Driverless Pods Hit UK Roads - Latest

"Hate my driving"?

At our current state of development we do not have autonomous vehicles. We have remote control vehicles. Transporters like these can only function in their specifically mapped and geofenced areas and cannot react to things outside of their direct programming. They are controlled by a central computer that is directing them, not an onboard adaptive control system. A person step in front it stops, a Pidgeon gets squashed.

That's only a small example of how far we have to go yet. The "intelligence" required to deal with other humans on the road is still well beyond the capabilities of computers. I know from my Tesla that it leaves much to be desired in the finesse dept. and it is head and shoulders better than a model S or X.

The V2 to V2.5 computer was a quantum jump. I can only assume the V3 computer is likewise another large advancement. But Malachi still slams into corners and then brakes hard instead of finessing and gentle adjusting. In otherwords the cars throws itself out of balance. Not the ideal choice. It over reacts to a drifting semi by again slamming on the brakes instead of gently slowing and checking the next lane and easing over. These sort of intuitive reactions and the knowledge base to make them is a long way from being deployed which is why we did not fork out the extra 5 grand for the Full Self Driving package when we bought. It will be two years in July and we are no closer to being able to drive autonomously from home to work than we were when I bought the car.

Too many aspects of daily driving are still missing from the controllers ability. Things like being able to read traffic and see that a lane change is better after passing the slow car instead of braking and falling in behind a slow vehicle while you are still two plus miles from the exit that required the lane change.

The slow down with your turn signal on just confuses the other vehicles around you because only an idiot would do it that way instead of accelerating into traffic with a smooth merge.

I seriously doubt, that even though it is capable of seeing a car closing at a right angle and it knows that the car is required to stop because it has a stop sign, BUT does the car sense the speed of the closing vehicle as being too fast for the vehicle to stop at the sign? So far no. The Tesla will understand it has the right of way and Assume the other car will stop because it does not understand that humans will believe in things that are not real and actually take actions based on those false assumptions. Computers just don't grasp our stupidity and arrogance so they have no way to figure it into their logic process and drive right out into the intersection.

Now I do have to add this caveat. For those who drive in California, these behaviors may not seem out of place. That is where they taught the Tesla's to drive afterall.

Cheers!

Ah the pigeons will learn to stop the cars....eventually