Tesla Autopilot Crisis Deepens With Loss of Third Autopilot Boss In 18 Months (arstechnica.com) 173
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It is no secret that Tesla's Autopilot project is struggling. Last summer, we covered a report that Tesla was bleeding talent from its Autopilot division. Tesla Autopilot head Sterling Anderson quit Tesla at the end of 2016. His replacement was Chris Lattner, who had previously created the Swift programming language at Apple. But Lattner only lasted six months before departing last June. Now Lattner's replacement, Jim Keller, is leaving Tesla as well.
Keller was a well-known chip designer at AMD before he was recruited to lead Tesla's hardware engineering efforts for Autopilot in 2016. Keller has been working to develop custom silicon for Autopilot, potentially replacing the Nvidia chips being used in today's Tesla vehicles. When Lattner left Tesla last June, Keller was given broader authority over the Autopilot program as a whole. Keller's departure comes just weeks after the death of Walter Huang, a driver whose Model X vehicle slammed into a concrete lane divider in Mountain View, California. Tesla has said Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla has since gotten into public feuds with both Huang's family and the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the crash. "Today is Jim Keller's last day at Tesla, where he has overseen low-voltage hardware, Autopilot software and infotainment," Tesla said in a statement to Electrek. "Prior to joining Tesla, Jim's core passion was microprocessor engineering, and he's now joining a company where he'll be able to once again focus on this exclusively."
Keller was a well-known chip designer at AMD before he was recruited to lead Tesla's hardware engineering efforts for Autopilot in 2016. Keller has been working to develop custom silicon for Autopilot, potentially replacing the Nvidia chips being used in today's Tesla vehicles. When Lattner left Tesla last June, Keller was given broader authority over the Autopilot program as a whole. Keller's departure comes just weeks after the death of Walter Huang, a driver whose Model X vehicle slammed into a concrete lane divider in Mountain View, California. Tesla has said Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla has since gotten into public feuds with both Huang's family and the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the crash. "Today is Jim Keller's last day at Tesla, where he has overseen low-voltage hardware, Autopilot software and infotainment," Tesla said in a statement to Electrek. "Prior to joining Tesla, Jim's core passion was microprocessor engineering, and he's now joining a company where he'll be able to once again focus on this exclusively."
Rats fleeing a sinking ship (Score:2)
Re:Rats fleeing a sinking ship (Score:5, Interesting)
In case anyone is wondering why you're seeing so many stories like this about Tesla all of the sudden, here is your answer [thestreet.com]. In particular, this chart [thestreet.com].
Tesla is the most shorted stock in the US right now. There is literally no company in the US that more people have a financial interest in seeing fail than Tesla. A third of the stock is in short positions. The problem is that this is incredibly dangerous from the perspective of a short squeeze [investopedia.com]. Shorts hold the stock price down - the massive surge in short selling countered the benefits (from a stock price perspective) of the major increase in Model 3 production rates. But this can only be taken so far; it's not like they're going to be able to short 100% of the stock. If Model 3 production continues to rise like it's been doing - and along with it, the stock price - not only will some short sellers want to liquidate, but others will be contractually forced to liquidate. This is done by purchasing an equivalent number of shares of TSLA to cover their short. This purchase in turn raises the stock price. With such a massive percentage of Tesla shorted, this can easily snowball, where the obligations of some shorts to purchase cause the next to be forced to purchase, and the next, and so forth - all purchased at whatever price Tesla happens to be at the moment. The shorts would need to acquire literally 1/3rd of Tesla's stock in a short period of time.
Needless to say, this would be a financial disaster for them. If Tesla underperforms what the market expects of them, longs lose some money. But if Tesla overperforms what the market expects, shorts lose a huge amount of money. It's highly asymmetric.
So in case you were wondering if it was a coincidence that all of the sudden everyone and their cousin suddenly started bashing Tesla in the news - even for something as mundane as another company poaching talent from Tesla - no, it's not a coincidence.
Re:Rats fleeing a sinking ship (Score:5, Interesting)
In case anyone is wondering: all of this "Autopilot is doomed" stuff comes out at a time when it just had one of its most massive updates in its history [electrek.co] (unfortunately, it hadn't significantly rolled out before the fatal crash in California). It no longer filters out stationary objects, it handles roads with unusual lane widths, two-direction roads with no central lane markings, and will deliberately "break the rules" when needed for safety (for example, driving into the shoulder when a truck is about to hit you [youtube.com], or when the normal "rules of the road" have suddenly [youtu.be] changed [youtu.be].
But of course, you're not going to see a million articles about that because that's not the obligate doom-and-gloom.
I consider myself a self-driving pessimist. I think there's far too many rules that we process, with too complex reasoning, for self-driving to be immediately around the corner. I have slowly been becoming more optimistic with the realization of how much more one can enable a car to "see" than humans (for example, using radar brightness at different wavelengths to determine road smoothness / traction conditions ahead, or past altimetry data to determine the depth of water on a road), but still think it's going to be a long time before full self driving becomes mainstream. But I also believe that, if properly implemented, combined human-computer systems can be much better than either alone - with the computer bringing new senses and "constant attention" to the picture, and the human bringing their brain. The key is ensuring that the human pays full attention. Making them regularly torque the wheel is one thing, but even better looks to be where the tech is headed - eye tracking. With eye tracking, they can't stop paying attention to the road. And I can't see how in such a situation that "human + computer" is not better than "human alone".
Re: Rats fleeing a sinking ship (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you're going to honestly complain about self driving cars, you're obligated to require that feature in human driven cars too. Apples to apples and all that.
Re: (Score:2)
Just having auto-braking to avoid obstacles on the road has reduced insurance claims by 60%. Some cars already had proximity sensors to assist in parking in a garage.
Re: (Score:2)
On any rational examination of Tesla's financials, its stock is currently overpriced. For example, if you compare its revenue with that of General Motors, its market cap. is about ten times what it should be.
People are shorting Tesla because they expect it to go down and it should be going down. No other company that is not making a profit and is experiencing manufacturing delays on the one product that is supposed to bring profitability would still have such a high stock price.
Re: (Score:2)
Tesla is the most shorted stock in the US right now.
Interesting that you think that this is the cause of Tesla's bad press, without considering WHY it's the most shorted company. Tesla's stock price is wildly out of proportion with its fundamental financial picture, or its production capacity (even accounting for expected growth). It's really that simple. It's not a conspiracy - it's basic financial analysis.
Re: (Score:2)
It also has nothing to do with Tesla's future profitability. Right now, the stock is way overpriced. It's almost certain to go down a lot sometime. That doesn't mean it's a bad investment, it means it's a bad investment at the price it is now.
Re: (Score:2)
So, what happens if sellers fail to deliver? Would it be considered financial fraud?
Re: (Score:3)
If you believe this, jump aboard the short train. There's a nice echo chamber over at Seeking Alpha to assist you in parting with your money.
Re:Rats fleeing a sinking ship (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't believe Tesla deserves a $48B market cap-- worth more than Ford's $45B and close to Honda's $60B.
Tesla hopes to sell 500,000 vehicles this year, and 1,000,000 next year, both with a net outflow of cash. Tesla is also significantly encumbered by debt and will likely have to dilute existing stockholders more. Honda sells 5 million vehicles a year with an operating profit plus all kinds of other "stuff".
Yes, electric cars will be important, and ultimately TSLA may move as many vehicles and deliver as much profit as Honda. Maybe. But-- how much of that upside will current stockholders enjoy (vs. new stockholders and bondholders), and how long will it take to reach that point (time value of money)?
Re: (Score:3)
Tesla is not really "significantly encumbered with debt". There's 200-something million due in November, and next spring there will be another round due that brings the total up to $1,1B. 500k vehicles with an average sale price of $45k is $22,5B. At 25% margins, it's $5,6B. Knock that down by SG&A, R&D, etc - the debt is not at all disproportional compared to the business activities it was acquired to fund.
Tesla has no plans to stop at the vehicle numbers you state (although your timing figures
Re: (Score:2)
..At 25% margins...
For my next trick, I will pull even MORE made up, fantasy numbers out of my ass! Behold!
Re: (Score:2)
That's quite a big hindrance for a car manufacturer.
P.S. You use too many commas.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a relatively good problem to have, particularly when it's fixable. Being able to produce maybe a third of the cars they can sell beats being able to sell maybe a third of the cars they produce.
Re: (Score:2)
The maintenance costs of Tesla model S/Xs that are being tracked are completely out of line. Unless the ones tracked are atypical, Teslas will be put in museums or junked shortly after going out of warranty.
If the ones being tracked were atypical, Tesla would likely release fleet wide data. They don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Right. You're convinced Elon is a fraud and it's all a big house of cards ready to crash. Yet rather than making money on what you know to be a sure thing, you've decided, "Nah, money's overrated"?
Re: (Score:3)
As Buffett once put it, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. The sure thing is that eventually investors will get tired of Elon's sweet crooning and flashy distractions and will stop giving him more money to throw after the billions he's frittered away. The unsure thing is exactly how long that will take. But I'm heartened at the (dare I say) S-curve of reality that finally seems to be setting in.
Re: (Score:2)
Then spread your shorts out over a length of time to soak the risk of uncertain timing. Come on, "reality is setting in", right? So why stay off the money train?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Karen, even if it's not your intent, you're coming across like an insecure bully. WANNA BET???? HMMMM????? YOU MUST BE WRONG IF YOU WON'T BET!!!
Sit back and enjoy the show. And try to grow up a bit.
Re: (Score:2)
Karen, even if it's not your intent, you're coming across like an insecure bully. WANNA BET???? HMMMM????? YOU MUST BE WRONG IF YOU WON'T BET!!!
It's foolish to trust the predictions of a pundit (or a fund manager) who won't commit their own money. Not because having skin in the game changes the probability that they are right, but because the lack of it demonstrates that they don't really believe their own words, and if they don't, why should anyone else?
Since you clearly don't believe your own predictions, why should anyone else believe you?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's foolish to trust the predictions of a pundit (or a fund manager) who won't commit their own money.
Pundit? Fund manager? From whence come these straw men?
I have to say I find it fascinating that when I express an opinion on a discussion board I get the functional equivalent of "$10,000, Rick" [youtube.com]. This is clearly a touchy subject for some of you.
Since you clearly don't believe your own predictions, why should anyone else believe you?
I actually don't care if you believe me or not. You likely have more than enough Google bux to splash around on the casino table that you'll be fine. I fear, though, that poor Karen has overextended herself. Maybe you can spot her a few when things go thud.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually don't care if you believe me or not.
So you're just trolling. Okay. Thanks for clarifying.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually don't care if you believe me or not.
So you're just trolling. Okay. Thanks for clarifying.
Well, actually, friend, if you review the thread it turns out you're the one that spontaneously jumped into an exchange between me and Karen and started piling on.
It's really interesting how hard you're flexing the bounds of logic to try to come up with ways to be dismissive. Why not spend your cycles actually arguing Tesla's merits (if you feel there are any)?
Re: (Score:2)
The sure thing is that eventually investors will get tired of Elon's sweet crooning and flashy distractions
Oh yes that "flashy distraction" of actually selling more electric cars than he can make to people who want one. He does actually have a product and customers. That's not an accident.
after the billions he's frittered away.
Success or failure he's actually trying to do interesting things with his money.
However the world is and always be full of naysayers who never do anything useful or interesting but ta
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yes that "flashy distraction" of actually selling more electric cars than he can make to people who want one.
Whether or not he can SELL his electric cars is not the question. Can he MAKE MONEY doing it? That is the real question.
Re: (Score:2)
Well it's good you're not investing, because thinking you know the sure thing about a stock's future is a great way to lose a bunch of money.
Re:Rats fleeing a sinking ship (Score:5, Informative)
PE ratios are great for a company with relatively static business operations in a relatively static field, but they're terribly misleading for growing companies [investopedia.com]. Ex: in late June of 2014, Amazon had a PE of over 500. Was it a bad buy? Hardly; people who bought it then would be 4 1/2 times richer today.
PE ratios don't cut it for growth companies that are dumping tons of money into capex, expanded options for future sales and building a new market. Quite the opposite , PE ratios paint precisely the *wrong* picture. In such a case, they're more a measure of how aggressive the company is being toward growth.
For such growth companies, the real question is how large of a market they're aiming for and how likely they are to get there. E.g. the reason Tesla shot up so much after Model 3 preorders opened is that nearly half a million people put down real money to wait over a year for a BMW-priced electric car that they'd never even seen in person, much less driven, without any advertising . That's pent-up, untapped demand. That's a market. Tesla is priced based on the potential shown, relative to the risk in getting there. Its current profits are almost irrelevant except for helping fund its route to "there".
One can disagree about the exact market size and the risks. It's expected! But what should not be in dispute is that PE is totally the wrong tool to employ here.
Re: (Score:2)
M3 is expected to reach positive gross margins in Q1 or Q2. It was negative in Q4 because they were building so vastly fewer than the design levels, using very expensive equipment and labour intended for a far higher rate.
Re: (Score:2)
For a short investment in a growth company, the P/E ratio is even less relevant. You're buying and selling based partly on what the market expects the P/E ratio to get to when the company matures, not what it is.
LIDAR is the way to go (Score:3)
LIDAR is the way to go and both Google and Apple know this.
The problem is, puck-sized LIDAR systems, as seen in 8-packs on the Apple dev car, cost 8000 [velodynelidar.com] a piece and that is why Testa uses cheapo-cams and parking radar.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is, puck-sized LIDAR systems, as seen in 8-packs on the Apple dev car, cost 8000 a piece and that is why Testa uses cheapo-cams and parking radar.
Velodyne announced solid-state LIDAR in 2006 [ieee.org], and developed a prototype in 2017 [ieee.org]. They have claimed that in mass quantity, they will be able to get the manufacturing cost down to $50 per sensor. The smartest thing Tesla can do is simply punt on self-driving until it comes out, and then go ahead and adopt it even though they said it wouldn't be necessary. The units are supposed to enter mass production this year...
Re: (Score:2)
I think a smarter bet is to continue down their path, and keep the tech they develop as backup or supplemental sensing to go with the cheap LIDAR, LIDAR has some real limitations, and what they're currently working with mitigates some of them. Likewise, what they're currently working with has some severe limitations, and LIDAR mitigates some of them as well.
No reason not to use complementary systems, especially if they have developed half that system already.
Re: (Score:2)
How many beams? Most cheap LIDAR, is cheap because it's _much_ less capable.
Re: LIDAR is the way to go (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's what both Apple and Google do. I think other manufacturers too. I recall the Volvo big rig has a lidar on top of the cabin but dont have links to that.
The real problem, and how to fix it. (Score:2)
Stop calling it autopilot, rename it to "drive assist".
Re: (Score:2)
Why?
An "autopilot" is an assistance system.
Re: (Score:2)
automatic
adjective
1. (of a device or process) working by itself with little or no direct human control.
"an automatic kettle that switches itself off when it boils"
So no, it does NOT mean "assistance system". And for 99.99999% of the population, it means "my car will drive itself while I sleep".
Renaming the damn thing "drive assist" will solve the problem of people not driving while in the driver seat, people thinking it's as good as in science-fiction movies and the lawsuits because people have accidents be
Re: (Score:2)
You're holding it wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
See, you're jumping to conclusions here. How did you get from "autopilot" to "automatic"? It's like you think the "auto" in both words tie them together. "Auto" actually comes from "automobile", and it's thus a shortened version of "Automobile Pilot".
Don't be a moran and jump to conclusions like that.
Bit of an exaggeration (Score:2)
Neither Keller nor Lattner is a huge loss.
Lattner wasn't there long and he was out of his depth. Keller is a talented hardware designer but what Tesla and all self-driving companies need is software prowess. Losing Sterling Anderson surely hurt, losing Andrej Karpathy would be a big frickin' deal.
This is not that.
Wish they did not do auto pilot (Score:5, Insightful)
But, all the same, I wish they never got into this auto pilot self driving thing. It is a distraction from getting the affordable electric car done. That is the most important thing to get done.
Re: (Score:2)
It is a distraction from getting the affordable electric car done.
Meanwhile the redesigned Nissan Leaf is here today and is surprisingly even more roomy than the last model :\
-dk
Re: (Score:2)
And can go 200-250km before its charge rate gets cut from an already slow 40-45kW to an unbearable 20-25kW.
Re: (Score:2)
Um, how much are you ending up paying for your "affordable electric car"? Government subsidies don't count.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if there were no subsidies, the average US user saves about $1000 per year in energy costs, and the average European user double that. Ignoring maintenance savings, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see how that's possible. The energy costs for my petrol powered car probably come to around $2,000 per year (I am in Europe). You're saying that, if I had an electric car, the electricity would be free. Ha, ha.
Re: (Score:2)
You may not be the average European... but either way, I'd expect you'd see significant savings.
Here in the US, I can charge my EV with off peak electricity, so 100 miles costs me about $1.50. My ICE car gets 25 mpg on a good day, so that's at least $10 to go 100 miles. I'll probably spend $200 vs $1200 a year so that $1000 estimate is pretty close for me.
And if my time were worth nothing, there actually are quite a few places around me which don't bother to charge for EV charging, so I could do all my mile
Re: (Score:2)
Then you're below average: either below-average fuel prices, below-average driving distances, or above-average fuel economy.
Re: (Score:2)
Compared to petrol, electricity is free. You can fill an electric car for 400km for 2 euros. Currently this is like 30€ for petrol in Europe.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish they never got into this auto pilot self driving thing. It is a distraction from getting the affordable electric car done
Getting an auto pilot feature for Tesla vehicles isn't a wrong decision by itself
The wrong thing they did was they hired all the wrong people to head the division
A guy who created the "Swift" language in Apple might be a genius, but is he the suitable candidate for the auto pilot project?
Similarly, a chip designer for AMD might also be a genius --- the problem with them is, they have no prior experience in self driving cars, had no idea what's important and which difficulties to tackle first
In other word
Re: (Score:2)
>> it is a distraction from getting the affordable electric car done.
This.
Re: (Score:2)
Because airline autopilots (where the term came from) mean the pilot can just nap off and do everything for the pilot?
Tesla makes abundantly clear , over and over, every time you start the bloody thing, that you're responsible for driving it, and makes you not only touch the wheel, but torque it at regular intervals, to prove you're paying attention - and now appears to be going toward adding eye tracking into the mix as well. They make it literally impossible at checkout for you to think you're getting a s
Re: (Score:2)
Tesla has never advertised its vehicles as, and I quote from the Mercedes ad, "A self-driving car"
Re: (Score:2)
Why did you link me to a site that says, and I quote:
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, like sue over some marketing terms.
What a joke.
Who stays too long as the boss will get sued in th (Score:2)
As Oscar Wilde said (Score:2)
Losing three seems like carelessness.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect Tesla's method of using less hardware will be the main path in 15 years for autonomy, once we have car to car communications and car to traffic control communications as standard equipment in every vehicle and bugs worked out.
All the kinks worked out and equipment in every vehicle on the road in the next 15 years. Elon, is that you?
Some cars with humans or lasers can communicate safe passages and routes through construction, and other road conditions (wet/ice/snow...) And lesser equipped cars can then navigate recently validated routes more safely.
I'm sure you're not saying that a ~4,000 pound hunk of metal being propelled at ~60mph can make safe operational decisions based not on current environmental conditions but on environmental conditions that existed at some point before it reached a given area.
Re: (Score:2)
> make safe operational decisions based not on current environmental conditions but on environmental conditions that existed at some point before it reached a given area.
You probably don't realize we all do that. Not exclusively from the past, but it is important. When I drive to work in freezing temperatures, I have a past knowledge making it safer. I know if it rained/snowed/sleeted, I smell see the affects of water to know where it may flood or freeze, I see it on the wipers, I know what roads are
Re: (Score:2)
You probably don't realize we all do that. Not exclusively from the past, but it is important. When I drive to work in freezing temperatures, I have a past knowledge making it safer. I know if it rained/snowed/sleeted, I smell see the affects of water to know where it may flood or freeze, I see it on the wipers, I know what roads are high traffic and were salted, and had high traffic to either maintain a clear surface (or were more likely to turn snow into ice, and to avoid.) I know to look out for road sections that are shaded from sun, or bridges.
Similar with looking at tracks of other cars, and have to trust the cars around me, looking way ahead for brake lights over hills...
I get all that, but every single one of those examples involves your immediate senses in combination with your general knowledge of your surroundings, and you make your operational decisions based on the least common denominator of the two. In no circumstance are you squeezing your eyes shut to what you're actually seeing and feeling and instead guessing at your environmental conditions based on some weather/traffic report you heard on the radio 5 minutes ago. And that's ultimately what OP was proposing -
Re: (Score:2)
> And that's ultimately what OP was proposing -- reliance on stale environmental data in an effort to reduce sensor costs.
No, I am OP, and specifically stated Tesla will need V2V communications. Only with no cameras does it still need to be able to navigate for short periods safely in the event of a system failure in the vision system while at speed it cannot have the camera/radar lose power, or get hit buy a mud shower, then stop in traffic, unable to navigate out of the way to a safe location. Same wi
Re:Too little too soon? (Score:4, Informative)
I suspect Tesla's method of using less hardware will be the main path in 15 years for autonomy, once we have car to car communications and car to traffic control communications as standard equipment in every vehicle and bugs worked out. Some cars with humans or lasers can communicate safe passages and routes through construction, and other road conditions (wet/ice/snow...) And lesser equipped cars can then navigate recently validated routes more safely.
But now the NTSB is very likely going to step into national standards for autonomy, and it doesn't appear Tesla is ready to meet the likely minimum standard, such as redundant navigation (operate without GPS, or without optical recognition.) and redundant systems.
Hardware only gets cheaper, the future of self-driving cars is more and redundant sensors. And no car is going to rely on another car to tell it what is a safe route.
Re: (Score:3)
And no car is going to rely on another car to tell it what is a safe route.
That's actually exactly what Autopilot does. In traffic it follows the car in front. The lead car turns blue on the display when the Tesla is locked on to it.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't wait to read about 'lemming mode' megacrashes!
Re: (Score:2)
Until it finds a collapsed crash barrier to 'follow'.
Re: (Score:2)
You can pick and adjust your follow distance. Some people choose a short follow distance. I personally wouldn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Aha. Like there is no other living or driving thing around.
No animals or humans on bikes traversing your lane.
No bridges falling between both cars.
No one throwing stones from non collapsing bridges.
No tire exploding, ever.
No water, ice, fog in your path, ever.
No confusing road markings
No sun blinding cameras
No rain
Just pretend all those things do not exist.
Re: (Score:2)
And a light doesn't change just after the first one passes it.
Re: (Score:2)
And, fortunately, cars never go off the road into a ditch.
Re: (Score:2)
That should be fine as long as it keeps a safe distance.
Or as long as it doesn't plunge 200 feet into a ravine.
Re: (Score:2)
> And no car is going to rely on another car to tell it what is a safe route.
Not exclusively, but often it will either by reliant on other cars, or your going to be by far the slowest car to the point of causing a crash.
Almost every day, usually multiple times a day, we go over hills and around corners where we cannot see far enough to see something in time to stop before hitting it. We are either trusting luck, or looking at the cars in front/around, did they hit their brakes? Especially in freezing
Re: (Score:3)
Some hardware gets cheaper some of the time. I've noticed for instance that the old-fashioned mechanical watches that were the staple of the last century have not gotten any cheaper at all. Recently the price of high-end GPUs has skyrocketed.
Mass production of some goods can cause them to become cheaper but this is by no means a foregone conclusion.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure they have. Chinese Rolexes have never been cheaper.
Re: (Score:2)
Contrary to some bad reporting of late, the Model 3's AP systems are redundant - both onboard redundancy, and redundancy in the mechanical assist systems. And if AP loses a sensor or a sensor is obstructed, AP is disabled until it can be fixed.
Re: Too little too soon? (Score:2)
Re:Too little too soon? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the NTSB does not set standard for autonomy. The NTSB is an investigation board. The NHTSA sets standards in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Humans seem to get by ok with minimal hardware. Two cameras and one massively parallel, but extremely buggy and unreliable CPU that completely fabricates a lot of what you see based on its best guess.
Re: (Score:3)
... with several billion years worth of AI training data
Re: (Score:2)
Humans are allowed to drive, and generally do so pretty well, even if one "camera" is defective or inoperative.
Re: (Score:3)
if AI drivers perform the same, or even half as bad as humans, they would be forbidden.
what I am saying is : humans are bad drivers
And what everyone else is saying is: Tesla's "auto pilot", Uber's full-fledged self driving cars, etc. are worse. Much worse. They're parlor tricks that work in a rigged scenario at best. They're decades away from being as safe and flexible as even a drunk human.
Re: (Score:2)
Just sayin': a few years ago, AI was supposedly "decades away" from beating the best Go players.
Re: (Score:2)
It's so minimal that it takes massive amounts of hardware to even poorly replicate specific aspects of its function.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm surprised that Tesla doesn't already have car-to-car comms for their own vehicles
Re: (Score:3)
In 15 years?
The average car age on the road USA is approaching 12 years. in 2003 is was 9.7 years, in 2016 it was 11.6 years.
In 15 years the average car will be similar to what's available now. Most cars won't have self-driving capability or car to car communication.
There are plenty of cars from the 70's, 80's and 90's on the roads today. In 15 years there still will be. Maybe fewer from the 80's as they start turning to rust.
Maybe in 150 years.
Re: (Score:2)
> Most cars won't have self-driving capability or car to car communication.
Doesn't take most, just takes enough. Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) was introduced to new cars 2 years ago, and will likely be in all news cars in 2 years. Driver assist (lane assist, emergency braking...) with NHTSA is already recommending CIB, DBS and PAEB braking [nhtsa.gov], and was on a path to make them mandatory, but the current anti regulation path in the US has likely put a delay to that.
With these style of cars, we are a few system upd
Very little, indeed (Score:2)
The most frightening part is that Tesla's Autopilot, in addition to relying on less hardware compared to more autonomous vehicle like Google's (Level 2 vs. Level 3/4), is even relying on less hardware than LESS autonomous cars.
(Tesla's Level2 is relying on a single Camera,
Whereas Level1 like Volvo add laser lidar [wikipedia.org] in addition to camera,
and several brands including mercedes have been adding stereo cameras for quite some time).
But on the scale of the price of the whole car (I mean, on scale on the price of the
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect Tesla's method of using less hardware will be the main path in 15 years for autonomy, once we have car to car communications and car to traffic control communications as standard equipment in every vehicle and bugs worked out.
Will _all_ the bugs be worked out before, or after Pagani deliver my flying unicorn.
Re: (Score:2)
FYI, the Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) system is in some cars today, by 2020 all new cars must have them.
Bigger to me is these communicate to traffic lights, so auto systems in vehicles will get alerts for things like light changes, crashes, weather and temperature. So it is likely a intersection that commonly has problems with Ice will alert.
Re: (Score:3)
You're talking about V2V? Yes, they have spectrum and some implementations. They don't even seem to have a single agreed to or dictated protocol that would allow, for example, BMWs to talk to Cadillacs. And no, there is no current Implement_by-date although several have been proposed. NHSTA proposed a standard at the end of 2016, but it seems to have quietly died in late 2017
Not that I'm opposed to V2V? Seems like a perfectly OK idea actually if everyone can be persuaded to speak the same digital langu
Re: (Score:2)
FYI, the Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) system is in some cars today, by 2020 all new cars must have them.
Where did you get the 2020 date? Their website states that they have made no such mandate yet:
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/v2v-statement
"The Department of Transportation and NHTSA have not made any final decision on the proposed rulemaking concerning a V2V mandate."
Re: (Score:2)
> Where did you get the 2020 date?
Thanks for that, It was in a article from around January 2016. posted to /. so likely just a planned date, as yours is newer.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course 100% reliability will not be the standard, because that's never acheivable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The vehicles have cameras, radar, lidar and they integrate this information into a single stream. The have a "bullshit detector" known as a Kalman filter to only accept accurate information. Any data that conflicts is discarded. That information comes out as a cloud of points and has to be processed as road surface, road signs, pedestrians, vehicles, obstacles. Those are the easy ones. Then there is ice, snow, water puddles, reflections, vehicles with razzle-dazzle adverts (buses with a collage of road sign
Re: (Score:3)
How many billion miles travelled per day? The relevant statistic is the number of fatalities per billion miles (or km) traveled. See here [wikipedia.org]. We don't know for sure the relevant statistics for driver-assisted vehicles.
There is a very good chance that driver assistance is going to improve the fatalities statistics, but this needs to be done correctly.