Ford and VW invest “BIG” in self driving technology

Discussion in 'The Bench' started by scubasteve455, Jul 12, 2019.

  1. GKMoz

    GKMoz Gary / Moz

    Daniel 12: 4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

    That I presume means Spiritual and secular knowledge?
    Look how fast that knowledge has increased the last hundred years or so?
    We went from horses in the late 1890's and look at us now 120 years later ?
     
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  2. 1973gs

    1973gs Well-Known Member

    I don't think that self driving vehicles have progressed that much. The Amish can be passed out drunk in their carriages and the horse still gets them home,and they don't need a computer!
     
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  3. scubasteve455

    scubasteve455 Well-Known Member

    John Egyptians did not need Bull dozers or cranes. Aliens helped them. lol
     
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  4. scubasteve455

    scubasteve455 Well-Known Member

    If you all watched Tom Cruise movies. You would know all vehicles are self drivin. In the future. Hell they know when your ready to kill someone.
     
  5. TORQUED455

    TORQUED455 Well-Known Member

    This is an interesting topic. I own an independent auto repair shop as some of you know. A very high production body shop “found us” about 6 years ago, and we have been doing all sorts if sublet work for them, including wheel alignments, programming, diagnostics, etc. About 2 years ago, I had just caught wind of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and a little if a year ago, we starting getting calls for ADAS calibrations. I had no idea where to start. So some research led me to purchase OEM Honda and Toyota equipment, as that’s what we were getting calls for mostly. Using factory scan tools, and by watching I-CAR videos, Hunter Engineering videos, and Autel videos, things progressed quickly. Autel came out with their aftermarket system, which is their own software, calibration frame, and many targets and other equipement. I made the leap in January of this year and purchased the Autel system, mostly because I was loosing a lot of Nissan and VW/Audi calibrations to the dealers because the factory tooling was very cost prohibitive.

    Fast forward to now, and we have performed well over 100 calibrations on all sorts of vehicles from 7 area body shops. The amount of vehicles with ADAS system is growing at an exponential rate, and even very minor collisions or windshield replacements on ADAS vehicles, calibrations are necessary to insure the system is operating properly.

    Below is a Kia Lane Watch camera calibration, and a Subaru Eyesight calibration. Most of our calibrations are for forward facing radar sensors, and rear blind spot monitoring sensors, for obvious reasons (bunper cover damage).

    I am equipped for VW/Audi Night Vision calibrations, but haven’t had a call yet. I have done about 6 Nissan Around View Monitor (360 degreee Bird’s Eye view) camera calibrations, as well as many dynamic calibrations (systems using targets and reflectors are considered static calibrations). Some require both static and dynamic calibrations. Just figuring out which systems are on board which vehicles and what needs to be done is difficult enough.

    Although LiDAR is out there, I am not equipped for that yet.

    And speaking of Cadillac’s Super Cruise, I may have to draw the line there for liablity reasons. I’m sure there are some other exotic cars with similar ADAS to Super Cruise, but with the legal ramifications and with John Eagle fresh in everyone’s minds, those may have to go back to the dealer.

    Now the systems themselves are very debatable as to whether they help or not, whether they’re taking away our critical thinking skills, and if the technology really is good enough for level 5 systems (full autonomous). Supposedly the current technology is mitigating or avoiding many low speed collisions, but the high speed ones remain the same. The vehicles with ADAS systems that end up in collisions cost more to repair, but supposedly the rate of low speed collisions has gone down. D54FF735-0EDF-4DFA-8410-17F764606BCF.jpeg 903580AB-FE04-49AC-A6BD-BCEF643AF5C9.jpeg
     
  6. bostoncat68

    bostoncat68 Platinum Level Contributor

    Bob thanks for explaining this. Very interesting and I applaud you for investing, this had to be a chunk of change. Both of our Nissans have these systems... which I like.
     
  7. Mark Demko

    Mark Demko Well-Known Member

    X2, good for you for investing in diagnostics!
    Not to get into an insurance squabble, but DO insurance companies WILLINGLY pay to have these systems diagnosed, reset, calibrated, etc. or do you have to beat 'em up to get paid to do this work?
    It would seem that these systems could push a car to a "total loss" just from the expense of parts and diagnostics, even tho the sheetmetal damage may be minimal.
    We get vehicles from the body side to the paint side " If we blend its going to total the car, so blend for free"
    All the moneys allocated for repair were put into electronics, body, then the scraps left for paint time:mad:
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2019
  8. TORQUED455

    TORQUED455 Well-Known Member

    EC382F6E-B6AF-4DE5-AD74-A10EB9F630D7.jpeg
    I was on the fence about getting into ADAS. I couldn’t guarentee that I would get enough work from body shops to make the investment pay off. There are also rumors that these systems will become “self-calibrating”, aka all dynamic calibrations. Dynamic calibrations require using software to enter into a “learn mode”, and you drive the vehicle following the instructions given until it completes. For the manufacturers who chose static calibrations, they have a long way to go to make the change to dynamic and until that happens, millions of vehicles are out there with potential ADAS servcie needs.

    The thing that pushed me into taking the plunge was many vehicles require calibrations after regular (non-collision) steering/suspension/chassis work. Our Hunter alignment computer is flagging vehicles that need calibration after a wheel alignmnet. And speaking of Hunter, Nissan contracted with Hunter to have Hunter build the tooling for their Intelligent Cruise Control/Forward Emergency Braking sensor calibrations. It works in conjunction with Hunter’s alignment system. The factory scan tool (Consult 3+) and the hardware alone would have been $17k for Nissan. When Autel came out with their system, it gave me Nissan and VW/Audi forward radar, as well as a host of others, at a more lower cost overall.

    The other aspect to servicing ADAS is space. The static calibrations require a lot of it! We have one spot outside that is flat enough and barely large enough to perform some of them, but only in good weather conditions. Last summer, sometimes we had to wait for it to stop raining or for the sun to move. So in the summer of 2018 with winter looming, it was decision time. We broke ground in September, and barely got it done before an early winter set in.
     
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  9. 436'd Skylark

    436'd Skylark Sweet Fancy Moses!!!!!

    I think its all mind blowingly cool. The future is now.

    However all this tech in cars have driven the price way up.. 7-8 year loans is the norm and absolutely insane.

    I will not have an issue with any of this stuff until it becomes mandatory to have it. Until then I have the freedom not to buy it and I choose to sit back and watch.


    Isn't there a Dr. Suess book about this?
     
  10. TORQUED455

    TORQUED455 Well-Known Member

    I don’t know how the body shops and insurance companies handle the finances on these. I am not a body shop, but I perform sublet work from them. There have been a few push-backs that I’ve heard of (IE make sure your glass coverage includes calibration if needed for a windshield replacement ), but I get paid regardless. We had a Nissan Armada sublet that had a hit in the front repaired. However, the rear air leveling system had a fault and the vehicle sat low in the rear. I was to perform a wheel alignmet, ICC calibration, LKAS camera calibration, and a 360 camera calibration. The insurance adjuster was a little “uninformed” and asked if I could get the vehicle at ride height to perform the wheel alignment and ADAS calibrations without repairing the rear leveling system. I asked who would be responsible the next day when the rear suspension was a little lower and the ICC radar was looking too high and a collision resulted? I said that I wasn’t touching the vehicle unless we fixed the rear leveling first, or it can go somehwere else. Reluctantly he agreed, and we fixed it correctly.

    The legal contracting out of calibrations is going to be interesting, and will surely be tested in the courts at some point. For example, a vehicle gets into a very minor collision, requiring a front bumper cover replacement. Manufacturer SI/position statement requires a forward radar calibration after bumper cover replacement. Furthermore, it requires a wheel alignment prior to calibration. We set-up for a wheel alignment, and find the rear camber and toe are out. The vehicle is 5 years old, rear springs are a little sagging, all of the adjusters are frozen, etc. Who pays for correcting that? Does the vehicle leave the body shop with a Active Cruise Control/Forward Emergency Braking system not working properly? Is there to be “customer participation” in the maintenance of the the rear suspension?

    Keep in mind that in the John Eagle case, the body shop lost big, and now the plaintiffs are suing the insurance company for bullying.
     
  11. TORQUED455

    TORQUED455 Well-Known Member



    Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are the makes we see the most of.
     
  12. 1973gs

    1973gs Well-Known Member

    Back in the early 90's, after work, I did mechanical work at a local body shop. Even back then, with the vehicle having only two air bags, I saw many vehicles with only relatively minor damage to the front end but due the air bag deployment and the interior damage to the vehicle, it was totaled. I don't think people think about that. Now, instead of having your six year old $7000 car repaired after an accident, you now need to fork over another $20,000 or more for a new car.
     
  13. John Codman

    John Codman Platinum Level Contributor

    I never suggested that all jobs should be replaced with technology, and I totally agree with you about automated telephone prompting. Boston's late mayor Tom Menino became mayor-for-life in part by scrapping city hall's automated telephone answering and put real, live, humans at the hall's end of the phone lines.
     
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  14. faster

    faster Well-Known Member

    First off the myth that something gets cheaper once it is truly in production and will carry us into the future has proven false on many fronts. Diagnostic medicine is no more accurate today than what is was 50-60 years ago, doctors then were as accurate then as now. What has advanced is the ability to locate, treat and beat those diagnostic issues that were untreatable then. Diago, to lump everyone that has apprehensions with the god of tech, into your "Luddite" term illuminates your holier than though attitude. I have been involved the analog/digital control since 1983. I have been a project manager for one of the the most forward thinking, sharpest control engineers in the world who would never be low bid because he knew low bid was a nightmare waiting to unfold. When you're talking control, a low bid controls job will never, ever be finished and perform the way the customer anticipates.

    Now to the heart of our discussion. Can vehicles be made to be reliable, accurate, safe and trustworthy as "tech" becomes further involved with their function? The answer is yes. absolutely. The problem is cost. We can't afford a vehicle that will be reliable, accurate, safe and trustworthy 100% of the time. So the real discussion is what allowable error and collateral damage are we willing to accept.

    Mikey
     
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  15. 442w30

    442w30 Well-Known Member

    On the other hand, when you and I die, time will be marching forward without regard to the belly-aching.

    You can call it "holier-than-thou," but I call it "life." People are welcome to choose to remain in time and cast disparaging looks at the future, but that's not going to change what can't be changed.

    As said by some dumb guy who recently passed away, "Lead, follow, or move out of the way."
     
  16. scubasteve455

    scubasteve455 Well-Known Member

    Wow Great article Bob. What’s gonna happen when Body shops don’t fix these cars correctly. The censors on these new cars will not tolerate shotty collision work. These cars we fix today have to be fix spot on . For those censors to work properly. We just had GM come in to our garage . To let us know how important those scanners are. I don’t that much about it. I did not sit in the class. Because i paint. So i won’t be using scanners. But 10 years ago they told you shops would be dropping like flys. Well now that cars have all this technology. You have to be able to fix them correctly. Or a car will get into an accident. And everyone will know where the car was last repaired.
     
  17. copperheadgs1

    copperheadgs1 copperheadgs1

    We will need even more lawyers to figure out who we sue when one hits us. I predict carnage in the roads. I dare anyone to step into a crosswalk in front of one. Like the Turtles Sang “no no no it ain’t me babe”
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2019
  18. My3Buicks

    My3Buicks Buick Guru

    Living around Pittsburgh, you see more than the average American see's of self driving technology since it is a hotbed in the autonomous development and testing. I used to see these vehicles almost daily running in the city traffic and interstates around Pittsburgh and they handled it better than the cars with human drivers. And I never once saw one of the autonomous cars putting on make-up, shaving, eating, reading, texting, talking on the phone, fighting with the kids in the back seat, cut anyone off, or whip them the bird.
     
  19. copperheadgs1

    copperheadgs1 copperheadgs1

    Do you ever jump out in front of them or make a quick move like you are going too? I would.
     
  20. Briz

    Briz Founders Club Member

    But in the future when these become main stream thats all you will be seeing. People in cars doing anything and everything but driving.
     
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