
Current Tesla autopilot is sometimes blind to stopped cars - matt2000
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b6etx7/reminder_current_ap_is_sometimes_blind_to_stopped/
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jameskilton
This has been true for a long time. Radar can't differentiate between a wall,
a stopped car, or a dead skunk. Heck, it can get confused with a bridge's
shadow on a bright day. Thus autopilot has to be configured to deal with these
situations: stop or run into them. The vast majority of the situation you _don
't_ want the car to stop, as that will lead to a more dangerous situation and
increase the chance of a collision.

It's one of the many situations that show that "autopilot", particularly Level
4 and Level 5, have a very, very long way to go. Also, as the reddit thread
discusses the psychology of autopilot, this is why I don't want self-driving
cars yet. Humans are horrendous at paying attention when they aren't directly
in control. Airlines have been dealing with this problem for decades. Tesla
has even started calling their services "driver assist" instead of autopilot
to help combat this problem.

And yes, many people use autopilot without a problem every day, but you have
to remember that it only takes one single miss to kill you (see: driver killed
by ramming into a lane divider on autopilot).

~~~
tntn
> Radar can't differentiate between a wall, a stopped car, or a dead skunk

"Radar" absolutely can.

What can't differentiate between these things is the radar in Teslas that was
intended for use in adaptive cruise control. There are any number of not
insanely expensive radars that could do this job perfectly fine. Tesla just
decided to go "full self driving" with this rather bad radar because "humans
can do it with vision only!!!1!!!1!"

~~~
Junk_Collector
I don't the specifics of Tesla's radar implementation but what I have seen of
the accidents usually seem like a textbook examples of incorrectly implemented
clutter filtering. It's not an easy problem to solve in practice (re:
cheaply), but known solutions have existed for decades.

~~~
tntn
The radar module in Teslas uses the same filtering strategy as most adaptive
cruise control radar modules, which is "if relative velocity to object is
nearly the opposite of the car's velocity, throw it out."

It works pretty much as designed.

~~~
Junk_Collector
Right, sounds like they drop a bandpass filter on the down-converted Doppler
spectrum. It's the simplest way to "solve" the clutter problem by just getting
rid of everything stationary.

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stevoo
This not news. This has existed from the first iteration of Tesla Autopilots.
That is why there where crashes with stationery vehicles for Tesla. This is
shortcoming for using only cameras or any vehicle that has adaptive cruise
control. The problem is that the front camera cannot distinguish from the road
and a stationery vehicle. For that, they are the same and they ignore
stationary obstacles. If they where taken into consideration, then they would
not work at all.

This is where Lidar comes in but at its current price, or at price that Tesla
was designing its system it was too expensive.

I am not entirely sure that pure cameras will ever be enough

~~~
nradov
The Subaru EyeSight system uses cameras. It appears to do pretty well for
adaptive cruise control and front crash prevention.

[https://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/53/3/2](https://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/53/3/2)

~~~
diggernet
Not sure why you are downvoted. My Subaru does a pretty good job of detecting
both moving and stationary objects, using only stereo cameras. It does have
its limitations, and I wouldn't trust it to be a level 4 or 5 auto-auto
without additional sensors. But it sure blows away Tesla when it comes to
little things like detecting parked fire engines and highway barriers.

~~~
sliken
Seems like eyesight does a pretty good job at 35 mph, not so much at highway
speeds.

Have you had any experience with eyesight helping at highway speeds?

~~~
diggernet
Guess that depends on what you mean by "helping".

What you describe is specifically related to emergency braking. None of these
systems claim to _prevent_ collisions at high speeds through emergency
braking. But they will significantly reduce the impact. No, I haven't tested
that personally, and I don't plan to, so no actual "experience" there.

However, there are other aspects of EyeSight I _do_ have experience with at
highway speeds.

\- Collision alert. It's an extra set of eyes to keep an eye out for trouble.
When I'm checking over my shoulder before a lane change, I can take a little
more time and look more carefully, knowing that it is watching the road ahead.
It has alerted me for things like a car slowing suddenly or squeezing in front
of me.

\- Adaptive cruise. This helps by reducing load on me while driving and
maintaining a safe following distance. So I can focus less on the car ahead
and pay more attention all around.

Tip for users of EyeSight and other systems: Always remember that like every
other system out there it's not perfect and has limitations. Don't get
complacent. After 5+ years of driving with it, I'll still keep my foot ready
to brake, even in situations I'm confident it can handle. Occasionally I'll
give in to the urge to brake only to find that it has started braking by the
time my foot hits the pedal. But I'd rather react too soon than wait too long.

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rayiner
Tesla's system is not only not "autopilot" (it will happily plow into
stationary vehicles), it's not even the best adaptive cruise control on the
market for dealing with stationary vehicles:
[https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-
featu...](https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-features-
automatic-braking-system-tested-explained).

In a recent Car & Driver test, Subaru beat Tesla in every single scenario
involving fast approach to a stationary/slow-moving target (although all
collided with the target at closing speeds >= 50 mph).

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xnyan
A LIDAR array is a requirement for automated driving. It can operate in some
conditions that radar cannot. lidar, radar and computer vision should all be
used in concert for best effect and Tesla knows this, but chooses/chose not to
in order to meet a price point. That choice may have been the right one, I
don't know.

Hacker news (and me too, to be honest) focuses on Tesla, but there are a lot
of other players doing this and doing it better IMO.

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eastendguy
Can any other Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) stop in such a case? (Real
question, I don't know).

My current understanding is that Tesla's TACC is the best on the market.
Correct?

~~~
toomuchtodo
This is a deficiency in several automatic emergency braking systems [1]. Tesla
extracts as much signal from front facing radar as they can, but edge cases
abound.

Marketplace or Planet Money had a piece a few weeks ago that mentioned the
hardest problem was consumer education about these safety systems. People are
inherently not interested in learning about the life safety systems in their
cars. They expect it to “just work”. Whose failing is it if warnings clearly
state that isn’t the case?

“The car companies don't hide the fact that today's AEB systems have blind
spots. It's all there in the owner's manuals, typically covered by both an
all-encompassing legal disclaimer and explicit examples of why the systems
might fail to intervene. For instance, the Camry's AEB system may not work
when you're driving on a hill. It might not spot vehicles with high ground
clearance or those with low rear ends. It may not work if a wiper blade blocks
the camera. Toyota says the system could also fail if the vehicle is wobbling,
whatever that means. It may not function when the sun shines directly on the
vehicle ahead or into the camera mounted near the rearview mirror.”

[1] [https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-
featu...](https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-features-
automatic-braking-system-tested-explained/)

~~~
jeremyjh
Without doubt it is Tesla’s fault, due to how they have named and marketed the
feature. Even if they fixed the name, they have created a system that
encourages people to disengage when it is not safe to do so. You can’t make a
system inherently unsafe and absolve responsibility by adding a warning.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Tesla isn’t responsible for ignorant consumers. The lowest common denominator
should not guide product marketing and education.

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thecopy
Its just a matter of time before the injured and dead count starts increasing.
Tesla needs to take their responsibility and disable AutoPilot before more
people die because of its severe faults and flaws.

~~~
nickik
Currently the amount of injured and dead is falling for both Tesla cars and
Tesla cars while on Autopilot.

~~~
michaelt
I didn't realise Tesla Autopilot could raise the dead :)

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athenot
Yet isn't this addressed by the "dumb" collision avoidance system found in
many premium cars?

("dumb" as in limited in scope and not trying to drive the car as a whole.)

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js2
Readers might find this piece (“Four Cars Repeatedly Crashed to Test the
Latest Automatic Braking Safety Systems”) interesting:

[https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-
featu...](https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a24511826/safety-features-
automatic-braking-system-tested-explained/)

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gopher2
It's so bad that they call this feature "Autopilot". Taking a page out of the
AT&T 5G Evolution playbook I guess.

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Tomminn
Is this just because it's hard to distinguish using visual data when it's a
2-D image on the road (from the sun, intentional paint, a spill etc) and when
its a 3-D object sitting upright on the road?

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benjohnson
This is rather useful.. If I notice a Tesla behind me, I'll do my best not to
come to an abrupt complete stop. Sounds like if I slow down gradually, it will
give it enough data to slow down as well.

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kwhitefoot
This is not news to anyone who own a Tesla.

Perhaps someone who drives a car with a different radar could tell us if any
other real world systems (actually installed on mass market vehicles right
now) does better.

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xedeon
You mean Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC)?

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gthtjtkt
What are we going to find out next, water is wet?

Every radar cruise control system comes with a warning that it can't detect
stopped traffic. This seems like a case of RTFM.

~~~
tntn
The issue is that tesla packaged up a radar designed for adaptive cruise
control as part of their "autopilot." Maybe there is some disclaimer somewhere
that says autopilot will happily run into stopped cars, but I don't know that
most drivers of Teslas are aware of this.

~~~
gthtjtkt
It's in the manual. In fact, the exact scenario in this video is on page 83 of
the Model S manual.

