[Carty]

Today, while travelling through a narrow 30 Mph speed camera controlled village in very nice part of Cheshire, the car automatically applied the foot brakes EXTREMELY hard !.
Had the car behind us been travelling any closer at the time, I think we would have been rear ended.
As we passed through the hedge lined open country road at about 40 Mph, we then entered a very small village containing a few houses and a local pub and post office, you know the type of situation.
Oh ........ and the mandatory yellow & grey box on a pole called speed camera of course.
Everybody ( including the white van men ) ALL passed the camera at about 28 Mph to avoid a ticket, it's a popular money spinner this box by all accounts !.
The village was very narrow had a high hedge lined side road junction, that approached from my left hand side.
I have passed this spot more than a few times in the past and never noticed an almost hidden junction on our left hand side.
You could not see any vehicle approaching the main road from this side road, due to the height of the hedge's on both sides of the narrow lane.
Just as we approached this almost blind junction, a light blue Ford Transit van suddenly approached the junction at a quick pace of speed and braked hard.
As a result, the nose of the van completely over shot the white line at the junction.
He did not continue across our path, and I THINK I could have stopped the car in time, had he done so.
BUT - only about 2 seconds AFTER the van emerged, our car decided to slam on the foot brake REALLY hard !.
I think my personal reactions when about a second in front of the car O.B.T.W.
It did not bring the car to a complete stand still, it think it realised the danger had passed and it released the foot brake and allowed us to continue instantly.
My wife screamed out :- "What the hell are you doing !".
I think it frightened her to be honest.
She did not believe is was induced by the car itself !.
Had I NOT seen the van over shoot the junction and it continued across the path of on coming traffic, then yes the safety system could have been a life saver.
But I just feel it was a second too slow to first spot the problem, then another second too slow to react to cancel the need to apply the brakes THAT hard.
Maybe I just expect the system to be a little "Smarter" than it really is ???.
Has any other members had this type of an experience in their cars yet.
Not sure what warnings it pushed out up the dash board, nothing I think.
I was too busy gripping the steering wheel at the time !.
Just glad the car behind had enough time to spot.

 

[cah197]

The more I read about this car the better it gets.

 

[aspergerguy]

Maybe I just expect the system to be a little "Smarter" than it really is ???.
Has any other members had this type of an experience in their cars yet.
Not sure what warnings it pushed out up the dash board, nothing I think.

Here lies a problem if autonomous driving level 2 ( driver assistance can take control) features are introduced upon vehicle without embedded SIM so that "ET can't hall home" to flag up any potential issue. It is too late to access any possible data from vehicle at a possible service visit up to 12 months in the future.

 

[RicM]

I mentioned a similar situation elsewhere when a young girl lurched out from between two parked cars (probably looking at her smart phone) but she hesitated and never went in front of the car.

I would say she stopped about a foot from and at about 45 degrees to the front right of the bonnet. Travelling at about 20mph, the car braked before I could move my foot to the brake pedal. I did and completed the stop of the car. It all happened quickly and quite smoothly.

If the girl had continued at the original direction and speed she would have been in front of the car a second later, the car may have bumped her but at about 5mph so the system worked well in that situation.

I would not liked to have been in your situation. Sounded a bit more dramatic!

 

[Slammer]

The more I read about this car the better it gets.

At least Tesla's only accelerate into trees

 

[BimbleEV]

Currently if a car leaves a carriageway via a slip road and applies the brakes to start slowing the Tesla will immediately slow so as not to pull along side. I assume it's just in case the car pulls back on to the carriageway but it's a little annoying though predictable.

Below is a good example of how the systems are in place but the software may need more time to develop.

How terrible software design decisions led to Uber’s deadly 2018 crash

NTSB says the system "did not include consideration for jaywalking pedestrians."

arstechnica.com

 

[Sandy]

The more I read about this car the better it gets.

Not something your have to worry about on the ZE50 seeing as Renault didn't fit the hardware.... yet.

 

[Boatgeek]

I would say that in both the cases described here the software made a decision based on the balance of probabilities and took the safest course of action which was to apply the brakes. The predictive algorithms are never perfect but looking at the case of the girl stepping out the software needs to make a decision before the person is in front of the care, hence the cone view of what is ahead. If the person continues to step will the car hit them? The answer is likely to be yes, however, if they stop then obviously they will be OK. What data do we have to go on as to whether the person will stop? Nothing. Therefore, we have to assume a 50/50 likelihood that they will not stop. Therefore, applying the brakes is the safest option.

Looking at the van situation. Again, had it not stopped then the car would have continued to apply the brakes, upon noticing that it had you noticed that the brakes were released. You would see the same outcome if the car thought you were approaching a vehicle directly in front of you too quickly as it slows to turn. You can judge that the speed and distance is OK to miss it but the pre-defined conditions of the software do not. It is extremely difficult for this type of software to learn because it has to constantly account for unpredictable humans so the conditions for reactions are pre-defined. In the case of fully autonomous driving, where all vehicles are autonomous, this sort of thing is easy because the actions of other vehicles can be predicted within tightly defined criteria so the reaction will always be correct.

I am a huge fan of these systems, they may be scary when they kick in by themselves, but I have had them save my life in the past. In a previously vehicle, with pre-crash detection, I was merging on to the M5 from the M4 and went to move outside of a lorry. What I did not see what the tiny car with no lights doing 40mph in the middle lane. Luckily the car did see it and I did not hit it at 80mph. I also work for a large University department that has a huge research section looking at autonomous automotive functions.

Be glad the car did what it did because if that person had continued to step forwards, or that van hit a patch of ice or had not managed to stop, you would rather be scared of a car that stopped itself than kill someone.

 

[Petriix]

Unexpected braking can be extremely dangerous. On two occasions the Leaf 40 applied the brakes while I was merging with moving traffic. It was incredibly lucky on both occasions that the driver behind was able to avoid me. Timing is very important when driving and having the speed of the vehicle altered can mean that the gap you were heading into disappears.

 

[Boatgeek]

In the ideal world of SCAV and swarm technologies all vehicles will talk to each other so there would be a gap to merge without hitting anything. Until we get there we have systems that cannot anticipate your thought processes. When you were merging with traffic, how close were you to the vehicle in front? I have had an issue with trying to merge too close behind something else. Logic would dictate, and therefore systems are programmed, that if you are coming up behind a vehicle, at speed, and you are too close, you need to stop. It doesn't know whether you are merging or just not paying attention. Trying the same thing at a slow speed would probably not have the same result.

The question is whether the software is at fault or whether it was user error.......

 

[markweatherill]

I've seen these on the back of driving school cars....

 

[Petriix]

In the ideal world of SCAV and swarm technologies all vehicles will talk to each other so there would be a gap to merge without hitting anything. Until we get there we have systems that cannot anticipate your thought processes. When you were merging with traffic, how close were you to the vehicle in front? I have had an issue with trying to merge too close behind something else. Logic would dictate, and therefore systems are programmed, that if you are coming up behind a vehicle, at speed, and you are too close, you need to stop. It doesn't know whether you are merging or just not paying attention. Trying the same thing at a slow speed would probably not have the same result.

The question is whether the software is at fault or whether it was user error.......

On both occasions it was where two lanes merged into one, once with a pedestrian standing waiting to cross the road at a traffic island. My trajectory was already taking me in the right direction and I was not in danger of colliding with anything. It was as if the car thought it was significantly wider than it was or thought I would veer back over to the right.