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> My Tesla will allow me to engage autopilot in a school zone https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1478802681141645322 https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1

> My Tesla will allow me to engage autopilot in a school zone https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1478802681141645322 https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1478802681141645322 Just a reminder at how awful Tesla cars "self driving" cars are at actually stopping. Please do NOT rely upon autopilot, fsd, or any other "Tesla-tech". They're incapable of seeing objects like small children in time. This was a test done at CES on January 6th, 2022. ------- In contrast, the people who setup the demo were showing a more advanced self-driving car who could actually stop when the child suddenly runs out onto the street. https://twitter.com/luminartech/status/1479223353730756608 https://twitter.com/luminartech/status/1479223353730756608

hansendc 5y ago
I think the main point is to know the limitations of the technology and to deploy it appropriately. For instance, I don't rely on old-school cruise control to stop for small children, either, even though I engage it in school zones. This isn't limited to "Tesla-tech". The same rules apply to ALL technology.
- Miner49er 5y ago
  Why would you ever engage cruise control in school zones?
  - _ea1k 5y ago
    To avoid speeding. It can be hard to avoid accidentally speeding by 1-2 mph and enforcement is sometimes zero tolerance.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      That's crazy, I've never seen anybody get a ticket for 1-2mph over the limit. Problems with that: cops would be wasting resources because 1-2mph over the limit isn't significantly dangerous. Also, the radar guns can't be easily calibrated to that level of accuracy. If our local cops did this, I'd just make an online post about it so everybody knew the cops were doing it and then it would stop. My experience (based on a few tickets and observing many cops) is that they don't really care unless you're about 10+ MPH over the limit and also doing unsafe things. That's not to say they don't snag people just driving 5MPH over the limit, but it's not a core activity unless the department is using tickets as a revenue source or trying to make some sort of weird point.
      - afavour 5y ago
        > it's not a core activity unless the department is using tickets as a revenue source or trying to make some sort of weird point. Or the officer is racist. I know we’re veering into very off topic discussion here but your experience and resulting list does miss a key component for an experience often described as “driving while black”. 1mph over the speed limit would absolutely see you get pulled over.
      - jmpman 5y ago
        I was in a drivers education class (I’d rear ended someone, and was trying to keep points off my license), and we went around the room explaining what law we broke to wind up in the class. One attendee was there for 1 MPH over in a school zone. Was it probably racial profiling? Probably. But I now stick to exactly 0 MPH over in school zones, and have routinely seen police monitoring speed while dropping my kids off at school. There appears to be zero tolerance even for the most politically connected soccer mom.
        dekhn 5y ago
        Acknowledged. If I received such a ticket I would sign the form the officer gave me and then immediately protest (appeal) the ticket and go to court. In particular, giving a ticket for 1mph over the limit doesn't make sense because the marginal danger (IE, how much more dangerous it is) to drive 1 mph over the limit is tiny, it's 10-15 mph that is dangerous. The police actually have to make a case justifying the value of spending the time of stopping you. I just looked into the details. In my state, CA, 1-15mph over the limit is specially treated, with one point that eventually gets cleared. I'm amused because (as I mentioned) I live in a school zone and I just drove home at about 5mph, because the streets were so croweded that anything faster would have been impossible. A cop could not have parked in any location near my house because every spot was taken, and all sightlines were blocked by SUVs or buses.
      - macintux 5y ago
        > If our local cops did this, I'd just make an online post about it so everybody knew the cops were doing it and then it would stop. Either you have a very unusual constabulary, or this is wildly optimistic.
    - tokai 5y ago
      That is a non issue. If your speed variance is 2mph then drive 4mph under the speed limit.
      - _ea1k 5y ago
        With a 25mph limit and no significant traffic, that would be actively miserable.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    To make sure you aren't speeding?
    - dekhn 5y ago
      I've never had trouble maintaining 1-2 mph under the limit. I just use less gas and look at the speedometer at times.
      - dahfizz 5y ago
        I agree with you. With a little bit of driving experience, you have a natural sense for what the safe speed is on a road, and that speed is almost always the speed limit, in my experience. On a busy road with lots of pedestrians crossing, I naturally want to go much slower than I would on the same road if there were no other pedestrians or traffic. "School zones" just codify that into law - when you expect lots of kids to be crossing a road, the speed limit of the road should be lower. The issue, for me at least, is the ambiguity. When is the school zone in effect? This creates a cognitive load. The road was clearly meant for 45 mph travel, because that is the normal speed limit. So if I let my "autopilot" brain take over, I will probably go over the 25 mph school zone limit. It's a special case. So when I see a school zone, I unconditionally set the cruise control to be the school zone speed limit. This frees my brain from any congitive load about whether school is in session. It also guarantees that I am not influenced by the guy tailgating me. The ability to set the speed of your car exactly, without monitoring, is really useful.
  - lkxijlewlf 5y ago
    I live on a road with two schools zones about a mile apart. I have had people pass me in the morning in the school zone! People do.not.care. EDIT: Fixed "ppl" to "people".
    - BitwiseFool 5y ago
      This is a pet peeve of mine, but why use 'ppl' when you spell out every other word, and then spell out people in the end? Edit: Yes, ppl bugs me and there is no rational reason why. Emphasis on 'pet peeve'.
      - lkxijlewlf 5y ago
        Fixed it for you.
      - borski 5y ago
        Because typing on phones can be annoying and ppl is quicker than people. :) Or maybe they were texting and using FSD ;)
        waste_monk 5y ago
        That's not really valid in the age of Swype-style keyboards. Less effort to do one swipe than multiple taps to hit individual letters for txt type. Also, if you text and drive I sincerely hope you hit a tree or something else solid that doesn't hurt the road traffic and pedestrians around you - alleged FSD or no, we don't have level 5 fully-autonomous cars yet and so not paying attention to the road is just as bad as drunk or drug driving.
        borski 5y ago
        Sure is valid. Not everyone likes the Swype style keyboards. The FSD part was a joke. :)
  - hansendc 5y ago
    I personally have a tendency to match the speed of the cars around me. IMNHO, most cars speed through school zones. I use cruise control as a tool to prevent me from accidentally matching the speed of the cars around me and breaking the school zone speed limit.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  > I think the main point is to know the limitations of the technology and to deploy it appropriately. Such as, for example, by not calling it "autopilot" or "full self driving"?
  - glennpratt 5y ago
    I'll give you FSD, but autopilot makes sense to me as someone familiar with aviation.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      How about "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." Tesla Marketing: 2016
      - glennpratt 5y ago
        Sounds like trash, but then that's not relevant to what I said.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        The important thing here is that for over half-a-decade, Tesla has been lying to its customers about its capabilities. When in actuality, Tesla will reliably crash into pedestrians and stationary firetrucks. To the point where people at other companies are confident to make live-demos of this at electronic shows. --------- Calling it "autopilot" or "fsd" isn't the problem. The problem is that Tesla actively lies about its capabilities to the public and its customers. It doesn't matter "how" they lie or exactly what weasel words they use. The issue is that they're liars. We can tell them to change their name or change their marketing strategy. But as long as they're liars, they'll just find a new set of weasel words to continue their lies.
      - heavyset_go 5y ago
        > Tesla Marketing: 2016 For reference, this same marketing video is still up on Tesla's site[1]. [1] https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware-neighborhood-long https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware...
- snicker7 5y ago
  People intuitively understand the capabilities of cruise control. Can the same be said if FSD?
  - _ea1k 5y ago
    Given the crashes with cruise control in bad weather, I think the level of understanding is likely fairly similar.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I am not seeing the relation between cruise control and crashes in bad weather? If I bought something that says it can drive itself, then I expect I do not need to pay attention to the road because it can drive itself. Just like if my friend can drive themselves and I am a passenger, I can trust them to handle paying attention to the road. To go out of your way and call something "full" self driving only indicates that I should have zero qualms about trusting that I do not need to pay attention to the road.
      - drewzero1 5y ago
        I'm guessing the 'bad weather' comment is referring to the common belief[1], possibly exaggerated[2], that cruise control can be dangerous and cause crashes when the road is slippery. Not sure what's changed with newer traction control systems. I'd have to believe this has gotten even less likely but I don't know; my cars are too old to even have ABS. One of the anecdotes in the Jalopnik article mentions that the vehicle is a Town Car, which is significant because those are rear wheel drive and handle very differently from most cars on the road in slick conditions. I would certainly expect more issues with older RWD cars and trucks because they tend to fishtail and spin if the rear wheels are given power without traction. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wild-when-wet/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wild-when-wet/ [2] https://jalopnik.com/lets-debunk-the-idea-that-its-not-safe-to-use-cruise-co-1836852765 https://jalopnik.com/lets-debunk-the-idea-that-its-not-safe-...
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "I think the main point is to know the limitations of the technology and to deploy it appropriately" Where does Tesla provide a list of such limitations for it's customers, I am sure it would be extensively documented given that lives are at stake ? Or should I find out those limitations myself, potentially killing a few children in the process?
  - hansendc 5y ago
    > Where does Tesla provide a list of such limitations for it's customers, One specific place is first sentence of the FSD Beta welcome email: "Full Self-Driving is in limited early access Beta and must be used with additional caution. It may do the wrong thing at the worst time, so you must always keep your hands on the wheel and pay extra attention to the road. Do not become complacent." That's been my experience with it. Right now, the beta doesn't reduce my workload, it increases it. When I want to "just drive", I turn the beta off. That said, Tesla can and should do more. They need to better frame the capabilities of the system, staring with the silly marketing names.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      That's really a legal disclaimer, a list of limitations has to be sspesific to be usefull: don't use beyong X temperature range, beyong X speed, below X visibility,etc.
    - idop 5y ago
      > It may do the wrong thing at the worst time. So, basically, I need to somehow predict that FSD will do the wrong thing and react myself, _before_ the worst time, because the worst time is when it's already too late. Or, in other words, whereas any other car manufacturer has fallbacks for when the driver is not doing what they're supposed to, Tesla treats the driver as the fallback instead. I just don't understand what is this magic that is supposed to allow the driver to predict incorrect AI behavior.
      - hansendc 5y ago
        > So, basically, I need to somehow predict that FSD will do the wrong thing and react myself, _before_ the worst time, because the worst time is when it's already too late. Don't confuse prediction and anticipation. Prediction requires that you know what's going to happen. Anticipation is getting ready for something that might happen. Anticipation is a normal part of defensive driving every day, not prediction. Let's go back to defensive driving 101: defensive driving allows mistakes to be made. It allows bad things to occur and still recover from them safely. Bad things happen because of mistakes are made by humans in the car, humans outside of the car and also by the computer in the car. The change here is that you the computer is being given much more latitude to make mistakes. It does NOT grant the computer the ability to remove defensive margins from driving. If you drive (regardless of FSD) with no defensive driving margins, you immediately enter "too late" territory whenever a mistake is made.
manishsharan 5y ago
Reminds me of this incident that happened to me a last December: I was driving my kid to school and I noticed some pedestrians on the sidewalk . The mom was walking and texting and the little boy was dribbling a soccer ball while they walked to the school. And suddenly the soccer ball got on the road and the kid dove after it .. in the middle of the road inches from my car. I am so grateful to whatever braking system my car had for stopping just in time. I honked and the mom flipped me the birdie and cussed me out in what I think was Russian. Kids are stupid and unpredictable and AI/ML can't work out all the insane ways kids can put themselves in harms way. No autopilot or FSD can . Peolple should not rely upon them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rvz 5y ago
That's definitive proof that it still doesn't work reliably, let alone the system confusing the moon with the traffic light. [0] It shows that it is even worse at night. I have to say that FSD is so confused, you might as well call it 'Fools Self Driving' at this point. Oh dear. [0] https://twitter.com/jordanteslatech/status/1418413307862585344 https://twitter.com/jordanteslatech/status/14184133078625853...
- mey 5y ago
  Puts them in good company. Not the first system to get the wrong ideas about the moon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Missile_Early_Warning_System#Deployment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Missile_Early_Warnin...
TrainedMonkey 5y ago
I totally agree with you that this tech needs to get better, but I really want to see apples-to-apples comparison. I would expect Tesla to also stop if a child was running across the movement path in broad daylight. The night example looks to be specifically stacked against autopilot. Tesla vision is notoriously bad at detecting stationary objects and it needs a lot of light to function well. Lidar/Radar are significantly better than cameras detecting straight ahead obstacles in low light conditions. I would really like to hear Tesla to defend their decision to not use them. In any case, this testing is great because it lets us know when the autopilot requires extra supervision.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > but I really want to see apples-to-apples comparison. EDIT: Luminar's car is on the other lane, and there's also a balloon-child in the Luminar's lane. You can see Luminar's car clearly stop in the head-to-head test. There's also the "advanced" test, where the kid moves out from behind an obstacle here. Luminar's tech does well: https://twitter.com/PatrickMoorhead/status/1478764515260911617 https://twitter.com/PatrickMoorhead/status/14787645152609116... > I would expect Tesla to also stop if a child was running across the movement path in broad daylight. Nope. https://jalopnik.com/this-clip-of-a-tesla-model-3-failing-an-automatic-emerg-1845129387 https://jalopnik.com/this-clip-of-a-tesla-model-3-failing-an... https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-03/tesla-was-on-autopilot-when-it-hit-culver-city-fire-truck-ntsb-finds https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-03/tesla-was-... This "tech" can't even see a firetruck in broad daylight. Why do you think it can see a child? This isn't a one-off freak accident either. "crashing into stopped emergency vehicles with flashing lights in broad daylight" is common enough that NHTSA has opened up an investigation into this rather specific effect: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2021/INOA-PE21020-1893.PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2021/INOA-PE21020-1893.PDF
  - celsoazevedo 5y ago
    The camera alone seems to see a lot: - 2018: https://youtu.be/_1MHGUC_BzQ https://youtu.be/_1MHGUC_BzQ - 2021: https://youtu.be/XfqabC_akV0 https://youtu.be/XfqabC_akV0 Is the car reacting to what it's seeing? Probably not, but I'm not sure if adding a lidar fixes that.
treeman79 5y ago
When I learned to drive the only advise my mom gave was. “If you see a ball then slam on the break” I was told this for months. Few years later Driving down a road that had endless cars parked along sides. So no visibility of yards. A small ball came from behind a parked car and bounced in front of me. All I heard was my moms voice. Instantly slammed on brakes. Sure enough a kid ran out in front of me chasing the ball. Car stopped inches from kid. He never even noticed me. Even a moments hesitation and that kid would have been dead. I was going a little below speed limit too, which clearly helped.
- dekhn 5y ago
  This is great but I think it's always good to be aware of the consequences of stopping quickly (rear ending which might cause its own problems of the same magnitude)
  - treeman79 5y ago
    A good point. But person behind has a metal cage and air bags. Kid has a t-shirt.
    - moron123 5y ago
      The impact of the rear ending would probably propel the car forward and hit the child, is what I think the previous commentor meant.
      - dekhn 5y ago
        That, and/or possibly killing several other people. I'm not advocating that people run over the kid at all, I just mean: always be aware of people behind you when braking quickly.
        saalweachter 5y ago
        You should worry about what's in front of your car first and what is behind it after. There's a reason we ~always assign blame to the car that does the rear ending. Don't tailgate, people. You never know when the car in front of you is going to slam on the brakes because a ball, small child, or plastic bag jumps out in front of it.
loceng 5y ago
This isn't an honest test. Think through the reality and then mimic that - but the reality isn't a child standing still in the middle of the road in the middle of the night. Also, Tesla requires you pay attention still - which is relying on it, but they tell you NOT to rely on it 100%, so in this demo the driver is at fault for not watching ahead of them and breaking. So your claim that they're awful at stopping is pretty disconnected.
- 9935c101ab17a66 5y ago
  Even if you are paying attention, wouldn’t there be an inherent delay between passively paying attention and taking over a self-driving car? I don’t have any evidence but it seems like it’s inevitable. Furthermore, by design, even attentive, well-intentioned drivers are more likely to be distracted or under estimate risks if the car is doing the driving 99% of the time. The ‘well technically it wouldn’t have murdered that clearly visible child if you were paying attention’ defence is both specious and obviates a lot of the value of teslas autonomous driving tech. I won’t argue there aren’t some inherent benefits of even basic driver aids, but if you pay have to pay 100% attention 100% of the time, the tech loses it’s lustre. This is a problem largely of Tesla’s own making IMO — their marketing and Elon’s public statements paint a much, much rosier picture and people buy into it.
w0m 5y ago
While 1000% agree the current Tesla FSD beta is in serious need of work; comparing it to unreleased specialized hardware in trials setup by makers of said specialized hardware is a little disingenuous.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  But I'm not comparing it against the technology. I'm simply pointing out that Tesla __regularly__ crashes into balloon-children, to the point where a competitor literally used Tesla as a marketing-mule to show off how much progress they made. -------------- This entire marketing scheme that Luminar did only works because they 100% trust that the Tesla will run into that balloon child on a regular basis (!!!!). This is literally a live demonstration in a major convention center full of a live audience. I don't have any idea how seeded or unfair Luminar's test is in favor of Luminar's hardware. I don't even trust that Luminar's hardware works (I don't know if they're faking their tech either). But what I do trust, is for that Tesla to plow into that balloon over-and-over again on a reliable basis. That's how far away Tesla is from "full self driving", or whatever the heck they want to call it.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    This is nonetheless comparing a product currently on sale with a development platform not currently on sale. Surely a fairer test would be to compare a Luminar tech development rig with a Tesla tech development rig. Luminar doesn't appear to have access to Tesla's under-development technology beta which is, as YouTube videos of FSD beta clearly shows, markedly superior to the technology currently deployed in most Tesla cars. I can't say whether the FSD beta would reliably stop for balloon-children, but from the warts-and-all videos being posted on YouTube, it seems highly likely that it would.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > Surely a fairer test What? The "test", as far as I'm concerned, is whether or not Tesla will kill children on our streets. And given this test, it proves that Tesla's emergency braking capabilities are awful. I don't care about Luminar tech at all, frankly. If Luminar becomes available to buy one day, maybe I'll care then. --------- At the _ROOT_ of this discussion is a poster who openly admits to using "Autopilot" in school-zones. Given that Tesla will _NOT_ stop for balloon-children until its way too late (the braking action was _AFTER_ the balloon-child was smacked), I have to immediately reprimand the original poster. This is a critical safety issue that people must understand, "Autopilot" and "FSD" are NOT ready to be used in school zones, or other locations where children might run out into the streets randomly. This has nothing to do with tech-companies swinging their tech around at a show. This has everything to do with stopping the next child from getting smacked by an ignorant driver.
abc_lisper 5y ago
You can carefully construct a case where it wouldn’t work, obviously. Even humans have blind spots, and are prone to visual hallucinations. Stop spreading FUD. I have AP and I know it works reasonably well - as long as I have my eyes on road and hands on steering, it is safe, while reducing a great deal of stress
carrolldunham 5y ago
This is such a slimy fake test it makes me side with Elon. The cardboard cutout doesn't behave anything like a child. It behaves like a bit of cloth rubbish which I would hope the car would run straight through.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  By a school that "cloth rubbish" could be accompanied by child chasing it (see comment near this one), so one would hope it would at least slow down...
saw-lau 5y ago
I can't be the only one a bit freaked-out with the laughter at the end of that first video?

hansendc 5y ago

I think the main point is to know the limitations of the technology and to deploy it appropriately. For instance, I don't rely on old-school cruise control to stop for small children, either, even though I engage it in school zones. This isn't limited to "Tesla-tech". The same rules apply to ALL technology.

Miner49er 5y ago
Why would you ever engage cruise control in school zones?
- _ea1k 5y ago
  To avoid speeding. It can be hard to avoid accidentally speeding by 1-2 mph and enforcement is sometimes zero tolerance.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    That's crazy, I've never seen anybody get a ticket for 1-2mph over the limit. Problems with that: cops would be wasting resources because 1-2mph over the limit isn't significantly dangerous. Also, the radar guns can't be easily calibrated to that level of accuracy. If our local cops did this, I'd just make an online post about it so everybody knew the cops were doing it and then it would stop. My experience (based on a few tickets and observing many cops) is that they don't really care unless you're about 10+ MPH over the limit and also doing unsafe things. That's not to say they don't snag people just driving 5MPH over the limit, but it's not a core activity unless the department is using tickets as a revenue source or trying to make some sort of weird point.
    - afavour 5y ago
      > it's not a core activity unless the department is using tickets as a revenue source or trying to make some sort of weird point. Or the officer is racist. I know we’re veering into very off topic discussion here but your experience and resulting list does miss a key component for an experience often described as “driving while black”. 1mph over the speed limit would absolutely see you get pulled over.
    - jmpman 5y ago
      I was in a drivers education class (I’d rear ended someone, and was trying to keep points off my license), and we went around the room explaining what law we broke to wind up in the class. One attendee was there for 1 MPH over in a school zone. Was it probably racial profiling? Probably. But I now stick to exactly 0 MPH over in school zones, and have routinely seen police monitoring speed while dropping my kids off at school. There appears to be zero tolerance even for the most politically connected soccer mom.
      - dekhn 5y ago
        Acknowledged. If I received such a ticket I would sign the form the officer gave me and then immediately protest (appeal) the ticket and go to court. In particular, giving a ticket for 1mph over the limit doesn't make sense because the marginal danger (IE, how much more dangerous it is) to drive 1 mph over the limit is tiny, it's 10-15 mph that is dangerous. The police actually have to make a case justifying the value of spending the time of stopping you. I just looked into the details. In my state, CA, 1-15mph over the limit is specially treated, with one point that eventually gets cleared. I'm amused because (as I mentioned) I live in a school zone and I just drove home at about 5mph, because the streets were so croweded that anything faster would have been impossible. A cop could not have parked in any location near my house because every spot was taken, and all sightlines were blocked by SUVs or buses.
    - macintux 5y ago
      > If our local cops did this, I'd just make an online post about it so everybody knew the cops were doing it and then it would stop. Either you have a very unusual constabulary, or this is wildly optimistic.
  - tokai 5y ago
    That is a non issue. If your speed variance is 2mph then drive 4mph under the speed limit.
    - _ea1k 5y ago
      With a 25mph limit and no significant traffic, that would be actively miserable.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  To make sure you aren't speeding?
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I've never had trouble maintaining 1-2 mph under the limit. I just use less gas and look at the speedometer at times.
    - dahfizz 5y ago
      I agree with you. With a little bit of driving experience, you have a natural sense for what the safe speed is on a road, and that speed is almost always the speed limit, in my experience. On a busy road with lots of pedestrians crossing, I naturally want to go much slower than I would on the same road if there were no other pedestrians or traffic. "School zones" just codify that into law - when you expect lots of kids to be crossing a road, the speed limit of the road should be lower. The issue, for me at least, is the ambiguity. When is the school zone in effect? This creates a cognitive load. The road was clearly meant for 45 mph travel, because that is the normal speed limit. So if I let my "autopilot" brain take over, I will probably go over the 25 mph school zone limit. It's a special case. So when I see a school zone, I unconditionally set the cruise control to be the school zone speed limit. This frees my brain from any congitive load about whether school is in session. It also guarantees that I am not influenced by the guy tailgating me. The ability to set the speed of your car exactly, without monitoring, is really useful.
- lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  I live on a road with two schools zones about a mile apart. I have had people pass me in the morning in the school zone! People do.not.care. EDIT: Fixed "ppl" to "people".
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    This is a pet peeve of mine, but why use 'ppl' when you spell out every other word, and then spell out people in the end? Edit: Yes, ppl bugs me and there is no rational reason why. Emphasis on 'pet peeve'.
    - lkxijlewlf 5y ago
      Fixed it for you.
    - borski 5y ago
      Because typing on phones can be annoying and ppl is quicker than people. :) Or maybe they were texting and using FSD ;)
      - waste_monk 5y ago
        That's not really valid in the age of Swype-style keyboards. Less effort to do one swipe than multiple taps to hit individual letters for txt type. Also, if you text and drive I sincerely hope you hit a tree or something else solid that doesn't hurt the road traffic and pedestrians around you - alleged FSD or no, we don't have level 5 fully-autonomous cars yet and so not paying attention to the road is just as bad as drunk or drug driving.
        borski 5y ago
        Sure is valid. Not everyone likes the Swype style keyboards. The FSD part was a joke. :)
- hansendc 5y ago
  I personally have a tendency to match the speed of the cars around me. IMNHO, most cars speed through school zones. I use cruise control as a tool to prevent me from accidentally matching the speed of the cars around me and breaking the school zone speed limit.
kllrnohj 5y ago
> I think the main point is to know the limitations of the technology and to deploy it appropriately. Such as, for example, by not calling it "autopilot" or "full self driving"?
- glennpratt 5y ago
  I'll give you FSD, but autopilot makes sense to me as someone familiar with aviation.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    How about "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself." Tesla Marketing: 2016
    - glennpratt 5y ago
      Sounds like trash, but then that's not relevant to what I said.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        The important thing here is that for over half-a-decade, Tesla has been lying to its customers about its capabilities. When in actuality, Tesla will reliably crash into pedestrians and stationary firetrucks. To the point where people at other companies are confident to make live-demos of this at electronic shows. --------- Calling it "autopilot" or "fsd" isn't the problem. The problem is that Tesla actively lies about its capabilities to the public and its customers. It doesn't matter "how" they lie or exactly what weasel words they use. The issue is that they're liars. We can tell them to change their name or change their marketing strategy. But as long as they're liars, they'll just find a new set of weasel words to continue their lies.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      > Tesla Marketing: 2016 For reference, this same marketing video is still up on Tesla's site[1]. [1] https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware-neighborhood-long https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware...
snicker7 5y ago
People intuitively understand the capabilities of cruise control. Can the same be said if FSD?
- _ea1k 5y ago
  Given the crashes with cruise control in bad weather, I think the level of understanding is likely fairly similar.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I am not seeing the relation between cruise control and crashes in bad weather? If I bought something that says it can drive itself, then I expect I do not need to pay attention to the road because it can drive itself. Just like if my friend can drive themselves and I am a passenger, I can trust them to handle paying attention to the road. To go out of your way and call something "full" self driving only indicates that I should have zero qualms about trusting that I do not need to pay attention to the road.
    - drewzero1 5y ago
      I'm guessing the 'bad weather' comment is referring to the common belief[1], possibly exaggerated[2], that cruise control can be dangerous and cause crashes when the road is slippery. Not sure what's changed with newer traction control systems. I'd have to believe this has gotten even less likely but I don't know; my cars are too old to even have ABS. One of the anecdotes in the Jalopnik article mentions that the vehicle is a Town Car, which is significant because those are rear wheel drive and handle very differently from most cars on the road in slick conditions. I would certainly expect more issues with older RWD cars and trucks because they tend to fishtail and spin if the rear wheels are given power without traction. [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wild-when-wet/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wild-when-wet/ [2] https://jalopnik.com/lets-debunk-the-idea-that-its-not-safe-to-use-cruise-co-1836852765 https://jalopnik.com/lets-debunk-the-idea-that-its-not-safe-...
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"I think the main point is to know the limitations of the technology and to deploy it appropriately" Where does Tesla provide a list of such limitations for it's customers, I am sure it would be extensively documented given that lives are at stake ? Or should I find out those limitations myself, potentially killing a few children in the process?
- hansendc 5y ago
  > Where does Tesla provide a list of such limitations for it's customers, One specific place is first sentence of the FSD Beta welcome email: "Full Self-Driving is in limited early access Beta and must be used with additional caution. It may do the wrong thing at the worst time, so you must always keep your hands on the wheel and pay extra attention to the road. Do not become complacent." That's been my experience with it. Right now, the beta doesn't reduce my workload, it increases it. When I want to "just drive", I turn the beta off. That said, Tesla can and should do more. They need to better frame the capabilities of the system, staring with the silly marketing names.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    That's really a legal disclaimer, a list of limitations has to be sspesific to be usefull: don't use beyong X temperature range, beyong X speed, below X visibility,etc.
  - idop 5y ago
    > It may do the wrong thing at the worst time. So, basically, I need to somehow predict that FSD will do the wrong thing and react myself, _before_ the worst time, because the worst time is when it's already too late. Or, in other words, whereas any other car manufacturer has fallbacks for when the driver is not doing what they're supposed to, Tesla treats the driver as the fallback instead. I just don't understand what is this magic that is supposed to allow the driver to predict incorrect AI behavior.
    - hansendc 5y ago
      > So, basically, I need to somehow predict that FSD will do the wrong thing and react myself, _before_ the worst time, because the worst time is when it's already too late. Don't confuse prediction and anticipation. Prediction requires that you know what's going to happen. Anticipation is getting ready for something that might happen. Anticipation is a normal part of defensive driving every day, not prediction. Let's go back to defensive driving 101: defensive driving allows mistakes to be made. It allows bad things to occur and still recover from them safely. Bad things happen because of mistakes are made by humans in the car, humans outside of the car and also by the computer in the car. The change here is that you the computer is being given much more latitude to make mistakes. It does NOT grant the computer the ability to remove defensive margins from driving. If you drive (regardless of FSD) with no defensive driving margins, you immediately enter "too late" territory whenever a mistake is made.

manishsharan 5y ago

Reminds me of this incident that happened to me a last December: I was driving my kid to school and I noticed some pedestrians on the sidewalk . The mom was walking and texting and the little boy was dribbling a soccer ball while they walked to the school. And suddenly the soccer ball got on the road and the kid dove after it .. in the middle of the road inches from my car. I am so grateful to whatever braking system my car had for stopping just in time. I honked and the mom flipped me the birdie and cussed me out in what I think was Russian. Kids are stupid and unpredictable and AI/ML can't work out all the insane ways kids can put themselves in harms way. No autopilot or FSD can . Peolple should not rely upon them.

deleted 5y ago
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rvz 5y ago

That's definitive proof that it still doesn't work reliably, let alone the system confusing the moon with the traffic light. [0] It shows that it is even worse at night. I have to say that FSD is so confused, you might as well call it 'Fools Self Driving' at this point. Oh dear. [0] https://twitter.com/jordanteslatech/status/1418413307862585344 https://twitter.com/jordanteslatech/status/14184133078625853...

mey 5y ago
Puts them in good company. Not the first system to get the wrong ideas about the moon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Missile_Early_Warning_System#Deployment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Missile_Early_Warnin...

TrainedMonkey 5y ago

I totally agree with you that this tech needs to get better, but I really want to see apples-to-apples comparison. I would expect Tesla to also stop if a child was running across the movement path in broad daylight. The night example looks to be specifically stacked against autopilot. Tesla vision is notoriously bad at detecting stationary objects and it needs a lot of light to function well. Lidar/Radar are significantly better than cameras detecting straight ahead obstacles in low light conditions. I would really like to hear Tesla to defend their decision to not use them. In any case, this testing is great because it lets us know when the autopilot requires extra supervision.

dragontamer 5y ago
> but I really want to see apples-to-apples comparison. EDIT: Luminar's car is on the other lane, and there's also a balloon-child in the Luminar's lane. You can see Luminar's car clearly stop in the head-to-head test. There's also the "advanced" test, where the kid moves out from behind an obstacle here. Luminar's tech does well: https://twitter.com/PatrickMoorhead/status/1478764515260911617 https://twitter.com/PatrickMoorhead/status/14787645152609116... > I would expect Tesla to also stop if a child was running across the movement path in broad daylight. Nope. https://jalopnik.com/this-clip-of-a-tesla-model-3-failing-an-automatic-emerg-1845129387 https://jalopnik.com/this-clip-of-a-tesla-model-3-failing-an... https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-03/tesla-was-on-autopilot-when-it-hit-culver-city-fire-truck-ntsb-finds https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-03/tesla-was-... This "tech" can't even see a firetruck in broad daylight. Why do you think it can see a child? This isn't a one-off freak accident either. "crashing into stopped emergency vehicles with flashing lights in broad daylight" is common enough that NHTSA has opened up an investigation into this rather specific effect: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2021/INOA-PE21020-1893.PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2021/INOA-PE21020-1893.PDF
- celsoazevedo 5y ago
  The camera alone seems to see a lot: - 2018: https://youtu.be/_1MHGUC_BzQ https://youtu.be/_1MHGUC_BzQ - 2021: https://youtu.be/XfqabC_akV0 https://youtu.be/XfqabC_akV0 Is the car reacting to what it's seeing? Probably not, but I'm not sure if adding a lidar fixes that.

treeman79 5y ago

When I learned to drive the only advise my mom gave was. “If you see a ball then slam on the break” I was told this for months. Few years later Driving down a road that had endless cars parked along sides. So no visibility of yards. A small ball came from behind a parked car and bounced in front of me. All I heard was my moms voice. Instantly slammed on brakes. Sure enough a kid ran out in front of me chasing the ball. Car stopped inches from kid. He never even noticed me. Even a moments hesitation and that kid would have been dead. I was going a little below speed limit too, which clearly helped.

dekhn 5y ago
This is great but I think it's always good to be aware of the consequences of stopping quickly (rear ending which might cause its own problems of the same magnitude)
- treeman79 5y ago
  A good point. But person behind has a metal cage and air bags. Kid has a t-shirt.
  - moron123 5y ago
    The impact of the rear ending would probably propel the car forward and hit the child, is what I think the previous commentor meant.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      That, and/or possibly killing several other people. I'm not advocating that people run over the kid at all, I just mean: always be aware of people behind you when braking quickly.
      - saalweachter 5y ago
        You should worry about what's in front of your car first and what is behind it after. There's a reason we ~always assign blame to the car that does the rear ending. Don't tailgate, people. You never know when the car in front of you is going to slam on the brakes because a ball, small child, or plastic bag jumps out in front of it.

loceng 5y ago

This isn't an honest test. Think through the reality and then mimic that - but the reality isn't a child standing still in the middle of the road in the middle of the night. Also, Tesla requires you pay attention still - which is relying on it, but they tell you NOT to rely on it 100%, so in this demo the driver is at fault for not watching ahead of them and breaking. So your claim that they're awful at stopping is pretty disconnected.

9935c101ab17a66 5y ago
Even if you are paying attention, wouldn’t there be an inherent delay between passively paying attention and taking over a self-driving car? I don’t have any evidence but it seems like it’s inevitable. Furthermore, by design, even attentive, well-intentioned drivers are more likely to be distracted or under estimate risks if the car is doing the driving 99% of the time. The ‘well technically it wouldn’t have murdered that clearly visible child if you were paying attention’ defence is both specious and obviates a lot of the value of teslas autonomous driving tech. I won’t argue there aren’t some inherent benefits of even basic driver aids, but if you pay have to pay 100% attention 100% of the time, the tech loses it’s lustre. This is a problem largely of Tesla’s own making IMO — their marketing and Elon’s public statements paint a much, much rosier picture and people buy into it.

w0m 5y ago

While 1000% agree the current Tesla FSD beta is in serious need of work; comparing it to unreleased specialized hardware in trials setup by makers of said specialized hardware is a little disingenuous.

dragontamer 5y ago
But I'm not comparing it against the technology. I'm simply pointing out that Tesla __regularly__ crashes into balloon-children, to the point where a competitor literally used Tesla as a marketing-mule to show off how much progress they made. -------------- This entire marketing scheme that Luminar did only works because they 100% trust that the Tesla will run into that balloon child on a regular basis (!!!!). This is literally a live demonstration in a major convention center full of a live audience. I don't have any idea how seeded or unfair Luminar's test is in favor of Luminar's hardware. I don't even trust that Luminar's hardware works (I don't know if they're faking their tech either). But what I do trust, is for that Tesla to plow into that balloon over-and-over again on a reliable basis. That's how far away Tesla is from "full self driving", or whatever the heck they want to call it.
- simondotau 5y ago
  This is nonetheless comparing a product currently on sale with a development platform not currently on sale. Surely a fairer test would be to compare a Luminar tech development rig with a Tesla tech development rig. Luminar doesn't appear to have access to Tesla's under-development technology beta which is, as YouTube videos of FSD beta clearly shows, markedly superior to the technology currently deployed in most Tesla cars. I can't say whether the FSD beta would reliably stop for balloon-children, but from the warts-and-all videos being posted on YouTube, it seems highly likely that it would.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > Surely a fairer test What? The "test", as far as I'm concerned, is whether or not Tesla will kill children on our streets. And given this test, it proves that Tesla's emergency braking capabilities are awful. I don't care about Luminar tech at all, frankly. If Luminar becomes available to buy one day, maybe I'll care then. --------- At the _ROOT_ of this discussion is a poster who openly admits to using "Autopilot" in school-zones. Given that Tesla will _NOT_ stop for balloon-children until its way too late (the braking action was _AFTER_ the balloon-child was smacked), I have to immediately reprimand the original poster. This is a critical safety issue that people must understand, "Autopilot" and "FSD" are NOT ready to be used in school zones, or other locations where children might run out into the streets randomly. This has nothing to do with tech-companies swinging their tech around at a show. This has everything to do with stopping the next child from getting smacked by an ignorant driver.

abc_lisper 5y ago

You can carefully construct a case where it wouldn’t work, obviously. Even humans have blind spots, and are prone to visual hallucinations. Stop spreading FUD. I have AP and I know it works reasonably well - as long as I have my eyes on road and hands on steering, it is safe, while reducing a great deal of stress

carrolldunham 5y ago

This is such a slimy fake test it makes me side with Elon. The cardboard cutout doesn't behave anything like a child. It behaves like a bit of cloth rubbish which I would hope the car would run straight through.

mhh__ 5y ago
By a school that "cloth rubbish" could be accompanied by child chasing it (see comment near this one), so one would hope it would at least slow down...

saw-lau 5y ago

I can't be the only one a bit freaked-out with the laughter at the end of that first video?