Autonomous Vehicles

[Sam the Centipede]

What's wrong with that picture? The Tesla was hit in the REAR. Tesla's self-driving systems do not drive in reverse.

I know nuffing, but is it possible that the Tesla auto-Elon whacked on the brakes super-hard unexpectedly forcing the rear-ending? I think I read an article mentioning a general problem with automatic drive systems bailing out when confused by smacking the brakes.

Yes, yes, there's a general principle in motoring law in many (most?) countries that if you drive into the rear of another vehicle it's difficult to blame the driver of the front vehicle – "why were your driving so close sir/madam?" – but the apportionment of blame is not the issue.

But of course DocC is right in his point: it's a long way from definite that the Tesla is at fault here. It might not even have been in autopilot mode.

[sugar magnolia]

The Verge, CNBC and the Washington Post (and probably many others) published articles about new data counting highway crashes involving advanced self driving systems, such as Tesla Autopilot, GM Super Cruise, Ford Blue Cruse and Honda Lane Keeping Assist. Tesla had 70% of the crashes. You have to read far into those articles to find out that Tesla also has the vast majority of those systems in the road.

Here a headline from The Verge:

US releases new driver-assist crash data, and surprise, it’s mostly Tesla

And here's the lead photo in the article showing a crashed Tesla Model S.



What's wrong with that picture? The Tesla was hit in the REAR. Tesla's self-driving systems do not drive in reverse.

The news articles spread FUD and you had to dig far down into them for context.

I'm a big fan of the Wham Baam Teslacam YouTube channel and have watched thousands of crash videos involving Tesla cars. The accident is most often someone inattentive driving into the back of the car, rarely something where the Tesla caused the accident.

There is front end damage also. I can't speak to other state laws, but when I was actively working accidents, if one car rear ends another then is rear ended by a third, the middle car was listed as Vehicle #1, which used to be secret cop code for the vehicle at fault.

[northland10]

Wouldn't that make the assumption without proof that it was Vehicle 1 stopping that caused it and not that vehicle 2 hit vehicle 1 and shoved it into vehicle, um, zero? I would not have enough details from the picture but with less damage in the front, and most of the back gone, I would think the front was damaged on a secondary basis.

[sugar magnolia]

Wouldn't that make the assumption without proof that it was Vehicle 1 stopping that caused it and not that vehicle 2 hit vehicle 1 and shoved it into vehicle, um, zero? I would not have enough details from the picture but with less damage in the front, and most of the back gone, I would think the front was damaged on a secondary basis.

As a general rule, there would be more front end damage than shown if the third vehicle hit the middle vehicle and shoved it into the first vehicle due to the space between them. If the middle vehicle had already made contact with the first vehicle, there would be less damage to the front end when the third vehicle plowed into them.

[DrConspiracy]

There is front end damage also. I can't speak to other state laws, but when I was actively working accidents, if one car rear ends another then is rear ended by a third, the middle car was listed as Vehicle #1, which used to be secret cop code for the vehicle at fault.

Looks to me like the Tesla was hit hard in the rear and pushed into the car in front for minor damage.

Given the amount of damage, the car behind must have hit the Tesla at pretty much full speed -- typical of the videos I see of people on their phone not noticing that traffic has stopped ahead.

[RTH10260]

crossposting

Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco
In a series of incidents, the GM subsidiary lost contact with its autonomous vehicles, leaving them frozen in traffic and trapping human drivers.
A Cruise vehicle leaving a parking lot in San Francisco California U.S

AARIAN MARSHALLBUSINESS
JUL 8, 2022 7:00 AM

AROUND MIDNIGHT ON June 28, Calvin Hu was driving with his girlfriend near San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park when he pulled up at an intersection behind two white and orange autonomous Chevrolet Bolts operated by Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors. Another was stopped to his right in the adjacent lane. The light turned green but the cars, which operate in the city without drivers, didn’t move.

When Hu prepared to reverse and go around the frozen vehicles, he says, he noticed that several more Cruise vehicles had stopped in the lanes behind him. Hu, another driver, and a paratransit bus were trapped in a robotaxi sandwich.

After a few minutes of bemused waiting, Hu says, he resorted to driving over the curbs of the street’s median to escape. When he returned on foot a few minutes later to see whether the situation had resolved, the Cruise vehicles hadn’t budged. A person who appeared to work for the company had parked in the intersection, Hu says, as if to indicate the street was closed, and was trying to direct traffic away from the immobile self-driving cars. Hu estimates that the robot car blockade, which has not previously been reported, lasted at least 15 minutes.

The Cruise vehicles that trapped Hu weren’t the only autonomous cars holding up traffic in San Francisco that night. Internal messages seen by WIRED show that nearly 60 vehicles were disabled across the city over a 90-minute period after they lost touch with a Cruise server. As many as 20 cars, some of them halted in crosswalks, created a jam in the city’s downtown in an incident first reported by the San Francisco Examiner and detailed in photos posted to Reddit. In a written statement the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which oversees the state's autonomous vehicle operations, said it was aware of the incident and would meet with Cruise to “gather additional information.”



https://www.wired.com/story/cruises-robot-car-outages/

[DrConspiracy]

Yes, yes, there's a general principle in motoring law in many (most?) countries that if you drive into the rear of another vehicle it's difficult to blame the driver of the front vehicle – "why were your driving so close sir/madam?" – but the apportionment of blame is not the issue.

Having watched literally hundreds of Tesla crashes, the scenario is all too common where something unexpected happens, the Tesla stops for it and the car behind it plows into into the Tesla at full speed because the driver behind was not paying attention. The Tesla may or may not be pushed into the car ahead.

I've been in an accident like that (before I had a Tesla). I was following too closely (as were others) and the traffic jammed. I braked hard and avoided a collision, but the truck behind with bald tires hit me and knocked me into the car ahead. Fortunately the collision was low speed and there was no damage.

The thing is that a Tesla under Full Self Driving (the Beta version) requires eyes on the road, enforced by a driver-facing camera in the cabin. So you can be pretty sure that the Tesla driver is looking at the road most of the time and the car's automatic systems are quite good at stopping when the car in front stops -- not perfect but very good. Plus the Tesla is not going to be following too closely. That is, there are TWO systems independently paying attention, making it highly unlikely that a Tesla will plow into a car ahead, far less likely that a car solely relying on a human driver.

The problem with negative propaganda is that a person or technology can be criticized for a failing, but that criticism can be made out of the context of considering the failings of alternatives. We have 6 million auto accidents in the US every year.

[DrConspiracy]

I don't think news services have editors anymore.

Check out this from CNN Business: Tesla made misleading claims about Autopilot and Self Driving, California DMV claims, in an article about Tesla:

Data released in June by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found there were 273 crashes in the last nine months involving Tesla driver-assist technologies, caused by either its "full self-driving" software or its precursor, Tesla Autopilot. Of 497 total crashes studied by the NHTSA, 43% of those caused by driver-assist technologies took place in California, the data found. [emphasis added]

The key word there is "caused". For backup of that paragraph, CNN Business cites their own story: "Teslas using driver-assist systems were involved in 273 crashes over the past 9 months, according to NHTSA."

Nothing in that article suggested that Teslas Autopilot or Full Self-Driving Capability "caused" any of those accidents, only that they were turned on when the accident occurred. NHTSA administrator Steven Cliff told reporters in a briefing about that data: "I would advise caution before attempting to draw conclusions based only on the data we're releasing. In fact, the data alone may raise more questions than they answer." Apparently CNN felt they could use it to just make stuff up.

[DrConspiracy]

I'm a beta tester for Tesla's Full Self-Driving Capability.

At the highest level, I just press a button and say "drive to address," put the car in gear, and flick a lever to start Autopilot. Basically the car does all the driving with a handful of exceptions for things it won't do:

• Back up
• Navigate parking lots
• Stop for gate barriers
• Enter roundabouts without stopping first
• Handle some complex unprotected left turns where the car has to stop in the median

And then I have to correct the car when it gets in the wrong turn lane or nudge the accelerator when it's being too timid at a 4-way stop. It does all the other stuff usually correctly.

All that is by way of introduction for this video of the car at the University of Virginia stopping for students who are walking towards a crosswalk. The video was made by one of the car's 8 exterior cameras. It doesn't show the driver's screen where visualizations of the students are displayed.



In this video, the car encountered a traffic slowdown caused by a vehicle half off on the side of the road. It's an interesting problem, when to go around a stopped car and when to wait for it.

[northland10]

I don't know if I could handle autonomous vehicles. I have some control issues, which makes riding in a car with a human driver difficult (I am the one not yelling shotgun because I am fine sitting in the back seat and not seeing forward as much). I love to look out the window while flying but could do without the takeoff and landing, and pilots are not keen to let me do it for them. I cannot imagine how I would do with a car driving itself.

Is that UVA video really at UVA? Is this the only college in the USA where students actually cross only at crosswalks? I suppose a university is a good testing ground since if it can handle students suddenly cutting across every road possible, it can handle normal driving.

[miss meh]

I don't know if I could handle autonomous vehicles. I have some control issues, which makes riding in a car with a human driver difficult

I'm like that too, which is ironic because I didn't get my drivers license until my 30's.

Do you ever do that unconscious thing where your right foot finds itself going for where the brake or gas pedals should be if you were driving, whenever the person driving isn't stopping fast enough or going too slow?

[pipistrelle]

I don't know if I could handle autonomous vehicles. I have some control issues, which makes riding in a car with a human driver difficult

I'm like that too, which is ironic because I didn't get my drivers license until my 30's.

Do you ever do that unconscious thing where your right foot finds itself going for where the brake or gas pedals should be if you were driving, whenever the person driving isn't stopping fast enough or going too slow?

I do that and I have never been behind the wheel (except when playing as a kid).

[DrConspiracy]

I don't know if I could handle autonomous vehicles. I have some control issues, which makes riding in a car with a human driver difficult (I am the one not yelling shotgun because I am fine sitting in the back seat and not seeing forward as much). I love to look out the window while flying but could do without the takeoff and landing, and pilots are not keen to let me do it for them. I cannot imagine how I would do with a car driving itself.

Is that UVA video really at UVA? Is this the only college in the USA where students actually cross only at crosswalks? I suppose a university is a good testing ground since if it can handle students suddenly cutting across every road possible, it can handle normal driving.

FSD is divided into two parts, traffic aware cruise control and auto steer; that is, the car controls steering and acceleration. If you don't like how the car is steering, just turn the wheel yourself and autosteer is disengaged. If you don't like the speed, just apply the brake and both autosteer and cruise are disengaged. The driver can take over at any time with natural actions. It's not all that different conceptually from the common cruise control we've used for decades.

Yes the video was at UVA and when I have been there, I recall people using crosswalks; however, that's not required for the car to stop for someone crossing the road. I've had the car stop for someone walking down their driveway to get the mail from their mailbox. In the current releases, the car often errs on the side of caution.

[Foggy]

Do you ever do that unconscious thing where your right foot finds itself going for where the brake or gas pedals should be if you were driving, whenever the person driving isn't stopping fast enough or going too slow?

I do that and I have never been behind the wheel (except when playing as a kid).

My best friend's mom stomped on her groceries, teaching him to drive. The tomatoes were a mess.

[RTH10260]

Isn't it a first rule to check that nothing can get under your pedals?

[pipistrelle]

Isn't it a first rule to check that nothing can get under your pedals?

Only pedals on passenger side are imaginary.

[DrConspiracy]

More fake news about Tesla.

A California billionaire software mogol has founded something called "The Dawn Project" to alert the public to the peril of autonomous vehicles. They have released videos of Tesla cars on a test track striking childlike mannequins. They say that their professional test driver activated Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature 100 yards in advance of the mannequins while traveling at 40 mph.

The problem is that the footage clearly shows that FSD was never engaged, as the FSD indicator on the screen was off.

It was a fake.

https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-se ... r-engaged/

[Dr. Ken]

[RTH10260]

More fake news about Tesla.

A California billionaire software mogol has founded something called "The Dawn Project" to alert the public to the peril of autonomous vehicles. They have released videos of Tesla cars on a test track striking childlike mannequins. They say that their professional test driver activated Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature 100 yards in advance of the mannequins while traveling at 40 mph.

The problem is that the footage clearly shows that FSD was never engaged, as the FSD indicator on the screen was off.

It was a fake.

https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-se ... r-engaged/

Apart that "news" from a test track misses the point: tests are made to "go wrong", engineers at times want to research under what conditions their algorithms lack precision and fail.

I remember in an earlier life spending several nights analysing a software problem. Turned out there was like 30+ conditions to be satisfied for the error to show up, most critical that a human user had to enter a specific command in a specific configuration (point in time)

[northland10]

More fake news about Tesla.

A California billionaire software mogol has founded something called "The Dawn Project" to alert the public to the peril of autonomous vehicles. They have released videos of Tesla cars on a test track striking childlike mannequins. They say that their professional test driver activated Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature 100 yards in advance of the mannequins while traveling at 40 mph.

The problem is that the footage clearly shows that FSD was never engaged, as the FSD indicator on the screen was off.

It was a fake.

Apart that "news" from a test track misses the point: tests are made to "go wrong", engineers at times want to research under what conditions their algorithms lack precision and fail.

There is also that piece of testing where they would run the car without FSD on and record various results. This is one of these fancy dancy test things called a control.

That Dawn Project probably doesn't care and they know their audience won't care or know about a scientific testing methods.

[DrConspiracy]

...

That Dawn Project probably doesn't care and they know their audience won't care or know about a scientific testing methods.

And on the "unscientific testing" front, I came across this hilarious (to me) test not on a test track:

[DrConspiracy]

The Dawn Project produced a video of Teslas hitting child-sized mannequins on a test track. Here's the video:



The Dawn Project video of a Tesla hitting child-sized mannequins is at a low resolution, making it possible to see that the car displayed a warning message, but impossible to read the actual message. The triangular icon on the left of the message indicates that it is a warning.

Dawn Project.jpg (19.5 KiB) Viewed 2575 times

The size of the fuzzy message is consistent with the car's message: "Cruise control will not brake; The accelerator pedal is pressed." This would happen if the driver held down the accelerator pedal during the test. The test was also conducted in a narrow path of traffic cones, preventing the car from going around the mannequin, which the car would normally do when possible. What other reason would there be for cones, except to prevent the car from evading the mannequin? Normal government testing (see video below) doesn't use cones.

So what the video probably shows is that a Tesla with the Full Self-Driving Beta will allow a driver to purposefully override the system and run over someone.

In real world scenarios, I've observed my car stopping or going around pedestrians countless times, even a pedestrian who looked like they might be contemplating crossing the road. I've never had to intervene.


Here's a video from 2019 from The European New Car Assessment Programme performing actual tests on a Tesla.

[Foggy]

This is fascinating stuff, and my next question is, as the autonomous driving software - and maybe hardware sensors - improve over time, does Tesla push the improvements to existing customers (even those who aren't testing for them)?

'Cause you would want all of them to get better as they age.

[DrConspiracy]

This is fascinating stuff, and my next question is, as the autonomous driving software - and maybe hardware sensors - improve over time, does Tesla push the improvements to existing customers (even those who aren't testing for them)?

'Cause you would want all of them to get better as they age.

Safety improvements in general are rolled out to the entire fleet over the air, sort of like Windows or iPhone updates. They're pretty much unavoidable. Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) improvements roll out whether one bought the FSD package or not; for example, the emergency lane departure avoidance feature was added to my car (and the entire fleet that had the hardware to support it) last year; even when self-driving is not enabled, it will intervene to prevent you from crossing the centerline into oncoming traffic and apply corrective steering to keep you from running off the road.

Here's a blog post I made about updates:

https://www.blogordie.com/2021/11/tesla-goodies/

Hardware is different because new sensors may require a wiring harness change and that's not practical. A few late 2016- early 2017 Teslas with the Full Self-Driving Capability package have had one of the front cameras updated to allow FSD to work better. The FSD computer was also updated for some cars (including mine) in order to support the FSD feature. Tesla is quietly upgrading the side repeater cameras on some affected cars (including mine) to improve self-driving at night.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

DrConspiracy -

Please 'splain where and how you play video games on your Tesla. The Romance feature needs 'splaining too, also.