They decided it wasn't worth explaining that their techniques don't generalise to a driver assist. It would not be good or cheap enough to be worth developing the compliance and integration frameworks.
It’s also possible they shifted direction because the long term vision of robotaxis is much more lucrative.
It is materially less safe to operate a ADAS while distracted than driving manually. Humans are exceptionally good drivers on average, only encountering minor crashes on timeframes measured in years to decades. As such, if safety critical ADAS errors occur more frequently than every ~100,000 miles and you are attentive in less than 100% of all such occurrences, you are operating your vehicle multiple times more dangerously than the average driver (which is a number that includes drunks and distracted drivers).
That is why it is critical to deliberately downplay the capabilities, to avoid wishful over-reliance, and enforce strict driver awareness (through techniques such as driver monitoring) to avoid operating multi-ton killing machines in ways that are multiple times more dangerous to the occupants, other drivers, and pedestrians. Without that, people are prone to over-generalization of safety capabilities, extrapolating that a single success means robust, continued success thousands to tens of thousands of times in a row.
I just don't believe the approaches for high autonomy (especially at the time) actually could make a cost effective assist system.
And for whatever reason they decided to push the we didn't like the driver behaviour message, rather than actually talking about what was actually plausible to achieve in the driver assist space.
"THIS IS ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR COMPLYING WITH LOCAL LAWS AND REGULATIONS. NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED."
Where can this be used? In a private parking lot?
With the disclaimer that this depends on the location of course. For example, I think in Spain (and probably EU wide?) modifications that affect steering and throttle control would need to undergo local homologation before you're legally allowed to drive with that on public roads at all.
Which, to be honest, makes a lot of sense. I don't think anyone would be happy if cars start using software MVPs automatically controlling throttle and steering while in real traffic.
If you’re so confident this will drive my car into a ditch, then front the money for me to buy a compatible car & this kit. If it drives my car into a ditch, I’ll pay you back double that money.
That’s an easy bet for you, right?
Would you buy an angle grinder that's specifically been designed to not have a guard so it can be more useful, made by random contributors on the internet without any official certification? I'll stick with the ones that needed to pass the CE mark and you can sue the company responsible if it chops your arm off thank you very much. They at least have a required level of anxiety needed to patch anything serious knowing the level of responsibility they carry and what's coming if they mess up.
Suppose I deem it safe and useful for my 6yo to drive for a while, using his Xbox controller from the passenger seat.
It is illegal in many countries for a device (or anything else) to obscure any part of the driver's forward view (area swept by wipers). So even without actually controlling the car, we have an unlawful vehicle.
They say it's required for ISO compliance with Level 2 autonomous driving