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A difficult experience with Autopilot in the mountains of Canada
- vanjoe 9y agoNote, this was not some winding two-lane so typical of BC interior (Though this is getting better). This is a good road that was recently upgraded for the 2010 Olympics.
- brailsafe 9y agoCame here to say the same. I've been waiting to see some mention of the use of autonomy throughout the coastal or rocky mountains. This road can be deceptively tricky, but relatively easygoing. I'd like to see a test of it from Salmon Arm to Banff or from Hope to Penticton. I'd also add that these roads are scary in the best conditions.
- mitjak 9y agoI just wanted to add that having taken it multiple times with an experienced driver I've still felt scared af. It's very winding.
- arethuza 9y agoIs it really that bad - I drove to Whistler once from Vancouver airport and I don't remember anything unusual about the road. Didn't seem that bad compared to similar roads in Scotland, Scandinavia or the Alps that I have driven on.
- mitjak 9y agoIt was bad enough to scare me, as stated
- hkjayakumar 9y agoFor those who are unaware, it's called the Sea-to-sky highway [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Highway_99 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_Highway_99
- nisse72 9y agoHere's what it looked like just 44 years before the olympics: https://www.tranbc.ca/2015/09/10/bc-road-trip-time-machine-highway-99-from-horseshoe-bay-to-squamish/ https://www.tranbc.ca/2015/09/10/bc-road-trip-time-machine-h...
- jcranmer 9y agoAnd here's what it looked like just 2 years before the olympics: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/amazing-no-one-hurt-during-b-c-rock-slide-minister-1.312301 http://bc.ctvnews.ca/amazing-no-one-hurt-during-b-c-rock-sli... (I was in Whistler at the time that rockslide happened.)
- scoot 9y agoOne again though, people are forgetting that "Autopilot" is just a marketing name for adavanced lane assist and adaptive cruise control (albeit of a relatively sophisticated variety). Expecting it to be able to cope with anything outside routine road conditions is a fools errand.
- masklinn 9y ago> people are forgetting that "Autopilot" is just a marketing name for adavanced lane assist and adaptive cruise control That, though, is due to intentionally deceitful branding.
- SEJeff 9y agoFrom Tesla's own website: Enhanced Autopilot Enhanced Autopilot adds these new capabilities to the Tesla Autopilot driving experience. Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near, self-park when near a parking spot and be summoned to and from your garage. Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot software has begun rolling out and features will continue to be introduced as validation is completed, subject to regulatory approval. Seems pretty sensible and not deceptive to me. To me, that says cruise control++, and not full self driving. The AP2 does do all of the things it says above, just depending on the roads. They say that Teslas have the hardware for full self driving, but not that they're capable of it yet.
- masklinn 9y ago"Hey if you read the fine print and ignore all of the popular culture associated with the term it does exactly what you're sold on". > To me, that says cruise control++ Here's an idea: call it "cruise control++", or call it "drive assistance", or call it anything which clearly spells out that it doesn't drive on its own. AKA more or less every other car brand does.
- pps43 9y agoTesla autopilot is not that different from its namesake in airplanes. Autopilot does not fly the plane from JFK to LAX, it only maintains speed, altitude and heading. If anything unusual happens, autopilot disengages and drops controls back to the pilot. So Tesla is not deceiving anyone.
- everdev 9y agoI can't wait for autopilot in mainstream vehicles but I'm not sure if I'd want to discover an "edge case" (pun intended) on a narrow mountain pass with no guardrails.
- dmix 9y agoNor do most people want to deal with "edge case" bugs in any software. Fortunately there has always been an endless supply of people who love trying out new cutting-edge technology who are willing to take this risk... even when it means driverless cars on potentially dangerous roads.
- digi_owl 9y agoAnd all to often people get shanghaied into being guinea pigs by some "push to prod" dev...
- smegel 9y agoI am not sure I would want to discover an edge case anywhere.
- skgoa 9y ago> I can't wait for autopilot in mainstream vehicles This is here already. E.g. pretty much every VW can be ordered with it.
- dougherty 9y agoI drive a Passat GTE with lane assist and adaptive cruise control, but if you let go of the wheel for more than a few seconds it starts nagging you to take control of the vehicle again.
- Daniel_sk 9y agoYeah, probably the same thing as in Skoda vehicles - it's a dumb lane assist tool, it's just a single camera that is watching the line markings on the road. This is only good for highways where it helps you to steer the wheel and you can relax a little more (hands on the wheel). This is far from any autopilot. It would drive you off the road in case of a wrongly painted line :-).
- Animats 9y agoWho's "Nicholas Cronin", the guy behind this web site?
- driverlessnick 9y agoI'm Nick. Nice to connect. Just a guy interested in the transition from manual vehicles to autonomous ones.
- arbie 9y agoThe idea behind this site is great. Will you have a reference section to discover car models and their SAE autonomy level? Manufacturers make this hard to compare today with their marketing terms, and I see this becoming a key differentiator for tech-savvy buyers.
- driverlessnick 9y agoThanks for the feedback! We will be breaking it down by OEM and model to add to the usefulness. I think we will leave the classifying of the SAE autonomy level to the OEM though. But by sharing real world experiences, buyers will have something else to make a decision on other than the marketing terms like you mentioned. Thanks again for taking a look!
- himom 9y agoSounds like a special remote video collab for YouTuber Bjørn in Norway to don racecar protective gear and try to break an X using Autopilot.
- hluska 9y agoIn the Tesla's defence, I am from the prairie provinces and find the Vancouver -> Whistler road a little too much to handle....:)
- sandworm101 9y agoLol. That is the famous "sea to sky" highway. You should have seen it before the 2010 olympic upgrades. It is a runway compared to what it once was. It isnt really a mountain highway but a coastal route. It follows a train track most of the way. You all know it. Something like half of north america's car commercials are filmed in vancouver, and many of those use the s2s. I used to ride it several times a week on my vfr. The real rollercoaster starts north of whistler: the dirty dusty duffy lake road.
- creator_lol 9y agoI love it in the dark at 2am with bears running across the road, love those single lane bridges also. Wonder how automation deals with single lane bridges.
- sandworm101 9y agoOn the duffy, but there are no one-lane bridges on the s2s.
- jbarham 9y ago> I used to ride it several times a week on my vfr. The real rollercoaster starts north of whistler: the dirty dusty duffy lake road. Small world! I've ridden that very same road on my VFR several times: http://www.jbarham.com/photo/lillooet http://www.jbarham.com/photo/lillooet (although last time I did that was probably 2004)
- dawnerd 9y agoEither filmed there or between Malibu and Oxnard in SoCal.
- toomanybeersies 9y agoHow badly do you get motion sickness when using autopilot? I find (like most people), that I don't get carsick when driving a car myself, but tend to get it as a passenger. With autopilot you're not really driving, but if you have your hands on the wheel, you sort of are driving.
- Theodores 9y ago...motion sickness is not always what it seems, how do you not know that you have low level carbon monoxide poisoning from breathing in car fumes? As a driver you may be that bit more alert with a road to concentrate on, as a passenger you might just be not able to fence off the symptoms - feeling sick, failing vision etc. The reason I say this is that a Tesla has the best air-con, the auto-pilot and no emissions, so 'sickness' could be nothing to do with 'motion sickness'.
- tylerhou 9y agoUnless your exhaust feeds directly into your car or are driving inside, it's unlikely that you can get low level carbon monoxide poisoning in a modern car.
- masklinn 9y agoIt's not merely unlikely it's completely nonsensical. You don't get motion sickness in nose-to-tail traffic jams where gas poisoning could actually be an issue. Furthermore the average passenger car produces 20 times more CO2 (by weight) than CO (the ratio is even more skewed for diesel cars).
- toomanybeersies 9y agoBecause even if I wind the windows right down to try and get some fresh air, I still feel like shit.
- shane999 9y agoWhat’s interesting is there is a local company that sells a package where you pay a fee to drive super cars on this road. That includes a Model S and they get you to enable auto pilot to experience it. My buddy tried it and said it worked just fine - on the winding road before you get to Squamish. I guess my anecdote is just as invalid/valid as the author’s.
- ataturk 9y agoI had a nasty (ok fun) snow-filled commute the other morning. It was still dark out, the roads were a combination of slush, and heavy snow that obliterated all the lines, and the windshield and front of my car were caked over. It was slippery and overall challenging, even for an AWD car with a very experienced driver behind the wheel. On one two-lane street, I had to dodge an oncoming car that was too far into my lane because that clueless idiot could not tell where the center line was. I can't fathom how an autonomous vehicle could navigate such conditions.
- sunstone 9y agoSo it turns out that autopilot's capabilities are quite similar to drivers from Alberta :)
- revmoo 9y agoThis is not an article
- staunch 9y agoAutopilot, like most software during development, is not ready for real use.