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Tesla To Further Restrict Its Autopilot Software To Prevent Accidents (electrek.co)
Tesla is planning to further restrict its Autopilot mode via a v8.0 software update that will make it much harder for drivers to ignore safety alerts. Tesla's Autopilot currently issues alerts on the dashboard "reading Hold Steering Wheel and the driver has to apply pressure on the wheel to make it go away," reports Electrek. "If you quickly respond to those alerts, the Autopilot's Autosteer and Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC) do not disengage." The system will disengage if you ignore those warnings for too long. Electrek reports: "Now we learn that Tesla is about to introduce a new restriction with the upcoming v8.0 software update to give more weight to the alerts. According to sources familiar with the Autopilot program, Tesla will add a safety restriction that will result in not only the Autopilot disengaging after alerts are repeatedly ignored, but also blocking the driver from re-engaging the feature after it was automatically disengaged. The driver will not be able to reactivate the Autopilot until the car is stopped and put in 'Park.' So far, it looks like it would only affect the Autosteer feature of the Autopilot and TACC would still be available for the duration of the drive. The goal of the new restriction appears to be to encourage Tesla owners to respond to the visual alert and not to ignore them."
I'm sure we can rig up some sort of clamp that will take care of this.
Have gnu, will travel.
Tesla's Autopilot functions at almost exactly the same level as an aircraft autopilot. Perhaps even better - an aircraft will not automatically detect and avoid other aircraft, only mapped obstacles. A Tesla will automatically brake for other vehicles moving into your lane.
I do agree that "Copilot" would be a better name, but only because people are idiots, not because it's a bad name.
Planes do detect other planes in proximity with the aptly-named proximity warning. Miles in advance. With beeps buzzes and autopilot disengagement. They are called ACAS. There are various levels of support depending on version being used by an aircraft.
If the pilot fails to respond, there's a loud bang and a cut on his paycheck.
To keep people safe from abusing the control system, they are going to turn the control system off if people don't respond? I guess this will technically reduce the number of deaths attributed to autopilot. After all, DOT investigations will show that autopilot was off when the Tesla flew off the cliff.
It's pretty ready now. I use it all the time and love it. Living in FL means it makes me a safer driver, not a lesser one. Our highways often have no merge lanes. The entrance ramp ends directly in the highway with no dashed line. That presents you with two choices... 1) ride the lane until it ends, and expect you or the car next to you will slam on your brakes; coin toss to who does. 2) look behind you and see if it is safe to cross across 20 feet of "don't merge" zone; risk running into the car in front of you because they lost the "break coin toss". Mirrors are useless because the other lane is too far away. Autopilot is safer here. I can engage it and trust it will react to what is in front of me and keep me in my lane. That leaves me free to look behind me for a safe merge point, take over, and merge. I can do so in a way that doesn't surprise anyone, and doesn't force anyone into quick decisions, something that should be avoided on the road at all costs. Sure, sane highway design would make everyone safer. But... I live in Florida, and #floridaman isn't a meme because my state is known for thinking consequences through.
"The system will disengage if you ignore those warnings for too long. Electrek reports"
So if you're not paying attention then suddenly you may go careening out of control. I'm not judging this as a good or bad solution to get the driver to participate, but it's the reality. How many people will think they can get away with this (as a couple Tesla owners already do) and then suddenly be in an accident that the autopilot could have avoided if it didn't decide to turn itself off to penalize the driver?
In any case hopefully this works as intended and doesn't leave participating drivers in an unexpected situation.
Twinstiq, game news
Oh, so like a locomotive's dead-man's switch.
They should call this new feature the "dead-man's switch."
That name will fit the fate of many of their customers.
Kriston
Tesla's Autopilot functions at almost exactly the same level as an aircraft autopilot.
Except that most of the time an aircraft on autopilot is a mile or two from ANYTHING. Including the ground. And the parts of a flight where a plane is expected to be nearer to anything the pilot is paying a LOT more attention.
Mid-flight on a long haul, the pilot has to be there, and he has to be awake, but he can be filling out paperwork, reading aircraft manuals, checking maps, etc.
That's NOTHING like what a tesla driver can ever do. A tesla driver needs to be paying attention the same way a pilot does during an automated landing ... the ENTIRE trip. Not only is that completely different from an aircraft pilot, its also an unreasonable / unrealistic expectation.
Yes, real autopilots automatically swerve to avoid other aircraft, and refuse to fly into terrain.
Oh, wait, turns out they don't.
And autoland automatically lands an aircraft right? Oh, turns out the pilots still have to extend the flaps and landing gear, put the right data into the flight management computer, select the approach mode at the correct time, and use it only on runways that are equipped with specially certified ILS Cat III transmitters. And, during the automatic approach, they have to be CONSTANTLY monitoring the system with their hands at the controls ready to initiate a go-around immediately if anything goes wrong (which does happen from time to time). And they dare to call it "autoland"!
Yes, at sufficiently high altitude an autopilot system is hands-off because there isn't really anything you can fly into. That has nothing to do with it being an "autopilot" but simply with the environment it is in. Autopilot at low altitude during approach is hands-on. And it's perfectly safe to drive a Tesla autopilot hands-off in the middle of the Nevada salt flats.
Next up: lawsuit against "automobile" manufacturers because the vehicles don't spontaneously move by themselves as their name implies.
ACAS responds with autopilot disengagement, meaning fucker you need to wake up and fly now cause I could bollocks this up.
No, it most certainly does not. ACAS only gives aural warnings. First "Traffic, Traffic". Then, when you get closer, an actual command like "Climb, climb". It is then up to the pilots to disengage the autopilot (it does not disconnect by itself) and take the corrective action.
I'm a pilot on the A320. I've also flown the 737, A330, Falcon 2000, and a few others. I don't know of any aircraft where the autopilot automatically disconnects because of an ACAS warning.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be called an autopilot. Ask any actual pilot.
The fact that "autopilot" is a highly misleading name for the feature on an aircraft doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it as an equally misleading name for a feature on a car.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Not sure if you're trolling or just displaying average ignorance from not reading the article, but if autopilot disengages the car will slow to a crawl and not go "careening out of control".
http://cylan.deviantart.com/gallery/