BMW tests next-gen LiDAR to beat Tesla to Level 3 self-driving cars::Tesla’s autonomous vehicle tech has been perennially stuck at Level 2 self-driving, as BMW and other rivals try to leapfrog to Level 3.
Tesla’s decision to only use cameras and no lidar will bite them in the ass.
Came here to say this. Couldn’t be more on point. Using both cameras and LiDAR in tandem will be necessary for true self driving vehicles.
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fortunately LIDAR unit costs are going down, so multiple units, fusing their data with regular camera arrays should resolve a very good view, and be good at error-correcting for each other’s shortcomings.
Already is.
Currently they seem to be leading the race though even though the competition is using radar and lidar
Edit: Am I wrong?
If buy leading the race you mean the only company to have an actual product available for purchase then yeah.
But the reason they were able to get to market so quickly is because they don’t actually have any concerns about it being functional or safe. That’s a real boon to them because it helps them move quickly ahead of the competition that do care about those things.
Of course one good argue that an unsafe self-driving system is in fact not a self-driving system and therefore they are not the first to market.
The average consumer would define self driving as “if my car crashes, my car should be sued”. Is that how it works with a tesla crash, who pays for that?
It’s on the driver’s responsibility
Then what’s the point in it?
What’s the point in a self-driving system that has been babysat in order to ensure it doesn’t murder you, random pedestrians and other road users. If I want a car that is unsafe if I take my hands off the wheel I can get a regular car, it already does that.
Tesla themselves call it FSD, Full Self Driving. That is at best false advertising and at worst reckless endangerment. It isn’t fully capable, and it requires the driver’s attention so it isn’t self-driving. Literally every part of its name is wrong.
It’s called FSD beta
No, I mean leading the race as in having the most capable sefl driving system in existence which I believe is the case.
I don’t know what you’re basing the claim on that it’s not functional and safe.
I am basing my claim on it not being functional and safe.
I’m basing my claim on the fact that it drives into trucks. Since I don’t want to be driven into a truck by my car, I would consider that to be a failure state.
Do some research.
I don’t think anyone has ever claimed it’s flawless. After all it’s still in beta version. If you hit a truck it’s because the driver wasn’t paying attention.
I still don’t know what you’re basing these claims on except your own opinion apparently. “It’s not safe” compared to what? As far as I know Tesla FSD has had less accidents per mile than an average driver.
In the 2nd quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.41 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.2 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.
Perhaps you should do some more research?
Humans drive using “cameras” (eyes) and no LiDAR, that’s the assumption Tesla is making — that a supercomputer can drive 10x better than humans using the same type of sensor. Nobody really knows yet if that’s true but I get the logic.
LiDAR also is UV/visible spectrum and is blocked by dust/fog/snow/rain so it doesn’t help much in many driving situations…
You’re making an argument against LiDAR with it using UV/visible spectrum, guess what uses visible spectrum to see stuff? Cameras. And they also have an unfortunate downside of not having good dynamic range, so in very bright/low light situations they probably don’t work that well either. Teslas aren’t even using infrared cameras to see in the dark to my knowledge.
Unsure why you are downvoted, because that is sound logic. I recall hearing on a podcast of I think a former Tesla engineer that having too many sensors potentially makes things less effective since you have to deal with different types of input, and have to crunch more data, etc. etc. Efficient development also means knowing when to cull unnecessary time sinks.
I hate Elon as much as the next guy, but… Well, humans are obviously not perfect drivers, but Tesla clearly believes that in time, with cameras all around the car (already an improvement over human drivers), a good enough AI solution would be able to match or surpass humans.
I still rather have good ol radar as a fallback if cameras and their AI model don’t work for some reason. They are still work in progress, and rely on trained models to recognize objects, while if a radar sees something, it is because there is something actually there and not a guess. I don’t buy the story that too much sensors is bad. Planes rely on multiple different sensors plus backups for redundancy to fly safely, self-driving cars with vastly superior tech should be able to do the same.
They actually have used radar along with the cameras for a while. It wasn’t until the last few years that they decided to ditch them. I think I read that they realized it was a mistake and are going to add them back on future models.
Anything short of fiercely anti-Tesla gets immediately downvoted here. Just how it goes I guess. I’m not the biggest Tesla fan but hope they succeed on this front, we desperately need driving assistance technology to make the roads safer.
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All it would take is 1 poorly designed aftermarket laser, or some freak prism effect from some particulate on the lens to permanently blind someone.
It’s extremely low band infrared. It’s like the infrared lasers from your remote control it’s not going to burn you retinas out also that’s not how lasers work, you can’t convert from invisible light to visible light lasers through refraction or reflection.
That’s not how light/laser and prisms work. Prisms only separate out the frequencies that are contained within the light/laser. imagine the light is a sandwich and each frequency is a peice of the sandwich. If you take apart the sandwich you still have the same bread, meat and cheese just not stacked together. That’s what the prism is basically doing.
I hate that the article opens with
Just a decade ago, the concept of self-driving cars might have seemed like something out of a science fiction movie
Ten years ago there was already a ton of competition in self driving car research. They were first legalized on the roads 10 years ago. Tesla autopilot (including it even though it was a scam) was sold 9 years ago. Google spun off its self driving car division as waymo in 2016.
This feels like one of those “bruh Zelda ocarina of time came out 29 years ago, we old” memes
And what happened though, was it unfilled hype or that death caused by that Uber autopilot? Back when waymo was grabbing headlines you would’ve thought we’d be a lot closer to driver less by now.
Bet even the self driving software of BMW won’t use turn signals when they change lanes.
It would be a bug if it did signal 🤣
Turn what?
It’s that thing poor people do right before you cut them off
I’ve always thought that the Tesla craze would fizzle as major car brands start investing in EVs and self driving tech. I’ll take a Toyota, Volvo, Honda or BMW over a Tesla anytime.
Sadly Toyota is struggling to make a decent EV years after leading in hybrids. BMW on the other hand has insane efficiency
Still bizarre to me that Toyota had such a lead with hybrids and then went in on hydrogen and missed the boat on evs
They’ve made some incredible solid state battery leaps recently. For Japan hydrogen actually makes way more sense than a pure EV play too due to the way their grid(s) is set up and their power generation capacity. It’s their home market too so they are going to prioritise that.
The solid state press releases Toyota releases every once in a while do look incredible. It would be nice for them to demonstrate and deliver it though because I hope it’s not vaporware.
From what I’ve heard, they have a history of letting other companies trailblaze, and then they come in to refine and perfect tech afterward. They recently tried to be the trailblazer and bet on a losing tech. Hopefully now they are refining the ev game and will come out with something above and beyond what we’ve seen so far as per their old MO.
hopefully this will change soon, there’s some nifty shit on the horizon from Toyota, hope they meet expectations. https://www.inverse.com/tech/toyota-electric-car-600-mile-range-ev
My understanding was that the challenge in making the next leap in self driving was not based in hardware (detecting objects with cameras vs LiDAR), but in software. As in, it isn’t as difficult to detect the presence of objects as it is to make consistent and safe decisions based on that information.
I think we should NOT allow self driving cars.
> but but muh autopilot in planes
No! Planes are inherently safer to fly than it is to drive cars. Planes have much more room and degree of freedom to maneuver. They are also monitored by air traffic control and the pilots are supposed to be highly trained and fit. Cars are restricted to one plane (heh) and any two bit yokel with stroke-diabeetus-fetal alcohol syndrome from Bumfuck Florida can get a license to drive a car. You can’t pull up or dive in a car more than once.
> buh buh buh make every car automated
You just reinvented the train.
My favorite part of a train is the part where it drops you off right at your door.
