Tesla will soon have some new Autopilot safety restrictions after a series of accidents

[captain cactus]

Sauce: https://electrek.co/2016/08/28/tesla-autopilot-safety-restrictions-v8-0-accidents/

 

Quote

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 traffic aware cruise control would still be available for the duration of the drive.

So if you decide to let Autopilot do all the work and ignore it on purpose (in which case why are you even in a car) the system will simply refuse to turn on until you're stopped and in park. That'll most certainly teach you a lesson of what not to do in a car (as in, not paying attention and letting the car decide for itself what to do until it demands driver input AND THEN STILL NOT RESPONDING TO IT).

 

This is a good change. Now I wanna see drivers that actually educate themselves on what they're getting into with Autopilot before turning it on.

[byalexandr]

I don't see how people can blame Tesla for all of this when clearly the problem is not the car but the people that abuse it and use it incorrectly. It not only puts themselves in danger but the people around them and makes Tesla look like a bad automaker.

[Syntaxvgm]

firmware updates like this worry me. Changing or taking away features could be dangerous to user not in the loop 

[Sauron]

8 minutes ago, Syntaxvgm said:

firmware updates like this worry me. Changing or taking away features could be dangerous to user not in the loop 

But then... why are they "not in the loop"? They bought a very expensive car and chose to specifically enable this feature, you'd expect them to want to keep up with the changes...

[captain cactus]

20 minutes ago, Syntaxvgm said:

firmware updates like this worry me. Changing or taking away features could be dangerous to user not in the loop 

If a software update hit, the next time you step in the car it'll put a changelog on the screen. You can't miss a software update.

[Octagoncow]

This is great. It's crazy how irresponsible people can be when they're given something so powerful and new. Hopefully this will help keep heat away from Tesla. 

[Syntaxvgm]

42 minutes ago, Sauron said:

But then... why are they "not in the loop"? They bought a very expensive car and chose to specifically enable this feature, you'd expect them to want to keep up with the changes...

I disagree, but 

 

29 minutes ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

If a software update hit, the next time you step in the car it'll put a changelog on the screen. You can't miss a software update.

this makes a lot of sense, I tend to forget we have screens in cars now lol. 

[captain cactus]

28 minutes ago, Syntaxvgm said:

I disagree, but 

 

this makes a lot of sense, I tend to forget we have screens in cars now lol. 

All 17" of it.

[ChineseChef]

6 hours ago, Syntaxvgm said:

firmware updates like this worry me. Changing or taking away features could be dangerous to user not in the loop 

I very much agree with this sentiment.  We have all seen change-logs where it states "things changed" or "feature added" (Windows 10 anyone?).  Or what happens when there are 2 drivers; one gets in, sees the update, clears the notification, then forgets to mention the changes to the second driver?  What happens when the car maker decides that feature you paid money for will work differently, and now you can't get a refund because changes are considered part of owning a car that the manufacturer can change on a whim whenever they please?  There are a bunch of tinfoil hat things as well, but those are worth listing.

[Yog]

6 hours ago, byalexandr said:

I don't see how people can blame Tesla for all of this when clearly the problem is not the car but the people that abuse it and use it incorrectly. It not only puts themselves in danger but the people around them and makes Tesla look like a bad automaker.

I think they just added the feature too soon. Look at google. They've been doing this far longer and they're still not ready to release it. It's just a bit irresponsible...like a microwave manufacturer creating a new feature that sometimes ends in explosions and death if you actually use it the way its intended but thinks it can just slap a warning sign on it that says "use at your own risk" to make it better. You're better off not using it but if the company says "oh yeah, it's completely safe, we just put the label on there to make sure you're paying attention anyway" you're going to use it.

[captain cactus]

34 minutes ago, Yog said:

I think they just added the feature too soon. Look at google. They've been doing this far longer and they're still not ready to release it. It's just a bit irresponsible...like a microwave manufacturer creating a new feature that sometimes ends in explosions and death if you actually use it the way its intended but thinks it can just slap a warning sign on it that says "use at your own risk" to make it better. You're better off not using it but if the company says "oh yeah, it's completely safe, we just put the label on there to make sure you're paying attention anyway" you're going to use it.

Look at Google. They have just a handful of cars with very low combined driven miles. They don't have a lot of data to improve their systems with, and more importantly, public road data. Most of their testing is done on private roads "simulating" real-life situations which is nowhere near as accurate as an actual road/street/highway. They also almost solely test in the US, which has vastly different road infrastructures compared to other parts of the world. 

 

Now look at Tesla. They have thousands of cars with a combined Autopilot-driven milage of over 200 million miles. They have all the data in the world to improve the system. They sell their cars all over the globe giving lots of data about all the different road networks present in all the countries. They have their customers making the system better by the day. Remember, if one car notices a driver input in a corner or on an offramp it will learn how to do it properly over time so the next time you go trough said corner or offramp the car has learned from your input and then applies it by itself, and then share that knowledge with all the other Teslas on the road so they don't make the same mistakes. It's a giant AI network of cars all talking to each other.

 

 

Your microwave analogy is of no use here. In this case it's like comparing apples with the International Space Station. You're carrying live humans in cars, there are a bazillion regulations you must follow when designing a car so that it doesn't spontaneously kills you (and protects you in case things to do haywire), like you say your supposed microwave manufacturer does. The Autopilot system is in beta. You have to educate yourself about the car's current capabilities, either trough the car itself or by reading up on the system on the internet. The car tells you to stay alert and with your hands on the wheel at all times, giving audible and visual warnings to you when it demands driver input (like a deadman's switch). If you don't respond to that thinking the car will do it all for you you and you alone are at fault when things will go south, badly. The only way you can miss the warning messages (audio and visual) is if you're either deaf or blind (or both) in which case you're not allowed to drive a car in the first place.

[Mark77]

About time.  I'd even go a few steps further and demand that Tesla require ongoing certification, retraining, and re-certification of operators of this level of automation.  Especially with the sort of clientele that owns these cars.

 

BTW, the effect of this 'data collection' and AI stuff is highly exaggerated. 

[Prysin]

8 hours ago, Syntaxvgm said:

firmware updates like this worry me. Changing or taking away features could be dangerous to user not in the loop 

I agree. Every time microsoft updates my OS, i shiver. Because i never know what horror it will cause. This is why i pay more attention to my keyboard these days, because if i don't, who knows what MS will make me type.

[Curufinwe_wins]

14 minutes ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

snip

Google has 1.5 million miles fully automated, with the first 300,000 being almost exclusively highly congested freeways in california... The rest of the statement is fine, but I wouldn't write off google's amount of data so far.... Most of their testing is done on real streets with real traffic. 

[Tomsen]

4 minutes ago, Prysin said:

I agree. Every time microsoft updates my OS, i shiver. Because i never know what horror it will cause. This is why i pay more attention to my keyboard these days, because if i don't, who knows what MS will make me type.

It will obviously depend on how the execute it. It needs to be transparent and put in laymans terms so the it is understandable for everyone.

They will also need to properly reach out to their customer base, and that might be the trickiest part.

 

I don't know if these updates are applied automatically or they need to go through a service center.

If the first, they would need to reach out either with public statement, (e)mails and whatnot.

If the latter, tesla could try have the service center inform the customer after the update has been done. 

 

Microsoft is basically terrible at all of them.

[Gr0egercesg]

Should have been offered as the initial version, and the old one giving to people capable of understamding what beta means.

[Prysin]

7 hours ago, Tomsen said:

It will obviously depend on how the execute it. It needs to be transparent and put in laymans terms so the it is understandable for everyone.

They will also need to properly reach out to their customer base, and that might be the trickiest part.

 

I don't know if these updates are applied automatically or they need to go through a service center.

If the first, they would need to reach out either with public statement, (e)mails and whatnot.

If the latter, tesla could try have the service center inform the customer after the update has been done. 

 

Microsoft is basically terrible at all of them.

from my experience with teslas. they auto update on their own. but you get a pop-up notification on the disaply in the centerconsole, detailing when the update happened, what the name of the update what and what it did.

[Yog]

11 hours ago, lots of unexplainable lag said:

 

I dunno, I think you make my point for me. As someone else said, Google has a lot of miles on real roads, but they're done by people whose job is to do it. The only reason why Tesla has so many miles is because they pushed the tech live. Tesla just decided to make its thousands of drivers its guinea pigs test drivers. Sure, it's collecting a lot of data, but it's doing it while risking the people in the car, and those around the people in the car. I think Musk is just so driven to get his vision done as fast as possible that he's cutting corners and if anyone dies because of it, the end justifies the means, and those noble guinea pigs gave their lives for the greater good.

 

No matter how well you acquaint yourself with the capabilities of the autopilot system it's still dangerous because you DON'T know what it can't handle until it's too late to react appropriately (there are plenty of videos out there that demonstrate tesla getting in accidents in perfectly normal circumstances), and no matter how many safety systems a car has you can still die when you hit a solid object.

 

And to be clear, I'm not against autopilot, I just think it needs more time before its live...I would LOVE the feature when it's completed. I'd go a lot more places than I do now if my car could drive there for me.