There has been a gradual but steady progress in the development of autonomous cars. Some kind of safety-focused driver assistance technology is now found in most new vehicles.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) defines six levels of automation systems for driving. Right now, we are on level two, with cars capable of controlling steering, acceleration and braking, although they require drivers to stay engaged. On the road, level 5 autonomy would mean totally driverless cars.
But the transition to the future has not always been smooth. As technology advances, drivers adjust and the government tries to keep up.
Among the new fleet of autonomous vehicles is the Honda Civic 2022. One of the newest configurations of the standard Honda Civic is that it can be driven on the same road and then break smoothly behind a parked car.
Honda told CBS News that the system is not designed or able to detect the end of a road and is not marketed or considered a hands-free technology. and adds that it is the driver’s responsibility to maintain control at all times, reports Brook Silva-Braga of CBS News.
But researcher Kelly Funkhauser, who tests autonomous driving technology for Consumer Reports, is concerned that these systems will work so well most of the time that many drivers will not be ready when the inevitable exception arises.
“There’s a tendency to find a stimulus because you’re bored,” he said. “Monitoring a system that works well is extremely tedious, but the problem is that the features are not yet at full capacity.”
For all carmakers, the promise of autonomous driving is both comfort and safety. But it hasn’t quite arrived yet.
“Does the person drive or does the person not drive? Because if you drive this seems useless and if you don’t drive you can’t ask him to drive in a moment,” Silva-Braga said.
“Exactly, and that’s what they’re saying is, they’re giving you the little legal notice: ‘Take over,’ because we don’t want responsibilities. You have to pay attention, even though we know it’s boring and we know it. You’re a being and we don’t want to be held accountable, but we don’t want responsibility because we know our system isn’t perfect. “That’s where we are,” Funkhauser said.
In the 1950s, GM imagined autonomous cars in the 1970s. In 2018 they were promised in one year.
Elon Musk previously said that a Tesla would drive across the country in 2017. It has not yet done so, but the company is facing federal investigations and lawsuits over some alleged cases of failure of its autopilot system.
Waymo launched autonomous car taxis, but high-end sensors are too expensive for mass-produced vehicles. TuSimple launched a stand-alone driving option for its tractor semi-trailers, but they are still equipped with human safety drivers.
“A lot of people are finding that developing all the road chaos is a lot harder than anyone ever thought,” Funkhauser said.
Last year, Elon Musk admitted that he did not expect autonomous driving to be so difficult. He then launched a bold plan to solve it, putting a complete autonomous driving system on real roads and using carefully selected Tesla owners to accompany the cars as they worked on their driving. The idea is that all of these test miles will teach the Tesla system in a way that only the real world can.
Tesla did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment, but described beta testing as a safe way to improve its software. Some critics, however, argue that it is a potential threat to anyone on the roads.
Consumer Reports wants carmakers to only enable these features for drivers who agree to compromise their privacy and be actively tracked, as Tesla and GMC drivers already do, to some extent. Otherwise, Funkhauser said he does not trust drivers to actively monitor these imperfect systems, which could have to be observed much longer than we expected.
“I don’t think you can order a car, pick yourself up at home, get to work until probably 2050,” he said.
Funkhauser says the most important thing that would help autonomous cars is that they could communicate with each other and with the objects around them, but that may not happen soon either. In the last days of the Trump administration, the FCC took away most of the radio spectrum that cars planned to use. Unless that changes, experts, including Funkhauser, say it will be much harder for cars to communicate.
Honda issued a statement stating that “While Honda is working on advanced automated driving capabilities for future vehicles, the standard driver assistance and safety features on all Honda Civic 2022 models as part of Honda Sensing® are not marketed or considered automated or “hands-free”. In addition, Honda always emphasizes that the driver must be prepared to intervene, with or without the Honda Sensing functions activated. ”
They added that the “adaptive cruise control function” is not designed or able to detect the end of a road or test track. The ACC is designed to help manage the speed of a vehicle selected by the driver and the tracking interval selected by the driver behind a detected vehicle while traveling. highways or highways with limited access and in good road and weather conditions “.
Honda said the Honda Sensing includes an automated emergency braking system, but is not designed or able to detect the transition from a road to an adjacent grass surface. “Instead, the CMBS feature is designed to detect vehicles or objects in front of the vehicle and apply the brakes to prevent or mitigate a collision. Similarly, the lane-keeping assistance system requires the driver to maintain control. The system is designed to be used on highways or restricted access highways and is designed to assist the driver by providing small steering inputs to help keep the vehicle centered on a detected lane. “
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- tesla
- gmc
- Honda
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