I believe the idea is that openpilot replaces the usual robotics stack with an end to end neural net.

While I agree operating system is usually a marketing term, it does feel correct in this case as it is the operating system for the Comma Three, which can operate cars but also this thing: https://www.comma.ai/shop/body

I definitely thought it was a ROS clone based on that first line.

Isn’t the software for training end-to-end NN to be used in automation? Just a first version that it’s used for cars, and they have been using it for their own robot.

So the claim still stands?

Yeah came to say the same, I thought a new big player is in the market. It looks great nonetheless.

Mind boggling to me that a non-ping pongy lane keeping is not standard in cars. Is it standard in luxury cars? Seems like an obvious thing to add/upsell.

Level 2 driving assistance is commonplace on many new vehicles, often as a standard feature. They are just significantly more conservative in their functionality compared to the level 2 offerings from Tesla, and marketed as safety features rather than "self driving" features.

It's important to note that nothing we're talking about here is actually "self driving" per SAE standards. Openpilot, Tesla's Autopilot/FSD, Honda Sensing, Toyota Safety Sense, Hyundai SmartSense, etc are all level 2 driving assistance features.

This turns level 2 driver assistance features into ... nicer level 2 driver assistance features.

I don't know if there's a physical port in most cars, but it uses the CAN bus which has been around since the 1980s.

Also, most cars that have distance assist and lane keeping probably have the required hardware to control speed and steering to some extent.

Nevertheless, it's still impressive that so many cars are supported... and that it can be retrofitted like this at all!

I suspect it may be even more than that theoretically. A lot of VAG cars based on the same platform are missing.

The interface between the openpilot and the car is a standalone device (the panda) that provides and enforces the safety model. All code is written in C to automotive safety standards including ISO26262, ISO11270, ISO15622, and MISRA-C. 100% line coverage for all safety unt tests.

They also run pretty extensive tests (regression, unit, hardware/software-in-the-loop, mutation, and vehicle specific) on every commit and have actual hardware devices continually running real routes looking for regressions.

https://github.com/commaai/openpilot?tab=readme-ov-file#safe...

https://github.com/commaai/panda?tab=readme-ov-file#code-rig...

> So am I now exposed to other people using Python on the roads to operate heavy machinery?

yes in the sense that python is running the ML models and deciding what the vehicle should do, but it is heavily bounded in what it can do by the safety model which is implemented in bare-metal MISRA C running on the microcontroller that interfaces between openpilot and the CAN bus (panda). It enforces things like accel/braking limits and steering rate limits along with consistency checks, heartbeats, vehicle status checks, etc.

Level 2 self driving is already only a best effort system so if python caused an issue it would just fall back to the safety model on the panda and ultimately the driver to operate the vehicle safely.

Well NIST says don't use C++ either: https://www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/software-quality-group/safer-la...

So what, you want everything written in RUST on a linux kernel with hard real-time patches? It uses machine vision anyway, which has no hard guarantees at all. The software it uses to detect lanes or cars is probabilistic by it's very nature.

Python does pretty good at soft real time if you manage your own event loop and disable the garbage collector, and you're a lot less likely to get "crash the entire stack" style memory allocation bugs. Sure, GO or RUST would be better, I think CPP could be worse if handled inexpertly.

Sort of. It operates after your vehicle safety systems, so yes, python is controlling the car to an extent, but only within the limits of the built in safety systems.

Is this legal in the US?

This reminds me of Waymo's approach to self-driving cars. Paraphrasing, but basically they found that progressively adding self-driving to help human drivers is bad, because it leads to the humans becoming complacent and not paying enough attention. Therefore they decided on an all or nothing approach, where their cars would be only and entirely self-driven.

I'm confused:

"THIS IS ALPHA QUALITY SOFTWARE FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. THIS IS NOT A PRODUCT. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR COMPLYING WITH LOCAL LAWS AND REGULATIONS. NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED."

Where can this be used? In a private parking lot?

Is it like an app you install on the car or is it a custom integration?

It’s cool to see that it’s possible to innovate sustainably, in a niche. So refreshing to see something stick around rather than become a bubble with a billion dollar valuation that either takes over the world and enshittifies or implodes and takes the product with it.

Make business chill.

That said: The larger they get, the more regulator attention they’ll attract. If some government entity wanted to, they could probably easily kill them.

I'd be even more gleeful if I was in car insurance. "Openpilot's not covered, your insurance is invalidated."