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What is notable is level 3. Not the features, but the legal aspect of claiming drivers can now be distracted with your mode. Tesla "auto"pilot does more, while

What is notable is level 3. Not the features, but the legal aspect of claiming drivers can now be distracted with your mode. Tesla "auto"pilot does more, while pretending to enforce an always alert driver. This has resulted in a couple wrongful deaths no one at Tesla has been prosecuted for. Honda meanwhile is taking advantage of the Japanese governments legal changes which make level 3 legally tenable. Drivers need not watch the road, but they must respond when the car asks them to. This means Honda is promising your Honda will not silently drive you into a wall as the Tesla autopilot is known to do.

Robotbeat 6y ago
Of course, since they’re only releasing 100 of them, that’s a low bar. Tesla has sold over a million vehicles.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
judge2020 6y ago
> while pretending to enforce an always alert driver. To be fair amongst automakers, not many other mass-market car is different (right now) - they only auto-steer if the user applies torque to the wheel periodically and beep at the driver if torque isn't applied every 10/30 seconds (30 seconds is only set for interstates from my experience). Only sometime this year will the Ford Mustang Mach-E get an optional $600 upgrade to enable hands-off-the-wheel driving which uses hardware (already installed) in the steering wheel to monitor the driver's road attentiveness[0]. 0: https://www.slashgear.com/ford-active-drive-assist-mustang-mach-e-f150-hands-free-driver-assistance-pricing-release-roadmap-30645118/#post-prep:~:text=The%20software%20will%20then%20be%20%24600,of%20subscription%20to%20Active%20Drive%20Assist https://www.slashgear.com/ford-active-drive-assist-mustang-m.... e: no other -> not many other - apparently Cadillac has eye tracking
- GhostVII 6y ago
  Cadillac supercruise has eye tracking that makes sure you are watching the road.
  - BadOakOx 6y ago
    Doug Demuro has a nice video about this: https://youtu.be/AhthZ5rxQJs https://youtu.be/AhthZ5rxQJs
- ineedasername 6y ago
  How does it determine torque application if you're on a straight away? Or does it detect hands-on-wheel? (Preferably both)
  - bootlooped 6y ago
    With Honda you must move the wheel a bit, even if it's not necessary for correcting the car's direction. It does not detect if your hands are merely on the wheel, that would be nicer though.
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    My Hyundai applies a bit of resistance to the steering wheel, so I need to keep the opposite torque. It won't drive to a ditch if I let go, but will start howling after 20-30 seconds of not touching the wheel.
- jjmorrison 6y ago
  I agree - I don't know how it use to work, but today, Tesla's a pretty pushy about keep you alert. I can't imagine blaming my car for crashing when I'm using autopilot.
- cvak 6y ago
  Since last Passat facelift, all* VWs have capacitive steering wheel, where it is enough to just have a hand on it. I also think other carmakers moved to this in past ~2 years.
gfodor 6y ago
Your last sentence should read: ... as previous versions of Tesla autopilot have done. Talking about any one of these systems via their branding as if they are a singular fixed thing (and not a network of software versions and models under continual update) leads to bad mental models.
- Danieru 6y ago
  Here is your "but this time it is fine" Autopilot attempting to murder yet another driver just 9 months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    It looks like the car at least tried to stop. I'm sure some software engineer at Tesla saw that and said "Yes! A real-world UAT on the latest don't hit stationary objects point release! Now I can close out that story in Jira."
  - jcims 6y ago
    What a bunch of zombies holy moly.
  - zhte415 6y ago
    I suppose we need more captcha images of overturned trucks rather than a brain behind the wheel.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    Here is a human driving into 36 cars: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u5KgLVh-4Mg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u5KgLVh-4Mg Here is another doing a burnout and crashing into a store, a month ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tJu5TZ6rwXg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tJu5TZ6rwXg Human-driven truck runs straight into a 100-car pile up, 1 month ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VqNy7v5YekM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VqNy7v5YekM Beat that, Tesla!
    - bildung 6y ago
ineedasername 6y ago
It won't silently drive them into a wall, but at 65mph it might only give them just enough time to look up and panic as they hit the wall, internal alarms blaring for their attention. Lane keeping combined with construction combined with curves in the road won't be a good mix for for distracted drivers in these cars.
- stubish 6y ago
  How far ahead to the sensors work? Maybe there is lots of time at 100km/h. They certainly need to look far enough ahead to detect a stationary object in the road and come to a complete stop, as does a human. A car coming towards you in the wrong lane at 100km/h is a different kettle of fish though (as it is for a human). Over here, the speed limit with road works is 40km/h
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    In the US on highways the speed limit near construction generally drops from the usual 65mph/105kmh down to 50 or 55mph/85kmh. I think the federal reference is 45mph to 55mph, but in my experience it's usually at the highest level, 55mph, unless there's really active work with crew on the ground. If you're accustomed to 40kmh, I can only imagine how insane these speeds probably seem to you. (And I'm not saying you'd be wrong in that) Overall, the problem of course comes down to reaction speed. An attentive human with hands on the wheel might respond in 250ms. A computer obviously can respond faster. But some problems won't give you any more than that 250ms to respond. Situations where faster sensors or cpu are meaningless in giving the driver more warning because there is literally only 250ms from onset of stimulus to the time needed for a reaction if catastrophe is to be avoided. Meaning that if the computer can't respond without human intervention, an inattentive driver is screwed because their 250ms reaction speed was based on them already paying attention. To break it down in rough estimates: 1) The car detects & make its own assessment and raises an alarm. 1ms? 10ms?, It almost doesn't matter. 2) The human receives & registers the alert. This is the initial 250ms reaction time. 3) Only then can the real work begin: The human, from a cold start, needs to take in the entire situation and understand what's going on. This is more than just reaction speed. This is task switching, which is cognitively more costly, especially for un-practiced tasks, and the task here is rapid analysis & synthesis of a panic inducing situation that most people never experience. 750ms is probably about right, based on research that shows the cognitive burden of task switching can be even higher [0] So, a full 1000ms, a full second. This is way, way too slow. As I said at the beginning, there are moments driving where that 250ms is required to avoid catastrophe. When those situations arise then there is simply not enough time for the car to get help of an inattentive driver to respond. It's simply not possible. Either the car makes the decision, or the human has just enough time to go wide-eyed before it's over. Basically the only situations where the car's notifications can facilitate meaningful human response are those that can be foreseen at least a full 1000ms in advance. Certainly this encompasses a lot of difficult scenarios, but not many of the most dangerous ones. Any time a split-second decision saved the life of a driver? That same driver, if inattentive when the car's alert comes in, is now dead. There is simply no self-driving car that that can safely allow human inattention until the car can make a whole lot more of its own decisions. In the meantime, if overzealous marketing & breathless hyperbole don't continue to oversell these capabilities, then computer-assisted driving by attentive drivers should greatly improve safety. [0] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Task-switch-costs-subsequent-to-cue-only-trials-Swainson-Martin/670ad5e399d4680fe9a1dbdb2584e13f59cc9b6b https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Task-switch-costs-subs...
FeepingCreature 6y ago
> This means Honda is promising your Honda will not silently drive you into a wall as the Tesla autopilot is known to do. If Tesla only sold 100 vehicles, I assume it could also have avoided them driving into walls...
- ecpottinger 6y ago
  Stats matter, Tesla has a million cars on the road. Choose a random 100 and odds are very favorable you see no accidents. If Honda had a million cars on the road, I would not be surprised if the accident rate was well over that of even humans drivers.
  - upbeat_general 6y ago
    Is that the case? Most people get into an accident at least once in their lifetime and most people don’t drive for 100 years. It certainly wouldn’t be statistically significant but over the course of a year or two you’d except a couple accidents for 100 cars.
  - 2rsf 6y ago
    Maybe, but in Tesla's case it's a known bug/design choice that can probably be consistently reproduced and not just a random edge case.

Robotbeat 6y ago

Of course, since they’re only releasing 100 of them, that’s a low bar. Tesla has sold over a million vehicles.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

judge2020 6y ago

> while pretending to enforce an always alert driver. To be fair amongst automakers, not many other mass-market car is different (right now) - they only auto-steer if the user applies torque to the wheel periodically and beep at the driver if torque isn't applied every 10/30 seconds (30 seconds is only set for interstates from my experience). Only sometime this year will the Ford Mustang Mach-E get an optional $600 upgrade to enable hands-off-the-wheel driving which uses hardware (already installed) in the steering wheel to monitor the driver's road attentiveness[0]. 0: https://www.slashgear.com/ford-active-drive-assist-mustang-mach-e-f150-hands-free-driver-assistance-pricing-release-roadmap-30645118/#post-prep:~:text=The%20software%20will%20then%20be%20%24600,of%20subscription%20to%20Active%20Drive%20Assist https://www.slashgear.com/ford-active-drive-assist-mustang-m.... e: no other -> not many other - apparently Cadillac has eye tracking

GhostVII 6y ago
Cadillac supercruise has eye tracking that makes sure you are watching the road.
- BadOakOx 6y ago
  Doug Demuro has a nice video about this: https://youtu.be/AhthZ5rxQJs https://youtu.be/AhthZ5rxQJs
ineedasername 6y ago
How does it determine torque application if you're on a straight away? Or does it detect hands-on-wheel? (Preferably both)
- bootlooped 6y ago
  With Honda you must move the wheel a bit, even if it's not necessary for correcting the car's direction. It does not detect if your hands are merely on the wheel, that would be nicer though.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  My Hyundai applies a bit of resistance to the steering wheel, so I need to keep the opposite torque. It won't drive to a ditch if I let go, but will start howling after 20-30 seconds of not touching the wheel.
jjmorrison 6y ago
I agree - I don't know how it use to work, but today, Tesla's a pretty pushy about keep you alert. I can't imagine blaming my car for crashing when I'm using autopilot.
cvak 6y ago
Since last Passat facelift, all* VWs have capacitive steering wheel, where it is enough to just have a hand on it. I also think other carmakers moved to this in past ~2 years.

gfodor 6y ago

Your last sentence should read: ... as previous versions of Tesla autopilot have done. Talking about any one of these systems via their branding as if they are a singular fixed thing (and not a network of software versions and models under continual update) leads to bad mental models.

Danieru 6y ago
Here is your "but this time it is fine" Autopilot attempting to murder yet another driver just 9 months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It looks like the car at least tried to stop. I'm sure some software engineer at Tesla saw that and said "Yes! A real-world UAT on the latest don't hit stationary objects point release! Now I can close out that story in Jira."
- jcims 6y ago
  What a bunch of zombies holy moly.
- zhte415 6y ago
  I suppose we need more captcha images of overturned trucks rather than a brain behind the wheel.
- jiofih 6y ago
  Here is a human driving into 36 cars: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u5KgLVh-4Mg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u5KgLVh-4Mg Here is another doing a burnout and crashing into a store, a month ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tJu5TZ6rwXg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tJu5TZ6rwXg Human-driven truck runs straight into a 100-car pile up, 1 month ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VqNy7v5YekM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VqNy7v5YekM Beat that, Tesla!
  - bildung 6y ago

ineedasername 6y ago

It won't silently drive them into a wall, but at 65mph it might only give them just enough time to look up and panic as they hit the wall, internal alarms blaring for their attention. Lane keeping combined with construction combined with curves in the road won't be a good mix for for distracted drivers in these cars.

stubish 6y ago
How far ahead to the sensors work? Maybe there is lots of time at 100km/h. They certainly need to look far enough ahead to detect a stationary object in the road and come to a complete stop, as does a human. A car coming towards you in the wrong lane at 100km/h is a different kettle of fish though (as it is for a human). Over here, the speed limit with road works is 40km/h
- ineedasername 6y ago
  In the US on highways the speed limit near construction generally drops from the usual 65mph/105kmh down to 50 or 55mph/85kmh. I think the federal reference is 45mph to 55mph, but in my experience it's usually at the highest level, 55mph, unless there's really active work with crew on the ground. If you're accustomed to 40kmh, I can only imagine how insane these speeds probably seem to you. (And I'm not saying you'd be wrong in that) Overall, the problem of course comes down to reaction speed. An attentive human with hands on the wheel might respond in 250ms. A computer obviously can respond faster. But some problems won't give you any more than that 250ms to respond. Situations where faster sensors or cpu are meaningless in giving the driver more warning because there is literally only 250ms from onset of stimulus to the time needed for a reaction if catastrophe is to be avoided. Meaning that if the computer can't respond without human intervention, an inattentive driver is screwed because their 250ms reaction speed was based on them already paying attention. To break it down in rough estimates: 1) The car detects & make its own assessment and raises an alarm. 1ms? 10ms?, It almost doesn't matter. 2) The human receives & registers the alert. This is the initial 250ms reaction time. 3) Only then can the real work begin: The human, from a cold start, needs to take in the entire situation and understand what's going on. This is more than just reaction speed. This is task switching, which is cognitively more costly, especially for un-practiced tasks, and the task here is rapid analysis & synthesis of a panic inducing situation that most people never experience. 750ms is probably about right, based on research that shows the cognitive burden of task switching can be even higher [0] So, a full 1000ms, a full second. This is way, way too slow. As I said at the beginning, there are moments driving where that 250ms is required to avoid catastrophe. When those situations arise then there is simply not enough time for the car to get help of an inattentive driver to respond. It's simply not possible. Either the car makes the decision, or the human has just enough time to go wide-eyed before it's over. Basically the only situations where the car's notifications can facilitate meaningful human response are those that can be foreseen at least a full 1000ms in advance. Certainly this encompasses a lot of difficult scenarios, but not many of the most dangerous ones. Any time a split-second decision saved the life of a driver? That same driver, if inattentive when the car's alert comes in, is now dead. There is simply no self-driving car that that can safely allow human inattention until the car can make a whole lot more of its own decisions. In the meantime, if overzealous marketing & breathless hyperbole don't continue to oversell these capabilities, then computer-assisted driving by attentive drivers should greatly improve safety. [0] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Task-switch-costs-subsequent-to-cue-only-trials-Swainson-Martin/670ad5e399d4680fe9a1dbdb2584e13f59cc9b6b https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Task-switch-costs-subs...

FeepingCreature 6y ago

> This means Honda is promising your Honda will not silently drive you into a wall as the Tesla autopilot is known to do. If Tesla only sold 100 vehicles, I assume it could also have avoided them driving into walls...

ecpottinger 6y ago
Stats matter, Tesla has a million cars on the road. Choose a random 100 and odds are very favorable you see no accidents. If Honda had a million cars on the road, I would not be surprised if the accident rate was well over that of even humans drivers.
- upbeat_general 6y ago
  Is that the case? Most people get into an accident at least once in their lifetime and most people don’t drive for 100 years. It certainly wouldn’t be statistically significant but over the course of a year or two you’d except a couple accidents for 100 cars.
- 2rsf 6y ago
  Maybe, but in Tesla's case it's a known bug/design choice that can probably be consistently reproduced and not just a random edge case.