[chromejs10]

One thing I don't quite understand is that many cars have autopilot-like software. Unlike tesla's which constantly requires putting pressure on the wheel to show you're there and paying attention, Ford's lets you drive indefinitely without any hands on the wheel. Wouldn't this same investigation be put onto other manufactures as a giant audit? Hitting emergency vehicles is obviously bad but 1) it happens in cars without autopilot and 2) if you're hitting one you're clearly no paying attention. it's not like they just appear out of no where

[lolinder]

What it comes down to for me is the marketing. The other manufacturers are very careful in how they market the software, Tesla is not.

If you look at Mercedes, for example, their marketing page describing their driver assistance technology[0] (with a very similar feature set to Tesla's) uses the word "assist" more than 30 times and in practically every header. Few people would come away from that marketing thinking that their car is going to drive itself without them paying attention.

Tesla, in contrast, advertises their "autopilot" and "full self driving" capabilities. The word "assist" is used exactly once on the Autopilot landing page[1]. The rest of the words and names are carefully chosen to convey a sense of total autonomy.

[0] https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/innovation/autonomous/the-n...

[1] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

[heavyset_go]

Tesla has also used this wording to advertise their purported self-driving features since 2016[1]:

> The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware...

[AlphaSite]

I find it really interesting that for Mercedes L3 self driving they are even willing to put their money where their mouth is and take liability for the car in self driving mode.

[natch]

Read the fine print though.

They do disable the system in complex situations.

And they give ten seconds warning in advance of this happening.

Which sounds great until you think it through…

It means they schedule the disabling of the system way earlier in the progression of any potential traffic complication. Ten full seconds is long before incidents even start unfolding. The car has to be psychic, but it's not. So in order to accomplish the ten-second warning, what that means is those warnings need to be on a hair trigger with many false positives.

The driver, if they have it enabled, will be constantly getting warnings that the system may disable itself in ten seconds when the car sees even the very slightest possibility that things may potentially get complicated way down the road. I don't see this being endurable for most people.

So my conclusion is this is just marketing hype, until they can get rid of the auto disabling thing.

[upbeat_general]

I haven’t read the fine print but you can have ten seconds of warning without predicting complications ten seconds in advance.

That 10 seconds simply means that the car must handle any situation safely for at least that amount of time. In practice, this means decisions such as emergency braking and steering must be autonomous but possible more complex scenarios (e.g. moving for emergency vehicle on a tight street) can be delegated to a human (or the system can simply pull over and stop).

They disable the system in cases of rain but at least from the marketing and videos demonstrating it, there’s no prediction of complex scenarios like you described.

[natch]

No, you are not understanding what I explained. There is a moving horizon of time during which the ten seconds is continually extended, and the system needs to draw the line somewhere. When does the final ten seconds before cutoff begin? Your examples don't explain this. This is not easy stuff to solve without some compromises.

[AlphaSite]

If it’s limited on what roads it can run on the 10 second window makes perfect sense. Just enable when you’re entering an unsupported roadway.

[KaiserPro]

> And they give ten seconds warning in advance of this happening.

which is infinitely better than the <1 second that tesla gives you.

> those warnings need to be on a hair trigger with many false positives.

unless it is actually reasonably good at tracking threats and traffic. look, if you have multiple sensors of different types, then you are able to take firm action when things turn south quicker than a human.

A lot of tesla's problems are because they have shit sensors, and a stupid approach to designing the system (no lidar, no radar, no multiview cameras, no high res GPS or maps) They also have an overwhelming pressure to just yolo shit, rather than test, and redesign.

[natch]

>which is infinitely better than the <1 second that tesla gives you.

Not at all. With Tesla you are constantly paying attention, or should be to the same level that you are with any other car.

Meantime it is actively intervening to keep things safer with better follow distance, collision avoidance, lane departure detection, and automatic braking. Most scenarios leading toward accidents are entirely avoided due to all this.

So the <1 second scenarios (which are not talking about warnings, but about when the system was in a complete outlier situation it does not know how to deal with and disabled itself) are very unusual things.

Like "a Prius driver drove off a bridge and is now landing on our hood." Of course the system will disable itself in that situation; what else would you expect? What sensors do you suggest for that?

[KaiserPro]

> With Tesla you are constantly paying attention, or should be to the same level that you are with any other car.

you should be paying attention, but you are not. Human attention is a difficult thing. from what I recall, in a driving it takes about 7-14 seconds to re-gain situational awareness. This means that 1 second isn't enough.

> Like "a Prius driver drove off a bridge and is now landing on our hood." Of course the system will disable itself in that situation;

I'd expect that the system would slam on the brakes, not disengage to avoid liability. Thats the point here, its not about tech, its about legality. Thats the worse part, the entire system appears to be designed to stop tesla being taken to court.

[angulardragon03]

I think the clever thing about this is that it breeds a culture of responsibility at Mercedes - if you are programming the self driving, you will be more considerate of how it works because your company (and perhaps ultimately you) bear that responsibility. The consumer gets confidence in the product, and Mercedes holds itself accountable because it doesn’t want to ship a product that will endanger people.

[BrianOnHN]

Smart. This will be the move that triggers widespread adoption. Cheaper insurance.

[kukx]

It makes sense as long as it is failproof. But is their tech better than Tesla's? I assume it is not and they will have to severely limit the capabilities of the system. Maybe it will work in traffic jams, simple routes.

[nieve]

Why are you assuming it isn't better, just Musk's relentless promotion and exaggerated claims?

[jhgb]

The page literally talks about "full self-driving capabilities [...] through software updates designed to improve functionality over time". Which to me sounds like FSD is not actually being advertised as currently existing, as opposed to something you'll eventually get.

[natch]

Yes the actual finished FSD software release does not exist and Tesla does not claim it exists. There is a SKU you can pay up front for (in other words, pre-pay for) called FSD, so the SKU exists, but it does not yet exist as a released, finished software release.

A lot of people can't get their head around this level of subtlety. Those people probably should not have too much confidence in their take on this, but they do. Dunning-Kruger effect. It seems like you do get it.

Just for completeness to soothe anyone triggered by details missing here, certain features of the current beta version are enabled for drivers who have purchased the SKU. And there is also a full beta release that is available to some drivers who opt in. All of this does not mean FSD exists yet as a public non-beta software release.

[lolinder]

> A lot of people can't get their head around this level of subtlety.

Have you considered that this might be intentional on Tesla's part?

In my original post I never said anything about full-self-driving being a real thing, I simply said that their marketing uses that term a lot and leans heavily on those capabilities. I'm well aware of the distinction, but I'm also aware that Tesla seems to intentionally cultivate the ambiguity as to what exactly FSD means. It's not fair of you to cast blame on those who get confused when the company makes the line very, very blurry in their marketing.

EDIT: I'm also not accusing Tesla of outright lying. They can "not claim it exists" while still making sure plenty of people miss that "subtlety".

[natch]

Yes, I've considered the possibility of it being intentional on Tesla's part. It's impossible not to consider it with all the conspiracy theorists and short sellers repeatedly bringing it up on Hacker News and elsewhere.

However, I don't buy into the theory, for the reason that Tesla's proactive, frequent, and aggressive informational notices clarifying the point are impossible to miss when you are in the car, and that goes completely counter to the theory.

And their informational messages are also there prior to that during the buying experience.

And prior to that in the marketing.

Why would Tesla do all these reminders about the human needing to maintain oversight and control, if they are trying to trick you into thinking the opposite?

Haters latch on to the marketing as if it's the only thing, and ignore the caveats in the marketing, and ignore the informational messages during the buying process, and ignore the in-car information and the in-car active measures the car takes to make sure you are paying attention.

Haters dismiss all that and pretend it does not exist.

To what end, I'm not sure, I think it is to stay in a comfort zone regarding a delusion they have about their opinion being the right one. Confirmation bias doing its job.

I do appreciate you bringing up the point. It's a fascinating phenomenon.

[tsimionescu]

You're assuming that FSD is a software problem, and that there is any realistic chance that the feature will be available in the lifetime of any of the cars they sold including it.

Both of these beliefs seem unwarranted: FSD as described in the advertising is most likely much more than 5 years away, and will almost certainly require LIDAR to achieve any kind of safety.

People pay for a pre-order based on the promise that the item will be delivered. If I pre-order a game and it is later cancelled, or even delayed for many years, I will get my money back, I won't just be told "well, you knew it wasn't ready at the time".

[natch]

I don't think I said anything about hardware or whether FSD will ever be delivered in the lifetime of the current fleet.

Myself, I am skeptical of Elon's timelines. But I also understand they are not his promises, they are just his (foolish, imho) expectations.

He admitted he vastly underestimated the problem… but what he might not admit is continuing to do so. I think he continues to underestimate it.

On the other hand, the power of compounded returns of improvements over time is counterintuitive, and he probably understands that better than most of us. Maybe he used that understanding to get overconfident, or maybe it's still beyond reach. We really don't know. It's still possible that at some point, his team might just crack it. Not just with vision, though. They will need a world model for things like predicting the behavior of a group of children occluded by a bus near a crosswalk.

The money back thing is another question. I hope Tesla offers money back to ease the experience of those who are bitter, but I probably won't take it back myself, because I don't mind supporting the effort even though it seems like the results are far away. I don't think money back was an option previously. As a matter of company survival (which in Elon's mind equates to humanity's survival, take it or leave it, but suffice it to say he doesn't treat it as a normal throwaway company) Tesla just didn't have the money. Now, they probably do.

[tsimionescu]

> I don't think I said anything about hardware or whether FSD will ever be delivered in the lifetime of the current fleet.

You said "Yes the actual finished FSD software release does not exist and Tesla does not claim it exists." (emphasis mine).

Even if you didn't say it, the whole false advertising investigation revolves around the difference between FSD being a software or a hardware problem. Tesla marketing and Musk personally have stated clearly (at least in the past) that all cars sold with the FSD option are FSD ready on the hardware side, and that FSD will be delivered as an over-the-air software upgrade to all of them once it's ready.

If they can indeed enable (working) FSD without a hardware upgrade, then they have not lied (even if the timelines they suggested were wildly optimistic). If they in fact need hardware upgrades to support FSD on the cars sold with this option, then they have lied in their advertising, and people who bought this are entitled either to a refund or to a free upgrade when the feature is available.

[jhgb]

> and will almost certainly require LIDAR to achieve any kind of safety.

Is there a physical reason for that? We know that humans do just fine with just ~8cm of stereoscopic separation, and for example cars have the potential for a significantly higher amounts of stereoscopic separation.

[tsimionescu]

Not a physical reason, no, but an AI one.

Humans and most other animals don't rely solely on stereoscopic vision to navigate the world, we rely on a model of the world where we recognize objects in the image we perceive, know their real size from experience, and use that as well as stereoscopic hints to approximate distances and speeds. We additionally use our understanding of basic physics to assist - we distinguish between an object and its shadow, we can tell the approximate weight of something by the way it moves in the wind (to know if we need to avoid an obstacle on the road), and there are other hints we take into account.

We also take into account our knowledge of the likely behavior of these objects to judge relative speeds (e.g. thr car is moving away, it's not the tree coming closer).

Without this crucial aspect of object recognition and experience about the world, our vision is actually very bad at navigation. If you put us in an artifical environment with, say, pure geometric shapes at various distances, no/fake shadows, objects with non-realistic proportions and so on, we will have much more trouble navigating and not bumping into things even at walking speeds. And this is the level the AI is currently operating at, more or less.

And if you don't believe me, note that humans with one eye, while having impaired depth perception, are still perfectly able to drive safely, with ~0 physical mechanisms for measuring distance (I beleieve the spherical shape of the iris may still give some very subtle hints about distance as you move your eye around, but that is minimal compared to stereoscopic vision). A LOT of our depth perception is just 2D image + object recognition + knowledge about those objects.

[MBCook]

> Unlike tesla's which constantly requires putting pressure on the wheel to show you're there and paying attention, Ford's lets you drive indefinitely without any hands on the wheel

That’s not Ford’s version of Autopilot, it’s one step further. It’s actually hands off (despite how many treat autopilot). Named BlueCruise.

It’s comparable to GM SuperCruise. It ONLY works on specially mapped divided highways that Ford has approved. It will disengage for strong turns and anything it’s not ready for. You MUST watch the road, it keeps track with a camera on the wheel.

Basically the way it treats the driver is far more conservative. Instead of telling the driver they need to pay attention, it actively monitors them. Instead of saying “you should only use it on these kind of roads“ it actively prevents you.

It’s a fundamentally different approach. Ford’s ACC (not hands free, Co-Pilot 360) constantly monitors for steering wheel torque to ensure your hands are on the wheel and disengages pretty quickly if they’re hot and you ignore the warning.

That said, I have it on my car. It’s freaky as hell to use, kind of scary. Maybe I would use it on long drives in the country, but I just don’t want something else that in charge in even medium traffic.

[chromejs10]

That is kind of similar to Tesla still though. At least with FSD Beta there is a camera actively monitoring you and making sure your eyes are on the road. I've also been on roads where autopilot either won't activate at all or will activate but at a reduced speed. I was hoping that once Tesla enabled that internal camera they would stop relying on weight on the steering wheel and just use eye tracking.

[Tempest1981]

> Named BlueCruise

Ah, thanks! I thought the dealer was saying "Blue's Clues"

[dathinab]

As far as I know there had been a unusual high amount of "unusual" accidents associated with Tesla autopilots and there is not such observation for other car manufactures.

This doesn't mean their system is more advanced it actually could mean their system bails earlier due to being less advanced and in turn luckily avoiding this problems.

Or that they are much much less used.

But then Tesla is not really known for good QA.

And in the past there had been multiple unrelated tests for emergency brake systems in which Tesla cars failed really hard. Behaving worse then many much "simpler" less advanced systems. Sometimes to a point of only braking after/when hitting the pedestrian... (mechanized test dummy puppet the Tesla system by it's own feedback recognized as human).

If your most advanced self driving system can't even compete with emergency brake systems by such a large margin I would not be surprising if the Teslas system has major faults tbh.

[revscat]

Autopilot has Prevented far more accidents than it has caused.

[tumnus]

Any citations for this claim?

[chromejs10]

Yeah I've always hated that statement. How do you even measure that? I've had my Tesla sound the alarms when I'm 4 car lengths away from the car in front of me and nothing bad is happening at all. Do they count that as having prevented an accident? Do they count all those phantom breaks as preventing a crash ;＾∀;＾）

[cjensen]

Ford, like GM, has a literal camera monitoring the driver's face so they can see if they are paying attention. Seeing what your face is doing is a much more reliable system of measuring attention than whether or not the driver is touching the steering wheel while reading their book.

[netsharc]

Doesn't Tesla have that too? Not that I trust Elonbois with a camera looking into my car, but hey, maybe someone will offer to buy me a horse...

[mceachen]

No. See https://electrek.co/2021/01/20/tiktok-star-criminally-tesla-...

Edit: Sorry, I should have said _mostly no_.

Last year they pushed an update to use the built-in cabin camera installed in 2021+ cars for "driver attentiveness."

Compared to Ford and Cadillac's IR-illuminated driver attentiveness cameras pointed straight at your eyeballs and can see through sunglasses and works in the dark, the wide-angle cabin camera may not even see your face if you wear a hat, certainly _does not_ have a clear view of your pupils, and doesn't work in the dark or if you have dark glasses on.

https://electrek.co/2021/05/27/tesla-releases-driver-monitor...

https://electrek.co/2021/04/08/tesla-driver-monitoring-syste...

[netsharc]

Yes. See https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-interior-cameras-dr...

[brigade]

Tesla's isn't good enough to replace wheel torque as an attention monitor, and they don't even pretend to (still requires wheel torque to keep FSD/autopilot enganged.)

In particular, it has terrible night vision and no IR illumination so it can't see you well enough at night to work.

[zaptrem]

A some older Model S/X vehicles with Autopilot 2.0 hardware lacked driver-facing cameras, but modern ones, along with all Model 3/Y have them.

[nrmitchi]

I don’t think anyone reads about Fords (for example) manual and thinks “oh wow, I don’t even have to have to pay attention and have my hands on the wheel!”.

The fact that it’s a big enough problem for Tesla that they have to monitor it, and still have issues, points to the main difference being user expectations and marketing around these features.

[thfuran]

It's almost as if calling it "autopilot" was wildly irresponsible.

[jhgb]

It's a very appropriate name for something that automates the long boring things while not eliminating a human operator for exciting transient things, just like in an airplane or on a ship. What about it was irresponsible? Sounds like a completely typical autopilot to me.

[heavyset_go]

What's irresponsible to me is how Tesla has advertised their Autopilot feature for the last six years[1]:

> The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware...

[jhgb]

Possibly, but notice that this is not what I was responding to, which was purely the naming of the feature. So I'm not sure how this segue is relevant? Do you have anything to comment w/r to the name?

[zaptrem]

This is very clearly labeled as an ad for future software capabilities.

[heavyset_go]

There is no such "clear" label on the video or website. Tesla titled the page "Tesla Self-Driving Demonstration". Tesla's embedded video is titled "Autopilot Full Self-Driving Hardware (Neighborhood Long)" with a video description that says[1]:

> Take a ride in a Tesla with Full Self-Driving Hardware.

That's it. Nowhere is it "clearly labeled as an ad for future software capabilities".

[1] https://vimeo.com/192179727?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&...

[simondotau]

> …how Tesla has advertised their Autopilot feature…

I don’t see the word autopilot on that page or that video.

[heavyset_go]

Look at the URL[1] and then look at the title of the video, which is "Autopilot Full Self-Driving Hardware (Neighborhood Long)"[2].

[1] https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware...

[2] https://vimeo.com/192179727?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&...

[kalleboo]

It's a very appropriate name for people who understand aviation, but I've heard A LOT of people over the years say stuff to the effect of "the planes these days can fly themselves, they don't actually need pilots they're just in there due to the unions"

[simondotau]

If the argument was "Tesla shouldn't use the Autopilot name because some people are grossly misinformed about aspects of the aviation industry" then I'd have some sympathy for it. I'd still consider it a poor argument, but at least it's one I could comprehend and respect.

[thfuran]

Not just some people but many people and not just some aspects of the aviation industry but precisely those with are being referenced.

[watwut]

No. Tesla should not use that term because of what that term means everywhere outside of aviation industry. Aviation industry is one small niche.

The term autopilot implies autonomous driving everywhere outside of that one small subgroup of people.

[rootusrootus]

When drivers receive as much training as pilots, then it will be reasonable to draw comparisons between autopilot for planes, and autopilot for cars.

[jhgb]

How is this relevant? Autopilots for airplanes don't eliminate human operators. Autopilots for ships don't eliminate human operators. Tesla's autopilot doesn't eliminate human operators either. On basis of that, I would deem the naming as very appropriate, the level of training of the respective required operators notwithstanding.

[jimmyswimmy]

Interesting idea. Pilots require 40 hours minimum to take the certification test, but most need maybe 60 or so. Pretty sure I had a lot more than that for driving. In addition to the state-mandated driving instruction which was probably around 8 hours total (some of it "watching" other student drivers) I'm sure I had a few hundred hours of supervised driving under my belt before taking the test. Outlier? Maybe, but I can't imagine less than the 40-60 hours required for prospective pilots.

Also, I don't think student pilots typically train on autopilots. Those kinds of technology components are usually learned either on one's own or with an instructor/co-pilot after completing basic training. The basic pilot training focuses on safe pilotage from takeoff to landing, including land nav and radio communications, and ignores pretty much all modern technology.

[simondotau]

That argument makes no sense. Generally speaking, tools are named based on the capability of the tool. We don't make a rule of changing the names of tools based on the predicted skill of the operator.

[TrainedMonkey]

Ford's system has a lot more limitations. AFAIK, Tesla is the only company who has non-geo fenced FSD.

[ModernMech]

You say “limitation” but I hear “safety feature”. Best to put limits on dynamic systems that aren’t well understood.

[joe_the_user]

Maybe their systems are safe and Tesla's isn't?

I don't know anything about other manufacturer's systems but I've seen video of Tesla's on autopilot doing unsafe things and read a lot of anecdotes of this as well. Elon Musk has made ridiculously optimistic statements about when Teslas will be self-driving and that by itself can influence people's behavior - perhaps fatally.

Edit: also, Tesla removed Lidar from their system. And there have been well-publicized deaths of people using autopilot.

[panick21_]

Tesla has not removed Lidar form their system. You are mixing things up, they removed rader. And most of cases in the report are about system with radar.

[leesec]

Tesla never had lidar lol

[MBCook]

Panic didn’t say they did.

[Tempest1981]

Right

> rader

Radar is actually short for "RAdio Detection And Ranging"

And Lidar is short for "LIght Detection And Ranging"

[fdschoeneman]

I'm similarly confused. And with the shade Biden has been throwing at Tesla I'm concerned it may be politically motivated.