Robust Tesla self driving is years away, if ever. What could Tesla do in the meantime to make us happier? Currently, individual cars learn nothing from our interventions. Suppose there were a way to tell our car something we know but it doesn’t.
"Full Self Driving Tesla" by rulenumberone2 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
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- I’m thinking of local-to-car map overrides that the user creates based on his personal experience.
- Fix issues where the maps are wrong or suboptimal.
- Outdated speed limits
- Mapped speed limit for a residential area is correct, but really should be lower.
- Road construction.
- If the updates allow day of week and time of day qualifiers, they could be used to describe school zones.
- Change the start of a lower speed limit section of a road earlier, so the car has slowed to the right speed at the real start of the section.
- Corners that the car takes too fast.
- If there are intersections or highway entry/exit ramps that the car doesn’t handle well, the override could flag them as blocked/unusable and the router would pick a different route.
- As a variation, you could mark just certain lanes as blocked—e.g., for a left turn that is unsafe, but it’s okay for the car to use the intersection to go straight.
- Fix issues where the maps are wrong or suboptimal.
- Next, Tesla could provide what amount to location-specific post-perception overrides.
- Deal with specific flashing yellow lights that cause unnecessary slowing.
- That speed limit sign is for trucks only, dummy.
- Ignore speed limit changes for the next 100 meters, because you often get it wrong. (E.g., when one road crosses another or when lanes are shifted due to construction.)
- Mark unseen speed bumps (and potholes?)
- Possible implementation
- A directory on the flash drive that contains individual files, each with one or more overrides. On startup, the computer loads the information from the files into memory. (There needs to be some way to deal with conflicts. Most specific wins?)
- For now, this requires the user to have a flash drive installed.
- To reduce load on the CPU, overrides that apply just to routing are separated out and examined only when creating routes. The remaining entries can be split into those that apply somewhere near where we are now and those that can be ignored at the moment.
- As the car drives, it continuously checks for an override that should be honored now or shortly in the future.
- Tesla needs to define only the API (valid syntax and recognized options) for the override files. Third-parties can create the GUI apps for users, reducing the burden on Tesla developers.
- Users within a community could share overrides they have found useful, simply by sharing the individual files with the selected settings. (E.g., school zones)
- I’m thinking a small team at Tesla could prototype this much in a couple months.
- A directory on the flash drive that contains individual files, each with one or more overrides. On startup, the computer loads the information from the files into memory. (There needs to be some way to deal with conflicts. Most specific wins?)
- Down the road
- Tesla could expose certain tuning parameters via the API, without needing to create a GUI method for users to set them. Somewhat like extending the Service menu, but with additional qualifiers (location, time-of-day).
- If there is a normal-braking-force parameter, AlanSubie4Life could set it so the car slows down using only regen when possible.
- Drivers could tweak assertiveness settings based on where they are. E.g., If they know they need to be pushy on a particular entry ramp during rush-hours.
- Tesla could provide a built-in app that could be given a URL to an override file. The app would fetch the file and add it to the overrides directory. The app could also allow examining or deleting existing override files. There might be some use cases for overrides that are cryptographically signed, but I haven’t thought of any.
- It would be nice for the API to be general enough that other ADAS vendors might adopt it. Schools could then provide a single override specification for their zones that all AVs could use, for example. Transportation departments could share construction zone info. But, please don’t delay implementation while waiting for a committee to set the specs.
- Tesla could expose certain tuning parameters via the API, without needing to create a GUI method for users to set them. Somewhat like extending the Service menu, but with additional qualifiers (location, time-of-day).
"Full Self Driving Tesla" by rulenumberone2 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog feed