[HN Gopher] Tesla's high-beam assist feature surprised by Swedis...
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Tesla's high-beam assist feature surprised by Swedish moose
Author : eriksdh
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-12-14 21:02 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vibilagare.se)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vibilagare.se)
| andiareso wrote:
| It kind of looks as though the moose reflects enough light back
| to Tesla's cameras to make it think another vehicle is oncoming
| so it switches off the beams. Then turns them back on when the
| "vehicle" (aka moose) disappears.
| xondono wrote:
| Given Teslas "only camera" approach to ADAS, high-beam assist
| looks like an obvious point of failure.
|
| How is your car going to stop if it can't really see what's in
| front?
| kzrdude wrote:
| Other cars have high-beam assist too, are they better? Don't
| know. My old car doesn't do that.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| High-beam assist with matrix headlights is amazing - keeps the
| high-beam on but just changes the shape to avoid the exact area
| that would dazzle someone else.
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| I think matrix LED lights are not allowed in US? But yes -
| having matrix headlights is a huge safety benefit. I am
| driving on high beam most of the time and only small parts
| are dimmed if there is a car in that sector. Works really
| well and it was well worth the money (Audi A6).
| sklargh wrote:
| Just got the regulatory framework in place for it IIRC.
| 420official wrote:
| Just say it's in beta, then you can apparently do whatever
| you want in the US!
| aetherspawn wrote:
| 2021 Toyota Corolla owner here .. it works well enough, but
| random reflections off of street signs and such cause them to
| randomly flick on and off. I wouldn't call high beam assist a
| "safety feature", but more of a "hey, it's better than
| nothing". I tend to use my high beams more in scenarios where
| it would have been too annoying to turn them on and off, so
| it's net safer. If that makes sense. I wouldn't classify this
| article as news ... it's sort of a given that this technology
| is a bit iffy?
|
| For that matter, the Toyota lane keeping is one of the better
| and safer ones that I've driven, but it flakes out and gives up
| way too easily to rely on (a small gap in the line and it
| disables, as opposed to trying to push you into curbs). Again,
| just a "better than nothing" experience that can be useful on
| the tail end of a long drive. In the case of Queensland ->
| Melbourne, the car was the better driver at the end.
|
| The street sign reader, speed warning and rear cross assist is
| absolute black magic and I have no idea how it's so reliable!
| jedberg wrote:
| I have it on my Honda. I'd say it's just way to conservative.
| Conditions have to be perfect for it to turn on the high beams.
| Any time they are on they are on correctly, but there are many
| times when they should be on but aren't.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > makes a strange decision ... for no obvious reason
|
| Presumably it thought it was a person or vehicle so it dipped to
| avoid dazzling.
|
| Not what you'd want in this exact case if you were making an
| intelligent decision, but not really 'strange' is it?
|
| Also high-beam assist isn't any kind of unusual Tesla feature -
| it's pretty standard on all new cars.
| Brakenshire wrote:
| You want to turn it down for someone on the pavement, but not
| for someone crossing a major road at night.
| bell-cot wrote:
| A perhaps-stupid question: Does the software involved attempt any
| real classification of objects in its field of vision? Or is it a
| neural network - where all sorts of "interesting" things tend to
| happen for inputs which are a poor match for its training set?
| renzo88 wrote:
| > Tesla's official response to the clip is that the auto high
| beam system still is classified as beta software, meaning it's
| not fully developed
|
| Things like this (and panel gap, and build quality, and over
| promising features) are why I have yet to buy a tesla, and likely
| won't any time soon. Even though they were the only viable luxury
| electric car (during my last car search), I decided to pass. I
| will probably seriously re-evaluate them for my next car
| purchase, but right now, no thanks!
|
| BTW, I got my first demo of tesla FSD a few weeks ago. In san
| francisco, on market street, a place I'm sure is tested
| extensively. Within minutes, FSD had the car perform an illegal
| AND dangerous mid intersection merge followed by an extremely
| hard and jerky lane follow correction. lol.
| rand49an wrote:
| Are they though the only one available though? Both Mercedes
| and Volvo (Via the Polestar 2) seem to have pretty decent
| options that match most of Tesla's features and seem more
| polished and better built. They won't drive themselves but
| Tesla's don't seem to do a great job of that either.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Does the Audi e-tron count too?
| renzo88 wrote:
| Sorry! To be clear, at the time I purchased my car, there
| weren't any that ticked off the boxes I was looking for.
|
| Teslas were the only ones that did, that were also electric.
|
| If I were to buy an electric car today, it would probably
| consider a polestar, taycan, audi. I would rather wait a year
| or two though, there's some really interesting things coming
| down the pipeline.
| Brakenshire wrote:
| Five years ago there was nothing else, but now there are many
| options.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| You're missing out, they are making great cars!
| renzo88 wrote:
| I notice that you said not that "my tesla is great" but that
| "they are great". Do you own one?
|
| I will not purchase a car that has a panel gap I can fit my
| pinky in. I will not purchase a car that is at the bottom of
| reliability ratings. I will not purchase a car without radar
| sensors for the adaptive cruise control.
|
| Regardless, I ended up buying a sports car and I'm loving it.
| So I did okay, anyways.
| evo_9 wrote:
| I find it interesting when people list things like 'panel gap'
| as a reason they won't buy a car. I grew up in Detroit and
| honestly it's pretty embarrassing the stuff that goes on with
| most Big 4 cars. Case in point - my sister worked from one for
| ~30 years and still gets a 'green sheet discount' so she
| loyally buys their brand still. it's comical how every time she
| gets a new car something pretty significant goes wrong within 6
| months. This time, her 3 week old Jeep bricked itself because
| the key fob wouldn't communicate with the car and refused to
| start. The emergency break also suffered a software failure
| that refuses to unlock the break. The panel gaps though were
| spot on. Whew.
| mmmeff wrote:
| The light reflecting off the Moose's eye was probably mistaken as
| a headlight.
| roflchoppa wrote:
| I recall reading somewhere that some animals get fixated on the
| lights before they get hit. Perhaps flickering the lights at high
| speed can get their brains to not zero in on the lights and get
| out of the way.
| renzo88 wrote:
| Much like tesla software, animal brains are finicky and
| considered in a state of constant development with no final
| release milestone in sight.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I am very curious about the colour fringing on the high speed
| movement by the moose.
|
| Do we know where that is coming from?
| megaman821 wrote:
| Telsa's auto-lane keep, adaptive cruise control, auto brights and
| auto wipers aren't much better or worse than any other
| manufacturer's. Still they deserve the criticism for over-hyping
| and over-using AI for every automatic feature.
| karmicthreat wrote:
| The various software issues my Tesla M3 has are really grating at
| this point. I don't even have FSD, its just the regular AP
| software. I get: - Random decisions about turning windshield
| wipers on and off. Frequently it just keeps wiping a dry window,
| or never starts. - PHANTOM BRAKING, I've had it slam the brakes
| multiples times. Usually a bunch of times a week. Just for
| funsies. - Garbage night AP performance. Car coming in the
| opposing lane with its lights on? Better slam on the brakes. -
| Garbage bad weather performance. Just a bit of rain or snow and
| even TACC can't go a reasonable speed.
|
| A whole lot of this probably comes down to the lack of radar or
| other sensors. And the lack of ability for them to get machine
| learning with only cameras to perform.
|
| Maybe they should just send the engineering team up far north
| during the winter and force them to dog food their software to
| get around. Really it's not the individual engineers fault, it's
| always crap management.
| mnadkvlb wrote:
| Confused here, do you mean tesla model 3 or bmw m3 ?
| karmicthreat wrote:
| Tesla
| p_j_w wrote:
| He says he has AP and not FSD, so it sounds like Tesla to me.
| warning26 wrote:
| _> Just a bit of rain or snow and even TACC can 't go a
| reasonable speed._
|
| As you note, unlike most manufacturers' TACC, Tesla has made
| the (IMO terrible) decision to use a purely computer vision
| based system instead of radar. That's why it works so poorly in
| adverse weather conditions, and that's also why it will _never_
| work well in adverse weather conditions.
| renzo88 wrote:
| nm wrong m3
| function_seven wrote:
| I think parent is referring to the Tesla Model 3 with his
| "M3" abbreviation. Not the BMW M3.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Removing radar was a very dumb (if not criminal) move. I wonder
| how many people have to die until their stubbornness wears off.
| yumraj wrote:
| > Tesla's official response to the clip is that the auto high
| beam system still is classified as beta software,
|
| Is there any software in this effing car that is not beta
| software?
|
| Why are regulators allowing Tesla to use beta software which can
| have an obvious impact on the safety of the driver and those on
| the road?
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Is there any software in this effing car that is not beta
| software?
|
| Pretty sure the solitaire app is considered stable.
| sorenjan wrote:
| That's the second time I've seen video of a Tesla car trying to
| kill its driver in less than a week.
|
| https://jalopnik.com/tesla-full-self-driving-beta-causes-acc...
| MBCook wrote:
| Tesla's "don't blame us it's beta software" schtick is getting
| real old. No other automaker deflects all blame on faulty safety
| related system that way.
| sklargh wrote:
| Also the argument that "the driver can opt-out" is so facile. I
| don't drive a Tesla, I can't opt out of the beta but I still
| need to live with the Teslas in my town.
|
| Tesla is aggressively and non-consensually consuming part of my
| daily road-safety budget to subsidize development of beta
| software in pursuit of long-term profits.
|
| Now if they open-sourced their FSD sensor data to help train
| other self-driving systems I think my perspective would be
| different.
| chrstphrknwtn wrote:
| Agreed. For Telsa 'beta' means 'unfinished and unsafe but
| released anyway'.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| "and it will cost you $10,000 to try"
| sorenjan wrote:
| It's the Silicon Valley way, and it has no place in safety
| critical systems like cars. Ironically, Tesla is the worlds
| highest valued car company specifically because they pretend to
| be a software company. In a way they've made their testing an
| external cost that customers and other members of the public
| pay for them.
|
| Governments (or EU) should just ban all beta software from
| public roads. You want to ship a feature to customers? Fine,
| but you'll have to take responsibility for it first. Make sure
| it's tested, has well understood failure modes, who's to blame
| if it malfunctions, etc.
| pvarangot wrote:
| We should start calling it the Austin way too.
| [deleted]
| p_j_w wrote:
| >Fine, but you'll have to take responsibility for it first.
|
| This is kind of where I draw the line. If the manufacturer
| isn't willing to accept liability, then I'm not going to
| believe them when they say that the car can drive itself,
| especially if I'm paying for said feature.
| bedobi wrote:
| The softwareization of cars has so much potential, but is
| terrifyingly poorly implemented. It should arguably be developed
| using, and be subject to, the same extreme rigor as aircraft
| autopilot, but it seems like it's the wild west.
| ipspam wrote:
| The only obvious explaination is that it detected a "car" in the
| opposing lane.
|
| Given what went on, it's in the direction of what would generally
| be the opposing lane.
|
| It seems that the large mass of light haired Moose reflected
| enough of the Telsa's own light back at it to make it think it
| was a car approaching from far away.
|
| It wasn't a car far away with lots of light, it was a moose,
| close, with little light.
|
| Both appear to the Tesla as the same thing.
|
| This happens ALL the time with UFO's. It's a problem with the
| human eye, light and distance are indeterminate. It could be
| either way around, close and dim, far and bright.
|
| Seems better integration of light vs radar is needed.
| andiareso wrote:
| Ha yup this is my suspicion. I posted the same exact time the
| same theory lol. Seems like it behaves normally. I would expect
| Tesla to not want to look for cars first then turn the brights
| off, but error on the side of anything resembling oncoming
| traffic triggering low-beams.
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