[Closed] Self driving cars

Chrysler 09 recalled
VW 09-10 cars recalled.
Prius 2010 recalled
Baleno 2019 recalled
GM 2019 recalled with a special bonus in 2020 for a subset which were made worse.

All ABS failures.

Not a big list of cars from the last 12 years is it?

Self driving cars will fail, they will crash - definitely. The question is will they fail or crash less often than human driven ones? Which lets face it, do crash quite regularly.

A lot of the developing world only makes sure their horn is working. ABS and airbags get too expensive to fix.

Self-driving cars might just become a first world problem.

Just cursory googling

Chrysler 09 recalled - water ingress, mechanical fix
VW 09-10 cars recalled. - poor grounding, fix was to add a bit of diagnostic code to check the grounding resistance
Prius 2010 recalled - transition from regenerative braking to mechanical brakes in slippery conditions. The ABS still worked on the hydraulic system.
Baleno 2019 recalled - can't find any details
GM 2019 recalled with a special bonus in 2020 for a subset which were made worse. - does sound like a software issue with the remote starting app?

So by and large mechanical issues, not specific hardware/firmware issues.

I confidently state that no driver stood on the brakes with no warning (full emergency stop, not brake checking) on an autobahn with no harzard in front and was hit from behind by a truck and following car. Drivers just don’t do that. Not even suicidal ones

You should visit r/Idiotsincars once in a while - you might be surprised just how idiotically dangerous some people's driving is. There's certainly many examples of Tesla taking avoiding action (either braking or steering) to avoid potential accidents, it's obviously impossible to say whether a driver would have avoided the accident or not though

So there are different rules for different roundabouts?

The rules are the same but the marking is differnt. You'll find:

Marked with give ways at the entrances to the roundabout like UK roundabouts (most of small town France)

Marked with give ways on the roundabout before each exit. You drive on with priority and then give way at the marking to traffic entering (a few in Paris, not many elsewhere, backed up with traffic lights for some of the exits maybe)

Unmarked. Priority to the right which is the default applies so you have priority entering the roundabout and then give priority to traffic from your right whatever it's doing. Lots of the big ones in Paris.

it’s obviously impossible to say whether a driver would have avoided the accident or not though

In this case I disagree, the driver stated he didn't brake - there was no need to. The Tesla did an emergency stop when there was absolutely no need and was hit from bahind - car's fault unless you thin the driver should have anticipated the situation and disabled the car's automatic systems. Stick the article in Google translate, it's clear.

In this case I disagree, the driver stated he didn’t brake – there was no need to. The Tesla did an emergency stop when there was absolutely no need and was hit from bahind – car’s fault unless you thin the driver should have anticipated the situation and disabled the car’s automatic systems. Stick the article in Google translate, it’s clear.

I was talking about examples where Tesla's had reacted and avoided an accident, rather than your example where it reacted when there was no reason to (there's certainly lots of examples I've seen of that so I'm not disputing your specific example, although thankfully mostly don't end up creating a nasty accident).

I guess the point I was trying to make is that whilst the current best self-driving cars are still prone to errors so are drivers - it wouldn't surprise we if they were already better than the average driver but that's hard to determine. Rightly so though the standard to be acceptable from a legislation point of view is likely going to be a much higher standard than the average driver - how much higher though will determine how long it takes to develop it

So by and large mechanical issues, not specific hardware/firmware issues.

Chrysler recalls 06V493000 (note also 06V341000)
Prius 2010 they list it as the anti lock braking issue so I would go with Toyota.
VW not exactly the best error handling.

As for low numbers it is a decent proportion of their cars and deals with those issues where it has been obvious enough to become highly noticable. if you have an occasional error condition what are the chances it would simply be written off as user error.

Plus all of these are on an insanely simpler level than self driving cars.

I'd be surprised if teslas aren't already safer than drivers on the motorway. Accidents only get into the news as they're a novelty.

AI driving doesn't have to be anywhere near perfect, just better than humans. So it can still crash, just less than people.

Frankly i can't wait until self driving cars let me sleep on the way to places and never have to use a carpark again (your car can either just drive round in circles or piss off somewhere out of town and park).

There are some who believe at least five years, some possibly never, too many variables.
https://thenextweb.com/news/why-truly-driverless-cars-may-never-happen

An organisation that I'm working with is procuring autonomous vehicles. They'll have a driver on the road but be autonomous in secure environments where people will be trained in how they react. It's not happening within the next 5 years.

The Tesla did an emergency stop when there was absolutely no need and was hit from bahind – car’s fault

All of those are built to very high standards with lots of rules and regulations around development for them. Cars manufacturers on the other hand seem determined to repeat all the mistakes of software development from the ground up.

I'm afraid to say this is my experience of working for a first tier automotive supplier on ADAS stuff.

Lots of corners cut, skimped on testing. Lip service to automotive standards etc. R&D sold to customers as if its a finished products. It's all just driven by profits much like any other industry.

Problem is consumers are basically expecting SELF DRIVING cars, which they very much aren't.

I'd fully expect the first gen systems to be awful.

Watched half of the vid while noodling guitar but lost interest when it stopped. Not one pedestrian or cyclists encountered.

It wasn't put up to entertain you, it was an example of how far away we are from true autonomous. it managed the very basic environment, but put only very simple obsticles in its way (some cones) and its over. The point is, if it cant cope with even very simple US road grid systems (that is the area it's ring fenced within), then there is no hope for it on European town roads for a very long time. It will require some massive processing power which isn't in cars yet. Qualcomm will fill this void so I'm told.

I confidently state that no driver stood on the brakes with no warning (full emergency stop, not brake checking) on an autobahn with no harzard in front and was hit from behind by a truck and following car. Drivers just don’t do that. Not even suicidal ones.

And as if by magic...

https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/o94re5/cant_comprehend_why_he_did_it/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

I wonder if a tesla would have stopped safely behind it?

Is that a giant cat behind you computer?

Ha! Hadn't spotted that!

I wonder if a tesla would have stopped safely behind it?

I'd have a guess that most new cars with automatic collision detection and braking would. Which is most of them it seems.

I think we'll see full autonomy on motorways at low speed in the UK within the next year. Beyond that I struggle to see it actually working unless you have physically segregated roads.

Given that most manufacturers seem to buy an off-the-shelf system the behaviour should at least be consistent. My experience is that Tesla used to be leagues ahead but is now lagging behind (the "Pilot Assist" in my three-year-old Volvo can navigate a twisting A-road and adjust its speed perfectly for corners, or drop into standby for a lane change and automatically resume, neither of which Tesla can do).

I think we’ll see full autonomy on motorways at low speed in the UK within the next year.

That's not full autonomy, it's just your simplistic one dimensional view of a slightly more advanced ADAS on one type of road network. Full autonomy takes the driver completely and utterly out of the equation on all roads in all road situations. Full Autonomy and ADAS are worlds apart and many many years apart.

Most of the comments on that vid seem to think it's a well-known insurance scam, there are some sick people around, noted for if ever I drive in that part of the world.

So smart motorways (and self-driving cars) need to be seen to be orders of magnitude safer than the alternative otherwise you’re stuck with “self driving car kills ………” headlines.

FTFY

To remind you of what you said:

I confidently state that no driver stood on the brakes with no warning (full emergency stop, not brake checking) on an autobahn with no harzard in front and was hit from behind by a truck and following car. Drivers just don’t do that. Not even suicidal ones.

To hide behind one of those words used is pretty poor.

It's not important why it happened either. And I'd strongly suggest it's not likely to be an insurance scam as that's quite different from the "usual" M.O. as crashing a smallish front wheel drive hatchback at c.60mph is pretty risky to its occupants, so many crash for cash incidents are roundabout or 30-40mph tops.

That’s not full autonomy, it’s just your simplistic one dimensional view of a slightly more advanced ADAS on one type of road network

Are you normally this offensive or is something wrong at home?

Is that a giant cat behind you computer?

🙂 Perhaps it's a Lawyer reviewing the footage?

How good does it have to be? 100%? The USA kill ~36000 on their roads every year IIRC.

Anything less than 100% will not be acceptable so so much better than what humans can do that it is effectively 99.98% better. There is a difference to an individual making an error, and a big multi national corporation either having kit that is not reliable or clever enough tp deal with situations real life shows at it, or kit that has actual deliberate rules built in to choose who to kill between pregnant mothers, cyclists or any other road user. The litigation alone would not make it viable.

Until all vehicles using the roads are autonomous and road markings and signs can be standardised and behaviour of other vehicles predicted as all vehicles using the same protocols then there will always be risks unless we can get the technology so sophisticated that it can work flawlessly. There needs to be some coordination between vehicles - if one car cannot anticipate the actions of another then they need to connect and talk to each other so they can coordinate their movements. Imagine a network on a motorway that can instantly switch on if something unexpected happens on the road ahead, like a tyre blow out that causes a car to go out of control. All the following cars can connect together and coordinate the evasive manouvers to avoid a huge pile up. That is a level of sophistication that is years away unless we can standardise the rules the autonomous vehicles follow.

Are you normally this offensive

Sorry reading it back those words do read as a personal insult I didn't mean to suggest you being simple but rather that you were mixing up something that is a magnitude of complication and requires a magnitude of processing power with something relatively simple by comparison (lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control and other not much more complicated ADAS functions). I should have chosen my words less abruptly. Apologies

And yet by and large we trust them to fly planes

Erm, yes but in my 20+ years of experience utilising autopilots and flight management computers, they are far from faultless!

Humans are appalling system monitors too. Without legislation and training so many will fall asleep at the wheel and fail to notice that the self-driving feature is about to cause a crash.

I've had my brake assist react to hitting a fly a few times; thankfully it activated the crash warning, rather than the brakes, but car tech doesn't seem up to the job....even auto headlights are rubbish!

Personally, I see no attraction or need for fully autonomous cars, 80% of my 20,000 miles a year are on B and minor A roads. I enjoy those miles. There may be merit for motorway auto-driving but thankfully I do very few miles on those roads.

I think we’ll see full autonomy on motorways at low speed in the UK within the next year.

We're nowhere close to that point.

https://twitter.com/fanf/status/1409501270080208899?s=19

Will some people deliberately brake check/antagonise these cars to provoke a reaction?

It'll be easy to get out of junctions if you're 'pushing' into a line of self-drivers, they'll just give way 🙂

Most people just give way too. I've noticed a lot of people doing just that. But remember that a self driving car is going to have full cameras and analysis so they'll be able to show exactly what you did to a court. Even if you don't crash but you just do something dangerous like force it to brake.

https://www.pushkin.fm/show/revisionist-history/

Latest episode (waymo): cycling AND driverless car content.

Apologies if already done).

Personally, I see no attraction or need for fully autonomous cars, 99% of my 20,000 miles a year are on B and minor A roads.

How much cycling or walking do you do?

People in cars obviously see little need for self driving cars. They are in very little danger. It's those of us who walk and ride bikes who see the need for them.

But yeah, I agree that humans make terrible system monitors. I think the leap will have to be from the cars we have now to cars without a drivers seat. Having an autonomous system that relies on a human being ready to assume control at any moment is a recipe for disaster.

I think we're in the trough of disillusionment in the Gartner hype cycle right now. We've realised that self driving cars won't be available in the next few years and people are kind of disappointed with that (and people who said it would never work are gleefully saying 'I told you so').

On the other hand, there are already self driving busses out there (admittedly doing 18 km/hr) so I think we will start to see the technology being adopted over the next decade:

https://ruter.no/en/about-ruter/reports-projects-plans/autonomous-vehicles/

I should have chosen my words less abruptly. Apologies

👍

I think the leap will have to be from the cars we have now to cars without a drivers seat. Having an autonomous system that relies on a human being ready to assume control at any moment is a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, if you are driving or even sat in a driving seat you'll want to press on. If you are just facing inwards or something then you're likely to not pay any attention to what's going on on the road and just read or play Candy Crush or whatever you do on trains and then you're not going to worry about how much progress you're making. Slowing down and being a bit more cautious would be a price worth paying for the ability to nap.

How many are already being tested on UK roads, logging test miles? This reads like a thread from about 2017 and I imagine they'll appear pretty quickly. I've been on a couple of self driving buses in testing.

Edukators example is easy... the car knows where it wants to go, and will just work it out. It looks random, but it isn't. Cars go forwards, backwards and turn, so there aren't that many combinations to learn. Also at some point in the not so distant future they'll start talking to each other., and everyone will get where they're going faster.

@brucewee

How much cycling or walking do you do?

I do about 4000 miles cycling a year, not massive but enough to know what it's like sharing roads with cars.

Is that sufficient to allow me to have a view on a cycling forum?! 🤣

Again, doesn't make me personally remotely interested in autonomous cars.

Why do you ask?

Because I'm struggling to see how someone who cycles in traffic regularly could not see a need for self-driving cars.

Unless I'm somehow misunderstanding what you mean by you personally. Do you mean that you consider yourself to be a sufficiently good driver that a self driving car wouldn't be safer for you?

If so, I think you'll find the vast majority of drivers think the same way. Most (if not all) of them are wrong.

Nope, just have no personal need nor interest in self driving cars thanks.

Not sure why you infer I have a misguided opinion of my driving skills as a result of my previous statement.🤔

Using multiple automated systems on a complex multi-million pound machine, which are subject to far more stringent tests than cars, on a regular basis means I have zero faith in self-driving capacity for cars. That is backed up by watching inaccurate brake-assist and headlight dipping (on others' cars) which rely on the sensors needed for autonomous control. That technology to safely fully automate is therefore a very long way away.

That, coupled with my enjoyment of driving (and manual hand-flying) means it doesn't appeal to me.

I give cyclists room, and appreciate drivers that give me room.

Just my personal opinion which I'm sharing here as is my entitlement, so no need to get snarky @brucewee just because my opinion differs from yours:

Most (if not all) of them are wrong.

in your opinion of course... 🤣

Not sure why you infer I have a misguided opinion of my driving skills as a result of my previous statement.🤔

I'm just assuming you over estimate your driving abilities because most people do. Maybe your part of the tiny minority who don't but it's unlikely.

Using multiple automated systems on a complex multi-million pound machine, which are subject to far more stringent tests than cars, on a regular basis means I have zero faith in self-driving capacity for cars. That is backed up by watching inaccurate brake-assist and headlight dipping (on others’ cars) which rely on the sensors needed for autonomous control. That technology to safely fully automate is therefore a very long way away.

I work in automating drilling oil wells, a process that shouldn't really need any automation because it's relatively simple. However, billions are lost each year because humans make very simple errors, sometimes through incompetence but more often a momentary lack of attention.

Humans are not good at doing simple repetitive tasks which is what driving is, mostly. Machines are excellent at doing simple repetitive tasks.

I give cyclists room, and appreciate drivers that give me room.

I still don't understand how you can cycle 4000 miles a year and not think, 'how the hell are people allowed to drive' at least once a week.

Just my personal opinion which I’m sharing here as is my entitlement, so no need to get snarky @brucewee just because my opinion differs from yours:

I don't think I am being snarky. Maybe I just hit a nerve?

in your opinion 🤣

Nope, it's pretty much accepted most people over estimate their own driving abilities. I could link studies but 3 seconds of googling will give you a good enough picture.

I’m just assuming

Ah, assumptions....the downfall of many.....🤣🤣🤣

Yes @brucewee you came across as snarky. No nerves touched as I'm very aware of where technology is with regards to this, but you're appearing condescending, whether you intend to or not.

Anyway it's clear you're a supporter of autonomous driving; good for you. I'm not and merely voiced my opinions and experiences which are valid.

I'll bow out and let you opine.

As a user of the Tesla system I think there are two sides to the story as far as theirs is concerned.

On the one hand it seems to me to be a pretty good illustration of how far off current Tesla cars are from "autonomous". A long way in my view. Musk's hyperbole I think is unhelpful.

In only moderately bad weather, and especially when it's dark as well, camera performance drops quickly. Although in this system that results in functionality being taken away, rather than in errors.

"Phantom braking" is an issue, where light conditions, or some such, create an error condition where it brakes unnecessarily. However you get a feel for this quickly, and applying normal vigilance, as you have to for so many very obvious reasons, leads you to react in a fraction of a second. So it's frustrating it happens, can surprise a passenger, and is the clearest illustration in regular use of the system's failings, but thus far for me hasn't led to more than a small deceleration, so I don't think what a driver behind would call a "brake check". Regardless though, it clearly needs sorting out, and having been an issue for years that seems to be difficult.

So I question their relience on cameras.

The auto lane change function is hampered by regulation. It needs to be allowed to work more quickly to be useful in anything but the lightest traffic.

If you use autopilot on single carriageway A roads it doesn't plan a good comfortable line and speed around a corner unless your set speed is quite low. I don't know why this is, and I think it still illustrates a failing, but we are very clearly told not to use it in this situation anyway. Plus we know other cars can do this well.

On the other hand, I find the system useful and don't think there's a car out there I'd rather have. I understand the argument that humans aren't good at monitoring, but after a decent mileage in use I do still think it's advantageous to have the system do certain other things for you while leaving that to you. I think mine regularly achieves hundreds of miles of polite and anonymous motorway driving while tiring me less than a car without this tech does.

In c.40k miles I don't recall it beeping at me because there's something it can't handle, except when aborting a lane change. However this is a luxury rather than a necessary function in the system as it stands, isn't available in most of their cars and as above is hampered by regulation. It's also a situation in which it applies a test of your own control of the car before it'll do it at all, and a function that once you learn it you don't use in situations in which it's likely to fail. It does however beep at me a lot when I do something it thinks might be in error, which is annoying but I don't think dangerous.

So it's got plenty of issues but overall I'd question any inference that it's more dangerous than a car and driver without. Tesla claims a much lower rate of accidents over millions of miles. Although their method of calculation is open to question.

There will be idiots texting while they drive, or whatever, but I'm not aware of any stats showing an increased incidence, and I think it's blindingly obvious how stupid a thing to do this is. I suspect these idiots will be idiots whatever car they're in.

Ah, assumptions….the downfall of many.

Yes you come across as snarky.

You come across as having had your feelings hurt. How do you rate your driving? 7 out of 10?

Just for future reference, that is me being snarky.

Anyway it’s clear you’re a supporter of autonomous driving; good for you. I’m not and merely voiced my opinions and experiences which are valid.

Yes, you said you see no need for self driving cars. You also said you do 4000 miles per year cycling. I still find it a mystery how you can do that many miles in traffic and not see the need for self driving cars.

Yes, your opinions and experiences are valid but you also seem to be unaware of some key statistics such as the fact that almost all drivers overestimate their driving abilities. If you don't want to consider whether this could apply to you and whether this should influence your opinion on self driving cars that's fine. Drive safe.

I wonder what the development methodology is on a self-driving car?

Do you start with "don't crash" and then try to build from that, or try to make it drive smoothly on your desired path and add things like collision avoidance etc in afterward.

Seeing as so many people can barely stay on their side of the road, I for one will welcome our new automotive overlords.