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
Category Archives: Self Driving
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…
Misplaced trust in driver assist (Tesla Autopilot) systems can cause huge problems
Tesla may be rushing too quickly with the autopilot feature, or else not doing a good-enough job of educating Tesla car owners on safe use of Tesla’s autopilot. In light of several crashes while autopilot was engaged, and reports by Tesla car owners of several modes where autopilot clearly does…
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…
Self-driving vehicles need to crawl before they walk, and walk before they run
A few days ago I wrote about a pair of crashes, one involving an autonomous Uber vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian, and another involving a Tesla Model X that apparently swerved into a lane divider killing the driver. Yesterday an SF Bay Area TV station, ABC 7 news,…
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…
Uber transparency report raises Big Brother concerns in future Robotaxi services
As we move towards fully autonomous cars, many entrepreneurial types are chomping at the bit anxiously hoping to offer robotaxi services. The plans are wrapped in this “car sharing” ideology that we won’t have to own cars, that instead we’ll pay a monthly fee for access to cars. That could…
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.…
Tesla Motors 7.1 software update a baby step to… an autonomous robotaxi service?
Along with releasing the Tesla Model S/X version 7.1 update, an online press conference was held this morning in which Elon Musk said some crazy things that might just become true. We have to wonder if some of the things which are possible are in fact desirable. Namely – most…
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…
GM, Lyft in joint venture, putting ride sharing drivers on notice — your days are numbered
GM has taken a big step towards offering autonomously driven robotaxi services, hinted in a press release in October 2015, by making a $500 million investment into Lyft. The companies pledged “a long-term strategic alliance to create an integrated network of on-demand autonomous vehicles in the U.S.” That investing $500M into…
