Whether you believe autonomous driving is a sham designed to sell people on the latest products, a covert way to strip motorists of their own autonomy, or a legitimate breakthrough that’s poised to permanently change how we use the automobile, the technology is gradually becoming more widespread. Tesla, which showcased its Cybercabs earlier this year, intends on fielding fully autonomous vehicles that can whisk people around without need of physical controls.
But the relevant technologies aren’t yet bulletproof, requiring the company to hire remote backup operators who can take over whenever the system encounters blind spots. The Tesla Cybercab will be at least partially dependent on safety drivers piloting the vehicles when needed.
While this news comes via a note penned by Deutsche Bank following an investor meeting, later shared by Reuters, Tesla was openly hiring people to build the interface for remote Cybercab operators in November. It’s not exactly a secret that the company was trying to hide and is arguably more responsible than what we’ve seen happen with other autonomous taxi services.
Despite Waymo having made decent progress, some of its earliest attempts to field AVs frustrated drivers forced to share space with its test mules. Cars often failed to navigate turns and intersections smoothly, occasionally resulting in erratic behavior. General Motors’ Cruise had similar problems with its vehicles. Its cars were faulted for not knowing how to manage construction zones or emergency vehicles. There were even instances where vehicles got confused and stopped operating, blocking traffic.
Both companies likewise saw some crashes, which doesn’t go over well when the primary sales pitch of self-driving vehicles is that they’re supposed to be infallible and ultimately safer than human-driven automobiles. In San Francisco, locals became so annoyed by self-driving test vehicles that they began to disable them by putting cones on the censors or smashing them with blunt objects. Some were even ablaze.
Having a human operator present would have undoubtedly saved them some trouble. However, putting someone into the driver’s seat sort of undermines the purpose of showing off a “driverless” vehicle. Both Waymo and Cruise wanted to get away from using human safety drivers situated in the front seat, with Tesla undoubtedly feeling similar.
Still, it’s nice to have a backup plan and Tesla seems to think remote drivers could be the solution. But it’s not the only company to do so. While Waymo has stated that remote drivers aren’t that useful due to input lag, Cruise has used off-site assistants to help vehicles navigate tricky areas and Zoox is supposed to do the same.
From Reuters:
Tesla aims to start its robotaxi service with a company-owned fleet backed up by human teleoperators for safety, Deutsche Bank said in a note after a meeting with the company's head of investor relations.
The electric vehicle maker still is shooting for a launch of its cheaper vehicle in the first half of next year and other models later in the year, the bank said after the meeting with investor relations chief Travis Axelrod. It published the note on Friday.
Tesla plans to launch robotaxi service in California and Texas next year, Deutsche Bank said. Tesla had set that goal earlier this year.
Axelrod did not respond to a request for comment.
"Tesla believes it would be reasonable to assume some type of teleoperator would be needed at least initially for safety/redundancy purposes," the bank said in the note. "Management intends to start off entirely with the company-owned fleet" and to use an internally developed ride-hail app, it said.
While having this extra layer of safety seems prudent, it’s unclear exactly how the above would work. Having people sitting in cubicles equipped with a steering wheel and pedals doesn’t seem wholly effective unless they’re actively monitoring the ride in real time. But, even then, they likely wouldn’t be able to circumvent disaster unless they were totally locked into their task — which sounds implausible, considering how much downtime there would be.
The more likely scenario is that these people would be available to take over when a vehicle gets befuddled trying to navigate obstacles, which has been done before. Tesla’s job listing explains that it wants individuals with a background in coding who are familiar with C++ and the Unreal engine used in many modern video games. The purpose is to help build a comprehensive network that allows drivers to leverage some form of virtual reality to interface with the vehicles. There was likewise mention of controlling Tesla’s new robots.
With latency being a major issue in the listening, it sounds like the company at least wants the option to have people actually drive the cars remotely — rather than simply issue commands to the vehicle when it gets into trouble. That would actually set Tesla apart from other companies fielding autonomous test vehicles. However, nothing has been confirmed as of yet and it looks as if Tesla is still in the midst of building the tools it would need to make that a reality.
[Images: Tesla]
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via Autobuzz Today
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