UN approves L3 Highway Pilots, NHTSA publishes ADAS/AD Accident Report, Tesla’s FSD 'ejects' before Impact, ISO aims for LiDAR Standards

Dear Reader,

It’s summer in Europe and I hope you are having a great one! Temperatures notwithstanding, this month has not been slow for automotive news: In fact, some very exciting ADAS/AD items made it onto the list for June, if I may say so myself. 

Let’s dive right in:

UN Regulation extends automated driving up to 130 km/h in certain conditions - via UNECE

Level 4 remains as elusive as ever, at least for those dreaming of fully autonomous driving at scale, on public roads. And the question gets louder in my head: Will it ever become real?

The larger the road network you want a vehicle to operate on, and the longer the trips that you want to take, the larger its ODD grows - also along other axes, such as temperatures/weather, day/night shifts, unexpected road conditions/closures etc. This of course increases the chance that the AD stack encounters a situation it’s not fit to handle, requiring a handover to the human driver (unless you accept a minimum risk maneuver to park you at the curb for an indefinite time, until the challenge hopefully passes).

So for the foreseeable future L3 will be as good as it gets for large-scale operations. The good news is: The UN just amended its regulation 157, allowing for automated driving in more conditions as before across the member states - more specifically, at speeds of up to 130 km/h (~ 80 mph).

I know conditional AD is controversial - but if the systems that fill this new space are designed to be truly L3, with quantifiably safe and robust operations in reasonable conditions (e. g. no heavy rain/snow, not with emergency vehicles on the road etc.), I foresee a great change in how we experience long-distance car travel. With companies like Ford already getting excited about “ADAS as a Service” as a business model, I humbly propose this go-to-market plan:

1: Include necessary hardware/software in all models capable of L3. When L3 subscription is not activated, leverage the stack for superior L2 performance (ALKS etc.)

2: Enable one free L3 trial per vehicle/owner, to be activated by the customer at a time of their choosing.

3: In doing so, allow all potential L3 subscribers to experience the power of a system that's truly hands-/eyes-off for themselves, in their own lives.

4: Convert them to paying customers after the trial.

If you’re working at an OEM and reading this, you have my permission to steal and implement it in return for a lifetime subscription. ;)

—

Fed. AV Crash Report Underscores How Little We Know About Robocar Safety - via Streetsblog USA

NHTSA recently published numbers of accidents related to ADAS and AD functions, covering a time period of 9 months and broken down between assist systems and fully autonomous driving stacks.

Tesla is leading the field in ADAS-related crashes, with 273 of the 367 total crashes involving the company’s “Full Self Driving” or “Autopilot” functions.

There’s 130 accidents reported involving fully automated systems, with 64 of them attributed to Waymo, 34 to Transdev and 20 to Cruise (who just got the approval to commercialize their San Francisco robotaxi operations earlier this month). 

The numbers alone require further interpretation and context, of course, and it’s obviously not sustainable to quantify the safety of an ADAS function or AD stack after accidents occur - but at least there are some numbers showing the need for action now, and it’s expected that future NHTSA investigations will be more thorough.

—

Elon Musk’s regulatory woes mount as U.S. moves closer to recalling Tesla’s self-driving software - via Fortune

Speaking of Tesla crashes: The OEM has responded to earlier allegations that certain accidents did in fact occur at times when FSD/Autopilot was disengaged, placing the blame on drivers. Now it seems that while this may be technically correct, the reasons behind it are not that those drivers didn’t use the system - from the article:

“[...] NHTSA said it had discovered in 16 separate instances when this occurred that Autopilot ‘aborted vehicle control less than one second prior to the first impact,’ suggesting the driver was not prepared to assume full control over the vehicle. 

[...] While anything that might indicate the system was designed to shut off when it sensed an imminent accident might damage Tesla’s image, legally the company would be a difficult target.“

That reads like the equivalent of an airplane pilot ejecting seconds before impact and then claiming he’s never been in a crash. It’s also a rather inhumane way of looking at accidents, basically discarding human injuries and death so long as they do not impact your safety case KPIs.

You get what you measure - and what we’re getting here does not seem to be safe automated driving.

—

Hesai heads up lidar ISO test method working group - via Autonomous Vehicle International

Let’s end it on some good news! Remember when digital photography started, and everyone wanted to have more megapixels, completely ignoring other technical specs that determine the quality of your pictures? Sometimes you may have felt similar with LiDAR sensors, for which the number of lines and frame rate are easily explained and understood specs - while the true answer to what makes or brakes their performance is vastly more complex.

But fear not, perception engineers: The ISO has launched an effort to standardize how performance of LiDARs is defined (to enable transparent comparison of different systems), and how they should be validated (to reduce the risk of perception failure and improve safety).

The work group ISO/TC22/SC32/AHG1 will be led by sensor maker Hesai, with Valeo taking the place as deputy lead. Other members include Denso, Bosch, Sony, Nissan and ZF, which should be a good basis to guarantee an outcome suitable for automotive-grade perception systems and the safety requirements of the ADAS/AD space.

—

That’s it for today! Enjoy the weather - and if you would like to exchange thoughts on any of the topics above, ping me: I’ll be in Gothenburg the first two weeks of July and hope to see some of you all in person.

All the best

Tom Dahlström