[HN Gopher] Mercedes-Benz wins approval for Level 3 autonomous d...
___________________________________________________________________
Mercedes-Benz wins approval for Level 3 autonomous driving on the
Autobahn
Author : mardiyah
Score : 267 points
Date : 2021-12-11 01:13 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ttnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ttnews.com)
| superkuh wrote:
| The autobahn is a good, easy testing ground for cars. Almost on
| par with, say, Arizona. The real difficulty is little town
| streets in winter with snow.
| MisterSandman wrote:
| And India. Nobody has even thought of tackling third-world-
| country roads, and with the slow and city-specific progress
| that is being made, I think there will be a huge gap in self-
| driving capabilities between countries, akin to the huge
| internet divide in the 80s/90s.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Or Egypt, not too long ago, I read there was only a literal
| handful of traffic lights in the whole country.
| nexuist wrote:
| > The automaker got the green light to sell its Drive Pilot
| package for use on stretches of the country's Autobahn network at
| a speed of up to 37 miles per hour, Mercedes said Dec. 9.
|
| Kind of stupid that this headline implies Mercedes is beating
| Tesla when Autopilot obviously supports speeds above 37mph. It
| would be like if a car manufacturer offered a package called
| "Full Self Driving" that wasn't actually level 5 self driving.
| justapassenger wrote:
| You're comparing apples to oranges. Level 2 and 3 have enormous
| gaps in terms of how you design, what are your failures modes,
| liability, redundancy, etc, etc.
|
| Comparing autopilot to level 3 system is like saying that fly
| is more advanced organism than a dog, because it can fly.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| When the goal is to have a flying organism, a dog is pretty
| useless, however advanced its bark.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| New client requirement: add barking ability to the fly.
| justapassenger wrote:
| Who said a goal of level 3 system is the same as a goal of
| an level 2? As I said, apples to oranges.
|
| Autopilot is a drivers aid system that will actively try to
| kill you as a part of a design (like any other level 2
| systems). Level 3 system goal is not to kill you.
| MBCook wrote:
| Does autopilot support driving without the driver paying any
| attention at all?
|
| That's what Mercedes system can do.
| noja wrote:
| Yeah, at up to 37 mph.
| chrinic4948 wrote:
| Nope. Even at 10 mph / 16 kph, Tesla requires the driver to
| pay attention.
|
| Tesla forces drivers to apply resistance to the steering
| wheel and the interior cabin camera (and cabin infrared
| camera starting 2022) will ensure the driver is looking up.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| I genuinely can't tell if this is deadpan humor or not, since
| Tesla's build-to-order page as of this moment refers to this
| option package as "Full Self-Driving Capability."
| Aeolun wrote:
| > It would be like if a car manufacturer offered a package
| called "Full Self Driving" that wasn't actually level 5 self
| driving.
|
| You mean like something called 'autopilot' when you still have
| to pay attention all the time?
| 01acheru wrote:
| There is one thing I will never understand, why do a lot of
| people talk about speed _limits_ as the speed you need to be
| driving? It's the maximum speed you can reach before being fined,
| it doesn't mean "oh man I'm driving at 90km /h and the limit is
| 100, that's so wrong".
|
| Some roads (at least here in Italy) also have a minimum speed
| requirement when there is no traffic, which goes higher the more
| you go to the left lanes, but that's another story.
|
| Anyway I think that reading speed limits from road signs is quite
| stupid and frankly useless, most of the time the speed you need
| to be driving is contextual and the same applies to a lot of
| other dynamics of driving.
|
| Well done Mercedes, one step at a time raising the bar once you
| manage to do "simple" things right.
| un-devmox wrote:
| If I remember correctly, back in the 70's in the US speed
| limits were lowered to increase fuel efficiency. I think people
| advocating for increased speed limits or no speed limits at all
| should at least consider the increase in fuel consumption and
| pollutant emissions when looking at the pros and cons.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > why do a lot of people talk about speed limits as the speed
| you need to be driving
|
| In the UK you'll fail you driving test if you drive below the
| speed limit, eg 60mph in a 70mph zone.
|
| Hard to find an authoritative source, but this seems to break
| it down pretty well: https://www.drivejohnsons.co.uk/learning-
| centre/faq/driving-...
| samwillis wrote:
| So, not quite. It's that you can fail for "undue hesitation",
| or driving dangerously, which could manifest as driving too
| slowly. But the act of driving to slowly isn't a fail in and
| of itself.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| 'Undue hesitation' is something else (eg: failing to enter
| a roundabout when there's a safe opportunity to do so,
| especially if this causes other road users to also be
| unable to enter the roundabout).
|
| 'Appropriate speed' is definitely a potential minor (or
| major) error on your driving test (and you are marked as
| failing for either a single major or three or more minors
| in the same category).
|
| Generally, it's up to the examiner's discretion whether
| speed is 'appropriate', but often lenience will not be more
| than 10% of the speed limit (unless there are other
| factors, such as weather, road surface, visibility, etc.
| which would make it unsafe to travel at the posted speed
| limit).
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Driving at 60mph in a 70mph zone will not make you fail your
| test.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| German highways are special when it comes to this. Many of them
| have no speed limit at all. If traffic permits, you can travel
| at 180 mph and it's perfectly legal. You will see many Porsches
| doing so, you will see the electronically limited BMS do 155mph
| and you will see that things like vans travel at 100-110 mph as
| if it's a normal thing. This 60kph speed limit would simply
| look out of place on an Autobahn as they call it, and I gather
| this stem is only to be used on the motorway, specifically
| designated.
|
| Sounds incredible until you witness it yourself.
| ctdonath wrote:
| It is. Imperative is "keep right", and watch your rear view
| mirror as much as the road ahead. Doing 140mph and getting
| passed frequently is amazing.
| ngngngng wrote:
| In the US you can and often will be pulled over for going too
| slow, because it's suspicious. This effectively makes the speed
| limit the only speed you can drive without fear of police
| interaction.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| In some countries you're supposed to drive at close to speed
| limit. If the speed limit is 90, you're supposed to go at least
| 70. Main reason why horse carriages and bicycles aren't allowed
| on highways. Go way slower than the traffic flow and you're
| impeding traffic which is detrimental to traffic safety.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| In other jurisdictions, where it's not illegal, it's at least
| a reason enough for cops to pull you over, claiming
| "suspicious driving"
| emteycz wrote:
| I failed driving school final test because I was too slow
| (not even on a highway)
| MaxikCZ wrote:
| not sure why you getting downed, for highways this is totally
| the case. In my country your vehicle must prove to be able to
| sustain at least 70km/h, or else it's banned from highways
| and high-speed motorways.
| 01acheru wrote:
| I think it's because 70km/h is not "close to the speed
| limit" and also because there are countless reasons why you
| cannot drive a bicycle or a horse carriage on a highway
| besides the speed you travel at.
| elzbardico wrote:
| In that case would be far more useful for people to
| discuss about that than go all passive-aggressive-hn-
| downvoting style
| inglor_cz wrote:
| It is close to the Czech highway speed limit for _trucks_
| , which drive on the same highway, so they must be taken
| into account.
| mantaraygun wrote:
| > _there are countless reasons why you cannot drive a
| bicycle [...] on a highway besides the speed you travel
| at._
|
| What reasons other than speed are there for keeping
| bicycles off fast roads? Motorcycle can be very nearly
| just as small and vulnerable as bicycles, _but_ they can
| keep pace with cars and consequently they 're allowed on
| every road.
| 01acheru wrote:
| Bicycles are much more unstable than motorcycles, it's
| more difficult for bicycles to avoid objects in some
| situations since you cannot brake and accelerate in a
| small timeframe, they take more time to return to a high
| speed after you brake, etc.
|
| Same reasons why you cannot drive small motorcycles on
| highways here in Italy, even if they can easily reach
| 110km/h they are not allowed on even second tier
| highways.
| mantaraygun wrote:
| I don't know what it's like in Italy, but in America
| bicycles are allowed on almost all roads, except for
| limited access highways. They're even allowed on most
| regular highways, to the chagrin of many car drivers. The
| poor acceleration of bicycles is the worst on roads where
| frequent stops are expected (for intersections) but
| bicycles are allowed on almost all of those roads,
| particularly city streets which obviously have abundant
| intersections. Limited access highways don't have
| intersections that would frustrate cyclists, but as a
| consequence of not having intersections those roads have
| much higher speeds that cyclists can't keep up with.
| Furthermore, heavy trucks have terrible acceleration,
| much worse than cyclists, but are allowed on all of the
| limited access highways that bicycles are banned on.
|
| Maybe it's different in Italy, but in America the
| restrictions on bicycles really seem to be about top
| speed, not acceleration.
| 01acheru wrote:
| I get what you say, and sure laws are different from
| country to country.
|
| Overall the reasons why you cannot drive bicycles on
| highways are many, but when you put them all together it
| mostly fall under one term: safety.
|
| What I wanted to say on my original comment is that
| trying to put an autonomous driving car in a urban
| situation is not about checking the speed limit from a
| road sign, looking at a ground stop or other road
| signals. If you want a safe autonomous car in an urban
| center it must be aware of the context much more than
| "this is a stop sign" or "speed limit is 50km/h", that's
| why I praise Mercedes for trying to solve the solvable
| problems first and then move to more complex ones.
| xattt wrote:
| Road signs in Canada have provisions for minimum speeds, but
| I have not seen this posted anywhere I've driven.
|
| My only source on this is a drivers training handbook.
| newsclues wrote:
| In Canada you also are limited to driving according to road
| conditions. The posted speed limit could be entirely unsafe
| in winter.
| rconti wrote:
| It's because they're too low, that's why.
|
| People are driving contextually, it's the limits that are not
| keeping up.
|
| They're not blindly targeting the "speed limit" and throwing
| all caution to the wind.
|
| (of course, they're ALSO often throwing all caution to the
| wind, but that's another story).
| yread wrote:
| we were recently breathealyzed for driving 38 in a 50 zone.
| Even the police wants you to speed from one traffic light to
| the other
| mantaraygun wrote:
| If the road conditions were good, then breathalyzing somebody
| who's going substantially below the speed limit for no
| apparent reason seems prudent. If road conditions were poor,
| then obviously that's another story.
| oefrha wrote:
| In the U.S. if you drive at (maximum) speed limit you're likely
| _slowing down_ traffic. You're supposed to drive 5 to 10 mph
| above the speed limit.
| mPReDiToR wrote:
| My car has a speed of 70mph on the SatNav when the speedo
| says 77.
|
| That could be by design, or the factory fitted alloys having
| a different circumference to the factory steel wheels.
|
| I peg my cruise control at 76.5 and overtake all day long
| because other road users are oblivious to their actual speed.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Which is a bad thing. Especially since it gives cops the
| opportunity to pull over anyone whenever, because the
| expectation is that you speed all the time.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >You're supposed to drive 5 to 10 mph above the speed limit.
|
| What? Where is the legislation that says that?
| freshpots wrote:
| Experience, not law.
| [deleted]
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| My experience is if people are all driving at the same
| speed then they mentally switch off. When a hazard
| appears they aren't ready for it.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Driving "too slow" is often dangerous as well. You'll get
| failed in a UK driving test for going too slow and not keeping
| up with traffic or generally causing an obstruction.
|
| If you are doing 40mph but everyone else is doing 65-70 then
| you cause a hazard for people as they have to take evasive
| action to go around you, then others have to brake to avoid
| hitting the people going around you, then a ripple braking wave
| starts behind you, then a BMW driver rear-ends someone half a
| mile behind you and suddenly you've caused a multiple pile-up
| where someone died today, because you were going too slow for
| the conditions.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| That's a nice story that people keep telling because they
| don't like having to slow down.
|
| But I seriously doubt that driving below the speed limit has
| a measurable increase in risk.
|
| I would bet the opposite: That driving below the speed limit
| decreases risk of serious accidents.
|
| One reason for that is that rear end accidents where both
| cars are going in the same direction are typically much less
| serious than head on collisions. So even if slow drivers
| increase the risk of rear end accidents (which I doubt is
| significant), they reduce the impact of head on collisions
| much more leading to a net positive.
|
| People should drive slower, it's always safer. (Apart from
| dumb maneuvers like brake checking...)
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Research from the 60s has a relative speed/crash incidence
| curve. It's lowest for cars going a little above the median
| speed, about equally dangerous going either way from that
| in a U shape.
|
| Some subsequent research affirms this curve, others call it
| into question. My own, informal read is that the stronger
| research generally affirms it.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| It's not crash incidence I care about, it's "chance of
| being involved in a fatal accident" that I want to
| minimize.
|
| Reducing the rate of harmless crashes is no good if the
| rate of severe crashes increases.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Speed-CAUSED crashes don't factor strongly into fatal
| crash counts. Also, a general trend of increasing rural
| road or freeway (urban and rural) speed limit increases
| in the US since 1995 has accompanied continued plunges
| into record low highway fatality rates.
|
| Also, all crashes are relevant. Fatalities can't happen
| when there aren't crashes.
|
| The speeding crisis is mostly a moral panic.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > because they don't like having to slow down
|
| An inability to read an argument without imputing your
| biases onto the person making it makes what you say a bit
| useless.
| amelius wrote:
| Uh, it is still their fault if they rear-end you.
| [deleted]
| varjag wrote:
| Here in Norway posted speed limit corresponds to safe speed at
| typical weather condition. If you go slower you impede traffic
| and force people to overtake you. That is substantially more
| dangerous than just driving at posted speed.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| And Norwegians will overtake - I drove from Bergen to Oslo
| and was astounded by how many people would whip past me at
| breakneck speed in those mountain passageways. And I'm not
| what I would consider a slow driver. I chalked it up to
| inexperience with the area.
| rconti wrote:
| Huh. I drove Bergen to Oslo and averaged something insane
| like 47mph or whatever the limits required (since I was
| terrified of their speed cameras) and was rarely passed in
| 6-7 hours of driving.
| Bayart wrote:
| I've had a few times in driving school where I'd interpret an
| end of speed limit wrong and go to the slower tier rather than
| the faster one. I got yelled at by the teacher on the passenger
| seat quite a bit. It's just not tolerated to go slower than the
| speed limit if there no good reason for it and it will lose you
| points in a driving exam, if not lose you the exam right away.
| At least that's how it is in France.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| I was going to say the same thing. In France if the speed
| limit is 50 km/h, you have to go 50 km/h unless there is a
| good reason not too. Outside of cities, on the main roads the
| speed limit is usually either 80km/h or 90km/h. A few times
| while learning to drive with an instructor, he told I had to
| reach the max allowed speed limit as soon as possible as to
| not slow down the traffic and failing to do that will make me
| lose points on the driving test.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| It's not speed per se that is a problem, rather the aim of
| speed limits is to make sure you can control your car and not
| cause accidents.
|
| If everyone is driving the 'recommended' speed of 130kmh on a
| German motorway then it is a severe risk if you drive slower.
| Road users need to be predictable. Trucks or motorhomes are
| slower, but you expect them to be slower. You see them from the
| distance and plan ahead. But a normal car that drives 60 when
| all others drive 130-140 is a massive danger as other drivers
| do not expect it to do so, so will lose precious seconds to
| react. You can get fined for driving unnecessarily slow.
|
| In Germany you also cannot merge onto the motorway unless you
| have a certain speed already, and you cannot enter the motorway
| at all if your car can't do an appropriate minimum speed (or
| you have special transport papers and warning lights).
| JimBlackwood wrote:
| I didn't know about the merging rule. Then why do they insist
| on such short merge lanes?
|
| Do you happen to know the speed? I drive an Aygo (tiny, 3
| cylinders) and I'd love to know how close I can get.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| It's 60km/h to enter the motorway. You don't need to drive
| it necessarily (depending on your situation), but the top
| speed in your cars papers needs to be that or higher.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >If everyone is driving the 'recommended' speed of 130kmh on
| a German motorway then it is a severe risk if you drive
| slower.
|
| So every truck on the roads is a severe risk?
| sokoloff wrote:
| If the posted speed limit is significantly lower than the
| natural speed drivers would drive or well below the actual
| average speed (both are often the case in the US), driving
| under the posted limit in clear/dry weather is more dangerous
| than driving at the posted limit.
|
| Many of our highways are posted at 55 mph or 65 mph. Car
| traffic is typically 70-80 mph on those highways.
| freshpots wrote:
| If you drove the limit on highways in Canada you'd be pushed
| off the road. People routinely drive 130 km/h+ on 100 km/h
| roads. Partly the fault of the engineers/province who designed
| them for those speeds and then tell people not to drive that
| fast.
| zinekeller wrote:
| > There is one thing I will never understand, why do a lot of
| people talk about speed limits as the speed you need to be
| driving? It's the maximum speed you can reach before being
| fined, it doesn't mean "oh man I'm driving at 90km/h and the
| limit is 100, that's so wrong".
|
| Different traffic laws. In Germany, there's only a lower limit
| on the _Autobahn_ , and there's an _advisory_ speed limit that
| in precedent cases you must be able to maintain if your vehicle
| and road (and weather) conditions permit but in practice is
| somewhat overrun, which is legal.
|
| Most states in the US penalize overspeeding, but also penalizes
| _under_ speeding on state and interstate highways if car, road
| and weather conditions otherwise permit. While
| counterintuitive, in highways (especially interstate ones)
| there's an expectation of a "belt" of vehicles that maintain
| more-or-less the _same_ speed: different speeds of vehicles
| should be on different lanes (the innermost being the fastest
| lane otherwise posted in signage).
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The maximum speed you are allowed to drive at is indeed, by
| definition, a limit. There is nothing wrong with the term.
|
| That being said, driving laws, as far as I know, always say
| that you need to adapt your speed to the local conditions in
| order to drive safely, but you can never exceed the speed
| limit. Many (most?) jurisdictions have laws against dangerous
| and reckless driving and I expect it is possible to be found to
| be driving dangerously even when staying under the speed limit.
|
| Where there is a minimum speed, which is also of course
| conditioned to current road conditions, it is also for safety.
| For instance, on a motorway where the traffic moves at 70mph it
| is dangerous for everyone if a vehicle decides to move at
| 30mph...
| tshaddox wrote:
| You should probably be driving quite close to the posted speed
| limit, unless there are weather or road conditions making that
| unsafe (then you should slow down), or if a lot of traffic is
| going significantly faster than that (then you should speed
| up). It's not that odd to think that there should be one very
| narrow range of speeds that most traffic should be traveling at
| on a particular road and time, that's pretty clearly the
| safest.
| summm wrote:
| Nope, you should not speed up. It's a maximum. If others go
| faster, just ignore them and keep going.
| paxys wrote:
| In many states (including California) you will get a ticket
| for impeding the flow of traffic even if you are at or
| under the speed limit, e.g. if you are in the passing lane
| or not using turnout areas when on a two lane road. While
| you yourself don't have to speed, you do have to get out of
| the way of people who want to.
|
| Ignoring everything that is happening around you, even if
| you are under the speed limit, is an incredibly unsafe way
| to drive.
| stadium wrote:
| I like driving. I see more value in an idle car autonomously
| driven to my doorstep for me to drive, than for an autonomous car
| to drive me.
|
| What's the risk profile of an empty autonomous car driving 20 mph
| on local roads to my doorstep, vs a fully autonomous vehicle?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I wonder if your insurance company will feel the same about
| your enjoyment, once the technology threshold is crossed well
| enough and they realize that automated driving is the new rail.
|
| Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even extra
| tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself?
|
| I think this will eventually be a question that fails over into
| economics while people are arguing about it. Insurers will be
| in a good place to influence the future of automated driving.
|
| Humans as a group can't even not drive drunk, still.
| Individuals are not predictable either. Our taste for control
| will have to be worked around. (Hopefully in ways that allow us
| more time to...for example drive in VR, on a better course,
| with an even more stimulating feeling of presence, while we are
| driven around...)
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Large part of the blame imo is the ridiculous fact that no
| governing body nor any car manufacturer came up with things
| like:
|
| DUI test else engine does not start.
|
| Speed limit as per road and weather conditions no car needs
| to do 70mph in the city or 150 mph anywhere.
|
| Alertness check and monitoring , if not alert, car stops and
| that's it.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I'd pay. But I highly doubt that any autonomous vehicles will
| prove to be as efficient and as safe anytime soon. I'd wager
| they could be xor but not both in the next 20 years.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| > Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even
| extra tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself?
|
| Most people are willing to pay for things they enjoy.
|
| It's also possible that a human driven car could use its
| autonomous driving system as a safety system to intervene if
| it anticipates a crash.
| stadium wrote:
| Replying to self to be more direct.
|
| Cars sit idle 80-90% of their useful life. As an auto
| manufacturer I don't need to achieve L{n} autonomous to make
| money, I just need wheels moving not parked.
|
| Wheels moving at 20mph on local roads, in-between paid trips
| with human drivers, is a huge market and with a lower risk
| profile than L4 or L5 autonomous. The fat margins here are in
| making idle capital more productive.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Not sure why you think this, empty cars really do require L4
| if not L5, and if you've got actual L4 driving, taxis and
| freight are much bigger markets than renting cars in cities.
| stadium wrote:
| At what speed? Is there a distinction between these L4 and
| L5 levels and speed? Is a L3 at idle speed equivalent to an
| L5 at highway speed?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| If all it took to take an L2 AI and make it L5 were
| reducing top speed, you'd see a lot more L5 AIs around.
|
| The biggest problem with most self-driving cars is that
| they are easily fooled by various images, since they have
| extremely simplistic image classifiers to work with,
| rather than hugely specialized mamallian visual cortexes.
| Speed of processing is one aspect, but not nearly the
| only one. The Tesla that ran over that cyclist crossing
| that street at night wasn't missing reaction time, it
| simply didn't recognize the cyclist as an obstacle for
| whatever reason.
|
| Now as far as I understand, lidar mostly fixes these
| false negatives (in good weather conditions), but at the
| cost of more false positives - and here speed could be a
| bigger help.
|
| Even so, L4 and L5 would require planning skills and
| understanding of other traffic participants and road
| conditions that are still beyond us, at any speed. Note
| that the CEO of Waymo has plainly stated that L5 is not
| achievable with current sensor technologies.
|
| Perhaps at some extreme low speeds (probably closer to
| human walking speed than 20mph) L2 could work as L3, but
| I think that's about it.
| fhd2 wrote:
| Is that actually so?
|
| In my understanding, cars that drive more break faster,
| mileage being the dominant factor, not age.
|
| So whether you have 10 cars serving 10 people, breaking after
| 30 years, or one car serving 10 people where you have to buy
| a new one every 3 years - seems about the same.
|
| In the former model, car makers even have the opportunity to
| get people to buy new cars before they'd technically have to,
| which sounds like more money to me.
|
| For society at large, the latter model seems better.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| It's actually higher than 90%
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| When I lived in Beijing, I took a taxi to and from work daily
| (from northeast to northwest Beijing on the 4th ring). It is
| really nice being driven around, you just chill and use your
| phone (would have taken the subway but being stuffed in with no
| available seating wasn't very relaxing). Driving isn't fun for
| a lot of people.
|
| In cities where taxis are more ubiquitous, why isn't level 5
| simply replaces the taxi drivers with computers no? Then it's
| not really a new paradigm, just that (a) traffic might flow
| better and (b) places where taxis aren't cheap and plentiful
| (most of the USA, much of Western Europe) get to have an
| experience similar to a middle class lifestyle in a developing
| country.
| solatic wrote:
| There's a difference between driving in traffic jams to get
| to work and driving on twisty empty back roads. The former is
| a regrettable experience that is a necessary evil so that you
| can make a living. The latter is a hobby that lets you
| control the direction of the roller coaster.
| trgn wrote:
| Public roads are not a racetrack, and it's regrettable many
| people treat it as such. That society for some reason
| tolerates "spirited" driving, people using the road as
| their personal rollercoaster, is one of the worst lapses in
| our collective judgements. It probably grew out of cars
| starting out as toys for the rich, and the aspirational
| branding created around it.
|
| Allowing high speed cars anywhere (even on the twisty
| "empty" roads) is the main reason the public realm is now
| objectively dangerous.
|
| Driving should have been integrated in the culture as a
| solemn activity, only reserved to those with impeccable
| integrity and high moral standing, a true privilege in
| which the driver assumes responsibility for the lives of
| others, and accepts accountability commensurate with this
| duty.
|
| Ending somebodies life, injuring others, causing damage,
| those are the inevitable by-products of careless driving,
| of driving for sport.
|
| I'm exaggerating for emphasis. But driving as a hobby
| should be reserved to the racetrack. Just like shooting
| guns as a hobby is reserved to the gun range.
| turminal wrote:
| The fact that someone likes driving doesn't mean they are
| careless or going too fast.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| "control the direction of the roller coaster" implies
| otherwise.
| simonccarter wrote:
| You can drive safely and enjoy it.
| Nitramp wrote:
| The kinetic energy of a car at 9 m/s (20 mph) is about 15 Wh,
| depending on its weight. The kinetic energy of a bullet is
| about 0.2 Wh.
|
| This obviously doesn't quite translate, but the amount of
| damage you can do with a car is massive, even at that speed.
| Also consider the weight, eg when rolling over a pedestrian.
| stadium wrote:
| The reaction time of a human should prevail before they look
| both ways to cross the street.
| Nitramp wrote:
| What if the car gets the right of way wrong? What if
| there's a distracted kid, or the car misses a pedestrian
| crossing?
|
| I don't think you can set something loose in traffic that
| relies on everyone else correcting for its mistakes.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| human drivers do that all the time from getting
| distracted with your handphone, falling asleep in the
| driving seat, driving while drunk or otherwise impaired.
| So it is not much different. But AI cars are likely to be
| better drivers 2-3 years from now than what they are
| today humans will either be the same or worse.
| stadium wrote:
| I think I agree with you.
|
| My point is, if I see a car coming, I'm not going to
| cross the street and let it hit me. That's the reason
| parents teach their kids to look both ways before
| crossing the street. Some idiot driver, human or
| otherwise, may not be controlling their vehicle in a
| predictable manner. At 20mph, as a pedestrian I can make
| a good decision about crossing the street.
|
| I feel much safer about an empty driverless car at 20mph
| on local roads than one full of passengers at highway
| speeds.
|
| (20 mph is entirely made up, it could be higher or lower
| in relationship to actual human reaction times)
| yomama99 wrote:
| Nuro has a similar mentality, but applied to unmanned
| deliveries.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Slow moving traffic on highway is not very fun though. I prefer
| my car to manage that for me.
| perlgeek wrote:
| I'm currently driving a pretty new Mercedes (company car), and
| its lane assistant regularly tries to kill me in construction
| areas because it wants me to follow the regular, currently
| inactive lane markings.
|
| It's gotten so bad that I'm switching off the lane assistant when
| I'm approaching construction areas.
|
| I've talked to a guy at the car dealership, and he said "my
| mother complains about the same thing, it's a known issue".
|
| I really, really hope they've managed to fix that for the
| autonomous driving models, or at least auto-disengage before
| construction areas. (And if they fixed it, can I get a software
| update please?)
| chollida1 wrote:
| So does my Tesla:( I always take control when entering any
| construction site.
|
| I don't think any other than waymo has solved this yet. My
| telsa is good but the amount of times I have to take control
| from it is way too high. Snow is another area where autonomous
| driving sucks at the moment, and as a Canadian, man that makes
| my Tesla's self driving not useful 5 months of the year.
|
| Waymo seems to be way out front and everyone else seem to be
| fighting for second here. Though I'm very happy that we're
| atleast at this stage and not where we were 10 years ago.
|
| I just view it as we now have working lane keeping and adaptive
| cruise control for most new cars these days and that's a solid
| win.
| ra7 wrote:
| > Waymo seems to be way out front and everyone else seem to
| be fighting for second here.
|
| I'd say Cruise is comfortably second. They've made very good
| progress in SF and I believe they are doing driverless rides
| there for employees.
| rconti wrote:
| That's correct, Cruise is doing driverless rides for
| employees in SF. I didn't know about Waymo's driverless
| rides, though-- can't say I follow the space that closely.
| Wow!
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| Isn't that the company that stole IP from waymo?
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| Just curious, what is your personal experience with Waymo
| that leads you to this conclusion? Also curious to know about
| Waymo's performance in the snow because I haven't heard much
| about that.
| nopzor wrote:
| just took a waymo fully autonomous (no safety driver,
| nobody in the driver seat, no manual override) taxi in
| scottsdale to lunch. was surreal. supposedly over 1m miles
| with no faults.
| chollida1 wrote:
| Well I'll admit my waymo experience I can't talk about
| publicly. I get that might be a bit of a let down:) so feel
| free to ignore the waymo portion of my comment and just
| assume that everyone is around the same level of ability
|
| > Also curious to know about Waymo's performance in the
| snow because I haven't heard much about that.
|
| Me too, i know almost nothing about their ability in snow.
| ra7 wrote:
| I took a couple of rides in Chandler recently. It was
| incredible to see a completely driverless car pull up and
| take me to my destination (and back). Never felt weird or
| unsafe in the vehicle and the driving felt very natural.
|
| When you experience it, it's clear they have a mature
| system that's learned from driving millions of real world
| miles (and billions in simulation). And if you follow their
| research/tech stack closely, there's no doubt they are
| years ahead of everyone else. I'm not sure how successful
| of a _business_ they will be, but their tech is solid.
|
| As far as driving in inclement weather, Waymo is pretty
| transparent that it's very much a work in progress. They
| claim the 5th gen Jaguar I-Pace vehicles (the 4th gen
| Pacificas in AZ don't do as well) will be able to handle
| rain/snow/fog better due to upgraded sensors, but it's one
| of the big challenges remaining for them.
| ajross wrote:
| As far as I can tell, this Drive Pilot thing is _precisely_ the
| existing lane assist product. What 's changed is that they've
| heavily constrained it so that it disengages if you go over 60
| kph, or outside the hand-maintained list of blessed areas.
| Presumably they feel they can detect and disallow construction
| areas and other complexities fast enough to avoid accidents.
|
| Which is to say... this is mostly a stunt. Teslas are literally
| driving people around now[1], and the rest of the industry
| feels they need to do _something_. Announcing a "SAE Level 3"
| product, no matter how constrained, at least gets them
| marketing hits like this that look like an advantage.
|
| [1] No joke: mine takes my kids to and from school reliably.
| FSD beta isn't finished, but it's really, really good. There
| remain some path planning and confidence glitches that force me
| to disengage every dozen miles or so, but in 500 miles since I
| got it I've yet to see the car attempt anything genuinely
| unsafe. Mostly it just annoys other drivers by refusing to
| enter traffic.
| lima wrote:
| > _As far as I can tell, this Drive Pilot thing is precisely
| the existing lane assist product. What 's changed is that
| they've heavily constrained it so that it disengages if you
| go over 60 kph_
|
| Nope - it's a new system powered by LIDAR and cameras and
| only works on pre-mapped roads, comparable to what Tesla and
| Waymo are doing (but erring on the side of caution).
|
| The 60kph limitation is temporary because that's what the
| regulator was comfortable with.
|
| Lane assist is a different tech stack and continues to exist
| alongside this for regular driving.
|
| https://www.daimler.com/innovation/case/autonomous/drive-
| pil...
| ajross wrote:
| I don't see anywhere in those slides where that's
| substantiated. Tesla and Waymo (and Cruise and Mobileye,
| FWIW) are making navigation decisions: they'll change
| lanes, take turns, wait for traffic, use roundabouts, read
| street lights and speed limit sighs, etc...
|
| Drive Pilot doesn't seem to be doing any of that. It's just
| a lane assist package: it will drive straight, in its
| marked lane, behind another vehicle, and that's all it will
| do. Maybe it will someday, sure. But it's not exhibiting
| these features anywhere, nor is Mercedes claiming that it
| has them. Am I missing something?
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| If Mercedes-Benz is able to define conditions where their
| self driving software is guaranteed to work fully
| autonomously without human intervention and Tesla can't, that
| in itself is an actual advantage over Tesla's system even if
| Tesla's system can do more with human monitoring in other
| conditions.
|
| If Tesla is also able to get approval for this (which might
| be hard if they push OTA updates that completely change the
| way the software works all the time and can't guarantee there
| won't be regressions) then they should by all means do so.
| ajross wrote:
| That's sort of true in the abstract, but misses the point.
| Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about
| solving real problems. Cars that are L3 only in traffic
| jams on the Autobahn aren't very autonomous, nor useful. If
| it's stop go and the system gets above 60kph, it cuts out.
| If the stoppage is due to construction, it won't work.
|
| I mean, sure, it's an advantage for people who actually
| need to drive in exactly those conditions.
|
| But it's not a _engineering_ advantage of the system. Fast
| forward a year and look at where Daimler will be and where
| Tesla will be. Who 's going to get to a L3 system on
| general roads first? Who's going to be running L4
| driverless vehicles first?
|
| Which is to repeat: it's just a stunt. It's a way to "sound
| like" they're "ahead" in this area of technology, when
| clearly they aren't. In fact this car is doing more or less
| exactly what Teslas were doing in the first version of
| Autopilot more than six years ago. And note that in all
| that time, those Teslas haven't been hitting anyone in slow
| traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways
| either.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| > That's sort of true in the abstract, but misses the
| point. Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's
| about solving real problems. Cars that are L3 only in
| traffic jams on the Autobahn aren't very autonomous, nor
| useful. If it's stop go and the system gets above 60kph,
| it cuts out. If the stoppage is due to construction, it
| won't work.
|
| > I mean, sure, it's an advantage for people who actually
| need to drive in exactly those conditions.
|
| > But it's not a engineering advantage of the system.
| Fast forward a year and look at where Daimler will be and
| where Tesla will be. Who's going to get to a L3 system on
| general roads first? Who's going to be running L4
| driverless vehicles first?
|
| > Which is to repeat: it's just a stunt. It's a way to
| "sound like" they're "ahead" in this area of technology,
| when clearly they aren't. In fact this car is doing more
| or less exactly what Teslas were doing in the first
| version of Autopilot more than six years ago. And note
| that in all that time, those Teslas haven't been hitting
| anyone in slow traffic jams on well-maintained limited
| access highways either.
|
| If it's a race to see which company can develop fully
| self-driving cars that work in all conditions in the next
| 5 years than maybe Tesla could be "ahead" of Mercedes-
| Benz (although it seems to be way behind other companies
| like Waymo).
|
| However, if we are actually decades away from fully self-
| driving cars that work in all conditions it is much more
| useful to have cars that can be trusted to operate
| without human supervision in limited but well defined
| conditions, because it is much more useful to be able to
| have a car that allows you to do something else other
| than focus on driving SOME of the time than a car that
| assists you more in some ways but requires supervision
| ALL of the time.
|
| If Tesla's approach precludes them from making self
| driving technology work reliably under limited conditions
| like this, it doesn't matter whether their self driving
| technology works better (but not reliably) in other
| conditions, because in practice it won't be as useful as
| more limited but reliable self driving systems.
|
| Some countries are already requiring the approach
| Mercedes-Benz is taking here for regulatory approval and
| based on the number of accidents Tesla vehicles have been
| involved in its possible that the US could adopt the same
| approach.
|
| If this happens it will not be useful at all to have a
| more advanced but incomplete and unreliable self-driving
| technology in the short term (but perhaps it will be
| possible to keep developing it without shipping it in
| cars until it reaches a sufficient level of reliability).
| ra7 wrote:
| > Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about
| solving real problems.
|
| Sounds pretty hand-wavy. Autonomy _is_ about defining
| conditions in which a self driving system can safely
| operate, also known as Operational Design Domain (ODD).
|
| Of course, ODD as a concept is foreign to Tesla FSD
| because it is "50% of the time, it works every time" i.e.
| you don't know when it works and when it doesn't. It's a
| YOLO driver assistance system with a misnomer. Not sure
| how many "real problems" that is solving and definitely
| won't be L4 anytime soon.
| detaro wrote:
| Tesla "will be there in a year" since... 2016 or so?
| (Musk said in January that he is confident Tesla will
| achieve Level 5 autonomy in 2021, looking forward to
| that)
|
| > _those Teslas haven 't been hitting anyone in slow
| traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways
| either._
|
| weird then that Tesla, despite showman Musk at the helm,
| hasn't been doing the simple stunt of putting their money
| where their mouth is, getting L3 permission for their
| system and actually taking the risk for something that is
| "never happening" instead of finding ways of blaming the
| driver every time. It would be an easy way of providing
| an additional actual useful capability to their users on
| top of what they already have.
|
| No, it's not some massive technical leap, but "ok, we'll
| take the blame for our system failing" is still a big
| legal step.
| elif wrote:
| 60kph? And I thought the 130kph limit on AP was annoying...
| globular-toast wrote:
| It's more likely to kill a worker than you.
| nradov wrote:
| Report it as a safety defect to the NHTSA (or your national
| regulator depending where you are). If enough people file
| similar reports then they do investigate and require
| manufacturers to recall the vehicles.
|
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem
| a4isms wrote:
| I use "Pilot Assist" in a 2018 Volvo V90CC, and on the one
| hand, it has all kinds of "issues" that require my active
| attention, including confusion about construction areas, or
| even just a general wandering when I'm in the RH lane of a
| highway passing an offramp, and it takes a moment to figure out
| how to keep going straight.
|
| On the other hand, I have no expectation that it is doing
| anything autonomous, and this is backed up by the way it gets
| upset if I take my hands of the steering wheel. And unlike most
| other cars I hear about, it isn't content to simply touch the
| wheel, it wants a hand on either "ten" or "two" specifically.
|
| For my n=1 needs, it's fantastic: When I commute during rush
| hour, it handles stop-and-go traffic for me, and lets me sit
| back and enjoy an audiobook. It does that so well that I've
| completely lost the anxiety/aggression that formerly would have
| had me trying to figure out which lane is moving faster and so
| on. Now I just relax. Yes, I am 'still "driving," my hands stay
| on the wheel and my eyes stay on the road.
|
| But I'm more _relaxed_ , and that is more important to me right
| now than whether I'm relaxed while driving or relaxed while
| being driven. Yes, for things like construction (and a few
| other cases I've learned to handle) I disengage it or simply
| override its choices with the steering wheel, accelerator, or
| brake.
|
| But it's a big win over old-fashioned cruise control. I never
| felt like cruise control lowered the stress of highway driving
| the way Pilot Assist does.
|
| Mind you, none of my experience changes the fact that "Pilot
| Assist" is nowhere close to autonomous driving. I wouldn't even
| look at it and say it's something you can iterate on until it's
| autonomous. It is what it says on the tin: Something that makes
| my drive easier, but doesn't replace me as a driver.
| antiterra wrote:
| > it wants a hand on either "ten" or "two" specifically.
|
| In the airbag era, shouldn't this be nine and three?
| a4isms wrote:
| I can't speak to that, but I can tell you that the steering
| wheel is shaped to make it easy to hold at ten and two.
| chromatin wrote:
| Respectfully, "you're doing it wrong."
|
| Volvo steering wheels are set up for 9 and 3, but you are
| supposed to hook your thumbs (9 and 3), not rest your
| lateral palms (10 and 2).
|
| See the diagram here:
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a9343/forget-10-and
| -2-...
| theta_d wrote:
| My 2021 Honda Accord does the same. Also turned it off.
| LightG wrote:
| And ... this is why I've always said it's either all or
| nothing and why FSD and similar are pointless until in, who
| knows, 10 years time(if that) it becomes ready for prime
| time.
|
| Sure, youtubers can video it for fun and drink the kool aid
| but actual drivers will just turn it off after a hairy
| situation. Well, I will anyway.
|
| Maybe this is why Tesla are touting their ridiculous robot
| ... it's a potential pivot or alternative use of the (no
| doubt) impressive AI tech behind FSD which, they've now
| realised, will take much longer to be properly driver ready.
|
| Maybe FSD's fate is similar to the space program. The
| eventual secondary technology it spawns is more useful than
| its original purpose. Because I won't be going near these
| autonomous driving solutions for many years.
|
| Yeah, give me a Dalek-style home robot instead for now.
| tedmiston wrote:
| The LKAS is my Honda (Honda Sensing) has the same issue in
| construction zones and also anywhere there are overlapping or
| "ambiguous" lane markings.
| ct520 wrote:
| My new ram limited does the same thing
| [deleted]
| vanusa wrote:
| "Drive Pilot enables the driver to turn away from the traffic and
| focus on certain secondary activities," the luxury carmaker said
| in a statement. "For example, to communicate with colleagues via
| the in-car office, to write emails, to surf the internet or to
| relax and watch a film."
|
| This can't possibly be a good thing. Nevermind if it works as
| advertised or not -- just from the very definition of what's
| claiming to do.
|
| I know it certainly _sounds_ like a good thing -- it will relieve
| the stress and fatigue of these slow-moving situations, leading
| to better reaction times, etc.
|
| But just think about for a second. When you're at the wheel, the
| most you should be doing on the side is talking to people, and
| occasionally checking your GIS. You just should not be engaged in
| other attention-demanding activities like reading emails, surfing
| the internet, or watching movies. Period.
|
| What's going to happen is: someone's leg's are gonna get crushed,
| because (foolishly or not) they walked between cars in a slow-
| moving traffic situation (like they always do). Because, you
| know, a human driver would have seen them. And then the same
| debates will start up all over again, completely missing the
| point. It's not the overall statistics of this happening, or that
| the driver didn't respond to the flashing red light that must
| have gone off in time (because they were zoned out, of course).
|
| It's that they're pushing this inherently risky technology out
| there (which by definition cannot be fully validated until
| subjected to extensive real-life conditions), not to save us from
| drivers who are temporarily incapacitated at the wheel, not to
| warn us from approaching objects we might miss ... but to _let us
| watch Netflix while driving_.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Definitionally, L3 is not ready for the human to stop paying
| attention. I would argue that you need at least L4 automation
| before you can explicitly advise users that they can do
| distracting things in the car, and even then only in good
| weather and on specific roads (e.g. highways).
| ctdonath wrote:
| Automated driving is safer. Offering to let you watch a movie
| is a way to get you to not drive for two hours.
| jgilias wrote:
| I may be wrong, but I think it's not legal to be walking on an
| Autobahn, irrespective of how slow the traffic moves.
| vanusa wrote:
| The thing is, they test things things out in one environment,
| they get approved ... and then used in another.
| valine wrote:
| These L3 driving systems are largely a gimmick with fewer
| capabilities than even Tesla autopilot. I'd rather have a L2
| system that can takes turns / follow navigation than an L3 system
| that only does the most basic highway driving.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Well, the massive difference is that the L2 system requires you
| to still drive if you want to have any chance to react when it
| does something stupid, while the level 3 system allows you to
| read a book, even if it's just on a congested straight road at
| minimum speed.
| davewritescode wrote:
| This is a comprehensive multi-sensor system that should have
| much better capabilities than anything Tesla has.
|
| I think it was a big mistake that Tesla has given up on sensor
| fusion.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| There is absolutely no way this has better capabilities than
| Tesla.
|
| It may indeed have more sensors, but that doesn't mean it's
| more sophisticated.
| chrinic4948 wrote:
| Tesla achieved their mission of accelerating the worlds
| transition to sustainable energy.
|
| Unfortunately Tesla will be dead in that future.
|
| It's already happening in California. Young FAANG engineers
| respect Teslas less, compared to 5 years ago. And a higher
| % of techies are considering Audi, BMW, and Porsche EVs.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Could you go into detail what you mean by "respect Tesla
| less" in that context?
|
| It seems to me that we are looking at a maturing market
| where several brands have released products which are
| quite good.
|
| Judging by the numbers Tesla is doing extraordinarily
| well and is still growing strongly.
|
| Unless one believed the Elon Musk groupy theory in which
| Tesla would be the only car manufacturer on the planet
| it's not really surprising at all.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> There is absolutely no way this has better capabilities
| than Tesla._
|
| Why would there be absolutely no way? People keep
| forgetting that Tesla is actually a small newcomer in the
| automotive sector.
|
| They were ahead of the peak because established automotive
| companies slept on the market, but that does not mean these
| behemoths just gonna keep sleeping on it and leave it to
| Tesla without even trying to compete.
|
| Expect to see more of this happening over the next decade,
| these companies might be slow to adapt, but once they get
| momentum behind their mass it will be very difficult for
| Tesla to keep up with them.
| suction wrote:
| Tesla is a joke / scam
| Vespasian wrote:
| That might be true, but as opposed to Tesla, Mercedes is
| willing to take on the liability if something happens while
| the system is online.
|
| If I'm not mistaken the law requires a 10 second take over
| period before it disengages.
|
| For the moment Tesla can't or won't do the same. Not in
| Germany, Not in America. Nowhere.
|
| In the end we will see who is better (it might be Tesla, or
| another company, or all of them in close succession).
|
| But right now Tesla is saying and implying a lot of things
| but still requires the driver to be in full control at any
| moment ( _wink-wink_ _nudge-nudge_ ), while Mercedes
| decided that there are situation where they got this.
| onethought wrote:
| You can take the non beta FSD onto a highway right now
| and it'll operate at a lvl3-4 level. Tesla just don't
| want to take the liability yet.
|
| But Tesla insurance, safety score and FSD beta will
| likely change that
| Vespasian wrote:
| I don't doubt that their technology is able to do that.
|
| I just think taking on liability is a big deal. Probably
| several lawyers at MB needed some fresh air when they
| were asked to formalize this policy.
|
| Tesla obviously aims for an all or nothing approach. It's
| not before a solid level 4 that they want to take this
| leap.
|
| I wonder whether the market (and regulators) will force
| their hand before they are good and ready.
| onethought wrote:
| On the contrary, Tesla are in the insurance game
| directly, they are gearing themselves up to be a
| liability taking machine.
|
| Where as Daimler are simply limiting liability through
| engineering and constraints.
| blamazon wrote:
| >"Drive Pilot enables the driver to turn away from the traffic
| and focus on certain secondary activities," the luxury carmaker
| said in a statement. "For example, to communicate with colleagues
| via the in-car office, to write emails, to surf the internet or
| to relax and watch a film."
|
| Does this phrasing seem unusual for others? It made me look to
| see if this was a satirical news site.
| bradfitz wrote:
| Maybe it sounded reasonable in the original German.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Didn't sound weird to me. Just made me feel that they must be
| _really_ confident in their system.
| aflag wrote:
| Because for you, everything that's not driving is a secondary
| activity?
| Aeolun wrote:
| I certainly hope that's true for anyone that gets in a car.
|
| I'm not quite sure how it's related though?
| aflag wrote:
| Because they are not really secondary activities for
| driving itself, it sounds like they are secondary in a
| broader context. A secondary activity for driving is,
| perhaps turning on the the wipers or something like that.
| But doing office work is a different activity, not a
| secondary one. That's how it sounded like to me, at
| least.
| paxys wrote:
| Seems like they are laser focused on the "stuck in traffic on the
| highway while on the way to work" scenario for automation, which
| is pretty clever. Focus on one use case and do it well. Heck
| people generally enjoy driving when the road is empty, especially
| on the Autobahn.
| nikanj wrote:
| It's the part of driving that people hate the most + the stakes
| are very low (no pedestrians/cyclists, and the accidents are
| just fender benders). Perfect low-hanging fruit
| jstx1 wrote:
| > the stakes are very low (no pedestrians/cyclists, and the
| accidents are just fender benders)
|
| It's a road without speed limits. Mistakes might be less
| likely - at least they are for humans, not sure about an
| overly cautious AI model - but the cost of a mistake is very
| high.
| bcraven wrote:
| >the stakes are very low [when stuck in traffic]
|
| I think you missed the context there.
| ollien wrote:
| Obviously this is nowhere near the level of sophistication of
| this car, but I love using adaptive cruise control in slow
| traffic. My car turns it off if I've been stopped for a few
| seconds, so it's not great in stop/go traffic, but it does ease
| the mental burden of changing speed as traffic fluctuates,
| especially on multi-hours drives.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| The marketing maybe a challenge though. "Imagine being stuck in
| traffic every day, and now you can spend that time working
| while your car watches the road" does not really make one want
| to buy a car?
| choeger wrote:
| Especially in a Mercedes.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Unless you're driving an AMG or an SL or an SLK, you're
| probably not driving a mercedes for the pleasure of driving.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I don't know, my regular C-Class is pretty nice to drive.
| It definitely feels better than the F30 BMW that I went on
| a test drive.
| GordonS wrote:
| I had a non-AMG (but with the "lite" AMG body styling
| package) E350 coupe around 10 years back, and it was an
| absolute dream to drive - nicest car I've driven in 20+
| years of driving, and it was a great space to be in on the
| rare occasions I was a passenger.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| It's also the easiest solution and probably the only viable one
| right now.
|
| The difficulty jump from "Mostly straight line highway driving"
| to "good fucking luck city streets" is extreme
| egeozcan wrote:
| In city streets, the car sometimes fails to correctly detect
| the speed limit, let alone driving autonomously. Also the
| Germans apparently love making the rules in every junction
| different, and while most people are capable of intense
| street-sign following (I feel like a robot when driving, yeah
| the irony is not lost on me), I doubt a computer can do that
| too, especially when every mistake has a bigger chance to end
| up with an accident, compared to (I imagine) anywhere else in
| the world, because a typical driver here doesn't want to
| calculate the risk of another failing to follow the rules
| correctly.
|
| Look at driving fail videos from Germany and the ones from
| Russia and the USA, you'll regularly see something they show
| as "huge mistake OMG" in Germany being unremarkable (if not
| business as usual) when compared to others.
| neither_color wrote:
| I've been in a Tesla running the self-driving beta in
| Manhattan and it is NOT fun or relaxing at all. The car is
| overly "jumpy", but by jumpy I mean "breaky." The way a lot
| of pedestrians cross streets (walk into the side of the
| road and get 2 feet away from a passing car before crossing
| right behind the car) causes it to slam on the break
| constantly while people "stage" their crossing. It's also
| terrible at left turns without a light. Both of these flaws
| are completely understandable because it's a complex safety
| situation, but people who think human drivers are
| replaceable within 5 years are naive.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Actually, the speed limits are not imposed randomly and you
| can usually "sense" the limit from the surroundings and the
| structure of the road. I don't really look at speed limits
| when driving, if I'm on a road that looks like a pedestrian
| can walk then I probably need to go slow and if there's a
| school ahead or the street is particularly narrow or the
| road pavement is not asphalt I probably need to go
| extremely slow.
|
| TBF, now I'm not in Germany but when I was, driving on the
| autobahn usually involved religiously following the signs
| of speed limit and no speed limit(the limit-free coverage
| on the autobahn is patchy).
|
| I wonder if the self driving systems asses the road type to
| determine the speed they should go. Is there a possibility
| for a autonomous car to speed up to 120kph around a school
| or in a residential area if the sign is missing or someone
| puts a bogus sign?
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| I know it's not the correct way to do, and it stems from
| my experience driving, but I've always used the first
| digit in the speed limit signs for bends/corners on
| mountain roads as a guide for the gear to be in. 25mph
| curve? Whatever speed you can do in second is fine.
| 45mph, fourth gear speeds, etc.
|
| Not entirely related but yeah, depends on road conditions
| and signage.
| azernik wrote:
| > Actually, the speed limits are not imposed randomly and
| you can usually "sense" the limit from the surroundings
| and the structure of the road.
|
| This is, in fact, the legal standard in California! The
| actual speed limit is the minimum of (posted speed limit
| plus a substantial fudge factor) and (a subjectively safe
| speed for the road conditions). i.e. if the sign says
| 65mph, and the road is winding and a bit icy/rainy so
| that 45mph is the highest safe speed, you can be ticketed
| for speeding if you drive 60mph.
| tel wrote:
| How is that enforceable? Is there a legal standard? Is it
| borne on the judgement of an officer?
| criddell wrote:
| It's enforced by the courts generally with fines. You can
| lose your license with repeated infractions.
|
| The legal standard, like many legal standards, is around
| reasonableness. Regardless of the posted limit, you may
| never driver faster than is safe for the current
| conditions.
|
| And it is indeed borne on the judgement of the officer.
| Who else would ticket you?
| egeozcan wrote:
| when there's a construction and the speed limit is 60kph,
| I really hate it when the car starts accelerating like
| it's in a race track the moment it sees the limit
| removed. it scared me a couple of times, so I imagine
| it's not impossible for that to happen.
|
| it also takes the curvature of the road into account and
| slows for the traffic, but there's always a small empty
| town with straight roads...
|
| it also sometimes messes up the steering when going
| through a construction site with yellow lines, so I
| really hope that they improved this system heavily in the
| last year since I bought my car.
| oynqr wrote:
| Signs are also frequently wrong, even in Germany. This
| can get so bad that there are multiple maximum speeds on
| the same road in the same direction, all depending on
| where you came from.
| foepys wrote:
| No, the speed limit is always the same, regardless where
| you came from. If there is no speed limit posted after a
| junction, the default speed limit for this kind of road
| (unlimited, 100km/h, 50km/h, or zone specific as posted
| before entering the zone, usually 30km/h) applies.
|
| But even a lot of Germans don't know this, I'm afraid.
| nmehner wrote:
| > But even a lot of Germans don't know this, I'm afraid.
|
| Yes, because this is not the case.
|
| https://www.bussgeldkatalog.de/geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung
| -au...
| ciex wrote:
| While this is true it's also not uncommon for signage to
| be faulty, i.e. not following official regulations, or
| invalid unfortunately. Most often at construction sites.
| nmehner wrote:
| I always wonder if this is a problem that has to be solved
| at all. Instead of cars recognizing the speed limits there
| should be government managed maps containing all the
| roads/lanes and speed limits. When creating a construction
| site just add it to the map.
|
| If you can legally rely on the speed limits in the maps,
| this should be much easier to do.
|
| Recognizing speed limits seems to be a technical solution
| to an organizational problem.
| carlmr wrote:
| Very true, it's kind of like when you try to automate
| existing human processes. There are often too many
| exceptions to make it easy enough to automate, compared
| to a company that automated this process from the
| beginning. Humans are very good at exception handling,
| albeit slow, and this is implicit in any process
| involving humans.
|
| Standardization is necessary for good automation.
| amelius wrote:
| > Recognizing speed limits seems to be a technical
| solution to an organizational problem.
|
| It's probably the easiest task for an autonomous system.
| So if your car can't do _that_ , then probably it's safer
| to drive it manually.
| nmehner wrote:
| Recognizing the signs is probably one of the simpler
| tasks, yes. But for example the StVO (traffic law:
| https://www.gesetze-im-
| internet.de/stvo_2013/BJNR036710013.h... ) in Germany
| says:
|
| "Das Ende einer streckenbezogenen
| Geschwindigkeitsbeschrankung oder eines Uberholverbots
| ist nicht gekennzeichnet, wenn das Verbot nur fur eine
| kurze Strecke gilt und auf einem Zusatzzeichen die Lange
| des Verbots angegeben ist. Es ist auch nicht
| gekennzeichnet, wenn das Verbotszeichen zusammen mit
| einem Gefahrzeichen angebracht ist und sich aus der
| Ortlichkeit zweifelsfrei ergibt, von wo an die angezeigte
| Gefahr nicht mehr besteht. Sonst ist es gekennzeichnet
| durch die Zeichen 278 bis 282."
|
| The translation of this is: If a speed limit is combined
| with another sign indicating a reason for the speed limit
| (e.g. construction work, dangerous curve, train
| crossing...) the speed limit automatically ends without
| any additional sign.
|
| So basically the AI has to understand why the speed limit
| is there and decide when it has passed the dangerous part
| of the road.
|
| When starting to drive the car has to recognize if it is
| inside the city (50km/h or 30km/h limit depending on
| location), outside the city (100 km/h) or on the autobahn
| (no limit). This is simply impossible without having a
| map. You could save the state from the previous drive.
| But what happens if the car gets towed from the autobahn
| into a city. Will drive through the city without any
| speed limit?
|
| I don't think this is simple at all.
| amelius wrote:
| That sounds like an exception that could be easily
| addressed by adding an additional sign or perhaps in most
| cases making the rule hold for a maximum of 100 yards or
| so. Even detecting construction work is relatively easy:
| you have lots of cranes, people wearing helmets, cement
| mixers, scaffolding, traffic cones, yellow tape, etc.
| Easy to teach to a machine learning system.
| newsclues wrote:
| I think Germany has this, not sure what it's called but
| newer cars seem to have this
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| In Germany a speed limit doesn't mean it's always
| reasonable to drive at maximum speed.
|
| E.g. there are narrow streets in citys with cars parking
| on both sides. The official speed limit is 50 km/h. If
| you drive at this speed you straight up murder any
| pedestrian coming out behind of a car. If you do this
| you'll be pleaded guilty, because your speed was not
| appropriate to the situation. You even have to learn this
| exact situation when you make your drivers license.
|
| An other funny example. Where i lived was road with a
| bend, where an ordinary person should maybe drive 50
| km/h. It was borderline questionable to drive through
| there with 70 km/h and a good car. Directly before the
| bend the speedlimit changed from 70 km/h to 100 km/h.
| There where a lot of accidents, because even germans
| don't understand the meaning of german speed limits.
| puszczyk wrote:
| I've noticed this on Polish vs Czech roads (I've driven
| mostly in the mountains border regions of Czechia so this
| maybe local). Polish roads have gazillion of signs and
| usually you'll see a lower speed limit sign just before
| the curve or a bend if it's not supposed to be driven at
| the speed limit of the main road. In my opinion there are
| way too many signs and I feel--as another poster
| commented here--like a robot. On the other hand in
| Czechia on a small mountain road there's a general limit
| say 90kmh or 70kmh and there's no way you make the bends
| with that speed-- it's your responsibility to slow down.
|
| I've seen a similar differences in another border
| regions, e.g. Switzerland-France or France-Germany. It
| almost seems like there are two schools of thoughts that
| different countries subscribe to.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The borderlands are like that, yes.
|
| Prague, on the other hand, is oversaturated with signs. I
| guess someone makes money on them, because some are
| clearly superfluous (Segway bans in distant
| neighbourhoods where no one ever drove a Segway; Segways
| were only a bane of the touristy center).
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| I Drive much and Usually I and others get curves etc more
| intuitively. One has to be a really bad driver to not
| have a Instinkt for the speed necessary in curves. Btw
| German driver here and I find German has a good
| equilibrium of signs . I have to drive to Paris and
| Milano for work . Those places are pure mayhem of signs
| and confusion. I can't imagine a self driving car
| mastering some of those places.
| 988747 wrote:
| The reason why Polish roads have so many signs is because
| producing and installing them is an opportunity to make
| money :) And usually that opportunity goes to a company
| owned by a relative of some local politician ;)
| nmehner wrote:
| > In Germany a speed limit doesn't mean it's always
| reasonable to drive at maximum speed.
|
| I didn't want to imply this. I was just talking about the
| task of finding the speed limit. Getting from there to a
| reasonable speed to drive at is a different issue and
| much more complicated, yes ;)
| kart23 wrote:
| Impressive if it actually ships. Level 3 is really where things
| start to get real in terms of liability for the manufacturer.
| MereInterest wrote:
| L2/L3 is also at a point where the only reason to have a human
| in the control loop at all is to pass the buck for any
| accidents. A 2016 study found that reaction times are
| absolutely pitiful unless the driver is actively driving. After
| passing control from the automation to the human, it takes
| about 15-20 seconds for your reaction time to get up to the
| level of a drunk driver.
|
| The human in the front seat of a L3 car isn't the driver.
| They're the scapegoat.
|
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/154193121360142...
| [deleted]
| sofixa wrote:
| That's why Waymo decided to go all in with driverless
| vehicles, instead of progressively adding features and
| autonomy to a driver-lead car, they discovered "drivers" get
| complacent easily.
| MereInterest wrote:
| I like that solution much better. The assumption that most
| manufacturers make, that humans are capable of sustained
| focused attention on tasks which only require sporadic
| intervention, is a wildly inaccurate assumption.
| foepys wrote:
| Daimler explicitly assumes liability if something goes wrong
| when driving autonomously. That is the key difference to
| other popular automakers that market themselves as pioneers
| but do not assume liability for their level 2 system.
| jpalomaki wrote:
| How does this work in practise? I think there must be
| something in the legislation as well. I don't see the
| driver and car manufacturer could just transfer the
| liabilities to the manufacturer with mutual contract.
| Monetary liabilities maybe, but there can be also criminal
| charges on the table.
| nabla9 wrote:
| The same way insurance does.
| lazyjones wrote:
| Knowing past practices at Daimler (regarding emissions) I
| expect them to disengage the L3 system right before
| impact.
| alfor wrote:
| Tesla is going the fastest route possible to complete
| autonomy. What we are seeing now is the beta program to get
| there as fast as possible. No one is forced into buying it.
|
| I am really happy that they have the gusto to push things
| forward, if it weren't for them we wouldn't have an EV
| race, a autonomy race, a rocket race.
| zaptrem wrote:
| I don't see why Tesla can't do both. Production Autopilot
| is easily the most advanced ADAS on the market right now,
| why not add an L3 "mode" with the same limits (traffic
| jams only) and liability guarantees as Daimler?
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Wow, didn't know this.
|
| Polar opposite of what Tesla is doing. If they can't match
| this, that's the whole German fsd market gone for them,
| possibly whole EU, as they will harmonize the Requirements.
| haizhung wrote:
| From what I understand, Daimler will be liable if something
| happens during autonomous driving. Which is why it's such a
| big deal.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| L2 is much more of a scapegoat. With L3 even if your
| reactions aren't warmed up you can probably manage a
| perfectly good slow/stop.
|
| Do you have a link that leads to that actual study?
| MereInterest wrote:
| I think it depends on how the handoff is being performed.
| If the automated system notices weather conditions beyond
| its training, then pulls over to hand off control, that is
| reasonable. If the automated system notices that it's
| getting into a dangerous and immediate situation, then the
| 15 seconds needed for a human to become engaged with the
| task are enough that the situation has already passed.
|
| Found it, though unfortunately I couldn't find any non-
| paywall links.
|
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/15419312136014
| 2...
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It depends on how immediate things are, because you need
| a certain amount of warning to quality as level 3. A
| sufficiently rapid switchoff into danger puts you more in
| level 2 territory.
| legulere wrote:
| Mercedes-Benz will take on liability in this case.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| manufacturer?
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Not really sure that should be a metric, given that Tesla
| Autopilot (which shipped, what, a decade ago?) still likes to
| ram into the back of parked emergency vehicles (a problem they
| have "acknowledged") and randomly brake heavily (a problem they
| haven't, but just hit up youtube and you can find dozens of
| examples of it doing it to varying degrees of severity.)
| [deleted]
| MBCook wrote:
| Yes, but Tesla uses the excuse that the driver is supposed to
| be paying attention at all times because it's only a "driver
| assistance" system. (Not that the name would ever imply
| something else. No.)
|
| But once you've explicitly told the driver they don't have to
| pay attention, you don't have that excuse anymore.
| onethought wrote:
| Pilots treat autopilot as an assistance system... so it
| seems apt.
| [deleted]
| detaro wrote:
| That's the point of parents comment: Tesla (and every other
| assist) is Level 2, and thus can always blame the driver for
| not paying attention and doesn't take responsibility in the
| same way a Level 3 product has to, which explicitly tells
| users they don't have to focus on driving but can do other
| things.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| > which shipped, what, a decade ago?
|
| No, only 6 years ago. In 2011 they hadn't even started
| selling the Model S.
| adrr wrote:
| Tesla is level 2
| deltree7 wrote:
| The liability concern is almost always raised by people who
| don't do actuarial math.
|
| For a given set of parameters (car/driver/environment) it gets
| to an accident every X miles causing Y$ in damage. This Y$ is
| paid out by pool of insurance money which a group of owners
| have already paid for.
|
| Self Driving car is no different. In fact, the Car
| manufacturers will have more data to ascertain the 'blame' and
| fewer accidents every X miles and they can actually insure the
| drivers directly at a much lower rate. Car manufacturers will
| pay the much lower Y$ from this insurance pool
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > Self Driving car is no different. In fact, the Car
| manufacturers will have more data to ascertain the 'blame'
| and fewer accidents every X miles and they can insure the
| drivers at a much lower rate. They will happily pay from this
| pool
|
| "More self driving capabilities means fewer _crashes_ per
| mile which means they 're cheaper to insure" hasn't really
| panned out with Teslas.
|
| In 2018, Teslas had three times the fatality per mile rate of
| similar luxury cars:
| https://medium.com/@MidwesternHedgi/teslas-driver-
| fatality-r...
|
| Teslas are also ludicrously more expensive to repair, and
| often parts availability is so bad that cars are "totaled" or
| the owner gets stuck in limbo - the insurance company says
| "well, we're happy to pay out, when you get the repair
| done..." and Tesla body shops and service centers have months
| long backups.
|
| Result? Teslas, despite getting into fewer crashes per mile
| than the average _, are much more expensive to insure than
| other cars.
|
| The full self driving "beta" looks to be even worse, from
| sampling a couple of youtube videos of it "driving."
|
| _ The average age of a car in the US is 12 years old, by the
| way, which significantly skews things away from all the cars
| that have ADAS features)
| fy20 wrote:
| In my country there is a difference between insurance that
| covers others on the road (mandatory) and insurance that
| covers damages to your own vehicle (optional).
|
| I'd imagine insurance companies have something similar
| internally when calculating premiums, as a $1,000 20yo
| Toyota involved in an accident could cause the same amount
| of damage as a $150,000 Mercedes with this tech to others.
|
| That would be the part that would become cheaper as they
| will see over 1,000,000 miles the Toyota would have a
| higher rate of incidents than the Mercedes which has all
| these safety features (if it does what it says).
|
| If your insurance also covers damages to your own vehicle,
| of course that's going to be more expensive, as repairs to
| the Mercedes will be much more expensive than the Toyota.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| Who would buy a $150k car, insure it, but not cover
| damage to the vehicle??
| deltree7 wrote:
| If I'm rich enough, I don't care replacing my Merc with
| my own money, instead of going through the pesky
| insurance.
|
| Insurance is great when you can't handle the cost of
| replacement.
|
| That's why you don't buy insurance every time you buy a
| $100 electronic appliance. Now scale your money to a rich
| dude's money, you'll get the idea
| Sebb767 wrote:
| People who either completely overstretched their budget
| and can't afford it or people who are rich enough to save
| the insurance premium and simply buy a new one in the
| worst case.
| deltree7 wrote:
| Tesla is not a legally self-driving car and I'm not sure
| why you bought up that example. All your arguments are
| void.
|
| You clearly didn't get what I said.
|
| If a car achieves autonomous driving, and is legally
| allowed to self-drive, liability isn't an issue.
|
| Any idiot who understands actuarial math will understand
| that
| slaw wrote:
| Tesla doesn't have any self driving vehicles yet. We don't
| know what will be insurance rates for L3 vehicles as
| Mercedes will be one of the first available to public.
| willyt wrote:
| > The average age of a car in the US is 12 years old...
|
| Average age of a car in Britain is 8 years and it's only
| recently got this high. I got given a 10 year old car a few
| years back and I paid to have it taken away by the time it
| was 12 years old because it was costing too much in repairs
| and I realised I would be spending the same money on car
| payments on a new car.
| [deleted]
| pfortuny wrote:
| The key word here being "will". Which is not where the data
| IS now.
| onion2k wrote:
| _Car manufacturers will pay the much lower Y$ from this
| insurance pool_
|
| They'll only accept that if they can charge a subscription
| fee to car owners, and car owners are legally required to
| have an up to date subscription. There is no way
| manufacturers will take on the burden of insuring their cars
| voluntarily.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| So they will replace one subscription (insurance) with
| another... it essentially allows the car manufacturers to
| cut the middleman...
| [deleted]
| GoOnThenDoTell wrote:
| 37mph seems low, I had assumed autobahn was highways
| webkike wrote:
| It is, the minimum allowed speed of which is 37 mph
| namibj wrote:
| Note quite, rather, if your vehicle can't reliably sustain
| that, you aren't allowed on the Autobahn. There is no minimum
| allowed speed as-such, though there might be problems if you
| drive slower than that for no reason.
| stubish wrote:
| Seems best to start low until the system proves itself. At 60
| km/h on the Autobahn, the minimum speed, you don't need a
| system that can overtake or even switch lanes.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| 37 mph = 60 km/h
| MBCook wrote:
| I saw this news somewhere else, in a much better article which
| I'm having trouble finding in my browser history.
|
| The purpose of the system is basically to take over in bad
| traffic, doing everything for you, until things are good enough
| to drive again yourself.
|
| This makes a certain amount of sense. Obviously the slower the
| car goes the more time it has to react to situations. It will
| also cause less damage if it makes a mistake.
|
| Driving on the highway isn't bad at all, especially with radar
| cruise control. I think I would rather have a system capable of
| handling bad traffic for me totally.
| zinekeller wrote:
| Just a tangent: why do a transport-related website list this in
| mph? It should be km/h before mph in this instance because it's
| the native speed measurement in the Autobahn.
| MBCook wrote:
| Knowing nothing about the site I would assume they target an
| American (or British?) audience.
| Glawen wrote:
| It seems to be a new trend where people think that
| translating to English means using imperial. This is the same
| thing in YouTube video, they feel compelled to use inch, lbs
| and whatever unknown measure
| blackoil wrote:
| Driving in traffic jam takes a lot more physical and mental
| toll than in a smooth running traffic.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| half of all the driving I did on the autobahn on my way to
| France this summer was crawling slowly through trafficjams so
| it makes sense. Also who would want to let a autopilot do +100k
| h while manual drivers whizz by at double that speed?
| hestefisk wrote:
| It is.
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