Motoring Discussion > Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts Miscellaneous
Thread Author: VxFan Replies: 30

 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - VxFan
So what chance did it have when presented with Swindon's "Magic" Roundabout?

None at all. But then again, humans also struggle with it too.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg9bSLYHtY8

www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/18668737.video-youtuber-tries-drive-tesla-autopilot-around-magic-roundabout/
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Manatee
Kind of sums up the state of the art at the moment. That roundabout or the bonkers thing in Cambridge are where an automatic alternative would be really useful.

It's like selling umbrellas that work perfectly unless it's raining.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - neiltoo
Can anyone suggest a good reason to introduce self driving cars.
I can (reluctantly) see the reason for lane controlling aids, and braking assistance, but everything else is a broken solution in search of a problem

Through gritted teeth

Neil
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - No FM2R
>>Can anyone suggest a good reason to introduce self driving cars.

It cannot conceivably be as incompetent as letting the current drivers continue to be in charge and in any case will rescue me from the stress of having to deal with the morons and the world is a better place for everybody when I'm not vexed with humanity.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 25 Aug 20 at 16:28
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Terry
If this was a test of driverless vehicle technology and software, then clearly driverless needs to accept there is room for improvement!

An alternative proposition is that is road designers and planners have built a road which highly sophisticated technology is incapable of rationally analysing.

The fault then rests with the bizarre and inworkable plans approved by the road authorities, not the driverless vehicle..

 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Manatee
If you were starting afresh you'd obviously standardise roads and build them compliantly. But we have a very large installed base of almost infinitely varied configurations.

Surveying they all and feeding in the data would be an enormous task ask then you have to keep pace with all the thousands of constant alterations and additions that are made. So there has to be a compromise, probably (a two (at least) tier road network, those that are surveyed or compliant and those that aren't.

The big problem for me would be millions of cars driving more or less autonomously with drivers who are supposed to be monitoring them, which is clearly not going to work.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - No FM2R
>> So there has to be a compromise, probably (a two (at least) tier road network, those that are surveyed or compliant and those that aren't.

That's an interesting idea that I haven't heard before. It makes sense. One could use a map system, akin to Google Maps for example, to allow autonomous cars on only some roads that are deemed to be sufficiently safe or low risk.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Manatee
Eventually it will all happen, if the human race last long enough.

Again if you were starting afresh, all the cars would be equipped with sensors, geo-located and 'talk' to each other as well as sharing data with a traffic control computer managing traffic flows and routing. Again we have a massive, uncontrolled, installed base that would take a decade or two to replace and has to share road space in the meantime. And by the time the big central computer gets off the ground there will be a load of incompatible earlier generation autonomous cars as well.

I'm just making this up so it's quite likely rubbish and not how Musk sees it.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Manatee
On the other hand...if the wrong people are in charge it will occur to them that having maybe 10 billion people with rights to travel where and whenever they want is a big drain on resources and not really practical, so we'll all be confined to our own district of our own megacity and only the elite will be allowed to travel when they want to test their eyesight.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - sooty123
My thought with that is that, wouldn't the mway network be included where we would benefit least from autonomous cars, mway being the safest to travel. And the roads where we'd benefit the most, tricky country lanes etc would be left out.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 26 Aug 20 at 13:10
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Manatee
Exactly. An umbrella that works in light drizzle but not when it's pithing down.

There aren't really that many road deaths now (I know the relatives of 1,800 people a year would say different, but the number of miles driven is enormous).

It's interesting to think about how much that could be reduced. What's happened with air travel is astonishing. And most of the very few hull losses there are are still caused by pilot error (is my impression).

UK road deaths exceeded 7,000 by the end of the 1920s when there were about a million motor vehicles on the roads. Now with 32 million we are down to c. 2,000. Crudely they were proportionately 100 times worse in 1929!
Last edited by: Manatee on Tue 25 Aug 20 at 17:47
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Duncan
9,000 odd in 1941. Blackout, I suppose.

tinyurl.com/y45mzg5a
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - No FM2R
Surely there's not sufficient justification in safety? As you say, it simply isn't dangerous enough to allow for significant improvement. Something I think the anti-speed fanatics miss.

For the companies it is clearly one of revenue and for the customers surely one of convenience?
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Zero

>> It's interesting to think about how much that could be reduced. What's happened with air
>> travel is astonishing. And most of the very few hull losses there are are still
>> caused by pilot error (is my impression).

Except of course where autonomous aircraft controls crash the plane despite the efforts of pilots to prevent it - (boeing) or pilots becoming so used to autonomous flight controls they cant handle it when it disappears (Airbus)

In short there are far too many variables on roads preventing complete 100% autonomous car control. Like roundabouts for example.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Terry
It's not just the death toll but the seriously injured of 20k + pa that is worth trying to reduce.

There is also an economic cost aside from that asssociated with KSI. In 2018 there were over £7bn of motor insurance claims. Given the weaknesses of human drivers, reducing claims would be a massive benefit and justify a very large investment in driverless vehicle technology.

It also opens up opportunities - mobility for all those currently unable or unwilling to drive - elderly, disabled, blind, children, etc.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Zero

>> It also opens up opportunities - mobility for all those currently unable or unwilling to
>> drive - elderly, disabled, blind, children, etc.

i would prefer that opportunity to remain closed
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Robin O'Reliant
How are they going to manage motorcycles if all cars become self driving? I can't see that being automated.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Manatee
>> How are they going to manage motorcycles if all cars become self driving? I can't
>> see that being automated.

By the time they've got driverless cars working, bikes won't be a problem. Nuclear power plant, gyroscopes, skyhooks, whatever.

I somehow doubt that 30 odd million driverless cars will ever happen in the UK (or the equivalent anywhere else). If unlimited, individual personal travel still exists cars will be allocated like hot desks or picked up like Boris bikes.

 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Terry
A shame for those who enjoy the 2 wheeled adrenaline rush but eventually motorcycles will be reduced to 20mph urban areas using cycle lanes.

They have no place on normal roads mixing it with stable 4+ wheel vehicles weighing 5 - 50 times their weight. They are (as my nurse wife used to say) just mobile kidney donors.

Also, given that many motorcycle accidents are a result of "I just didn't see it coming" human driver failures, we may find that driverless is more observant and fundamentally better anyway!
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Bromptonaut
>> They have no place on normal roads mixing it with stable 4+ wheel vehicles weighing
>> 5 - 50 times their weight. They are (as my nurse wife used to say)
>> just mobile kidney donors.

Hmm. The 'organ donor' bit is common bit of medical speak. My daughter's father in law, retired GP utters it pretty often. Not sure how far speed limits mitigates for the 5-50 times weight thing if it's a classic SMIDSY.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Robin O'Reliant
>
>>
>> They have no place on normal roads mixing it with stable 4+ wheel vehicles weighing
>> 5 - 50 times their weight. They are (as my nurse wife used to say)
>> just mobile kidney donors.
>>
>
>>
If you want to live in a world where we're all wrapped in cotton wool and take part in nothing with any risk, fair enough. Not all of us do. The vast majority of bikers survive to a ripe old age, including my old man and my ex FiL who rode all their lives without even bothering with a helmet.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - bathtub tom
>>my old man and my ex FiL who rode all their lives without even bothering with a helmet.

Crash helmets didn't become compulsory until 1973 - 47 years ago. Conditions were completely different then.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Robin O'Reliant
>>
>>
>> Crash helmets didn't become compulsory until 1973 - 47 years ago. Conditions were completely different then.
>>

People still crashed, and quite a lot.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - No FM2R
>>If you want to live in a world where we're all wrapped in cotton wool and take part in nothing with any risk, fair enough. Not all of us do

I certainly do not. What a terribly drab place that would be. There has to be some joy and excitement in life.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - No FM2R
>>the seriously injured of 20k + pa that is worth trying to reduce.

They could start with reasonable and consistent definition of "seriously".
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - zippy
It is no surprise to note that Tesla's own website quotes: "Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous."

And wikipedia lists them as being at level 2 from 5 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot

Tesla recommends autopilot for "freeways" not city streets.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car#Classification
Last edited by: zippy on Wed 26 Aug 20 at 00:07
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - smokie
So if the bloke in the video had read the manual he'd have known that the car might struggle. Or maybe he had.

Quite a common phenomenon really these days - person ignores the instructions, gets caught out, makes a lot of noise about it as though it's someone else's fault.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Crankcase
With the best will in the world, it seemed clear to me that he knew perfectly well it wouldn't do it, nor was he expecting it to. His schtick seems to be "tell me, dear viewers, what silly things you'd like me to try and I'll show you what the Tesla actually does in those circumstances".

There's another one about self parking where he tries to put it in places it's not really designed to do, just to see what actually happens.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Manatee
It was pretty clear from the video that roundabouts are out of scope for Teslas.

Highways (motorways) have marked lanes and basically one sort of junction. That's what they can deal with. It's a long way from autonomy in production cars.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - sooty123
>> So if the bloke in the video had read the manual he'd have known that
>> the car might struggle. Or maybe he had.
>>
>> Quite a common phenomenon really these days - person ignores the instructions, gets caught out,
>> makes a lot of noise about it as though it's someone else's fault.
>>

Seemed more of a; this is what a tesla can't do, here watch.
 Tesla's autopilot doesn't do roundabouts - Shiny
2020 Teslas seem no better at auto pilot than they did in 2012-2013.
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