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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

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.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > The camera alone seems to see a lot: In perfect conditions, on a sunny day. I'm in Sweden, and the sun shining directly into your eyes from barely above the horizon while the road is wet/covered with snow and reflects that sun at you is a regular occurence during winter months. I odubt Tesla's camera will be able to see anything.
    - tragictrash 5y ago
      This is the reason why a single camera alone is not capable of being the sole source of information for a self-driving system. The technology currently available for camera systems does not capture a high enough dynamic range to be able to see details in darkness when the Sun in in frame. You could use multiple cameras all with different sensitivities to light and combine them, but it's going to be very difficult.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - nine_k 5y ago
        Why would it be very difficult? You can split the same light beam after the lens, and send it to two cameras with different diaphragm or sensitivity. You'd then synthesize a perfectly aligned HDR picture.
        tragictrash 5y ago
        I think you two just proved my point
      - himinlomax 5y ago
        I really don't see what's difficult. You don't even need multiple cameras, you can simply use very short exposures and combine short exposure shots into a longer exposure one when needed. Multiple cameras are useful to handle glare though.
- bananabreakfast 5y ago
  "Opening an investigation" means nothing before a conclusion is reached. The accusations could be valid or totally baseless, investigations are opened regardless and specifically to find out validity.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > The accusations could be valid or totally baseless Read the listed report. All 11 accidents were confirmed to be: 1. Tesla vehicles 2. Confirmed to be on autopilot / full self driving. 3. Against a stopped emergency vehicle with flashing lights or road flares. These facts are not in dispute. The accusations aren't "baseless", the only question remaining is "how widespread" is this phenomenon. These 11 accidents have resulted in 1-fatality and 11 injuries. -------- We are _WAY_ past "validity" of the claims. We're at "lets set up demos at CES to market ourselves using Tesla as a comparison point", because Tesla is provably that unreliable at stopping in these conditions.
    - andrepd 5y ago
      Hey, move fast and break things. And call your terrible experimental technology "autopilot".
- Kaytaro 5y ago
  Tesla partnered with Luminar by the way and even tested their LiDAR on a model 3 last year. I guess they weren't impressed though, since they seem to still be all-in on passive optical recognition.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    The public line from Musk for a while has been "LiDAR doesn't work in inclement weather, so L5 autonomous driving can't rely on LiDAR" Obviously his stated motivation and actual motivation need not be the same.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - waste_monk 5y ago
      At least Tesla are consistent - the self driving is dangerously unreliable under any weather condition :)
  - Closi 5y ago
    > I guess they weren't impressed though, since they seem to still be all-in on passive optical recognition. That's one take - the other take is that they have been selling cars claiming that they are capable of full FSD because they are going to sell it without Lidar, and have been selling FSD as a $5k bolt on, so swapping to Lidar at this point would be a PR nightmare even if it was a better solution.... That's the cynical view though... (Although I also wouldn't be the one to tell the people that have spent lots of money on Autopilot that they have bought total vaporware - or be the CFO that announces they are back-fitting Lidar cameras). Once you are all-in on 'lidar is shit' it makes it hard to reverse the trend, despite rapidly falling costs.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      >Once you are all-in on 'lidar is shit' it makes it hard to reverse the trend It can be done, if there's good cause. Just partner with your lidar oem of choice, get them to do a white paper about how the latest point increase version of hardware or firmware is "revolutionary!" and then claim that your earlier criticisms of lidar have been fully addressed by the groundbreaking new lidar tech.
borski 5y ago
> The night example looks to be specifically stacked against autopilot. I would argue so is the real world.
- AareyBaba 5y ago
  It is exactly the same scenario where Uber self-driving killed a pedestrian crossing the road at night
  - thepasswordis 5y ago
    The exact situation where "uber self driving" killed a pedestrian was: the driver was literally watching a movie at her job, while she was supposed to be driving a car and training a self driving system. A driver killed a pedestrian because she wasn't paying attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hthyTh_fopo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hthyTh_fopo
    - borski 5y ago
      Sure, but this was supposed to be fully autonomous. Nobody is arguing the human didn’t make a mistake. The autonomous system, however, definitely also did.
    - dexterdog 5y ago
      Wasn't this not a pedestrian, but a cyclist crossing in a completely inappropriate place? Granted an SDC should still react to this while many humans in the same situation would not.
      - dekhn 5y ago
        Pedestrian slowly walking a bike, with basically no reflective clothing, on a dark night. This is exactly how humans kill pedestrians with cars all the time.
        gambiting 5y ago
vngzs 5y ago
Tesla didn't use LIDAR because it is more expensive [0]. Quoting Musk: > Anyone relying on LIDAR is doomed. Doomed. Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices... you’ll see. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/24/18512580/elon-musk-tesla-driverless-cars-lidar-simulation-waymo https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/24/18512580/elon-musk-tesla-...
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  "You'll see" is the perfect Musk sign for "I have no idea what I'm talking about and I'm frankly just interested in a few suckers believing me."
- lordnacho 5y ago
  How much more expensive are we talking? Also won't it get cheaper with time, like the batteries?
  - fundatus 5y ago
    Every Pro iPhone has one. So it already got pretty cheap by now. Looking at Mercedes' Level 3 Autopilot tech you can also see how well you can integrate the sensors into the front of a car.
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      Short range VCSEL is very different than the automotive rotary lidar systems.
  - vngzs 5y ago
    At the time of comment, a LiDAR rig would cost around $10,000. A few years before that, they were more like $100,000. Presumably the cameras are much cheaper. I would be willing to bet that production efficiencies will be found that will eventually drive that cost down significantly.
- leobg 5y ago
  Cost is not the only point he was making. The problem you need to solve is not just “Is there something?”, but also “What is it? And where is it going to move?”. LIDAR cannot do that. Or at least if you get LIDAR to do that, then you would have also been able to get it done with a camera, in which case you wouldn’t have needed LIDAR in the first place. LIDAR certainly is the low hanging fruit when it comes to the firmer question though (i.e. what is there in my path right now).
caf 5y ago
I would really like to hear Tesla to defend their decision to not use them. Andrej Karpathy talks some about it in this (it's quite long, but the whole thing is quite interesting): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDTZQdo6H8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDTZQdo6H8
ineedasername 5y ago
>stacked against autopilot To be fair, it's not a computer performance benchmark being gamed here. If nightime is problematic, autopilot shouldn't be running at night. Because if I'm a pedestrian then the odds are stacked against me with any physical encounter with a vehicle. Fairness in the scenario setup shouldn't really be part of the conversation unless it goes beyond the claims if the manufacturer, i.e., if Tesla had said "autopilot does not function in these conditions and should not be used at those times" and then "nightime" was one of those conditions listed. If Tesla hasn't said that a scenario is outside the scope of AutoPilot then the scenario is an appropriate test & comparison point.
- xvello 5y ago
  > if Tesla had said "autopilot does not function in these conditions and should not be used at those times" and then "nightime" was one of those conditions listed. If Tesla hasn't said that a scenario is outside the scope of AutoPilot then the scenario is an appropriate test & comparison point. I'd go further and say add "and set the software not to engage this feature at nighttime". Simple disclaimers are not enough when lives are at stake.
the_black_hand 5y ago
I'd never trust a "self-driving" car without lidar. It should be a requirement. There's tons of research on how easy it is to completely fool neural nets with images.
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
The night example looks to be specifically stacked against autopilot. I don't think so. If the autopilot can't be used at night, I - who live in Norway - just can't use it during the winter as there isn't enough light. I don't even live above the arctic circle and am lucky enough to get 4-5 hours of (somewhat dimmed) daylight during the darkest times. If it doesn't do night, it is simply a gimmick to lure you into paying for a promise of a car.

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.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > The camera alone seems to see a lot: In perfect conditions, on a sunny day. I'm in Sweden, and the sun shining directly into your eyes from barely above the horizon while the road is wet/covered with snow and reflects that sun at you is a regular occurence during winter months. I odubt Tesla's camera will be able to see anything.
  - tragictrash 5y ago
    This is the reason why a single camera alone is not capable of being the sole source of information for a self-driving system. The technology currently available for camera systems does not capture a high enough dynamic range to be able to see details in darkness when the Sun in in frame. You could use multiple cameras all with different sensitivities to light and combine them, but it's going to be very difficult.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nine_k 5y ago
      Why would it be very difficult? You can split the same light beam after the lens, and send it to two cameras with different diaphragm or sensitivity. You'd then synthesize a perfectly aligned HDR picture.
      - tragictrash 5y ago
        I think you two just proved my point
    - himinlomax 5y ago
      I really don't see what's difficult. You don't even need multiple cameras, you can simply use very short exposures and combine short exposure shots into a longer exposure one when needed. Multiple cameras are useful to handle glare though.
bananabreakfast 5y ago
"Opening an investigation" means nothing before a conclusion is reached. The accusations could be valid or totally baseless, investigations are opened regardless and specifically to find out validity.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > The accusations could be valid or totally baseless Read the listed report. All 11 accidents were confirmed to be: 1. Tesla vehicles 2. Confirmed to be on autopilot / full self driving. 3. Against a stopped emergency vehicle with flashing lights or road flares. These facts are not in dispute. The accusations aren't "baseless", the only question remaining is "how widespread" is this phenomenon. These 11 accidents have resulted in 1-fatality and 11 injuries. -------- We are _WAY_ past "validity" of the claims. We're at "lets set up demos at CES to market ourselves using Tesla as a comparison point", because Tesla is provably that unreliable at stopping in these conditions.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    Hey, move fast and break things. And call your terrible experimental technology "autopilot".
Kaytaro 5y ago
Tesla partnered with Luminar by the way and even tested their LiDAR on a model 3 last year. I guess they weren't impressed though, since they seem to still be all-in on passive optical recognition.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  The public line from Musk for a while has been "LiDAR doesn't work in inclement weather, so L5 autonomous driving can't rely on LiDAR" Obviously his stated motivation and actual motivation need not be the same.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - waste_monk 5y ago
    At least Tesla are consistent - the self driving is dangerously unreliable under any weather condition :)
- Closi 5y ago
  > I guess they weren't impressed though, since they seem to still be all-in on passive optical recognition. That's one take - the other take is that they have been selling cars claiming that they are capable of full FSD because they are going to sell it without Lidar, and have been selling FSD as a $5k bolt on, so swapping to Lidar at this point would be a PR nightmare even if it was a better solution.... That's the cynical view though... (Although I also wouldn't be the one to tell the people that have spent lots of money on Autopilot that they have bought total vaporware - or be the CFO that announces they are back-fitting Lidar cameras). Once you are all-in on 'lidar is shit' it makes it hard to reverse the trend, despite rapidly falling costs.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    >Once you are all-in on 'lidar is shit' it makes it hard to reverse the trend It can be done, if there's good cause. Just partner with your lidar oem of choice, get them to do a white paper about how the latest point increase version of hardware or firmware is "revolutionary!" and then claim that your earlier criticisms of lidar have been fully addressed by the groundbreaking new lidar tech.

borski 5y ago

> The night example looks to be specifically stacked against autopilot. I would argue so is the real world.

AareyBaba 5y ago
It is exactly the same scenario where Uber self-driving killed a pedestrian crossing the road at night
- thepasswordis 5y ago
  The exact situation where "uber self driving" killed a pedestrian was: the driver was literally watching a movie at her job, while she was supposed to be driving a car and training a self driving system. A driver killed a pedestrian because she wasn't paying attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hthyTh_fopo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hthyTh_fopo
  - borski 5y ago
    Sure, but this was supposed to be fully autonomous. Nobody is arguing the human didn’t make a mistake. The autonomous system, however, definitely also did.
  - dexterdog 5y ago
    Wasn't this not a pedestrian, but a cyclist crossing in a completely inappropriate place? Granted an SDC should still react to this while many humans in the same situation would not.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      Pedestrian slowly walking a bike, with basically no reflective clothing, on a dark night. This is exactly how humans kill pedestrians with cars all the time.
      - gambiting 5y ago

vngzs 5y ago

Tesla didn't use LIDAR because it is more expensive [0]. Quoting Musk: > Anyone relying on LIDAR is doomed. Doomed. Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices... you’ll see. [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/24/18512580/elon-musk-tesla-driverless-cars-lidar-simulation-waymo https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/24/18512580/elon-musk-tesla-...

ohgodplsno 5y ago
"You'll see" is the perfect Musk sign for "I have no idea what I'm talking about and I'm frankly just interested in a few suckers believing me."
lordnacho 5y ago
How much more expensive are we talking? Also won't it get cheaper with time, like the batteries?
- fundatus 5y ago
  Every Pro iPhone has one. So it already got pretty cheap by now. Looking at Mercedes' Level 3 Autopilot tech you can also see how well you can integrate the sensors into the front of a car.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Short range VCSEL is very different than the automotive rotary lidar systems.
- vngzs 5y ago
  At the time of comment, a LiDAR rig would cost around $10,000. A few years before that, they were more like $100,000. Presumably the cameras are much cheaper. I would be willing to bet that production efficiencies will be found that will eventually drive that cost down significantly.
leobg 5y ago
Cost is not the only point he was making. The problem you need to solve is not just “Is there something?”, but also “What is it? And where is it going to move?”. LIDAR cannot do that. Or at least if you get LIDAR to do that, then you would have also been able to get it done with a camera, in which case you wouldn’t have needed LIDAR in the first place. LIDAR certainly is the low hanging fruit when it comes to the firmer question though (i.e. what is there in my path right now).

caf 5y ago

I would really like to hear Tesla to defend their decision to not use them. Andrej Karpathy talks some about it in this (it's quite long, but the whole thing is quite interesting): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDTZQdo6H8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDTZQdo6H8

ineedasername 5y ago

>stacked against autopilot To be fair, it's not a computer performance benchmark being gamed here. If nightime is problematic, autopilot shouldn't be running at night. Because if I'm a pedestrian then the odds are stacked against me with any physical encounter with a vehicle. Fairness in the scenario setup shouldn't really be part of the conversation unless it goes beyond the claims if the manufacturer, i.e., if Tesla had said "autopilot does not function in these conditions and should not be used at those times" and then "nightime" was one of those conditions listed. If Tesla hasn't said that a scenario is outside the scope of AutoPilot then the scenario is an appropriate test & comparison point.

xvello 5y ago
> if Tesla had said "autopilot does not function in these conditions and should not be used at those times" and then "nightime" was one of those conditions listed. If Tesla hasn't said that a scenario is outside the scope of AutoPilot then the scenario is an appropriate test & comparison point. I'd go further and say add "and set the software not to engage this feature at nighttime". Simple disclaimers are not enough when lives are at stake.

the_black_hand 5y ago

I'd never trust a "self-driving" car without lidar. It should be a requirement. There's tons of research on how easy it is to completely fool neural nets with images.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

The night example looks to be specifically stacked against autopilot. I don't think so. If the autopilot can't be used at night, I - who live in Norway - just can't use it during the winter as there isn't enough light. I don't even live above the arctic circle and am lucky enough to get 4-5 hours of (somewhat dimmed) daylight during the darkest times. If it doesn't do night, it is simply a gimmick to lure you into paying for a promise of a car.