Comment by Ambroos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ambroos | Hacker News Reader

Having done a Seattle > SF > LA and back roadtrip with a Comma 2 back in March/April, this looks really cool.

Even with the very modest hardware of the Comma 2, it effectively takes all the stress out of highway / stay-in-lane driving. In my Audi A3, the car's ACC handles the accelerator and brakes, and openpilot handles the steering. It made the trip a whole lot more relaxing. It was also just a whole lot of fun to set up and tinker with, the community is great!

I haven't been able to observe anything close to the same quality of assistance system in any other car. Autopilot in a Model Y I drove just a few weeks ago felt plain erratic compared to openpilot, and the way it disengages completely when you make even just a small correction is really annoying. Audi's latest assistance systems silently give up as soon as the lane lines aren't 100% clear or things get a little too curvy.

If they can effectively make use of the additional camera data the Comma 3 offers in future openpilot releases, this will be well worth the price tag.

> Autopilot in a Model Y … the way it disengages completely when you make even just a small correction is really annoying.

Wait, so Autopilot disengages if you don’t apply enough torque to the steering wheel and disengages if you apply too much torque to the steering wheel? That doesn’t sound like an enjoyable autonomous driving experience.

Nope, it's really not enjoyable. To me it felt like fighting the car. I much prefer the "co-pilot" style of openpilot and most other lane assistance systems. Until you can trust your assistance system enough to not want to make minor corrections, Autopilot is always going to be an annoyance.

This is fundamentally where Comma and Tesla differ in approach. Comma's goal is to build the best possible level 2 system that makes driving relaxed and comfortable, and delivering good intermediates in the process. Tesla's goal is to have full self-driving, and any releases on the road to FSD are going to be a compromise.

I found Autopilot annoying until I got used to how it expects you to interact with it. At this point, it really isn’t too bad.

The nice thing is that a Tesla is always very clearly “under the control of Autopilot” or “under human control”. The downside is that it can be a bit frustrating figuring out how to convince Autopilot that you’re still paying attention (adjusting the the volume/cruise control, or briefly depressing the right stick is a lot less finicky than the torque sensor but you eventually get used to what the torque sensor wants.)

Eh, try it. Its not hard to apply the amount of pressure it wants.

If you just click up or down the volume it also recognizes youre awake. I never shake my wheel

The pricetag is where I'm struggling to justify it right now. While the unit is compatible with Nissan's ProPilot it's not clear to me just how much more value I'd get out of adding the comma, but it doesn't seem like 10% of the car's value over what I already have.

Maybe with later software releases if it improves beyond 'the same as propilot but better at lane following'.

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