Tesla Autopilot danger from “passive vigilance” effect
NTSB warns that Tesla Autopilot induces passive vigilance effect that can distract drivers away from driving their car
Tag: Self-Driving cars
Pandemics, like Coronavirus, and our RoboTaxi-driven autonomous future
The big news right now is the Coronavirus outbreak that began in China last fall. CoVID-19 as it is more formally known is a relatively highly infectious disease, that the human population has no immunity against, and a relatively high (2%) mortality rate. Given those figures, governments around the world…
An inexpensive AI computer kit for understanding autonomous self-driving cars
You might have heard that artificial intelligence a.k.a. machine learning is a big thing in the tech industry. Look for a computer programming job and it seems all the openings are either in machine learning or blockchain (which is a story for another day). Anyone interested in the future of…
Uber test driver in self-driving car in fatality accident was streaming Hulu
Last March an Uber self-driving car undergoing testing in Tempe Arizona struck and killed a pedestrian. Previously we had been told the “test driver” in the Uber autonomous car was monitoring output from the on-board monitoring system. Video of the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, shows that she was inattentive, spending most of…
Uber self-driving car fatality: Everyone is to blame
March’s pedestrian fatality from an Uber self-driving car can be blamed on Uber’s faulty software, an inattentive operator, and an inattentive pedestrian, according to an initial NTSB report into the fatality. There’s blame to go around, and perhaps it is Uber’s software that is most to blame? I don’t understand…
Uber self-driving car fatality blamed on faulty software
Uber seems to have determined their own software was, unsurprisingly, the primary cause of last months fatal self-driving car accident. In that accident a pedestrian crossing a street was struck by an experimental Uber self-driving car, and died of injuries shortly thereafter. According to sources within Uber cited by “The…
Rapid adoption of self-driving cars considered harmful, a plea for caution
Clearly folks are eager to have self-driving cars TODAY if not sooner. I’m seeing a constant chatter online of folks excited about the prospect of letting their car take over the driving chores. A few weeks ago, a new Tesla Model 3 owner giving a presentation about his newly-purchased car…
Chinese Model S auto-pilot crash says we shouldn’t rely on autopilot mode, yet
There have been several one or two fatalities this year of Tesla Model S drivers who were perhaps overly trusting the autopilot mode. In January 2016, well before the well-known crash in Florida, a fatality occurred when a Tesla Model S drove into the back of a street sweeper truck. Going by…
Tesla’s second master plan is the most audacious thing I’ve ever read – Musk has topped himself
Ten years ago Elon Musk posted the first super-secret Tesla Motors master plan on the company blog. It seemed that nobody remembered he’d done so, because the company is routinely attacked over making playthings for rich people when the plan all along has been to build the Model 3 (affordable 200+ mile…
Obama Administration pushes to accelerate autonomous vehicle technology
Today the Obama Administration announced a plan to accelerate autonomous vehicle development, citing the need to reduce traffic congestion and to embrace the future of transportation. The press release referred to a report published last fall by the Department of Transportation highlighting transportation challenges we face due to increasing population,…
Tesla Model S autopilot crash in Netherlands begs buggy software question
Any autonomous driving system relies on the correct software functioning. As we all know, any software has bugs in it, even software that has seen “lots” of testing. In the rush to add autonomous driving to cars (zero fatalities zero emissions is the Nissan/Renault pledge) may produce an unexpected result.…
Nissan-Renault promises 10 cars w/ autonomous robocar technology by 2020
Nissan-Renault is one of (er.. two of) the automobile companies working on autonomous drive. Nissan had previously announced the Zero Emissions Zero Fatalities pledge, and more recently showed off an autonomous vehicle prototype. The other day the Nissan-Renault Alliance laid out a roadmap for autonomous driving, and reminded us of…
WARNING: Tesla Autopilot mode is not full autonomous driving, pay attention while “driving”
How good is the Tesla Autopilot feature? This feature was rolled out to Tesla Model S owners over the last couple weeks, and marks a large advance towards fully autonomous vehicles. Since then some Model S owners have posted videos of the autopilot system doing amazingly good things, and also…
Nissan’s IDS self driving concept car promises perfect future that may never happen
Yesterday, Nissan unveiled a bold new concept car fulfilling the “zero emissions zero fatalities” promise made a couple years ago. It’s an all-electric car with self driving autonomous features galore. Its story is told with an enticing image gallery and a series of video’s demonstrating usage scenarios that aren’t quite the challenges…
Tesla Motors and the future autonomous robocar self-driving car sharing service
Tesla Motors is delivering the promised Autopilot mode with an Over-The-Air update scheduled for tomorrow, Oct 15, 2015. Maybe we will look back on October 15 as the first day of the robot dominance of humanity. Maybe this will simply make Tesla’s automobiles that much more attractive, and cement Tesla’s…
