Maelochs

I hear inside Tesla they call the autopilot engagement device the "Darwin Switch."

genec

THIS BTW is exactly why Tesla vehicles should not be considered AVs. They are not AVs, they merely have advanced cruise control... a fact that Tesla owners and the media keep overlooking.

Lumping a Tesla in with AVs is akin to lumping me with a TDF team... I mean, yeah, I ride a bike...

350htrr

The "problem" here is "Tesla" and their literature... and.. OK, the morons with big $$$ who buy Tesla's...

genec

It's mostly the morons that fail to heed the warnings. If those idiots would just RTFM... SIGH

I suppose big bucks do not necessarily equate to big brains. (don't go there... I know about that guy in the white house.)

Yeah Tesla isn't doing itself any favors with their marketing either... But in their manual there are tons of warnings, and I understand that there are warnings when you use the cruise control.

Hell, every GPS I own warns me not to trust it.

BT Driver

Lack of situational awareness on both sides is a persistent problem, and sadly it's only getting worse and more people will die because of it.

I-Like-To-Bike

More on the discussion of regulating the testing of AV prototypes on public roads and the consideration of public safety when making or ignoring any such regulations.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business...r-12796638.php

squirtdad

it seem to me that any system that allow hands of the wheel (tesla or cadilac) is going to result in issues, warnings or not.

it seems that a simple answer would be to require at least one hand be in contact with the wheel. Otherwise people will read a book, text, eat a big two handed sandwich etc, despite all the warnings..... But again there is the dichotomy between what is being sold vs the legal warning. People go with what they are sold (this 15 lb carbon bike will make you feel pro-tour ready ....legal notice this race designed bike that should not be user if you are over 175 lbs, and should should treat it as a consumable product)

genec

The Tesla system requires hands on... so what some "drivers" have been doing is resting a hand on the wheel, but they are really not paying attention to the road. It is so bad that some other owners have wedged oranges into the steering wheel open frame to fool the system.
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/tesla-orange-hack/

The Cadillac doesn't require hands on... it uses cameras (similar to your smartphone) to see if you are actually looking at the road. I don't know if there is a cheat for this yet. No doubt someone will develop one.

But drivers choosing to cheat the systems clearly are doing so at their own risk and liability. The manuals warn that the system REQUIRES a driver to back it up (thus, not fully self driving) and when engaging the system, the driver is again warned.

Once again, these are NOT actual autonomous vehicles... they are nothing more than cars with advanced cruise control. That they may or have crashed is due to motorists ignoring the limitations about which they have been forewarned. Ignoring warnings and cheating the system puts the onus on the driver... should a collision occur.

KD5NRH

And is it just me or does he appear to be speaking some odd language through Google Translate? His sentences are like a drunk playing with a stack of word tiles.

spectastic

^ lol no ****

spectastic

driverless cars are already safer than humans, by a large margin. the growth of this machine learning is exponential. the "smart" cars these days are tracking driver behavior, and collecting hundreds of millions of miles worth of driving data. it's already pretty good, and it will only get better. there was ONE famous story about ONE guy who died in a tesla while using the driverless mode, for failing to heed 7 warnings from the computer to keep his hands on the wheels. the arguments against driverless cars are blown out of proportional.

the fact is, driverless cars will make the roads safer for cyclists, in general. but it also has a long list of other consequences. drivers are going to lose jobs. cyber security will be an issue. personal privacy may be breached. every car will have a camera. not everyone is ready for these changes. so the issue at this point has much less to do with how good the technology is (it's very good), but more to do with regulations.

robertorolfo

Oh dear. I don't like blaming victims, but if you know that the car has a tendency to veer toward a solid object, wouldn't you be hyper-vigilant when approaching said object (if you even insisted on using the "autopilot" there in the first place)?

KD5NRH

Do the audible warnings mute the stereo? Seems a simple thing these days when every Bluetooth-enabled stereo does that automatically for your phone's nav and other announcements, but maybe Tesla forgot to put it in for the car's messages.

Of course, he could also have been using headphones, or even driving with the windows down. Interestingly, in this independent re-creation, I don't hear any audio warnings at all, so even if the road noise is covering them up, that's a big problem.

jefnvk

Woot, the autonomous shuttles for work campus use are sitting in the garage! Can't wait til they get them up and running!

Maelochs

Been nice knowin' ya.

genec

Just don't walk through the garage pushing a bicycle... it apparently merely irritates human drivers, but attracts self driving cars.

I-Like-To-Bike

Given the limited scope and range of this bus route, not much chance of it bumping into anything unexpected.

KD5NRH

So how many millions did they spend on automated shuttle service so people wouldn't have to endure, like, three minutes on a typical craptastic share bike?

02Giant 

But, they'll be safer by a large margin...

Maelochs

In the winter in Michigan ....

I-Like-To-Bike

In the winter in Michigan don't expect to see (m)any self driving vehicles operating anytime soon, except perhaps on isolated/restricted short loops of almost no practical use to anyone except the testing organization.

genec

And the folks that are using the "almost no practical use" short shuttle trips to get around large work and college campuses.

I previously worked for a firm that essentially had it's own private shuttle service of small vans and buses constantly jockeying engineers around from building to building. Sure, some buildings were close enough to walk between... taking about 30 minutes or so... but others were across a large chasm gap of an interstate freeway and miles away... reachable in under 15 minutes by shuttle.

Of course the whole campus was tied together with a hyperloop of intranet, but managers still wanted face to face meetings with team members, on a regular basis.

I-Like-To-Bike

Were any of the shuttle buses without a driver? If not, BFD, not relevant to the topic at hand - self driving vehicles.

A cable car would serve the same purpose as this so-called shuttle and be just as limited in routing. The Ann Arbor shuttle bus experiment is a one trick pony.

genec

A cable car system would be vastly expensive... especially where it had to cross the freeway. (this was actually considered, at one point... heck, the local zoo has a system... ) Of course a cable car system would be somewhat permanent... and with mergers and acquisitions a very regular thing in the high tech world, such an installation would likely become an issue. Heck, while I worked for the company, divisions were bought and sold on a nearly annual basis... along with the buildings housing said divisions.

None of those buses are self driving, but no doubt this is a perfect sort of application... especially considering the good weather in So Cal... no Michigan snow to worry about. It would be quite easy to change the routes for a self driving vehicle, compared to ripping up a cable car system.

I-Like-To-Bike

Try and stay focused, the subject is the utility/practicality of self driving shuttle bus vehicles currently sitting in the garage in Michigan presumably waiting for the snow to melt, before offering its experimental "service", on its tiny isolated route [see below], not standard shuttle buses (with drivers) you have taken in So Cal.