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I hate to say it, but there are going to be some deaths on the road to full autonomous cars. (no pun intended) The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one acti

I hate to say it, but there are going to be some deaths on the road to full autonomous cars. (no pun intended) The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one actively testing autonomous driving. The fact that over 100 million miles driven, and we're finally starting to see accidents, is a good sign.

itg 10y ago
Or you can test the cars the way Google does, without involving the public and having deaths on your hand from overhyping your product. https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/ https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/
- yes_or_gnome 10y ago
  There are tens of thousands of people either walking or driving the streets of Mountain View and Sunnyvale where Google is testing its self-driving cars. So, the members of the public are at risk. But, I understand that you mean behind the wheel. Which is fun because the Google cars do not have a wheel. As I'm sure you may know, instead of a traditional steering wheel they have horizontally mounted, valve wheel with a handle. It looks a little bizarre when you first see it, but I would imagine it could be a safer, smoother alternative to the current standards steering wheel. Unfortunately, I couldn't quickly provide an image; I've seen it multiple times on my walk to and from work.
  - studentrob 10y ago
    > There are tens of thousands of people either walking or driving the streets of Mountain View and Sunnyvale where Google is testing its self-driving cars. So, the members of the public are at risk. There is a huge difference between Google operating a handful of cars in certain areas and Tesla selling 10-20 thousand vehicles per month that can be operated by untrained consumers anywhere in the US. Tesla is using its customers as data-generating guinea pigs. In return, Tesla may become a guinea pig itself by showing other companies how not to progress towards autonomous vehicles.
    - Retra 10y ago
      >untrained consumers Licensed drivers. Drivers who have a license that indicates that they will take responsibility for the actions of any vehicle they control and understand how to operate any features which may put themselves or others at risk.
      - studentrob 10y ago
        > Drivers who have a license that indicates that they will take responsibility The fact that customers are licensed does not mean the seller is free from any and all regulation. Gun owners are licensed, and guns are required to have safety switches. Cars have a long history of being regulated [1] Basically, anything that can contribute to deaths is going to monitored closely by consumer protection bureaus, and will probably be heavily regulated. [1] http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph-nader1965-1971/ http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph-nader1965-1971...
        Retra 10y ago
        I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Tesla probably could do a much better job informing it's customers what they are getting into, because they certainly aren't in a position to figure it out themselves. And they definitely can make their software better. What I'm saying is, if your car injures someone while you sit in the driver seat, and you could have easily taken an easily foreseeable action to prevent it, then you are at least partially responsible.
        studentrob 10y ago
        > What I'm saying is, if your car injures someone while you sit in the driver seat, and you could have easily taken an easily foreseeable action to prevent it, then you are at least partially responsible. Oh absolutely. No question there for me at this time. There may yet be some class action or something that reveals some unjust action by the driver-assist companies. I agree that right now, all other things being perfect, if a driver of one of these cars is in an accident, then some person is responsible.
  - kbart 10y ago
    Also, Google doesn't drive it's test car on highway speeds with humans inside. Google self-driving car's speed is limited to 25 mph, so even if it hit something, potential that it would be lethal is very slim.
    - Animats 10y ago
      Google has two basic models of self-driving car. One is a modified standard car, and can drive at freeway speeds. If you drive around Mountain View, CA, you'll probably see some of them. The other is a little electric thing with no steering wheel limited to 25MPH. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View has one on display.
dekhn 10y ago
High end cars from a few manufacturers have a significant fraction of Tesla's features, they're getting plenty of test mileage. tesla's feature set is still level 2, though- at the high end of level 2.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one actively testing autonomous driving. No, they aren't. They may be the only ones using consumer-operated vehicles as their test platform for the particular degree of automation that they are testing, but there may be very good, safety-related reasons why other people aren't doing that.
ModernMech 10y ago
> The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one actively testing autonomous driving. And that is the problem right there. Tesla is "testing" a feature that is being shipped to consumers in a finished product. They are providing the most minimal of safety training regarding the feature, and not even enforcing simple technological measures to make the car safer in this mode (e.g. making sure your hand is on the wheel. They have the sensors in place that test this already, and yet they do nothing with that data). So essentially, the users are beta testers. They are testing the limits of the sensors. Looks like they don't work on white colored trucks blocking the highway. Sorry you were decapitated, we'll fix that ASAP though! This is what happens when you bring the "work fast and break things" mentality to an area where "break things" means "people die". To be clear, I am very pro autonomous car technology. I am a robotics engineer. I've worked on these systems. But this is the exactly wrong way to bring them to market. As more people die due to tesla's autopilot not being a true autopilot, it will color the public's view to reject this technology before it's even mature enough to save lives.
detaro 10y ago
They could run a lot of data collection while only providing the (presumably safer) automation level of other high-end cars.
ars 10y ago
> The fact that over 100 million miles driven, and we're finally starting to see accidents, is a good sign. No it's not because the human safety record is approximately that. Which means this Autopilot did nothing, and the humans did everything.
dimino 10y ago
Who the hell expected zero crashes? Please, raise your hand and explain why you think any system could be released that drives a car would ever be able to do so at a rate of 100%?
- kybernetikos 10y ago
  No one expected zero crashes, but any system like this should have dramatically fewer crashes than humans operating in similar situations (i.e. primarily highway driving) or it should not be deployed to the public.
ben_jones 10y ago
Exactly. They are "testing autonomous driving" with human lives. The sickening part is Tesla advocates think this is alright in the name of "progress". I wonder how they would feel if they had a family member die to it. "Data points" right?

itg 10y ago

Or you can test the cars the way Google does, without involving the public and having deaths on your hand from overhyping your product. https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/ https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/

yes_or_gnome 10y ago
There are tens of thousands of people either walking or driving the streets of Mountain View and Sunnyvale where Google is testing its self-driving cars. So, the members of the public are at risk. But, I understand that you mean behind the wheel. Which is fun because the Google cars do not have a wheel. As I'm sure you may know, instead of a traditional steering wheel they have horizontally mounted, valve wheel with a handle. It looks a little bizarre when you first see it, but I would imagine it could be a safer, smoother alternative to the current standards steering wheel. Unfortunately, I couldn't quickly provide an image; I've seen it multiple times on my walk to and from work.
- studentrob 10y ago
  > There are tens of thousands of people either walking or driving the streets of Mountain View and Sunnyvale where Google is testing its self-driving cars. So, the members of the public are at risk. There is a huge difference between Google operating a handful of cars in certain areas and Tesla selling 10-20 thousand vehicles per month that can be operated by untrained consumers anywhere in the US. Tesla is using its customers as data-generating guinea pigs. In return, Tesla may become a guinea pig itself by showing other companies how not to progress towards autonomous vehicles.
  - Retra 10y ago
    >untrained consumers Licensed drivers. Drivers who have a license that indicates that they will take responsibility for the actions of any vehicle they control and understand how to operate any features which may put themselves or others at risk.
    - studentrob 10y ago
      > Drivers who have a license that indicates that they will take responsibility The fact that customers are licensed does not mean the seller is free from any and all regulation. Gun owners are licensed, and guns are required to have safety switches. Cars have a long history of being regulated [1] Basically, anything that can contribute to deaths is going to monitored closely by consumer protection bureaus, and will probably be heavily regulated. [1] http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph-nader1965-1971/ http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/g-m-ralph-nader1965-1971...
      - Retra 10y ago
        I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Tesla probably could do a much better job informing it's customers what they are getting into, because they certainly aren't in a position to figure it out themselves. And they definitely can make their software better. What I'm saying is, if your car injures someone while you sit in the driver seat, and you could have easily taken an easily foreseeable action to prevent it, then you are at least partially responsible.
        studentrob 10y ago
        > What I'm saying is, if your car injures someone while you sit in the driver seat, and you could have easily taken an easily foreseeable action to prevent it, then you are at least partially responsible. Oh absolutely. No question there for me at this time. There may yet be some class action or something that reveals some unjust action by the driver-assist companies. I agree that right now, all other things being perfect, if a driver of one of these cars is in an accident, then some person is responsible.
- kbart 10y ago
  Also, Google doesn't drive it's test car on highway speeds with humans inside. Google self-driving car's speed is limited to 25 mph, so even if it hit something, potential that it would be lethal is very slim.
  - Animats 10y ago
    Google has two basic models of self-driving car. One is a modified standard car, and can drive at freeway speeds. If you drive around Mountain View, CA, you'll probably see some of them. The other is a little electric thing with no steering wheel limited to 25MPH. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View has one on display.

dekhn 10y ago

High end cars from a few manufacturers have a significant fraction of Tesla's features, they're getting plenty of test mileage. tesla's feature set is still level 2, though- at the high end of level 2.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one actively testing autonomous driving. No, they aren't. They may be the only ones using consumer-operated vehicles as their test platform for the particular degree of automation that they are testing, but there may be very good, safety-related reasons why other people aren't doing that.

ModernMech 10y ago

> The problem I see is, Tesla is the only one actively testing autonomous driving. And that is the problem right there. Tesla is "testing" a feature that is being shipped to consumers in a finished product. They are providing the most minimal of safety training regarding the feature, and not even enforcing simple technological measures to make the car safer in this mode (e.g. making sure your hand is on the wheel. They have the sensors in place that test this already, and yet they do nothing with that data). So essentially, the users are beta testers. They are testing the limits of the sensors. Looks like they don't work on white colored trucks blocking the highway. Sorry you were decapitated, we'll fix that ASAP though! This is what happens when you bring the "work fast and break things" mentality to an area where "break things" means "people die". To be clear, I am very pro autonomous car technology. I am a robotics engineer. I've worked on these systems. But this is the exactly wrong way to bring them to market. As more people die due to tesla's autopilot not being a true autopilot, it will color the public's view to reject this technology before it's even mature enough to save lives.

detaro 10y ago

They could run a lot of data collection while only providing the (presumably safer) automation level of other high-end cars.

ars 10y ago

> The fact that over 100 million miles driven, and we're finally starting to see accidents, is a good sign. No it's not because the human safety record is approximately that. Which means this Autopilot did nothing, and the humans did everything.

dimino 10y ago

Who the hell expected zero crashes? Please, raise your hand and explain why you think any system could be released that drives a car would ever be able to do so at a rate of 100%?

kybernetikos 10y ago
No one expected zero crashes, but any system like this should have dramatically fewer crashes than humans operating in similar situations (i.e. primarily highway driving) or it should not be deployed to the public.

ben_jones 10y ago

Exactly. They are "testing autonomous driving" with human lives. The sickening part is Tesla advocates think this is alright in the name of "progress". I wonder how they would feel if they had a family member die to it. "Data points" right?