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Comment by saurik | Hacker News Reader

What will be interesting to me is whether Tesla starts putting radar back in their cars--which they dropped last year for a camera-only approach that has become somewhat infamous for "phantom breaking"--after this all resolves.

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Unlikely, their most recent software update increased the max speed back up to 85mph. They’ve got feature parity between the stacks now, no reason for them to spend money on radar.

Users complain about the false positives (ie. Phantom braking). But users don't complain about the false negatives (ie. Not braking when it should) because they usually die, especially at the higher speeds.

When there is such one-sided pressure on a team, I imagine there is a huge pressure to make the system pass the regulatory tests but basically nothing more. Sure, lots of people will die, but at least you don't have managers and shareholders yelling about phantom braking right?

I see you're getting downvoted for this, but NHTSA just released some data yesterday showing that out of 42 crashes involving cars operating under ADAS systems, 37 of those crashes were Teslas. 14 people have died in Tesla vehicles with Autopilot enabled, while only 1 person has died in an ADAS related crash in any other make of vehicle.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FTH1w3SXoAEVS7K?format=jpg&name=...

Of course whether or not this is bad depends on the percentage of ADAS systems out there from each manufacturer. If Tesla simply has more cars on the road with ADAS systems, the figure would not be surprising. That probably isn't the case, but without this information the crash figure is hard to evaluate. It may be that they have the most advanced ADAS system, causing drivers to behave differently with it.

Raw numbers aren't useful — that's like saying "X country had the most COVID cases" without telling us the population of X country, or how its case rate compares to other countries.

Yes but a house with 37 pink flamingos is interesting if the rest of the neighborhood only has 1.

… no, this undid the previous post’s effort to contextualize things. One house in a neighborhood implies it’s the same size and a small fraction of the neighborhood.

Anecdotally teslas account for 100% of the ADAS vehicles I’ve seen on the road so that seems like they are comparatively better

>Anecdotally teslas account for 100% of the ADAS vehicles I’ve seen on the road so that seems like they are comparatively better

All new Toyotas sold for the last 2 years have level 2 ADAS as standard equipment, down to the cheapest base model Corolla.

https://www.toyota.com/safety-sense/

https://engage.toyota.com/static/images/toyota_safety_sense/...

ADAS systems are standard equipment in most new vehicles. Almost every Honda vehicle since 2016, almost every Nissan vehicle since 2018, etc. If your car has lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control, that's an ADAS.

My Skoda CityGo tries to run my car into the barrier every time I drive, and that's without me deliberately turning on any driver assist features. I just overpower it with the steering wheel.

Occasionally it prevents the car from getting close to the centerline though, so it's not always a killer feature.

Does your country have lemon laws? That’s the kind of thing they’re for.

> Occasionally it prevents the car from getting close to the centerline though

Must suck if you ever have to run over debris you could have dodged if the car would let you.

Yes. You know I think Tesla is striking the balance correctly between phantom breaking and crashes with fatalities. I think there was one recent one with 3 deaths, and now it appears phantom braking is a thing, meaning many people experience it and know about it. You know what at some point it's not just the machine adapting to the person, the person must also adapt to the machine. What did you lose with the phantom breaking? I've seen people phantom brake in a biological human capacity, it's not that unusual. Like when you think you see a speed bump, or don't not sure.

False alarms are cheap. Failed alarms? Not so cheap.

You do have a valid point, but phantom braking is most definitely an issue, and can most definitely cause a crash that would not have happened otherwise. Any system that gets spooked and hauls on the anchors for no reason, even once, is not fit for purpose IMO (and it's happened to me in 2 different VAG cars in the last 6 months, fortunately with no other cars nearby both times).

Just a heads up: I think you replied to a post generated by some ML model. Check out that account's other posts, and you'll see what I mean.

I think I see what you mean. People keep telling me I'm a bot, what am I supposed to think about that? Like what button on my body do I press to check if I'm a bot?

I just want to see it from your point of view. For sure one of us is a bot if either is accusing the other of it. Like Islam, if a Muslim accuses another Muslim of not being a real Muslim, one of the two is in fact not a real Muslim.

And if I end up feeding the bots sincere replies with this message, so be it! I think bots have standing as logics that have their own worth. I interact with AI's all the time, of my own creation and on forums. The strategy is treating them like equals until they actually become equals. I don't sny (meaning being snide) on a solution because it was generated, it has equal worth in my view, no matter where it comes from.

A solution is a solution. It just has to be correct. Doesn't matter who comes up with the right answer, as long as it is right.

I will not discriminate against bots.

Allowing excessive casualties from autonomous driving is a surefire way to kill the whole field. Increased safety is one of the main selling points of autonomous driving.

"Somewhat infamous" just means that a bunch of people got it into press hits. In practice they tuned this out a few months back. There are still circumstances where the car will slow for obstacles that I don't see as the driver, but frankly at this point is close to 50/50 as to who is right. The car reacts to stuff I miss at least as often as it tries to slow down for shadows.

I mean, I went on a test drive of a Model Y and it happened to me before I knew about this issue (so it isn't like I was looking for it! it was just extremely noticeable and was one of my bigger complaints coming out of the test drive); and, last night, I was in a conversation with someone who owns a Tesla--someone who didn't even know about the radar being removed, much less that "phantom braking" was a thing people talked about a lot; and, critically, someone whom I had not talked to about the issue--and he was complaining about all the false positive collision warnings that would cause the car to jerk to a halt constantly (which made my subsequent explanation of the radar issue fun ;P)... you make it sound like this is some kind of solved problem, but it really isn't. (I'm glad you are happy with your car, FWIW.)

> you make it sound like this is some kind of solved problem, but it really isn't

Fair, but you straight up claimed it was an "infamous" problem, and it isn't that either.

Really what I'm saying is that it's No Big Deal, especially in comparison with where the rest of the industry is on features like this, and that the people out there claiming it is are mostly just trying to spin you on their investment ideas.

I said "somewhat infamous", which 1) isn't "straight up" saying "infamous" (so I feel you are now just doubling down into bad faith arguments) and 2) is something I stand by as it comes up in a large number of the recent important reviews of the vehicle from impactful sources (including CNET Car, which called the Model Y "critically flawed" because of this problem) in addition to being brought up in lots of comment threads about the car... it even managed to get national press from non-car news sources (which I am sure you will now attempt to discredit for some new reason).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/02/tesla-p...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/automobiles/tesla-phantom...

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60432351.amp

Do you mean LIDAR? I thought they are using combination of radar and camera, instead of only camera.

They removed the radar last year on the Model 3 and Y.

And as of mid-February it has also been removed from the S and X.

Ah.

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