Tesla says its robots are sometimes operated by humans remotely

Series of Letters sent by autonomous vehicle (AV) developers to Democratic US Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts shed the most light yet on the human side of automated vehicle operations. In documents submitted to Markey as part of an investigation into autonomous vehicle technology that were published on Tuesday, seven companies, including… Tesla, Zoox is owned by Amazonand Nuro is funded by Uber and Nvidianew details about their Remote Assistance programs.

All the companies that responded to the senator’s office say They use remote assistants—Humans are tasked with responding to self-driving vehicles when they become disoriented, stuck, or in emergency situations. Experts say these programs are an important part of any self-driving car company’s safety considerations, and they serve as support for technology that is becoming safer over the year but will continue. Continue to face new situations On the road indefinitely.

In a report also released Tuesday, Senator Markey said the new details were not enough. “Each self-driving car company has refused to disclose how often its autonomous vehicles require assistance from (remote assistants) — hiding key information from the public about the true level of autonomy of its autonomous vehicles,” he wrote. “This information is important for legislators, regulators, and the public to understand potential safety risks related to autonomous vehicles.”

Markey called on the nation’s top federal road safety regulator to look closely at self-driving car companies’ remote assistance programs and said he would soon introduce legislation responding to the “safety gaps” his investigation found.

Remotely controlled robotaxis

The responses from self-driving vehicle developers show that Tesla is, in a crucial way, an outlier in the industry. Six of the companies insisted on remote assistance employees, who work across the United States and even in the United States The case of Waymo in the PhilippinesNever drive vehicles directly. Instead, humans provide inputs that the autonomous vehicle software decides to use or ignore.

Not so for Tesla. “As a redundancy measure in rare cases… (Remote Assist Operators) are authorized to temporarily assume direct control of the vehicle as a final escalation maneuver after all other available intervention measures have been exhausted,” Karen Stickley, Tesla’s director of public policy and business development, wrote to the senator. The automaker’s remote assistant workers can “temporarily take control of the vehicle” at speeds at or below 2 mph and can remotely drive a Tesla Robotaxi at speeds of up to 10 mph if the car’s software allows it, Stickley said. “This ability enables Tesla to instantly move a vehicle that may be in a dangerous situation,” she wrote.

Tesla, which has shifted its business away from making cars And towards autonomous vehicle and robotics technologylaunched a small ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, last June. In most of the 50 or so so-called automated taxis operating today, Human safety operators Sit in the front passenger seat, ready to take charge or intervene if something goes wrong. A handful of vehicles are reportedly operating without safety operators. The automaker says its remote assistants are based in Austin and Palo Alto, California.

AV developers typically avoid direct remote control of their vehicles For several reasons. Small delays between what a remote human assistant sees and what is happening on the road in real time, even just a few hundred milliseconds, can lead to slower reaction times, a problem exacerbated by Network access time. This increases the possibility of accidents. “Your ability to drive a car without being in the car is only as stable as your Internet connection,” one self-driving car engineer told WIRED. last year.