The future ... and e-van conversion to class B

[Davydd]

I think I have changed my mind on self-driving's future. I was driving on a clear day but recently snow plowed roads when I first got the warning that driver assist was off when in cruise control. That's where you slow when the driver ahead of you slows. There was a sensor evidently that was fogged over by crud from the road.

Would self-driving work in these conditions I encountered on a clear day, fog, or blizzard weather? If there are warnings it is off will that occur before or after you crashed?

[avanti]

Well, if you want a taste of where self-driving is heading (and if you have a compatible vehicle), invest $1300 or so in a system called OpenPilot, from a company called "Comma AI":

https://comma.ai/shop

This is an aftermarket robot driver product. It is not (yet) full-self-driving, but it is miles ahead of any of the adaptive-cruise products that Mercedes or any of the other OEMs currently offer. It mounts on your windshield and connects between the vehicle and the OEM forward-looking camera (although it uses its own camera, not the OEM one). It uses the steering, braking and safety sensors of the vehicle to implement a kind of super-ACC. We have one on our Highlander. It is definitely still an "early adaptor" thing, but Consumer Reports rated it superior to any OEM--including Tesla and Cadillac (who currently have the best available OEM systems). It is truly amazing. On an interstate, you can literally drive all day without touching the steering wheel (until you come to your exit, that is). Also works on secondary roads (even ones without lane lines), but with limitations (mostly on very sharp turns). It doesn't yet decide to change lanes on its own, but it will do so for you if you turn on your signals and nudge the steering wheel.

The driver is still responsible for safety, and needs to be ready to take over if it gets confused (which is very rare). It has a rear-facing camera that watches your eyes and it yells at you if you don't keep them on the road. Works fine at night and in bad weather. In driving rain, it can see the lane ahead better than I can. I haven't tried heavy snow, but I suspect that it will work at least as well as a human. It gets OTA updates regularly, and keeps getting better and better.

As I said, this is still bleeding-edge, but I would really miss it if it went away (sadly, it does not yet support the Transit). As a harbinger of what is coming, it is really eye-opening.

Can't wait until we can go back and sleep through the trip.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by Davydd

I think I have changed my mind on self-driving's future. I was driving on a clear day but recently snow plowed roads when I first got the warning that driver assist was off when in cruise control. That's where you slow when the driver ahead of you slows. There was a sensor evidently that was fogged over by crud from the road.

Would self-driving work in these conditions I encountered on a clear day, fog, or blizzard weather? If there are warnings it is off will that occur before or after you crashed?

The point that Tesla 'has' to keep making since they Are Killing folks is that it is better than a human, saving lives. Seems that lately, that is beginning to be questioned more and more. Questioning Tesla numbers concerning the dead people.

Hope the US government gets it right. When to allow what so called self-driving features, much less playing games on the display while driving. Tesla decided to disable that feature recently.

[jrobe]

I was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN recently and they have a driverless shuttle vehicle to transport employees from the parking lots to the clinics and hospitals. I watched one of them run right through a red light and almost cause an accident.

The comical part of the system is that they pay an attendant to ride in the van as a supervisor. They just moved the driver to the back of the van.

[avanti]

Yeah, the problem is the "long tail" of very rare perverse situations and other edge cases. Nothing is going to fix that except years and years of data collection. I completely support getting on with it, but also in keeping humans in the loop until we are a lot further down the long tail.

[RossWilliams]

" I watched one of them run right through a red light and almost cause an accident."

Something that NEVER happens with human drivers? Its no surprise that the current "self-driving" vehicles are not really self-driving. But that will get solved and when it does vehicles that require a driver will be the equivalent of a DOS computer running off floppy discs.