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Audi claims the A8 is the first production car to reach Level 3 autonomy
- aaroninsf 9y agoI hope to God they haven't been training it with Audi drivers.
- jsolson 9y agoThe system as described is considerably weaker than what my previous generation Model S actually does. On a highway with a barrier and traffic I can basically leave autopilot engaged indefinitely without having to correct it. Perhaps Audi handles a wider variety of weather conditions?
- 0xCMP 9y agoI think their point is the Tesla tech requires you to pay attention at least in theory while theirs does not.
- Urgo 9y agoIn all seriousness, on the highway, most of the time the requirement is more of legal thing rather then actually needed. Yes, my Model S asks me to touch the wheel every ~5 minutes but it doesn't really need me too.. off highways different story, but highway autopilot on tesla, when markings are clear is pretty spot on these days.
- abhi3 9y ago"Pretty Spot on" is not good enough when your and other users lives are at stake.
- Urgo 9y agoOkay let me rephrase a little.. I've had a Tesla since day 1 of auto pilot (so the gen 1 hardware). Back when it first came out it was good but not great. They've made a ton of tweaks since then, almost two years ago now including the gen 2 hardware with a full suite of cameras which will eventually bypass my gen 1 system. Anyway when it first came out a lot of people were posting videos doing stupid things like riding in the back when the system wasn't mature enough yet to really support that. So now, almost two years later, if you're on a highway with clear markings and good weather, though the car is programmed to nag you every ~5 minutes no matter what to basically just nudge the wheel, the car is better then a human at driving. Theoretically if Audi does get ready to release this they could simply remove the nags and have a much better system for the use case Audi is describing (Tesla supports up to 90mph). Again, for highway driving the nags are basically there for Tesla to cover their you know what. Off highway you can use it but it's more of a gimmick still as you have to very closely babysit it on most roads. Hope that makes things more clear. [Quick Edit: One other thing the nags are good for is just in case there is a scenario that they haven't accounted for they can say that they told the driver to put their hands on the wheel and they ignored the nag. Tesla has two years of an entire fleet of cars using and proving the system. Audi will be releasing it theoretically w/o this in place and telling drivers no hands needed right away.. I'd be skeptical on that vs what Tesla has already been proving]
- jakobegger 9y agoThere‘s no question that Teslas can drive themselves under favorable conditions. But did you see the videos above where a Tesla crashes into a highway barrier, and the one where it crashes into a stationary maintenance vehicle? You can only take your eyes off the road when you can be sure that the car can detect unexpected circumstances. Teslas are apparently bad at detecting stationary obstacles, so you can‘t take your eyes off the road (and calling the system „Autopilot“ is really not a good idea)
- zwily 9y agoSo far those videos are all with the v1 autopilot hardware (I believe). It will be interesting to see as the new hardware rolls out, and its software gets better, how much better it is at avoiding those obstacles.
- pfisch 9y agoI'm glad there are people like you to test the system and all......but trusting your life with these early driving AIs seems like darwin award territory.
- jacquesm 9y agoHe's trusting the lives of the drivers and passengers of all the other cars on the roads he drives on with his system test as well.
- my_first_acct 9y agoMy (limited) understanding is that a Level-3 system will sound an alarm, and tell you take control, if it sees something unexpected, such as a truck stopped in the middle of the highway ahead. Whereas the Tesla expects you, rather than the system, to monitor roadway conditions ahead and decide whether to take control.
- Animats 9y agoThat's the Tesla "self-crashing car" feature. Watch these videos.[1] Teslas will run into a clearly visible obstacle partially obstructing the lane. Tesla is a level 2 system with inadequate safety interlocks and crappy obstacle detection. [1] http://autoweek.com/article/autonomous-cars/tesla-model-s-autopilot-strikes-again-dallas-crash http://autoweek.com/article/autonomous-cars/tesla-model-s-au...
- MertsA 9y ago>Tesla is a level 2 system Does autopilot actually meet the qualifications for a level 2 system? AFAIK since autopilot is basically lane following and adaptive cruise control and braking wouldn't that be considered level 1?
- ClassyJacket 9y agoDo you have statistics that per kilometre it makes stupid mistakes more than a human driver? Lots of human caused accidents were driving into obvious things too. I don't drive drunk or sleepy, so maybe I'm above average, but my only standard for safety for a self driving car is that it's safer than me driving.
- gambiting 9y agoIt's absolutely irrelevant if it crashes "less" than a human driver. It just cannot fail to detect an obstacle in front of it to be allowed on the road, period. If there is any edge case where that can happen, then the car shouldn't be certified as safe to use. Like, I don't understand how it's not obvious. A heart surgery machine that kills the patient every once in a 1000 operations would be taken off the market faster than you can say "litigation", even if a human surgeon has a worse survival rate(say 1 in 100 operations, so lets say the machine is an order of magnitude safer). That has already happened with radiotheraphy machines, there was a model that on average definitely saved lives but it had a failure mode where it would kill a person. Would you continue using it? Of course not. Or airplanes - autopilot in planes has contributed tremendously to improving flying safety, but every time there is a crash under autopilot both Boeing and Airbus will ground every single plane of the same type to figure out the cause, they don't just go "oh well, it's still safer than flying manually so it's good for us". I really don't understand this notion that an autonomous car merely needs to be "better than average driver" to be allowed on the road. Absolutely disagree here.
- anton69 9y agoI thought Autopilot 2 was still not on feature parity with Autopilot 1, after Tesla switched off from MobilEye?
- sschueller 9y agoListening to Tesla's PR you would think it's Level 3 but in reality it is not.
- skgoa 9y agoYou are comparing apples to oranges. Tesla has traffic aware adaptive cruise control and active lane keeping. Audi has those too, but this article is about their new traffic jam assist that allows the driver to completely hand over the responsibility for driving and monitoring the environment to the car. Which is not a function Tesla has. At all.
- shimon_e 9y agoShould people still to learn to drive today?
- yorwba 9y agoI have never learned to drive and I don't plan to learn it anytime soon, unless I move to somewhere with abysmal public transport for some reason. Of course it all depends on your personal mobility habits and where you live, but in many big cities, you can absolutely get by without ever sitting in a car.
- chrischen 9y agoIf you're in the US, you're in luck! Most of the US has abysmal public transit sprawl.
- yorwba 9y agoI have never been to the US, actually. Grew up in Berlin and living in Shanghai right now.
- monk_e_boy 9y agoDriving is fun. You should give it a go. The sense of freedom is amazing.
- kuschku 9y agoI did try it, and it's just so much you have to think about, that's horrible for getting somewhere. If I wanna get somewhere, public transit is a lot nicer, because I can sleep on the way, or use my phone. And if I just wanna enjoy getting around in nature, I take my bike.
- falcolas 9y ago> it's just so much you have to think about Like everything else (including riding a bike), this is true of the beginner, and relegated to your subconscious after a few dozen hours. It all just becomes automatic. I drove past half a dozen stop signs, hundreds of cars, several traffic lights, four different speed zones, and made a cross-traffic turn, and was thinking about testing code this morning. You can pay attention without having to actively think about what you're doing, just requires making it a habit.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fernly 9y agoIn a "level 3" system, how does it know the destination? I suppose, you have to put it in as with a normal GPS first? Then, what does it do at the point the GPS would say, "your destination is ahead on the right, the route guidance is now finished"?
- patd 9y agoMy VW's onboard GPS (same group as Audi) actually says "you have reached your destination" when passing in front of the destination. But I suppose it will probably start scanning the road for parking spots like in the auto park feature that exists for years like in this demo from a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt20UnkmkLI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt20UnkmkLI
- Matthias247 9y agoAs described the feature seems only to be for highways, so I guess it can only go straight / no turns. Most likely route guidance will tell the system that you need to take control before the required exit.
- metaphor 9y agoIn case anyone one else was wondering what these "levels of autonomy" that the article's author so haphazardly assumed was general knowledge, see SAE J3016A[1], which is free to download with a registered SAE account...or your favorite unofficial method. Table 2 on p. 19 of the 30-page recommendation is a nice TL;DR summary. Which begs the question...what part of Tesla Autopilot doesn't satisfy the SAE definition? [1] http://standards.sae.org/j3016_201609/ http://standards.sae.org/j3016_201609/
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoI found the Consumer Reports version easier to read, if at the cost of precision. http://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/levels-of-car-automation/ http://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/levels-of-...
- cmarschner 9y agoSummary: - level 2: "hands off" - level 3: "eyes off" - level 4: "mind off"
- jimmcslim 9y agoI remember reading recently that we should probably be avoiding level 3 in production altogether (and possibly even level 2), since the general populace doesn't have the capacity for responding quickly to failures in automatic guidance systems; unlike perhaps aircraft pilots who are intimately aware of the limitations of the systems.
- johansch 9y agohttps://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11518826/volvo-tesla-autopilot-autonomous-self-driving-car https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11518826/volvo-tesla-auto... "Victor says that Volvo believes that Level 3 autonomy, where the driver needs to be ready to take over at a moment's notice, is an unsafe solution. Because the driver is theoretically freed up to work on email or watch a video while the car drives itself, the company believes it is unrealistic to expect the driver to be ready to take over at a moment's notice and still have the car operate itself safely.
- kirillzubovsky 9y agoTesla fanboy here. It's a little silly to say "Our car is level 3 autonomy, but only when it comes to market sometimes next year." By then Tesla could be level 3 autonomy, as all that's required to achieve that is for Elon to push some software updates and voila, the car is now smarter than ever. Being capable of something in theory doesn't make it a practical statement, imo.
- gamblor956 9y agoTeslas do not have the required hardware to reach Level 3 autonomy unless they've been secretly including LIDAR in all of their vehicles.
- marvin 9y agoThat remains to be seen; Google has demonstrated that level 3 can be achieved with lidar and cameras, but no one has proved that it can not be achieved with the non-lidar sensor suite that Tesla uses.
- monk_e_boy 9y agoExactly, without lidar no one knows if the software AI will take 1 year to create or 10 years.
- slewis 9y agoThere are no specific hardware requirements for any of the levels of autonomy, that I'm aware of.
- crush-n-spread 9y agoHumans can drive perfectly fine with just two cameras and mirrors, I'm sure it's possible with Tesla's standard 8 cameras and neural net software.
- pacaro 9y agoHumans can drive perfectly well with monocular vision. Plenty of people either only have one eye, or don't integrate 3D for some reason. The variance on human driving ability is higher than we would accept from a machine, but I have two friends who don't have stereoscopic vision, and I trust both of them to drive me
- Frogolocalypse 9y agoIts looking more and more like I'm going to get what i want. I'm almost 50 so i could get a fully autonomous car before i can't drive. Won't that be awesome though?
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoI hope it is much sooner than that!
- kylegordon 9y agoI hope and expect it to be within the next 5 to 10 years, tbh.
- oblio 9y agoIt probably depends on your budget. For a $100k car? Could be. For a $20k car? Now that's quite a challenge!
- Fricken 9y ago5 or 10 bucks. Pay per trip.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoI hope we get this sooner than the privately-owned self-driving cars. So long as folks can buy monthly passes (or give poor folks the passes at free and/or reduced rates), I think this has the potential to greatly improve lives.
- maxerickson 9y agoMunicipalities that run demand response bus services will be quick adopters. One of their big costs is drivers, so they tend to use a few medium sized vehicles. No drivers, they move to smaller vehicles and deploy more of them (they probably even shift their level of service up, because why not).
- jimmcslim 9y agoThere seems to be a fairly big caveat in that "the A8 is capable of driving all by itself at speeds of up to 37 mph.". And also: "The traffic jam pilot only works on highways with a physical barrier separating oncoming traffic."
- moomin 9y agoSo, not in London where it would be useful...
- omarforgotpwd 9y ago37mph? Sounds like they're way behind what I've seen a Model S do.
- coldtea 9y agoYes, if we ignore the fatal accidents.
- whiskers08xmt 9y agoThe fatal accidents where the driver didn't respond to the warnings his car gave him?
- MertsA 9y agoNo, he's probably talking about the fatal accident where the car didn't give any warnings at all. When Joshua Brown died his car was in autopilot and it didn't brake and it didn't give any warnings at all before it hit the semi in front of it.
- coldtea 9y agoThere should be no role for a "driver" if the car is considered in self-driving mode. The "driver" would then be just a person sitting in the driver seat that could be snoring or playing games on their mobile phone, and generally be distracted out of their mind...
- Matthias247 9y agoBeyond the up-to 37mph "self-driving" I'm very sure the car also supports all the already available driver-assistance features (adaptive cruise control, lane assist, etc.) up to much higher speeds. Compared to the self-driving feature the lane-assist will bug you once you take your hands of the wheel for more than 10-30 seconds, and they require the driver to be able to always immediately take over control, because the manufacturer doesn't deem them as safe for real self-driving without human intervention. This is more comparable to what Tesla currently offers from my understanding, even though Tesla markets this more aggressively ("Autopilot").
- apexalpha 9y agoAs someone from Europe it is good to see the EU manufacturers finally showing some serious progress. I always chuckled a bit when (tech) press would say 'Google has beaten auto manufacturers' after Google released some PR videoclip of them showing a car driving. European car companies just don't see the need to enlighten the world about what they're up to, how they are progressing, but simply work until it's finished for production and then unveil it. Still haven't seen that 'vastly superiour' super-car from Google and Apple everyone claimed were coming to take over. Tesla does seem to succesfully run their company as a tech start-up: hyping new products that are 1 or 2 year from being in production, personification of the brand via the CEO god-status, continuous deliviry of software updates to cars, public beta testing etc.. I am rooting for Tesla, I hope they find the capability to increase production levels to something that comes near of the existing car giants.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago> There are a couple caveats, obviously. The traffic jam pilot only works on highways with a physical barrier separating oncoming traffic, and the use of the system is subject to the laws of whichever jurisdiction you’re driving through. So bone up on the rules of the road before pressing that button. Being able to self-drive on highways with physical barriers between oncoming traffic is, like, the easiest use case for self-driving cars. This doesn't very advanced to me at all. Urban driving is the actual hard part.
- muro 9y agoTrue. But it's nice to have that usable today :) Driving regularly on highways in Europe, it's a great feature and I'm glad my car supports it (~2yo Volvo). Looking forward to more in my next car. Edit: reading below, my car is ~L2, but I trust it more as L1.
- skgoa 9y agoTrue, but it's still the first time real world customers will be able to let the car take complete control/responsibility in real world traffic. For me as an automotive sw engineer this is truly massive step forward, even though what you see from the outside doesn't seem that impressive at a glance. Also, being stuck in a traffic jam during the daily comute is one of the most annoying and most stressing parts of driving. Not having to deal with this is a significant improvement in the driver's quality of life.
- dosshell 9y agoI just want to say congratulations to all of the engineers behind it who are reading this thread! Im impressed! Often when I see a big project come to an end I can not stop thinking about all the hours work put into something which didn't made it to the end. Features they had to abandon or wait with until next revision. Im very curious how good it will work and will try to get the hands on it as quickly as possible. :)
- grecy 9y ago> first production car to reach Level 3 autonomy > when it goes on sale next year > The traffic jam pilot only works on highways with a physical barrier separating oncoming traffic >Audi says it is rolling out this feature “gradually,” I applaud the development and effort, though I have had enough of people claiming to be first at things that are not yet possible to buy and use.
- WhiteSource1 9y agoI know the article mentioned NVIDIA GPUs but who are their partners? Is this developed by Mobileye?
- kuschku 9y agoIt's likely to be Sony, the VAG (owner of Audi, VW. Skoda, Seat, etc) has been working with Sony for many years, and had a Level 4 autonomous vehicle prototype in 2008.
- Ambroos 9y agoAccording to an Audi video on the new A8, this is the computing hardware inside: https://i.imgur.com/euwi7eZ.png https://i.imgur.com/euwi7eZ.png In short: - MobilEye EyeQ3 - Nvidia K1 - an Altera Cyclone FPGA - an Infineon Aurix microcontroller Each is used for a few different functions.
- WhiteSource1 9y agoThanks. Impressive specs. And it looks like Mobileeye is inside every self driving car I've seen.
- Lio 9y agoI must have missed something in the text but doesn't the current production VW Golf (part of the same company as Audi) also feature traffic jam assist and lane assist? I think it uses RADAR instead of LIDAR but I don't know for sure. Could any explain what the new A8 is offering in addition to the Golf?
- martinmusio7 9y agoI did not expect Audi to be at the forefront of autonomous cars! But what do these level exactly mean? 'Level 3' and 'level 4 by 2020'
- suprfnk 9y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Classification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Classificatio...
- andmarios 9y agoIn an advert I saw yesterday, this car also features wireless charging, through a charging plate installed on the ground. I know the HN crowd is very pro-Tesla but do not underestimate traditional car-makers.
- iplaw 9y agoThe new A8 looks quite a bit like the new Lincoln Continental. If you integrated the door handles on the A8 with the window trim, it'd be hard to distinguish between the two cars from an appreciable distance - at least the rear, profile, and 3/4 views. The rear light arrangement, the integrated dual exhaust ports, the silver trim character lines, even the A/B/C columns. A8: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1--FKfJ3y71OTTYIz91rno4mYNs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8832289/A178299_large.jpg https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1--FKfJ3y71OTTYIz91rno4mYNs=... Continental: https://www.cstatic-images.com/stock/1170x1170/99/img-1222639871-1488390548499.jpg https://www.cstatic-images.com/stock/1170x1170/99/img-122263...
- neilwilson 9y agoLevel 3: the "you need to stay awake even though you have absolutely nothing to do" mode. Probably going to turn out to be the most dangerous. I am planning on dying in my sleep, but not because a Level 3 autonomous car decided to throw a "Can't handle reality" exception. (This somewhat tongue in cheek response should in no way be read as denigrating the awesome technical achievement Level 3 represents. All speed to Level 4 and Level 5)
- tim333 9y agoNot sure with the Audi but Volvo's level 3 is being build to pull over and park if you are asleep when it wants to stop driving so not that dangerous.
- Ambroos 9y agoMy Audi A3 has traffic jam assist and can drive itself in traffic jams as well. Above 20km/h it'll require steering input every ~12 seconds, but not below. When it does not receive steering input it'll turn on the hazard lights and slowly come to a stop without leaving the lane it's in. Sensors: all-around ultrasonic, 1 monochrome camera, 1 front radar.
- kristoffer 9y agoThat's why it is level 4 ... (https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/207164/volvo-cars-ceo-urges-governments-and-car-industry-to-share-safety-related-traffic-data https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressrele...)
- t0mbstone 9y agoWell, to be fair, you could still die in your sleep in an autonomous car...
- yalogin 9y agoBut a Model S does all of this already. What makes this “far ahead” of a Tesla? Is it that I do t have to keep my hands on the steering wheel?
- doener 9y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14748510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14748510
- linsomniac 9y agoThis press release, when you read the details, is not very impressive. The headline sounds good, but the details are that it only works on highways, up to 38MPH, and won't be enabled right away; they are going to roll it out later. The one notable thing seems to be that you can be stuck in traffic and take your hands off the wheel, unlike Tesla where you have to have your hands on the wheel. I'm not sure how they call this "first", since it won't be on new cars released next year, until after some future software update, how is this different from Tesla that is already shipping cars that can do this and more with a software update? Full disclosure: in Dec I sold my Audi A8 to get a Model S. Currently, the Model S can basically drive itself in heavy traffic, but it will periodically want your hand(s) on the wheel. I recently was in stop and go traffic on a 2 lane road for an hour and the Tesla did great. The A8 won't be able to there, it won't work on anything but a divided highway which this was not. Don't get me wrong, I've had 5 Audis over the years and have loved them. But this really isn't "news", Audi is still playing catch up. Oh, and from the testing I've done this winter, the Tesla AWD system is at least as good as quattro. Probably better.
- rsync 9y ago"This press release, when you read the details, is not very impressive." This press release, like all high end / performance car press releases of the last 2-3 years, can be summed up as: "blah blah, not electric, blah blah" Like you, I am an ex-A8 owner who loved (loved!) those cars and have no interest in buying another one - no matter how nice or feature filled or well-designed they are. There's no way they don't know this and it becomes more and more stupefying that they cede this highest-of-margins segment to Tesla. "Oh, and from the testing I've done this winter, the Tesla AWD system is at least as good as quattro. Probably better." Exactly - it has two motors. My disappointment is wide and deep as the major manufacturers continue to refuse to make a modern car. However it is Audi and Volvo in particular whose inaction is truly mind-blowing. Audi because they could continue to own AWD/4WD and volvo because their target market is ripe for the aesthetic and social benefits of electric cars. Instead, Audi has spent ten years going down the "in 2-3 years we'll have an electric platform" and volvo has committed to a shitty-hybrids-with-lawnmower-engines-inside platform for the next 8-10 years.
- skywhopper 9y agoAt this point this is vaporware. The car is still nearly a year away from being on sale, and the software will come even later. Talking up something like this so far ahead is just an attempt to depress sales for its competition. Calling it "level 3 autonomy" is misleading as well, given how highly constrained the situations are in which it can operate at level 3. From what I can tell from the press release, it only promises that the car can handle a freeway traffic-jam situation, ie, it knows how to stay in a lane and not hit anyone when traffic is crawling on a freeway. Admittedly such a system would be nice for millions of people who commute through such conditions daily, but that is probably one of the easiest tasks for an autonomous system to perform because huge amounts of complexity can be ignored: pedestrians, cyclists, intersections, road hazards, trip routing. This is a baby step taken at the edge of a huge chasm. Good luck!
- t0mbstone 9y agoMy 2015 Hyundai Genesis can already do exactly that. It has automatic cruise control with lane keep assist. Sure, it beeps at me if I leave my hands off the wheel for more than 10 seconds, but if you disabled that in the firmware, it would technically work.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoSounds like a feature my Volvo XC-90 already has. Up to 35 MPH it can follow traffic in a traffic jam. If it gets confused it beeps and tells me I need to steer. I use it all the time, I love it! And it's a 1 year old car. I can only imagine what Volvo will have once the new Audi comes out. And I'm saying that as an Audi fan. My other car is an A4.
- cowardlydragon 9y agoAll hail our new AI slaves, which require less annoying upkeep and political wrangling than our old slave class. May we leverage the labor cost arbitration in our incubator startups to realize our capitalistic founders paradise and have only the human slaves we need for pleasure and mockery.
- skoocda 9y agoWhat I find even more exciting is that they're finally deploying their predictive suspension technology in a production model. What this system does is utilize the front cameras to scan and map the road surface ahead. It can then apply up to 20 kN of force via electric motors to raise or lower the wheels individually. This mitigates bumps from potholes or uneven roads, which, apart from being more comfortable, will also ensure the suspension lasts longer. This system also decreases body roll during turns, and squat / dive under accel / decel. All of it is powered by the 48V semi-hybrid electric system. Expect this to become much more commonplace with further electrification. Mercedes has a similar technology called Magic Body Control, but it can only tighten or loosen the dampeners, rather than directly move the wheels. What the Audi system can do, which the Merc cannot, is to raise the side of the car during an impending t-bone collision, which allows the main body structure to take the impact instead of the doors.
- mercer 9y agoThe impeding t-bone collision thing sounds fascinating. Do you by any chance have any links with more details on that?
- saturdaysaint 9y agoI find comparison tests, like this one from last year, far more useful than marketing or discussion of "levels": http://www.caranddriver.com/features/semi-autonomous-cars-compared-tesla-vs-bmw-mercedes-and-infiniti-feature http://www.caranddriver.com/features/semi-autonomous-cars-co.... tl;dr: Tesla's autopilot was substantially better than BMW, Infiniti, and Mercedes.