
The long, winding road for driverless cars - JumpCrisscross
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21722628-forget-hype-about-autonomous-vehicles-being-around-cornerreal-driverless-cars-will?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/20170526n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/na/Daily_Dispatch/email&etear=dailydispatch
======
11thEarlOfMar
"After a couple of decades, hybrid and electric vehicles still account for no
more than 2% of new-car sales in most countries."

This is just not convincing. The sales were weak because the products were
weak. There are about 500,000 people who have placed orders for the Model 3
_sight unseen_. There is tremendous pent up demand for these cars, simply
because buyers believe that the company selling them finally has the right
formula.

"Unlike video cameras, lidar cannot be dazzled by bright light nor blinded by
the dark."

LiDAR I've worked with in fact could suffer 'sun poisoning' if the sun shone
directly into the receiver.

"Local governments will have to spend scarce resources making road
infrastructure more AV-friendly."

Right, like fixing this false lane marker (the actual lane marker is the
yellow line in the lane barrier's shadow):
[http://imgur.com/a/KnsXU](http://imgur.com/a/KnsXU)

~~~
ajross
> LiDAR I've worked with in fact could suffer 'sun poisoning' if the sun shone
> directly into the receiver.

Notably, the optical guidance systems in all existing vehicles are subject to
exactly the same exploit.

This is one of the criticisms (of self-driving cars, and with LIDAR vs.
imaging specifically) I just simply don't get. You can blind a real driver
much more easily and less recoverably than you can any sensor.

~~~
jacquesm
Drivers deal with having the sun shining in their eye using sunshades, visors
and a whole raft of movement tricks to avoid having their retinas burned out.
A passive sensor (which is where we're headed) has no protection at all, it
just sits where while it is being fried.

It's true that the sun low near the horizon at sunup or sundown, especially on
clear winter days causes accidents but I'm not all that sure whether or not
LIDAR will do better here than humans. Time will tell.

~~~
wavefunction
What if you put an intensity sensor next to the LIDAR sensor and came up with
some solution to position the LIDAR like sunshades, visors, and 'movement
tricks.'

~~~
XorNot
HDR photography can be applied practically to let you look directly into the
sun and still see objects next to it perfectly clearly.

There's no actual problem for a video camera to drive while staring straight
into the sun, beyond the need to have a camera shutter.

------
sliken
Seems like a pretty biased article which seems to largely ignore quickly
increasing sensor ability (cameras, pairs of cameras, radar, and lidar). They
also ignore quickly increasing amount of CPU power for vision like tasks
(parallel) like the Nvidia TX2. No reason that shouldn't keep improving over
the next few years. The article also repeats the popular refrain that lidar is
the only reasonable solution. Funny how human eyes (just 2) aren't bad. I've
also read reports that lidar is particularly susceptible to things like fog
and dust.

I can't see why a dozen or so cameras can't do quite well compared to a lessor
number of lidar units. Especially if you use pairs of cameras which makes it
much easier to pick out 3D features. Human eyes are only separated by a few
inches, no reason pairs of cameras couldn't be separated by 6 feet if depth
perception is a limiting factor.

Machine learning has been increasing quite quickly (things like recognizing
human speech, identifying images, computer vision, tracking objects, etc).

Current trajectories seem to imply pretty large improvements in the next 3-4
years. Things are somewhat delayed because Tesla just switched from pretty
poor sensors to processors to a significantly improved hardware last year. The
software is still in the process of catching up.

I expect quite nice autonmous driving solutions will be available in the
discussed 3-4 year time frame and the roads will be significantly safer
because of them.

The article also seems to exaggerate the difficulty in testing. Tesla (a
fairly small car company) already has quite a few miles under it's belt, even
if you ignore all the miles on the previous generation hardware. The previous
reported number of dropping airbag deployments by 40% is a huge step in the
right direction. With even a pessimistic number of model 3's shipping there
will be ample chance to show if tesla's system is better than the average
human driver.

I expect pretty much all the large car manufacturers to update their current
systems that provide predictive braking to include similar capabilities and
catch up and surpass Tesla's 100's of millions of miles driven under computer
supervision.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
If this article is biased because it shows some pessimism towards self-driving
hype, what are the dozens of articles that blindly accept Musks near-term
prophecy?

Here's another good source for some pessimism:

[http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/10/self-driving-cars-
how...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/10/self-driving-cars-how-badly-is-
the-technology-hyped.html)

Here's the best parts:

 _Contrary to Musk and many of the most prominent advocates of autonomous
cars, Shladover insists that so-called Level 5 vehicles—robocars that require
no human input—are not on the horizon. “I tell adult audiences not to expect
it in their lifetimes. And I say the same thing to students,” he says. “Merely
dealing with lighting conditions, weather conditions, and traffic conditions
is immensely complicated. The software requirements are extremely daunting.
Nobody even has the ability to verify and validate the software. I estimate
that the challenge of fully automated cars is 10 orders of magnitude more
complicated than [fully automated] commercial aviation.”

Herman Herman, director of the Carnegie-Mellon University Robotics Institute,
disagrees as well: "With autonomous cars, you see these videos from Google and
Uber showing a car driving around, but people have not taken it past 80
percent. It’s one of those problems where it’s easy to get to the first 80
percent, but it’s incredibly difficult to solve the last 20 percent. If you
have a good GPS, nicely marked roads like in California, and nice weather
without snow or rain, it’s actually not that hard. But guess what? To solve
the real problem, for you or me to buy a car that can drive autonomously from
point A to point B—it’s not even close. There are fundamental problems that
need to be solved."_

~~~
rwmj
But a car that solves the 80% (say it only works on sunny days) is still
incredibly useful, and I'd buy one. If it only halves the number of times I
have to drive, it's providing real value.

------
moxious
When I hear "Most carmakers have plans to start testing the market with Level
3 or possibly Level 4 autonomous vehicles around 2021"...

It makes me think of what a stupendous amount of time that is in engineering
terms. And then I think that basically a suit somewhere has a product roadmap,
but no real idea of how he's going to get there.

Which in turn tends to make the time estimate questionable at best, wishful
thinking at worst.

~~~
jfoster
The suits at Google & Tesla seem quite well informed about tech challenges.
Even if those are extreme examples, I'm quite sure the engineers would be
informing the timelines at all other companies, too.

------
sowbug
This section is completely false:

"Tesla continues to include the Autopilot sensors and software in its cars,
but has deactivated the system while further testing is undertaken. The
company plans to re-activate it in 2019 or thereafter."

The author might have been confused about the reason for the switch from the
Mobileye-based v1 hardware of Tesla Autopilot to in-house v2, which indeed
represented a regression in functionality. It is true that the death of the
driver was a catalyst in the breakdown of the relationship between Tesla and
Mobileye. But there were plenty of other reasons, most related to hardball
business tactics. It's false to say that Tesla removed existing Autopilot
functionality.

Moreover, even v2 of Autopilot is currently approaching v1's level of
functionality. Autosteer works and TACC works. Those are the main parts. I
think only minor features like automatic windshield wipers are still missing.
(I have only v1 so I don't know first-hand.)

Incidentally, it's rare for The Economist to get facts so wrong. Their
articles are usually very well-researched.

~~~
patman81
Tesla Autopilot Hardware 2 is now up to par with version 1. (The most recent
update increased the Autopilot highway speed to 150kph, same as version 1).

The next software update, scheduled for june, should bring automatic
perpeticular parking, automatic windshield wipers and an improved "smother"
autopilot.

Although perhaps disturbing for some, I enjoy the monthly software updates.
Like a little surprise every month.

------
mpweiher
What we (especially cities) need more than driverless cars are carless
drivers.

~~~
prodmerc
Having a car is extremely convenient, liberating and saves a whole lot of
time.

~~~
roel_v
Actually, I live in a place where I don't need a car (I still have one
though), anf _that_ is what is extremely convenient, liberating and saves a
whole lot of time. People are just too used to needing _transport_ , and yes
out of all transport options, a car is easiest. Improving transport is easier
than making it unneccessary, though.

------
kbos87
I for one hope driverless cars take a hell of a lot longer than people like
Elon Musk expect them to.

First off, I enjoy driving. I identify with the brand of car I just bought.
Yes, I have to deal with traffic and competing for parking in my congested
city neighborhood... but that's a choice I made because driving and the
freedom that comes along with it are, to me, things I value. If you think I'm
a small minority, look at all of the car owners in my neighborhood who still
choose to own cars despite an Uber being available in 120 seconds, and
affordable public transit being a 3 minute walk away. I use both of these
services, and I still choose to own a car.

Second - who is to say that autonomous vehicles are the cure for all of our
ails? Yes, we'll eliminate some traffic fatalities. We'll also eliminate one
of the biggest sources of employment in our society, which I worry will set an
entire chunk of the population down a negative path toward bad outcomes like
depression, suicide, and drug addiction when they can't sustain the meager
existences they already live.

Lastly, I don't like the idea of some self aggrandizing tech entrepreneurs in
SV who have decided that they know what the future of the place where I live
should look like.

~~~
Fricken
>I don't like the idea of some self aggrandizing tech entrepreneurs in SV who
have decided that they know what the future of the place where I live should
look like.

Does Henry Ford count as a self-aggrandizing tech entrepreneur deciding what
the future of the places where people live should look like?

~~~
acover
Yes. Very much so. Henry Ford got extremely rich off his business. He then
tried to dictate every aspect of his workers lives.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford)

------
sknuds
Made me think of this:
[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1UpYFlfWGJo/S_qjHNT0DGI/AAAAAAAADu...](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1UpYFlfWGJo/S_qjHNT0DGI/AAAAAAAADuo/REBZFw_OjK0/s1600/Adoption+rates+in+history-
of-products.gif)

~~~
prodmerc
It's very interesting how entertainment of any form spread much faster than
actually day-to-day useful things...

------
pif
I know I will hate the moment when robot cars will pollute the roads, because
a road is primarily a social place, full of _human_ interactions.

How many times have pedestrians and cyclists been advised to look for eye
contact before crossing? Where are the eyes of an autonomous car?

------
pinpeliponni
We haven't even got to the hardest questions yet because driverless cars are
still so far away.

Think of a situation where you have to choose from either hitting an other car
killing everyone inside it but saving you, or driving off the road killing you
but saving everyone. Well, we all save ourselves if we can choose (timing,
etc). But what if the other car has 5 passengers and you are alone?

The driverless car will be __required __to kill you, the driver. In future the
car will know, and take away your control, and simply kill you.

When people realize this, and the legislation has to take a stance, there will
be a major backlash against driverless cars. People are basically selfish.

~~~
xiphias
The solution to this problem is quite simple: the car should slow down
_before_ it can get to a situation like this. For this situation to happen the
other car must do something stupid, which should be detected before it can
cause something that can kill anybody.

~~~
maxerickson
Yes, there is something fascinating about a vehicle that careens into the
unknown and then makes a perfect ethical evaluation of the next action it
takes.

