Volvo Engineer Calls Out Tesla For Dangerous 'Wannabe' Autopilot System (jalopnik.com) 219
An anonymous reader shares an article on Jalopnik: Tesla's semi-autonomous Autopilot system has been impressing everyone from consumers to journalists, and even other industry experts and executives. But now a Volvo engineer has called Tesla's system out, claiming it's a dangerous "wannabe" autonomous technology. Trent Victor, senior technical leader of crash avoidance for Volvo, had quite a few choice words to say about Tesla's Autopilot system in a recent interview with The Verge, claiming the electric automaker was touting what is essentially a rudimentary semi-autonomous technology as being far more capable than it actually is. Victor fears that Autopilot "gives you the impression that it's doing more than it is." He went on to call Tesla's system an "unsupervised wannabe."
Crying on the way out? (Score:4, Interesting)
Tesla: "Thank You Volvo for the free publicity!"
Many will see this as market insecurity on the part of traditional car makers, and Tesla's stock will probably go up.
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...and if it really is dangerous it's not like the average person can afford Tesla's offerings anyway, so it'll be rich people who die.
Re:Crying on the way out? (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, the trickle down economy will work.
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Finally, the trickle down economy will work.
It's working right now for Tesla's 13,000 or so full-time employees. Rich people buying bling is the most straightforward form of redistribution of wealth.
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13,000 employees doesn't *quite* constitute an economy.
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Neither does Tesla. But proportionally, for all Musk's puffery, he does employ a lot of people in a business that arguably only exists because of special tax breaks. (Not sure of that myself, maybe Tesla would be going strong regardless, but the cars do get a healthy tax subsidy.)
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Heh, pretty much all of manufacturing gets amazing local tax breaks - worth it for smaller towns for all the jobs it brings. But at the federal level, not so much. The airlines get routine bailouts, and of course there's Government Motors, but most of the old school manufacturers aren't so lucky.
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Small towns, even lots of them, do not an economy make.
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The 1% in red shirts for a change, Lovin' it!
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1999 Nissan Quest (bought 2004?) - 16,000
2005 Mazda RX8 (bought 2008) - 15,300
1990 Chevy Lumina (new) - 15,200
2005 Mazda Minivan (bought 2009) - 11,400
1988 Honda Accord (bought 1992) - 6,650
2001 Honda Accord (bought 2015) - 1,900
1991 Honda Accord (bought 2005?) - 1,000
I'm not saying $35,000 is expensive or anything. Just that I don't know very many people who have bought more than one (maybe two) new cars in the years I've known t
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Right, that's all this could possibly be.
I mean, it's not as if Volvo has a reputation for making durable, safe vehicles.
What the fuck could one of their engineers possibly know about it automobile safety?
Re:Crying on the way out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tesla Autopilot is working in tens of thousands of vehicles, and has driven many millions of miles of public roads. That actual real-world track record should count for a lot more than a competitor's biased opinion.
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Depends if that's your fetish.
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47M according to the press release the other day. Musk says autopilot controlled vehicles have half the rate of crashes (where a crash is defined as an event that triggers the airbag) versus those under human control.
Re:Crying on the way out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk says autopilot controlled vehicles have half the rate of crashes (where a crash is defined as an event that triggers the airbag) versus those under human control.
That sounds like a BS statistic. You wouldn't use Autopilot for all driving, only for certain highway driving. So a proper comparison would only be between Autopilot-driven miles versus human-driven miles in comparable conditions. And auto crashes on the highway are *already* much less frequent than on surface streets, for obvious reasons I hope.
So "half the rate of crashes" could actually be much worse than human piloting on the highway.
Re: Crying on the way out? (Score:2)
I'd be paying more attention to the road if I was letting that death trap drive me around. I think you'd find that the demographic that makes up Tesla owners are in general better drivers. These aren't young reckless individuals. I think if you gave these autonomous cars to 1000 16 year old drivers, you'd see very different results.
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Why would the autopilot system behave differently based on the age of the driver?
Re: Crying on the way out? (Score:4, Informative)
No they are still designed and built in Sweden. The financial owners are Chinese though.
Yeah, that didn't last long before manufacturing began moving to China as well. [nytimes.com] Are you surprised? It's been publically in the works for years.
From Jan 2015:
After years of promises by the industry followed by manufacturing delays, a major automaker is finally on the verge of starting sustained exports from China to the United States.
The Volvo Car Corporation announced at the Detroit auto show on Monday that it planned to begin shipping a midsize sedan from Chengdu in the next several months.
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Tesla: "Thank You Volvo for the free publicity!"
Many will see this as market insecurity on the part of traditional car makers, and Tesla's stock will probably go up.
You sound like a Christian fundamentalist laughing off real science and arguing Intelligent Design because of "reasons"; you are a Tesla Fundamentalist.
Volvo has the longest track record of safety features for cars, they've been doing this for decades. They were focused on safety before safety become regulated. They invented three point seat belts, side impact protection systems, roll over protection systems, and consistently their cars have been rated the safest cars on the road. When a guy from Volvo m
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Volvo has the longest track record of safety features for cars, they've been doing this for decades. They were focused on safety before safety become regulated. They invented three point seat belts, side impact protection systems, roll over protection systems, and consistently their cars have been rated the safest cars on the road.
Until Tesla came along.
Sounds like sour grapes from the former makers of the safest cars in the world.
All that Tesla has to say back.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Ah yes. "A Volvo vehicle screwed up once, so that means Tesla's systems are fine - stop crying."
Tremendously compelling logic.
Re:All that Tesla has to say back.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All that Tesla has to say back.. (Score:5, Insightful)
That was a car without the "pedestrian detection" option... The owner, a bit of a moron, for some reason thought it was a standard feature and decided to test it on a group of volunteer fellow morons...
Regardless of that Volvo spokeperson's intentions, they are right, hinting that you are using an "autopilot" will make idiots do stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I don't see a problem equipping cars with the current automatic collision avoidance systems and leaving it at that, but autopilots for cars should be "black and white", either completely self-driving or completely manual, no automatic steering input at all. Period. Tesla's system will make people like that Volvo guy in the previous post do very stupid things, like the Tesla driver in this post.
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I agree, but our cruise controllers don't hold our steering wheels so we can check our phones, like many people are doing. It's also not just Tesla, BMW and Mercedes also have their own system, Citroen had enough sensors in their cars to do this since before 2010, that's why I think there should be no steering wheel control features unless the car was actually self-driving and didn't expect the user to be alert and take control, no level 2 vehicles, using the NHTSA classification. We are already easily dist
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" that's why I think there should be no steering wheel control features unless the car was actually self-driving "
ITYM s/unless/while/
The Delphi test vehicle pulls the steering wheel forward a couple of inches when running autonomously. If you grab the wheel it hands control back and moves the thing back to manual position as confirmation.
This is still developing technology. Tesla is well positioned to deal with this via software changes vs traditional carmakers who love to charge silly money for such thing
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In fact replying with this video would strengthen Volvo's argument. Because beyond the branding, what it shows is that collision avoidance systems can fail and therefore, driver's attention is crucial. Tesla's autopilot is clearly sold as something that allows the driver not to pay attention, while the system demonstrated in the video is just a driving aid.
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Actually, the video in question doesn't show that collision avoidance systems can fail, because the car shown in the video doesn't have one (and its driver is a moron):
http://fusion.net/story/139703... [fusion.net]
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Turns out that the collision avoidance was turned off when they tried. It actually works pretty well when you flip the switch to "on".
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Tesla is no better: https://youtu.be/Cwr6zh2450w [youtu.be]
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FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like ULA hating on SpaceX's rocket landing plans or Blackberry hating on the original iPhone, whenever a newcomer comes to market with a disruptive technology, the entrenched players do all they can to trash the newcomer in the media to cast doubt on the viability of the disruptive ideas, rather than pivoting to actually address the market shift that the disruption heralds.
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> rather than pivoting to actually address the market shift that the disruption heralds.
Tesla fanboy detected. Volvo/VW/etc have had similar for a long time.
Re:FUD (Score:5, Informative)
I'm so sick of hearing this shit repeated ad nauseam. Usually, the "entrenched players" have good reason to be skeptical. In 2007, per your example, a Blackberry was orders of magnitude more functional than an iPhone and multiple times more useful to their core business market. iPhone didn't start to be a serious contender until around the 4-series and some would argue that it never actually caught up from a messaging standpoint to the Blackberry. I won't argue that the iPhone didn't revolutionize smartphones and that there were tons of other benefits once the product became mature.
The same goes for Uber and all the other "disruptive" services and products. When you don't have to play by any rules it's easy to make things better. I still won't take Uber because I don't trust "some guy" to come pick me up. I want a service that follows all the standards and regulations we've established for a reason. I have no doubts that Tesla's "autopilot" is probably hype. Look where it's coming from. When you have a niche product, it doesn't matter how well it works or doesn't work. Volvo, on the other hand, is legendary for the safety of their products. If a Volvo engineer says it's dangerous, it probably is.
I'm just so sick of hearing how since something is coming out of some VC hype machine or technological "upstart" or internet company that it must somehow going to change my life. The cell phone changed how we live, the rest has all been incremental. I'm not living any better since the iPhone came around, or Uber, nor will I because of a self-driving car. It's all smoke and mirrors. Really disruptive technologies, like electricity, the internet, refrigeration, splitting the atom, are few and far between and don't need some huckster shouting about how great they are.
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I'm just so sick of hearing how since something is coming out of some VC hype machine or technological "upstart" or internet company that it must somehow going to change my life.
Me too.
And I'd like to point out is that we have a Volvo engineer criticizing Tesla marketing.From the verge:
Because the driver is theoretically freed up to work on email or watch a video while the car drives itself, the company believes it is unrealistic to expect the driver to be ready to take over at a moment's notice and still have the car operate itself safely.
That's all from Tesla's marketing.
Musk needs to stop managing Tesla like a silicon valley startup and like the automaker that it is. Actually, I think he should stop making cars and become a battery maker so WHEN the other luxury car makers come out with their electric cars, they can buy batteries from Tesla and have a sticker that says "Tesla inside."
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Uber might be one thing where it comes to flaunting the laws around livery services, but exactly which rules do Tesla and Apple not have to play by. Lets face it BB might have better technology in some areas but not all. It turned out the market cared more about spaces where Apple had an edge. Tesla is doing well as well. Is autopilot a fully autonomous system no, nor is it on most commercial air craft. It can do a lot but it still assumes an attentive pilot(driver), that does not make it useless. A l
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Yeah, exactly. Volvo's core market has always been middle-aged soccer moms and older, people who valued safety above all else, especially people with children.
The hipsters go for cheaper and generally stupid vehicles like the Nissan Qube, vehicles with "edgy" (read: ugly and stupid) design that attempt to look highly functional but really aren't. Volvos aren't cheap cars by any means; they're not as expensive as Benzes and BMWs, but they're close, and probably on-par with Audis. You usually see lots of V
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Just to add to this, the parent is partly right I think: their customers are moving on. Volvo no longer has a big lead on safety like they used to; cars overall are ridiculously safe these days, the governmental standards are very high (and rising), other carmakers push safety too and advertise their IIHS rankings, so you're probably not going to be any safer in a Volvo than in an Audi, for instance, or maybe even a mid-size Toyota.
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Hmm well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Its also true that just about every indie band in the northeast ever has crammed all their stuff into the back of Volvo wagon. Go to Portland the hipster crowed loves their Volvo's.
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The same goes for Uber and all the other "disruptive" services and products. When you don't have to play by any rules it's easy to make things better. I still won't take Uber because I don't trust "some guy" to come pick me up. I want a service that follows all the standards and regulations we've established for a reason.
You don't trust "some guy" to come pick you up, so you'll take a taxi? That makes no sense. The "standards and regulations" were established for a reason - to lock out competition. And it worked. Uber is 3 times the size of the traditional taxi industry in San Francisco, meaning the taxi cartel's legislation was having the effect of cutting the market to 1/4 of its actual size. Cronyism hurts everybody.
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Offtopic, but I feel this needs to be said anyway: take some econ classes and some sociology classes before you start making statements like "Uber is 3 times the size of the traditional taxi industry in San Francisco, meaning the taxi cartel's legislation was having the effect of cutting the market to 1/4 of its actual size." For example, are you familiar with the concept of the tragedy of the commons? It's a very simple but somewhat unintuitive problem: left to their own devices, competitors will deplete a
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The cell phone changed how we live, the rest has all been incremental. I'm not living any better since the iPhone came around, or Uber, nor will I because of a self-driving car.
The cell phone changed how we live, but those of us who grew up without it don't think it's all benefit. Used to be life and work were separate, now many of us are expected to be available 24/7.
Self-driving cars, on the other hand, I would love. I hate commuting. The years I lived near a train line were fantastic. My car didn't leave the garage for nearly a year and I liked it that way. Sure, I'd rather have ubiquitous high-quality public transportation, but a self-driving car would be a close second.
Note t
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I will be, when they're available. Want to visit parents? Tell the car to head for Mom's place, and read/sleep/whatever till it beeps to tell me it's arrived. Heaven!
Even a not-terribly-long commute is MUCH nicer if I can read the news instead of watching the other lunatics on the road....
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This is a fundamental misconception as to what a disruption really is. A disruptive technology doesn't necessary mean a fundamental change in how the world works like your examples of refrigeration and electricity. Disruption simply means a shift in the status quo that the market responds to. For all its faults in 2007, the original iPhone showed that the future of smartphones was a touchscreen device running apps, rather than a keyboard device running built in email and messaging functionality. Blackberry
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Actually, the iPhone in 2007 showed that the future was a touchscreen that could browse the web and play music. Other smartphones of the day already had installable apps; the iPhone did not. It wasn't until the app store was launched in July of 2008 that the iPhone even came close in general-purpose usability to the devices that immediately predated it.
To Apple's credit, they managed to market a so-called smartphone that *couldn't* run apps quite well, and then successfully pivoted to "there's an app for th
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The fact that since the beginning, the iPhone home screen consisted of nothing but a grid of icons for built in apps with obvious blank spots for more apps shows that the app concept was always the plan. And regardless of what the phone's actual functionality was, everything that the phone could do was accessible through a specific app for that functionality. Even making phone calls on the phone wasn't a special function, but rather done through the phone app which had no more of a special place than the em
Not all "upstart" tech is equal. (Score:2)
There are cases where the "upstart" tech just has it so figured out, and the entrenched players are so clueless, that it's an easy bet where things are heading.
It was pretty easy to figure out on day one that the iPhone was going to be fantastically successful, essentially launching a smartphone revolution. The first version wasn't perfect, but all the imperfections were pretty easily fixable (no native third party apps, slow Cell data, no native GPS, no support for push email, no way to access my work emai
Re:FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Also see the cable companies' reaction to Netflix and streaming videos in general. "Why would you want to pay $10 a month to stream everything whenever and wherever you want when you have have 10,000 channels of great content like Inane Reality Show Channel #50 and Shopping Network You'll Never Watch #12 for the low, low price of $200 a month? By the way, did you know that Netflix is really super-expensive. Sure, it's only because we imposed caps and overages on your Internet connection to keep you from streaming, but it's true now. So ditch that horrible streaming with it's great user interface and come back to your cable company!"
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Netflix does not replace a television service, it is a supplement. The user interface of my TiVo is about 5 light-years ahead of any streaming service.
Re:FUD (Score:5, Informative)
We cut cable over a year ago. Instead of cable TV, we get our video content from a combination of Netflix, Amazon VOD/Prime, Hulu, Google Play, OTA, DVD purchases, and DVD rentals from our local library. It's just as good as cable TV and we're saving about $700 a year. Netflix might not be a cable TV replacement by itself for most, but combined with other streaming services as well as other video options, cable TV can easily be replaced.
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You do know that TiVo can stream netflix, right. Along with every other set-top DVR, "smart TV", game console and whatever else. It also doesn't have the same exact interface on any of those devices, which to my mind is a negative but if you like the device's default interface it may be a positive.
For the record, I cut cable ~15 years ago and started using netflix sometime around 2006, I think. I went to streaming-only when they upped the price on the DVD+streaming package in 2011. Obviously it depends
Re:FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that this "disruptive" tech has the potential to get people KILLED.
It's one of the hobgoblins that the computer-driving systems have had to overcome, and Tesla HASN'T DONE IT YET.
Tesla's system is designed to simply relinquish control back to the driver the moment it can't handle what's happening. Could you think of a MORE dangerous model? A car you can grow to a level of comfort trusting (and you know people will) until there's a catastrophically dangerous moment, then it says "whups, I'm out" and now you're supposed to be completely as in-control and aware as if you'd been driving yourself?
Seriously?
Look, I know Volvo is harshing on Tesla for commercial reasons, but it doesn't mean their technical complaints aren't valid.
Driving is inherently dangerous (Score:2)
An autonomous driving system doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be safer than human driving, which is not terribly difficult as it turns out.
There are millions and millions of miles being put on Tesla with autopilot as we speak, and statistics works. If that system is actually less safe than human driving then the statistics will bear that out--thus far it is showing the opposite.
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"Tesla's system is designed to simply relinquish control back to the driver the moment it can't handle what's happening."
All the systems I've seen in operation so far (including the rudimentary stuff on my 12 year old Nissan) give several seconds of warnings before handing control back or throwing out the anchors.
The reality is that in any situation where the car can't cope,
1: A human is unlikely to cope much better (most drivers don't look beyond the end of their nose. Looking 12-15 seconds ahead is an ali
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Just like ULA hating on SpaceX's rocket landing plans or Blackberry hating on the original iPhone, whenever a newcomer comes to market with a disruptive technology, the entrenched players do all they can to trash the newcomer in the media to cast doubt on the viability of the disruptive ideas, rather than pivoting to actually address the market shift that the disruption heralds.
Your comment is not falsifiable. What Tesla is doing could be proven to lead to unnecessary mayhem and your comment would still be no more or less valid.
Personally I agree with Volvo's philosophy of not being half assed with self driving features. Either have the computer fully in charge of everything or don't do self driving at all. This makes a lot of sense to me based on my read of human nature even though Tesla to its credit does take steps to minimize this.
Offloading driving in certain situations on
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I'm not trying to be a Musk fanboy here, and I've looked up the Wiktionary definition of "innovator", but I wonder if the term isn't misused, or being defined incorrectly as compared to its actual popular usage. It seems to simply be a synonym for "inventor".
Obviously, Musk is not an inventor. He didn't invent any of the technologies he pushes.
However, he does popularize these technologies and help make them mature and sellable through both his financing and leadership. I don't know what the exact word i
Awwh, I want to take a nap (Score:2)
I'll just let autopilot drive for a while.
Probably so (Score:2)
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The biggest challenge to autono
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What about people who don't want the "driver" to be obsolete? Who have worked with technology enough to know you can never rely on it when it really matters. What if I'm cool with taking the risk to drive a car and that I'm not so scared shitless that I'm seriously worried about making cars "safer" at the expense of removing the human experience from the operation of the vehicle.
I'm a humanist, I believe in humanity. Technology will fail us and so will all the other altars that the modern man worships to
Not News (Score:1, Interesting)
Considering several of Tesla's Autopilot project leads resigned in protest after complaining that Autopilot was dangerous and not ready for release, and we knew that several months ago, this isn't really news.
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Tesla now has about 50 million miles of driving experience with AutoPilot.
Their initial analysis of the data they collect is that you are about 50% less likely to have an accident when AutoPilot is engaged.
This would seem to be proof of their "concept".
Elon reported this during an interview in Norway recently:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mus... [yahoo.com]
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And I wonder how Elon calculated that statistic? He has his own conflicts of interest after all; he needs to sell more shares to get the Model 3 out to get his company profitable and this hype only makes that claim.
A Volvo engineer building a competing product is just as biased. Perhaps we should ignore the ramblings of either and base it on the opinion of existing regulatory agencies instead?
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Every Tesla car reports back to HQ, so they know how many miles have been driven under autopilot and how many airbag deployments have happened when it was enabled, they also know how many miles have been driven by people and how many airbag deployments have happened over that period, it's not difficult math to calculate accidents per million miles driven and compare them.
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I'm sure they have the information to get those stats, whether they did the adjustment for driving conditions for Musk's comment I can't be sure since as far as I've seen he hasn't given that level of detail yet.
Re:Not News (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have a source for that AC? I follow Tesla news closely and that's the first I've heard.
Failure and Suspension data? (Score:1)
He's completely right, of course (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea of handling back the controls to the driver whenever the car encounters a situation it can't handle any more is patently absurd. Human reaction time and situational awareness cannot cope with this, and in reality the purpose of this "level 3" concept is to quickly shift the blame back to the human driver rather than the car maker.
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The idea of handling back the controls to the driver whenever the car encounters a situation it can't handle any more is patently absurd.
That's how every autopilot system works. It's the only failure mode that aircraft engineers have deemed appropriate in decades of development. What better solution is there?
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The idea of handling back the controls to the driver whenever the car encounters a situation it can't handle any more is patently absurd.
That's how every autopilot system works. It's the only failure mode that aircraft engineers have deemed appropriate in decades of development. What better solution is there?
This is a very tricky situation for a pilot since after being completely disengaged from the act of flying they're not only asked to fly, but fly in an emergency.
That's one of the reason's Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed [wikipedia.org], the pilots were confused when they had to take over, acted inappropriately, and crashed.
For a car it's much worse. Not only does the driver have much less training but there's a much quicker reaction time required. Imagine you're on the highway relaxing with the autopilot when someone in the o
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Not giving it control in the first place?
Competitor slags rival. News at 11. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if the Volvo people are entirely right (and they might be) it doesn't really carry much credibility since they have a clear conflict of interest.
Yes Tesla engages in some puffery. On the other hand they are really doing the most innovative things in the auto industry so it's not entirely without substance. (of course the auto industry is pretty stodgy so being innovative is kind of a low bar) The Model S outsells every model in Volvo's lineup so clearly Tesla is doing something customers appreciate more than Volvo. Makes it sound a lot like sour grapes on Volvo's part even if it really isn't.
Re:Competitor slags rival. News at 11. (Score:5, Informative)
The Model S outsells every model in Volvo's lineup so clearly Tesla is doing something customers appreciate more than Volvo. Makes it sound a lot like sour grapes on Volvo's part even if it really isn't.
Uhh... ok. So I get you're a Tesla fan, but a comment like "the Model S outsells every model in Volvo's lineup" is not an opinion, it's fact that can be checked and in this case is a lie; Volvo had 3 models that outsold the Model S and their total car sales was 10 times Tesla's sales.
Model S sales, 2015 - 50,580
Volvo sales, 2015:
XC60 - 159,617
V40 - 83,357
V60 - 51,333
Total Volvo Sales of all models for 2015: 503,127
It's fine if you're a Tesla fan-boy, but please get your facts right and stop spreading FUD. It makes you sound like you're sour-grapes about a real car brand providing a real critique of your fab-boyishness and doesn't help your argument.
Stat abuse. (Score:2)
The Model S outsells every model in Volvo's lineup so clearly Tesla is doing something customers appreciate more than Volvo
Volvo's customers have fourteen models to chose from.
Volvo sold 52,279 cars in March alone, up 12% from last year. Volvo Car Group Retail Sales By Car Model - March 2016 [volvocars.com]
Volvo is serious about autodrive, with full autonomy coming soon, possibly as early as 2018. But there is no question that Volvo is building some very good cars right now.
Crashworthiness:
Small overlap front G
Moderate overlap front G
Side G
Roof strength G
Head restraints & seats G
Crash avoidance & Mitigation
Front crash prevention Superior [6 Points]
Low speed autobrake 2 Points
High speed autobrake 3 Points
Child Seat Anchors (LATCH) ease of use A
2016 Top Safety Pick - 2016 Volvo XC90 [iihs.org]
Volvo is a minor player with a narrow view (Score:2)
Volvo's customers have fourteen models to chose from.
So what? The Model S out sells most of those models and most of them sell at price points far lower than the Model S. The Model 3 gives Tesla 3 models on the market and it seems pretty likely that the Model 3 will be a brisk seller as they have gobs of pre-orders (about 3/5 of the total annual volume of Volvo). Volvo has been around for decades and yet still is a minor player somehow. They've got some fine vehicles but they aren't doing anything that all the other major auto makers aren't working on too
Conservative engineering culture (Score:2)
Volvo has the tradition of over-engineering. Perhaps they just noticed how hard the problem is to solve perfectly, or at least near to their standards.
Yes they do. Which is a big part of why they are still a minor player in the auto industry. They make over-engineered, somewhat dowdy looking cars that appeal to a relatively narrow niche. Volvo, very much like Saab, has a really hard time going outside their engineering focused comfort zone. The notion of doing something radically beyond what is currently possible I think is an interference fit with their corporate culture.
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Uh huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look who's talking (Score:2)
A company who didn't have a car with anything else than a right angle and looked like a butter box until the end of the 90's.
Not exactly a disinterested observer, though... (Score:4, Informative)
All 'autopilot' systems are (Score:4, Interesting)
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Since no one's reading his actual statements: (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is the typical Slashdot way, let me summarize for you guys and have a real discussion.
Volvo consider's Tesla's system a Level 3 system, which they consider dangerous. The reason they consider this is not for technical reasons but for liability and user control protocol reasons. What he's saying Tesla's system does is that in the event of an emergency, the system relinquishes control of the car to the driver, meaning the driver is now responsible (and has associated liability) for any accident or damage caused from the emergency. However Tesla's promotional material about their system is not suggesting that; their promotions are all focused on technical ability but it's ignoring the fact that if you're in an emergency the system basically tosses control to you, so his argument is that Tesla's promotion of the technology gives drivers and users the wrong impression of what it's really doing. So what he's saying is that if you're driving down the road and you fall asleep at the wheel and start to drift, the system will not take over and park you safely, and if in this process you hit a pedestrian or another car, you are liable for the damage caused.
Volvo's system coming out this year is what they call a Level 4. What this means is that the car does not require the driver to be in control at any time, even during extreme conditions. If you fall asleep at the wheel and start to drift, the computer takes over, gets you back in your lane first, then finds a way to pull you to the side of the road and park the car safely. They are so confident in their system that Volvo itself is taking on the liability of their system; if it fails to get you to safety or causes damage, Volvo is responsible, not you. Tesla does not make that claim about their system.
So his argument that the Tesla system which will force control to the driver in extreme driving conditions is actually more dangerous, because the driver is under the mistaken impression that the autonomous system has control and will suddenly find himself thrown into a difficult situation with no autonomous supervision; that surprise will invariably find the driver unable to make rational decisions.
All you Tesla Fundamentalists should stop with your Musk-worship and brand loving and realize that one of the most experienced safety engineers in the world is making a technical and design process argument. Argue his technical merits or the arguments he makes about Tesla's system and it's design decisions; don't just drink the Elon-Aid and dismiss because of the Gee-Whiz factor.
It is a real concern... proven by Tesla drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
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However Tesla's promotional material about their system is not suggesting that; their promotions are all focused on technical ability but it's ignoring the fact that if you're in an emergency the system basically tosses control to you, so his argument is that Tesla's promotion of the technology gives drivers and users the wrong impression of what it's really doing.
So, when Tesla's presskit on Autopilot [teslamotors.com] states that "Tesla requires drivers to remain engaged and aware when Autosteer is enabled. Drivers must keep their hands on the steering wheel.", what exactly do you think they're doing besides exactly what you claim they're not?
What the Volve engineer is doing is touting his own system's capabilities over and above the Tesla system. He's saying "look at how much more autonomous our system is!" It's advertising, and not much more. It's yet to be seen whether the Volvo
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>> "Tesla requires drivers to remain engaged and aware when Autosteer is enabled. Drivers must keep their hands on the steering wheel.",
How do you stay "engaged" when the car is doing all the driving?
There were accidents where commercial pilots become "disengaged" while plains where auto-piloted.
Complete boredom would put anybody to sleep.
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I realize that is effectively what they are implying, but the fact that they don't actually say this in as many words suggests that they don't genuinely mean that, or at the very least, are hoping that people don't actually realize that is what they are implying, because the possible costs to the company could be incalculable otherwise after the first accident occurs, especially if there is a fatality.
Do you read? Because the CEO of Volvo Hakan Samuelsson said it himself.
http://jalopnik.com/mercedes-google-volvo-to-accept-liability-when-their-1735170893
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but the cars they sell in Europe and America are built in Sweden.
Not for a year now. [nytimes.com] Of course, that's just the first model line to switch, but the company promises further cost reduction.
Didn't realize there were so many Volvo fanboys with mod points. Heck of a reality distortion field for a Chinese company making cars in China, whatever it might once have been in a previous century.
Shocking (Score:3)
Levels of Car Autonomy (Score:5, Informative)
Just some basic information about what they mean when they talk about level of vehicular autonomy:
NHTSA defines vehicle automation as having five levels:
No-Automation (Level 0): The driver is in complete and sole control of the primary vehicle controls â" brake, steering, throttle, and motive power â" at all times.
Function-specific Automation (Level 1): Automation at this level involves one or more specific control functions. Examples include electronic stability control or pre-charged brakes, where the vehicle automatically assists with braking to enable the driver to regain control of the vehicle or stop faster than possible by acting alone.
Combined Function Automation (Level 2): This level involves automation of at least two primary control functions designed to work in unison to relieve the driver of control of those functions. An example of combined functions enabling a Level 2 system is adaptive cruise control in combination with lane centering.
Limited Self-Driving Automation (Level 3): Vehicles at this level of automation enable the driver to cede full control of all safety-critical functions under certain traffic or environmental conditions and in those conditions to rely heavily on the vehicle to monitor for changes in those conditions requiring transition back to driver control. The driver is expected to be available for occasional control, but with sufficiently comfortable transition time. The Google car is an example of limited self-driving automation.
Full Self-Driving Automation (Level 4): The vehicle is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip. Such a design anticipates that the driver will provide destination or navigation input, but is not expected to be available for control at any time during the trip. This includes both occupied and unoccupied vehicles.
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Pretty sure that fits the definition of Level 1.
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Automatic parallel parking would be at least in Level 2, because you have to control multiple systems in together to do it, including throttle, brakes, transmission (forward/reverse), and steering. More likely Level 3.
Cruise control seems more like a Level 1, but I get the impression that they want the feature to have some "smarts" to be in Level 1 such as adaptive cruise control, as opposed to standard cruise control that simply maintains a speed and all adjustments are performed by the driver. Though as
Wannabe (Score:2)
AI (Score:2)