Comma 3X
comma.ai
comma.ai
I've logged about 3k miles of autonomous driving at this point and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it if your car supports it, with the understanding that it's a limited system and you still have to pay attention the entire time. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of the newer cars have tighter security around CAN bus communication, so it may not be easy for Comma to continue to do their thing.
https://www.autoblog.com/amp/2023/04/18/vehicle-headlight-ca...
As a start transparent disclosure of their safety record, a restriction on shipping the product to countries where such devices are not legal, clarity on how the device behaves under adverse conditions e.g. rain/snow etc.
Comma selling this product like it's some car accessory looks pretty reckless to me.
1. Drug overdose
2. Motor vehicle traffic
Maybe there is a need for regulation? Especially if you consider that the USA has 2-4x more road deaths per million people compared to europe. Safe technoligies through regulations are one aspect in addressing this problem.
Did you just make my point? Drugs are already very regulated.
> Maybe there is a need for regulation?
Probably not.
Road safety is increased in countries with more regulations - there is direct evidence across the (developed) world.
Drugs is an entirely different problem that has way more factors that make comparisons between countries rather difficult.
And just because drugs are regulated AND an increasing doesn't mean that the problem is resolved by less regulation. Maybe there is just a need for different / adjusted regulations.
Enforcement is lacking, incentives for criminals are extremely high - cocaine, for example, explodes in value from $2000/kg in the jungle where it's made to $20000/kg after it's been smuggled to the US - and quite a few popular drugs can be made at home using basic tools and skills (cannabis, amphetamine, alcohol, tobacco).
Edit: Clarified it’s about existing legal drugs, not illegal drugs.
The town I grew up in has, for 95% of kids, no more than 3 internal, slow roads to cross on the way to school. There’s more traffic, but only slightly so - most cars drive away from town, so despite much more traffic in general, inner roads are only slightly more crowded.
And yet, it was perfectly normal for me to walk to school 40 or so years ago as a 6 years old, and it is now illegal for anyone under 9 to do so.
Aside from directly killing children in impacts, car dependent design is usually hostile to walking anyway, for adults as well as kids. Walking to school is nice, but challenging when hundreds of parents late for work in tall, poor front visibility SUV's are running stop signs on the same streets where your child is walking.
Maybe because people care about other people instead of their tech bro cool tech feelings?
Can you imagine a factory where machines with the potential to dismember someone are installed by amateurs with no certification? This is like that except factory machines don't drive next to school yards.
I've got some bad news for you about human drivers, they're typically allowed to get a single certification as a teenager that lets them operate a motor vehicle for 50+ years with no recalibration other than maybe a decadal vision test.
We inspect elevators more often than human drivers, despite elevator deaths being much more rare (maybe that's a cause and effect relationship?)
As another commenter linked, cars can kill at least 86 people at once: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack
Please share any instance where a shovel was used to kill even 8 (let alone 86) people in under a minute.
Really not sure you're correct here.
Calling for "more regulation" will blow out small companies like comma ai out of the market. It's a miracle one can get stuff like this for older cars. If big auto manufacturers had their way you couldn't change wiper blades without buying a new car. As someone driving an 18 year old car I hope there will be more companies like comma ai. (of course my car is too old to use with comma).
It's not always the driver who's the sole victim of driver irresponsibility.
Protecting those others are what regulations and laws are for.
I’m sure victim (or their relatives in case of their death) will be relieved.
> Calling for "more regulation" will blow out small companies like comma ai out of the market.
Will someone think of my cool tech startapperinos?!
Comma is not selling openpilot (the software that makes your car self-driving), but they are selling the Comma devices that out-if-the-box just include dashcam functionality and a few additional features.
Openpilot is an open-source project on Github that makes cars self-driving and that also runs on regular Linux PCs as well as those Comma devices.
Do you suggest that Comma should not be allowed to sell the Comma devices anymore (that out of the box work as a Dashcam)? Or do you suggest that Comma should not be allowed to contribute to an open-source project that can make cars self-driving?
Come on, this line of reasoning pretty clearly can't work in a lawful society.
Imagine Smith & Wesson making the argument that clearly this gun is just meant for decoration, we can't be responsible for people buying bullets on our webpage and shooting people. That's clearly a bogus argument. It's legal obfuscation.
If comma didn't want people to run openpilot on their dashcam, they wouldn't host a guide, the wouldn't market it, they would lock down the software they build. The hardware is MADE to run openpilot. Openpilot is MADE to be run on the hardware.
Then again, if you used that line of reasoning you'd have to show a comparable example of OpenPilot unintentionally causing injury, rather than just waving your hands and saying "it COULD happen, because unregulated!"
Yes - Comma owns that repository and there are instructions on how to put the software on Comma devices. But then also lots of commits are from authors not affiliated with Comma and my understanding is that quite a few users of that software aren't actually using the official repository, but various forks maintained by third parties.
"Meet the comma 3X The comma 3X is custom hardware designed to live in your car, and purpose built to run openpilot. The comma 3X has three beautiful HDR cameras, two cameras to watch the road and one night-vision camera to see inside the car. "
I don't think there's much distinction between selling someone a device and then giving them free software that they need to install, and just giving them the device with the software installed.
Imo as long as they intend for the customers to install the software they're responsible, so I don't know if there's anyway in my mind for them to make both the software (or have an active role in developing it) and the device and not be liable.
What else would you add?
Adding a technical stack will lead to court cases but our current system can accomodate — we already have tons of driving modifying systems in cars and nobody blinks an eye.
The only reason this is even controversial is that it’s third party and not provided by the manufacturer.
I would suggest that we are good! The current regulatory compliance and enforcement system can accommodate this change.
Is it not fundamentally the same? If not why not?
People buying these devices are simply ill-informed about the risks that they pose to other drivers and pedestrians because companies like Comma deliberately withhold the information.
And given innocent lives are at stake the onus should be on being cautious about technologies like these until they are proven.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Comma_ai/comments/u9o1mm/my_first_a...
Edit: looks like no more user upgradable storage via m.2, but it's a bit cheaper. It's also no longer necessary for some vehicles to have a Raspberry Pi sitting between the car and the comma
I find the website so lackluster. There isn't even a picture of what it looks like from the other side.
Strangely they walked back storage space. There used to be a 1 or 2 terabyte ssd/m2 storage option.
"It is so amazingly powerfule that I can not release the source code, nor can I give you hints on how it works. As a cybersecurity expert (in my real life), I can assure you I take security very seriously. So a no is a NO."
Or is all driving augmentation bad? Because honestly, based on the data, humans are frequently worse drivers than the absolute worst of these systems.
My comment is about how surprising it is something like this might be legal when other, very benign modifications are not. That was all. A whole lot more can go wrong with something like this, versus say an aftermarket exhaust.
The regulations are not hard to know, but something like Comma is a little bit in front of the regulations, and so it poses risks we have yet to discover and cater for in said regs (sensors must be weatherproof might be a good example of a good reg). The same is true for OEMs, Tesla and friends were bringing out features faster than regulations can describe if they are safe or not. This is not true for other parts of vehicles, we understand suspension safety very well so just following the regulations is enough to stay safe.
In general, unapproved vehicle modifications are a risk as they haven't gone through the same safetey and emissions appratus as approved parts and OEMs have. How risky is the variable, tires too wide, not very, full vehicle control change, pretty risky. I hold that opinion as an avid car enthusiast, some stuff we shouldn't fuck with unless we get it engineered and signed off as safe enough to join the driving public (and I have done this for my suspension modifications).
If only there was some kind of a set of rules that would define what is “ok”, it could “regulate” both manufacturers and third parties. We could call them REGULATIONS.
Placing a can monitoring and loggin tool on the obd port is perfectly legal afaik. Sneeky spyware installing insurers do it all the time.
For manipulation via can: ymmv depending on what modifications need to be applied and what security is broken (if any) and you should ask your insurer what they cover. The insurance part is my biggest concern.