My VW has Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) which does the normal cruise control, plus basic distance keeping (with an alarm if the closing speed changes dangerously).
My parents' Subarus have ACC plus lane-keeping. The car will only do so much correction, plus alarms.
These seem like much better solutions, given the current state of driving "AI".
It can help keep me in a lane, either by beeping or nudging the steering wheel if I drift - I only turn on active lane assist on long highway stretches, it is more of a security blanket than anything else - just in case I space out for a sec, here's another layer of defense.
Adaptive cruise is also great. Between the two, in long road trips I can put the car in a travel lane and just go. I still have to attend to my surroundings, but it is a lot easier to focus on that when I'm not worried about accidentally creeping up to 90 mph because suddenly there's nobody in front of me.
I also had the auto brake feature activate once when a car in front of me stopped unexpectedly. I was in the middle of braking, but the brake pedal depressed further and there was a loud alarm beep.
None of these are autopilot, and honestly I wouldn't want autopilot until it is legit reliable. Instead, these are defense in depth features. The computer helps prevent certain mistakes as I make them, but never is in primary control of the vehicle.
Lame keep assist is very subtle, I describe it like wind blowing on the side of the car. You can trivially over-power it and it will beep if you exit the lane (without blinker on) with or without lane keep assist active.
The whole package of safety features is wonderful and impressive for something starting at around $22K.
Anyway, my point is these things are common now, and while getting the full package might cost a premium, the more important parts (like FEB) are certainly becoming fairly standard.
We have a 2017 Subaru with all of these and it's really excellent.
Lanekeeping is actually very nice. The system in Teslas and most (all?) others do require you to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, but having to constantly manually steer the car is much more fatiguing than you would think. It's really annoying to drive cars without lanekeeping now.
I don't find steering onerous, but it requires just enough attention to keep you alert.
(I've never used a lanekeeping system, though. Maybe I'd like it, I dunno)
Plus, lanekeeping can be really annoying if you rely on it all the time. The car sometimes tends to drift back and forth in a lane a little between corrections, instead of just going straight. So: you're still steering. It's just that you're steering less and have a defense in depth against loss of focus, and can drive without exhausting yourself.
Naturally, I tried the auto pilot feature on a highway but I wasn't to impressed. There is a major "bump" (negative G-forces), and the car tried to swirl into the other lane (this was within the first 40 minutes of my drive), and that made me distrust the auto steering feature.
As I think you're onto, I DO feel that auto pilot is the future, but we're not there yet - let's improve the existing life saving features (and not disconnect them, looking at you, Uber).
Trying to maintain a steady speed and conserve gas is a fun challenge, but a bit pointless, because a) it's a distraction from more important tasks, and b) the computer can usually do it better than I can.
I did a 6 hours trip with a friend continuously putting his foot up and down on the throttle, and it was the most gruelling car trip I've had I think.
When I asked he said it was "to keep control on the car". I'm a patient friend.
Not entirely true. I've been to German driving school and my father really pushed the concept of smooth throttle control on me as a beginning driver. Be smooth always. However, as I was able to afford higher and higher performance vehicles my take on the smooth maintaining of speed without noticeable accelerator input has changed. While I'll drive my SUV very smoothly, when I drive my manual six speed German roadster, my style is entirely different. Because of the weight, size, and HP, it's really not possible to drive it smoothly outside of tossing it into 6th which isn't terribly "fun". In the gears where it's "fun", it's a very much "on" or "off" throttle experience simply because of the HP produced by the engine.
a) you don't want to drive them smoothing because that's no fun - even for just the exhaust note & b) It's actually difficult to drive them smoothly because of the torque/HP.
It doesn't mean you are a bad driver, it simply means you've adjusted your driving style to match the car you are driving.
In her defense, she learned to drive in a very different environment (dense Chicago surface street traffic).
Anti-lock brakes were the first such system. Before, you had to pump the brakes in an emergency, a practice that was difficult to execute even without the shock of an impeding accident. That system alone certainly saves thousands of lives every year.
That being said, it's always been while stopping for a light, not in a case when I had to swerve, so its never prevented a crash for me, but it really is comforting to have it.
The star usecase is to set cruise to be very near the speed limit, such that after acceleration events like overtaking, you coast back to highway speed.
It's a low-effort way of ensuring that one will be compliant with speed laws most of the time, yet maintaining a steady pace. I too prefer to be 'actively engaged' while driving, but in my opinion the reduction of constant acceleration input is a welcome convenience.
'Adaptive' cruise control, on the other hand, feels to me like riding on a tenuous rollercoaster. It's intended to let cruise control be usable in packed traffic, but it requires one to cede a lot of trust and control to the machine in ways that physically make me uneasy -- and it doesn't help that the exact behavior differs between models and manufacturers, so that trust doesn't automatically transplant into a different car.
Part of the problem is, again, with terminology. Ever since Adaptive Cruise Control proliferated as a term, it drew a parallel to classic 'Cruise Control', which I think is a mistake. Classic Cruise Control is a fire-and-forget, non-safety feature that's simple to reason about: do I want the car to gun it at a constant 70 mph, or no? You can run a quick mental judgement call and decide whether to engage it or leave it off.
'Adaptive' cruise control fundamentally about maintaining following distance, i.e. tailgating restriction. It's a safety feature. It's a button to "proceed forward not exceeding target speed", but if it gets disengaged for any reason then you can easily overrun into the car ahead. It's a safety feature with the UI/UX of a non-safety feature, so it's always opt-in (!) -- which is simply horrific.
All safety features in vehicles should be either always-on, or opt-out, and NEVER opt-in. On a modern car, tailgate restriction should be on by default, with a button unlocking the car into free-throttle mode. Braking -- alone -- should never disable a safety feature.
On ceding trust - at least with the ICC system in Nissans, it's A) far back, which gives more reaction time B) quite easy to tell when it sees the car in front vs when it doesn't. You're ceding trust, sure, but you can also verify easily.
Your 'tailgate restriction' bit is effectively a more agressive form of collision warning/forward emergency braking, and FCW+FEB as far as I know is available on all or at least most vehicles with ACC/ICC. Unfortunately, the realities of city driving means that 'maintaining distance' is a goal in some cases (i.e. just got cut off, tight merges, etc) rather than an absolute directive - frankly, something trying to force me to a certain distance away from the car in front of me would be more aggravating than useful.
Are there cars that have ACC and don't have AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking)?
The Subaru system will not let you let go of the wheel for more than 15 seconds (after that it will instantly disengage), so it's more to save your effort of continual minor corrections. It also disengages as soon as it's confused in the slightest (faded lines, lines at an angle etc)
Guess what computers excel at? Driving consistently on consistent highways.
The Tesla Autopilot is supposed to be the always aware and paying attention portion on these cases where a human driver would be very likely to start texting or dozing off. Now, it's not fully autonomous and may well decide it can't handle a situation (or apparently try to drive you into a barrier to see if you're still awake...). In this case the human driver who is somewhat zoned out needs to take control instantly and correct the situation, until they can safely re-engage autopilot (or pull over and make sure they're still alive, etc).
Guess what computers excel at? Driving consistently
on consistent highways.
Possibly on paper. In reality, as of right now, computers are clearly far from excelling at this specific task.
Now, I realise people in old-fashioned non-autopilot cars can and do doze off, and that's very dangerous. But it's not clear to me how the autopilot improves that situation. Relying on the autopilot actually encourages you to doze off.
We already have simple remedies like "pull over if you feel tired" and "never ever pick up your phone while driving (or you'll lose your licence)"
the first being people are being put in harms way by either false sense of trust invoked by the name or the mixed messages from Tesla
the second is that if the first is left unchecked Tesla could single handily set back Autonomous driving for all by souring public and government opinion.
it needs a new name that aligns better with what it can do. it could be a safety system which gently corrects a driver and takes over in an obvious emergency internal or external. as it stands now it is just dangerous
I don't know what the answer is but it feels like GM's super cruise does a more adequate job of acknowledging the realistic limits of the technology and explicitly white lists roads where the technology is available for use.
I personally think that without some sort of sensors or beacons in the road, autonomous driving via camera and LIDAR sesnors is ever going to be good enough to achieve level 5 autonomous operation.
It's the sophisticated behaviors necessary to safely drive through that world model that are the issue.
The success of emergency breaking systems (that aren't advertised as "driving" assist) are pretty good evidence that the sensors can serve well as input to safe behaviors.
And what about beacon maintenance? Seems like most cities have a hard enough time keeping up with pot holes, lines, etc. as is.
Following the beacons safely would be a vastly easier problem than trying to completely replace a human driver in all situations, but it would still give you about 90% of the benefits.
The first thing I thought when I read beacons: Hackers are going to have a field day with them. Add malicious beacons to streets and cars will drive off road at high speeds.
I assume they’re more expensive to install than just painting a few lines, but they’re very robust and long-lasting, and they’re fantastic for human drivers. It’s not a stretch to imagine something similarly useful for computerized cars, that links to a standard road database.
Hacking is a risk, sure. I envisage you’d lock it down by having a cryptographically signed master map; if the observed beacons diverge from the map, the autopilot system would refuse to proceed. (OK, I guess that allows a DoS attack at least.)
Yes, you still need to pay attention. It is hard for me to believe that any Autopilot user doesn't know this because you learn it by experience almost immediately. People text and drive all the time in manual cars, but for some reason when they do it in a Tesla, we declare that Autopilot lulled them into it.
While I agree that you need to be ready to grab the wheel or hit the brake on short notice, I disagree about what that means. There is a big difference between having to be ready to do those things and actually having to do them every few seconds. This difference wasn't intuitive to me, but in practice I've found it to be extremely mentally liberating and true beyond question.
I've also found that Autopilot makes it easier to take in all of your surroundings and drive defensively against things you otherwise wouldn't see. One thing that has struck me, as I now see more drivers than just the one in front of me, is how many people are distracted while driving. If I glance continually at an arbitrary driver on my way to work, there is a greater likelihood than not that within 10 seconds they'll look at a phone. That is terrifying to me, but it is also good information to have as I drive -- I am now able to drive defensively against drivers around me, not just the one in front of me.
I've also found I'm more able to think or listen to music or podcasts than I was before Autopilot. I could never get much out of technical audiobooks, for instance, while driving manually. But Autopilot has changed that. I hesitate to say this because I worry that I will give the impression that I am focusing less on the road, but I don't think that's what's happening. My mental abilities feel much higher when I am not constantly turning a wheel or adjusting a pedal. I'm listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks either way -- I just get a lot more out of them with Autopilot. I think it goes back to the lack of mental fatigue.
Whatever you make of my experience, I urge you to try it on a long drive if you ever get an opportunity. I have put over 60k miles on Autopilot, I have taken over on demand hundreds if not thousands of times, and I've never had a close call that was Autopilot's fault.
That's a very unfortunate choice of words.
> I have taken over on demand hundreds if not thousands of times, and I've never had a close call that was Autopilot's fault.
Maybe you are an exceptional driver, to be able to be vigilant at all times even when AP is active.
Even so, it would probably only take one instance where you weren't in time to change your mind on all this (assuming you'd survive) so until then it is a very literal case of survivors bias.
Which makes me wonder how that person that died the other week felt about their autopilot right up to the fatal crash.
Solid lol, but I stand by it!
> Maybe you are an exceptional driver, to be able to be vigilant at all times even when AP is active.
I've had driving moments I'm not proud of. But it's because I was being dumb, not because Autopilot made me do it.
I think the relevant question is: does Autopilot make people less attentive? I have no data on this. My personal experience is that most drivers are already inattentive, and Autopilot (1) makes it easier to be attentive (for a driver who chooses to be); and (2) is better than the alternative in cases where a driver is already inattentive.
> Even so, it would probably only take one instance where you weren't in time to change your mind on all this (assuming you'd survive) so until then it is a very literal case of survivors bias.
I hope I'd be more thoughtful and independent than that, but maybe you're right. But I don't think my view in the face of a terrible accident should be what drives policy, either.[1]
On the issue of survivorship bias, I would add that "Man Doesn't Text While Driving, Resulting in No Accident" isn't a headline that you're likely to read. I see a much greater quantity of bias in the failure cases that are reported and discussed than in the survivorship stories told (as evidenced by the proportions of comments and opinions here, vs in a user community like TMC or /r/teslamotors). I posted my experience because I think it brings more to this comment thread in particular than my survivorship bias detracts from it.
> Which makes me wonder how that person that died the other week felt about their autopilot right up to the fatal crash.
See: [1]
There are large bodies of knowledge about this gained from studies regarding trains and airline pilots and the conclusion seems to be uniformly that it is much harder to suddenly jump into an already problematic situation than it is to deal with that situation when you were engaged all along.
> On the issue of survivorship bias, I would add that "Man Doesn't Text While Driving, Resulting in No Accident" isn't a headline that you're likely to read.
It's one of the reasons I don't have a smartphone, I consider them distraction machines.
BUT...I feel like autopilot should only be for traffic jams on highways. It's downright dangerous the way it forces the driver to disengage. The adaptive cruise control is much better as at least you still have to pay attention but the car manages the throttle and following distances efficiently.
Adaptive cruise control also helps; if the system detects a car in front slowing, it'll slow at a roughly equivalent pace to avoid a collision.
This self-driving car craze would be in a very different place if Silicon Valley had halfway decent mass transit...
If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal?
Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it automates a trivial chore (maintaining a steady speed) and will do it well enough to improve your gas mileage. The main failure condition is "car keeps driving at full speed towards an obstacle" but an automatic emergency brake feature (again, reasonably straightforward, and standard in many new cars) can mitigate that pretty well.
It seems to me that autopilot falls into an uncanny valley, where it's not simple enough to be a reliable automation or a useful safety improvement, but it also isn't smart enough to reduce the need for an alert human driver. So what's the point?
If you're excited about self-driving cars because they'll reduce accidents, as many people here claim, what you should really be excited about is the more mundane incremental improvements like pedestrian airbags. Those will actually save lives right now.