Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators
techcrunch.com51 points by Brajeshwar 5 hours ago
51 points by Brajeshwar 5 hours ago
It would be fascinating to know where the remote drivers were located that were remotely controlling these vehicles. Wasn’t there a big hubbub about using remote staff in the Philippines a while ago? This can change the reliability profile quite a bit. (Internet quality)
Driving skill (and road manners) is also a serious issue, not only Internet quality (it's mostly solved nowadays with dual 5G/dual residential, Starlink is also available, np), getting a driver license is basically just paying a fixer for $200 (equivalent in PHP) and even if you attend the school genuinely and all, it's still super easy versus the west.
You might be overestimating how hard it is to get a license in the states.
My test was literally pay private driving school operator $50, pull onto a four lane road, change lanes, change lanes back, turn right three times to get back to the road, turn left, park successfully between the lines nose in, …and here’s a piece of paper for the DMV to give you a license. Maybe ten minutes, and have never had anyone check to see if I still know the rules in the 20 years since.
I’m sure it has gotten harder in some places, but we really don’t ask for much of new drivers.
Not just the test though. In some states you need approaching 100 hours of signed off driving with an experienced driver (honor system though) and a certified course
Having taken a license in both Denmark and the states, the test in the states was laughable in comparison. In Denmark, there are like 20 mandatory lessons, wet-surface practice, a theoretical exam and a practical exam, both of which people routinely fail (because they're hard). In the US, I paid 20 bucks, drove around the block, parked and received my license.
i think the bigger problem is the mechanical turk "solution" where remote drivers are suppose to suddenly be a driver in corner cases as if thats a safe fallback
This is not how it works. The vehicle autonomously stops and/or pulls over, and then a remote driver takes over. Control is not handed over to a remote driver while the vehicle is barreling down the road and "jesus take the wheel"
It's not for anyone else: the non-Tesla AV companies use teleops to at most place breadcrumbs that the vehicle attempts to follow while still in full control of collision avoidance and lower level navigation.
There is never an actual remote driver turning the wheel.
While working at Cruise, i built tech to measure the latency even though they just draw a path. Latency absolutely does matter, otherwise you’re drawing that path through a crowd of people. You admit yourself they still need to be responsible for collisions, which you cannot safely do if the latency exceeds the safe tolerance. It doesn’t matter whether you’re drawing a path or turning a Mario kart steering wheel if the information you’re acting upon is incorrect or outdated.
> Starlink is also available, np
I would NOT be using Starlink for remote vehicle teleoperation even as a fall back.
I don't get it, you prefer a road accident?
I would personally prefer if companies didn’t offer services that simply don’t or can’t work as advertised.
Meanwhile, Waymo is doing 500,000+(!) rides every week.
Does anyone know how the tele operators for either this or waymo interface with the vehicle? Do they have like a sim racing sort of setup? Are they trying to do this through an xbox controller type of thing? I know the military went that route.
At least for Waymo, the remote control is not nearly that direct. The human operators suggest a route through a confusing scene, but the self driving remains in control for executing that suggested route, and may reject it.
A remote operator driving directly, via a racing sim setup or an Xbox controller, just isn't safe. Too much latency, lack of visibility, and connection unreliability.
They have examples here: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
The Waymo asks questions like "is this road closed?" and they also have a UI where they can designate in what orientation and where the Waymo should go to so that a path is drawn.
They don't live-control the vehicles. It's a pretty cool solution to the problem.
Tesla's setup are a bunch of desks with steering wheels crammed together in a normal call center [0]. Waymo doesn't do teleoperation, but other companies exist that have like Vay. Compare their setup [1].
[0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GuE3ie2WcAAyeWs?format=jpg&name=...
[1] https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/6828f0...
I assume/hope that Tesla teleoperators are required to have drivers licenses in the states in which the cars they are operating are located?
Given that some of these teleoperators are in the Philipines, and Tesla's sterling reputation for adhering to regulation and laws, I'm going to hazard my own guess.
Waymo does do teleoperation [1], and they defend its use [2]. Human fallback isn't something to be ashamed about. AGI doesn't exist at the moment.
[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/waymo-defends-use-remote-...
That's not teleoperation. Teleoperation has a human directly in the control loop, so latency and stability of the connection directly impacts the vehicle system's ability to maintain safety, because the input has to go vehicle<->network<->human to produce an output.
What those blog posts are talking about is a different strategy called remote assistance where the vehicle remains the only thing in the control loop, but a human provides guidance to help the computer navigate itself. This makes the latency and stability of the connection much less important for maintaining safety.
It's not unheard of for companies in the industry that use remote assistance to also have an local option for remote control (for things like lot operations and vehicle rescue events), but that's not part of routine on-road operations and it's usually limited to a <5mph limp mode where the operator is physically present.
Waymo absolutely does NOT do teleoperation in the sense that a remote driver is directly controlling steering, braking, and acceleration. Instead they at most route the car. The self-driver is directly controlling the car at all times.
"In the most ambiguous situations, the Waymo Driver takes the lead, initiating requests through fleet response to optimize the driving path. Fleet response can influence the Waymo Driver's path, whether indirectly through indicating lane closures, explicitly requesting the AV use a particular lane, or, in the most complex scenarios, explicitly proposing a path for the vehicle to consider. The Waymo Driver evaluates the input from fleet response and independently remains in control of driving. This collaboration enhances the rider experience by efficiently guiding them to their destinations.
The Waymo Driver prioritizes the safest course of action in a given moment. In some situations, even with inputs from fleet response, the Waymo driver may come to a stop if it determines that is the safest course of action. Once the car comes to a stop, it can autonomously resume operations, and in other instances, it may require additional support from Waymo Roadside Assistance to retrieve the vehicle manually. "
The second paragraph of your link says Waymo does not do teleoperation.
"Much like phone-a-friend, when the Waymo vehicle encounters a particular situation on the road, the autonomous driver can reach out to a human fleet response agent for additional information to contextualize its environment. The Waymo Driver does not rely solely on the inputs it receives from the fleet response agent and it is in control of the vehicle at all times."
This is different from a remote operator directly controlling accelerator, steering, and brakes.
Waymo doesn’t have remote operators in the same way Tesla does. They can assist with making a decision on what to do if the car is stuck, but they do not remotely drive the car the way Tesla does.
W-A-S-D on a Dell keyboard wouldn't surprise me.
Hey, like so many others, I managed to beat NFS Underground 1 and 2, Most Wanted and Hot Pursuit using only the budget brand e-waste special keyboard, no analog controllers.
IIRC some of the top NFS players also used the keyboard instead of fancy racing syms.
So it's probably possible to control real life cars with a keyboard, provided they implement dedicated input filtering, PID controllers or Kalman filters, and throttle maps, instead of having a key press just be 100% gas/break.
Unless you beat them without crashing once that’s not impressive in a real world context.
Life doesn’t have saves to reload.
You can't win internationally competitive racing games if you crash since your competition who doesn't crash will beat you.
So if they win competitions with a keyboard it means they can drive without crashing.
Just nuts this company is so highly valued still. Just clown level execution the whole way down.
Everything about every company he's ever been involved in has been a clown show, including Paypal. Though in Paypal's case it was just outright stealing people's money under the guise of "suspicious activity" or "terms of service violation."
He's the PT Barnum of our age.
So not only do they still not have truly unsupervised cars, they also remotely drive them sometimes, and their remote drivers have helpfully demonstrated why that’s a terrible idea.
Tesla is such an embarrassment.
Why are we allowing this? Who does it benefit at all? People would lose their minds if you tried this in commercial aviation, yet we're allowing it for something far more dangerous that even with human operators kills people all the time. Absolutely insane.
doing the math would be a bit laborious, but does anyone happen to know the kinetic energy embodied in a tesla going the full "ludicrous" velocity?, which by all acounts, can happen very quickly in a short distance.
The article describes the incidents. Both incidents happened at < 10 mph, did not involve other vehicles, and ended up with nothing more than some scratches to the vehicle. The "crashes" from the title is yellow journalism.
According to Tesla, the remotely operated Teslas are limited to 10mph.
https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/company_response...
