8 ms·

New Tesla software to offer 'full' autonomy, Musk says

25 points by uptown 8y ago

Piskvorrr 8y ago
I see dead people. (In other words: every time this is announced, users take it at face value, ignore the small print that says "um eh well not really, actually not at all," and people die, directly from that. Case in point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17257239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17257239 - I do not believe that a software update can go from this to that under half a year. Sorry for offending the technooptimists.)
italophil 8y ago
Does he mean full-autonomy as in: "enter a destination and be done with it"? That would be an amazing jump forward from the current system.
- vkou 8y ago
  That would be pretty amazing, considering that the hardware in a Tesla is incapable of detecting and avoiding stationary obstacles.
- martin_bech 8y ago
  Nope, better highway merging of lanes.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Maybe in the event of a crash it can automatically issue a press release blaming the driver?
isostatic 8y ago
How Odd Yahoo insist that for me to read this page they must store cookies on my machine [0] However when I load the page in lynx and choose "neVer accept cookies", the content loads just fine [1] [0] https://i.imgur.com/OIcmAby.png https://i.imgur.com/OIcmAby.png [1] https://i.imgur.com/ZdtpCxC.png https://i.imgur.com/ZdtpCxC.png
- JackCh 8y ago
  Noscript and/or umatrix kills that kind of crap.
Fricken 8y ago
"full self-driving features" What does that mean? The statement reads like it was carefully crafted to mean whatever Elon needs it to mean when it's time for it to mean something.
Tolika 8y ago
What's the point? Even if it were to be true, there's no regulation and approval for it to be used on public roads. Seems like another PR stunt from tesla to induce hype.
- Piskvorrr 8y ago
  And it's working. I've seen so many tweets and articles "Tesla announces fully autonomous cars" that I'm genuinely worried about what would happen if this announcement is actually fulfilled.
danielmg 8y ago
"...With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features," he said. "...begin to enable..." - bit of a jump to "full autonomy"
- mtgx 8y ago
  Begin to enable* *Terms and conditions still apply, so it's totally your fault if your get into a crash while in the new "fully self-driving" mode.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
When does this level of rhetoric approach criminal negligence? From the previous HN discussions about Tesla’s,s running into stationary objects, the problem seems like a fundamental design issue not likely to be fixed with software. This has already killed people. What happens when some poor person relies on Musk’s ‘full autonomy’ and gets killed? Elon Musk is the Elizabeth Holmes of self driving cars.
- _ph_ 8y ago
  The headline misquotes Musk. He did not announce full autonomy.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    That's exactly what he announced: > With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features The caveat ("begin to enable") doesn't change things. You might be at the beginning of pregnancy, but you're fully pregnant.
    - piker 8y ago
      > The caveat ("begin to enable") doesn't change things. You might be at the beginning of pregnancy, but you're fully pregnant. That would be correct if the Musk quote said they would "begin to enable" full autonomy. That assertion is distinguishable from beginning to enable features related to autonomy.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        You're changing the meaning by adding the word "related." Say Microsoft stated it would "will begin to enable full 8K features" on the XBox One. That would mean that something would be in 8K--maybe just for movies but not games. It wouldn't mean "features related to 8K" but not a actually being able to display 8K video anywhere.
        piker 8y ago
rayiner 8y ago
> "To date, Autopilot resources have rightly focused entirely on safety. With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features," he said. Running cars into medians at 70 mph is the result of "focus[ing] entirely on safety?" Now they're going to focus on other things, besides safety?
- lainga 8y ago
  "Now, our cars will focus on Jersey barriers as well."
- agumonkey 8y ago
  yeah like collision avoidance, which is not safety /s
- nickik 8y ago
  n=1
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 8y ago
    The sample size is irrelevant. The NTSB report reveals that the Tesla crashed into the median not because there was a glitch, but because the design of the system fundamentally wasn't capable of avoiding it. Tesla can't stop in response to stationary objects (likely because it can't tell the background apart from real obstacles and enabling breaking would cause too many false positives). That design is only safe if you have a human in the loop to do what the computer cannot do.
    - simion314 8y ago
      What seems weird to me is that when the car would get closer to the object the probability that a crash would happen should increase, Tesla could not get a high enough crash probability at all, even from 1 meter or 1 millisecond before impact and continued to accelerate.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dandare 8y ago
If it is true that Tesla will - by design - not try to stop in front of a stationary obstacle that should not be on the road, I don't understand how come Tesla autopilot and similar self-driving techniques are not immediately banned. Every driver knows stationary obstacles can and will appear on the road.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I'm a big Tesla fan (I have a Model 3 preorder) but this seems like a really dumb move in light of recent press coverage.
ckastner 8y ago
Well, this is going to get interesting. Blaming the customer might have worked for regular AutoPilot because of that legal footnote that AutoPilot-the-product is it not intended to be used as autopilot-the-concept, but good luck blaming the customer for a car that was in "full autonomy" mode. Edit: the timing of this announcement is so very premature, I believe there might be another motive to it. Perhaps Tesla wants to negotiate from a stronger position in the next financing round.
_ph_ 8y ago
To make it clear: the headline is completely wrong. Musk only announced a step towards autonomy which could be anything, but certainly not full autonomy. It could be as simple as extended self parking. From a software engineering perspective it is an interesting announcement. With all the obvious limitations of the current autopilot, Tesla must have been working on a very different package for full autonomy - we might see a first glimpse of it with that release.
- manyoso 8y ago
  Exactly! It is absurd how people hear Elon Musk say, "we will begin to enable full self-driving features..." and then conclude that Elon Musk was talking about full self-driving features. They are all just Tesla haters!
  - _ph_ 8y ago
    He said “full self driving features”, not “full self driving”. With the word “features” he refers to components of a system that will offer self driving, but not the whole system yet. These features could be better self parking, or traffic sign recognition, or the long talked about feature of changing between freeways autonomous.
    - manyoso 8y ago
      Exactly! Only Tesla Haters would think that "full self-driving features" would refer to features that enable fully autonomous driving... every common sense consumer out there will clearly understand that when Elon Musk says full self-driving features he clearly is referring to parallel parking helpers and such. All these Tesla Haters would have us think that Elon has a habit of going around raising unreasonable expectations through grand pronouncements when he's clearly just trying to tell consumers that soon they won't have to worry about parallel parking their cars!
ggg9990 8y ago
In the last 12 months it’s become clear that Musk relies on the same defensive self-aggrandizing bluster that makes Trump so ridiculous. Quite a quick trip down from demigod for him.
- rsynnott 8y ago
  There's always been an element of this to Musk's marketing, but it's gotten much more obvious lately, alright.
- sunstone 8y ago
  Given that Musk and his companies have accomplished some amazing things. Did you see the simultaneous rocket landings? So 'self aggrandizing bluster' may not be the phrase the you're looking for. How about 'low cost, highly effective guerilla marketing' based on past performance?
  - JackCh 8y ago
    > "low cost, highly effective guerilla marketing' based on past performance?" I'm not sure that quite covers it either, since at least in the case of SpaceX he had a sizable number people rooting for him back when his rockets were still blowing up every time. Back in the Falcon 1 days. I was one of them. I think rockets are really fucking cool. I think a lot of the leeway and fandom Elon has gotten comes from a hardcore contingent of rocket enthusiasts and electric car enthusiasts who really want to see him succeed because they were already passionate about that domain before Elon entered the picture.
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      In other words, wishful thinking > actual dead people, because they're not supposed to have died, therefore did not happen. Great Kool-Aid, mmmm.
  - ggg9990 8y ago
    Sure, his accomplishments are immense. But that doesn’t change the fact that he shipped an incomplete Autopilot and then tried to blame the guy who died using it.
matte_black 8y ago
Why bother with autonomy crap? Just focus on making cheap electric cars that can save the planet.
- avs733 8y ago
  because, as history has shown, that isn't a core competency of Tesla.
JackCh 8y ago
When is Tesla going to bite the bullet and issue a full recall so they can retrofit all existing Tesla cars with LIDAR? They are still claiming on their website: >"All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver." ...but without LIDAR that simply isn't true. Either the accident rate is going to accelerate, or their efforts to push out "full self-driving capability" will stall. And from what we've seen from this company so far, I'm afraid it's going to be the first. A recall to retrofit LIDAR is the only way they can save themselves from their marketing lie. They need to bite the bullet and fess up.
- sushibowl 8y ago
  Tesla disagrees with you on this, they are still operating with the belief that cameras will eventually be superior and cheaper compared to LIDAR. https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/7/16988628/elon-musk-lidar-self-driving-car-tesla https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/7/16988628/elon-musk-lidar-s...
  - JackCh 8y ago
    I know they disagree with me, they have multiple reasons to bury their heads in the sand. Admitting they were wrong would be a PR disaster, it would probably hurt Elon's ego, and a recall to retrofit LIDAR would probably be extremely costly. But if you talk with the leading experts in the field of car automation, the research groups who are actually making it work to some degree today, they are all using LIDAR. Furthermore you have people like the CTO of Mobileye saying that Tesla was trying to push Mobileye's tech beyond what it's capable of (past tense was, because Mobileye apparently dropped Tesla over this, prompting Tesla to develop their own presumably equivalent non-LIDAR solution in house): https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/09/tesla-dropped-by-mobileye-for-pushing-the-envelope-in-terms-of-safety/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/09/tesla-dropped-by-mobile...
    - ageofwant 8y ago
      No. LIDAR has its place, but it certainly a tech that has seen its day. Integrated sensor arrays consisting of multiple cameras and image processors can build more accurate situational awareness pictures faster. And to imply that Tesla's automation assist is not working is ridiculous.
Symmetry 8y ago
I'm worried he's talking about going from what the NHTSA calls level 2 to level 3 autonomy[1], where the car is capable of navigating all the way to the destination but the driver has to remain alert for potential dangerous situations. That's probably an even worse idea in terms of people actually complying than the existing level 2 autonomy and I think Waymo is absolutely right in trying to skip straight to level 4/5 autonomy where you don't need a human paying constant attention. [1]https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-vehicles-safety https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-vehicl...
- panarky 8y ago
  We need to work with some real numbers. In the US there are about 1.2 fatalities per 100 million miles driven [0]. About 19 months ago, Tesla said their cars logged 1.3 billion miles on autopilot [1]. I'd guess that autopilot number has at least doubled by now. So if there have been far fewer than 26 people killed by autopilot, then it's already saving lives. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... [1] https://electrek.co/2016/11/13/tesla-autopilot-billion-miles-data-self-driving-program/ https://electrek.co/2016/11/13/tesla-autopilot-billion-miles...
  - rayiner 8y ago
    That's the number of miles with autopilot-equipped hardware. It's only 100 million miles with autopilot engaged (from the article you cite). Let's say its 200 million now. They're at two confirmed deaths, which is about what you'd expect. To the extent the numbers are statistically significant, it's worse than you'd expect. The fatality rate for Telsa drivers is 1/4 the average. Since the overwhelming majority of miles on autopilot equipped hardware are driven with autopilot disabled (per your article), that means Tesla human drivers are a lot safer than the average. So you need 1 fatality per 300-400 million miles driven just to match human Tesla drivers.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    This is a deceptive use of statistics because it's papering over all the nuance involved. Not all road miles are equivalent. Specifically, Tesla Autopilot only functions (or is meant to function) in a very narrow subset of all conceivable driving conditions. Many of the situations that Tesla Autopilot isn't meant for are the most dangerous conditions that unassisted humans drive in. Furthermore the statistic doesn't break out the role of "Autopilot" features from the role of other safety features present in Tesla cars but not present in many other cars. More effective airbags, crumple zones, emergency braking(?) could all be lowering the fatality rate in Tesla cars enough to mask the "Tesla Autopilot" making driving more dangerous than if it weren't present. Tesla fatality rates should be compared against equivalent class cars when driven by humans under the conditions which Tesla Autopilot are meant for.
ummonk 8y ago
It will probably be catching up to the Audi A8's traffic jam pilot. I.e. full self driving under certain limited situations.
- Piskvorrr 8y ago
  "Full self-driving in limited situations" - do you even see the contradiction?
  - ummonk 8y ago
    I don't think that is a contradiction. It means that there are some situations (probably traffic jams) where the car can fully drive itself, instead of merely assisting you as you drive the car.
    - Piskvorrr 8y ago
      If there's a need for a human to take over (e.g. traffic jam dispersed and the car can no longer drive autonomously), that's not full autonomy (Level 5), that's weasel-autonomy (or, more charitably, Level 4): "autonomous, autonomous, auton-gotcha, not autonomous, that block straight ahead is your problem now." That does sound familiar, doesn't it.
throw7 8y ago
Wake me up when I can tell my car to go get serviced and come back by 5 so _I_ can drive home.
sunstone 8y ago
It seems like there's quite a difference in self driving technology between highspeed and lowspeed ability. Generally low speed seems to be pretty safe. But apparently all high speed systems have the "blind spot" of having to disregard stationary objects in front of them due to false positives from overhead highway signs, flyovers etc. So when there's a broken car in your lane on the freeway the autodriver will just slam right into it. I doubt the public will accept any system that has this kind of inherent flaw because it seems just insane to a human driver. This will probably have to be fixed before highway driving is approved but city driving, with a speed limit, might happen much sooner.
BloodyHands 8y ago
>New Tesla software to offer 'full' suicide, Musk says

25 points by uptown 8y ago

I see dead people. (In other words: every time this is announced, users take it at face value, ignore the small print that says "um eh well not really, actually not at all," and people die, directly from that. Case in point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17257239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17257239 - I do not believe that a software update can go from this to that under half a year. Sorry for offending the technooptimists.)

italophil 8y ago

Does he mean full-autonomy as in: "enter a destination and be done with it"? That would be an amazing jump forward from the current system.

vkou 8y ago
That would be pretty amazing, considering that the hardware in a Tesla is incapable of detecting and avoiding stationary obstacles.
martin_bech 8y ago
Nope, better highway merging of lanes.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
Maybe in the event of a crash it can automatically issue a press release blaming the driver?

isostatic 8y ago

How Odd Yahoo insist that for me to read this page they must store cookies on my machine [0] However when I load the page in lynx and choose "neVer accept cookies", the content loads just fine [1] [0] https://i.imgur.com/OIcmAby.png https://i.imgur.com/OIcmAby.png [1] https://i.imgur.com/ZdtpCxC.png https://i.imgur.com/ZdtpCxC.png

JackCh 8y ago
Noscript and/or umatrix kills that kind of crap.

Fricken 8y ago

"full self-driving features" What does that mean? The statement reads like it was carefully crafted to mean whatever Elon needs it to mean when it's time for it to mean something.

Tolika 8y ago

What's the point? Even if it were to be true, there's no regulation and approval for it to be used on public roads. Seems like another PR stunt from tesla to induce hype.

Piskvorrr 8y ago
And it's working. I've seen so many tweets and articles "Tesla announces fully autonomous cars" that I'm genuinely worried about what would happen if this announcement is actually fulfilled.

danielmg 8y ago

"...With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features," he said. "...begin to enable..." - bit of a jump to "full autonomy"

mtgx 8y ago
Begin to enable* *Terms and conditions still apply, so it's totally your fault if your get into a crash while in the new "fully self-driving" mode.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago

When does this level of rhetoric approach criminal negligence? From the previous HN discussions about Tesla’s,s running into stationary objects, the problem seems like a fundamental design issue not likely to be fixed with software. This has already killed people. What happens when some poor person relies on Musk’s ‘full autonomy’ and gets killed? Elon Musk is the Elizabeth Holmes of self driving cars.

_ph_ 8y ago
The headline misquotes Musk. He did not announce full autonomy.
- rayiner 8y ago
  That's exactly what he announced: > With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features The caveat ("begin to enable") doesn't change things. You might be at the beginning of pregnancy, but you're fully pregnant.
  - piker 8y ago
    > The caveat ("begin to enable") doesn't change things. You might be at the beginning of pregnancy, but you're fully pregnant. That would be correct if the Musk quote said they would "begin to enable" full autonomy. That assertion is distinguishable from beginning to enable features related to autonomy.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      You're changing the meaning by adding the word "related." Say Microsoft stated it would "will begin to enable full 8K features" on the XBox One. That would mean that something would be in 8K--maybe just for movies but not games. It wouldn't mean "features related to 8K" but not a actually being able to display 8K video anywhere.
      - piker 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago

> "To date, Autopilot resources have rightly focused entirely on safety. With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features," he said. Running cars into medians at 70 mph is the result of "focus[ing] entirely on safety?" Now they're going to focus on other things, besides safety?

lainga 8y ago
"Now, our cars will focus on Jersey barriers as well."
agumonkey 8y ago
yeah like collision avoidance, which is not safety /s
nickik 8y ago
n=1
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 8y ago
  The sample size is irrelevant. The NTSB report reveals that the Tesla crashed into the median not because there was a glitch, but because the design of the system fundamentally wasn't capable of avoiding it. Tesla can't stop in response to stationary objects (likely because it can't tell the background apart from real obstacles and enabling breaking would cause too many false positives). That design is only safe if you have a human in the loop to do what the computer cannot do.
  - simion314 8y ago
    What seems weird to me is that when the car would get closer to the object the probability that a crash would happen should increase, Tesla could not get a high enough crash probability at all, even from 1 meter or 1 millisecond before impact and continued to accelerate.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dandare 8y ago

If it is true that Tesla will - by design - not try to stop in front of a stationary obstacle that should not be on the road, I don't understand how come Tesla autopilot and similar self-driving techniques are not immediately banned. Every driver knows stationary obstacles can and will appear on the road.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

I'm a big Tesla fan (I have a Model 3 preorder) but this seems like a really dumb move in light of recent press coverage.

ckastner 8y ago

Well, this is going to get interesting. Blaming the customer might have worked for regular AutoPilot because of that legal footnote that AutoPilot-the-product is it not intended to be used as autopilot-the-concept, but good luck blaming the customer for a car that was in "full autonomy" mode. Edit: the timing of this announcement is so very premature, I believe there might be another motive to it. Perhaps Tesla wants to negotiate from a stronger position in the next financing round.

_ph_ 8y ago

To make it clear: the headline is completely wrong. Musk only announced a step towards autonomy which could be anything, but certainly not full autonomy. It could be as simple as extended self parking. From a software engineering perspective it is an interesting announcement. With all the obvious limitations of the current autopilot, Tesla must have been working on a very different package for full autonomy - we might see a first glimpse of it with that release.

manyoso 8y ago
Exactly! It is absurd how people hear Elon Musk say, "we will begin to enable full self-driving features..." and then conclude that Elon Musk was talking about full self-driving features. They are all just Tesla haters!
- _ph_ 8y ago
  He said “full self driving features”, not “full self driving”. With the word “features” he refers to components of a system that will offer self driving, but not the whole system yet. These features could be better self parking, or traffic sign recognition, or the long talked about feature of changing between freeways autonomous.
  - manyoso 8y ago
    Exactly! Only Tesla Haters would think that "full self-driving features" would refer to features that enable fully autonomous driving... every common sense consumer out there will clearly understand that when Elon Musk says full self-driving features he clearly is referring to parallel parking helpers and such. All these Tesla Haters would have us think that Elon has a habit of going around raising unreasonable expectations through grand pronouncements when he's clearly just trying to tell consumers that soon they won't have to worry about parallel parking their cars!

ggg9990 8y ago

In the last 12 months it’s become clear that Musk relies on the same defensive self-aggrandizing bluster that makes Trump so ridiculous. Quite a quick trip down from demigod for him.

rsynnott 8y ago
There's always been an element of this to Musk's marketing, but it's gotten much more obvious lately, alright.
sunstone 8y ago
Given that Musk and his companies have accomplished some amazing things. Did you see the simultaneous rocket landings? So 'self aggrandizing bluster' may not be the phrase the you're looking for. How about 'low cost, highly effective guerilla marketing' based on past performance?
- JackCh 8y ago
  > "low cost, highly effective guerilla marketing' based on past performance?" I'm not sure that quite covers it either, since at least in the case of SpaceX he had a sizable number people rooting for him back when his rockets were still blowing up every time. Back in the Falcon 1 days. I was one of them. I think rockets are really fucking cool. I think a lot of the leeway and fandom Elon has gotten comes from a hardcore contingent of rocket enthusiasts and electric car enthusiasts who really want to see him succeed because they were already passionate about that domain before Elon entered the picture.
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    In other words, wishful thinking > actual dead people, because they're not supposed to have died, therefore did not happen. Great Kool-Aid, mmmm.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  Sure, his accomplishments are immense. But that doesn’t change the fact that he shipped an incomplete Autopilot and then tried to blame the guy who died using it.

matte_black 8y ago

Why bother with autonomy crap? Just focus on making cheap electric cars that can save the planet.

avs733 8y ago
because, as history has shown, that isn't a core competency of Tesla.

JackCh 8y ago

When is Tesla going to bite the bullet and issue a full recall so they can retrofit all existing Tesla cars with LIDAR? They are still claiming on their website: >"All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver." ...but without LIDAR that simply isn't true. Either the accident rate is going to accelerate, or their efforts to push out "full self-driving capability" will stall. And from what we've seen from this company so far, I'm afraid it's going to be the first. A recall to retrofit LIDAR is the only way they can save themselves from their marketing lie. They need to bite the bullet and fess up.

sushibowl 8y ago
Tesla disagrees with you on this, they are still operating with the belief that cameras will eventually be superior and cheaper compared to LIDAR. https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/7/16988628/elon-musk-lidar-self-driving-car-tesla https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/7/16988628/elon-musk-lidar-s...
- JackCh 8y ago
  I know they disagree with me, they have multiple reasons to bury their heads in the sand. Admitting they were wrong would be a PR disaster, it would probably hurt Elon's ego, and a recall to retrofit LIDAR would probably be extremely costly. But if you talk with the leading experts in the field of car automation, the research groups who are actually making it work to some degree today, they are all using LIDAR. Furthermore you have people like the CTO of Mobileye saying that Tesla was trying to push Mobileye's tech beyond what it's capable of (past tense was, because Mobileye apparently dropped Tesla over this, prompting Tesla to develop their own presumably equivalent non-LIDAR solution in house): https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/09/tesla-dropped-by-mobileye-for-pushing-the-envelope-in-terms-of-safety/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/09/tesla-dropped-by-mobile...
  - ageofwant 8y ago
    No. LIDAR has its place, but it certainly a tech that has seen its day. Integrated sensor arrays consisting of multiple cameras and image processors can build more accurate situational awareness pictures faster. And to imply that Tesla's automation assist is not working is ridiculous.

Symmetry 8y ago

I'm worried he's talking about going from what the NHTSA calls level 2 to level 3 autonomy[1], where the car is capable of navigating all the way to the destination but the driver has to remain alert for potential dangerous situations. That's probably an even worse idea in terms of people actually complying than the existing level 2 autonomy and I think Waymo is absolutely right in trying to skip straight to level 4/5 autonomy where you don't need a human paying constant attention. [1]https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-vehicles-safety https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-vehicl...

panarky 8y ago
We need to work with some real numbers. In the US there are about 1.2 fatalities per 100 million miles driven [0]. About 19 months ago, Tesla said their cars logged 1.3 billion miles on autopilot [1]. I'd guess that autopilot number has at least doubled by now. So if there have been far fewer than 26 people killed by autopilot, then it's already saving lives. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... [1] https://electrek.co/2016/11/13/tesla-autopilot-billion-miles-data-self-driving-program/ https://electrek.co/2016/11/13/tesla-autopilot-billion-miles...
- rayiner 8y ago
  That's the number of miles with autopilot-equipped hardware. It's only 100 million miles with autopilot engaged (from the article you cite). Let's say its 200 million now. They're at two confirmed deaths, which is about what you'd expect. To the extent the numbers are statistically significant, it's worse than you'd expect. The fatality rate for Telsa drivers is 1/4 the average. Since the overwhelming majority of miles on autopilot equipped hardware are driven with autopilot disabled (per your article), that means Tesla human drivers are a lot safer than the average. So you need 1 fatality per 300-400 million miles driven just to match human Tesla drivers.
- JackCh 8y ago
  This is a deceptive use of statistics because it's papering over all the nuance involved. Not all road miles are equivalent. Specifically, Tesla Autopilot only functions (or is meant to function) in a very narrow subset of all conceivable driving conditions. Many of the situations that Tesla Autopilot isn't meant for are the most dangerous conditions that unassisted humans drive in. Furthermore the statistic doesn't break out the role of "Autopilot" features from the role of other safety features present in Tesla cars but not present in many other cars. More effective airbags, crumple zones, emergency braking(?) could all be lowering the fatality rate in Tesla cars enough to mask the "Tesla Autopilot" making driving more dangerous than if it weren't present. Tesla fatality rates should be compared against equivalent class cars when driven by humans under the conditions which Tesla Autopilot are meant for.

ummonk 8y ago

It will probably be catching up to the Audi A8's traffic jam pilot. I.e. full self driving under certain limited situations.

Piskvorrr 8y ago
"Full self-driving in limited situations" - do you even see the contradiction?
- ummonk 8y ago
  I don't think that is a contradiction. It means that there are some situations (probably traffic jams) where the car can fully drive itself, instead of merely assisting you as you drive the car.
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    If there's a need for a human to take over (e.g. traffic jam dispersed and the car can no longer drive autonomously), that's not full autonomy (Level 5), that's weasel-autonomy (or, more charitably, Level 4): "autonomous, autonomous, auton-gotcha, not autonomous, that block straight ahead is your problem now." That does sound familiar, doesn't it.

throw7 8y ago

Wake me up when I can tell my car to go get serviced and come back by 5 so _I_ can drive home.

sunstone 8y ago

It seems like there's quite a difference in self driving technology between highspeed and lowspeed ability. Generally low speed seems to be pretty safe. But apparently all high speed systems have the "blind spot" of having to disregard stationary objects in front of them due to false positives from overhead highway signs, flyovers etc. So when there's a broken car in your lane on the freeway the autodriver will just slam right into it. I doubt the public will accept any system that has this kind of inherent flaw because it seems just insane to a human driver. This will probably have to be fixed before highway driving is approved but city driving, with a speed limit, might happen much sooner.

BloodyHands 8y ago

>New Tesla software to offer 'full' suicide, Musk says