Driverless Cars

[cqaigy2]

Space X.
Mission to Mars.
Tunneling Under the USA.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Programming Teslas to recognize Active Emergency Vehicles.

# of Irons vs. Fire...... predates the tech (not being) used by a very long time.....

Rgds, D.

So that is speeds up when it senses one?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Space X.
Mission to Mars.
Tunneling Under the USA.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Programming Teslas to recognize Active Emergency Vehicles.

# of Irons vs. Fire...... predates the tech (not being) used by a very long time.....

Rgds, D.

I listened to Elon Musk talking about training that they are doing and it was impressive what they are doing to one day build cars without a steering wheel. He has teams of like minded people working in all of his companies. Some so sees his efforts as an overkill but they do not understand every process in every business that he starts is to make life on Mars happen by 2050. I do not plan to go but plan to be around to see it. To make in more real I have invited a few to my 110th birthday bash (2061) and I may need a Tesla without a steering wheel by that time.

 

[sandman2234]

I listened to Elon Musk talking about training that they are doing and it was impressive what they are doing to one day build cars without a steering wheel. He has teams of like minded people working in all of his companies. Some so sees his efforts as an overkill but they do not understand every process in every business that he starts is to make life on Mars happen by 2050. I do not plan to go but plan to be around to see it. To make in more real I have invited a few to my 110th birthday bash (2061) and I may need a Tesla without a steering wheel by that time.

Can I get an invite to that birthday party? I am a few years younger and should have no problem making that if you can!
David from jax

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Can I get an invite to that birthday party? I am a few years younger and should have no problem making that if you can!
David from jax

Sure but I normally only invite those who are 30 years younger than I am so they have more time prepare to live 120 years.

I wish I had known what I now know about living a full life span years ago. But I was 63 racing to an early grave before I saw the flashing yellow light. The brain gets involved when health becomes a special goal. My resting blood pressure has dropped and now is normally a bit under the 120/80 range with pulse rate range high 40's to high 50's.

I want a full self driving car because I have limited range of motion and no way to shake my head yes or no so I use a hot pink hand held mirror from Dollar General when I come to intersections. Seeing a 70 year old guy using a hot pink mirror to see how to drive is a warning to most other drivers unless they are distracted due to texting.

I got the Leaf to learn more about Lithium Ion traction battery care plus it has 4 exterior cameras that are helpful when parking between the bush hog and wife's car or seeing the curbs going through a drive thru. Going forward the cameras shut off when I go over 6 MPH so I piss off those behind me going through town at 6 MPH but I am still trying to learn how defeat the 6 MPH cut off feature.

This is one reason Elon Musk is my hero because he is bringing awesome technology to help old men live longer and keep driving or appear to be driving. Some guys think they need a chick magnet car at age 18 but they really need one 50-75 years later.

 

[3930dave]

So that is speeds up when it senses one?

I was being somewhat indirect ..... and my line about Bank Robber mode likely didn't help......

When writing the code to control a vehicle on-road, there are some ultra-rare events that could happen, that you wouldn't design/build/test for, at least not early-on (ex. a road, culvert, or bridge suddenly washing away).

An Emergency Vehicle on-road with emergency-lights Active is not one of those ultra-rare events, and one I hoped was high on Tesla's priority design/test list.

From the description, it seems like the Tesla paid no-attention to the Emergency Vehicle, and only prioritized the higher cruise-speed the idiot asleep at the wheel had set.

I am critiquing the tech, but to be clear...... IMO that "driver" should get a lifetime driving ban. In a different, non-rich-kid, universe that might happen.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

I listened to Elon Musk talking about training that they are doing and it was impressive what they are doing to one day build cars without a steering wheel. He has teams of like minded people working in all of his companies. Some so sees his efforts as an overkill but they do not understand every process in every business that he starts is to make life on Mars happen by 2050. I do not plan to go but plan to be around to see it. To make in more real I have invited a few to my 110th birthday bash (2061) and I may need a Tesla without a steering wheel by that time.

Done right, you could be another Lazarus Long :thumbsup:.

Elon gets where he's going in part by setting the bar very High. In the rush to get there, corners unavoidably get cut.

First Mover is a big deal in tech; it's another part of Elon's success story. Putting multi-ton autonomous vehicles on the road is a big deal. Given how long Tesla has been in production with these vehicles, this vehicle not recognizing a LEO with Lights On shows how immature this market still is.

I do value technology, but I don't take it for granted, and get seriously irritated when it's sloppily applied.

That ^ is my broad view, not just applied to Tesla. I don't plan on being on a Boeing plane again, ever.

Rgds, D.

 

[boatmoter]

only trouble is, computers break down too, all it would take is a sensor to go bad, someone gets run over,since no one is driving,who would be at fault? arrest a car?

 

[cqaigy2]

only trouble is, computers break down too, all it would take is a sensor to go bad, someone gets run over,since no one is driving,who would be at fault? arrest a car?

That's the problem we have today, except the computer is the human driver, and the sensors are busy looking at the phone. I'd expect in the driverless car, nobody gets arrested. Insurance companies and vehicle manufactures get sued and lawyers get rich. BTW, not anti lawyer, heck some of my best friends know somebody that is a lawyer.

 

[crazyal]

Way back when (and still used at some companies today) lines were painted on the floor for robots to follow. Now we have ones that can scan walls and other obstructions and adjust. But in the end the usual default is to stop if in doubt. For example if a bridge is washed out I would expect as soon as the computer senses a problem with the road it will apply the brakes. I know Tesla has a plaid mode but hopefully they didn't add a "Dukes of Hazard" mode and try to jump it. When it comes to factory robots if one stops the others quickly stack up behind it. With a driver one can take over, navigate around the problem, and continue on. In a driverless car what would happen? Like putting a new driver into a geared car in the not to distant future passengers will no longer know how to take over and drive. Think about the horse and buggy days, how many people today would know how to take control of a cart and command the horse to get to where they want to go? I'm sure in the long run this shouldn't be a problem but getting there isn't going to be easy.

 

[3930dave]

Some good general points:

Autonomous cars: five reasons they still aren't on our roads

This one esp. stuck with me....

"But at the moment there is no widely accepted and agreed basis for ensuring that the machine learning algorithms used in the cars are safe. We do not have agreement across the industry, or across standardisation bodies, on how machine learning should be trained, tested or validated."

Those last 2 (bolded) aren't the sexy-get-your-face-on-the-cover-of-Time parts of engineering, but if you haven't sweated through the work needed to get that done, it's hard to appreciate what's involved in getting that right.

Most of us wouldn't buy road-going tires w/o DOT approval. Not to belittle what it takes to build a decent road tire, but testing/validating fully autonomous road-going vehicles is orders of magnitude harder.

Rgds, D.

 

[metalbender]

The scenario would be hilarious up here in snow country. Four wheel sideways slide on a slippery street, oops, does not compute. A snowdrift accross the road, easily navigated by a driver, obstacle for all the sensors.

 

[LouNY]

Don't forget to add in dirt roads and local roads with no painted lines,
snow covered roads with no lines visible.

 

[3930dave]

The scenario would be hilarious up here in snow country. Four wheel sideways slide on a slippery street, oops, does not compute. A snowdrift accross the road, easily navigated by a driver, obstacle for all the sensors.

That's one reason most of the testing reported on is in Cali, or the SWest.

Lots of nuances to that situation...... hit a 18" dry powder drift with a loaded F350, often not a big deal. Hit an 8" pile of wet snow with only one set of wheels on a small/light vechicle...... different story.....

You don't have to drive many Winters to gain respect for hitting a snowdrift at speed..... it will be a while before the tech understands how to react to that scenario proactively.

If I'm on a deserted rural road, I'll often drive around the drift instead of hitting it. Default autonomous control code may well be..... keep rolling at programmed speed, hit it, and let Auto-Stablity deal with it.

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Don't forget to add in dirt roads and local roads with no painted lines,
snow covered roads with no lines visible.

Another article I was reading this morn touched on errors in Google mapping.

Good point........ coastal areas are often an issue. A buddy of mine has been a long term resident and GPS user in BC. He's called Garmin a few times about on-road routing that put him through the next province (very long trip) instead of what should have been a 20km route.

2028..... work all day/half the night, hop on a plane to Vancouver....... get in a driverless cab, tell computer my destination in the Fraser Valley...... wake up in stopped in Banff AB. At least Banff is a nice place to hang out.....

Gonna be innarresting......

Rgds, D.

 

[lman]

The scenario would be hilarious up here in snow country. Four wheel sideways slide on a slippery street, oops, does not compute. A snowdrift accross the road, easily navigated by a driver, obstacle for all the sensors.

If the stripes on the road were not visible, lane centering would not activate.

 

[crazyal]

What will be needed is for all cars to talk to each other. That way they all know what each one is doing and what it's going to do. That's going to take a push by someone to force it to happen. I remember when anti-lock brakes came out. They were going to be the best thing for a car since the gasoline engine. Turns out that there's times when you want your wheels to skid. For example in deep snow or on loose gravel you want your wheels to dig in like a plow. That was compounded by things like traction control. If the computer thinks your tire is spinning it clamps on the brake even if you are trying to drive through mud or snow.

 

[Reg]

Don't forget to add in dirt roads and local roads with no painted lines,
snow covered roads with no lines visible.

Something that also shouldn't be "forgotten" is the possibility of each car "learning" its own neighborhood very very well, i.e. centimeter accuracy for the 99+ percentage of our driving that is on roads that we (or the automaton) have driven before.
I don't go barrelling down snow covered roads that I am not familiar with - or even the ones I know fairly well - and I certainly don't know any roads with centimeter accuracy.

Yes, the pathological case is venturing into the unknown in extreme conditions, but fail safe design SHOULD ensure that the vehicle either STOP and hand over control to the human or STOP.

At that point there MAY be a problem.
The vehicle may have gotten in too deep for itself, but WAYYYyyyy to deep for the human.

 

[LouNY]

Something that also shouldn't be "forgotten" is the possibility of each car "learning" its own neighborhood very very well, i.e. centimeter accuracy for the 99+ percentage of our driving that is on roads that we (or the automaton) have driven before.
I don't go barrelling down snow covered roads that I am not familiar with - or even the ones I know fairly well - and I certainly don't know any roads with centimeter accuracy.

Yes, the pathological case is venturing into the unknown in extreme conditions, but fail safe design SHOULD ensure that the vehicle either STOP and hand over control to the human or STOP.

At that point there MAY be a problem.
The vehicle may have gotten in too deep for itself, but WAYYYyyyy to deep for the human.

That is not going to happen and certainly not in my lifetime.
To many dead zones for cell service and even satellite radio.
GPS will drop down to just a few satellites.

 

[3930dave]

Reading these recent comments, reminded me of a conversation I had with a buddy at work years ago.

He and a friend flew to Vancouver Island, and rented a car. When they told the rental guy where they were going (Up Island), he said - "pay close attention to what I'm about to tell you".

"If you are driving along and it seems like an earthquake is warming up, drive into the ditch". Up Island, they run monster logging trucks (typical of left-coast), on narrow roads, flat-out. Most areas, they have a gradually graded wide ditch as a shoulder.... you can drive into it, but typically aren't getting back out, at least not in a rental car with street tires.

I remember my buddies account of driving along, hearing a roaring rumble coming, and driving into the ditch. Log truck goes FLYING past, screaming down the road. He and his buddy get out, and start looking at the car (undamaged, but stuck) to decide what to do.......... WAY off in the distance, they hear this faint beep starting. The guy in the logging truck backs through a pile of curves, all the way back to them..... jumps out, thanks them, grabs a chain looped on the back of the trailer and makes short work of pulling them back on the road. All good back when. Haven't been there myself..... but I wouldn't be surprised if those Up Island roads are still the same.

Drive In Ditch mode - be a while coming, today.....

Rgds, D.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I feel the current Tesla model is fatally flawed. The machine does all the driving -- except for the most challenging parts, where a human needs to be able to take over? Humans aren't built that way. The machine needs to be all or nothing.

Two years later and Tesla still does not have Full Self Driving ready but it is 8x safer than a human driven car without the Tesla self driving features.