- We suck at driving.
Seriously, it's bad.
The latest estimate back
in 2017 from the NHTSA
shows that about 37 thousand people
per yer in the United
States die from a car crash.
That's about one person every 14 minutes,
or about the length of one of my videos.
And worldwide, that number
is over 1.2 million.
94% of serious crashes like
this are due to human error.
Alcohol accounts for
almost 11 thousand of them,
speeding almost 10 thousand,
and distracted driving,
surprisingly only three thousand.
So, the question is as cars
become more self aware,
and become more capable
of driving on their own,
and we continue to become
even more distracted
with things like social media,
and our phones becoming
more and more of a nuisance,
can these two converge,
and can things like Tesla
Autopilot really save us?
And what would that mean if they could?
Let's dive in.
(smooth music)
In 2013, the use of a
handheld device while driving
started to rise sharply.
The latest estimates as of 2017
show a total of 7% of people
manipulating their devices while driving.
Not good, by any way you look at it.
This pattern follows a similar rise
in both mobile device usage,
and social network adoption.
And of course, this trend
isn't going to stop.
eMarketer estimates that by
2021, U.S. adults over 18
will be spending almost four
hours a day on their phones.
Think about that, four hours a day.
If you want more time in your day,
you don't need to wake up 5:30 a.m.
Just put the phone down for a little bit,
and there ya go, you got more time.
Imagine that.
So, we're bad at driving.
Ever since the beginning,
we've been bad at driving,
and phones are becoming
more and more of a problem.
But the studies that actually
look at cellphone usage
in cars are kind of conflicting.
On one hand, talking and
using it up to your ear
aren't really that conclusive
that it's a bad thing.
However, any time you take
your eyes off the road,
you are twice as likely
to get into an accident.
So, that could be checking your Instagram,
or something like that,
or eating a hamburger,
or picking something up,
or turning around to take
care of your screaming child.
Not that I've ever done
that, you know, or anything.
But you get the point that distractions
are actually nothing new.
So, how is it that the rate
of traffic related deaths
has dropped by over 2/3
in the recent decades?
What it comes down to is the tech in cars
just making them a lot safer.
From lines on the road, to seat belts,
car tech has been improving
ever since cars first hit the road.
Some of the original ideas
were a little harebrained, we'll call 'em,
but we've learned what's worked,
and a lot of the things
that are in cars now
are all designed to make them a lot safer.
Specifically, a good example
of this is the seatbelt.
Speaking of the seatbelt, it is hands down
the dollar for dollar for
winner on saving lives.
But when they first came out,
car companies really didn't
want to install them,
and the adoption rate was really low.
A big reason was because
if you had something
like a safety harness in your car,
it implied that the cars
themselves were not safe,
which is true.
And since then, we've had
countless improvements,
from warnings about air
pressure in your tires,
to airbags themselves, to
even some of the craziest,
most advanced things that
we've ever seen in cars
that Tesla is offering today.
So, if you fast forward
along this path of cars
getting more advanced,
and making driving easier,
causing less crashes,
eventually you reach the
case of full self driving.
Now, there are no cars on the road today
that are actually full self driving.
However, Tesla offers
the most advanced system
that you can purchase.
I happen to have one of these Teslas,
so I thought it made sense
for us to go take one for a drive,
and see what it can really do.
Let's go.
(smooth music)
So, Navigate On Autopilot is a system
that really takes the sense
of full self driving
capabilities into reality.
It's really what brings it home,
and there are lots of
settings that you can choose
when it comes to how you want to do that.
Notably, the Speed Based Lane Changes,
you can go from Disabled, to Mad Max mode,
which is great for southern
California, specifically L.A.,
and the idea there is that if you're stuck
behind slower traffic,
and maybe you're going way
slower than the freeway is,
it'll automatically go around them,
and find the fastest route possible
between all the cars on the road.
Now, you can have it
confirm this lane change
by tapping on the steering
wheel, or on the stock,
or you can have it disabled
to where it'll automatically do it.
And that's kinda crazy
if you think about it.
The car will navigate you,
go on and off from freeway to freeway,
merge, and even go around traffic
without really any input
from you whatsoever.
Now, there are ways to have notifications,
and I have those turned on for this demo,
but all told, the Navigate
On Autopilot system
is as close to full self driving
as anything on the road today.
Now, the other big feature
built in here to Teslas
that I found to be most useful
when it comes to avoiding accidents
is the Forward Collision Warning.
And the idea here is
that as you're driving,
the cars in front of
you, way in front of you,
two, three cars in front of you may stop
without you even noticing.
Now, you could be looking ahead,
everything appears to be fine,
or let's say you're checking your phone,
which I hope you're not doing,
or you're just looking off
at something on the road.
It doesn't matter.
There are so many things and
ways you could be distracted.
This system will use
its forward facing radar
to give you a really big
visible and audible warning,
and we'll test that here in a minute,
to let you know you need to
stop, you need to take control.
There also is an automatic
emergency braking system
built in, but that really
is the last resort.
And if you're going too fast,
that isn't gonna have enough
time to really stop you.
So, all told,
these are the two most
important features, I think,
when it comes to safety on
the road today in a Tesla.
All in all, Teslas have
a ton of safety features,
which is again,
why they've achieved the safest ratings
of the NHTSA's testing of any car ever.
But now, it's time to get it on the road,
and see what it can do.
Of course, don't forget your seatbelt.
Let's go.
(smooth music)
So, we're just about there.
The car is about to
put us in the off-ramp,
and then relinquish control to me.
So, you can see here, it's
gonna give me a little chime,
Navigate On Autopilot ending,
and taking us directly into the route,
and now, it still is making the turn,
and I'm gonna disable autopilot,
'cause we made our journey.
(beeping)
There it is.
So, that was the Forward
Collision Avoidance,
where it detected the car
in front of me had stopped,
yet I was still accelerating,
I was still going forward
at the normal pace,
and it gave me a visible
warning on the screen,
and as you heard, an audible one.
That to me, personally,
I've actually encountered multiple times,
and it's super helpful.
So, I think that there's a
lot built into these cars
to help prevent you from actually
getting into an accident.
So, Tesla is making huge strides here,
but they're not quite there yet.
The question is will they
actually be the first ones
to deliver a self driving
car to the public?
Well, as you may have guessed,
it comes down to the data.
You didn't guess that?
We should know, you know,
that's my thing, that's, okay.
What it really means is
that whoever has the data
is the one that's gonna
be able to deliver this,
and if you don't believe me,
here is my good friend,
and PhD of Computer Vision,
which is the technology,
the machine learning,
AI, kind of technology
that actually powers
how Tesla is approaching
self driving cars.
His name is Satya Mallick,
and I interviewed him awhile
ago about this exact question.
- The biggest thing that you need is data,
lots and lots of data.
And that's where the challenge is.
You know, if you look at the field of AI,
you can get the best architecture,
the newer network architecture,
they are writing papers about it.
Not only are they writing,
they are sharing their implementation.
Once a new architecture comes in,
I can try it out within an hour.
So, it's all free.
Everything is available.
Now, the thing is, why would they do that?
What's the catch, you're thinking.
The catch is that you will
never have as much data
as they have.
The person who has the biggest data set
is ultimately going to win.
- So, the way these
systems work in these cars,
is that they learn from
their past experiences,
just like you do, just like I do,
just like most living things do.
They have a collection of
data, and based on that data,
they try to predict what
is gonna happen next.
So, that's the concept
of machine learning.
That's exactly how this works.
In fact, if you could fast forward
maybe 15, 20 years into the future,
and pull back, and go get
the exact perfect algorithm
for self driving cars, and
bring it back to today,
we wouldn't have self
driving cars overnight.
You would still need all of the
data for that thing to work.
So, collecting the data of self
driving, or autonomous miles
is the most important thing
to get us to that point,
of where we can really trust and rely
on these cars to drive themselves.
So, who's ahead in the
data collection game
for autonomous miles?
Yep, it's Tesla, of course.
From their over 500 thousand
cars already on the road,
Tesla has over one
billion autonomous miles
in their database, and are
adding millions each week.
Compare that to the next
closest competitor Waymo,
and they're around 13
million of the last count,
adding around 25 thousand miles per day.
So, in a week,
Tesla's likely able to
log more autonomous miles
than the rest of the industry
does in an entire year.
Now, we don't have
official numbers on that,
but that's the scale of
difference we're talking about
when it comes to who's ahead in this game
of collecting autonomous miles,
'cause as you saw Satya tell us,
that is what's gonna make the difference,
and get us to that point
of self driving cars
becoming a reality.
So, when it comes down to it,
a computer driven car,
with all of the data,
and everything it needs
to make good decisions
is gonna be much safer than a human.
That's really not even an
argument at this point.
It's a foregone conclusion.
We're just not quite there yet.
And when that happens,
estimates from the NHTSA show
that it will save the U.S. economy alone
around $242 billion.
That was a couple years
ago when they put that out.
So, that is a massive amount
of money that will be saved
by not having accidents
themselves, and the insurance,
and the lawsuits, and the
tow trucks, and the police,
and all the things that
just directly are caused
by these crashes.
And the larger estimate
of the productivity loss
from all the people that
die in these crashes
is closer to $900 billion.
So, we're talking about
a massive, massive boom
to the U.S. economy here, and
worldwide for that matter.
I don't have the numbers, obviously.
The world is a big place.
But you can see here that,
I mean, $250 billion,
which is close to what the estimate
is for the U.S. in direct cost,
that's almost half of the defense budget
for the entire United States.
And as you can imagine, the United States
spends a ton of money on defense.
So, this technology could and
will change our lives forever.
All we really should be
focusing on right now
is how soon, and what can we
do to help it get here faster?
So, thanks for watching.
I'm really curious what you
guys have to say about this.
Is there something else
that's missing here?
Does someone else have a better thing?
I haven't seen it, I haven't
found it, but I'm human,
and like all humans, especially
those that are driving,
we all make mistakes.
So, let me know what you guys think
in the comments down
below, and don't forget,
when you free the data,
your mind will follow.
I'll see ya guys back
here in the next one.
(smooth music)
Hey, thanks for watching the video.
I hope you got something out of it.
Now, if you want to dive
a little bit deeper,
become a part of the
Teslanomics community,
consider joining us on Patreon.
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that is just the folks
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I'm on there almost daily
engaging in conversation
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are changing the world
around us for the better.
So, if you'd like to learn more,
go ahead and go to
patreon.com/teslanomics,
and I hope to see you there soon.
