Commuters today may dream of self-driving cars to relieve the hassles of motoring. But amid the reality of Hong Kong's dense traffic, that remedy is still a long way off, Andrea Deng reports.

What a ride! Here was Jayson Au, property agent, cruising, hassle free in his Tesla Model S - Autopilot turned on while he took it easy. He was completely relaxed, on his way to pick up his family just back from Macao. He had turned on the Tesla's Autopilot as he passed through one of the cross-harbor tunnels. A few minutes later, he snapped awake to the din of an alarm going off.

He'd just drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by the alarm sounding when his hands slipped off the steering wheel. How long he'd been asleep, he couldn't say - probably not more than a couple of minutes.

"I felt lucky Autopilot really did steer for me, but I also think it was Autopilot that lowered my awareness and caused me to fall asleep," Au told China Daily.

Au started driving the Model S after the Hong Kong government approved use of Tesla's Autopilot system on a limited basis back in 2016.

He wasn't alone in rushing to try out the new gadgetry. Who wouldn't want to get away from the grinding tedium of navigating Hong Kong traffic, day after day? So, the Hong Kong government gave the nod to Autopilot and people embraced it like a long lost love.

There were more than 7,000 registered electric cars at the end of November 2016. Compare that with 2010, when there were fewer than 100. The city did its part to jack up the numbers - offering big tax breaks to encourage drivers to go green with environmentally friendly cars.

Tesla continues to hold the top spot among Hong Kong's growing armada of electric vehicles (EV). Still, Tesla drivers reported "mixed feelings" about Autopilot.

Tesla's CEO Elon Musk says Autopilot is "50 percent safer than a human driver". Here in Hong Kong, drivers think it'll take some considerable time before the technology is able to handle the traffic in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, where streets are packed with other vehicles and pedestrians come out of nowhere, dashing across the roads.

Bend sinister

Hong Kong doesn't have black-and-white regulations for EVs using autonomous driving functions. In the case of Tesla, only assisted steering, lane change and auto car-park function were cleared for use after a Transport Department evaluation. The "summon" function, which navigates a car in or out of a parking space by remote control, is not allowed.

Tesla's Autopilot function is disabled on most urban streets in Hong Kong. Drivers like Au have to wait until they're on highways or in tunnels before turning on Autopilot. Tesla is also designed to require drivers to rest their hands on the steering wheel at all times.

"If your hands are off the steering wheel for too long, the Autopilot function will be suspended temporarily. It's like the system is punishing you," Au said.

Although Tesla has named its system "Autopilot", the company states that the system is only partially autonomous - to assist drivers, not to take over the driving. That was also the explanation the company gave when a driver died last year on a highway in Florida in the US while the Autopilot function was activated. The driver was watching a Harry Potter movie at the time. It was the first Autopilot-related death. In response, Tesla issued a statement that the accident was only the first after 130 million miles (209 million kilometers) of successful Autopilot driving, compared to the average fatality every 94 million miles among all vehicles in the US.

After months of driving with Autopilot, Au doesn't trust the system entirely to drive with his hands free. But, in the meantime, he thinks the system is useful. "If you're always in the car, especially if you're driving for a long distance, you get tired easily. Driving through the tunnel usually takes about a minute. During that time I can relax my feet a little," he said. Au lives in a village in Sai Kung, which can be a 40-minute drive from Hong Kong Island, while the nature of his work requires him to drive often.

"I usually turn on the Autopilot function when I'm crossing the tunnel, because you don't have to change lane and there are hardly any bends. But when I reach the end of the tunnel, when two lanes turn into more lanes, I'd suggest turning off Autopilot because the car can't seem to find the right lane - it'll sway about. I take over steering until it's on the lane I want," Au said as he took China Daily for a ride in his car.

As Au drove along the Island East Corridor, an 8-kilometer-long expressway from Causeway Bay to North Point, he turned on Autopilot. "Actually, I don't always use Autopilot here because there are quite a few bends. But let's try," Au said. He says his car doesn't usually steer well if there are too many bends; sometimes he feels as if the car might get too close to other vehicles driving in the adjacent lane.

But the autonomous steering was doing okay that day. He gave a signal to change to the right lane, and after about five seconds the car found a space in the right lane and steered in. The lane change was done. The car was running at 70 km/h, and Autopilot was autonomously adjusting the distance from the car in front of it. Au could set the distance at a length of one car, two cars or three cars.

"There's one major defect of the system in its current stage," Au said. "It doesn't recognize the traffic lights! Say for example I'm at a crossroads and the traffic light is red, if there is no car in front of me the car will just go ahead (if the Autopilot is on). That is a big no-no!"

Still, Au believes Autopilot is safer than human drivers and that the technology will mature and be ready to take on the busy streets of Hong Kong.

To err is human

As carmakers and tech companies vie to make autopilot technology better, there already are self-driving trucks and self-driving car hailing services.

On the Chinese mainland, internet giant Baidu is working with carmaker BMW to develop and test autopilot technology. There's an autopilot competition every year, and testing grounds are already operating in places like Shanghai and some cities in Anhui and Zhejiang provinces.

Testing self-driving technology under actual road conditions on the mainland is still against the law, so companies like Baidu and LeEco have headed over to the US state of California for road tests.

It remains a fact that self-driving cars are better suited to the open road than to busy urban streets. None of the existing autonomous cars on the market are advanced enough to replicate the lightning quick reflexes and decision-making ability needed for urban streets, according to Liu Ming, associate professor of the Robotics Institute at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

"Technically, it's easier to drive on the highway in driverless mode than to drive at a comparatively lower speed in an environment where there are pedestrians, motorcycles and bicycles appearing in front of the car. For this kind of situation, at the moment it's not easy for (autopilot technology) to deal with," Liu said.

That milestone needs the evolution of "perception" technology, so that autonomous cars become "aware" of what's going on around them. Cameras, radar and lasers already are in play, acting as sensors to detect nearby objects. "Judgment" about what to do is handled by artificial intelligence, but further advancements are needed.

Liu said the development of perception technology for self-driving cars hasn't matured enough to be effective in a complex driving environment.

"When a human driver sees the car in front weaving from left to right randomly, probably he will guess that the driver ahead is drunk or exhausted. Probably the following driver will exercise extreme caution. That extra caution cannot be triggered just from direct recognition that there is a car nearby. Those judgments come more from experience, or from other higher levels of understanding in this context," Liu said.

He predicted it will take four or five years for that kind of technology to mature in autonomous cars traveling on urban roads. It will entail gathering even more transportation data to raise the "judgment" of autopilot systems closer to human decision making.

On top of all that, the proportion of EVs on the roads will have to be a lot higher before autonomous driving achieves a safe level. Liu cited the example of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR), Hong Kong's metro. The MTR runs a complex network. Within that network, each train is supplied with data on what's happening with other trains, what's happening on the platforms, and other information to maintain the system safely and efficiently.

"If you have all the cars driving on the roads with shared knowledge about what other cars want to do, it will be much safer," Liu said.

For Au, he believes that driverless cars will be the future. "But I also believe that in such a populous city, the autopilot technology has to be very solid."

Contact the writer at

andrea@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 05/19/2017 page7)