NEWS Tesla Autopilot and similar automated driving systems get poor rating from prominent safety group

[IKE]

Tesla Autopilot and similar automated driving systems get ‘poor’ rating from prominent safety group

This is my surprised face.

I'm midway through a great book, Why We Drive, by Matthew Crawford. The book touches on topics of interest to aviators, drivers, and gear heads. We should all know about the Yerkes-Dodson Stress Performance curve. "Auto" driving systems don't fully replace us, but instead put us in an under-stimulated (and therefore under-performing) state.

The book also discusses how Tesla provided it's own highly skewed data to NHTSA touting it's 40% higher safety rating with autopilot on. NHTSA actually fought an FOIA request pretty hard, probably because they knew it was BS.

 

[JTS11]

Tesla Autopilot and similar automated driving systems get ‘poor’ rating from prominent safety group

This is my surprised face.

I'm midway through a great book, Why We Drive, by Matthew Crawford. The book touches on topics of interest to aviators, drivers, and gear heads. We should all know about the Yerkes-Dodson Stress Performance curve. "Auto" driving systems don't fully replace us, but instead put us in an under-stimulated (and therefore under-performing) state.

The book also discusses how Tesla provided it's own highly skewed data to NHTSA touting it's 40% higher safety rating with autopilot on. NHTSA actually fought an FOIA request pretty hard, probably because they knew it was BS.

Does this mean we should still have two pilots in helos? 😁

 

[mad dog]

Does this mean we should still have two pilots in helos? 😁

 

[pilot_throwaway]

Here's a link to the full results.

Interesting to me that one of Nissan's systems ranked so high - I haven't been following their progress with safety assist features but scoring (in total) equivalent to GM is surprising to me.

Something to note that I took from Reddit (caveat: I do not own a Tesla so I cannot personally verify) is that a recent Autopilot update requires far more user attention than previous updates in regards to eye attention and steering wheel torque which may have swayed the Attention Reminders score for Autopilot - the tested version doesn't seem to account for that. To IKE's point, however, anecdotal and social media videos of people literally sleeping behind the wheel while a glorified lane keep assist system drives at highway speeds is troubling absent extensive further refinement.

 

[Griz882]

Until the cars are all connected to each other and the road (to account for road conditions and even distant traffic) this is all just a play thing.

 

[number9]

I am still absolutely amazed that Tesla is allowed to call a level 2 system "Autopilot".

 

[Brett327]

I once read that the original Tesla design had a LIDAR that Elon directed be removed from the final design for cost savings, relying more on camera use and AI interpretation of the environment instead. Any truth to this, and whether the other more successful self-driving cars have the LIDAR sensors?

 

[Random8145]

I once read that the original Tesla design had a LIDAR that Elon directed be removed from the final design for cost savings, relying more on camera use and AI interpretation of the environment instead. Any truth to this, and whether the other more successful self-driving cars have the LIDAR sensors?

I know Musk doesn't believe in LIDAR and thinks it is an idiotic technology to use. I have no idea regarding whether more successful systems use LIDAR.

 

[sevenhelmet]

I once read that the original Tesla design had a LIDAR that Elon directed be removed from the final design for cost savings, relying more on camera use and AI interpretation of the environment instead. Any truth to this, and whether the other more successful self-driving cars have the LIDAR sensors?

I can’t speak to Tesla, but the LIDAR on our 2017 Toyota Highlander can see a slowdown ahead of us through the weather better than I can. our first road trip, it caught a slow vehicle in the left lane during a rainstorm through the spray of a truck in the right lane. I had just enough time to think “why is it slowing down” and then I saw the reason through the spray and mist. Yes, I was probably driving too fast for the conditions. The Toyota system also maintains lane limits and holds a following distance very well, and doesn’t bite off on vehicles in other lanes or false/nuisance alarm the way other systems might (looking at you, Subaru).

Very happy with it. It’s not “autopilot”, but I don’t want it to be. It encourages better driving and reduces fatigue on long trips.

 

[Random8145]

I've always thought that autopilots right now ought to be a feature that only activates in the event of the driver falling asleep or becoming incapacitated, in which it would then say turn on the flashers and seek to pull the vehicle over or into a parking lot somewhere.

 

[IKE]

I can’t speak to Tesla, but the LIDAR on our 2017 Toyota Highlander can see a slowdown ahead of us through the weather better than I can. our first road trip, it caught a slow vehicle in the left lane during a rainstorm through the spray of a truck in the right lane. I had just enough time to think “why is it slowing down” and then I saw the reason through the spray and mist. Yes, I was probably driving too fast for the conditions. The Toyota system also maintains lane limits and holds a following distance very well, and doesn’t bite off on vehicles in other lanes or false/nuisance alarm the way other systems might (looking at you, Subaru).

Very happy with it. It’s not “autopilot”, but I don’t want it to be. It encourages better driving and reduces fatigue on long trips.

Interesting. I might have to look at cars with lidar. My 2018 VW has a low-power radar-based system, and the logic is extreme irritating. On a few occasions it has slammed on the brakes in an unsafe way, and it frequently beeps at me for side impact when nothing is close. To be fair, I drive far more, um, assertively than the average driver.

 

[number9]

I once read that the original Tesla design had a LIDAR that Elon directed be removed from the final design for cost savings, relying more on camera use and AI interpretation of the environment instead. Any truth to this, and whether the other more successful self-driving cars have the LIDAR sensors?

I have heard that as well but I don't know if it's true or not. He certainly thinks LIDAR is unnecessary, though.

It didn't happen on my car, but on previous models Tesla removed the ultrasonic sensors (used for parking) in order to go with a camera-only system. It is pretty bad, but not quite as bad as the auto windshield wiper: which is you-can't-even-use-it hilariously bad.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Tesla prior to 2022 utilized ultra-sonic sensors in addition to vision/camera based sensors. In 2022 the Ultrasonic sensors were removed, internal on-board compute processing was increased significantly, and a new sensing and autosteer model based entirely on the 9 cameras was implemented.

AFter owning my Tesla Model 3 for almost a year now, the base "Autopilot" / Autosteer functionality works great as long as you respect its limits. I dislike the latest software updates that implements NHTSA driver monitoring and use mandates in the name of "safety". These changes for me have been annoying and frustrating and require me to turn off these features when I want to look at my phone, interact with the touch screen, or eat/drink - the very times when I want the combination of autosteer/lane keeping and proximity based cruise control to do the work. I'm on a mission to defeat and work around these so called "safety systems".

The two most practical use cases for these features are interstate highway cruising and interstate stop-and-go traffic and I am entirely confident when using these systems for these limited use cases. The only hazard is road debris - which the system will not avoid. But you can safely drive with 50% attention in these use cases and be very safe.

 

[cfam]

Tesla prior to 2022 utilized ultra-sonic sensors in addition to vision/camera based sensors. In 2022 the Ultrasonic sensors were removed, internal on-board compute processing was increased significantly, and a new sensing and autosteer model based entirely on the 9 cameras was implemented.

AFter owning my Tesla Model 3 for almost a year now, the base "Autopilot" / Autosteer functionality works great as long as you respect its limits. I dislike the latest software updates that implements NHTSA driver monitoring and use mandates in the name of "safety". These changes for me have been annoying and frustrating and require me to turn off these features when I want to look at my phone, interact with the touch screen, or eat/drink - the very times when I want the combination of autosteer/lane keeping and proximity based cruise control to do the work. I'm on a mission to defeat and work around these so called "safety systems".

The two most practical use cases for these features are interstate highway cruising and interstate stop-and-go traffic and I am entirely confident when using these systems for these limited use cases. The only hazard is road debris - which the system will not avoid. But you can safely drive with 50% attention in these use cases and be very safe.

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit confused. You want to try to defeat the safety systems that are telling you to focus on driving and not be distracted? Not being snarky, just legitimately curious as to why you’d focus on defeating a system that is trying to keep your attention on the road.

 

[PhrogLoop]

AFter owning my Tesla Model 3 for almost a year now, the base "Autopilot" / Autosteer functionality works great as long as you respect its limits. I dislike the latest software updates that implements NHTSA driver monitoring and use mandates in the name of "safety". These changes for me have been annoying and frustrating and require me to turn off these features when I want to look at my phone, interact with the touch screen, or eat/drink - the very times when I want the combination of autosteer/lane keeping and proximity based cruise control to do the work. I'm on a mission to defeat and work around these so called "safety systems".

Dark sunglasses work well for me!