Would you trust the big corporates behind the autonomous systems to be any more diligent at admitting fault? What’s the possibility of ensuring legal protections so the investors are not liable or the corporates go out of business?
The past 50 years of the airline industry might offer some insight into how it might be, or evolve.
California has been monitoring performance.
Within the road environments the test vehicles are operating, how good does autonomy need to become to match the average human driver?
Comparing to humans
Rough numbers suggest human drivers (spread over the whole USA) have a minor ding every 100,000 miles, an insurance claim every 250,000 miles and a police-reported accident every 500,000 miles.
Forbes suggests that the reported instances of disengagement IE human intervention, during testing can have various causes. That detail is not available.
Of greater interest to some is that Tesla is not participating. Is Tesla deliberately evading monitoring through everyday drivers who are using the ‘Full self driving beta’, and an alternative to paying for expensive ‘crash test dummies’? Forbes reporter has a Tesla and provides a personal view on the relative progress by Tesla.
Autonomy has a l.o.n.g way to come even for the simple things.
Who would have thought its state of the art detection systems would simply allow it to run into whatever was between it and it’s destination? The caveat for line of sight prior to pressing ‘the button’ reinforces caveat emptor not autonomous.
If you are going to have an accident while in a Tesla, some are quick to locate a nearby emergency vehicle.
No laughing matter,
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Thursday it was upgrading its preliminary investigation, which launchedlast August, to an “engineering analysis”, which is taken before the agency determines a recall.
The 16 crashes at the base of the investigation took place between January 2018 and January 2022 and resulted in 15 injuries and one death. In documents posted to its website, NHTSA said forensic data indicates that the majority of the drivers had their hands on the steering wheel before impact and were complying with the system as it was designed to be used.
Waiting. Still waiting……
And now Telsa (marketing team) exuberance is coming to light.
From one of their engineering staff…
The video in the BBC article shows how far autonomous technology has to go before it can be relied upon when driving. A common and yet simple avoidance scenario which many drivers face regularly resulted in a crash (into a crash test car). Most competent drivers would have avoided such a crash as they would have seen statutory vehicles down the road (rather than only looking as far as the car in front) or taken evasive action to avoid a crash (by changing lanes).
Telsa has been successful in the past of promoting its vehicles as being leading edge in relation to autonomous or self driving which has boosted its company value. The wheels might be coming off many of their claims…
And even more of the Telsa wheels fall off…
If it was not for the want of trying!
Criticism where it is due, without failure and partial success where would we be today?
The automotive world owes much to Henry Ford who changed how automobiles were manufactured and added some practical features to make the Model-T a success. It was far from perfect. Others soon rose to equal his product and together they moved the automobile industry forward.
Tesla arguably deserves a similar place in history for showing how modern manufacturing and design can produce a step change. The race is now in for others playing catch-up. Perhaps together the industry will move forward together, just as it did in the past. Autonomous driving in the future is to lane departure today as a CVT might be compared to the crash box gear change of the earliest motor vehicles.
Mark, FYI - that link returned 404.
Thanks.
It’s a few weeks old. It’s the internet. Things can change.
I’ve updated the post to include a less inspiring but more reliable source.
A whistleblower identified (as expected) as a ‘disgruntled former employee’ dumped the reports onto the media. If this is proven true it is damning.
Connectivity everywhere. Almost. maybe?
