BMW Ends ICE Production in Germany! Mercedes?

He clearly hasn't read about Cruise (sp?).

With no driver in the car, they had a remote site where employees watched the cars in order to remote control the cars when they made "mistakes", as the software was not nearly good enough to actually perform autonomously.

I agree with the issue, but I continue to suspect ulterior motives in his approach, as today the worst offenders are these driverless cars.

 

“Tesla dances away from liability in Autopilot crashes by pointing to a note buried deep in the owner’s manual that says Autopilot is only safe on freeways,” the commercial opens, pointing to federal pleas to restrict it.

“Shockingly, Tesla refused,” the commercial continues, leading into footage of the semi-truck crash and the crash involving the young couple. “This caused many tragic accidents when Autopilot was enabled on roads where Tesla knows it isn’t safe. Tesla must be held accountable. Boycott Tesla to keep your family safe.”

 

I read the cite.

Tesla and many other cars have multiple levels of driving assist. The terms used in the article don't make it clear what level he is talking about or if he means ALL of them.

I've never heard the "only safe on freeways" thing. Is that warning given in cars that have cruise control and lane keeping? It seems like all these features deliver some level of both danger and safety and they all require driver attention - except for the cars that don't have drivers!!

By the way, he ran his ad in selective local broadcasts where the air time costs a fraction of national time. I think it played it places in three states and DC.

Again, he's going after Tesla, not the self driving features that a number of corporations are delivering.

 

No. Those features don't allow you to stop driving and let the machine take over.

 

The Resistance acts where they can.

 

He's failing.

And, those who kicked Cruise and others out of their cities are making progress, news, and causing government action.

So, my bet is that he hates Musk and/or Tesla.

 

Stupid is as stupid does.
A Tesla employee often used Full Self-Driving. He died in a fiery crash.
Hans von Ohain, a Tesla employee, died in a crash last year when his Model 3 suddenly veered off the road.
By Trisha Thadani, Faiz Siddiqui, Rachel Lerman, Whitney Shefte, Julia Wall and Talia Trackim

 

Did you read your cite?

The driver was DRUNK. And, the passenger is unclear what level of driver assist was being used.

The conditions included icy road surface on winding country road - an environment where drunk drivers are known to fail.

Another aspect is that Tesla employees are given access to beta level software to test on their own cars. We may find that the software involved hasn't been released for general use.


Again, I think there IS a real issue here, but pointing at a single accident isn't a reasonable way to come to conclusions.

Plus, the article is outrageous in its presentation. It was NOT created as news.

 

So what?

 

So, FSD requires the driver to be alert with hands on the wheel at all times.

It's not cover for driving drunk.

 

Does it shut the car down if you don't have your hands on the wheel?

 

Does that matter?

 

I don't know what it does in that case. I'm not a Tesla expert.

It does give at least two types of warning if it detects drowsiness.

 

Does driving drunk matter?

Absolutely.

 

A better approach would be to place more pressure on the NTSB to recognize this issue and take some action.

Or, one could put more pressure on cities or states. But, I think this would be difficult, other than action like the SF action to simply ban certain self driving services.

We should want this technology, as it could reduce the horrendous traffic death count. But, it has to be tested to actually work, not just allowing companies to do what they want - like Republicans push for.

 

Rules are made to be broken. There are commercials on TV for similar kinds of "self driving" trucks and being able to simply sit back and watch the vehicle drive itself is apparently a desirable feature. And if you're passed out hard for any reason, no warning is going to bring you to.

And being bombed behind the wheel ain't changing any of that.

That feature is a major disaster begging to happen and the reasons for killing someone don't have an excuse like, "well, you shouldn't have been doing that ".

 

A better approach would be to cast aside the idea of autonomous vehicles altogether.

 

A. NTSB is not a regulatory agency. There's no action they can take.

B. The latest data from NHTSA is that there are roughly 1.3 roadway deaths per 100,000,000 miles driven. If one assumes that every person in America drives 15,000 miles annually for the 50 years between ages 15 and 65 (750,000 miles in a lifetime), every person in the country can expect to live 133 lifetimes before they die in a crash. Not exactly "horrendous".

C. The computers in self-driving vehicles cannot hope to be as good at driving as the human brain. There isn't enough computing power in the world to be able to compete with the innate human capability of naturally managing highly complex, cooperative, and rapidly changing systems. Won't happen.

Like Jack said, just make autonomous vehicles illegal.

 

Deaths are not the only measure. Injuries can be horrendous and life long. All these injuries and deaths have impact that is not limited to the victim.

As we do today, we should continue to work on improving safety.

Automation is solving driving problems where humans fail. The automation available today is pretty miraculous. Capabilities today deny that automation can never be good enough.

What we need is for our safety organizations to step up their testing in this area. In my opinion, such tests would disallow the driverless vehicles we have today. It should be like what we did to make air travel so amazingly safe - serious investigation with necessary follow-up that grounds all of the offending vehicles.

 

If BMW cuts out manufacturing of the cars people want they're ruined.

Companies that make electric cars are swimming in unsold stock because the people that want them already have them.

And if that's all they sell I'll just have an older car.

 

I don't know why you think it matters if they're injured in an accident where a car was driven by a person or a computer.

The only thing that changes in that scenario is liability.

Computers can't drive in traffic they're not smart enough to handle that task. The primary reason is they can't see.

driver assistance features don't do that. They actually make the driver less alert and more dependent on the future and thus more dangerous.

no it's not it's actually creating more problems. Computers cannot drive they can't see. The only way that a computer is a better driver than people is if the computer drives all of the cars.

When you turn the decision making over to it's not really a computer it's another person because the person writes the program and the program does what the person tells it to you're letting go of control.

So that's like sitting in a car in Massachusetts and saying a person in a skyscraper in Seattle should drive this car.

That's a bad idea because if you die what is the person in the skyscraper in Seattle care?

I would bet if it was faced with rigorous safety testing every autonomous driver system would fail in the industry would be finished.

Because again it's having a person in Seattle and a skyscraper drive someone's car in Massachusetts that's a bad idea.

No matter what you do with the computer it'll never be smarter than people the only way you get one that's smarter than People is have a species that's smarter or more advanced than people design it.

They can handle menial tasks repetitive tasks calculations driving is just too dynamic for them.

 

"Nearly 2.5 million rear end collisions are reported in the United States every year and are responsible for 28% of all crashes – making this type of collision the most common type of crash"
Becker Law Office

Humans fail to judge speed and distance well, plus they are easily distracted by phones, radio tuning, routing, others in the car, eating, lighting cigarettes, scenery, being drunk, getting upset at other drivers, etc., etc.

Computers are better than that, because they can see the car in front and they don't get distracted.

I think autonomous vehicles aren't good enough yet, but writing off automation, even full automation, isn't reasonable.

In fact, there should be a requirement that every car has enough automation to significantly reduce the number of rear end collisions, because humans are simply not good enough for that, and the results can be horrendous.

 

What difference would it make if computers were responsible for it other than who is liable?

Speed and distance are a tiny component of driving. Computers can't see. So they can't drive.

Computers can't see anything. They don't get distracted but they aren't better drivers if they were we'd all have self driving cars.

Tell the automotive manufacturers since you seem to know way better than all of them but fail to produce a single vehicle.

I couldn't write it off if I wanted to. I just understand it has a long long loooong way to go.

so throw away all the cars and manufacturer new ones.

So you can pretend there is a reduction in something?

That's the dumbest idea I've ever seen you post.

I say leave the car manufacturing to car manufacturers and Internet know it all's remain obscure.

 

Computers can measure the speed of the car ahead a LOT better than a human can.

I don't know what you mean by the "can't see" idea. A Tesla has 9 cameras. Other EVs have multiple cameras, too. Plus there are cars that use sound for distance detection. Also, some use radar.

None of these ideas requires "throwing away" cars. I just think you aren't noticing the room for improving on what humans can do.

 

Who gives a crap if it can measure it. If computers could drive cars better than humans they would.

You know those round organs in the front of your skull just to the left and right of your nose those are called eyes and what they do is see. Computers don't have those.

Cameras are instruments that generate images for you to see. The camera can't see anything.

Recording data isn't the same thing as seeing

Because they can't see.

Driving is too complicated of a task for computers. If it wasn't we'd already have them. I remember seeing cars that could operate autonomously 3 decades ago. They can't do the task outside of extreme control.

Again car manufacturers are probably better at manufacturing cars than you are.