehicle partially into the lane.

I don't understand why they think parking to partially block a travel lane is better than either just staying completely on the shoulder, or if truly necessary, blocking the entire lane which should also require upstream cones blocking the entire lane.

This practice of LEOs and FDs sticking part of their vehicle partially in a travel lane is f-ing stupid.
I think the idea is the car serves as a buffer as the officer approaches the vehicle. Also they may cock the car slightly to the left (assuming right shoulder) so that if the car is hit, it goes into the traffic lane instead of possibly hitting the officer.

But this is obviously really bad for radar based ACC given even if it weren't for the rejection of the stationary objects in general, the resolution of it isn't enough to detect such small incursions into the lane.
 
Looks like another case of the cop/firetruck partially blocking a travel lane by sticking a corner of their vehicle partially into the lane.

I don't understand why they think parking to partially block a travel lane is better than either just staying completely on the shoulder, or if truly necessary, blocking the entire lane which should also require upstream cones blocking the entire lane.

This practice of LEOs and FDs sticking part of their vehicle partially in a travel lane is f-ing stupid.
I don't understand this argument though. This is a standard police/fire department practice to protect those involved at scene of accident. Why should the procedure be changed just to accommodate driver assistance system? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
 
Looks like theres a new report of a car on Autopilot crashing into emergency crews, this one in Orlando. Or at least the driver is claiming the car was on autopilot

A few more details and pics:

This should be Tesla's highest priority to fix. Amazing Tesla hasn't fixed this known issue after so many years.
 
Additional fodder for the regulators who will likely be pushing for more robust driver monitoring tech to help ensure engagement when these systems are being used

100% of these surely boil down to lacking attentiveness, you‘d need to be very checked out to ram into stopped emergency vehicles
When they require driver monitoring for dumb cruise control, you'd have a point. But there isn't and that will crash with any object or lifeform before it. There must be an investigation. Or people who don't hold the steering wheel. I mean, oh my! What could happen if the car steered into any object or lifeform before it?
;)
 
I don't understand this argument though. This is a standard police/fire department practice to protect those involved at scene of accident. Why should the procedure be changed just to accommodate driver assistance system? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Standard written first responder procedure is to fully block the adjacent lane when necessary at accident scenes.

Stupid LEO practice is stick their ass or front end of their car only partially into the lane only partially blocking the lane for the average traffic stop.

Their haphazard stupid practice of partially blocking lanes caused accidents before Tesla AP even existed.
 
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When they require driver monitoring for dumb cruise control, you'd have a point. But there isn't and that will crash with any object or lifeform before it. There must be an investigation. Or people who don't hold the steering wheel. I mean, oh my! What could happen if the car steered into any object or lifeform before it?
;)
It's such a fine line we're walking with these driver assist technologies. Nobody in their right mind would intentionally check out when using dumb cruise control because you 100% need to be in control of the steering or even just a slight curve + inattentiveness will guarantee you end up in a ditch

When you have driver assist tech that will navigate a slight curve and 95% of stuff but fails with the other 5%, that's a recipe for complacency leading to inattentiveness leading to one bad event that can change your life and the lives of other road users.



Just wait though, next step will be infrared cameras monitoring your eyeballs at all times to stop people from looking at their phones etc even when not using driver assist systems
 
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