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Tesla Crash Won't Stop Driverless Car Progress: Renault-Nissan CEO (cnbc.com)
Problems Issues with Tesla's self-driving software that were linked to the death of a driver this year would not block the development of autonomous vehicles, Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Renault-Nissan, said on Tuesday. From a report on CNBC: In September, Tesla revealed the death of a man in one of its cars in a crash in the Netherlands and said that the "autopilot" software's role in the accident was being investigated. "In the moments leading up to the collision, there is no evidence to suggest that Autopilot was not operating as designed and as described to users: specifically, as a driver assistance system that maintains a vehicle's position in lane and adjusts the vehicle's speed to match surrounding traffic," Tesla said in a blog post at the time. This incident shone a spotlight on autonomous driving features currently in cars as automakers are in a race to bring fully driverless cars on the road. During an interview at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Ghosn said that the teething problems with Tesla's autonomous software would not derail the industry's push.
I thought for sure that we had seen the last of this push for self driving cars.... I sure am glad that this guy was here to tell us that a possible mistake at a different company won't derail their plans.... whew...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
It has been. It's roughly an order of magnitude safer than humans, statistically.
If, today, EVERY car was swapped out with a Tesla self driving car in the US, roughly 30,000 lives would be saved within a year.
But, yeah, it's not perfect. It's only a lot better than humans.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Get your enjoyable horse breeds now before the pleasure of horse back riding becomes a thing of the past.
Autopilot is not full self-driving. It has one forward camera, radar, and ultrasound. They have updated the radar to make accidents such as the collision with the truck unlikely, even with the old autopilot. The newest system has eight cameras, including three forward cameras. The radar is now capable of seeing the car in front of the car in front of you, and it will react if that car begins to slow. Human drivers cannot always do this. Human drivers cannot constantly monitor the surroundings of the car. Human drivers will miss things. Human drivers do not "fleet learn". They do not incrementally find faults and eliminate them for all drivers.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
This is a bit short sighted. The number of problems caused by autonomous cars will be inversely proportional to the number on the road. There will be a critical mass beyond which insurance companies will begin charging extravagant fees for a manually operated vehicle. Autonomous vehicles will communicate with each other. They will know miles in advance when there is an accident, construction, or other hazard and be capable of responding accordingly (including re-routing if possible). Imagine a Network of cars alerting other vehicles behind them about road conditions, say an icy spot. Your car would then essentially have a map of areas to apply more caution in. They will be capable of monitoring for wild life with heat and infrared sensors. Grid lock on roads will be virtually eliminated because cars will be able to tell each other what they are about to do before they do it. Issues with reading signs are a non starter. Once adoption begins to pick up you will quickly see digital information systems added to existing road signs. All of this tech exist right now and most of it is mature. It just hasn't been put together yet. In about 20 years people will be complaining about how manual drivers are always causing accidents and issues with traffic flow.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
Come on you know that isn't the least bit true. Tesla publishes the number of miles auto pilot has safely driven. Its impressive but those are largely the 'easy' miles.
People unlike auto pilot don't get hand off the responsible for controlling the vehicle to someone/something else when the conditions get hard. I wonder in what situations do human drivers experience more accidents, conditions where you can use auto pilot today or in situations where you can't?
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> I wonder in what situations do human drivers experience more accidents,
A little googling gives more questions than answers on that one. Most fatal accidents are at night or at intersections. Seams most minor accidents are close to home or in parking lots. Seams like the drowsy driver and missed traffic control would be covered today by Tesla type system (many equal variants from Ford and GM). The auto system will likely have issues with detecting slick roads, construction, pedestrian interactions. So I would estimate a hybrid system, where we hand off the monotony of driving to the Tesla system. Then get around, with some sensor help the dense areas would save the lives. Full autonomy might not do as much, at least to save lives, but might pay off if in other ways, if it improves efficiency of driving to have fewer traffic jams, and minor accidents.