Waymo One launches

[CarlK]

Even before reaching true autonomous Tesla still has a great advantage over the rest. Tesla is essentially providing everyone who buys the car with a chauffeur. That's still an advange even before the chauffeur could work 100% of time. You might not be able to have the chauffeur to pick up kids yet or may still have to drive the car occasionally when the chauffeur is sick but that (say chauffeur'd 99% of time) is still of a tremendous value. What Waymo or others are doing with a "safety driver" has zero value if not negative value until they achieved close to 100% autonomous capability and not even a day too soon. In theory car companies can do the same as what Tesla is doing although I have not heard any company even mentioned a plan of selling (potentially) FSD capable cars to the general public.

 

[acoste]

I have not heard any company even mentioned a plan of selling (potentially) FSD capable cars to the general public.

Audi is already out with their Level 3 system in the A8. The writer of this driver assist E-tron's test says: "Audi’s latest driver assist features, including adaptive cruise control and auto-steering, are available on the e-tron and I found them to be competent during my drive.
The capabilities are similar to Tesla’s Autopilot – though to be fair, the conditions were ideal with clear road markings almost everywhere in Abu Dhabi." Audi e-tron first drive review: a solid SUV that happens to be electric

Also I recommend you to read the experience of this guy's BMW driver assist vs Tesla autopilot comparison: BMW X3 Driving Assistant Plus VS Tesla Enhanced Auto Pilot

Mercedes S will come out with their Level 3 car in late 2020 and will be followed by BMW's 7 series.

" Mercedes has been testing V-Class vans around the roads of Boeblingen, near Stuttgart, where Mercedes-Benz has a research center. The automated vans run through purposefully challenging situations such as morning traffic. The technology is already at Level 5, Daimler’s head of development, Ola Kaellenius, said in an interview, although a recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance put the target date for the company after 2020.
Before those systems are on the road, Kaellenius said Mercedes will offer Level 3 autonomy as an option in the cars it sells by 2021...."

"In 2021, BMW will join the party with a Level 3 autonomous system for the iNext electric vehicle. It will upgrade to Level 4 automation in as little as a year later. "
Mercedes is testing automotive trucks as well since 2015 on German and US highways so as soon as these systems are ready they will be deployed in production vehicles. They have also got level 4 testing permit in China (first international company).


These companies will not release versions to the public in which they don't trust in and therefore they spend more time on testing and progress steadily in smaller steps. So I think the dates above may be delayed or they may wait until the level 4 is ready. (The Mercedes truck may come out sooner than the car.)
I have heard them many times through my job saying that they are hesitant to release any version that gives back the control to the driver when the system freaks out.



If you want a written promise, here it is from Volvo:
Volvo promises self-driving 2021 XC90 you can nap in

 

[lunitiks]

P.S. You ok? Either your account was hacked, you recently had a stroke, started working for Tesla, walked to Damascus, or have been dropping a "/s" in your posts.

Didn’t you know bladerskb is actually the biggest Elon Musk super-fan on the face of the planet?
Here he is, posing in front of his purple wrapped model 3

 

[CarlK]

Audi is already out with their Level 3 system in the A8. The writer of this driver assist E-tron's test says: "Audi’s latest driver assist features, including adaptive cruise control and auto-steering, are available on the e-tron and I found them to be competent during my drive.
The capabilities are similar to Tesla’s Autopilot – though to be fair, the conditions were ideal with clear road markings almost everywhere in Abu Dhabi." Audi e-tron first drive review: a solid SUV that happens to be electric

Also I recommend you to read the experience of this guy's BMW driver assist vs Tesla autopilot comparison: BMW X3 Driving Assistant Plus VS Tesla Enhanced Auto Pilot

Mercedes S will come out with their Level 3 car in late 2020 and will be followed by BMW's 7 series.

" Mercedes has been testing V-Class vans around the roads of Boeblingen, near Stuttgart, where Mercedes-Benz has a research center. The automated vans run through purposefully challenging situations such as morning traffic. The technology is already at Level 5, Daimler’s head of development, Ola Kaellenius, said in an interview, although a recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance put the target date for the company after 2020.
Before those systems are on the road, Kaellenius said Mercedes will offer Level 3 autonomy as an option in the cars it sells by 2021...."

"In 2021, BMW will join the party with a Level 3 autonomous system for the iNext electric vehicle. It will upgrade to Level 4 automation in as little as a year later. "
Mercedes is testing automotive trucks as well since 2015 on German and US highways so as soon as these systems are ready they will be deployed in production vehicles. They have also got level 4 testing permit in China (first international company).


These companies will not release versions to the public in which they don't trust in and therefore they spend more time on testing and progress steadily in smaller steps. So I think the dates above may be delayed or they may wait until the level 4 is ready. (The Mercedes truck may come out sooner than the car.)
I have heard them many times through my job saying that they are hesitant to release any version that gives back the control to the driver when the system freaks out.



If you want a written promise, here it is from Volvo:
Volvo promises self-driving 2021 XC90 you can nap in

Read that sentence of mine that you have quoted again. It says (potentially) FSD capable cars general public can buy. None of those mentioned in your long posts qualify. That Volvo "promise" (not sure why you say written promise when there is no contractual obligations) says "when driving on certain limited-access highways.". Well that's not even close.

 

[electronblue]

Read that sentence of mine that you have quoted again. It says (potentially) FSD capable cars general public can buy. None of those mentioned in your long posts qualify. That Volvo "promise" (not sure why you say written promise when there is no contractual obligations) says "when driving on certain limited-access highways.". Well that's not even close.

I kind of concur with what I believe is @CarlK ’s underlying point but definitions to matter a lot.

If we are discussing real autonomous driving ie car responsible for the drive I find Tesla’s current approach behind the curve and likely to remain so. The first car responsible driving will be seen in fleet use from the likes of Waymo and MobilEye’s Israeli project (and possibly others in China etc) and in consumer use in European or Japanese manufacturers together with MobilEye launching Level 3 and Level 4 features for limited scenarios like highway use. In these cases the car will actually be responsible for driving and driver can look away.

When it comes to driver responsible driver’s aids though it is quite possible Tesla will advance faster than the others because their approach is so different. But I have a hard time seeing when and how Tesla’s current effort turns into car responsible driving hence I think they will not be amongst the first to show such features.

 

[electronblue]

It also has three forward facing radars and two rear radars to add to it and camera so there is redundancy as well.

You have succinctly summed up exactly why I don't see the point.

I think @J1mbo you are failing to appreciate the massive difference car responsible driving makes compared to driver responsible driving and the role different sensors play in that. There can be no ambiguity when the car is responsible for the drive and the driver is looking away (Level 3 and above).

Radars are very reliable at detecting approaching vehicles so they make for good aides in directions where the car isn’t driving to itself like cross traffic — in directions you are not travelling to you mainly have to worry about objects that might be travelling towards you and radar is good at catching most of those. In the case of the Audi Traffic-jam Pilot the car is responsbile for only single lane divided road driving so it is sufficient to use radars for this but the story would change if the car had to turn from lane to lane, road to road or drive in a more dynamic environment.

Radars are susceptible to issues when looking at your actual driving direction because in that case also other objects than moving cars are a threat as it is your car that is moving towards them — and radar is not good enough at stationary objects. For driving direction related detection then Lidar provides redundancy to the camera which is the only other sensor that can reliabily detect stationary objects at speed (or other objects that due to their nature radar is not good at).

Why Lidar and camera and not just camera then? Vision only driving certainly is possible so redundancy is one thing. But another is that when the car actually is responsible and driver is allowed to look away you simply can’t have a false negative. Lidar is very good at avoiding false negatives — very very good in fact. I would say much better than any vision system today. If Lidar says there is nothing there, there is nothing there. As an active light source it will do this even without ambient lighting. This in addition to reliable ranging is the main benefit of Lidar. Had Uber not disabled their Lidar they would not have had the accident.

That is why those companies that are currently showing results in cars responsible for the drive are currently using Lidar as part of the mix and that is one large reason I do not see Tesla relinquishing the driver of the requirement to be responsible any time soon since they do not have a sensor with such high reliability in their current suite and even their radar coverage for cross traffic is missing. MobilEye whose visual detection is arguably beyond Tesla and is also working on vision only driving seems to recommend Lidar and radar redundancy as well.

It is not hard to think of scenarios where even the best visual system today would be fooled or miss an item of strange nature. Lidar will not miss it and that is its value today. Even with a Lidar setup you still have to solve the question of false positives which of course is what Uber was struggling with but having a sensor basically without false negatives is still high value when the car is responsible and not the driver. Maybe the strange combo of say a person and a shopping cart full of bags in a dark road is not expected (not a clear pedestrian, not a bike, not a car...) but Lidar does not care about not understanding what it sees. It will see something is there.

Radar will not miss an approaching vehicle so that is another. All one has to do is look at Version 9 rear view camera data on instrument cluster and see cars appearing and disappearing seemingly at random — many false negatives from vision for such simple things as cars with range estimations all over the place in @verygreen videos from the rear camera. Radar or Lidar there would not miss or miscalculate their range.

 

[voyager]

When Apple's autonomous i-Car will be launched, whole new challenges need to be overcome...

 

[CarlK]

I kind of concur with what I believe is @CarlK ’s underlying point but definitions to matter a lot.

If we are discussing real autonomous driving ie car responsible for the drive I find Tesla’s current approach behind the curve and likely to remain so. The first car responsible driving will be seen in fleet use from the likes of Waymo and MobilEye’s Israeli project (and possibly others in China etc) and in consumer use in European or Japanese manufacturers together with MobilEye launching Level 3 and Level 4 features for limited scenarios like highway use. In these cases the car will actually be responsible for driving and driver can look away.

When it comes to driver responsible driver’s aids though it is quite possible Tesla will advance faster than the others because their approach is so different. But I have a hard time seeing when and how Tesla’s current effort turns into car responsible driving hence I think they will not be amongst the first to show such features.

I thought we have agreed to disagree. We are so far apart on this there is no more point to argue which company is ahead. Although I have no doubt Tesla is ahead of any other auto companies, including any consortiums of those auto companies with Mobileye/Bosch/Delpi..., and ahead in general autonomous driving of Waymo, which likely will not team up with anyone (buying cars for its own use is not the same). Put it in one sentence there is little if any chance you will be able to buy a car in the foreseeable future, other than from Tesla, to put in your garage anywhere in the country and use it as if you have a personal chauffeur driven car.

Just want to make one more point clear since too many arguments are based on those. Demo's and presentations don't count. If it's not something I could take home and use for days or weeks it's not there. And level 3 or 4 promises don't count either since we are talking about FSD, unless if the same car has an upgrade path to there. Everything else is just vaporware untill we can buy the product.

 

[electronblue]

@CarlK I did not intend to reopen old arguments merely to offer an agreement to the extent that I would agree Tesla is different from the other companies when it comes to advancing generalized self-driving in a driver’s aid form which to me seemed to be your point about the chauffeur that won’t take your kids to school but is still helpful to the driver.

Others are focused on car responsible autonomous driving far more so than in driver’s aids so Tesla may well get the most advanced Level 2 system (driver responsible) in the meanwhile (not that they don’t already have in many ways) as others are more focused on steps to Level 3 and 4 (car responsible). It is true that in car responsible autonomous leadership we disagree of course but did not mean to rehash that.

As for Jaguar and Waymo I of course continue to disagree their partnership would be merely about buying/selling cars. I think it is more. It is a technology partnership with information and effects flowing into both directions. That said I do expect MobilEye to enter consumer market with Level 3 and 4 products with automotive makers far sooner than Waymo so I don’t mean to place too much emphasis on the Waymo/Jaguar dance.

For Jaguar I expect the Waymo partnership be more exploratory long-term research than a near-term thing — beyond making and helping equip the Waymo fleet cars of course.

 

[CarlK]

Yeah everything can be exploritory. That's really a too broad a term the same as demo's or presentations. You have nothing until there is a product that can be put in customers' hands. There is not even a plan of that from anyone. All those promised level 3 or 4 cars, even when the are available, will not be improved to FSD after you bought them. They won't count either. I'm willing to put this clear statement in writing that Tesla will be the first company that will be able to let you to own a level 4.5. or 4.9, autonomous car to go to anywhere you want it to. It will be very easy to prove I'm wrong in the future.

 

[acoste]

Read that sentence of mine that you have quoted again. It says (potentially) FSD capable cars general public can buy. None of those mentioned in your long posts qualify. That Volvo "promise" (not sure why you say written promise when there is no contractual obligations) says "when driving on certain limited-access highways.". Well that's not even close.

Read what is FSD again: "we believe will be a probability of safety at least twice as good as the average human driver"
This tells a lot, the promised system is nowhere near the Level 4 system. Not even 3. I think this is still at level 2.

Think about it. Most of the accidents are caused by DUI, fatigue or emotions. Now the software has none of these. So if the number of accidents is still half of what human drivers cause, that means that "autonomous" car is a horrible driver and if I were about to use it, it would increase the chance of an accident for me.

Volvo has a very straightforward goal when it comes to injuries: "Our vision is that by 2020 no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car."
Vision 2020 | Volvo Cars

Compare this mentality to Tesla's who even after 3 fatalities has not changed their approach. See the software issues of the latest versions. Or for example they failed to emphasize that the Model X didn't alert the driver in the MV accident. And many Tesla owners still think it's ok to look at the phone and read an email.

 

[Bladerskb]

Demo's and presentations don't count. If it's not something I could take home and use for days or weeks it's not there. And level 3 or 4 promises don't count either since we are talking about FSD, unless if the same car has an upgrade path to there. Everything else is just vaporware untill we can buy the product.

How dare you insinuate that Teslas are vaporware? Running out of kool-aid? I just got a new shipment and won't mind fedex-ing u some.

Yeah everything can be exploritory. That's really a too broad a term the same as demo's or presentations. You have nothing until there is a product that can be put in customers' hands. There is not even a plan of that from anyone. All those promised level 3 or 4 cars, even when the are available, will not be improved to FSD after you bought them. They won't count either. I'm willing to put this clear statement in writing that Tesla will be the first company that will be able to let you to own a level 4.5. or 4.9, autonomous car to go to anywhere you want it to. It will be very easy to prove I'm wrong in the future.

Hey CarlK, me and you both love elon and he says level 5 is coming in a-couple months and I believe him, look what he's done with Tesla, SpaceX and Paypal!

I love elon to death and will chug tesla's koolaid till I bleed rainbows!
But I also love putting money on the line.

I will even be generous and double your pot.
I put down $2,000 US Dollars and you put down $1,000 US Dollars.

If Tesla releases a software that can go anywhere in a modern country (US, UK, Europe) by end of 2019. I give you the $2,000, if they don't you give me the $1,000. Its cut and dry and we put our money where our mouths are.

I actually want this to happen more than you brother. so what do you say? Deal?

Remember the definition of Level 5 "The vehicle is capable of performing all driving functions under all conditions."

Level 3 means drivers don't have to pay attention to the road or system (can watch, movies, text, read books, play games, etc)
Level 4 means driver can go to sleep or not even be in the car depending if certain conditions are met.
Level 5 means you don't ever need a driver period.

 

[Engr]

How dare you insinuate that Teslas are vaporware? Running out of kool-aid? I just got a new shipment and won't mind fedex-ing u some.



Hey CarlK, me and you both love elon and he says level 5 is coming in a-couple months and I believe him, look what he's done with Tesla, SpaceX and Paypal!

I love elon to death and will chug tesla's koolaid till I bleed rainbows!
But I also love putting money on the line.

I will even be generous and double your pot.
I put down $2,000 US Dollars and you put down $1,000 US Dollars.

If Tesla releases a software that can go anywhere in a modern country (US, UK, Europe) by end of 2019. I give you the $2,000, if they don't you give me the $1,000. Its cut and dry and we put our money where our mouths are.

I actually want this to happen more than you brother. so what do you say? Deal?

Remember the definition of Level 5 "The vehicle is capable of performing all driving functions under all conditions."

Level 3 means drivers don't have to pay attention to the road or system (can watch, movies, text, read books, play games, etc)
Level 4 means driver can go to sleep or not even be in the car depending if certain conditions are met.
Level 5 means you don't ever need a driver period.

Serious question blad, what's your obsession with Elon?
You don't "own" the car or believe they can achieve autonomy. You've already made your point clear about how inferior their tech is to Amon's (sick). So I don't really get why you spend so much time rehashing your points.

PS: how's your work on your driving algo? You can start a thread on that & I'm sure you'll get people contributing to your repo soon. That will be more beneficial in my opinion

 

[electronblue]

There is not even a plan of that from anyone. All those promised level 3 or 4 cars, even when the are available, will not be improved to FSD after you bought them. They won't count either. I'm willing to put this clear statement in writing that Tesla will be the first company that will be able to let you to own a level 4.5. or 4.9, autonomous car to go to anywhere you want it to. It will be very easy to prove I'm wrong in the future.

Is there a clear plan from Tesla to do car responsible FSD either though with Autopilot 2 hardware? If so, I do not really see it, except vague comments from Elon. If you are merely talking of driver’s aid where driver remains responsible then what you say might well be true as I agreed above as nobody else seems to be targeting such a driver’s aid — and I definitely can appreciate why Tesla owners appreciate getting such feature updates I do too — but the leap to car responsible driving is a big one which is where other makers are more focused on.

The case might be different for hardware sold in the future but I must admit car responsible driving with Autopilot 2 even with AP3 CPU/GPU upgrade seems a distant thing.

Finally you seem to dismiss awfull lot when you say Level 3 and Level 4 in limited scenarios do not matter. Ability to read a book or emails on highway is a really big deal. I would say in many cases much bigger than your car driving while you watch intently. This is why the lack of specifity and I guess somewhat even lack of plausibility from Tesla on car responsible driving is a bummer. It is very hard to see how and when Tesla’s progress and sensor suite could allow Level 3 or Level 4 highway driving. In Europe and Japan there are product plans for Level 3 and Level 4 likely to come out sooner than Tesla.

You have nothing until there is a product that can be put in customers' hands.

While I can appreciate what you can buy and use matters I can not agree with this quote. What is happening behind the scenes certainly matters in assessing the progress of various players. Even in the case of Tesla who has an upgradeable product it matters in assessing how likely they will achieve their goals with the already shipped and shipping hardware and when. Not all unfinished progress is equal.

 

[CarlK]

Going from garage at home to parking lot at work without driver input for anyone who owns the car is indeed general autonomous. No other company even has a plan to releas a car that is capable of that.

This illustrate well the difference between how Tesla and others are commonly perceived. Tesla for sure already has prototype capabilities of those described but they are still not ready to put them in in everyone's hands. People would only say it's going to be late for what was promised (and they are very likely right). On the other hand any other company could, and likely would, just invite media to have a test ride and get all the ooh's and aah's and say how advanced its system is. No one would care that it's not a real product.

If you compare real product to real product (cars you can own) Tesla is ahead of everyone else. if you compare promised to promised Tesla is also ahead. You just can't compare promised, or prototype, to a real product to draw your conclusion.

 

[Bladerskb]

This illustrate well the difference between how Tesla and others are commonly perceived. Tesla for sure already has prototype capabilities of those described but they are still not ready to put them in in everyone's hands. People would only say it's going to be late for what it was promised. Any other company could, and likely would, just shoot a video or invite media to have a test ride and get all the ooh's and aah's and say how advanced its system is. No one seems to care that it's not a real product.

If you compare real product to real product (cars you can own) Tesla is ahead of everyone else. if you compare promised to promised Tesla is also ahead. You just can't compare promised to real product to draw your conclusion.

100% Agree So then we have a deal?

If Tesla releases a (L5) software that can go anywhere in a modern country (US, UK, Europe) by end of 2019. I give you the $2,000, if they don't you give me the $1,000. Its cut and dry and we put our money where our mouths are.

I'm literally giving you $2,000 dollars for FREE!

 

[electronblue]

@CarlK While I can appreciate Tesla’s unique software update strategy Elon’s tweets really do not have the best correlation with reality when it comes to autonomous cars. It is a data point in assessing Tesla’s self-driving progress but not much more than that. For example in the same thread of tweets he calls Navigate on Autopilot mindblowing and implies it automatically overtake slow cars neither of which seem to correlate with shipping features very well.

In my view assessing the progress level of self-driving technology providers is a complex task. Shipping products is one measure but not the only one because it also matters who will ship what next. Fine to disagree. Just an explanation.

I know Tesla promised Level 5 capability (no steering wheel required) and coast to coast driverless Summon for Autopilot 2 in 2016 with mere CPU/GPU upgrade if needed. It is hard to correlate that with shipped reality either but more importantly I find data even in other channels lacking to support that promise. It is easier to believe in something like that from say Waymo in a way even if they are not targeting exactly that.

That said a driver responsible driver’s aid that drives from coast to coast that I can see sooner from Tesla. But it is a wholly different problem than autonomous car responsible driving.

 

[electronblue]

Going from garage at home to parking lot at work without driver input for anyone who owns the car is indeed general autonomous.

In this context it is autonomous only if the driver is not required to intervene at any time without an orderly transfer of control. That is the part where I have trouble seeing Tesla’s Autopilot 2 getting to anytime soon. A driver’s aid with driver responsible is of course much more plausible.

 

[Bladerskb]

Going from garage at home to parking lot at work without driver input for anyone who owns the car is indeed general autonomous. No other company even has a plan to releas a car that is capable of that.

Also to remind you, as @electronblue pointed out, for it to be autonomous, it needs to be L3 or higher. Unless its just another driver assistance.

Personally i believe elon when he says it will be L5.
Which means this should be the easiest money you ever made? What's the problem?
Oh yea of little faith, why doest though doubt?

 

[mongo]

Personally i believe elon when he says it will be L5.

When did Elon say it was going to be L5 in 2019?

L4 covers the base, no driver, FSD functionality, but doesn't require as much one off event handling.