Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
Author | Haohan
Edited by | Xiaohan
The world's first L4 autonomous driving software recall occurred in the United States.
A few days ago, the U.S. National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (hereinafter referred to as NHTSA) said that because of an accident, Pony Zhixing has agreed to recall a specific version of its self-driving system.
Last October, a fully driverless test vehicle of Pony Zhixing had a minor accident in California, USA, when the vehicle drove onto the barrier in the middle of the road while changing lanes and collided with the road sign on the barrier.
The front of the test vehicle was slightly damaged and did not cause any casualties.
▲Screenshot of NHTSA's official website
Xiaoma Zhixing told che that after the accident, it reported to the relevant departments at the first time, including the autonomous driving management department of the California Motor Vehicle Administration (DMV), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and other relevant departments.
The accident was caused by a software problem and three test vehicles were affected. The day after the accident, Xiaoma Zhixing solved the problem, which is equivalent to completing the "recall".
At present, the company has responded to all NHTSA inquiries, and there will be no new inquiries from NHTSA after mid-December 2021. In early March 2022, Chi Heng submitted a recall report to NHTSA.
This is the first known recall of L4-level high-level autonomous driving systems initiated by regulatory authorities in the world, representing a further improvement of the regulatory laws and regulations of autonomous driving in the United States.
Under the leadership of Chinese and American autonomous driving companies such as Google Waymo, General Cruise, Baidu Apollo, and Xiaoma Zhixing, more and more self-driving test vehicles are driving on the open roads of more and more cities. Several head companies have a total of thousands of vehicles, and the road test mileage has reached tens of millions of kilometers.
The more cars and the more they run, the probability of accidents for various reasons naturally increases.
This requires us to look at accidents rationally: we must not be careless and think that L4 is 100% safe. However, we cannot waste food because of choking, and an accident feels that the technology is unreliable and is completely stopped.
The us regulator's operation is very rational. Investigation after the accident, recall after finding the problem, and continue to test after improvement, establishing a very positive regulatory model for the autonomous driving industry.
In the future, it is believed that China and more countries will successively introduce relevant management regulations, and the automatic driving industry will also be more standardized and rational development.
First, Pony Chi Heng submitted a recall report has been updated to the system code
Recently, Che Dongxi found a safety recall report submitted by Xiaoma Zhixing from the NHTSA official website, which detailed a test car collision accident that occurred in California on October 28 last year, and analyzed the cause of the accident, software defects and recall plans.
The report shows that the reason for the recall is that in very rare cases, a planning system diagnostic check may produce floating-point rounding errors, resulting in a geographical mismatch that can cause the ADS system to operate.
▲The recall report submitted by Xiaoma Zhixing to NHTSA
This is the cause of the accident that occurred in California last October 28.
In this regard, the solution given by Xiaoma Zhixing in the recall report is to modify the relevant code lines in the geolocation diagnostic check to correctly interpret the floating-point rounding error.
On October 28 last year, the day of the accident, Pony Chi Heng completed the above code revisions, submitted an official report to NHTSA, and completed the update of all potentially affected vehicles the day after the accident.
▲Description of the defect in the recall report
Second, the accident occurred in Fremont, and the Little Horse Zhixing suspended the unmanned test
According to the official information of the California DMV, the accident occurred at 10:50 a.m. on October 28, 2021, in Fremont, California, when the weather was clear and the roads were relatively dry.
A Pony Chi Heng's unmanned autonomous driving test vehicle (based on the modern electric SUV kona) has just completed a right turn from Cushing Pkwy Street to Fremont Avenue, and the vehicle then changes lanes to the left lane, but collides with the barrier in the middle of the road during the lane change, hitting a road sign in the barrier, resulting in slight damage to the front of the car.
▲Pony Zhixing is an autonomous driving test vehicle built by Kona
In this accident, the front of The Pony Zhixing's test vehicle was damaged, but fortunately there were no casualties.
▲The place where the accident occurred, the red box is the sign in the middle of the road
After the accident, Xiaoma Zhixing reported to the local transportation department at the first time, including the autonomous driving management department of the California Motor Vehicle Administration (DMV), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and other relevant departments, and actively cooperated with the inquiries of the relevant departments, and also took the initiative to suspend the unmanned test in California.
▲The accident responsibility letter issued by the DMV
In May 2021, Pony Chi Heng received approval from the California DMV to conduct unmanned autonomous driving tests in Irvine, Fremont, and Milpitas, California.
It should be noted that the ordinary test process of Xiaoma Zhixing in the United States (the main driver has a safety officer), as well as the various tests carried out in the four cities of The North, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in China have not been affected and are carried out as usual.
"Pony Zhixing has always adhered to the principle of safety first." After learning the news of the accident, Xiaoma Zhixing said to the car, "After the accident, we immediately took the initiative to stop the unmanned test in California and conducted a technical review to ensure safety." ”
▲The main driver's unmanned road test conducted by Xiaoma Zhixing in China
Last year, Xiaoma Zhixing's test vehicle took the initiative to suspend unmanned testing after a minor accident in the United States, and reviewed the technology to ensure safety, which is the responsible attitude of technology research and development and road testing.
If companies can handle accidents carefully after the accident, whether it is to suspend the road test or quickly review to improve the technology, it will minimize the number of accidents and risk of road tests, thereby promoting the healthy and orderly development of the industry.
Conclusion: Please give the unmanned car some patience
As the head of the domestic autonomous driving start-up, Xiaoma Zhixing quickly completed the update of the vehicle and system and submitted a report to the relevant departments after the accident, which is not easy to react to, and to a certain extent, it also reflects the technical reserves and self-inspection capabilities of Xiaoma Zhixing.
At present, on the eve of the large-scale mass production application of automatic driving technology, major autonomous driving companies at home and abroad have begun actual road tests, so it is inevitable that accidents will gradually increase. As long as there is a reasonable and stable regulatory system, as well as a responsible R & D attitude, I believe that the development of the autonomous driving industry will also get better and better.