
Tesla’s new ‘light-years ahead’ navigation and maps engine is ‘almost done’ - evo_9
https://electrek.co/2018/03/04/tesla-new-navigation-maps-engine-elon-musk/
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patman81
There was another Tesla software update announced as "almost done": a major
update to Autopilot 2, with an all new neural net and what not.

This all new navigation system might include functionality to help, not only
the human driver, but that new Autopilot as well.

At some point Autopilot and Navigation will have to merge. Right now, both
systems operate completely separate.

But if those upcoming updates will allow Autopilot to follow the navigation
system changing lanes thru highway intersections, than that would indeed be
'light-years ahead'.

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ardit33
"Almost Done" . -- Elon Musk suffers from the typical engineer's optimistic
feature task/project estimation.

Some people have wrongly attributed his overpromising, and delivering late, as
Elon being a salesman, while the more obvious explanation is that he is just
an optimistic engineer that tends to miss deadlines because 'estimating is
hard'.

We all have been there

My expectation is that when it comes it, it will kick ass, but it will be
late, always a bit late, like most of our projects...

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Animats
Looks more like "minor change to map GUI". "The main difference seems that it
enables a significantly more important zoom and smoother engine."

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heavymark
While the light-years-ahead would imply compared to current available
navigation systems such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc, the actual tweet in
the article notes he's saying it's light years ahead of their own current
system. So doesn't necessarily mean it will be as good as Google Maps nor any
promise it will be better and certainly not light years ahead of Google Maps
or Apple Maps presumably.

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jijojv
who gives a damn about maps, just use your phone. Sick of their false tweet
timelines. FFS it took 14 months to "learn rain" and enable wipers...

~~~
dogma1138
Autonomous vehicles need HD maps to be able to localize themselves accurately
on a centimeter scale, GPS and current maps do not allow that.

The higher the resolution of your map is the better and faster the
localization is, better localization means better and more accurate decision
making for your car.

To illustrate it simply we’ve all been at a point where the GPS app we use put
us on the curb or on a different lane sometimes even in incoming traffic.

This is because your phone localized you erroneously. While we ignore it or
make a joke about it if this happens to an autonomous vehicle someone can get
hurt or worse.

HD maps are the new gold rush in autonomous vehicles and companies are rushing
to find ways to cheaply produce, update and more importantly distribute them
to vehicles.

~~~
Keyframe
About two months ago I opened google maps on my phone and departed for a
neighbouring country. I took it in offline mode (am still weary of EU-wide
roaming) and had a route going on and everything. Half-way on my route, I
missed a turn and thought no big deal, I'll turn around and continue from
there. Google maps had different idea. It turned off route completely and
congratulated me on arriving to my destination, while I was still half-way
through the route. There I was, god knows where on my route, with google maps
mocking me. I finished my trip by following signs, ye olde way.

On my way back, I turned on wifi and dialed in route for going back, while
specifically telling it to avoid tolls (for several reasons - scenic and
because it was not really a long trip to my country so I wanted to avoid tolls
which make you pay for 7-day vignette at minimum). Anyways, route was on and I
departed. 5 minutes into the trip, there I was in-front of the tollbooth.
Thanks, Google Maps. Never again for anything outside of city driving (traffic
info is great). I can't imagine handing out my life to this crap guiding the
autonomous vehicle.

~~~
poloniculmov
Here Maps is great for offline, unlike Google Maps you can search for POIs and
will generate routes offline.

