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Tesla and Autopilot Supplier Mobileye Split Up After Fatal Crash (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: Tesla and Mobileye, one of the top suppliers to its Autopilot partial self-driving system, are parting ways in the wake of the May accident that killed an owner of one of its electric Model S sedans. Mobileye is considered a leader in developing the equipment that will be needed for fully self-driving cars. The Israeli tech company will continue to support and maintain current Tesla products, including upgrades that should help the Autopilot system with crash avoidance and to better allow the car to steer itself, said Chairman Amnon Shashua in releasing the company's second-quarter earnings Tuesday. Shashua said moving cars to higher levels of self-driving capability "is a paradigm shift both in terms of function complexity and the need to ensure an extremely high level of safety." He added there is "much at stake" in terms of Mobileye's reputation, and that it is best to end the relationship with Tesla by the end of the year. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, meeting with reporters at the company's new battery Gigafactory outside Reno, indicated that Tesla can go forward without Mobileye. "Us parting ways was somewhat inevitable. There's nothing unexpected here from our standpoint," Musk said. "We're committed to autonomy. They'll go their way, and we'll go ours."
So basically my Tesla is now obsolete? Thanks Elon.
Tesla decided to stop using Mobileye. This post makes it sound like Mobileye left Tesla because of the crash. More Elon bashing by slashdot.
Impressed but not surprised Mobileye would ditch Tesla. If one of my customers was using my shit recklessly on public beta experiments that got people killed I would ditch them too.
Full on autonomy is a pipe dream. Elon Musk is a moron. The world has bigger problems, and the fact that he can't see that tells me all I need to know about him and his company. May it be the first of many such 'breakups'.
This sounds familiar. Oh yeah... Ford and Firestone parting ways because they were blaming each other for Explorer rollovers. It's funny how the rollovers continued after they put everything else but Firestones on them.
Two musky stories in a row? Some PR firm must be getting some big dollars.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
"The Israeli tech company will continue to support and maintain current Tesla products"
So they're going to remain "Just Friends".
Take it from me. Don't drag it out. What they need to say is, "Have a nice life".
To quote Elon Musk:
“This was expected and will not have any material effect on our plans. MobilEye’s ability to evolve its technology is unfortunately negatively affected by having to support hundreds of models from legacy auto companies, resulting in a very high engineering drag coefficient. Tesla is laser-focused on achieving full self-driving capability on one integrated platform with an order of magnitude greater safety than the average manually driven car.”
This sounds quite reasonable to me. Tesla wants to go faster than anyone else in autopilot. Mobileye starts selling its chips to many car-makers. Mobileye is unwilling to make a special chip only for Tesla. Tesla then decides to come up with their own solution, using their in house chip expertise as well as possibly other companies' products (Nvidia perhaps?). This post is a subtle troll on Tesla.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
It's fooled by a mirror, by reflection, its fooled by lights coming on in a garage. It's clearly not fit for purpose. They need to add LIDAR, because any visual system would need to have a complete and total model of the world and everything it might see in it.
Musk says LIDAR doesn't work in the rain, but I've seen Google cars drive in the rain, so I'm skeptical. If its true then he could have both systems to overcome weaknesses in each one.
Either way, there are technical fixes and Musk has a way forward with this tech.
If we were going to ban guns as a public safety measure, we really should start with handguns - they don't look nearly as scary, but are responsible for the vast majority of gun-related deaths. And that holds true even if you only look at gun deaths caused by mass-shooters who own an "assault rifle". Handguns are after all a weapon specifically designed for killing civilians in urban environments in the most convenient manner possible.
Assault rifles and their kin on the other hand are optimized for killing armed and potentially lightly armored adversaries at medium range (out to a few hundred yards), and are drastic overkill for soft targets at closer range. Eliminating them primarily helps protect police and possibly gang members, not the general public.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
great another clickbait title.... In reality Tesla already were planning on ditching them before the so called crash nonsense.. They already were upgrading their autopilot project and had already attracted developers and technicians before the (much hyped) news broke about the so called crash.. But now they media wants to spin it like it was because of the so called crash, as that is much more sensational than what actually is going on...
I think the name "autopilot" starts to suffer the same fate as the name "hacker": they both have a precise meaning, but in the general use by the public, the meaning has shifted
Hacker used to be someone who is good at McGuyvering, at finding creative uses, etc.
But the press ended up using it for Cracker, someone who just breaks into things, not necessarily showing any creativity.
Same happenned with Autopilot: in aviation, it is a very precise thing - an apparatus which can take care automatically of the small minute details of flying the plane. The human need to provide it an order (a destination) and then only watch over it and control that everything is going well, but not actually hold the commands themselves.
Nobody has ever deigned this for the whole crew to take a nap while it is on.
Same in a boat: the autopilot will keep a destination, so you don't need to hold the wheel. That doesn't mean that you should be napping, you still need to whatch out for dangers, obstacles, etc.
But suddenly, the general public has taken a different meaning: as you say, now the think of it as Chauffeur: the Chauffeur (not necessarily electronic, it can be a human) takes care of everything, while you can safely take a nap or whatch some harry potter.
Elon should have called it "Ship's Commander mode" (as the one which gives orders instead of holding the wheel) sound both mor awesome and a little bit less passive role for the driver.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Remember George Hotz?
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6...
He developed some self-driving technology and Elon offered him a job with a bonus if they developed technology independent of MobileEye. Elon has wanted to part ways with them for a while.
The accident gives him the excuse he needs.
Elon likes to do as much as possible in-house. You see that in both Tesla and SpaceX.
Perhaps,
Tesla was not a big customer in terms of sales, but was a big customer in terms of promoting Mobileye's technnology.
There was a disconnect between Mobileye's roadmap and Tesla's.
With the recent crashes, the sign of the help from promotion was looking negative.
So, if Tesla is going to do something else, what might it be?
Add some other sensor like radar or lidar.
Surely, they already have more than one camera so they can triangulate to form a 3d model of what's out there.
If so, why did they drive under a truck.
Seems like the edges and reflectors on the side of the truck would have been recognized as an approaching collision.
I look forward to seeing a final NTSB report on that.
http://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/pr20160726.aspx
If they are currently running on one camera, perhaps Tesla should look to Mythology and find a multi-eyed creature and trademark the name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_many-eyed_creatures
The autopilot systems on the newest commercial jets are capable of handling landings unassisted, at least, if everything is working. This is just not that hard a job any more.
I very well know that.
But still, the thing officially requires a human being to check it, and none of there is currently approved for total autonomous / "unmanned cockpit" for flying people around.
- It *could* fly people around autonomously.
- It *would* propbably fly poeple around in case of an emergency (e.g.: if both pilot an co-pilot are sick and unconscious)
- but normally we still require human attendance just in case, and not nap instead.
it's officially called an autopilot
That's the exact same situation with Tesla (and all the other brands featuring automatic lane following)
- It could drive around autonomously
- in case of emergency, it would probably drive people around (e.g.: if the driver is in an health emergency, se could theoriticaly push a "red button" that automatically sets the destination for autopilot to the nearest hospital and calls 911/112. Or at least the car could safely go park itself to the shoulder and call 911/112)
- but normally we still require a human to pay attention just in case, and not watch DVDs instead.
it was branded an autopilot by Elon
An Arduino with MultiWii (GPL'd) is enough to take a plane off from a field, fly waypoints and take pictures or drop bombs or what have you and then return to home and land again. And that's without any beacon signal from the ground.
And the official precise terminology for that is called an *Unmaned Aerial Vehicle*. (UAV) (Or drone in the common parlance) More precisely an *autonomous* one.
Just like google call their car "autonomous" or "driver-less". Not simply autopilot.
So clearly, the word "autopilot" covers a lot of ground.
...in the common parlance. Specialist tend to use words like "autonomous", "unmanned", etc. in more advanced cases to emphasis the difference.
And that's my point, average joe might confuse "autopilot" with "autonomous unmaned aerial vehicle" (or with "chauffeur" as aaarrrgggh mentionned above).
So although the name sounds reasonable to a specialist, it might get confused by non-nerds.
Elon should have called it "Ship's Commander mode" (as the one which gives orders instead of holding the wheel) sound both mor{e} awesome and a little bit less passive role for the driver.
Do you know what you call a simple computer on a boat which maintains your heading, and does nothing else? Yep, you guessed it, that's an autopilot.
Yup. I even mentioned it in my above post.
And that's why I think "Ship's Commander mode" would be adapted. I would convey in layman's term what they though when saying "autopilot".
The truth is that you cannot get autopilot even activated without a safety lecture, and if you willfully ignore the admonitions of the creators and then turn on a feature that is dangerous both to you and others if you misuse it, you deserve to die in a fireball and the only tragedy is that you may take others with you.
Perhaps someday, the use of autopilot-like capabilities will be regulated, requiring different driver licenses (like manual vs. automatic gear shift). You'll need to pass your license using a car with advanced assistance in order to learn to properly use it (just like manual shift).
Or, maybe the whole thing will just evolved into a massive multiplayer competition for Darwin Awards(*)
(*): ...in the hypothesis that you only have autopilot driver napping behind the wheel and autopilot driver paying attention and at least managing to avoid being taken with the idiots causing accidents.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
MobileEye has likely patented the autopilot feature, which would make replacing it in the Tesla vehicles impossible without violating their patient.
Frickin' Lasers, obviously!
FTFY.
(Maybe Tesla should rename the model to "Shark".)
To call it "Autopilot" is a pernicious deception. Teslas don't fly. The proper aviation context is taxiing, and even it's hands-off from rotation to rollout, taxiing still requires eyeballs out the window and a hand on the tiller (or feet on the rudders.) The aerospace community knows better. There has never been a serious proposal to automate the taxiing task.
So why are you saying it, when it's completely irrelevant to this conversation?
I find relevant to the conversation to point out "things that joe 6 pack might accidentally call an 'autopilot' even if other terminology is prefered by people in the field".
It's relevant to a discussion thread where one of the theme is "Telsa's Autopilot is exactly what is also called an autopilot on airplanes and in boats and thus is reasonable name for this technology" vs. "The word 'autopilot' is a dangerous name because people are going to expect way too much from it".
And that's why I think "Ship's Commander mode" would be adapted. I would convey in layman's term what they though when saying "autopilot".
So, just to be clear: you think "ship's commander mode" would be a better name for something that behaves more like a ship's "autopilot", and not even vaguely or remotely like a "ship's commander" (which is a human) at all? I would love it if you could draw me a road map to that conclusion,
I'm VERY bad at marketing.
In this image the "ship's commander" human, is the human driver.
He doesn't directly work the wheel, he's giving orders. He's in command of the ship.
(But won't necessarily take care of the minute details).
And I find it a good word, because it convey's an active role to the human driver (be a commander !),
one which I hope is a lot less likely to end up saying "Hey, let's take a nap while the car drives itself around !".
Perhaps that would be best, because human stupidity is boundless. However, in order for it to be meaningful we'll also have to implement chip-and-pin (or similar) in our driver's licenses as a replacement for or supplement to ignition keys.
That's a bit extreme...
Currently in most European jurisdictions (where the Manual vs. Automatic transmission distinction is frequently seen), the selection is done at registration time.
To register a car, you need to be able to drive it and have the appropriate driver license.
(Note: I have no clue how this works when you're a rich person who never learned to drive, but want to own a car and hire a chauffeur. I haven't looked into it).
In theory car rental companies are required to check you driver license. But in practice, I doubt that checks go anywhere beyond "Yup, it exists" - I doubt that car rental rental companies go all the way to check if your driver license allows you to drive on the type of transmission featured on the car that you're renting.
So in practice you could have a "restricted" license (only car without advanced driving assistance), and rent a car or borrow one with some autopilot-like features and take out the portable DVD player.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]