4 ms·

All miles are not created equals though. Sure Tesla will gather a lot of data quickly but most of this data will be from people who use their car for their dail

by _abak_ 10y ago

All miles are not created equals though. Sure Tesla will gather a lot of data quickly but most of this data will be from people who use their car for their daily commute, everyday at roughly the same hour. This doesn't have the same value as data from different areas/road conditions/time of day

VeejayRampay 10y ago
The USA is a big country with a lot of variety though. Different timezones, climates, terrain. It does provide some coverage I would think.
- flexie 10y ago
  And they do drive Teslas outside the US as well. And should there be places, terrains, urban conditions etc. that Tesla doesn't cover, they will see it and can hire a number of chauffeurs to drive around there. Even if they hired 1,000 drivers to gather data in certain geographical areas at certain hours or weather conditions that they lacked input from it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the cost other car manufacturers face to keep up with Tesla now. You can't just install autonomous driving systems in any combustion engine car without changing lots of systems. Tesla is electric fist. Everything is already wired, ready to be measured and in feedback loops.
  - 2T1Qka0rEiPr 10y ago
    There was a good Freakonomics podcast (http://bit.ly/2dQNPBh http://bit.ly/2dQNPBh) a couple of years ago which looked at why Norway has so many Teslas. Road conditions would be pretty different to California.
- _abak_ 10y ago
  Sure. I am mostly wondering about the demographics of Tesla owners. My guess would be that people who own Tesla cars tend to live in similar areas, with comparable lifestyle. There is also the case of driving style. I doubt there are people that tend to drive like my grandmother, and I would assume that a variety of driving style is important as well. All I'm saying is that the claim of N million miles should be taken with a grain of salt as long as you do not know the entropy that these miles contain.
ryanmarsh 10y ago
Some cars get used on the weekend too.

by _abak_ 10y ago

VeejayRampay 10y ago

The USA is a big country with a lot of variety though. Different timezones, climates, terrain. It does provide some coverage I would think.

flexie 10y ago
And they do drive Teslas outside the US as well. And should there be places, terrains, urban conditions etc. that Tesla doesn't cover, they will see it and can hire a number of chauffeurs to drive around there. Even if they hired 1,000 drivers to gather data in certain geographical areas at certain hours or weather conditions that they lacked input from it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the cost other car manufacturers face to keep up with Tesla now. You can't just install autonomous driving systems in any combustion engine car without changing lots of systems. Tesla is electric fist. Everything is already wired, ready to be measured and in feedback loops.
- 2T1Qka0rEiPr 10y ago
  There was a good Freakonomics podcast (http://bit.ly/2dQNPBh http://bit.ly/2dQNPBh) a couple of years ago which looked at why Norway has so many Teslas. Road conditions would be pretty different to California.
_abak_ 10y ago
Sure. I am mostly wondering about the demographics of Tesla owners. My guess would be that people who own Tesla cars tend to live in similar areas, with comparable lifestyle. There is also the case of driving style. I doubt there are people that tend to drive like my grandmother, and I would assume that a variety of driving style is important as well. All I'm saying is that the claim of N million miles should be taken with a grain of salt as long as you do not know the entropy that these miles contain.

ryanmarsh 10y ago

Some cars get used on the weekend too.