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All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware
- NegatioN 10y agoSo, both Nvidia and Tesla are working on self-driving cars based on the sensory data mainly from cameras mounted on the car, which are then run through X number of RNNs to generate models to operate on? While Google pursues their LIDAR-approach? What other players are operating in this space? And what's their approach?
- ape4 10y agoThe LIDAR idea seems better to me. The car can build an accurate 3D model. I'm sure the artificial vision of the Tesla is good but it will probably get fooled too.
- moogly 10y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that LIDAR-only doesn't work at all during heavy rain or snow. You'll probably always need some sensor fusion from a mix of optical/supersonic/radar/lidar.
- ape4 10y agoMake sense to me. I wonder if a camera would be fooled by a Bugs Bunny-like tunnel painted on a wall.
- siliconwrath 10y agoUber looks like it's using LIDAR. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-first-self-driving-fleet-arrives-in-pittsburgh-this-month-is06r7on http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-18/uber-s-fir...
- hatsunearu 10y agoPretty sure NVIDIA is using LIDAR with sensor fusion..?
- marricks 10y agoQuite interesting that while this is happening, > Tesla's with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware Which makes sense, as they'll be pulling in all that new data from the sensors. I guess people won't be too disappointed owning a car that will eventually be able to be fully autonomous!
- mklarmann 10y agoyes, that is why this announcement was necessary. Otherwise people would have been confused with their new cars.
- makomk 10y ago"including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency braking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control". They're shipping without features that are commonplace, probably even expected, on premium cars these days.
- mparlane 10y agoHow sure are they that this hardware revision is going to be what is required? I feel like at any point in time you can make an assumption about the hardware requirements to only discover in future that you could have actually done it with just a software update if the CPU had one more core. They'd have to be pretty sure this HW rev would meet their future demands for self-driving right ?
- victorhooi 10y agoI assume they're reasonably confident, since they've been doing this for a while, and have ploughed more money/time into this than most others. That, and judging by Tesla's history - if there was indeed something lacking, they might just retro-fit it for free onto people's cars. So I assume they're keen on getting this right...haha.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoUm, this is what we in the tech industry do ALL the time. We can only use _existing_ technology. We can't see into the future, so we do our best to choose HW/SW based on our _current_ understanding of the problems we are solving. If they weren't "sure" based on their current understanding of the problem, then they surely wouldn't be placing this in their vehicles.
- revelation 10y agoTeslas with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware, including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency breaking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control Right, so they are actually announcing that their new cars now have less automation capabilities. I can't keep track with all the "autopilot" hardware they have deployed to date, MobilEye, BOSCH Radar, own software hacks, then this completely new one.. Not to mention that they have sold thousands of cars with the same Autopilot brand and "fully autonomous soon" messaging that will now likely never get there.
- ec109685 10y agoWhen did they say the first generation cars with autopilot would be "fully autonomous soon"?
- thesimon 10y ago>While this is occurring, Teslas with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware, including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency breaking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control. But not software and they don't even have confidence in their current implementation? It's not surprising considering the recent announcements by the regulators, but that's quite a step.
- marricks 10y agoThis means they don't have confidence in running the same tried and tested programs on a completely new platform they just launched. Which makes complete sense, wouldn't it be irresponsible otherwise? It gives them time to confirm a new technology and update their maps of areas with information from the new wavelengths they're just now gathering.
- thesimon 10y ago> It gives them time to confirm a new technology and update their maps of areas with information from the new wavelengths they're just now gathering. Fair enough. I just tried to do a diff between the versions: Current implementation [0] * Camera module in the front * Front-facing Radar * 12 ultrasonic sensors New implementation: * 8 surround cameras * Front-facing radar * 12 ultrasonic sensors (updated) [0]: https://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-sensors-does-the-Tesla-Model-S-use-for-its-autopilot-auto-steering-features https://www.quora.com/What-kind-of-sensors-does-the-Tesla-Mo... So the difference is basically just a few extra cameras and updates to the sensors. It doesn't seem like a huge step or completely new platform - at least when looking at the components.
- marricks 10y agoWhat about the 40x faster processor with neural nets thrown in there somewhere? There's a bit more than just new cameras/sensors.
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- modeless 10y agoSo self-driving will be a standard feature of Model 3, not an option? Pretty cool if they can make it work. I'm skeptical that the computer (NVIDIA Drive PX 2 perhaps?) will have enough power to do it all without LIDAR.
- tompic823 10y agoSelf-driving hardware will be standard on Model 3, but you'll likely still have to pay a premium for the software to activate it. This is akin to Tesla including the 75 kWh battery on the 60 kWh Model S, and then charging you extra to "activate" the battery's full capacity.
- agentdrtran 10y agoI mean, it's a smart business move.
- anchpop 10y agoIt's a classic business strategy. It allows them to sell a car for cheaper to people who can't afford to pay a little extra.
- tempestn 10y agoThe hardware will be standard, but almost certainly you'll pay extra to enable it. (If they do it the same as similar features in the past, there will be a discount to enable it at order, or you can do it later at a slight premium.)
- MiguelHudnandez 10y agoThat'll be an interesting court case: the first time a fatality is the result of unactivated safety features on a car that's fully capable of preventing a collision.
- kylec 10y agoTesla has already said that the Model 3's safety features will come standard, though it wouldn't preclude such a lawsuit against the owner if the features weren't activated.
- 11thEarlOfMar 10y ago> Teslas with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware, including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency breaking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control. Not sure what to make of this. New buyers are getting less than current owners now, but expected to get much more later? I can't think of a precedent for this as a marketing approach in modern consumer products.
- whicks 10y agoTesla is known for doing things without precedent. They also have the ability to push major updates OTA to their vehicles, which is what enables them to give "less" while promising more. Like the release said, they'll have the hardware, it just needs to be enabled.
- dogma1138 10y agoThis isn't that uncommon in the automotive industry tbh. Features including performance related features have been pushed via software updates for years. Anything from navigation to cruise control to sport packages have been deployed either OTA or via a manual update. Tesla is just pushing it to a new limit (not necessarily a good thing) and is actually advertising every change and feature update.
- victorhooi 10y agoInteresting. Can you give any examples of other feature improvements in cars that have been pushed via OTA?
- andr 10y agoI wonder how much it would cost to add hardware for both Autopilot v1.0 and v2.0 for the gap models, so new customers don't have to make the sacrifice. Lack of complete Autopilot for a while is fine, but lack of emergency braking increases your life risk.
- tlb 10y ago*braking (not breaking). You'd think car company staff would know how to spell a word representing 1/2 of the control space of a car. edit: fixed, never mind.
- poleapple 10y agoIt was probably just a typo that the couple of people who wrote and edited the announcement didn't catch. I am doubtful of the correlation you are implying between their spelling of braking and their braking system.
- amonette 10y agoLooks like they just fixed the typo in an OTA software update anyway.
- mklarmann 10y agoIt was already announced before, that the hardware is included. And it was clear, that it is meant to be used for autonomous driving. And as they do not have autonomous driving yet, this is indeed just hot air... How would they know it is completed if there is no demonstration of it actually working?
- wmf 10y agoLooking at what is not said, my interpretation is that previous Teslas will not be software-upgraded to full autonomy because the problem is harder than they previously thought.
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- mklarmann 10y agoAnd in actually announcing this commitment now, that this one would be the final hardware, could also be just forced, as they need to sell it to all the people getting cars now with temporary less functionality.
- raisedbyninjas 10y agoTheir LIDAR provider pulled out and now they're switching to camera-based CV and ending development of the LIDAR branch. I think they're hoping that this approach matures enough to match the capability of LIDAR in time for them to meet their market goals.
- chc 10y agoEither you're confused or I'm confused as to what you're talking about. Tesla has never used LIDAR and they actually leaned more heavily on CV until recently when they started using radar more extensively.
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- amenghra 10y agoI wonder how they balance their development process for the algorithms with the upgraded sensors vs the code that runs with older sensors as input. Do they maintain two different teams? Back port improvements?
- niftich 10y agoIs this a formal model-year revision/refresh, or just a midyear 'minor revision' thing (despite being a major revision?) Are old models retrofittable? Will this hurt the resale value of existing Teslas that have the last generation hardware? Is there an industry-standard (or governmental) safety test that these autonomous systems have to go through to evaluate their efficacy and performance in different scenarios? (edit: clarified the first sentence)
- weaksauce 10y agoThe old models actually had pretty weak sensors which indirectly caused the death of that one guy who used autopilot and t-boned a trailer. > Eight surround cameras provide 360 degree visibility around the car at up to 250 meters of range. Previously that was just one camera mounted in front of the rear view mirror > Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement this vision, allowing for detection of both hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance of the prior system. Same number as before except instead of 16' of range it will be 32' of range. > A forward-facing radar with enhanced processing provides additional data about the world on a redundant wavelength, capable of seeing through heavy rain, fog, dust and even the car ahead. same number and position of radar sensors as before but possibly a beefed up type for inclement weather. I don't know what the prior one was capable of.
- will_hughes 10y ago> The old models actually had pretty weak sensors which indirectly caused the death of that one guy who used autopilot and t-boned a trailer. Saying it was the sensors that caused the guys death is like saying it was the powerstation that generated the electricity that ran the car causing his death. He was told, repeatedly, to keep his hands on the steering wheel and to watch the surrounding environment. He even apparently understood the limitations of the system, having recorded a number of scenarios (many of which are situations where AP shouldn't have been engaged anyway) where the car's ability to handle the situation was marginal at best. So, him deciding to (apparently) watch a video on a tablet while driving down a public highway isn't really the fault of the AP system.
- lai 10y agoDoes this mean we get self-driving capabilities without paying more for it as an add-on?
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- simonsarris 10y agoHow interesting. So up-coming Tesla drivers temporarily won't get fancy features. For a time, new Tesla buyers again become early adopters. But unlike traditional early adopters, who take a trade-off (on price, or features, or polish) for being first, these adopters are promised the features when they are ready. The nay-saying around Tesla is immense, even in these early HN comments. Obviously there's some risk here, but man. Tesla is sowing the seeds of the future.
- CamperBob2 10y agoI think it's great that they're taking the big risks needed to move the industry forward, and not letting the lawyers run the company. But some of the risks they're taking are just completely stupid and unnecessary, such as calling their assisted cruise control "Autopilot." That's like waving the proverbial cape at the proverbial bull.
- simonsarris 10y agoI see where you're coming from, but think that's a calculated risk. From a PR perspective it generates buzz, sounds ambitious, and reflects their ambition. If you ask anybody today, "what company is interested in self-driving cars?" Their answer is going to be Tesla. They're not gonna say Apple, or Ford or Volvo or Mercedes or Mobileye or Intel. They're gonna point straight to Tesla. A big part of that is their "inaccurate" word choice. From a PR perspective, the name was a solid gold decision.
- thesimon 10y ago>From a PR perspective, the name was a solid gold decision. I doubt it. It creates false hopes and probably hurted/hurts them when crashs happen. The Tesla autopilot death in June was a really big thing, yet other crashes where assistant systems of other manufacturers are never in the press. Maybe because of the name, maybe because the drivers use them better? Also look at what happened recently in Germany: 1. Basically the head of the DMVs sending a letter to all Tesla owners to RTFM that it is not in fact an autopilot. 2. Department of Transportation pushing Tesla to stop using the term "autopilot" in marketing as it is misleading.
- Walkman 10y agoSo you buy a "regular" car today which will be automagically converted to a self driving car when all the regulations and software catch up. That's pretty cool. You can buy into the future today :D
- tempestn 10y ago> features such as automatic emergency breaking Always an amusing typo. I'll take the car without emergency breaking...
- ghaff 10y agoTesla may also want to consider better copyediting of press releases: "emergency breaking." Yeah, it happens. But it looks bad.
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y agoMusk is a notorious grammar Nazi, so he may go after whomever is responsible. They could be in trouble.
- throwanem 10y agoAs would you now be if you worked for him! "Whom" is the objective case of "who", and correctly replaces e.g. "him", not "he".
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y agoI though it would be funny to edit my comment to me it look like I was right all along. On reflection, this was petty. My original comment was mistaken in just the manner described.
- nodesocket 10y agoWas there an event or video? Seems strange that Elon delayed this announcement from Monday if it's just a blog post (press release).
- mklarmann 10y agohe delays announcement, just to do the write up right.
- dyarosla 10y agoCommented above too but it looks like making a video took the extra few days: "Will post video of a Tesla navigating a complex urban environment shortly. That was what took the extra couple of days." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/788902908175618049 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/788902908175618049
- nodesocket 10y agoOk, makes sense. Thanks for the tweet link.
- notliketherest 10y agoThis is awesome! Talk about a huge training data competitive advantage over Google, GM, Uber, etc
- dyarosla 10y agoWho's providing all this hardware? EIGHT surround cameras and TWELVE ultrasonic sensors: Are they building this in house too? If not, that's a lot of business to a supplier... all I could find about camera suppliers for Tesla was their former camera (tech?) supplier Mobileye.
- phsource 10y agoEDIT: Ignore the first paragraph below; @dyarosia mentioned correctly they're working on their own vision system, so they probably buy generic camera units. (IGNORE THIS: The surround cameras are likely still in collaboration with Mobileye, since in their case, Mobileye doesn't just give the camera hardware but also has a fair bit of software that makes all the cameras come together. It's not too likely Tesla's duplicated this so quickly.) Ultrasonic sensors though are dirt cheap (in the few dollars range), and they probably come from one of the many tier 1 suppliers (Bosch, Delphi, etc) that makes them. These are the technology that powered those beeping back distance sensors for 10+ years. The real news here is that again, LiDAR is absent. It seems like Tesla's pretty confident they can get to full autonomous self driving without the point cloud data that LiDAR provides. Now THAT'D be impressive!
- dyarosla 10y agoBut I thought that they had gone separate ways? ""When Tesla refused to cancel its own vision development activities and plans for deployment, Mobileye discontinued hardware support for future platforms and released public statements implying that this discontinuance was motivated by safety concerns" from http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/16/tesla-says-mobileye-balked-after-learning-carmaker-to-make-own-cameras.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/16/tesla-says-mobileye-balked-af... And yes ofc, the LiDAR absence is interesting; just not what I'm asking about here.
- phsource 10y agoGood catch! I think you're right; Tesla probably now buys pretty generic cameras (from various suppliers) and then integrates them, so the cost is definitely not that much.
- untilHellbanned 10y agoThis company's self driving cars are gonna have serious problems because their business roadmap is all over the place. This is not just wordplay, I'm serious.
- amluto 10y ago> To make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net for vision, sonar and radar processing software. 40 times the performance of a Tegra 3 is not particularly impressive. Also, I sincerely hope that this new faster computer doesn't also run a web browser.
- taneq 10y agoA separation between the running gear of the car, and its entertainment center / user interface, is absolutely vital if we don't want to see an endless stream of "hackers offed Public Figure X by driving their car into a bridge" in the news. It boggles me that anyone even considers running things like antilock brakes, car security, and especially self-driving capability from an internet-connected device, no matter how nice and convenient it may be.
- anchpop 10y agoIt needs to be connected to the Internet at some point to download updates. What could happen is having a second computer that all the controls are routed through, and that one does some sanity checks before executing the self driver's actions
- will_hughes 10y agoThey're talking AP hardware, which was different from the entertainment cluster hardware.
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- flexie 10y agoAre the cars going to look like Google's and Uber's self driving cars, then? I never cared that much about self driving capabilities - I like to drive myself - and I certainly don't want to shell out $35,000 for a car with what looks like a food processor or a police emergency light mounted on the rooftop. IMHO, one of the best features of Tesla has been that they actually made EVs look like traditional cars. It might seem trivial, but many of the budding competitors still fail to do just that: http://www.autoblog.com/2016/08/17/vw-300-mile-ev-paris-auto-show-report/ http://www.autoblog.com/2016/08/17/vw-300-mile-ev-paris-auto... https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/design/commercial-vehicles/concept-cars-commercial-vehicles/generation-eq-electro-look/ https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/design/commer...
- JauntyHatAngle 10y agoThose are concept cars, concept cars always look like that before the final designs come about. Fashion does the same thing.
- aianus 10y agoThe 'final designs' of other companies' EVs still look ridiculous. Volt, Leaf, i8, none of them look like regular cars like Teslas do.
- NeutronBoy 10y ago'Regular cars' look like they do because of design limitations imposed by things like fuel tanks, engines, and gearboxes.
- blkhawk 10y agoI think the fact that it needs to have Wheels and be aerodynamic as possible while having a decent amount of interior space has more to do with it. And even without a motor you still need a crumple zone for safety.
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- elchief 10y agoWow, what a bunch of negative nellies on here. I hope you people have mildly unpleasant evenings. Congrats Tesla! That's amazing.
- forgetsusername 10y ago>Congrats Tesla! That's amazing. Can you describe what's so amazing about it? They're planning to put temporarily non-functional autonomous driving hardware on their new cars, with the intention to use it when the software is ready at some unknown point in the future.
- elchief 10y agoSo cynical It's a small but useful step forward toward a very cool future
- shas3 10y agoThis is a sign of the utter commodification of hardware and the possibility that a majority of innovation in the future (with the exception of low-power wearables) lies in the realm of software and algorithms.
- josephagoss 10y agoBut things have been moving that way for a long time and until it becomes common place to travel in spaceships it's going to remain that way. The real space age will again open up hardware, but make no mistake that software will play as important or more of an important role then to.
- thesimon 10y agoIf you go to the order page of the Model S, it says for the "Full Self-Driving Hardware": >Please note also that using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing and ride hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year. Interesting decision.
- blhack 10y agoWhoa...reading that doesn't rub me the right way at all. I trust Tesla, though, so maybe I'm misreading/misinterpreting it.
- ams6110 10y agoWhy do you trust Tesla? In what ways are their interests aligned with yours?
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- huihe9849hjjgkg 10y agoTrying to save the planet would be one way.
- 2bitencryption 10y agoWhy would you not trust Tesla? Are their interests not aligned with yours?
- serge2k 10y agoClearly they aren't, they are trying to limit what I can do with my vehicle.
- imtringued 10y agoFrom an economic perspective there is no difference between a product that can't do X and a product that could do X but it's not enabled or limited in some way. Implementing logic in an ASIC which cannot be modified and implementing logic with an embedded processor where the software can be modified but this feature is disabled is the same thing. Both are intended to be black boxes that just do one thing and nothing else. Yet for some reason you expect to be able to modify the embedded processor.
- Element_ 10y agoWill this new neural net and hardware be capable of advanced object detection? For instance if a plastic bag or piece of cardboard rolls across the highway a human driver knows it's safe to run over without stopping. Would a system like this just see an obstacle via radar and emergency brake? Google has been working on this problem for longer and they have access to the largest image/video datasets in the world to train their models. I wonder how google and tesla systems would compare.
- dangrossman 10y ago> Google has been working on this problem for longer and they have access to the largest image/video datasets in the world to train their models As of August, Google's self-driving cars have 2 million miles of real on-road experience, while Tesla's Autopilot systems have 140 million. They're beaming back data to Tesla the whole time.
- mdorazio 10y agoSignificantly different data sets, though. Google has full surround camera and LIDAR. Tesla has very limited external world sensor data in comparison.
- Element_ 10y agoMy understanding is because Tesla has to send their data over the cell network it is first heavily processed/reduced by the cars onboard computer before being sent back (in order to conserve bandwidth). So I am not sure if it's fair to compare the 2 company's datasets based on miles driven alone.
- rak00n 10y agoI thought Tesla cars get connected to home WiFi as you park.
- mdorazio 10y agoI highly doubt it. They're not including Lidar, which means no high-resolution point clouds to be able to identify objects. In my opinion, this just doesn't cut it since ultrasonic is limited to relatively short range, and Radar doesn't provide the level of detail you need to really understand what is going on around the car beyond "there's some kind of object 100 feet ahead".
- rocky1138 10y agoHow does their autonomous car compare to nvidia's?
- will_hughes 10y agoIt's probably using NVidia's self-driving hardware compute platform under the hood with Tesla's own software on it.
- luma 10y agoI think what people are missing here is an understanding of how these systems are tested and deployed at scale. While I have no involvement with Tesla I do have first-hand knowledge of similar programs at tier 1 automotive suppliers. The suppliers provide (or are looking to provide) an electronics suite to car manufacturers. The car manufacturers want the system to be safe lest they be sued out of existence. One part of that will include contractual requirements for the system to have clocked n-kilometers on the highway in full (or partial) operation. For example, one project had a requirement for car(s) with full sensor data recording and partial automation enabled for 1 million kms. The automotive suppliers will outfit a handful of, say 2019 model year test cars with the proposed sensors in the correct place and drive them around roads and highways in the specified conditions. Outfitting the cars can be expensive with prototype hardware, collecting the resulting data is a pain, and as a result the suppliers I'm familiar with run a (relatively) small number of cars for a lot of miles to record all that data. The point of all this is to collect sensor data for resimulation as models are developed and trained. If an exceptional event occurs, they can modify the driving model, then "replay" the new model against all prior collected data to make sure the change doesn't do something unexpected elsewhere. This process takes a lot of time (years) to pursue in this manner. What Tesla is doing is deploying the hardware in the field, then using the deployed systems to collect data to be used for the development of the automation platform. Instead of a couple of test mules they can use every single car they sell and let you drive it around for them while they record the results. Data collection that would take years can happen in weeks. This is a brilliant shortcut to the process and it puts them a couple years in front of the competition.
- femto 10y agoClosely related to what you wrote, it will also be about verifying the hardware itself, independently of any software models. New hardware needs hours in the field, to verify failure rates and performance under real world conditions. Early deployment means Tesla's hardware will be ready for full service as soon as software is available. Autonomous driving then becomes "just a software problem", with hardware eliminated as a variable.
- agumonkey 10y agoThinking Google was screaming for more opportunities to acquire and test data. Had to be satisfied with a few cars and a small area shared with other companies. Tesla is making its own jackpot here.
- dyarosla 10y agoFrom the car purchase page, it seems that they are charging an additional $13,200 (combining the addons Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self Driving capability at $7,900 and $5,300 respectively) for the full experience: https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/models/design https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/models/design
- brianwawok 10y agoSoftware switch fee. You get the same hardware, different feature flag. Crazy right?
- imtringued 10y agoHow is that different from buying software for a computer? I can install a linux distribution or buy windows. It's the same hardware, different "feature flag". Somehow that's not crazy.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoI don't follow your analogy. I'm not sure this qualifies as a feature flag.
- brianwawok 10y agoThis is more like your computer coming with 2 hard drives.. One active with your OS, one empty. You can at any time pay $100 and start using the other drive. Otherwise it sits empty. We are talking about giving people hardware for free, then paying money to turn it on or not.
- lovemenot 10y agoSince the time of IBM mainframes this business model had been known as the Golden Screwdriver. Http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Golden%20Screwdriver
- Taylor_OD 10y agoYou can buy a kindle with ads for $50 or a kindle without for $70. I don't like the way all this is progressing.
- Animats 10y agoMore cameras. Better sonars (very short range). Better radar processing, but apparently the same old single radar at bumper height. Still no windshield-height radar. No radar scanning in elevation. No LIDAR. That's a better, but still weak sensor suite. It's probably enough for freeway driving under good conditions. It's far below Google's sensor suite. Or Volvo's. Now they just have to write software smart enough to not plow into stationary vehicles on the shoulder. There are videos of three separate Tesla crashes where the Tesla plowed into a vehicle partially blocking a lane. There have been several announcements of low-cost solid-state LIDAR units for automotive. Quantergy announced last year, but didn't ship.[1] Innoviz announced this year to ship in 2018.[2] Advanced Scientific Concepts can't get their costs down.[3] (They have a great unit that costs $100K; the Dragon spacecraft uses it during docking.) Those are all-solid-state devices. There are also some companies trying to use MEMS mirrors, like TV projectors. Eventually somebody will get 3D LIDAR technology working at a low price point, but it hasn't happened yet. [1] http://www.quanergy.com/products/ http://www.quanergy.com/products/ [2] http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sensors/israeli-stealth-startup-innoviz-promises-100-solidstate-automotive-lidar-by-2018 http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sens... [3] http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/automotive.htm http://www.advancedscientificconcepts.com/applications/autom...
- maratd 10y ago> That's a better, but still weak sensor suite. All you have is two overlapping cameras with poor resolution and they let you behind the wheel, right? This is a software and processing hardware problem only. Human beings drive OK for the most part and we don't have lidar/radar/sonar/etc. With 8 cameras providing 360 vision and an advanced NVIDIA hardware suite, this problem is entirely solvable and this is a very reasonable solution to it.
- jayjay71 10y agoIn theory, sure. But you're effectively saying computers have to process vision as well as humans, which some experts think is comparable to solving AI. I'm not saying Tesla won't make a lot of progress, but considering how many decades of research has gone into this very problem (I worked on it at Carnegie Mellon as a graduate student, and they've been doing it since the 80's) it will likely take longer than most people like to admit. I actually don't know a single expert who thinks we're anywhere close to having a stage 4 autonomous vehicle. Most of the people I respect are pegging it at decades instead of years.
- alinspired 10y agotesla might not be comfortable releasing new software for update hardware in production
- lathiat 10y agothey do this all the time, it's a key part of their strategy
- shawn-butler 10y agoSo, I am buying hardware I can't use solely for the purpose of providing data to a for-profit company for free to improve its product for another generation of customers?
- abestic9 10y agoNo, you're buying hardware you can use which has the added benefit of improving the product you're using over time using data collected from your hardware along with thousands of others'.
- imtringued 10y agoIt's not free for tesla. The hardware cost is what tesla paid to obtain that data. The people that use the autopilot hardware effectively subsidise your car.
- probe 10y agoCan someone speak to Tesla's approach of collecting real-world data, and Google's approach of "simulating" roads and conditions and running self-driving models on that (so technically their vehicles drive millions of miles on simulated roads). Intuitively Tesla's approach makes more sense, but would love to hear someone with domain knowledge on how much of a difference it can actually make (after all, you need quality training data and Tesla may now have to navigate through significant more noise).
- josephagoss 10y agoMore data will win. Tesla can also simulate if they need to.
- gakada 10y agoNot an expert, but what you describe is testing different parts of the system. Real world data tests that the sensor system is creating an accurate model of the environment, whereas simulated data ensures that the vehicle makes correct decisions for any given input model. e.g. real world data tests that the vehicle can detect a stop sign. Simulated data tests that the vehicle stops at a stop sign.
- hash-set 10y agoI get that tech companies want self-driving cars really bad because they smell billions of dollars in "disruption" but no matter how good AI gets, I have a suspicion it won't actually do better than a decent human driver can do. It's not about processing speed, it's about experience and reflexes, which granted, not everyone has. Let's see a self-driving car win a Formula 1 race--and even that controlled racetrack environment isn't the same as the real world! It's actually harder to drive on the typical American roadways than it is to be on a track. And yes, I am aware that AI stuff is improving exponentially or whatever, but the more I think about this, the more I think it is mostly a pipe dream to grab headlines and be a "look over here" type distraction for the purposes of raising funding. In terms of safety, people will still lose their lives, they will just die from different kinds of car accidents than the kinds we have now.
- IndianAstronaut 10y ago>In terms of safety, people will still lose their lives, they will just die from different kinds of car accidents than the kinds we have now If self driving cars kill 20 thousand people a year, it would still be a major improvement. 30 thousand people die every year from human drivers.
- jjnoakes 10y agoI don't think stats will be enough to overcome the human perception factor. Self driving cars have what I consider to be an insurmountable pr problem.
- Frogolocalypse 10y agoI think americans are going to get left behind in this technology. It's not just the crumbling infrastructure, it's the lack of public transport options. I expect there will be plenty of cities around the world that will be adopting self-driving car technology long before the US does.
- chc 10y ago
- KKKKkkkk1 10y agoThe former head of Google's self-driving car project has said that self-driving cars are decades into the future.* Even if that's too pessimistic, nobody today knows what a self-driving car will look like, what kind of algorithms it will run, and what kind of sensors it will need to get there. I'm afraid this pronouncement is another sign that Mr. Musk is taking his investors for a ride. * http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self-driving/google-selfdriving-car-will-be-ready-soon-for-some-in-decades-for-others http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/self...
- davidz 10y ago"How quickly can we get this into people's hands? If you read the papers, you see maybe it's three years, maybe it's thirty years. And I am here to tell you that honestly, it's a bit of both." This statement is based on what he is aware of at the time. The most pessimistic side of it is purely a data game, and Tesla's ability to have 100k cars collecting data for them will give them a significant advantage to accelerate their progress.
- aerovistae 10y agoSome of what they describe sounds like it's going to take some real adjustment before it stops being annoying and starts being useful, namely the assumption of what you want when you get in and out. > If you don’t say anything, the car will look at your calendar and take you there as the assumed destination or just home if nothing is on the calendar. Oh boy. If you get in your car, it will just assume it should start driving somewhere more or less immediately? What if you want to sit for a few minutes? I know, I'm taking them very literally. Just saying, though. > When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. Again, what if I'm unpacking things for the car, or don't want the car to go anywhere? I don't want to have to pull out my phone and tap on something to stop it rolling away, or jump in front of it or something, or open a door. Hopefully it obeys simple voice commands directed towards it like "wait here for now."
- nardi 10y agoThese seem like straw-man criticisms. > Oh boy. If you get in your car, it will just assume it should start driving somewhere more or less immediately? What if you want to sit for a few minutes? You think they won't have a "Go" button on the 17" touchscreen? > Again, what if I'm unpacking things for the car, or don't want the car to go anywhere? I don't want to have to pull out my phone and tap on something to stop it rolling away, or jump in front of it or something, or open a door. Again—there is a 17" touchscreen right there. You don't control your car with your phone or your voice. Have you never seen a Tesla?
- aerovistae 10y agoI own one, and I can control it with both my voice and my phone. Have you ever seen one?
- imtringued 10y agoI don't understand which text you're quoting. The article doesn't even contain the word "calendar".
- nsxwolf 10y agoI'm going to buy a bunch of Teslas and sit home and watch the money roll in from my own private Uber.
- chx 10y agoMy stance is very simple: when I can buy a car in Vancouver, BC without a driver's license I will be at the car salon door / preorder page / whatever, midnight movie release style to buy one and I won't ask about the price. Just make it happen, please.
- krmboya 10y agoI wonder how this will compare against geohotz' comma.ai aftermarket self driving kit that he promises to ship by end of year. He calls his company's technology level 3, which is more like autopilot, as opposed to level 4, which is a fully autonomous self driving car e.g. Google's. Does Tesla aim to eventually have a fully autonomous self driving car?
- eanzenberg 10y agoWhat the fuck do you think? They're making money selling cars as opposed to google.
- sctb 10y agoWe ask that you comment civilly and substantively or not at all.
- photogrammetry 10y agoWith respect to your first inquiry, we have no way to know. With respect to your second question, yes. Tesla does aim to eventually have a fully autonomous SDC, and have stated it innumerable times.
- hokkos 10y agoI wonder, do they upload all the camera videos taken during driving in grayscale low-res video through 4G to be computed though their neural net at Tesla ? What hardware do they have in the car to process the video, the Jetson TX1 can use up to 6 cameras or 1400 Mpix/s, but they probably use low-res output for neural net usage. I wonder what drivers think of their privacy.
- scarlac 10y agoYes, it will be processed live in the car. From the article: > To make sense of all of this data, a new onboard computer with more than 40 times the computing power of the previous generation runs the new Tesla-developed neural net for vision, sonar and radar processing software. In the beginning, it's very likely some data will be uploaded in bulk, for Tesla to analyze, particularly while they are running the passive tests to correct their models.
- kozak 10y agoThey have a pretty interesting description of their radar images: "...because of how strange the world looks in radar. Photons of that wavelength travel easily through fog, dust, rain and snow, but anything metallic looks like a mirror. The radar can see people, but they appear partially translucent. Something made of wood or painted plastic, though opaque to a person, is almost as transparent as glass to radar". So my question is, where can I find such images? Or can I buy such a radar and tinker with it myself? What wavelength are they speaking about?
- pauljurczak 10y agoHardware performance is not a problem for Level 5 autonomy - the software is. If Tesla insists on deploying full self-driving capability in the next couple of years, they will be litigated out of existence. We are a few decades away from autopilot to "understand" what it is doing. Right now it is just parroting the most common scenarios. This may be as good or slightly better than the average driver, but it still will result in many deaths, if deployed in hundreds of thousands of cars. Unless Tesla somehow shields itself from legal liability, it will be sued to oblivion.
- Tepix 10y agoI don't think so. It's not hard to make an algorithm that drives slower/extra careful when facing unusual circumstances. It's the same thing human drivers do btw.
- hash-set 10y agoNo it isn't! I often react to bad situations not by slowing down but by speeding up, changing lanes, going on to medians--or even grass one time, you name it. Driving defensively is so much more than not tailgating the car in front of you.
- jsherwani 10y agoThe video is incredible: https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-teslas https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-...
- rejschaap 10y agoIt's pretty cool. From a marketing perspective I think they shouldn't have sped up the video. I feel it makes the driving look a little dangerous.
- _nalply 10y agoI liked the sportiness of it.
- Vik1ng 10y agoMercedes has similar videos. It's really not that difficult to get something like that. The real challenge is to get all the edge cases right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeifFwLDVBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeifFwLDVBU
- codeulike 10y agoHere's the video of it in action, an autonomous drive to the Tesla factory https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-teslas https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-...
- mrkgnao 10y ago> While this is occurring, Teslas with new hardware will temporarily lack certain features currently available on Teslas with first-generation Autopilot hardware, including some standard safety features such as automatic emergency braking, collision warning, lane holding and active cruise control. Um.
- bitL 10y agoAll German car manufacturers are now fitting their cars with hidden passive sensors for collecting data related to human driving with the intent to use these data for autonomous driving. Their main problem is the cost of transmission, i.e. they are considering buying mobile networks/towers and piggyback on mobile traffic. Then obviously feeding these data to huge datacenters with the projected flow of up to 2MB/s from a single car.
- jsingleton 10y agoVideo: https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076 https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076
- rbf 10y agoI wonder if our Model X that was put in production yesterday will have the new hardware..
- jsingleton 10y agoThe cameras look monochrome from the video. Or is this just editing? If true then I'm surprised that colour data is not used. You would have to detect a red stop light from just its position rather than it also being red.
- jdiez17 10y agoHere's a video of their full self-driving system in action: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot/ https://www.tesla.com/autopilot/
- tn_ 10y agoThis is very awesome and just one more step in moving towards a completely automated world. Everyone's commutes everyday is just a gold-mine of mostly unused data-points. There are solutions out there right now like Waze / Google Maps that'll redirect users around accidents. Can you imagine how crazy it'll be when our roads become even smarter based on individual users. For example, if there are people who "logged-in" to a road that enjoy driving faster, then this self-aware driving car can go in the lanes that avoid certain dangerous users.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoExcept with a completely automated society, there won't be any reason to commute.
- r3pl4y 10y agoHow many cars did they wreck until it worked like on that video?
- donohoe 10y agoSo, lets be clear then, you do not truly own the car. Am reminded of ebook and movie purchases - you're only just licensing the item. You own next to nothing.
- kneel 10y agoJust because you can't mod the car's software? It doesn't take much thought to realize what a terrible idea it would be to let people tinker with a telsa's self driving software.
- alexdumitru 10y agoI know I would tinker with it. And I'd probably die. So thank you Tesla :)
- rorykoehler 10y agoDo you really care about owning something that much? What difference does it make if it gets you from A to B all the same?
- ddalex 10y agoExactly this one: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/10/dont-plan-on-using-an-autonomous-tesla-to-earn-money-with-uber-or-lyft/ http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/10/dont-plan-on-using-an-au... When you own nothing, and license everything, what's stopping the licensor to ban you, or just increase the prices as they want?
- rorykoehler 10y agoCompetition?
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- rwmj 10y agoNot having to own a car, maintain it, repair it, etc is a feature, not a bug. I'd far rather have a pay-for-use car (ie. a driverless taxi).
- studentrob 10y agoIs this video sped up to make it seem like the car is more capable? It seems jumpy, and, for the speed at which the car is going and comes to a stop, there is not as much lurching as I would expect.
- gagege 10y agoI think it's sped up because driving is boring to watch.
- hyperbovine 10y agoHence, the self-driving car.
- notatoad 10y agoit's definitely sped up, watch all the way to the end when the guy gets out of it. i'm not sure if it makes the car seem more capable though. if anything, i was worried that the car seemed to be accelerating and decelerating dangerously quickly until i realized it was sped up.
- gabemart 10y agoI think the video is sped up, and while it may be sped up for a perfectly innocent reason, not indicating which parts of the video are sped up or by how much creates at least the appearance of possible impropriety, especially in a product demonstration. There's no problem with speeding up demo footage if you indicate you are doing so, like https://youtu.be/PDPrFJazD3Q?t=3m34s https://youtu.be/PDPrFJazD3Q?t=3m34s
- lanna 10y agoyes, it is time lapsed. it would be boring to watch the whole thing in real time, i guess.
- hnsummarizer 10y agoGreat song choice. Tesla is winning the sex-appeal game by far.
- bflesch 10y agoTruly impressive. I wonder if the Model 3 will also be fitted out with all the sensors and cameras. If yes, I'll definitely get one. As a German citizen, it really bugs me that Volkswagen is incapable of this kind of innovation. I don't see their roadmap play out like they plan it, because Tesla might beat them to market hard. I fear German regulation will jump in (again) to help them against Tesla. Currently, the German government gives out electric vehicle subsidies (~5k per car), but it is limited cars less expensive than 60k. At the moment there is very low demand for this subsidy, because everyone who goes EV wants to go Tesla.
- codeulike 10y agoYes model 3 will have the hardware. You'll have to pay extra to enable the software though.
- bflesch 10y agoThat's great news. Thank you.
- maxerickson 10y agoThey stated that the Model 3 will have the hardware in their announcement about it. https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have-full-self-driving-hardware https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now... (front page discussion of that story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863 )
- tompic823 10y agoModel 3 will have the hardware standard. For reference see [0] or the front page HN discussion thread going on right now. [0]: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now-have-full-self-driving-hardware https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now...
- joaonunesk 10y agoThe problem is that most of the established car companies are not thinking in the future. They become accommodate with the amount of cash they have on the hand, and they do not pursue innovation. Currently, Tesla is the only one who is delivering practical innovation and success!
- tzakrajs 10y agoThe off-ramp scene seemed precarious like a pinball down a bumper lane.
- RLN 10y agoLooks like Tesla self driving cars 'dry steer', something that my driving instructor always told me not to do.
- StavrosK 10y agoWhat's dry steering?
- alansk 10y agoTurning the wheel when the car is not in motion.
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- drcross 10y agoTwisting the steering wheel without and forward or reverse motion of the vehicle. It puts extra strain on the tyres.
- ygra 10y agoSteering while not moving, I guess. It't not really good for the tyres. However, for certain maneuvers, e.g. when parking, there isn't really a good way to avoid it.
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- andars 10y agoThey definitely do. I've seen this while watching a Model S pull into a parking spot. I guess they figure that if you can afford the car, the extra wear on the tires shouldn't be a problem for you? Dunno
- mkagenius 10y agoAmazing. It does give a feel of bus/train when the owner gets off and the car heads to its next job. I wonder if you need to _buy_ cars when complete autonomous cars start to roll.
- AndrewDucker 10y agoSelf-driving taxis are the future. Far less waste when the vehicle isn't lying around all day taking up space and doing nothing.
- JshWright 10y agoI look forward to having to insert and remove three car seats for every short trip... EDIT: By 'car seat' I mean a seat for an infant/toddler/child.
- rwmj 10y agoI don't understand. Why would you need to remove the seats?
- iand 10y agoSo his children can sit in them in the next car.
- blastofpast 10y agoMy guess is child seats.
- rwmj 10y agoFair enough. It's high time that car manufacturers worked out how to make seats/seatbelts that are adaptable to all ages. Or perhaps some sort of foldaway "wings" which turn a standard seat into a child seat.
- ythl 10y ago
- Overtonwindow 10y agoWOW. SIGN. ME. UP! ...if I could only afford a Tesla. That was really impressive.
- EA 10y agoPolice departments around the country are going to see a loss of revenue. No more rolling through stop signs, illegal lane changes, or speeding tickets.
- shanusmagnus 10y agoFunny point! I wonder if they'll add some "police funding tax" to self-driving car sales to make up for this revenue stream, the same way many politicians want a tax to electric vehicles to make up for the revenue lost to the gas tax. (Note: I don't really wonder this, because cops do not officially make stops in order to generate revenue, even though unofficially it's widely understood that they do.)
- tajen 10y ago...As long as they can rob the car and the bank accounts of the owners ("civil asset forfeiture"), they'll be fine.
- V-2 10y agoOn the other hand, self-driving cars will be eager to tell many other interesting stories about their drivers.
- YCode 10y agoI suspect they'll adapt to pull people over for things like sleeping in the driver seat, "embracing another while driving" and such. They could also shift to giving out more domestic or pedestrian tickets for things like music being too loud and jay-walking.
- bluedino 10y agoNobody's going to tweak their Tesla to roll through lights or go above the speed limit so they can get to work faster?
- scraft 10y agoInteresting for two reasons: 1. It is a self driving car, it is so clearly the future, I wish it existed now, it is going to be awesome (in my opinion). 2. Despite knowing about and following news about driverless cars for a while, there was something surprisingly (to me) compelling about watching the video. It's like you get a little taste of the full A to B that it can give you (door to door). Who wants to speculate how long it will be until self-driving cars are common place in the UK? I need to know how long I have to save..!
- jgrahamc 10y agoI'd like to see a self-driving car navigate London's narrow streets with cars both sides and the negotiation that goes on between drivers about who goes first. I'm impressed with this self-driving on California's spacious streets in perfect weather. I'll be really impressed when I see a self-driving car go down a London street in pouring rain, realize it needs to allow someone to come from the other direction and reverses and moves to the left to allow them through.
- cscurmudgeon 10y agoor any street in India.
- EastLondonCoder 10y agoYou may be able to see this next year, volvo is planning a trial: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/27/volvo-test-self-driving-cars-london-2017 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/27/volvo-tes...
- vadym909 10y agoMaybe it will have technology (GPS, Live Traffic, Cameras) to not go on that street until it is good to do so.
- OJFord 10y ago> Maybe it will have technology to not go on that street until it is good to do so. Have you driven in London? (Or other comparably busy and narrow city - even NYC at least has 'American-width' roads.) It's not technology that's required, barring perhaps flying car technology. If every way is busy, you can't just wait eternally, you have to communicate with other drivers as parent commenter said, maybe let a couple of people go, and then realise when you just need to go for it and 'force' someone to wait for you if they're not otherwise going to. It will be really awesome to see a car do that safely and autonomously. There'll come a time, perhaps, when two cars are flashing their headlights at each other to communicate, for no real reason other than "that's how human-driven cars did it in the old days"!
- jsingleton 10y agoDirect link: https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076 https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076 This is also the video embedded in the main press release (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863) and this news article: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/20/tesla-releases-video-of-fully-autonomous-model-x-electric-car https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/20/tesla-rel...
- hacker_9 10y ago> "The person in the driver seat is only there for legal reasons" > Person gets out and let's car park itself But seriously the tech is very impressive. The journey was rather simple though, and didn't cover more difficult areas (inner city driving, heavy stop start traffic, roadblocks, road accidents and so on). I hope that Tesla test these things thoroughly because they've already got one death under their belt, it won't take many more to put people off completely.
- wodenokoto 10y agoThe parking space could be private and the road public and might therefore have different rules about drivers.
- akio 10y agoIt was Tesla's HQ in Palo Alto.
- miguelrochefort 10y agoLook at that parking. All Teslas!
- mikeash 10y agoHeavy stop start traffic is already more or less solved. The previous Autopilot system handles it beautifully. City driving, roadblocks, accidents, and other unusual circumstances definitely deserve to be called more difficult, though.
- marricks 10y agoI don't think it's really fair to put it as dire as that, humans have more deaths, with similar miles, under their belts. Many people are starting to realize that's the real test, especially those likely to be model S/≡/X customers. Real consumer and public education on the nature of the problem is necessary though, especially if we want a safer self driving world.
- nchelluri 10y agoDid you see how close the guys hands were to gripping the steering wheel? Obvious he didn't trust it completely :) Still, very cool. And the presence of cameras everywhere should help navigate insurance/accident stuff everywhere, I'd hope.
- Klathmon 10y agoHis hands were on the wheel because it'd be illegal to not do that. And that wasn't gripping, it was lightly touching.
- ohitsdom 10y agoIt's literally his job to be ready to take over in case of an emergency or malfunction.
- mikeash 10y agoThis software is probably two years before release at minimum, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was more like four or five. Would you trust it at this point?
- laktak 10y agoHow to steal some cars: - hack into a car remotely - tell the car to drive to your parking lot - repeat
- Klathmon 10y agoHow to steal some cars: - tow the car - repeat Anything can be made to seem simple when you oversimplify it.
- jhall1468 10y ago> - hack into a car remotely Because the average car thief definitely has experience breaking through secure systems.
- ceejayoz 10y ago"Hey buddy, want to by a $100k car the cops are looking for that's lacking all the cool features because Tesla could track its location if we turned it on?
- Scarblac 10y agoIf you can do - hack into a car remotely Maybe it's better to - have it drive you to your destination - let it go back to its own parking lot So people won't notice.
- JBiserkov 10y agoVideo is well done, the car seems amazing. Offtopic: There seems to be a bug, the video being uploaded twice: https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-tesla-cars https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-... https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-teslas https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-... The second one redirects to the first. The first contains two links to the second, below and on the right "Next video". I clicked for quite sometime until I figured what was happening.
- blastofpast 10y agoI take it as a hint that Tesla may be producing more than just "cars" in the near future.
- misiti3780 10y agoDoes anyone know how many people Tesla employs that are dedicated to working on the self driving software?
- sixdimensional 10y agoI feel like this video would have been even more awesome if Elon himself had been the passenger!
- mazesc 10y agoHow so?
- hyperbovine 10y agoYou must be new here
- ythl 10y agoBecause hero worship
- sixdimensional 10y agoI suppose it was to show how much he believes in his own product, if he demonstrates that he trusts it to drive him around safely. When you see an "inventor" testing their own product it is usually good press. Given, I realize he is not the "inventor" per se (more of the "enabler"?), but still it is a show of good faith in one's own product. Not because of hero worship. I can't say I've ever seen a video of Elon riding in a self driving Tesla before, seems like it would be very tangible proof how much he trusts the autopilot.
- pyb 10y agoNo bad, but it still needs to be taught to keep to the right. Unless this is how people normally drive in the US ?
- kraftman 10y agoYeah I was thinking the same thing. Is this usual or is it just edited strangely?
- istorical 10y agoIn the US keeping to the right is a wisdom that is applied to highways (but even then it's more of a 'if you're driving slowly stay to the right') but isn't something people really consider on normal roads and streets.
- ceejayoz 10y agoIn my experience, American driver ed doesn't cover this much at all, at least when I learned (the late 1990s). There are a lot of people who think "I'm going exactly the speed limit" means they should hang out in the "fast" lane.
- CoryG89 10y agoI may be wrong, but I think a lot of people would argue there is no such thing as the "fast" lane. Just a regular lane, and a "slow" lane.
- conductr 10y agoI have come to think this is coming from a certain righteous attitude. Everyone knows about the old norm of slower traffic to the right, but people give up on it when 1) why should I get behind that guy in the right lane who is driving slower than the limit, just so you can speed and 2) if you want to speed, find your own way through traffic, not my problem. There's also the variant of, I'm speeding and people are getting out of my way, why should I get out of your way because you decided to drive even faster than me. It just encourages faster and faster driving. I live where it's very common to see anything from -10 to +30 the limit. Which is just dangerous. The safest thing to do, is to stay where you are and let the fast guy find his way through or be forced to slow down. So I do kind of agree with this being an outdated norm that doesn't apply to today. What you're taught in driver ed means nothing after a little time on the road dealing with the norms of other drivers and the inconveniences they impose on you. Nobody wants to be inconvenienced any more, even if it's the "right thing" to do. Some what related, I feel I notice in last 10-20 years people absolutely refuse to miss their turn/exit. They will create a very dangerous situation swerving across lanes and cutting people off at the last second rather than saying "oh dang, I will need to do a U-turn ahead". Another example I notice is, the use of a turn signal is an expectation of the right to change lanes. People actually get angry with thoughts like "I put on my turn signal, everyone else should slam on their brakes so I can change lanes because I need to turn now!"
- chillingeffect 10y agoIt's sad how presenting such solid, undeniable evidence results in a downtrend in valuation: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-shares-just-took-dive-140327021.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-shares-just-took-dive-14...
- makomk 10y agoTesla just announced that all their newly-manufactured cars will be shipping without the existing, industry-standard active safety and driving assistance features like adaptive cruse control, automatic emergency braking, lane assist, etc that they previously had, and that they will release a patch to readd them at some unspecified point. I'm not surprised that a carefully edited video of automatic driving in ideal conditions wasn't enough to head off a stock price drop.
- mikeash 10y agoIs it really a "trend" when it just returned to the value it had 24 hours previously?
- rdickert 10y ago"results in" - You are assuming that the the announcement and the downtrend are causally related because they happened at about the same time. How do you know that the stock wasn't "trying to" go down further but was prevented from doing so by this announcement? This is one of my pet peeves in financial press: They announce some daily news and a price change as if somehow one caused the other. We simply don't know if/how they are related.
- netsharc 10y agoIt's still marketing... Tesla says "Autopilot" and has a lot of small print that says "This is not self-driving!". Google has a lot of research but has so far not made any jazzy "Self-driving cars are here!" claims or videos. And this video shows a sunny day on well-defined roads and low traffic. What about rain or snow?
- awqrre 10y agoGood thing the car didn't take off for a joy ride after dropping off the customer... might have became a legal issue.
- ajmurmann 10y agoAbout self driving cars in general: I am very concerned that self driving cars and speed limits are going to be a very annoying issue. I can see them drive way slow in semi-complicated situations annoying all other drivers. There are also many places in the county where it's normal and seemingly expected to go 5-10mp/h over the speed limit. Of course self driving cars will stay under the posted speed limit. I hope that in the long run we will be able to innovate on how we deal with speed limits especially once the human driven cars are off the road and hopefully illegal. But till then I can see lots of road rage coming from this.
- wcummings 10y agoI look forward to riding my bike 10mph in front of driverless cars. This is one of the few things that excites me about driverless cars. People should be driving below the limit (and the limits should be about 10mph lower in a lot of places) for pedestrian safety. The fatality rate drops precipitously around 20mph.
- netsharc 10y agoInstead of mad honking drivers, the car will sniff your smartphone's Bluetooth address. Computers you go near will recognize the smartphone, know it's you, and they'll start crashing programs and slowing down the wifi...
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- ajmurmann 10y agoI agree that city driving is a more complicated issue. Freeway speed limits are a much easier case, but maybe I'm just missing driving on the Autobahn.
- wcummings 10y agoI think the real win is proper spacing, not increased speeds. Human drivers are really good at tailgating and causing bunching. Higher speeds mean a longer following distance, which might not be a win on urban highways.
- Gustomaximus 10y agoAnother reason we want better battery life on phones. I can imagine a scenario when your car goes and parks itself and you come looking for it without phone battery. Super cool though. Love how they are challenging such a significant and resourced industry.
- cs702 10y agoVery impressive... BUT the car was driving itself in ideal conditions, with high visibility in all directions and amidst light traffic. What I'm really hoping to see is a video of the car driving itself in more dangerous situations, such as in the middle of heavy rain or thick fog that limits visibility, or at night on a dangerous stretch of highway with lots of trailer trucks zooming by, or surrounded by tired angry drivers on a major holiday in a popular route with bumper-to-bumper traffic. When self-driving cars can successfully navigate those and other similarly dangerous scenarios, we will know the technology is ready.
- serg_chernata 10y agoThe new array will be using 8 cameras and 12 ultrasound sensors for precisely those conditions.
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- l3m0ndr0p 10y agoBut will it break for an animal running across the road, like a squirrel? Will it ride over, ride around or stop if there is roadkill?
- spIrr 10y agoFrom 00:50 to 01:10, why is the car driving in the left lane, when the right lane is clearly not turning? It's strange to see this behaviour as someone living in Germany, where you are supposed to, by default, drive in the right lane if you are not overtaking another car or there is a traffic jam... EDIT: also, did it turn into the wrong lane at 2:25-2:30? is this a security risk?
- brianwawok 10y agoYou need to differentiate between highways and local streets. Highways the drive right lane thing is common. In a city street you often can and should drive in the lane based on your next turn. Driving in the right for 1 block then veering across 2 lanes to make a left turn at the next stop sign is no good.
- hazelnut 10y agoGerman living in the US here: This does only apply for highways / interstates - not for city streets which seems to be the case here. Side note: People are not very strict about that rule here and nobody cares. Mainly because you're allowed to overtake other cars on both sides - not just only on the left. Isn't that dangerous? Yes, but there's everywhere a speed limit of around 65mph (104kmh) which makes overtaking other cars much easier / safer.
- devy 10y ago> also, did it turn into the wrong lane at 2:25-2:30? is this a security risk? Yes, totally a crash collision risk! I've witnessed this happened once in a Costco parking lot. Car A made a right turn onto the left lane of the crossing road and the oncoming car B didn't pay attention at the moment and bumped into it head on.
- fortybillion 10y agoThis is legal in California.
- mturmon 10y ago
- S_A_P 10y agoSo what do these cars do when the hit a puddle of mud and it covers all the cameras. Will there be a new form of vandalism where someone puts scotch tape over/destroys the vehicles cameras and now your fancy autonomous vehicle is rendered incapacitated. Maybe this seems unlikely or ridiculous, but the dependence on cameras at points on the car that seem likely to get dirty and or damaged seems to be a risk to me.
- Cyph0n 10y agoI'm assuming the system is monitored by external circuitry, so a camera being covered should be easy to pick up. On top that, they're probably ensuring consensus of the outputs of all overlapping cameras. This is definitely done on start, and probably even during operation.
- esquevin 10y agoWhat'd you do if you drove over mud and it covered your windshield ?
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- brianwawok 10y agoThis I would guess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxDEqkAWbPE&t=40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxDEqkAWbPE&t=40
- S_A_P 10y agoUpvoted! Im not sure the battery pack would allow General Lee style antics, so I guess a model S cant be used for a Dukes of Hazzard Redux...
- S_A_P 10y agoturn on the windshield wipers. Last I checked there were no water jets, wipers or other cleaning devices for the camera lenses on any Tesla. Again, maybe it seems like a small thing, but its still something you would have to worry about. Imagine driving down a dirt road and your autonomous car becomes disabled until you get out and clean the cameras.
- eriknstr 10y agoDirect link to video only: https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076 https://player.vimeo.com/video/188105076
- GeorgeAnka 10y agoIt's crazy, I can't belive that it will be works if will be only autonomous cars. It will be a lot of deadlocs.
- xadhominemx 10y agoFake video... Page Mill is not backed up onto 280
- JonoBB 10y agoAt just after 3.23, when the car is parking, it looks like that rear wheel is going to hit the curb, and then it suddenly cuts away to the next scene. Maybe there was enough turning angle to miss it, but I dunno...it looked pretty close to me.
- martin_bech 10y agoAutopark works pretty flawlessly. I use it s couple of times pr week in my current gen Tesla. (Now old gen)
- sharrs 10y agoWow this is awesome!
- hipshaker 10y agoIsn't this hackernews?? So many "but what if this and that and this..." & "and yeah let's see if it can handle X & Y" This is the iPhone 1 of self-driving cars! That's akin to saying Apple should have waited to release their phone until iPhone 7 "because of this & that & this..." Don't we have to start somewhere?? Aren't there supposed to be a big user base here who understands that it's an evolutionary process - we build the plane before we build the rocket before we shoot people into space? Oviously the perfect self-driving car is still some way off, but I for one am thrilled this race is on!
- Thrymr 10y ago> This is the iPhone 1 of self-driving cars! That's akin to saying Apple should have waited to release their phone until iPhone 7 "because of this & that & this..." We don't know yet whether this is the iPhone 1 of self-driving cars or the Newton of self-driving cars, a decade or more ahead of its time.
- aerovistae 10y agoI laughed out loud when I googled "tsla" after watching the video and the top headline in the news section of the google results was "Analyst doubts the new move by Tesla Motors." Clicking on the article for humor's value, I continued to read: > However, Edmunds.com, Inc. analyst Jessica Caldwell questions the value of purchasing a self-driving car before regulations catch up. Caldwell said that, meanwhile, competitors could introduce better solutions, potentially making Tesla’s hardware “obsolete almost as soon as it’s activated for prime time.” It's just hilarious the contortions of logic people will go to in order to put Musk down. Having the equipment ready and in action first is somehow a disadvantage by this argument, and now you're better off being later to market. These same people have written that Tesla will be left in the dust as its competitors beat it to the market because it can't keep up with their manufacturing, and thus being first to market is only an advantage if you're not Tesla. You can't win.
- beambot 10y ago> Having the equipment ready and in action first... That seems to be Ms. Caldwell's point: Without the software or regulations in place, it's impossible to know if the "equipment is ready." I don't disagree with her on this one. (And I am long TSLA.)
- ahunt09 10y agoThe video was too edited for me to have confidence. There was a moment at about 2:05 where I was interested to see how it handled the termination and merging of the lane -- but then we cut away before that happened. Or at 1:30 when there's no big sign post in the median, and then switching to left-rear camera, there we pass one. It's a nice narrative on the future, but it's far from proof of comprehensive functionality.
- tonylemesmer 10y ago"The person in the driver seat is only there for legal reasons" - how do Tesla reconcile this with the "summon" feature? How can they market the summon feature and say the Tesla could find you on the other side of the country unless it has someone in the driving seat touching the steering wheel?
- maxerickson 10y agoIt's a demonstration of the technology they have, not of the technology that will be available to consumers tomorrow (the hardware is in the cars, the software isn't). Part of getting the software deployed will be figuring out the legal situation.
- tonylemesmer 10y agoI see. Yes on their website it says "...on private property."
- geertj 10y agoThis does it for me. I have seen the future. Today I will register for a Model 3.
- fareesh 10y ago1) If a self-driving car is involved in an accidental death. Is the justice system equipped to effectively hold a trial where information like logs, debugging information, etc. are discussed in court to validate whether or not there is any liability on the part of the manufacturer, considering the car is driving itself? 2) What happens in the case of bugs or system-level crashes? What is it about car software that makes it "not broken" compared to the other software we write?
- nradov 10y agoThe Jalopnik review of the video was pretty critical, essentially claiming that the test was done under the best possible conditions and this doesn't demonstrate that Tesla is getting any closer to automatic driving on more typical roads. (I don't know whether that's right or wrong, just thought it was an interesting analysis.) http://jalopnik.com/teslas-proof-video-for-their-self-driving-tech-isnt-ver-1788018454 http://jalopnik.com/teslas-proof-video-for-their-self-drivin...
- dperfect 10y agoIt is quite impressive, but I'll honestly have a hard time getting excited about self-driving cars until I see a demo of driving at night in a snow storm (heck, even heavy rain would be nice to see) around road construction, poor signage and faint lines on the road. Believe it or not, those kinds of conditions are fairly common in places outside of California, and until we have self-driving cars that can do really well in those conditions, this is basically just a fun demo in my opinion. I'm really not trying to downplay the hard work and technical merit of Tesla; sped-up video and opportune edits aside, it is very cool. But I can't help but feel that it's a bit like showing off (to the world) your shiny new web app that only works in IE with ActiveX installed, only if your name is "demo user", and only when the planets are in perfect alignment - or in other words, a functional prototype by anyone else's standards. It's a great achievement, but we're certainly not "there" yet - if that's what it's trying to communicate. And yes, the "Full Self-Driving Hardware" headline certainly seems to suggest that (at least) the hardware is "there" now, and that it's only a matter of software iteration to be done. Before you respond with the typical "but those are just nitpicky details" or "this is only v1; v2 will be able to solve those things easily", let me say this: going from this to a system that can handle challenging road conditions is not just a matter of software iteration. Since poor road conditions threaten the reliability of sensor data itself, we're talking about a problem that gets increasingly more difficult. The most sophisticated software in the world can't do anything if cameras and sensors are frozen or obstructed, and when signage and lines are lacking, the software must rely on more and more human-like levels of AI inference - not just about driving, but about the complex world in general.
- titzer 10y agoThe video seemed to imply that the hardware is using cameras for navigation. What if a camera lens is simply dirty? Seems, very, very brittle.
- jasonallen 10y agoWhen this becomes real, the next question becomes "why own the car"? What's the benefit of having it sit in a parking lot for 8 hours until I'm ready to go home. Seems like the future will become more Uber-like, where I call up rides whenever I want, and don't worry about parking, maintenance, etc....
- toomuchtodo 10y agohttps://electrek.co/2016/10/19/teslas-new-self-driving-car-can-only-make-you-money-on-the-ride-sharing-tesla-network-not-uber-or-lyft/ https://electrek.co/2016/10/19/teslas-new-self-driving-car-c...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bnycum 10y agoI was thinking of this idea the other day when I came to an intersection where a stop sign had been hit. It was now bent in a way that faced the highway that did not have to stop. I was on a highway with no stop signs or lights for miles. What would the self driving car do in that situation? For both sides of the intersection. Then I thought about another intersection by my old house. For years the cross street had to stop for traffic on the main street. One day I went to work, then I came home and it was all the sudden a 4-way stop. No database of stop signs could work either unless it was updated to the minute.
- usaphp 10y ago> "It was now bent in a way that faced the highway that did not have to stop." Did you know about it because you saw it being bent or because you drove there before and knew that there should be a stop sign?
- bnycum 10y agoI had driven it many times before. To a human the whole situation would seem pretty close to obvious as to who should and shouldn't stop.
- wehadfun 10y agooh shit!
- andrewvijay 10y agoWow. Just wow. Amazing! Hope it changes everything forever. For a while I thought it was driving way too fast then realized that it was just fast played.
- stefanv 10y agoI wonder who decided/approved the use of a song about death and funeral procession (Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones) in a video about "driving" without hands on public roads...
- castratikron 10y agoIsn't this the death of driving as we know it?
- relics443 10y ago1. I want this!!!! 2. Too much anxiety, I'll wait until they have a couple billion more miles
- kordless 10y agoShut up and take my money.
- sssilver 10y agoMan I sure hope human-driven vehicles/internal combustion engines won't be deemed illegal in my lifetime. I still enjoy driving my motorcycle down the road, feeling the engine vibe on my fingertips, and hearing it click click rumble rumble vroom. This video made me worry.
- tzakrajs 10y agoJust get an amendement to the constitution and you can use it for as long as you would like!
- nateberkopec 10y agoIf I was Tesla, I wouldn't have sped up the video at all. People are going to think this car drives like a maniac.
- 627467 10y agoPersonally I'm looking forward to how PRIVATE self-driving cars solves hunting for parking problem. It's a great social problem to solve.
- codeulike 10y agoThese cars are actually robots. In disguise.
- grondilu 10y agoI think the most impressive part is the end, when the car looks for a parking spot.
- mattlondon 10y agoAlso, I thought the self-closing door was a nice touch. Interesting really - I guess it has a nice "chauffeur" feel if you can get into the car without closing the door (I wonder how it knows you are there? Or that everyone who is about to get out has got out?) and/or just roaming off. Personally I'd be worried about someone slipping into the car before it had closed the door and stealing anything in the car.
- andys627 10y agoI'm curious to see when cities will start changing their zoning for this new reality. The most exciting to me is elimination of parking minimums - these add a lot to the cost of building anything and take up very valuable/well located space.
- honkhonkpants 10y agoA little skepticism is OK here. I don't think cheerleading is helpful. One possible interpretation of this video is Tesla is five years behind Google.
- savagej 10y agoGoogle sells cars?
- pyabo 10y agoKITT I need you!
- mentos 10y agoI had hoped to see this technology occur in my lifetime, I said to myself "I hope I live to see the day" a few years ago. Here it is in 2016, obviously its just a highly controlled demo but it has connected the dots. I'm confident the technology is there and the hardest work will be overcoming legislation and politics. But does anyone else find this bittersweet? I had an awesome moment of pride for what Tesla and Elon have done here. The dream is now reality. Followed by a moment of sadness. The dream is now reality..
- tim333 10y agoThe legislation and politics bit has been surprisingly easy going and if anything seems to be leaning to forcing safety systems onto people rather than banning them. The bigger problem still seems to be making the systems work reliably.
- chrismealy 10y agoNo pedestrians, bikes, ambulances, construction, just dead surburban roads. The perfect car for the zombie apocalypse.
- cdelsolar 10y agoSorry but it absolutely needs LIDAR.
- anindha 10y agoAt 2m 25s the car on the wrong side of the road. http://imgur.com/a/7ZOMi http://imgur.com/a/7ZOMi
- cloudlife3 10y agoDoes anyone notice that this music comes from Twisted Metal Black? The geekyness is strong :D
- rocky1138 10y agoWhat I want to see is a video compilation of all of the cool things it does when it encounters accidents and near-misses.
- Darthy 10y agoTo be safely aware of its surroundings, an autonomous vehicle must have two types of sensors in each direction - this setup is not safe enough. I would also have proof of 10 million kilometers of simulated rides with no accident, and a third party organization not under the control of Tesla who creates some really tough repeatable challenges, both simulated and in the real world, that a vehicle manufacturer has to pass. Challenges should include: - thin wire tensioned over the street. - the combination of super heavy rain with lighting, thick fog and people suddenly running onto the street - passing by a soccer field and ball bounces over the street. Car should stop because it can be reasonably expected that a child will run blindly onto the street after the ball - have obstacles that minimally invade into the minimum clearance outline of the current planned course. Car should plot an alternative course if it is possible or stop. Obstacles should appear in the last moment possible and car should always do the right thing. - proof that the car can always detect street boundaries, any obstacle, and especially humans. It should be 100% correct or side on the safe side every time. At night, in a rain storm with super thick smog and hail. I'm not joking. These are the minimum limits before any self-driving car should be able to drive on public roads, imho.
- vladimir-y 10y agoWhen it will be possible to use Tesla having no driving license? So I just get in the car as a passenger, like a taxi, but without a driver.
- achou 10y agoCompared to the autopilot I've experienced in my model S, this video shows these features (and probably some more I missed): - following a path from a map instead of following a specific lane of traffic. - turns - recognition of stop signs and light signals - highway onramp and offramp - self-parking that finds its own parking spot and works without driver in the vehicle - better music than I have on my playlist
- x2f10 10y agoI'm probably too late to ask, but how do self-driving cars handle 4-way stops? How does it know when it's time to go?
- abrkn 10y agoMany times humans are bad at it too, especially when pedestrians are involved.
- WhiteOwlLion 10y agoSeems like Tesla is moving forward with much regard for safety nor technical advancement. Disappointed Tesla could back up and park in one motion. It also went too far forward to back up. You don't need to that much room. How is it going to handle itself on Market St when it finds a spot but the bus behind it has to go around?