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The 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 l

The 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 ago
I think their point is the Tesla tech requires you to pay attention at least in theory while theirs does not.
- Urgo 9y ago
  In 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 ago
      Okay 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 ago
        There‘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 ago
        So 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 ago
    I'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 ago
      He'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 ago
My (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 ago
That'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 ago
  Do 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 ago
    It'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 ago
I thought Autopilot 2 was still not on feature parity with Autopilot 1, after Tesla switched off from MobilEye?
sschueller 9y ago
Listening to Tesla's PR you would think it's Level 3 but in reality it is not.
skgoa 9y ago
You 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.

0xCMP 9y ago

I think their point is the Tesla tech requires you to pay attention at least in theory while theirs does not.

Urgo 9y ago
In 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 ago
    Okay 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 ago
      There‘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 ago
        So 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 ago
  I'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 ago
    He'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 ago

My (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 ago

That'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 ago
Do 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 ago
  It'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 ago

I thought Autopilot 2 was still not on feature parity with Autopilot 1, after Tesla switched off from MobilEye?

sschueller 9y ago

Listening to Tesla's PR you would think it's Level 3 but in reality it is not.

skgoa 9y ago

You 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.