I wouldn't buy a car without at least "Level 3" autonomy

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

ATM, Level 3 barely exists. I think Audi has one and Honda (?) said they were going to release one, but that's about it. Tesla's FSD is Level 2.

Tesla's level 3 system is rolling out to an expanded set of beta testers this weekend. At that point it will be installed on about 3,000 cars. I hope to become part of the beta testing group within a few more weeks. Should be well over 20,000 vehicles on level 3 by the end of the year.

No other automaker is close to matching Tesla's system. Some robotaxi companies like Waymo can provide level 4 service in a very limited area. But only Tesla's system provides level 3 on any US road.

AIIez wrote:

Level 5 can never be possible. You can prove this in theory.

Level 5 is inevitable. You can prove this in theory.

Josh439 wrote:

Hi Hardloper!

Hi, Josh four thirty-nine!

Fat hurts wrote:

AIIez wrote:

Level 5 can never be possible. You can prove this in theory.

Level 5 is inevitable. You can prove this in theory.

Doesn't really matter to me if we ever achieve level 5. (I think it will happen but it will be a long time.) Level 3-4 is already good enough.

The true insanity is that we're going to continue to perpetuate an office mentality when WFH has been proven for ~50% of jobs. Not that autonomous cars aren't a valid idea, but it seems like an easier solution is to, idk, just NOT COMMUTE and do your job where you are.

I wouldn't even buy a car that has electric windows or cruise control. Totally useless gadgetry.

fat at 27 wrote:

There were peasants in the early 1900s who thought cars would never be widely used. In the future you probably won't even be allowed to drive your car.

Well, yea. They are already building cars without steering wheels.

A good investment opportunity is buy up a bunch of gas powered cars without self driving because 10-15 years from now a $10k cheap scum bucket will go for $500k on the black market when gas cars are no longer made and steering wheels no longer exist.

sbeefyk2 wrote:Well, yea. They are already building cars without steering wheels.

Ok, there a couple actually (almost) level three vehicles out there, but Tesla, who famously is saying they will not have a streering wheel in their next model which may come out next year, is just throwing out another BS claim. I mean, I love Tesla, but Elon is constantly predicting things that don't ever... or have yet to after 5+ years... happen. Have you seen videos of their FSD? I watch them all the time, and it is AWFUL. You'd have a wreck in days if you put your trust in it. Waymo Cruise, Fireeye... etc are way ahead of Tesla, and as far as I know, all of them still have a steering wheel.

Have you ever programmed AI? I think if you had, you wouldn't trust it to even take over cruise control.

An AI will do everything wrong that you don't very carefully explain to it how to not do wrong. Can you predict every possible contingency in its environment? If not, it will go wrong.

That's the limit of AI's usefulness. Only works in a closed course.

R&R wrote:

sbeefyk2 wrote:Well, yea. They are already building cars without steering wheels.

Ok, there a couple actually (almost) level three vehicles out there, but Tesla, who famously is saying they will not have a streering wheel in their next model which may come out next year, is just throwing out another BS claim.

No wheel in their new Plaid. Just some lame looking yoke.

not xaned wrote:

Xaned wrote:

Software does everything on today's cars including reacting when you turn the steering wheel, dumb@ss.

It does? I just sat in my 2021 car and it wouldn't do anything, wouldn't start, put itself in gear, turn, brake, or speed up, unless I forced it to do so. Weird. My car must be broken.

Oh, I see. You are a stupid person.

If all cars could communicate with each other I think you could get to a high level of automation. The problem is that there will always be someone driving a '77 Ford LTD or something like that which won't communicate, and the other cars won't know what to do if it does something unexpected.

What would Lauren do, Ed?

ASoftwareDeveloper wrote:

As an embedded software developer I would never put my family's life in the hands of someones software and electronics just to avoid the hassle of driving.

You can't possibly think software is going to be less attentive than the average driver. Nobody is actually paying attention out there.

I work for an autonomous vehicle company and can tell you it's not nearly as close as people think. Sure, cars can do some very impressive things these days but a completely self-driving car is a long ways off and most people believe Level 3 is impractical. There are plenty of studies that show people cannot simply regain attention quick enough to take over when L3 fails. It's far more practical to have a L3 human car. I..e human does the work and car jumps in when you are about to depart the lane, rear-end someone, etc.

There are a couple of fundamental issues:

1) AI (actually machine learning is the right phrase) is a great tool but it can only solve part of the problem. last month Tesla's were confusing the moon for yellow lights. They use AI/ML for that which requires the system to be fed millions of images. Need to fix the moon/yellow light issue? Feed more images. Problem is with every edge case you need to feed it more data so it becomes asymptotically impossible.

2) Humans are actually very good drivers. A lot of talk is around 'self-driving will be safer'. Sure, some day it may be, but right now it's not even close. In the US there is only 1 fatality per 100 million miles driven. And those miles include driving in Minneapolis in January in a snowstorm. So, the bar to be 'better than a human' is really, really high.

3) There is no business model right now demanding these. Toyota now offers ADAS systems (LDW, FCW, etc.) for free. Sure, that's built into the base price of the car, but the reason they include it is because no one pays for those when it's an option. Uber wanted robot-taxis to save money but their effort (called ATG) eventually failed. It was given to another autonomy company for free along with a $400M incentive to take it off their hands. Now it's trucks. But the truck demoes have all been limited to straight highways in places like Texas. Then when they get close to a city a driver hops in and finishes the route. They have zero ability to navigate in congested areas. Sure, it can drive highway but this means that you'd have to add a depot on top of the existing depots. Not exactly cost effective.

4) The people in charge now this is true but there is so much money in the space now they just keep powering ahead. There was an interview recently where a self-drive company CEO was quoted as saying, "this is a generational problem. My kids will be working on it and it may never be solved." Of course, that video has since been buried because once these companies got their SPAC $ they need to justify their bloated valuations.

Software may be more attentive but it's still fundamentally stupid at handling anything unexpected. So, the best approach is attentive human drivers that are augmented with a supervisory autonomy to help when there is lack of attention, not the other way around.

^thanks for insight.

Do you think tech that can prevent most crashes due to inattentive driving, etc, is closer? Would be nice if I knew the texting teen's car could stop itself from plowing into me at 60 MPH.

Very well said. I have a Subaru with Eyesight system that will brake if a collision is imminent. That is probably as good as it gets for a long time. Tesla is just lying about their "self driving" vehicles. Read the fine print.https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/10/09/cars/tesla-fsd-legal/index.html

AnotherSoftwareGuy wrote:

Very well said. I have a Subaru with Eyesight system that will brake if a collision is imminent. That is probably as good as it gets for a long time. Tesla is just lying about their "self driving" vehicles. Read the fine print.

My Toyota has this and the most it's ever done for me is beep if I accelerate through an intersection toward a stopped card on the other side.

I assume I have just never come 'close enough' to experience the auto-braking but it's hard to put faith into a system that I can't test. Should I just try to rear-end someone at 50 MPH on the highway to make me feel better? lol

AnotherSoftwareGuy wrote:

Very well said. I have a Subaru with Eyesight system that will brake if a collision is imminent. That is probably as good as it gets for a long time. Tesla is just lying about their "self driving" vehicles. Read the fine print.

I have a question about Subaru's Eyesight system because it was a factor in me NOT choosing the newer Forester with Eyesight compared to the older Outback without it.

What happens if a car crosses an intersection in front of me? As an experienced driver, I know the car will be through the intersection before I hit it, but will the Eyesight system slam on the brakes when it senses the car? I'm guessing it would. Then, the car behind me might hit me!