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GM To Introduce Hands-Free Driving In Cadillac Model
cold fjord notes that drivers will be able to switch a new Cadillac model to partial auto-pilot. General Motors Co. (GM), the largest U.S. automaker, will introduce a Cadillac model in two years that can travel on the highway without the driver holding the steering wheel or putting a foot on a pedal. The 2017 Cadillac model will feature "Super Cruise" technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra said yesterday in a speech at the Intelligent Transport System World Congress in Detroit. GM declined to release the name of the model that will carry the feature. Barra also said GM in two years will become the first automaker to equip a model with so-called vehicle-to-vehicle technology that enables the car to communicate with other autos with similar abilities to warn of traffic hazards and improve road safety. GM will make the V2V feature standard on its 2017 Cadillac CTS sedan, debuting in the second half of 2016, she said. The Super Cruise feature will be on a different Cadillac model and goes beyond similar technology available on some Mercedes-Benz models that operates only at low speeds.
It seems all the new models have some bugs to work out.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
given that GM has had to recall more cars in 2014 than they sold globally in 2011,2012, and 2013 combined, it strikes me as almost surreal that they are floating the idea that consumers should 'trust them' in their ability to produce this technology safely and bug-free.
then again, people do have pretty short memories, and are easily distracted by shiny things . either way though, i think this can safely be called either chutzpah, or some kind of weird statement regarding what they think consumer's attention span is.
I can't even begin to imagine the ridiculous agreement they'll expect you to sign when purchasing the car. That sound you can hear is every single lawyer in GM's legal department getting an instant erection whilst simultaneously browsing the internet for super-expensive toys to order.
I just love how we're taking the incremental steps to fully autonomous vehicles.
And I'd LOVE to see the specs for the car to car communication. Because I'll lay even money that security was one of the last thoughts of the engineers and that the C2C interface will have direct access to the cars CAN bus or whatever it is GM uses these days. Fun times!
GM To Introduce Hands-Free Driving In Cadillac Model
Genetic Modification has definitely gone too far.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I don't doubt GM and others can make this work. But we'll never know how many of the "sudden acceleration" Toyota accidents were actually user errors blamed via "Oh yeah, me too. That's the ticket!" excuse. Toyota eventually just settled with everyone rather than go through the cases all trial-by-trial. In other words, even if it works perfectly, how many drivers will blame the technology irregardless? And if it doesn't work perfectly, how many juries will err on the side of the victim?
Gently reply
Suicide booths, finally a reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Why is this new? I see people driving Cadillacs with no hands on the wheel all the time.
Multiple companies have started annoucing these "enhanced" cruise controls. I don't like them at all.
Regular cruise control is sedating enough. You don't need more reasons to not pay attention to the
road unless it's 100% completely autonomous. This is just an accident waiting to happen. Do they
want to erode people's confidence and get autonomous cars outlawed before they even really exists?
I realise this is supposably an "incremental improvement" towards automation but I don't think autonomous
cars work that way. An "incremental improvement" that won't get someone killed would be a car/truck/RV
that can safely drive on just interstates and/or safely pull over. This seems like a much lower bar than
the city driving that google is trying to do and would be a useful "incremental improvement". You could
map out which interstates it works on and only engage at speeds over 60 when the GPS says you are
on a designated safe highway. This would be a useful feature that is truly hands free and allows a
company to slowly start adding roads as the technology improves but the important part is that it would
be a cruise control that you didn't have to babysit and more important it would be a cruise control
where it was safe to take a nap not one where it's tempting to take a nap so people will do it and get
killed (and kill other people in the process).
Yes. However waking up is not guaranteed.
I hope a V2V API is released, I would love to create an app that hops ahead from car to car and reports back the average speed and brake usage of 10 cars 3 miles ahead of me. Real time traffic congestion avoidance would actually be possible. It would also be cool to know that a car 3 ahead of me has just slammed on their breaks (animal/obstacle in the road etc). All kinds of things come to mind.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
What scares me (and I just traded in a 2011 Cadillac CTS Coupe that I've owned for several years) is the way GM often decides to rectify the problems they find!
For example? Have you seen the correction they gave Cadillac owners for the ignition switch recall?! Instead of anything you'd assume GM would do (like replacing the lock cylinder with a newer revision that can't accidentally get twisted out of the "run" position while the gear selector is in "Drive"?), the recall involves issuing owners a new set of keyfobs! That's right! GM decided that by changing the way the physical key attaches to the rectangular fob, they'd give you a setup where it's less likely to put as much leverage on the ignition switch with keys hanging from it! Anyone can do this "recall" themselves with 50 cents worth of keyring parts from the local hardware store!
Thankfully, my CTS had electronic push button start, so that recall didn't even apply to me. But only a week after I traded the car in, I received a different recall notice about a problem where vibrations in the driveline (that apparently worsen as some of the lubricating grease disappears) can trick a side airbag sensor into thinking there was a crash and accidentally going off). BTW, *that* recall notice also informed me not to take my car in right away for it, as GM didn't even have the replacement parts in stock yet for that one!
Automated driving systems DO NOT need to be foolproof.
Near 100% of highway accidents are the result of humans. The amount due to equipment failure is so small as to be statistically insignificant. Even if the automated system is only 95% foolproof, it would still reduce the number of traffic accidents by a huge margin by removing fallible humans from the equation.
Now *there's* a phrase to fill you with confidence. "Works right up to the point where you need to be paying attention, except you won't be because the car is driving itself."
Naw, this is GM's top of the line model. It will have a number of features for the hands-free control to match the exclusive habits of the drivers of said vehicle:
1: It will safe gas by pulse/glide on highways, zooming to 75, dropping to 55.
2: It will randomly slam brakes, or flash brake lights.
3: When someone passes, it will automatically pop a turn signal in that car's direction and lurch towards that car.
4: On roads with one lane, it will go 20 miles under the speed limit until someone attempts to overtake, then will stay the same speed as the overtaking car.
5: It will not use turn signals when a turn is actually performed.
6: On highways, it will automatically find its way into the left lane and repeat behavior #1.
7: If in the lane near an exit lane, it will match exactly the speed of cars attempting to come onto the road.
Automated driving systems DO NOT need to be foolproof.
True but they do require reliable oversight and/or fail safe systems if they are not including most a well trained, alert and competent driver. The less competent the driver(s) the more competent the automated system needs to be.
Near 100% of highway accidents are the result of humans. The amount due to equipment failure is so small as to be statistically insignificant
Not true. While you are correct that the vast majority are a result of human error, the NTHSA has done studies which show that equipment failure does account for a statistically important percentage of accidents. Blown tires, failed brakes, failed steering, deficient equipment etc. See page 26 of the linked study.
Are you trolling? Did you watch Rhonda Smith's testimony on YouTube? Did you read the transcript of the testifying expert's testimony from the Oklahoma Bookout trial?
Look, I will agree that a certain percentage - maybe 20%, maybe 50%, hell maybe even 90%, of the incidents are pedal mis-application. But when you consider that every vehicle brand has elderly drivers, and every brand has people who mis-apply pedals, why is the incident rate (by /percentage/, not actual number, i.e. normalizing for sales volume) for Toyota so much higher.
I can't find Michael Barr's testimony transcript right now, but I believe he said that the engine control unit (ECU) could overflow the stack. I don't know if you're an embedded developer or a firmware engineer, but once the stack overflows, all bets are off. And since the stack overflow corrupted critical memory regions, it's pretty clear that if you have a bad day and are the 1-in-a-million "lucky winner" of a stack overflow, you might be in for a wild ride.
It isn't about bug free on first compile, it is about a) failure-tolerant design b) multiple redundancies. We generally trust airplane auto-pilot systems, there is no reason why similar approach could not be used here.
I deal in my day job with both automotive and aerospace clients. They couldn't be more different when it comes to reliability and safety in product design and assembly.
For example, when I start a job for an automotive company they typically require what is called a PPAP which is supposed to establish that the part and the manufacturing systems to build it have been adequately reviewed. Sounds great and in theory is a very good idea. In practice however it is a check-the-box document that is generally required to go into production, produced once, generally never looked at and filed somewhere never to be seen again. It is a waste of everyone's time because no one really actually checks this stuff because doing so is too expensive. Audits are rare and formal quality processes are frequently ignored until something breaks.
Aviation is different. They will seriously crawl up your hind end and regularly audit you. I haven't had an automotive company come in to audit a product in over a decade and I won't unless there is some huge screw up. Aviation has gotten things so reliable that even physicians are taking notes on how to improve their quality in the operating rooms. Automotive isn't even close.
My 2025 Toyota with V2V V 4.0 can't talk to your 2018 Cadillac with V2V 1.0 on account of the notorious "engine braking bug."
Hillarity ensues...
You forgot that the turn signal will default to on at all times, except in the case of number 5.
I'm with the parent. If I can't fall asleep, or read a book, or watch a movie, then I'm not interested. Unless they can do it for the same price, or minimal price difference than a similar car without the feature. It would be nice to have my car drive down the road for me. But if I still have to pay attention to traffic and have my hands on the wheel, then it's not really giving me much of and advantage over traditional driving. Personally, I think it would be more dangerous because if the system works well enough, I may be lulled into false sense of security, causing me to not pay attention. When the car inevitably has a problem, I'm not going to be watching, and I'm not going to be prepared to take over in sufficient time to correct the problem.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Please feel free to name any tech company that can produce bug-free systems.
Oracle.
(They call them 'features'.)
But we'll never know how many of the "sudden acceleration" Toyota accidents were actually user errors blamed via "Oh yeah, me too. That's the ticket!" excuse.
A pretty good approximation of 100% would be my guess. The NHTSA has looked into this twice without finding ANY evidence of mechanical or electrical malfunction
But they did find a bug which could cause sudden unintended acceleration, and there is not any logging in the system which can rule that occasion out. And therefore, even if there were zero actual cases of unasked-for acceleration, we still know that the industry is not yet sufficiently responsible to perform this task.
Since the brakes in any car are powerful enough to overcome the engine at full throttle,
If you're already moving at speed and the throttle stays on and the electric motors which have full torque even at zero RPM and are supposed to cancel when you hit the brake pedal don't do that, then you might well overheat the tiny brakes typically fitted to vehicles which have regenerative braking before you bring the car to a full stop. The Prius in particular actually limits front brake stopping force in normal operation to permit regenerative braking effect. It is supposed to do that when a failure is detected (e.g. brake booster failure) but it's not clear what it will do if the software has decided that it should be accelerating at that time. The car might well not permit full braking force to be applied, as that is part of its normal function. If the car thought that it was behaving normally, then it would have reduced braking force.
At some point it becomes cheaper just to settle.
The point at which they're using code which has not been mathematically proven to safeguard people's lives. Yes, that's expensive, especially as the size of the code grows. Perhaps they should learn to avoid fighting amongst themselves just this once, before they kill a bunch of people needlessly and they have regulations forced upon them which will drive some of them into receivership.
Humans are inherently squishy and unprovable. Computer systems ain't. The excuse for not doing this right (with redundancy and at least fully audited code, if not proven) is greed.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The car is going to choose to follow the traffic laws. That means it's not going to swerve into oncoming traffic, even if you're going to die. It will nail the ABS and perhaps there will even be a prayer for you in one line of code. You never know about the motivations of the developers. You may even have time enough to kiss your arse goodbye.
Part of choosing to follow the traffic laws, however, is that your car will have taken that minivan into account in advance. It won't pass it at a speed which might require it to make such a decision anyway, because that's not safe. And you shouldn't, either. You're complaining about a fictional situation that you shouldn't get yourself into, and wondering what the car will do in that situation. Well, it will simply drive more safely than that to begin with, because shifting between braking and accelerating is not arduous for it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not to mention that the best option for surprise wildlife is 'drive straight'. Many will reflexively attempt to turn to avoid the animal and end up rolling.
Although I mostly agree with this in theory and also, in theory, people should never be on the interstate if you go this direction then
you better make sure your "is this an animal or a person" algorithm is rock solid.
You're being rude.
This is awesome!!! I've been hoping for years that Cadillac would make a car like this. When the driver falls asleep or simply dies behind the wheel, it should get them home or to the morgue. It simply needs a heart rate detector.
The only downside is it will put the yellow pages out of business finally since Q-tips won't need one to see under the wheel.