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Camera-Only Autopilot Requires Automatic High Beams Enabled

88 points by BoorishBears 5y ago

alkonaut 5y ago
That seems very reasonable? If the auto high beams aren’t accurate, that’s a problem. But if I’m driving I want control of the lights, and you can’t fault the self driving system to think the same? As long as it doesn’t want to control the playlist on the stereo…
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Very reasonable. Cameras for front collision avoidance need as much visual distance as possible, hence the auto high beam requirement. High beams = more night distance. Tesla is hiring for a DSP engineer for electronic scanning radar, so the rumor is this is temporary (camera only safety systems) until they’re ready to deploy their own, more advanced radar sensor (trained off of the visual neural net) versus the crude Continental radar sensor they’ve deprecated.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    Tesla should put lidar on the car and be done with it. That's what Lucid has done: https://electrek.co/2021/05/26/lucid-reveals-ux-intuitive-user-experience-on-upcoming-air/ https://electrek.co/2021/05/26/lucid-reveals-ux-intuitive-us...
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Too expensive for mass market. Lucid’s vehicle is almost $190k.
      - siddarthd2919 5y ago
        Compare the 190K with Tesla Plaid fully loaded. Lucid also has a $69K model.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - clouddrover 5y ago
        There are multiple trim levels. Pick a cheaper one: https://www.lucidmotors.com/air https://www.lucidmotors.com/air
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        toomuchtodo 5y ago
        None of these vehicles can be bought today. It's vaporware at the moment.
        clouddrover 5y ago
        It really isn't: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYK57Mdc4BI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYK57Mdc4BI
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      The point is, adding lidar to the car does not mean you are "done with it". If it were the case, Tesla would have done it long ago. Lidar is great for precisely detecting 3D surfaces. But it helps very little in characterizing those surfaces. Lidar could tell you precisely how far a sheet of metal is. Whether that sheet of metal is a traffic sign and what it says, it tells you not. Lidar doesn't detect lane markings and many things more. Also, there is the challenge of merging the Lidar data with your camera images.
      - clouddrover 5y ago
        > adding lidar to the car does not mean you are "done with it" It will mean Tesla is done with trying to avoid adding it. They test with lidar so they might as well start using it: https://insideevs.com/news/508669/tesla-model-y-luminar-lidar/ https://insideevs.com/news/508669/tesla-model-y-luminar-lida...
      - a_t48 5y ago
        LIDAR absolutely detects lane markings, along with street signs, if you’re close enough. Edit: the reason here is that road paint (and the marking on a sign) is typically retroreflective, while roads (and regular painted sheet metal) are not. Retroreflective materials are very easy to detect with LIDAR. Even if you are on older roads that don't have retroreflective paint, white objects and black objects also tend to show up differently. Edit2: there's also no reason you can't use detection algorithms to characterize pointclouds. You can also fuse the returned objects from the lidar sensor(s) with the objects from the camera(s). You have the latter problem even with just multiple cameras. Inevitably, whatever you are using for segmentation/classification will return different results on different sensors, for sensors that share the same FOV - you do need a strategy for handling this. Tesla has not added LIDAR because of cost (and because of Elon's ego...) - they are one of the few companies going directly for consumer sales - more parts that cost $$$ and require calibration aren't good for that.
      - giantrobot 5y ago
        LIDAR is used in addition to 2D camera images. LIDAR is used to build a depth map and do image segmentation and works in low light and low contrast environments. Single cameras (even stereo cameras) require a lot more assumptions about contrast and environment lighting to do image segmentation and depth maps. They're rarely as accurate as LIDAR and often far worse. Depth maps and image segmentation are the building blocks of object identification. You can try to AI your way into those with a single camera but it'll be less accurate and more error prone.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    The unreasonable part has to do with the reality of auto high beams. Even the best implementations dazzle other drivers. Auto high beams are only realistic when used where normal high beams are. That is, mostly on single lane roads with no dividers, little to no street lights, where opposing traffic is not appearing often, etc. - It seems like such a small thing compared to driving a whole car... but this is one of the few vision features that directly affects other drivers on a regular basis. The comments explain how for example, vehicles with tall ride heights like commercial trucks get dazzled due to their tailights sitting much lower than their mirrors It's just not realistic to leave your high beams "potentially on at all times" unless you're willing to dazzle other drivers.
    - closeparen 5y ago
      The "auto" in "auto high beams" is that they switch off for oncoming traffic.
      - BoorishBears 5y ago
        If only naming things based on their intended function made them work like that?
    - FDSGSG 5y ago
      Modern auto high beams work fine, but unfortunately modern headlights are illegal in the US. https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a34417809/nhtsa-still-hasnt-ruled-on-adaptive-headlights/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a34417809/nhtsa-sti...
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Do Teslas have matrix high beams?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    No, because the government doesn't allow them.
- arkades 5y ago
  I guess less reasonable in the context of “they’re very unreliable, which is why I always keep auto high beams off.” It’s not an irrelevant bit of context.
  - zwily 5y ago
    In 6 years of driving Tesla’s, I’ve never even thought to turn off auto high beams. I’m not even sure how I would!
    - riversflow 5y ago
      As someone who frequently drives windy roads at night(I live on one), please learn how. Auto high beams are rude, they only turn down once my lights are on you, if we’re going through a corner, thats close enough to put after-images on my retinas. Frankly, I think they are a safety hazard that should be illegal. A human driver will see the headlights coming and turn their high-beams down preemptively. Its doubly shitty because cars outfitted with auto high-beams typically have those high intensity lamps too. Ugh.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Frankly, I think they are a safety hazard that should be illegal. They are a safety hazard, and unless they consistently operate headlamps in accord with rhe applicable local law [0], using them already is illegal. [0] e.g., https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=24409.&lawCode=VEH https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
    - jjav 5y ago
      This is incredibly rude. Always turn off high beams.
      - zwily 5y ago
        They’ve never failed to turn off automatically when a car is coming in my experience. In fact, they turn off more reliably than if I was doing it myself.
- Aardwolf 5y ago
  One question then is why it requires you to enable "Auto High Beam" manually If it wants auto high beam, it can just enable the setting itself, and restore your own preference if you disable autopilot (and even better: it can control the beams when autopilot is enabled, irrespective of any user settings, after all if autopilot can steer why couldn't it also change the lights)?
  - judge2020 5y ago
    It actually does enable them manually, it just doesn't re-enable them after the driver manually turns them off during autopilot.
- hadsed 5y ago
  LOL. let the car drive itself, but give up music control? over my dead body! it's funny to me because you'd expect music to be lower stakes and such, but it just highlights that actually driving a car is a much more well defined problem than picking the music i like
- jdmichal 5y ago
  Hey! The rule is and always has been: Driver chooses the music!
judge2020 5y ago
For those unaware: https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision
- kube-system 5y ago
  I can’t imagine ordering a vehicle and having parts and features removed from it before delivery, with a promise that they’ll fix it in a later sprint. I’ll wait for other automakers to start making 300 mile+ range vehicles.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I have a long range Y ordered before the change was made. Received an email asking if I wanted to continue with my order due to the radar->vision change, one click approved and received my VIN. The bleeding edge has a cost I suppose, and I’m unwilling to wait. Could be years before an automaker produces a similar CUV/SUV vehicle with a robust charging network [1] for ~$50k. Not a Tesla apologist, just someone comfortable with a Devil's Bargain. [1] https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    Here you go: - https://rivian.com/ https://rivian.com/ - https://www.lucidmotors.com/air https://www.lucidmotors.com/air - https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/ - https://electrek.co/2021/04/05/mercedes-benz-eqs-specs-range-battery-pack/ https://electrek.co/2021/04/05/mercedes-benz-eqs-specs-range... Rivian deliveries will start in July, Lucid later in the year, and Ford in Spring next year. The F-150's range figures are with 1,000 pounds of weight onboard so the unweighted range will be greater. The Audi e-tron GT and the Porsche Taycan can also achieve 300 miles range. If you put thinner, smaller tyres on you can achieve more range: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4dypyQokY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4dypyQokY
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I am shopping for a car currently, and I want an electric car, but I have to regularly make a 300 mile drive on short notice. The only vehicles that I can purchase today which are EPA rated to make this trip without stopping have a Tesla badge on the front. And with the chip shortage, there are a lot of other vehicles that are hard to find too.
beervirus 5y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/nnf5ta/autopilot_requires_auto_high_beam_with_tesla/ https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/nnf5ta/autopil... Fixed link.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Didn't even notice with https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dneaehbmnbhcippjikoajpoabadpodje https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dneaehbmnbhcippjik...
alex_young 5y ago
It’s all about light sensor sensitivity right? The human eye is incredibly dynamic, especially at low light levels when adjusted. A camera can get close to that sensitivity with a longer exposure and a big SLR lens, but exposure isn’t an option at speed, and the sensors on my car are pretty tiny. Is Tesla actually developing new CCD or CMOS tech? That seems unlikely. More speculatively, perhaps they are supply constrained on RADAR and decided it was better to ship and retrofit later. I hope that’s not what’s going on.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  To be clear the issue isn't requiring high beams, the issue is the comments of the post That auto high beams as implemented dazzle commercial vehicles, cannot handle reflective road signs correctly, etc. Anyone who's owned a car with auto high beams is probably aware, you can't leave them on 24/7 unless you're willing to dazzle other drivers in many situations.
superkuh 5y ago
This is the only realistic way forward for attempting to do autonomous cars. Humans use visual range light to make their decisions on where to drive. If automated vehicles use anything else their decisions will be based off different information and likely lead to different outcomes. This is especially highlighted in the parts of the USA that have a real winter with permanent snowcover. In these areas of the country sometimes the road surface is not visible for months at a time and the lanes that are formed have little to do with existing road markers. Instead humans sort of flock and form new emergent lanes and behaviors. And all the other humans (mostly) follow this visually in a low constrast (white snow) environment. Any system that uses absolute positioning or non-visual cues will not be able to follow the emergent lanes and cause danger.
- scottlamb 5y ago
  I agree following fixed lanes with stored maps and GPS won't work on snow-covered roads. But you lost me in two places. First, does following others' tracks necessarily mean visual-range light? I'd expect you could see tracks on infrared. Probably also LIDAR—this isn't my field of expertise but obviously tracks have depth, so I'd think it'd work if the resolution/precision is sufficient. (Not sure how well LIDAR works while snow is falling but that's a different concern than the one you mentioned.) Second, does using visual-range light (for some or all of the input) mean having automatic high beams on? I very rarely use high beams myself. (Then again, maybe automatic high beams very rarely turns on too.) And certainly if other vehicles/pedestrians are actually present at the moment—when it's most important to be behaving like them—infrared, LIDAR, and RADAR are options for seeing them.
  - lazide 5y ago
    It depends - be aware though that the more you diverge from the sensor input others use, the more you tend to diverge from others behaviors. You see different data. It’s important (often more important) while driving that you’re doing what others expect, less what the rules say must be done - especially on edge case behavior. Each sensor suite has it’s own pros and cons - LiDAR can have real challenges with reflective surfaces or highly absorptive ones (wet and slick, oily, snow). It’s range is based off return signal strength. There are also problems with many LiDAR sensors and daylight drowning out the signal. Time of flight sensors (really a type of ‘broadcast’ LiDAR) have similar issues combined with some weird edge cases with reflective geometries or some surfaces. Passive visual light sensors have issues with contrast (high signal strength drowns out low signal strength in nearby areas) and lacks useful information about time of flight unlike LiDAR. They are Cheap though generally, and give us a signal we generally think are ‘obvious’ Active radar sensors (including phased array) also provide very useful signals, also have pros and cons. Sonar, same. Ideally you’d have 360 coverage from enough different sensors that you can do sensor fusion and detect and exclude a sensor in situations where you’re hitting a known problem for a sensor suite. Looking into the sun? Well visual and potentially LiDAR/ToF data is iffy, switch to sonar and radar. In a high EMF environment? Surrounded by metal? Switch off radar perhaps. Those cost money - equipment and development - however.
tibbydudeza 5y ago
Tesla vision - we can't source a crucial part and don't want to idle our factory.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Tesla has been saying they wanted to go vision-only for a while. The semiconductor shortage may have accelerated that plan slightly, but it's not the only reason for it.
  - tibbydudeza 5y ago
    With safety features deprecated until they figure how to get it working without the radar sensor - you said there was a "transition plan" ???.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      Tesla vehicles without radar still have Autopilot safety features despite what the media is saying: https://electrek.co/2021/05/28/tesla-autopilot-safety-features-despite-what-media-saying/ https://electrek.co/2021/05/28/tesla-autopilot-safety-featur...
  - computerex 5y ago
    How come it's still shipping model S and model X with radar then?
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      I think it's just a timing thing. Within a few months, I expect them to not ship with radar anymore either.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sschueller 5y ago
  Maybe some at Tesla know that FSD will not happen before these models end up on the scrap yard. ~7 years and most of these are either totalled or need costly rapairs.
syntaxing 5y ago
Disclaimer, I work in the autonomous vehicle industry but the opinion are of my own. I roll my eyes (heh) when people say if humans drivers only use their eyes so AVs should too. What a load of bull. While a camera is getting really good, but HDR is still subpar to human range. What about stereo vision and how we use two eyes. What about how your eyeball can articulate while having stereo vision. What about how your neck also articulates your vision range. What about how your eyes instinctively look at moving objects. There’s so much more to “human vision” than just the eyeball.
- spzb 5y ago
  Plus, you don’t only use your eyes. Your ears sense sound, the balance-sensing thingies in your ears, even the vibration sensed by your butt feed into your brain’s awareness of what’s going on.
- RavlaAlvar 5y ago
  A question I always wanted to ask: why stereo vision cannot replace lidar?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    It's just less accurate, more error prone, and more limited. Especially in bad conditions and when there is low contrast. Stereo vision can also be fooled by things like reflections. Stereo vision at the human level also requires head movements and so on.
    - xkjkls 5y ago
      Also people don't realize how important blinking is. Any camera system that is not thoroughly self cleaning is going to have significant problems after a relatively short period of time. We don't have cameras built to withstand the elements day-after-day like our eyeballs.
      - RavlaAlvar 5y ago
throwaway24006 5y ago
Copy-pasting a glorious Tesla comment from yesterday: Videos of Tesla fails, mostly from 2021: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=antLneVlxcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=antLneVlxcs [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClWlVCwHsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClWlVCwHsI [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ozx5R-P9zM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ozx5R-P9zM [4] https://twitter.com/olivercameron/status/1319835514887831552 https://twitter.com/olivercameron/status/1319835514887831552 [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29GZg4gGMMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29GZg4gGMMM Other things: [1] https://www.elonmusk.today/ https://www.elonmusk.today/ [2] a video which was taken down from youtube https://troll.tv/videos/watch/54bc7bd0-8691-4359-aa7d-dc5148350ff3 https://troll.tv/videos/watch/54bc7bd0-8691-4359-aa7d-dc5148... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lawsuits_involving_Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lawsuits_involving_Tes.... Bonus material: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKwMryKqRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKwMryKqRE For saner info regarding self-driving, A.I etc: [1] https://twitter.com/missy_cummings/ https://twitter.com/missy_cummings/ [2] https://www.twitter.com/MelMitchell1 https://www.twitter.com/MelMitchell1 [3] https://twitter.com/rodneyabrooks https://twitter.com/rodneyabrooks [4] book to read, suitable even for laypeople >> 'Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell Perils of autopilot: Children of the Magenta Line https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs
cma 5y ago
Why wouldn't they do IR highbeams?
iamleppert 5y ago
What about when you have two Tesla cars on autopilot coming at each other? Does anyone really believe the cheap VGA webcams Tesla is slapping on their car for their "autopilot solution" can probably be blinded by even the slightest hint of a high beam?

88 points by BoorishBears 5y ago

That seems very reasonable? If the auto high beams aren’t accurate, that’s a problem. But if I’m driving I want control of the lights, and you can’t fault the self driving system to think the same? As long as it doesn’t want to control the playlist on the stereo…

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Very reasonable. Cameras for front collision avoidance need as much visual distance as possible, hence the auto high beam requirement. High beams = more night distance. Tesla is hiring for a DSP engineer for electronic scanning radar, so the rumor is this is temporary (camera only safety systems) until they’re ready to deploy their own, more advanced radar sensor (trained off of the visual neural net) versus the crude Continental radar sensor they’ve deprecated.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Tesla should put lidar on the car and be done with it. That's what Lucid has done: https://electrek.co/2021/05/26/lucid-reveals-ux-intuitive-user-experience-on-upcoming-air/ https://electrek.co/2021/05/26/lucid-reveals-ux-intuitive-us...
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Too expensive for mass market. Lucid’s vehicle is almost $190k.
    - siddarthd2919 5y ago
      Compare the 190K with Tesla Plaid fully loaded. Lucid also has a $69K model.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      There are multiple trim levels. Pick a cheaper one: https://www.lucidmotors.com/air https://www.lucidmotors.com/air
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        None of these vehicles can be bought today. It's vaporware at the moment.
        clouddrover 5y ago
        It really isn't: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYK57Mdc4BI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYK57Mdc4BI
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    The point is, adding lidar to the car does not mean you are "done with it". If it were the case, Tesla would have done it long ago. Lidar is great for precisely detecting 3D surfaces. But it helps very little in characterizing those surfaces. Lidar could tell you precisely how far a sheet of metal is. Whether that sheet of metal is a traffic sign and what it says, it tells you not. Lidar doesn't detect lane markings and many things more. Also, there is the challenge of merging the Lidar data with your camera images.
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      > adding lidar to the car does not mean you are "done with it" It will mean Tesla is done with trying to avoid adding it. They test with lidar so they might as well start using it: https://insideevs.com/news/508669/tesla-model-y-luminar-lidar/ https://insideevs.com/news/508669/tesla-model-y-luminar-lida...
    - a_t48 5y ago
      LIDAR absolutely detects lane markings, along with street signs, if you’re close enough. Edit: the reason here is that road paint (and the marking on a sign) is typically retroreflective, while roads (and regular painted sheet metal) are not. Retroreflective materials are very easy to detect with LIDAR. Even if you are on older roads that don't have retroreflective paint, white objects and black objects also tend to show up differently. Edit2: there's also no reason you can't use detection algorithms to characterize pointclouds. You can also fuse the returned objects from the lidar sensor(s) with the objects from the camera(s). You have the latter problem even with just multiple cameras. Inevitably, whatever you are using for segmentation/classification will return different results on different sensors, for sensors that share the same FOV - you do need a strategy for handling this. Tesla has not added LIDAR because of cost (and because of Elon's ego...) - they are one of the few companies going directly for consumer sales - more parts that cost $$$ and require calibration aren't good for that.
    - giantrobot 5y ago
      LIDAR is used in addition to 2D camera images. LIDAR is used to build a depth map and do image segmentation and works in low light and low contrast environments. Single cameras (even stereo cameras) require a lot more assumptions about contrast and environment lighting to do image segmentation and depth maps. They're rarely as accurate as LIDAR and often far worse. Depth maps and image segmentation are the building blocks of object identification. You can try to AI your way into those with a single camera but it'll be less accurate and more error prone.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  The unreasonable part has to do with the reality of auto high beams. Even the best implementations dazzle other drivers. Auto high beams are only realistic when used where normal high beams are. That is, mostly on single lane roads with no dividers, little to no street lights, where opposing traffic is not appearing often, etc. - It seems like such a small thing compared to driving a whole car... but this is one of the few vision features that directly affects other drivers on a regular basis. The comments explain how for example, vehicles with tall ride heights like commercial trucks get dazzled due to their tailights sitting much lower than their mirrors It's just not realistic to leave your high beams "potentially on at all times" unless you're willing to dazzle other drivers.
  - closeparen 5y ago
    The "auto" in "auto high beams" is that they switch off for oncoming traffic.
    - BoorishBears 5y ago
      If only naming things based on their intended function made them work like that?
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    Modern auto high beams work fine, but unfortunately modern headlights are illegal in the US. https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a34417809/nhtsa-still-hasnt-ruled-on-adaptive-headlights/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a34417809/nhtsa-sti...
Hamuko 5y ago
Do Teslas have matrix high beams?
- josephcsible 5y ago
  No, because the government doesn't allow them.
arkades 5y ago
I guess less reasonable in the context of “they’re very unreliable, which is why I always keep auto high beams off.” It’s not an irrelevant bit of context.
- zwily 5y ago
  In 6 years of driving Tesla’s, I’ve never even thought to turn off auto high beams. I’m not even sure how I would!
  - riversflow 5y ago
    As someone who frequently drives windy roads at night(I live on one), please learn how. Auto high beams are rude, they only turn down once my lights are on you, if we’re going through a corner, thats close enough to put after-images on my retinas. Frankly, I think they are a safety hazard that should be illegal. A human driver will see the headlights coming and turn their high-beams down preemptively. Its doubly shitty because cars outfitted with auto high-beams typically have those high intensity lamps too. Ugh.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Frankly, I think they are a safety hazard that should be illegal. They are a safety hazard, and unless they consistently operate headlamps in accord with rhe applicable local law [0], using them already is illegal. [0] e.g., https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=24409.&lawCode=VEH https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
  - jjav 5y ago
    This is incredibly rude. Always turn off high beams.
    - zwily 5y ago
      They’ve never failed to turn off automatically when a car is coming in my experience. In fact, they turn off more reliably than if I was doing it myself.
Aardwolf 5y ago
One question then is why it requires you to enable "Auto High Beam" manually If it wants auto high beam, it can just enable the setting itself, and restore your own preference if you disable autopilot (and even better: it can control the beams when autopilot is enabled, irrespective of any user settings, after all if autopilot can steer why couldn't it also change the lights)?
- judge2020 5y ago
  It actually does enable them manually, it just doesn't re-enable them after the driver manually turns them off during autopilot.
hadsed 5y ago
LOL. let the car drive itself, but give up music control? over my dead body! it's funny to me because you'd expect music to be lower stakes and such, but it just highlights that actually driving a car is a much more well defined problem than picking the music i like
jdmichal 5y ago
Hey! The rule is and always has been: Driver chooses the music!

judge2020 5y ago

For those unaware: https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision https://www.tesla.com/support/transitioning-tesla-vision

kube-system 5y ago
I can’t imagine ordering a vehicle and having parts and features removed from it before delivery, with a promise that they’ll fix it in a later sprint. I’ll wait for other automakers to start making 300 mile+ range vehicles.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  I have a long range Y ordered before the change was made. Received an email asking if I wanted to continue with my order due to the radar->vision change, one click approved and received my VIN. The bleeding edge has a cost I suppose, and I’m unwilling to wait. Could be years before an automaker produces a similar CUV/SUV vehicle with a robust charging network [1] for ~$50k. Not a Tesla apologist, just someone comfortable with a Devil's Bargain. [1] https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Here you go: - https://rivian.com/ https://rivian.com/ - https://www.lucidmotors.com/air https://www.lucidmotors.com/air - https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/ - https://electrek.co/2021/04/05/mercedes-benz-eqs-specs-range-battery-pack/ https://electrek.co/2021/04/05/mercedes-benz-eqs-specs-range... Rivian deliveries will start in July, Lucid later in the year, and Ford in Spring next year. The F-150's range figures are with 1,000 pounds of weight onboard so the unweighted range will be greater. The Audi e-tron GT and the Porsche Taycan can also achieve 300 miles range. If you put thinner, smaller tyres on you can achieve more range: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4dypyQokY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4dypyQokY
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I am shopping for a car currently, and I want an electric car, but I have to regularly make a 300 mile drive on short notice. The only vehicles that I can purchase today which are EPA rated to make this trip without stopping have a Tesla badge on the front. And with the chip shortage, there are a lot of other vehicles that are hard to find too.

beervirus 5y ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/nnf5ta/autopilot_requires_auto_high_beam_with_tesla/ https://old.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/nnf5ta/autopil... Fixed link.

judge2020 5y ago
Didn't even notice with https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dneaehbmnbhcippjikoajpoabadpodje https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dneaehbmnbhcippjik...

alex_young 5y ago

It’s all about light sensor sensitivity right? The human eye is incredibly dynamic, especially at low light levels when adjusted. A camera can get close to that sensitivity with a longer exposure and a big SLR lens, but exposure isn’t an option at speed, and the sensors on my car are pretty tiny. Is Tesla actually developing new CCD or CMOS tech? That seems unlikely. More speculatively, perhaps they are supply constrained on RADAR and decided it was better to ship and retrofit later. I hope that’s not what’s going on.

BoorishBears 5y ago
To be clear the issue isn't requiring high beams, the issue is the comments of the post That auto high beams as implemented dazzle commercial vehicles, cannot handle reflective road signs correctly, etc. Anyone who's owned a car with auto high beams is probably aware, you can't leave them on 24/7 unless you're willing to dazzle other drivers in many situations.

superkuh 5y ago

This is the only realistic way forward for attempting to do autonomous cars. Humans use visual range light to make their decisions on where to drive. If automated vehicles use anything else their decisions will be based off different information and likely lead to different outcomes. This is especially highlighted in the parts of the USA that have a real winter with permanent snowcover. In these areas of the country sometimes the road surface is not visible for months at a time and the lanes that are formed have little to do with existing road markers. Instead humans sort of flock and form new emergent lanes and behaviors. And all the other humans (mostly) follow this visually in a low constrast (white snow) environment. Any system that uses absolute positioning or non-visual cues will not be able to follow the emergent lanes and cause danger.

scottlamb 5y ago
I agree following fixed lanes with stored maps and GPS won't work on snow-covered roads. But you lost me in two places. First, does following others' tracks necessarily mean visual-range light? I'd expect you could see tracks on infrared. Probably also LIDAR—this isn't my field of expertise but obviously tracks have depth, so I'd think it'd work if the resolution/precision is sufficient. (Not sure how well LIDAR works while snow is falling but that's a different concern than the one you mentioned.) Second, does using visual-range light (for some or all of the input) mean having automatic high beams on? I very rarely use high beams myself. (Then again, maybe automatic high beams very rarely turns on too.) And certainly if other vehicles/pedestrians are actually present at the moment—when it's most important to be behaving like them—infrared, LIDAR, and RADAR are options for seeing them.
- lazide 5y ago
  It depends - be aware though that the more you diverge from the sensor input others use, the more you tend to diverge from others behaviors. You see different data. It’s important (often more important) while driving that you’re doing what others expect, less what the rules say must be done - especially on edge case behavior. Each sensor suite has it’s own pros and cons - LiDAR can have real challenges with reflective surfaces or highly absorptive ones (wet and slick, oily, snow). It’s range is based off return signal strength. There are also problems with many LiDAR sensors and daylight drowning out the signal. Time of flight sensors (really a type of ‘broadcast’ LiDAR) have similar issues combined with some weird edge cases with reflective geometries or some surfaces. Passive visual light sensors have issues with contrast (high signal strength drowns out low signal strength in nearby areas) and lacks useful information about time of flight unlike LiDAR. They are Cheap though generally, and give us a signal we generally think are ‘obvious’ Active radar sensors (including phased array) also provide very useful signals, also have pros and cons. Sonar, same. Ideally you’d have 360 coverage from enough different sensors that you can do sensor fusion and detect and exclude a sensor in situations where you’re hitting a known problem for a sensor suite. Looking into the sun? Well visual and potentially LiDAR/ToF data is iffy, switch to sonar and radar. In a high EMF environment? Surrounded by metal? Switch off radar perhaps. Those cost money - equipment and development - however.

tibbydudeza 5y ago

Tesla vision - we can't source a crucial part and don't want to idle our factory.

josephcsible 5y ago
Tesla has been saying they wanted to go vision-only for a while. The semiconductor shortage may have accelerated that plan slightly, but it's not the only reason for it.
- tibbydudeza 5y ago
  With safety features deprecated until they figure how to get it working without the radar sensor - you said there was a "transition plan" ???.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Tesla vehicles without radar still have Autopilot safety features despite what the media is saying: https://electrek.co/2021/05/28/tesla-autopilot-safety-features-despite-what-media-saying/ https://electrek.co/2021/05/28/tesla-autopilot-safety-featur...
- computerex 5y ago
  How come it's still shipping model S and model X with radar then?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    I think it's just a timing thing. Within a few months, I expect them to not ship with radar anymore either.
deleted 5y ago
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sschueller 5y ago
Maybe some at Tesla know that FSD will not happen before these models end up on the scrap yard. ~7 years and most of these are either totalled or need costly rapairs.

syntaxing 5y ago

Disclaimer, I work in the autonomous vehicle industry but the opinion are of my own. I roll my eyes (heh) when people say if humans drivers only use their eyes so AVs should too. What a load of bull. While a camera is getting really good, but HDR is still subpar to human range. What about stereo vision and how we use two eyes. What about how your eyeball can articulate while having stereo vision. What about how your neck also articulates your vision range. What about how your eyes instinctively look at moving objects. There’s so much more to “human vision” than just the eyeball.

spzb 5y ago
Plus, you don’t only use your eyes. Your ears sense sound, the balance-sensing thingies in your ears, even the vibration sensed by your butt feed into your brain’s awareness of what’s going on.
RavlaAlvar 5y ago
A question I always wanted to ask: why stereo vision cannot replace lidar?
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  It's just less accurate, more error prone, and more limited. Especially in bad conditions and when there is low contrast. Stereo vision can also be fooled by things like reflections. Stereo vision at the human level also requires head movements and so on.
  - xkjkls 5y ago
    Also people don't realize how important blinking is. Any camera system that is not thoroughly self cleaning is going to have significant problems after a relatively short period of time. We don't have cameras built to withstand the elements day-after-day like our eyeballs.
    - RavlaAlvar 5y ago

throwaway24006 5y ago

Copy-pasting a glorious Tesla comment from yesterday: Videos of Tesla fails, mostly from 2021: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=antLneVlxcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=antLneVlxcs [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClWlVCwHsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uClWlVCwHsI [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ozx5R-P9zM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ozx5R-P9zM [4] https://twitter.com/olivercameron/status/1319835514887831552 https://twitter.com/olivercameron/status/1319835514887831552 [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29GZg4gGMMM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29GZg4gGMMM Other things: [1] https://www.elonmusk.today/ https://www.elonmusk.today/ [2] a video which was taken down from youtube https://troll.tv/videos/watch/54bc7bd0-8691-4359-aa7d-dc5148350ff3 https://troll.tv/videos/watch/54bc7bd0-8691-4359-aa7d-dc5148... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lawsuits_involving_Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lawsuits_involving_Tes.... Bonus material: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKwMryKqRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKwMryKqRE For saner info regarding self-driving, A.I etc: [1] https://twitter.com/missy_cummings/ https://twitter.com/missy_cummings/ [2] https://www.twitter.com/MelMitchell1 https://www.twitter.com/MelMitchell1 [3] https://twitter.com/rodneyabrooks https://twitter.com/rodneyabrooks [4] book to read, suitable even for laypeople >> 'Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell Perils of autopilot: Children of the Magenta Line https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs

cma 5y ago

Why wouldn't they do IR highbeams?

iamleppert 5y ago

What about when you have two Tesla cars on autopilot coming at each other? Does anyone really believe the cheap VGA webcams Tesla is slapping on their car for their "autopilot solution" can probably be blinded by even the slightest hint of a high beam?