> My <device> already comes with built in <software> why would I install anything else?

Top voted comment on hacker news btw.

Ok that was probably unnecessarily snarky I hope you don't take offense, but it seems the hacker spirit has been fading more often from this site, we used to replace stuff with inferior versions just to see if we could.

It's infinitely better than HDA2 at tracking and maintaining lanes.

HDA2 cuts out if there is a break in lines more than 50ft or so.

Openpilot can track the slightest of roads, even able to follow off-road the tracks in grass from a leading car.

It does basically everything HDA2 does and then some, and does it much better.

It has a driver-monitoring camera that you control, that monitors for inattentiveness which is much more effective than simple wheel-torque based sensors.

Big one, because all those cars require you to touch and move the steering wheel every X seconds. All the ones that let you go hands free cost a subscription of around $500 a year (Ford BlueCruise, GM SuperCruise). And even those only let you use hands free mode on pre-mapped roads, typically only interstates.

Becasue most cars with lane follow still lose lock on the lane when the lines are hard to see (rains, snow, etc) or missing due to exists and other things.

Becasue most cars with lane follow fail to keep well when the turn gets too sharp.

Comma.ai lets you go completely hands free with no wheel nags. It also works just fine when there are no lane lines or poorly visible lines. It also supports lane change by signaling, and then nudging the wheel when it's clear to move.

There is also an experimental mode which stops and goes at stop signs and stop lights.

If the driver monitoring camera in the comma detects you fell asleep or something, it will slow the car down and pull over. All the stock lane keep that I have used in cars, if you fail to nudge the wheel they just disengage and you keep going at full speed in a straight line...

Then we delve into OpenPilot forks like SunnyPilot that let you do things like decouple gas/break control from steering control, so you can control the gas/brake yourself and let comma just always steer for you. Comma can also steer more aggressively in turns than any lane keep I have seen, and when it can't you will see the limit being reached on the little display so you know you will need to help out on that tight curve.

Experimental mode isn't the best all the time, and SunnyPilot allows hybrid mode which uses regular mode and dynamically switches to experimental mode for stop signs and stop lights.

With SunnyPilot it can even read your car's blind spot monitors to automatically make the lane change hen clear without you having to nudge the wheel.

Some have been playing with concepts of auto navigation too where the car will take exits and turn through intersections for you.

The comma.ai devices have 10W of compute power and the current driving models only use 1W, so there is room to scale to better models with teh current comma devices. There is also talk of supporting more cameras for side views and external GPUs addons with 100W compute for potential FSD level models.

Commercial implementations back when this launched was vastly inferior to it, if users' accounts are to be believed. Obvious signs of too high P in PID and such.

Tesla Autopilot was always available, but they were as sketchy as it always had been. Shoving the head into road barriers and fire trucks with rear ends that were less car looking especially to pre-LLM image recognition models.

OpenPilot also allow retrofits. People who own 2017-2023ish cars, shipped between the times after self driving hype took off and before command signature enforcement was widely implemented, can DIY self driving without re-buying the whole car, put aside whether it's legal or whether you should.

Maybe this doesn't beep at you if you take your hands off the wheel?

And people think that is a good thing?

I wondered the same thing but after trying a few oem attempts, there’s definitely huge room for improvement. Lane following isn’t very ‘smart’ and doesn’t take context into account (ie. changing position in the lane based on clearance from other vehicles, potholes, upcoming curves etc.)

Lane follow? Does it have lane discovery? There was snow on my commute this morning. 4-land highway was basically follow the leader. Pick some line where you think there is the most traction and stick with it. I have yet to see footage of an autodrive system in such a situation.

I have a car with smart cruise, but there's plenty of room for improvement. It isn't very smart at determining when it can avoid braking, such as when a car well ahead has slowed for a right turn. It also brakes too aggressively when someone cuts in front of me on the highway, in situations where just lifting off the gas would be better.

It also times out very quickly when traffic comes to a complete standstill, requiring manual intervention to get going again, and it doesn't give any indication to the driver when that occurs.

If these things bothered me much more than they do, I'd be interested in comma.ai as a possible solution. As it stands, the OEM radar cruise control is "Eh, good enough, I guess."