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Tesla Angers Autonomous Vehicle Experts By Promising 'Full Self-Driving' Model 3 (cnn.com)
Tesla's now taking orders for Model 3's with a "full self-driving capability" -- meaning "automatic driving on city streets." CNN reports that experts on self-driving technology "say CEO Elon Musk is playing fast and loose with definitions, overselling the technology and potentially creating safety issues."
Experts say Tesla's "full self-driving" feature is really a partial self-driving feature that handles minor driving tasks such as keeping pace with other cars on a highway and still requires diligent human oversight. To most autonomous vehicle experts, "full self-driving" means a car in which a person could safely fall asleep behind the wheel, and the steering wheel and pedals aren't even needed...
Dean Pomerleau, of Carnegie Mellon University, who in 1995 drove a minivan that steered itself across the country, told CNN Business he has "grave concerns" about Tesla's practices on autonomous driving. "Claiming its vehicles will soon be 'feature complete' for full self-driving is one more step in the unconscionable practices that Tesla is already engaged in with Autopilot -- overselling its capabilities and reliability when marketing its vehicles and then blaming the driver for not reading the manual and paying constant attention when the technology inevitably fails," Pomerleau said.
CNN notes a 2018 study which found that 71% of drivers believe they could already purchase a self-driving car today -- despite the fact that currently there are no such fully-autonomous vehicles. "Experts warn that this lack of understanding could be deadly as humans may put too much trust in systems like Tesla's, leading to crashes...."
"A Tesla spokeswoman declined to comment on details around the automatic driving option, and pointed CNN Business to fine print on Tesla's order page that tells buyers the currently enabled features require 'active' driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
Dean Pomerleau, of Carnegie Mellon University, who in 1995 drove a minivan that steered itself across the country, told CNN Business he has "grave concerns" about Tesla's practices on autonomous driving. "Claiming its vehicles will soon be 'feature complete' for full self-driving is one more step in the unconscionable practices that Tesla is already engaged in with Autopilot -- overselling its capabilities and reliability when marketing its vehicles and then blaming the driver for not reading the manual and paying constant attention when the technology inevitably fails," Pomerleau said.
CNN notes a 2018 study which found that 71% of drivers believe they could already purchase a self-driving car today -- despite the fact that currently there are no such fully-autonomous vehicles. "Experts warn that this lack of understanding could be deadly as humans may put too much trust in systems like Tesla's, leading to crashes...."
"A Tesla spokeswoman declined to comment on details around the automatic driving option, and pointed CNN Business to fine print on Tesla's order page that tells buyers the currently enabled features require 'active' driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."
'To most autonomous vehicle experts, "full self-driving" means a car in which a person could safely fall asleep behind the wheel, and the steering wheel and pedals aren't even needed...'
No. That's "any even remotely sane person" -- not "most autonomous vehicle experts"...
Again: Any experienced programmer with a significant driving history will tell you that full autonomy -- as in, get in the car, say "take me to work", and you never touch a control -- either won't ever happen or will take much longer than people like Musk are claiming.
Think about all the situations you've personally encountered as a driver in the last year. For me, that includes: Poorly/unmarked roads, missing/incorrect signs, very heavy rain, snow, black ice, police checkpoints, first responder vehicles on the median necessitating "slow down/move over" maneuvers, detours due to downed trees, and, of course, no end of bullshit from bad drivers the required me to take action to avoid an accident.
On that last point, how many times when driving have you noticed another driver playing with his/her phone or exhibiting poor lane discipline or who knows what that triggers your defensive driving skills, all things that a car won't detect and respond to on its own?
Oh, and as for mixing autonomous and human piloted vehicles on the same road? Yeah, nothing to worry about there.
The best we can hope for in the next couple of decades is very limited use of fully autonomous vehicles, as in special highway lanes. Non-highway roads are too irregular and too poorly marked to support full autonomy.
Tesla is irresponsible even calling what they have "Autopilot". What they really have is "driver assist" and that is what every other carmaker calls it. Lane alerts, car following, etc are NOT Autopilot. As a result you have a ton of idiots cruising down the highway asleep and crashing into semi truck trailers getting beheaded because they think the car will save them. It will NOT. It is just a "driver assist". So call it that. But Musk is Barnum AND Bailey and needs to create the biggest hype to sell his overpriced cars and feed his massive ego. Fortunately Tesla will not likely to survive another 5 years and we can stop hearing about this crap.
Musk doesn't mind taking risks, [with other people's lives]
FTFY
I'm sure it works reliably. The problem is that it is the worst kind of automation. It doesn't require your attention until something urgent happens, which means you're very likely to be fatally distracted doing something else. And it will de-skill the operators so they will quickly forget how to actually drive on the highway themselves.
Anyone using these self-drive systems is setting themselves and people around them up to die.