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Tesla Autopilot has driven over 1.2B estimated miles
- Retric 8y agoAt ~1.2 deaths per 100 million miles in the US you would expect approximately ~10-20 deaths over that distance. Adjusted for type of car and driving conditions. Autopilot seems to be around those numbers which is promising assuming continued improvements. Though it's not currently dramatically safer their is reasonable expectation it will improve over time.
- jordache 8y agoyou forgot that auto pilot likely is only used or only works under certain conditions. So that 1.2B miles is selective. You can't extrapolate that to the 10-20 deaths, which I assume you calculated from ALL miles driven
- Ienuur4i 8y agoBut are the parts that are easy for machines also what is easy for humans? Human attention decreases when things get more simpler and more monotonous while an autopilot can deliver constant attention.
- adrianN 8y agoThe problem with systems like autopilot is that the human still needs to pay attention. The driver needs to take over in a matter of seconds when the system encounters a situation in can't handle. Autopilot makes things simpler and more monotonous while still requiring perfect attention from the human.
- Retric 8y agoIn theory that's a huge problem. In practice we have 1.X billion miles of data and it does not seem to be such a huge deal. Either the systems are already fairly good, or people mostly pay attention. Granted, I am approaching this from the perspective of a more relaxing driving experience not necessarily from a pure safety standpoint. People spend 20,000+ hours driving in a lifetime making that less stressful is a huge benefit even if they are still stuck in their cars and can't get work done.
- simion314 8y agoWe need better number to do this comparisons, similar car models, similar roads conditions, similar driver population, since Tesla keeps the data hidden from the public I incline to believe the data is not in Tesla favor.
- bvm 8y agoWould highway/motorway/autobahn miles be an acceptable substitution?
- Retric 8y agoI specifically mentioned but did not do that adjustment because I don't have good data.
- evfanknitram 8y agoWhat does "type of car" mean here? Is it brand+price or something else?
- druidcz 8y agoI suppose it should mean something like "full-size luxury AWD limousine", as death rates vary with car size, type, price and driven wheels [1] [1] http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr5203.pdf http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr5203.pdf
- coldtea 8y ago>At ~1.2 deaths per 100 million miles in the US you would expect approximately ~10-20 deaths over that distance. Adjusted for type of car and driving conditions. That will be a huge adjustment that they seem to not be doing. So any numbers of DUI deaths riding an 1990s semi-broken car is compared to an autopilot death in an expensive state of the art car with great engine, speed, and breaks. How about we get the deaths per miles for non-coke users driving Tesla-like sports cars?
- Retric 8y agoI am not sure how 'huge' that would be. But, be careful when trying to get more accurate estimates as the tendency is to look for things that move Numbers into the directions you think they should go not just to increase the accuracy of each estimate.
- coldtea 8y ago>as the tendency is to look for things that move Numbers into the directions you think they should go Even if misleading in the too cautious direction, that would be a better step towards safety than the numbers the car makers give. Besides the same argument could be made for too much drug testing, against e.g. a snake-oil promoter.
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- mannykannot 8y agoTesla insists that drivers pay attention at all times, to catch cases where the system fails. Without numbers on how often that happens, these figures give no quantitative evidence for its effectiveness.
- cup-of-tea 8y agoWhat's an "estimated mile"?
- GrumpyNl 8y agoWhen your source is a Elon Musk Tweet, the credibility of the report goes down the drain.
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- lgbr 8y agoThe more the better, I find. For all the hate that Autopilot gets, it really is a game changer, and I can see consumers demanding this and similar technology in all cars from now on. A majority of the driving that I do, both per mile and per minute, are spent on Autopilot, and the sheer convenience is night and day. Being able to open a bottle of water, to tweak the navigation or change the song, or to be able to just have a second set of eyes in case you're not paying attention really has a huge benefit. At the moment, there remains some bugs to work out, as last night Autopilot decided to slam on the brakes at 150 km/h on the autobahn for no reason, but given how close it is to perfection on freeways, and how many improvements I see in the updates, I'll go so far as to say we should be requiring this technology in all cars like we now require emergency braking and backup cameras.
- Tomte 8y agoYou just need to be aware that what you're doing is illegal. Did you even know that? That's the problem with Tesla. They show autonomous driving, make big claims, talk about "autopilot". And in the fine print they say in legalese that few people understand or even notice that this all isn't available right now and you must never leave your autopilot unattended.
- swarnie_ 8y agoCan you explain for the uninformed what exactly is illegal about OP's actions?
- samfisher83 8y agoIts really not autopilot. Its adaptive cruise control and lane keeping. Why don't we compare it to other cars lane keeping and adaptive cruise control.
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- chaosphere2112 8y agoAs an owner of a car with ACC and lane keeping, I frequently get to experience the always fun sensation of my car accelerating full bore at a turn. My understanding is that Tesla actually made the two systems talk to each other, which is definitely not the case in my Honda. Calling it "just" ACC and lane keeping is disingenuous.
- ModernMech 8y ago> Calling it "just" ACC and lane keeping is disingenuous. I'd rather err on the side of underselling it by calling it ACC than overselling it by calling it Auto Pilot. But I'm not in marketing so what do I know?
- kmonsen 8y agoI have an Audi and they actually include gps data in the ACC so it slows down before curves. It is a setting that can be turned off.
- anant90 8y agoI don't understand how reports like these make sense. A mile driven by a Waymo/Cruise car on route/conditions carefully chosen to test an update, or gather data on a new type of route/conditions is way more valuable than another mile driven on the same freeway stretch/conditions that already works perfectly. Just totaling up the number of miles driven seems to be the vanity metric of the Self-Driving Car industry.
- ModernMech 8y agoIt's the same thing Apple did with the app store. They touted the number of apps they hosted, even though tons of them were things like a trip guide per every city on the planet. Not a useful metric, but then every other app store used the metric and then it became a competition about who had the most apps. This is what happens when people enter a new market: They look for metrics, any metrics, and then optimize on those (because that is how business usually makes money in well understood fields) even if they are not really representative.
- jfoster 8y agoPretty much every business will use different numbers in marketing themselves than they should be using to measure the health of their business. The purpose of marketing numbers is different, because they have to sound impressive to a broad audience rather than the most critical thinkers within that audience.
- deegles 8y agoThis metric is at best misleading. It's presented as a proxy for safety, but that should only apply to a single hardware/software combination. I want to know how many miles are driven (both IRL and in simulation) per software release? If you accept that the Autopilot software improves over time, then you accept that it changes over time. If it's changing, then there will be situations that will behave differently in the future. The implicit assumption is "the software will only make better driving decisions with each point release", but that doesn't follow! There's no proof that a situation that was driven safely by version 1.1 will also be driven safely by version 1.2 (unless it was tested in simulation). If this means the pace of self-driving development would slow down, then so be it. I wouldn't let a driver turn on Autopilot with me in it.
- vinay_ys 8y agoHow many unique miles is driven? And unique lighting and traffic conditions were they driven in? (day/night/season/location) Do those miles have sensor in/out recordings that can be used for training autopilot or building simulators?
- lleddell82 8y agoI've followed this groups research over the past year or so. Their approach to understanding the (human) issues behind semi-automated driving are quite intriguing, yet they haven't produced much research on the topic. Waiting to see where this goes.