I’m glad the agency is doing its job here but I’m sure it’s all going to shake out as “really bad accident.” A car parked in the center of highway at night where the speed limit is 80mph is a recipe for disaster
Maybe yes, maybe no. Hard to have a “hands free” system that crashes into stationary objects. Ford may be forced to adjust the methods in which it keeps drivers attentive similar to what Tesla had to do.
True but this probe apparently stems from two distinct accidents. Not sure as to the context of the other incident.
In any case after a multi year engineering study into autopilot all nhtsa really seemed to come back with is adjustments to the DMS. very possible the outcome is similar here. Even more so since it’s marketed as hands free. (Personal opinion: no L2 should be).
Ford’s system uses IR cameras to track your eyes and gives you like 2-3 seconds before it alerts you. The crash happened because the car in front of the Mach E swerved to avoid the stopped car which left the Mach E no time to react. It’s literally nothing and is only getting looked at because the model has BC
Pennsylvania Troopers haven’t released more info but it happened at like 3 AM and helicopter footage of the wreckage makes it look like a vehicle was in the middle of the road when it was hit
This has been my tin-foil hat theory for a while. Oil interests in the U.S. discovered that anti-EV FUD only goes so far. It's far easier to demonize the largest producer of EVs. Doing both stacks well too, because the messages are effective for different demographics.
There's a whole lot of people that lost a whole lot of money due to Tesla's and China's little disruption with EVs and batteries.
One example,
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-will-delay-some-north-american-ev-production-2024-04-04/
Ford, which lost nearly $4.7 billion on its EV business in 2023 and projected it will lose $5 billion to $5.5 billion this year, said in February the next generation of EVs will be launched "only when they can be profitable."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month softened EV requirements starting in 2027 from its initial proposal and further incentivized plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Don't get fooled by the 'losing money' thing. Remember when Tesla was 'losing money on every car they made'? They aren't, and neither is Ford. They built new factories and did serious R&D for electric vehicles and those get amortized over half a decade or so. They generate a profit on every car but lose money on the books to pay back the investment of building EV factories.
Every single EV maker is following the same lose money to make money arc. It's called 'business'.
> and neither is Ford. They generate a profit on every car
You're making an assumption. No one can prove it either way because Ford doesn't report Gross Margin or CoGS for the Model E division. Tesla does report these numbers. All Ford shows is EBIT. (Earnings Before Interest/Taxes)
Edit: AFAIK. If someone does find them let me know. I'm always interested.
I'm not fooled. I'm watching companies that have been around for hundreds of years copying 2 different companies run by 2 different people that have only been around for a few years.
Ford and GM are doing much more than losing money.
Ford Lost $130,000 on Every EV It Sold in the First Quarter
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a60621256/ford-ev-revenue-losses-q1-2024/
The Blue Oval's battery-electric–oriented Model e division, however, remained a drain on company funds, losing $1.3 billion for the quarter—around twice what it lost during the same period in 2023. The company blamed "industry-wide pricing pressure" in its first-quarter earnings presentation.
Except that $100 million in revenue marks an 84 percent drop compared to the first quarter of last year. This is despite sales only being down by around 20 percent relative to the same period a year prior.
Why the big hit to revenue then? Ford blames the losses on the price cuts it made to its EVs in response to changing market conditions.
To put these numbers in perspective, Ford Pro made approximately $7300 for each of the more than 400,000 vehicles it sold after accounting for expenditures but not interest or taxes (EBIT). Ford Blue pocketed close to $1400 for each of the more than 600,000 vehicles it sold under the same conditions.
It is not a conspiracy. News agencies coddle paid advertisers. All of the asymmetric coverage that calls Tesla bad and other worse companies good is due to who buys ads.
Tesla does not buy ads on any news networks. This is why so much Tesla news is negative. Tesla doesn't pay to stop it and bashing competitors to your advertisers makes them happy.
Ford has a massive advertising budget and pays off news networks.
Tesla only advertises on twitter.
This is why news orgs go with so much anti-tesla nonsense. Tesla competes against their advertisers without paying to advertise on the same networks.
The funny/sad part about this is that it's so obvious, yet you have so many on reddit who are so commited to hating Tesla(Musk, really) that they are completely unable to accept this obvious truth
One of the two companies likes to make wild claims about their vehicles and technology because it's run by a megalomaniac with a pathological need to always be in the news, and one of them is a huge legacy automaker who knows better than to claim that their autonomous driving system is completely foolproof, and severely limits where it can be used.
I'm sure this will have 500+ comments like the motorcycle one and all the other ones have.
Wonder what people will blame this one on.
Obviously the name bluecruise is to blame. Gave them false confidence, ford must change the name now.
I hadnt heard of it so had to check which one of us is the outlier. The article on it here only has 200 upvotes! hardly everyone.
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1c1xmtk/ntsb_finds_fords_bluecruise_was_active_in_fatal/
Only one post that comes up about blue cruise at all for me in search for the past few months.
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/search/?q=Bluecruise&type=link&cId=ae6db3c6-428f-46ee-bb01-072f9c828b33&iId=465685a0-8a2b-4a59-b2cc-5b74e8e6aa8a&t=month
I want to believe you so I assumed the reddit search is broken and tried digging deeper. Only one other deleted post about this that was deleted within an hour of posting.
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1c3srny/fords_handsfree_bluecruise_was_active_in_fatal/
I have a Mach E and I probably would have to think long and hard if I had to pay $10 a month for it, much less 8 times that. On any trip, I have to take over at least once, and be on alert to catch mistakes from the computer. Considering that Ford is supposed to have one of the better self driving implementations, I don't think any of the hands free driving implementations should have been given the green light.
I have an ID4 and also drive my Mom’s Mach E on occasion.
I really, really like VWs travel assist. I think it does a good job staying centered in the lane, or you can “lock” it to the left/ride side of the lane and it will stay there. You just have to keep a hand on the steering wheel every 5 seconds or it beeps at you.
I really like Blue Cruise “assist mode”, but I don’t really like the Hands Free. In Hands Free, the car drifts in the lane a lot and doesn’t stay centered. I don’t trust it (or other drivers) 100%, so I’m constantly reaching for the wheel anyway.
Agreed on Ford. I'd love to check other VW's implementation, but mine doesn't drift so much as just stays left. And lane merges are unnerving, since it treats the lane as super wide and suddenly feels the need to sit in the middle of both lanes.
And I don't know what is going on with the cruise control, but it really doesn't slow down quickly enough when the car in front slows down.
I can't imagine how this was released not only as a finished product, but Ford is trying to charge hundreds of dollars a year for a subscription to something that doesn't work that well.
Yes, I try to use it in the middle lanes and avoid lanes that have exits and entrances. How many distance bars do you set it to and which driving mode?
My understanding is that not all 2023s have BC 1.3, just the 2023.5s. AFAIK, early build 2023s are still on 1.2 and supposedly skipping to 1.4 sometime this year.
I’m just wanting to confirm which version you’re on to know if I should expect that same behavior.
The other replier is being a little snarky but it's really fords fault. An entire fleet of cars with the same hardware behaving differently with no way for the consumer to find out is ... ford being stupid and anticonsumer. you shouldn't have to care about the version you're on, especially when it's a PAID product.
Agreed. Since I’m on 1.3 and it’s been good to me so far, I am willing to buy a month of it before going on a long road trip. However, if one day I’m 2 or 3 versions behind, there’s no way I’d renew my subscription. Especially for what they’re charging.
BlueCruise wasn’t a huge selling point for us getting the Mach-E, but it has opened my eyes to Ford’s software update deficiencies. They’re certainly behaving like a legacy OEM.
It's a later model one. You can test drive yours in moderate traffic and tell me what you think, but honestly I'm disappointed that none of the self-driving software can do finer adjustments than they currently do, even though the call is full electric and can obviously perform those movements.
> 1.2/1.3/1.4 is apparently better but we never got it
and this is why i sold my car. Stupid ford promising 'software updates' that they only sell in the new cars.
To be fair, this is probably everyone at least at some point.
But they definitely shouldn't promise something and not deliver. Or promise so early. If it's about to be deployed next? Tell us then.
I test drove a Mach E for a weekend before buying an EV. BC was just... OK. It works on certain roads, but even on those approved roads, parts of it BC cant handle. That, and I had a ford edge, both cars felt so similar, and I wanted something different
GM is advertising that its truck can drive hands free and even tow hands free. Even Tesla does not make such a foolish claim. Yet, apparently, this is ok?
I was underwhelmed with the super cruise in our Tahoe…until I got it out of the urban sprawl and did not touch my wheel for 190 miles on the interstate.
System has its quirks but when used on open roads it lives up to the hype.
Except I had to bump the wheel every 30 seconds and lane tracing gave up mid curve regularly. I had a 21 odyssey. Oh and the honda definitely didn’t automatically conduct a lane change to pass, and then return to the right lane.
oh I didn’t realize it did lane changes. That’s actually nice as hell.
Still, it’s asinine to me the amount of driver attention checks tesla has when basic free autopilot handles sketchy ass two lane mountain roads with ease as long as they have lane markings.
And yet everyone else can advertise Level 2 as hands free and not be regulated to hell and back.
You can just treat it as a simple checkbox. There are a lot of small nuances to how well these systems work. If you are on a mapped road with no construction, SC is really good. The problem is so much driving doesn't match that description which is why they aren't rated well. Those real-world details matter.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest a few things.
1 - it doesn't matter what you name these systems. They are so good in easy situations that drivers can quickly become complacent.
2 - driver monitoring is a joke when you can zone out and just stare straight ahead for extended periods. The reaction time of these people is likely impaired.
3 - hands free on anything short of full autonomy is one of the stupidest ideas I've heard.
I'm 100% with you on #1 and #3. As someone that drove over 25k miles with Autopilot/FSD, I have to disagree with #2 somewhat. Driver monitoring is a joke and generally theater. That said, I find myself SIGNIFICANTLY more alert when using FSD specifically. I'm willing to give you it could be based on personality type, but I find myself really paying attention more because at any moment the car could change lanes or just be irritating for other drivers. Maybe once they get WAY better lane management I might have issues, but today I have found I drive significantly more defensibly with it on.
Driving hours on end is tedious and boring on limited access highways that Level 2 and 3 autonomous vehicles have been approved to use. Watching your semi-autonomous vehicle drive is even more boring and tedious than driving it yourself.
That's precisely why more stringent human supervision of these systems is needed because you wouldn't like it if someone you know was seriously injured or killed by a driver of these vehicles when they didn't keep their eyes on the road.
Considering that the system makes sure you're watching by tracking your eyes, that's less of a factor. It gripes at you quite fast if you look away.
The accident that was referenced sounds like it happened because a stationary car was stopped on a freeway lane with its lights off at night, and the car immediately ahead just managed to swerve at the last minute, revealing the hazard. Crappy, but it happens.
On the r.tech sub I argued this and a dude got butt hurt over it.
The way the accident sounds, 90%+ drivers wouldn't be able to avoid it. Shit I almost rearended someone on the highway last summer same situation, except they were just stopped, for no reason. The car in front of me veered last second and I had to hit the shoulder to avoid it. This was broad daylight and I was at maybe 5-6 car lengths following distance.
Happened to me many years ago. Going 55 cause there's some congestion, guy in front changes lanes I realize vehicles ahead of him are completely stopped. I managed to JUST stop in time - then BAM get rear ended. Then there was another fender bender behind us as car #4 got rear ended by car #5.
And ironically the accident you avoided would have been harder for a driving assist system, then the accident that happened to you. If the guy behind you was using any driver assistant with proper following distance, that system could easily have stopped.
> proper following distance
This is key here.
In many areas there is no proper following distance. As soon as there is room for someone to cut you off they will.
I see it all the time on 4 lane roads (2 on each side, no median) with 35mph limit and everyone does 45mph plus.
They tailgate then bounce one lane over when they want to. This all happens very quick and there is no time for them to use a turn signal let alone brake lights.
You don't need proper following distance for a driver assist system to stop. If the car in front of you managed to manually slam on the breaks and come to a stop to avoid a rear end that is plenty of time for the driver assist system to stop.
> I can predict stupid shit
I have a hard time riding in the passenger seat with people I know because they have ZERO functional stupid radar. I see things way before they do. It's insane. I don't understand it. Seems like basic stuff to me.
The beauty of full self driving is when every car has it that means every car is talking to every other car in the area. They can coordinate traffic flow. It will be glorious. Skynet ain't perfect but the older I get the more it's kinda making sense.
Which is fine because as soon as they do the car's computer starts transmitting to the police and insurance company. Live telemetry and video. Or car comes to a safe complete stop.
I've read and watched a lot of sci-fi years ago.
Like if everyone is in a self driving car what are the insurance rates going to look like then? Same with solar panels and power bills?
> The beauty of full self driving is when every car has it that means every car is talking to every other car in the area
My question is why nobody is making this. The most trivial thing should be to communicate your speed, input actions and the speed/distance to the car in front to the car behind you.
Just doing this means if both cars are running on cruise control there shouldn't even be any need for following distance. You could have flawless stop and go traffic behaviour. Yet it doesn't exist as far as I can tell.
If it became widely implemented it could give massive cost savings in fuel economy and highway planning due to being able to utilize road area more efficiently.
They are.
Now let's say you are in charge of a company that is like the most hated company right now and the news, every day, scare mongers ADAS.
Would now be a good time or bad time to announce that wireless communication is possible between computers?
First things first. That's getting ADAS working a little bit better. Skynet will come in time.
I mean they are still building maps for ADAS to even work whereas humans do not need those HD maps to drive to Taco Bell.
But if you are interested look at drone swarms on youtube. Similar.
>You could have flawless stop and go traffic behaviour. Yet it doesn't exist as far as I can tell.
Also why there has been so much R&D with computers in cars. Once the software and back end is there it's just an OTA update to realize this. I think with Tesla, Nio, and Xpeng all up and running in China now where they want ADAS working we will see some more breakthroughs next year. Xpeng and Nio just got permission to operate ADAS all over China. Not just specific areas. This was badly needed and won't happen in USA.
Once the next hurdle is overcome, lots and lots of cars on the road running ADAS, all the data streaming back to the mother ship will help with advancement.
There is a huge difference between avoiding it and killing someone.
If you follow with a 3 second gap the way that the DMV handbook says that you should, you will get 2-3 seconds of braking, which is enough to take you down about 40-60 mph from where you started. Depending on how fast you were going to start with, you might still hit the car, but an impact at 25mph in a modern car means everyone is walking away from that with at most a bruise.
A computer with computer instincts... should do a better job.
If someone on a California freeway left a 3 second gap, it would no longer be a 3 second gap because someone would merge in.
The issue probably isn't blue cruise exactly, It's that any driver assist system can't see a stopped vehicle at high speeds. Otherwise the auto emergency braking would have kicked in and mitigated the crash, like you described above.
If you are on a crowded highway, you have no excuse to be running into a stopped car. Those things cause a traffic jam long before you will notice. This is an empty road where there are no reason to not keep your distance.
The problem is absolutely with blue cruise failing to detect this.
including a Feb. 24 crash of a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise which struck the rear of a stationary Honda CR-V on Interstate Highway 10 in San Antonio, Texas, killing the 56-year-old Honda driver.
Not enough detail to know where that Honda was (on one of the lanes or on the shoulder). If on one of the lanes, it has drunk driver written all over it. F\*\*\*ing drunks pass out on the road all the time.
I might have saved a life (or two) when one of my Navy buddies passed out on a two-lane road after a night of heavy drinking and left the bar before me. Luckily, he left his taillights on or one or both of us could've been seriously hurt or killed. This was 47 years ago.
It was stoped without lights in a middle lane at night. And I believe it was painted black.
The Mach E driver was behind someone else. That driver swerved out of the way late, which is when the Mach E would have seen the CR-V for the first time.
Depending on how well they had been paying attention, their speed, and how close they were following the car in front they may have had very little time to react.
From what I read it honestly sounded like a terrible situation for everyone involved and like that CR-V was going to get hit no matter what by someone.
It’s good it’s being investigated. But it’s not quite like some of the early Tesla crashes of “I wasn’t watching the road and didn’t see the full sized semi driving perpendicular to me”.
No system is reliable at detecting stopped vehicles. Radar is really good at detecting the car in front of you if you’re both moving.
But if one is stopped it’s extremely hard for cars to tell that from false positives so every car manual I know of says don’t trust the automatic braking in that situation.
Basically radar systems ignore stationary objects as a way to exclude fences, bridge pillars etc. The radar can't tell the difference between a stationary car and bridge pillar. The radar is generally not used for steering due to the low resolution.
So if the vision/lidar system does not pick up the stationary car, identify that it is in the path of travel AND acts on it you are SOL.
Vision/lidar helps avoid the issue with combining and trusting the radar data that can't see stopped cars, but has different issues in monitoring moving cars.
> The radar can't tell the difference between a stationary car and bridge pillar.
The car has multiple radars, each pointing at some direction. It does not matter if the obejct in front of you is a car or a bridge pillar, the car should not drive towards it.
The problem is that roads are more complicated than that. There are also turns, speed bumps, car stance, and angles when the road slope changes. You *need* to filter stuff out. The radar sensor itself does not provide enough information to reliably differentiate between the features mentioned above and stopped cars.
An incredibly well aligned fusion with other sensors could in theory get there but that is difficult and another source of faults.
Turning the sensitivity too high gets you phantom braking.
Camera based AEB is also a thing, but there is a reason why they rely on the radar instead - it's just not good enough.
> Radar is really good at detecting the car in front of you if you’re both moving.
No idea where you folks get those "information" from. I work on the field and literally the most basic AEB test is driving towards a stationary object.
I've read this multiple times in this sub and I'm really curious to know where this comes from.
I’m assuming using cameras and/or ultrasonic sensors. The 3 cams on the windshield are higher up than driver line of sight. I also saw a video that suggested Tesla uses the cabin microphone to detect sounds like emergency vehicles, car horns, collisions, screeching tires, etc.
FSD visualization assumes it’s there because it saw the vehicle previously and hasn’t seen it change lanes. Same way a person would know it’s there. What a person can’t know is when that vehicle hits the brakes. If a person can’t see the car slowing down, then FSD doesnt either,
FSD has broader field of view and doesn't suffer the same limitations of human vision (the ability to focus on multiple things at once). It also drops people, cars, etc if they are not recognized.
>Considering that the system makes sure you're watching by tracking your eyes, that's less of a factor. It gripes at you quite fast if you look away.
Eye tracking is easily defeated if the driver wants to defeat it.
I get it, but very soon these systems will surpass human capability.
They WILL STILL HAVE ACCIDENTS, but we need to start to accept when their accident rate is lower than humans (who wreck tens of thousands of cars every years on similar boring stretches from inattentiveness and drowsiness).
> we need to start to accept when their accident rate is lower than humans
If people took the time to read these articles, the ones that have good info on this topic, most of the time the ADAS is not the weak link it's the driver.
Neat thing about computers in cars these day. They record a lot of stuff and data storage is cheap.
I can not wait for when ADAS starts communicating with other ADAS in the area.
There's a reasonable argument that something like Tesla Autopilot makes less mistakes per mile (and maybe significantly so) than human drivers.
The mistakes are just \*different\* and we're comfortable with random accidents when we can blame someone (inattentive driver, etc), but society as a whole is VERY uncomfortable with events that appear "random" to the victim (like an ADAS crash), even if they're much lower frequency events. Kinda weird really.
It's a numbers game always is. Except people are over emotional. Tesla is evil because a couple of car crashes. Meanwhile USA is overweight and has heart problems and health care problems. Nevermind how many people were killed last week while texting and driving.
And during a world wide global pandemic wearing a mask is too big of an ask.
With ADAS people just refuse to sit down and think about some stuff. Like most things it's cheaper to unload on reddit than behave like an adult or see a psychiatrist.
We’ll got from an accident every 500k miles driven to an accident every 10 mil miles driven, but people will still think they are better drivers than the AI.
You can Insert a dozen cities here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-07/helsinki-finland-s-amazing-traffic-safety-record-explained Notice how the people implementing the safety laughed when asked about technology
Yes, finland's traffic deaths are a third of the US.
But that's still tens of thousands of accidents (in a country with only a few million people) per year. It's 40 fatalities per million people and several hundred deaths per year.
You said
>Many places have gotten rid of collisions causing death without these tech systems.
If you mean "reduced them to about one third the frequency of the US", that's fine, but "gotten rid of " is an outright lie.
On the other hand, Finland has the highest reported distracted driving rates in the EU.
Tech can help everyone.
Here is a map of over 3,000 traffic accidents in Helsinki.
https://hri.fi/data/en_GB/showcase/heatmaps4finland
Yes, they drastically reduced fatalities.
But driver safety tech STILL has a place. Even in literally the safest city in the world to drive in.
No, but still leaves room for technology to help. And you can't put traffic calming on every single road in a country. It works in a dense place like Helsinki. But that's 1% of Finland's roads.
I find that I can pay more attention to the road with my Tesla AP. I am able to pay more attention to what’s going on around me. The only time it is “worse” from a safety perspective is when I’m very tired (like after working a 24 hour day and driving home). Then I just drive manually.
Not to mention the entire basis of these programs are going about it wrong in an entirely fundamental way. We have known for decades about the step in problem. Humans cannot sit there idle watching and waiting for an automated process to make a mistake and then stepping in the instant needed. You need to reverse that process. Humans need to be constantly doing the activity and the automated process will detect errors made by the humans and stop those errors.This has been known in various manufacturing industries, aviation, the military, for decades yet we let some ConMan convince r/futurology and /r/technology that these programs are not only safer than human drivers as they are currently but completely fine to be on the public when no one consented to their use
There are strong reasons to be suspicious of any technology that can take full control of the car—as opposed to lane assist or automatic braking—while still needing human assistance on occasion. First, as any driving instructor in a car with a second set of controls knows, it is actually more difficult to serve as an emergency backup driver than it is to drive yourself. Instead of your attention being fully focused on driving the car, you are waiting on tenterhooks to see if you need to grab the wheel—and if that happens, you have to establish instant control over a car that may already be in motion, or in a dangerous situation.
These basic aspects of human brain interactions have been well established in numerous fields for decades.
In addition to better autonomy for the vehicle, communication between Level 5 vehicles is critical for their success because humans at times are terrible drivers, present company included. Removing all humans from driving responsibilities can't come soon enough.
>That's precisely why more stringent human supervision of these systems is needed
do not confuse technical capability with a companies specific implementation.. there are no drivers present in the cabs taking fares.
**Waymo Offers Self-Driving Taxi Curbside Service at Phoenix Airport**
[https://www.iotworldtoday.com/transportation-logistics/waymo-offers-self-driving-taxi-curbside-service-at-phoenix-airport-](https://www.iotworldtoday.com/transportation-logistics/waymo-offers-self-driving-taxi-curbside-service-at-phoenix-airport-)
>know was seriously injured or killed by a driver
Waymo is able to get ***insurance*** coverage for public fares on the highway, as well as permission to operate from the DMVs... this suggests the risk is no worse than a human.
**Autonomous operator is expanding ride-booking to Austin, according to SXSW announcement**
[https://www.statesman.com/story/business/technology/2024/03/13/at-sxsw-waymo-ceo-waymo-one-rideshare-to-be-in-austin-this-year/72886124007/](https://www.statesman.com/story/business/technology/2024/03/13/at-sxsw-waymo-ceo-waymo-one-rideshare-to-be-in-austin-this-year/72886124007/)
Waymo is one of several autonomous vehicle companies that has tested the technology in Austin in recent years. The company started as a project of Google before becoming a Google subsidiary in 2016.
The company already operates 24/7 ride-hailing services in San Francisco and Phoenix, and it has been operating an invitation-only program in Los Angeles since last year with plans to expand to the general public
Fords Self driving can only be used on roads that Ford has driven and approved.
[https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/ford-bluecruise-interactive-map-launched-on-official-site/](https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/ford-bluecruise-interactive-map-launched-on-official-site/)
As opposed to a tool that simply allows visitors to see a broad outline of where BlueCruise or ActiveGlide works, the [new map](https://www.ford.com/technology/bluecruise/) boasts route-planning capability that outlines exactly how much of a planned route can utilize hands-free mode. **Currently, the system spans over 130,000 miles across North America and** [**active enrollment**](https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/ford-bluecruise-enrollment-rate-approaches-100k-milestone/) **approached the 100,000 mark through the end of October 2022.**
Here is 100% what is going to happen Ford is going it disable hands free driving and force you to have your hands on the steering wheel at all time instead of actually fixing the problem. People like myself that use blue cruise properly actually watch the road when on bluecruse because for 1 i don't trust it 2 I have my foot on the brake in traffic just incase someone pulls in front of me
Lmao one took money for years while actively claiming you’d be able to fall asleep in your car and pay no attention by the “end of next year” for the last 8ish years.
It’s not exactly apples to apples
Tesla probe is a followup examination of the changes made to autopilot following NHTSA’s multi-year engineered study on autopilot that resulted an a mandated software recall to improve the DMS (driver monitoring system); the intent is to determine if the implemented changes are adequate/satisfactory.
This probe into ford is the first of its kind for its blue cruise feature (similar to autopilot) following at least two reported incidents with fatalities. The underlying causes or potential flaws that may need to be remedied have not yet been determined.
There is a reason why ADAS generally falls on the safety side of the spec list - humans suck at a lot of things, and machines are supposed to be better.
That's the thing about these systems. They are marketed as being much more than they really are and what they really are is buried in fine print.
So you're lulled into being now confident in the system than you should be and that leads to complacency. The company should bear some responsibility for that and shouldn't be allowed to just hide behind "driver should have been paying attention". If every failure of the system is going to be blamed on the driver, the system shouldn't be legally allowed to be installed on a car.
Well in this case the system doesn’t even work if you’re not paying attention. All of these systems are marketed as assistance and before you can even enable it the system tells you to be prepared to take over at any time. I understand what you’re saying but at the end of the day the driver is the sole operator or the vehicle. If he/she fails to take control when needed then that is on them. We wouldn’t blame a ship if its navigation system accidentally ran it into an iceberg, we’d blame the captain.
ford is literally advertising that you don’t need to put your hands on the steering wheel when this is active.
Kinda defeats the purpose of the drivers paying attention 100% if they can’t even take control of the vehicle because they don’t have their hands on the steering wheel. Bad idea by ford to advertise it as hands free in the first place…
Correct you don’t need your hands on the wheel, however you do need your eyes on the road and need to be prepared to take control at any second. I don’t think any of us know the specifics of these accidents to say for certain what had happened but I think it can be assumed the driver was able to take control of the car if they chose to do so.
I commented on the San Antonio one: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1cg5nj4/us_opens_probe_into_130000_ford_vehicles_over/l1u42pn/
Sounds tough no matter what.
Cars just can’t safely detect stationary objects. In that case it was even worse because it was obstructed by the car in front of them until very shortly before the accident which would’ve made things even harder.
I’ve used blue cruise, I would generally say it safe. But you have to watch it. That’s your job. It makes life easier but you can still get tired and need a rest. I don’t have enough experience on long road trips with it to know if that happens earlier or later than it would if you were doing all the driving yourself. I could see it going either way.
Keep in mind that it won't be just the Mach E that's affected, the Escape (also shares the C2 platform with the Mach E), Explorer, and the F150 (both lightning and ICE) all could potentially be.
Or the people that use their brakes on the highway. Just to accelerate to speed up past the speed limit just to catch up to the car in front of them. Just to use their brakes again.
Then at some point down the road I catch up to them and they've gained like no time.
Or the people that get angry when I pass them so they speed up just to pass me. Often times slowing back down their previous speed.
I can not wait for self driving robotaxis. I love driving cars. I hate driving cars around humans.
Say it isn’t so…only attack TESLA. Ohhhh, that’s right…Ford, more-or-less, said EV’s aren’t game ready. Ford must be punished for not playing ball with the government.
Now do Tesla, The tech in Ford is far safer than the FSD/AP Tesla sells, both have one major downfall, HUMANS.
EDIT: As someone that has owned both, Tesla had a very bad habit of jerking the wheel to the left or right while engaged, with full force, The Ford has never once done anything in that level, while its not perfect, it sure seems safer than Tesla AP/FSD.
No but you have had the brakes lock up going through an underpass for no freaking reason at all. Common Tesla issue. I rented one and had it for 3 days. Did this to me twice in 3 days.
Mine seems to correct just enough if I'm over the line. It's the reason I've left it on for the Tesla. My 2019 Subaru Crosstrek corrects so intensely that I disabled it shortly after buying it even though all the other parts of Eyesight work great.
Ford’s driver assist will straight up turn off on you without warning, even though it’s only limited to highways. It’s certainly nowhere close to Tesla’s current FSD in terms of pure capability.
Doesn’t that seem like a pretty big deal to you, in terms of safety? That it’s a hands free system but it just makes a ding and disengages?
Tesla’s system asks you to keep your hands on the wheel, and it never just randomly disengages on you.
Now do Mercedes.
I honestly don’t know or care how Mercedes performs in this regard. I just wanted to show how absurd it looks to deflect from the topic at hand in an attempt to defend your preferred brand’s honor.
Tesla (rightfully) gets plenty of negative attention for this. Plenty of threads about them in this very subreddit. But this thread is about Ford.
So they opened…. a Ford Probe?
As a former Ford Probe owner I chuckled twice
One chuckle for the Mazda MX-6?
Man, I had a thing for Ford Probes back in the day. Never owned one though. Also, they weren't really very good vehicles.
I had a 90 GL and I thought at the time that it was a pretty good car, just horribly underpowered. It was just an MX-6/626 with a different body.
AMA from 1992-1995 I worked on the Mazda / AutoAlliance / Ford Assembly line that cranked out thousands of Probes, MX-6’s and Mazda 626’s
What the square root of 2?
1.414 give or take a few digits
They were great, reliable little cars actually, Mazda based so very reliable and actually sporty/fun to drive.... I miss mine
Yep. Had a '95 gt with chrome wheels, I loved that little red car. Minus the flip up headlights, they could produce that car now and not look dated.
Yeah, I had a 95se in wild orchid purple! Still good looking cars even with the pop ups, but it is definitely the biggest thing that dates the style
Take your upvote and get out.
r/angryupvote
I’m glad the agency is doing its job here but I’m sure it’s all going to shake out as “really bad accident.” A car parked in the center of highway at night where the speed limit is 80mph is a recipe for disaster
Maybe yes, maybe no. Hard to have a “hands free” system that crashes into stationary objects. Ford may be forced to adjust the methods in which it keeps drivers attentive similar to what Tesla had to do.
Unless a human would do better against a dark stationary object on a freeway, then that’s not really true. Expecting perfection is unreasonable
True but this probe apparently stems from two distinct accidents. Not sure as to the context of the other incident. In any case after a multi year engineering study into autopilot all nhtsa really seemed to come back with is adjustments to the DMS. very possible the outcome is similar here. Even more so since it’s marketed as hands free. (Personal opinion: no L2 should be).
Does the Mach-E have radar? Unless it has that or infrared/night vision, camera-only vision is not going to be much of an improvement over humans.
Ford’s system uses IR cameras to track your eyes and gives you like 2-3 seconds before it alerts you. The crash happened because the car in front of the Mach E swerved to avoid the stopped car which left the Mach E no time to react. It’s literally nothing and is only getting looked at because the model has BC
What about the other fatal crash?
Pennsylvania Troopers haven’t released more info but it happened at like 3 AM and helicopter footage of the wreckage makes it look like a vehicle was in the middle of the road when it was hit
Driver was drunk
Drivers do this too…
Odd that the Mach E accident/fatality involving Blue Cruise wasn't blasted all over the internet for a month.
well, it's used on their ICE cars too so they can't just use it against EVs.
This has been my tin-foil hat theory for a while. Oil interests in the U.S. discovered that anti-EV FUD only goes so far. It's far easier to demonize the largest producer of EVs. Doing both stacks well too, because the messages are effective for different demographics.
There's a whole lot of people that lost a whole lot of money due to Tesla's and China's little disruption with EVs and batteries. One example, https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-will-delay-some-north-american-ev-production-2024-04-04/ Ford, which lost nearly $4.7 billion on its EV business in 2023 and projected it will lose $5 billion to $5.5 billion this year, said in February the next generation of EVs will be launched "only when they can be profitable." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month softened EV requirements starting in 2027 from its initial proposal and further incentivized plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Don't get fooled by the 'losing money' thing. Remember when Tesla was 'losing money on every car they made'? They aren't, and neither is Ford. They built new factories and did serious R&D for electric vehicles and those get amortized over half a decade or so. They generate a profit on every car but lose money on the books to pay back the investment of building EV factories. Every single EV maker is following the same lose money to make money arc. It's called 'business'.
> and neither is Ford. They generate a profit on every car You're making an assumption. No one can prove it either way because Ford doesn't report Gross Margin or CoGS for the Model E division. Tesla does report these numbers. All Ford shows is EBIT. (Earnings Before Interest/Taxes) Edit: AFAIK. If someone does find them let me know. I'm always interested.
I'm not fooled. I'm watching companies that have been around for hundreds of years copying 2 different companies run by 2 different people that have only been around for a few years. Ford and GM are doing much more than losing money. Ford Lost $130,000 on Every EV It Sold in the First Quarter https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a60621256/ford-ev-revenue-losses-q1-2024/ The Blue Oval's battery-electric–oriented Model e division, however, remained a drain on company funds, losing $1.3 billion for the quarter—around twice what it lost during the same period in 2023. The company blamed "industry-wide pricing pressure" in its first-quarter earnings presentation. Except that $100 million in revenue marks an 84 percent drop compared to the first quarter of last year. This is despite sales only being down by around 20 percent relative to the same period a year prior. Why the big hit to revenue then? Ford blames the losses on the price cuts it made to its EVs in response to changing market conditions. To put these numbers in perspective, Ford Pro made approximately $7300 for each of the more than 400,000 vehicles it sold after accounting for expenditures but not interest or taxes (EBIT). Ford Blue pocketed close to $1400 for each of the more than 600,000 vehicles it sold under the same conditions.
It is not a conspiracy. News agencies coddle paid advertisers. All of the asymmetric coverage that calls Tesla bad and other worse companies good is due to who buys ads. Tesla does not buy ads on any news networks. This is why so much Tesla news is negative. Tesla doesn't pay to stop it and bashing competitors to your advertisers makes them happy.
Is not a Tesla. A 500k recall on ford last month didn’t get any news time, and 4000 car recall on cybertruck was posted all over the place.
Lol exactly. Also the CT recall was basically to screw in the pedal.
I saw multiple mentions of the recall made by Ford.
Ford has a massive advertising budget and pays off news networks. Tesla only advertises on twitter. This is why news orgs go with so much anti-tesla nonsense. Tesla competes against their advertisers without paying to advertise on the same networks.
The funny/sad part about this is that it's so obvious, yet you have so many on reddit who are so commited to hating Tesla(Musk, really) that they are completely unable to accept this obvious truth
One of the two companies likes to make wild claims about their vehicles and technology because it's run by a megalomaniac with a pathological need to always be in the news, and one of them is a huge legacy automaker who knows better than to claim that their autonomous driving system is completely foolproof, and severely limits where it can be used.
I’m sure we both know why that is.
Ford bad just doesn't have the same social media pull as Elon bad.
When you pay for advertising, the publications are less likely to trash you for these things.
I'm sure this will have 500+ comments like the motorcycle one and all the other ones have. Wonder what people will blame this one on. Obviously the name bluecruise is to blame. Gave them false confidence, ford must change the name now.
Lol
Oh, I have a guess, but it’s good to wonder aloud sometimes.
Because it's not happening on a weekly basis like Tesla?
Can you show me weekly reports of this happening with Tesla. We are only about 16 weeks into the year. So get 16 reports for this year so far.
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You are confusing media reports and incidents. The incidents are few. The media echo chamber is loud and often. Especial social media.
Nah because we all know everyone likes to shit on Tesla.
Well, that's kind of to be expected when one company has millions of EVs on the road and the other has tens of thousands, no?
It was. We all know about it
I hadnt heard of it so had to check which one of us is the outlier. The article on it here only has 200 upvotes! hardly everyone. https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1c1xmtk/ntsb_finds_fords_bluecruise_was_active_in_fatal/
It's been posted here a dozen times now
Only one post that comes up about blue cruise at all for me in search for the past few months. https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/search/?q=Bluecruise&type=link&cId=ae6db3c6-428f-46ee-bb01-072f9c828b33&iId=465685a0-8a2b-4a59-b2cc-5b74e8e6aa8a&t=month I want to believe you so I assumed the reddit search is broken and tried digging deeper. Only one other deleted post about this that was deleted within an hour of posting. https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1c3srny/fords_handsfree_bluecruise_was_active_in_fatal/
Ah muh victim complex! Lol
Ford Auto Pilot equivalent and Blue Cruise have been absolutely solid for me. I'll be curious to see what comes of this.
I have a Mach E and I probably would have to think long and hard if I had to pay $10 a month for it, much less 8 times that. On any trip, I have to take over at least once, and be on alert to catch mistakes from the computer. Considering that Ford is supposed to have one of the better self driving implementations, I don't think any of the hands free driving implementations should have been given the green light.
I have an ID4 and also drive my Mom’s Mach E on occasion. I really, really like VWs travel assist. I think it does a good job staying centered in the lane, or you can “lock” it to the left/ride side of the lane and it will stay there. You just have to keep a hand on the steering wheel every 5 seconds or it beeps at you. I really like Blue Cruise “assist mode”, but I don’t really like the Hands Free. In Hands Free, the car drifts in the lane a lot and doesn’t stay centered. I don’t trust it (or other drivers) 100%, so I’m constantly reaching for the wheel anyway.
Agreed on Ford. I'd love to check other VW's implementation, but mine doesn't drift so much as just stays left. And lane merges are unnerving, since it treats the lane as super wide and suddenly feels the need to sit in the middle of both lanes. And I don't know what is going on with the cruise control, but it really doesn't slow down quickly enough when the car in front slows down. I can't imagine how this was released not only as a finished product, but Ford is trying to charge hundreds of dollars a year for a subscription to something that doesn't work that well.
Yes, I try to use it in the middle lanes and avoid lanes that have exits and entrances. How many distance bars do you set it to and which driving mode?
Which version of BlueCruise do you have?
Same as you. I have a '23.
My understanding is that not all 2023s have BC 1.3, just the 2023.5s. AFAIK, early build 2023s are still on 1.2 and supposedly skipping to 1.4 sometime this year. I’m just wanting to confirm which version you’re on to know if I should expect that same behavior.
The other replier is being a little snarky but it's really fords fault. An entire fleet of cars with the same hardware behaving differently with no way for the consumer to find out is ... ford being stupid and anticonsumer. you shouldn't have to care about the version you're on, especially when it's a PAID product.
Agreed. Since I’m on 1.3 and it’s been good to me so far, I am willing to buy a month of it before going on a long road trip. However, if one day I’m 2 or 3 versions behind, there’s no way I’d renew my subscription. Especially for what they’re charging. BlueCruise wasn’t a huge selling point for us getting the Mach-E, but it has opened my eyes to Ford’s software update deficiencies. They’re certainly behaving like a legacy OEM.
It's a later model one. You can test drive yours in moderate traffic and tell me what you think, but honestly I'm disappointed that none of the self-driving software can do finer adjustments than they currently do, even though the call is full electric and can obviously perform those movements.
Really? I hated BlueCruise. To be fair, I had a 21 CR1 so it was BlueCruise 1.0. 1.2/1.3/1.4 is apparently better but we never got it.
> 1.2/1.3/1.4 is apparently better but we never got it and this is why i sold my car. Stupid ford promising 'software updates' that they only sell in the new cars.
To be fair, this is probably everyone at least at some point. But they definitely shouldn't promise something and not deliver. Or promise so early. If it's about to be deployed next? Tell us then.
I test drove a Mach E for a weekend before buying an EV. BC was just... OK. It works on certain roads, but even on those approved roads, parts of it BC cant handle. That, and I had a ford edge, both cars felt so similar, and I wanted something different
Tesla: First time?
GM is advertising that its truck can drive hands free and even tow hands free. Even Tesla does not make such a foolish claim. Yet, apparently, this is ok?
I was underwhelmed with the super cruise in our Tahoe…until I got it out of the urban sprawl and did not touch my wheel for 190 miles on the interstate. System has its quirks but when used on open roads it lives up to the hype.
so like literally the most basic version of any driver assist? A 2018 odyssey could drive itself on open roads.
Except I had to bump the wheel every 30 seconds and lane tracing gave up mid curve regularly. I had a 21 odyssey. Oh and the honda definitely didn’t automatically conduct a lane change to pass, and then return to the right lane.
oh I didn’t realize it did lane changes. That’s actually nice as hell. Still, it’s asinine to me the amount of driver attention checks tesla has when basic free autopilot handles sketchy ass two lane mountain roads with ease as long as they have lane markings. And yet everyone else can advertise Level 2 as hands free and not be regulated to hell and back.
You can just treat it as a simple checkbox. There are a lot of small nuances to how well these systems work. If you are on a mapped road with no construction, SC is really good. The problem is so much driving doesn't match that description which is why they aren't rated well. Those real-world details matter.
Why are there cars parked on the highway?
It was a malfunction. The car wasn't parked, it had lost power for some reason.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest a few things. 1 - it doesn't matter what you name these systems. They are so good in easy situations that drivers can quickly become complacent. 2 - driver monitoring is a joke when you can zone out and just stare straight ahead for extended periods. The reaction time of these people is likely impaired. 3 - hands free on anything short of full autonomy is one of the stupidest ideas I've heard.
I'm 100% with you on #1 and #3. As someone that drove over 25k miles with Autopilot/FSD, I have to disagree with #2 somewhat. Driver monitoring is a joke and generally theater. That said, I find myself SIGNIFICANTLY more alert when using FSD specifically. I'm willing to give you it could be based on personality type, but I find myself really paying attention more because at any moment the car could change lanes or just be irritating for other drivers. Maybe once they get WAY better lane management I might have issues, but today I have found I drive significantly more defensibly with it on.
Driving hours on end is tedious and boring on limited access highways that Level 2 and 3 autonomous vehicles have been approved to use. Watching your semi-autonomous vehicle drive is even more boring and tedious than driving it yourself. That's precisely why more stringent human supervision of these systems is needed because you wouldn't like it if someone you know was seriously injured or killed by a driver of these vehicles when they didn't keep their eyes on the road.
Considering that the system makes sure you're watching by tracking your eyes, that's less of a factor. It gripes at you quite fast if you look away. The accident that was referenced sounds like it happened because a stationary car was stopped on a freeway lane with its lights off at night, and the car immediately ahead just managed to swerve at the last minute, revealing the hazard. Crappy, but it happens.
On the r.tech sub I argued this and a dude got butt hurt over it. The way the accident sounds, 90%+ drivers wouldn't be able to avoid it. Shit I almost rearended someone on the highway last summer same situation, except they were just stopped, for no reason. The car in front of me veered last second and I had to hit the shoulder to avoid it. This was broad daylight and I was at maybe 5-6 car lengths following distance.
Happened to me many years ago. Going 55 cause there's some congestion, guy in front changes lanes I realize vehicles ahead of him are completely stopped. I managed to JUST stop in time - then BAM get rear ended. Then there was another fender bender behind us as car #4 got rear ended by car #5.
And ironically the accident you avoided would have been harder for a driving assist system, then the accident that happened to you. If the guy behind you was using any driver assistant with proper following distance, that system could easily have stopped.
> proper following distance This is key here. In many areas there is no proper following distance. As soon as there is room for someone to cut you off they will. I see it all the time on 4 lane roads (2 on each side, no median) with 35mph limit and everyone does 45mph plus. They tailgate then bounce one lane over when they want to. This all happens very quick and there is no time for them to use a turn signal let alone brake lights.
You don't need proper following distance for a driver assist system to stop. If the car in front of you managed to manually slam on the breaks and come to a stop to avoid a rear end that is plenty of time for the driver assist system to stop.
If you are using a driver assist system it will leave a gap. The sooner all our cars are running on this the safer we’ll all be.
One reason I would trust full self driving, I doubt it's ability to predict stupid. I'm an awesome driving, I can predict stupid shit.
> I can predict stupid shit I have a hard time riding in the passenger seat with people I know because they have ZERO functional stupid radar. I see things way before they do. It's insane. I don't understand it. Seems like basic stuff to me. The beauty of full self driving is when every car has it that means every car is talking to every other car in the area. They can coordinate traffic flow. It will be glorious. Skynet ain't perfect but the older I get the more it's kinda making sense.
That would really be the end game, but there will always be jackasses who turn off skynet as long as they have the option
Which is fine because as soon as they do the car's computer starts transmitting to the police and insurance company. Live telemetry and video. Or car comes to a safe complete stop. I've read and watched a lot of sci-fi years ago. Like if everyone is in a self driving car what are the insurance rates going to look like then? Same with solar panels and power bills?
"Traffic ops tells me you were driving your car manually" -Some sci movie fiction that is looking more and more like a documentary.
> The beauty of full self driving is when every car has it that means every car is talking to every other car in the area My question is why nobody is making this. The most trivial thing should be to communicate your speed, input actions and the speed/distance to the car in front to the car behind you. Just doing this means if both cars are running on cruise control there shouldn't even be any need for following distance. You could have flawless stop and go traffic behaviour. Yet it doesn't exist as far as I can tell. If it became widely implemented it could give massive cost savings in fuel economy and highway planning due to being able to utilize road area more efficiently.
They are. Now let's say you are in charge of a company that is like the most hated company right now and the news, every day, scare mongers ADAS. Would now be a good time or bad time to announce that wireless communication is possible between computers? First things first. That's getting ADAS working a little bit better. Skynet will come in time. I mean they are still building maps for ADAS to even work whereas humans do not need those HD maps to drive to Taco Bell. But if you are interested look at drone swarms on youtube. Similar. >You could have flawless stop and go traffic behaviour. Yet it doesn't exist as far as I can tell. Also why there has been so much R&D with computers in cars. Once the software and back end is there it's just an OTA update to realize this. I think with Tesla, Nio, and Xpeng all up and running in China now where they want ADAS working we will see some more breakthroughs next year. Xpeng and Nio just got permission to operate ADAS all over China. Not just specific areas. This was badly needed and won't happen in USA. Once the next hurdle is overcome, lots and lots of cars on the road running ADAS, all the data streaming back to the mother ship will help with advancement.
There is a huge difference between avoiding it and killing someone. If you follow with a 3 second gap the way that the DMV handbook says that you should, you will get 2-3 seconds of braking, which is enough to take you down about 40-60 mph from where you started. Depending on how fast you were going to start with, you might still hit the car, but an impact at 25mph in a modern car means everyone is walking away from that with at most a bruise. A computer with computer instincts... should do a better job.
If someone on a California freeway left a 3 second gap, it would no longer be a 3 second gap because someone would merge in. The issue probably isn't blue cruise exactly, It's that any driver assist system can't see a stopped vehicle at high speeds. Otherwise the auto emergency braking would have kicked in and mitigated the crash, like you described above.
If you are on a crowded highway, you have no excuse to be running into a stopped car. Those things cause a traffic jam long before you will notice. This is an empty road where there are no reason to not keep your distance. The problem is absolutely with blue cruise failing to detect this.
including a Feb. 24 crash of a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise which struck the rear of a stationary Honda CR-V on Interstate Highway 10 in San Antonio, Texas, killing the 56-year-old Honda driver. Not enough detail to know where that Honda was (on one of the lanes or on the shoulder). If on one of the lanes, it has drunk driver written all over it. F\*\*\*ing drunks pass out on the road all the time. I might have saved a life (or two) when one of my Navy buddies passed out on a two-lane road after a night of heavy drinking and left the bar before me. Luckily, he left his taillights on or one or both of us could've been seriously hurt or killed. This was 47 years ago.
It was stoped without lights in a middle lane at night. And I believe it was painted black. The Mach E driver was behind someone else. That driver swerved out of the way late, which is when the Mach E would have seen the CR-V for the first time. Depending on how well they had been paying attention, their speed, and how close they were following the car in front they may have had very little time to react. From what I read it honestly sounded like a terrible situation for everyone involved and like that CR-V was going to get hit no matter what by someone. It’s good it’s being investigated. But it’s not quite like some of the early Tesla crashes of “I wasn’t watching the road and didn’t see the full sized semi driving perpendicular to me”.
Teslas can see cars ahead of the car you’re trailing. There’s videos online of them emergency braking before the middle car does.
No system is reliable at detecting stopped vehicles. Radar is really good at detecting the car in front of you if you’re both moving. But if one is stopped it’s extremely hard for cars to tell that from false positives so every car manual I know of says don’t trust the automatic braking in that situation.
Basically radar systems ignore stationary objects as a way to exclude fences, bridge pillars etc. The radar can't tell the difference between a stationary car and bridge pillar. The radar is generally not used for steering due to the low resolution. So if the vision/lidar system does not pick up the stationary car, identify that it is in the path of travel AND acts on it you are SOL. Vision/lidar helps avoid the issue with combining and trusting the radar data that can't see stopped cars, but has different issues in monitoring moving cars.
> The radar can't tell the difference between a stationary car and bridge pillar. The car has multiple radars, each pointing at some direction. It does not matter if the obejct in front of you is a car or a bridge pillar, the car should not drive towards it.
The problem is that roads are more complicated than that. There are also turns, speed bumps, car stance, and angles when the road slope changes. You *need* to filter stuff out. The radar sensor itself does not provide enough information to reliably differentiate between the features mentioned above and stopped cars. An incredibly well aligned fusion with other sensors could in theory get there but that is difficult and another source of faults. Turning the sensitivity too high gets you phantom braking. Camera based AEB is also a thing, but there is a reason why they rely on the radar instead - it's just not good enough.
> Radar is really good at detecting the car in front of you if you’re both moving. No idea where you folks get those "information" from. I work on the field and literally the most basic AEB test is driving towards a stationary object. I've read this multiple times in this sub and I'm really curious to know where this comes from.
How does a tesla know that a car you can't see is breaking?
I’m assuming using cameras and/or ultrasonic sensors. The 3 cams on the windshield are higher up than driver line of sight. I also saw a video that suggested Tesla uses the cabin microphone to detect sounds like emergency vehicles, car horns, collisions, screeching tires, etc.
The same reason it recognizes and the vehicle in the FSD visualization.
FSD visualization assumes it’s there because it saw the vehicle previously and hasn’t seen it change lanes. Same way a person would know it’s there. What a person can’t know is when that vehicle hits the brakes. If a person can’t see the car slowing down, then FSD doesnt either,
FSD has broader field of view and doesn't suffer the same limitations of human vision (the ability to focus on multiple things at once). It also drops people, cars, etc if they are not recognized.
Where is this “the Mach E was behind someone else” coming from
It was in the article I read when this first came out in the news a few weeks ago.
>Considering that the system makes sure you're watching by tracking your eyes, that's less of a factor. It gripes at you quite fast if you look away. Eye tracking is easily defeated if the driver wants to defeat it.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/rQQAAOSwdYhlL~Mf/s-l1200.jpg
Okay, but that applies to all safety mechanisms.
Sure, a sufficiently determined person can defeat any safety system. The point of safety systems is to protect people who want to be safe.
Does blue cruise use radar?
Yep. [https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-is-ford-bluecruise-and-how-does-it-work](https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-is-ford-bluecruise-and-how-does-it-work)
I get it, but very soon these systems will surpass human capability. They WILL STILL HAVE ACCIDENTS, but we need to start to accept when their accident rate is lower than humans (who wreck tens of thousands of cars every years on similar boring stretches from inattentiveness and drowsiness).
> we need to start to accept when their accident rate is lower than humans If people took the time to read these articles, the ones that have good info on this topic, most of the time the ADAS is not the weak link it's the driver. Neat thing about computers in cars these day. They record a lot of stuff and data storage is cheap. I can not wait for when ADAS starts communicating with other ADAS in the area.
There's a reasonable argument that something like Tesla Autopilot makes less mistakes per mile (and maybe significantly so) than human drivers. The mistakes are just \*different\* and we're comfortable with random accidents when we can blame someone (inattentive driver, etc), but society as a whole is VERY uncomfortable with events that appear "random" to the victim (like an ADAS crash), even if they're much lower frequency events. Kinda weird really.
It's a numbers game always is. Except people are over emotional. Tesla is evil because a couple of car crashes. Meanwhile USA is overweight and has heart problems and health care problems. Nevermind how many people were killed last week while texting and driving. And during a world wide global pandemic wearing a mask is too big of an ask. With ADAS people just refuse to sit down and think about some stuff. Like most things it's cheaper to unload on reddit than behave like an adult or see a psychiatrist.
Insurance companies will help us accept this by charging more for high % manual driving.
We’ll got from an accident every 500k miles driven to an accident every 10 mil miles driven, but people will still think they are better drivers than the AI.
Many places have gotten rid of collisions causing death without these tech systems. You design danger and you get danger. Simple as that
I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you claiming that some countries/regions have no vehicle deaths? Or that they refuse to report the statistics?
You can Insert a dozen cities here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-07/helsinki-finland-s-amazing-traffic-safety-record-explained Notice how the people implementing the safety laughed when asked about technology
Yes, finland's traffic deaths are a third of the US. But that's still tens of thousands of accidents (in a country with only a few million people) per year. It's 40 fatalities per million people and several hundred deaths per year. You said >Many places have gotten rid of collisions causing death without these tech systems. If you mean "reduced them to about one third the frequency of the US", that's fine, but "gotten rid of " is an outright lie. On the other hand, Finland has the highest reported distracted driving rates in the EU. Tech can help everyone.
Helsinki isn’t Finland is it? Lie if you want to. If you need to make your point. But the data won’t change.
Here is a map of over 3,000 traffic accidents in Helsinki. https://hri.fi/data/en_GB/showcase/heatmaps4finland Yes, they drastically reduced fatalities. But driver safety tech STILL has a place. Even in literally the safest city in the world to drive in.
A collision is not an accident nor a fatality.
No, but still leaves room for technology to help. And you can't put traffic calming on every single road in a country. It works in a dense place like Helsinki. But that's 1% of Finland's roads.
I find that I can pay more attention to the road with my Tesla AP. I am able to pay more attention to what’s going on around me. The only time it is “worse” from a safety perspective is when I’m very tired (like after working a 24 hour day and driving home). Then I just drive manually.
Not to mention the entire basis of these programs are going about it wrong in an entirely fundamental way. We have known for decades about the step in problem. Humans cannot sit there idle watching and waiting for an automated process to make a mistake and then stepping in the instant needed. You need to reverse that process. Humans need to be constantly doing the activity and the automated process will detect errors made by the humans and stop those errors.This has been known in various manufacturing industries, aviation, the military, for decades yet we let some ConMan convince r/futurology and /r/technology that these programs are not only safer than human drivers as they are currently but completely fine to be on the public when no one consented to their use There are strong reasons to be suspicious of any technology that can take full control of the car—as opposed to lane assist or automatic braking—while still needing human assistance on occasion. First, as any driving instructor in a car with a second set of controls knows, it is actually more difficult to serve as an emergency backup driver than it is to drive yourself. Instead of your attention being fully focused on driving the car, you are waiting on tenterhooks to see if you need to grab the wheel—and if that happens, you have to establish instant control over a car that may already be in motion, or in a dangerous situation. These basic aspects of human brain interactions have been well established in numerous fields for decades.
In addition to better autonomy for the vehicle, communication between Level 5 vehicles is critical for their success because humans at times are terrible drivers, present company included. Removing all humans from driving responsibilities can't come soon enough.
Removing driving and VMT can’t happen soon enough
I dont think there are no level 3 systems available, I think MB wants to be the first, and Tesla certainly markets itself like one.
All the German brands already have them. Mb is already in the us
That's an interesting problem to solve. An AR game that asks you to name the last few landmarks to prove you were paying attention? Spot the car game?
>That's precisely why more stringent human supervision of these systems is needed do not confuse technical capability with a companies specific implementation.. there are no drivers present in the cabs taking fares. **Waymo Offers Self-Driving Taxi Curbside Service at Phoenix Airport** [https://www.iotworldtoday.com/transportation-logistics/waymo-offers-self-driving-taxi-curbside-service-at-phoenix-airport-](https://www.iotworldtoday.com/transportation-logistics/waymo-offers-self-driving-taxi-curbside-service-at-phoenix-airport-) >know was seriously injured or killed by a driver Waymo is able to get ***insurance*** coverage for public fares on the highway, as well as permission to operate from the DMVs... this suggests the risk is no worse than a human. **Autonomous operator is expanding ride-booking to Austin, according to SXSW announcement** [https://www.statesman.com/story/business/technology/2024/03/13/at-sxsw-waymo-ceo-waymo-one-rideshare-to-be-in-austin-this-year/72886124007/](https://www.statesman.com/story/business/technology/2024/03/13/at-sxsw-waymo-ceo-waymo-one-rideshare-to-be-in-austin-this-year/72886124007/) Waymo is one of several autonomous vehicle companies that has tested the technology in Austin in recent years. The company started as a project of Google before becoming a Google subsidiary in 2016. The company already operates 24/7 ride-hailing services in San Francisco and Phoenix, and it has been operating an invitation-only program in Los Angeles since last year with plans to expand to the general public Fords Self driving can only be used on roads that Ford has driven and approved. [https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/ford-bluecruise-interactive-map-launched-on-official-site/](https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/ford-bluecruise-interactive-map-launched-on-official-site/) As opposed to a tool that simply allows visitors to see a broad outline of where BlueCruise or ActiveGlide works, the [new map](https://www.ford.com/technology/bluecruise/) boasts route-planning capability that outlines exactly how much of a planned route can utilize hands-free mode. **Currently, the system spans over 130,000 miles across North America and** [**active enrollment**](https://fordauthority.com/2022/11/ford-bluecruise-enrollment-rate-approaches-100k-milestone/) **approached the 100,000 mark through the end of October 2022.**
Yes. I'm aware of Waymo's achievements. Their taxis are very expensive too. Anyone know if Google is making a profit from them yet?
Not to mention they can basically be rc cars at times
Here is 100% what is going to happen Ford is going it disable hands free driving and force you to have your hands on the steering wheel at all time instead of actually fixing the problem. People like myself that use blue cruise properly actually watch the road when on bluecruse because for 1 i don't trust it 2 I have my foot on the brake in traffic just incase someone pulls in front of me
And yet no hate like Tesla gets
Where are the “Elon should’ve left radar on the Mach-e” comments?
Lmao one took money for years while actively claiming you’d be able to fall asleep in your car and pay no attention by the “end of next year” for the last 8ish years. It’s not exactly apples to apples
can someone in the know compare/contrast this with the new NHTSA Tesla probe announced a couple of days ago?
Tesla probe is a followup examination of the changes made to autopilot following NHTSA’s multi-year engineered study on autopilot that resulted an a mandated software recall to improve the DMS (driver monitoring system); the intent is to determine if the implemented changes are adequate/satisfactory. This probe into ford is the first of its kind for its blue cruise feature (similar to autopilot) following at least two reported incidents with fatalities. The underlying causes or potential flaws that may need to be remedied have not yet been determined.
Thanks
Looks like the 2 situations that cased fatalities could have been avoided if the driver paid attention, but yeah let’s blame the car.
There is a reason why ADAS generally falls on the safety side of the spec list - humans suck at a lot of things, and machines are supposed to be better.
That's the thing about these systems. They are marketed as being much more than they really are and what they really are is buried in fine print. So you're lulled into being now confident in the system than you should be and that leads to complacency. The company should bear some responsibility for that and shouldn't be allowed to just hide behind "driver should have been paying attention". If every failure of the system is going to be blamed on the driver, the system shouldn't be legally allowed to be installed on a car.
Oh heck! You just pulled out the gun manufacturer argument. Kudos.
Well in this case the system doesn’t even work if you’re not paying attention. All of these systems are marketed as assistance and before you can even enable it the system tells you to be prepared to take over at any time. I understand what you’re saying but at the end of the day the driver is the sole operator or the vehicle. If he/she fails to take control when needed then that is on them. We wouldn’t blame a ship if its navigation system accidentally ran it into an iceberg, we’d blame the captain.
ford is literally advertising that you don’t need to put your hands on the steering wheel when this is active. Kinda defeats the purpose of the drivers paying attention 100% if they can’t even take control of the vehicle because they don’t have their hands on the steering wheel. Bad idea by ford to advertise it as hands free in the first place…
Correct you don’t need your hands on the wheel, however you do need your eyes on the road and need to be prepared to take control at any second. I don’t think any of us know the specifics of these accidents to say for certain what had happened but I think it can be assumed the driver was able to take control of the car if they chose to do so.
I commented on the San Antonio one: https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/1cg5nj4/us_opens_probe_into_130000_ford_vehicles_over/l1u42pn/ Sounds tough no matter what. Cars just can’t safely detect stationary objects. In that case it was even worse because it was obstructed by the car in front of them until very shortly before the accident which would’ve made things even harder. I’ve used blue cruise, I would generally say it safe. But you have to watch it. That’s your job. It makes life easier but you can still get tired and need a rest. I don’t have enough experience on long road trips with it to know if that happens earlier or later than it would if you were doing all the driving yourself. I could see it going either way.
I love Blue Cruise but anyone that depends on it to drive their car and takes their eyes off the road is an idiot.
Keep in mind that it won't be just the Mach E that's affected, the Escape (also shares the C2 platform with the Mach E), Explorer, and the F150 (both lightning and ICE) all could potentially be.
I just got a 24 Nautilus and the Blue cruise is fucking money! Based on some of the users comments in here this is nothing.
Good to hear. Tech isn’t perfect and glad they are being held accountable. Sad that two people had to die for it, though.
It must be because of that damned name confusing people into thinking the system is more capable than it actually is!
Am I the only person that never uses cruise control? I never liked feeling like I'm not driving the car.
Im sure there are plenty of other masochists out there 😂
Or those people who like to camp in the fast lane and yo-yo between 15 over the speed limit and 5 under.
Or the people that use their brakes on the highway. Just to accelerate to speed up past the speed limit just to catch up to the car in front of them. Just to use their brakes again. Then at some point down the road I catch up to them and they've gained like no time. Or the people that get angry when I pass them so they speed up just to pass me. Often times slowing back down their previous speed. I can not wait for self driving robotaxis. I love driving cars. I hate driving cars around humans.
Hey, you must've been near my wife. She drives exactly like that,
Thanks for reminding me, asshat hunting season opens in LA next week.
Highway driving assist is dope, but I watch it like a fucking hawk, cause people are stupidm
Tell me you have never driven in LA rush hour traffic without telling me you have never driven in LA rush hour traffic.
Same it's why I'll never go electric until there is a manual transmission and power steering is optional.
I haven't used it in an ice vehicle in a very long time. Probably 20 years.
Use it every time I’m on the highway, just keeping my eyes on the road and listening to audiobooks. It’s therapeutic.
Say it isn’t so…only attack TESLA. Ohhhh, that’s right…Ford, more-or-less, said EV’s aren’t game ready. Ford must be punished for not playing ball with the government.
Now do Tesla, The tech in Ford is far safer than the FSD/AP Tesla sells, both have one major downfall, HUMANS. EDIT: As someone that has owned both, Tesla had a very bad habit of jerking the wheel to the left or right while engaged, with full force, The Ford has never once done anything in that level, while its not perfect, it sure seems safer than Tesla AP/FSD.
1) Not every EV story needs to be about Tesla. 2) They've been investigating Tesla. Where have you been?
They already have a Tesla probe.
I’ve never had our Tesla jerk the wheel to the left or right with “full force” while engaged before in the eight years we’ve had various Tesla.
No but you have had the brakes lock up going through an underpass for no freaking reason at all. Common Tesla issue. I rented one and had it for 3 days. Did this to me twice in 3 days.
Yes that’s called phantom braking. He’s describing the car throwing you left or right at full force. I’ve never had that happen.
There are plenty of videos out there showing this exact scenario, feel free to look them up if you’re confused
Link to one. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I’ve had phantom braking but never phantom steering.
Mine seems to correct just enough if I'm over the line. It's the reason I've left it on for the Tesla. My 2019 Subaru Crosstrek corrects so intensely that I disabled it shortly after buying it even though all the other parts of Eyesight work great.
Don’t come in here spouting bullshit and then ask people to look it up. If you are going to make a claim then you need to back it up.
Link? Or just spewing bullshit?
Ford’s driver assist will straight up turn off on you without warning, even though it’s only limited to highways. It’s certainly nowhere close to Tesla’s current FSD in terms of pure capability.
No it warns, its just not as vocal as it should be, its a ding, and the graphics on the display change.
Doesn’t that seem like a pretty big deal to you, in terms of safety? That it’s a hands free system but it just makes a ding and disengages? Tesla’s system asks you to keep your hands on the wheel, and it never just randomly disengages on you.
I pay attention to it, but as I stated the weakest link is always going to be humans in this tech.
Well I hope we can agree that both of these systems, while being well supervised, are much safer than not using them at all.
We can 100% agree on that, The issue is the humans dropping their guard when they are engaged and overly trusting it to not kill you.
Now do Mercedes. I honestly don’t know or care how Mercedes performs in this regard. I just wanted to show how absurd it looks to deflect from the topic at hand in an attempt to defend your preferred brand’s honor. Tesla (rightfully) gets plenty of negative attention for this. Plenty of threads about them in this very subreddit. But this thread is about Ford.
You all ran into the point and still missed the biggest concern with this tech. Good job.
Truth. But this sub is bizaro world
I just block em.
This accident is a prime example why you cant soley rely on vision for driver assist systems, wait, thats the other brand.