6 ms·

Their decision to limit the initial problem domain is genius. When it comes to autonomous driving, safety is paramount. Limiting it to highways is a good way to

by 013a 9y ago

Their decision to limit the initial problem domain is genius. When it comes to autonomous driving, safety is paramount. Limiting it to highways is a good way to ensure that you can maximize the system's safety and performance, while still getting a product to market that is ahead of the competition and which allows you to gather data and iterate to expand in the future. SpaceX wants to go to Mars. Why haven't they yet? Do you consider them uninnovative? Or maybe they're just taking their time getting the technology right, because they know (1) they're leading the industry already, and (2) if they fuck it up, it would be a highly expensive mistake they probably wouldn't recover from. If your definition of "innovation" is "irreparably risking your business and customers' lives in the pursuit of profit", I sincerely hope I never have to interact with you in any way in the future.

ramenmeal 9y ago
Curious though, would you buy this car over a Tesla (basing your decision on the self driving features only)? The reason I ask is because if I buy a Tesla, I have the idea that one day it will be completely self driving one day. With this Cadillac, I would expect it to only do this specific subset of self driving for the life of the car.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Probably the Cadillac. I have no expectation of a Tesla or anyone else having a 100% autonomous vehicle during the lifetime of current cars, much less one that it retrofitted to current hardware.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  > I have the idea that one day it will be completely self driving one day Why do you think that? Can you explain how this would happen, when the car appears to lack the physical hardware (e.g. LIDARs, computing power) to do so in anything but clear conditions on highways? Moreover, why would Tesla be interested in doing so? They gain nothing, reduce a customer's desire to upgrade to the latest model, and put themselves into major extra liability if the system ever fucks up.
  - trevyn 9y ago
    They would gain a massive fleet of self-driving cars overnight. Remember, Elon doesn’t think like other industrialists. I fully believe that he views profit as little more than a tool to reach his other goals. Also, having worked on autonomous vehicles, my opinion is that LIDAR is really overrated, and if compute power is an issue, that can be a straightforward modular upgrade.
    - gamblor956 9y ago
      Here's the thing: if upgrading the hardware is as straightforward as you say it is, than GM is in a far better position to provide true self-driving in its cars. After all, it's already got the hardware and hardpoints for installing hardware. Swapping out existing LIDAR arrays for newer arrays, or current processors for optimized self-driving processors, would be a piece of cake. Especially with GM's extremely large supply chain, capable of producing more cars in an hour than Tesla can produce in a year, and the corresponding parts for all of those cars.
    - bonestamp2 9y ago
      > LIDAR is really overrated Fair enough, although it does have better range than ultrasonic and it can see through rain/fog/snow better than cameras.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Tesla claims every new car already has the necessary hardware, and they're already pre-selling the upgrade. They could very well be lying, of course.
    - sf_rob 9y ago
      Which really means that a major motivator for Tesla at this point will be the threat of a class action lawsuit for selling a feature that doesn't exist and whose timeline keeps getting pushed back.
- telchar 9y ago
  As a Tesla model 3 reservation holder, I wish they would decide they're an electric car company, not an electric autonomous car company. I badly want the former. I'm not interested in the self-driving part until it's really good. This half-hearted level 2 stuff is uninteresting to me - I see it as dangerous and marginally useful. The fact that it comes with heavy handed control and surveillance by the company makes it worse. I'd rather wait 5-10 years for someone like Waymo to figure it out and then roll it out than see a car I really want today get crapped up with features that are incidental to its raison d'etre. Honestly this and the delays may be enough to make me cancel my res.
- aetherson 9y ago
  Nobody outside of Tesla appear to buy the idea that a car without LIDAR can be fully autonomous within a relevant timeline. I mean, sure, maybe we'll solve fully autonomy with only the limited sensors on a Tesla in 20 years, but question whether you will still have a car you buy tomorrow 20 years from now. Tesla claims that they can do it with the sensors they have, but please do note that none of the other autonomous vehicle players -- many of whom appear to have much more sophisticated offerings than Tesla -- think it can be done.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    > but question whether you will still have a car you buy tomorrow 20 years from now I know I'm in the minority, but both of my cars that I drive are almost 20 years old (one's a 1999, the other a 2004). Prior to the 2004, I owned a truck from 1996 (ran great until I spun a journal bearing for no good reason). I also once owned a 1979 Ford Bronco...
- 013a 9y ago
  Personally, neither. I strongly believe that the only autonomous tech a general purpose, manned car should ever have is assistive and emergency systems, not replicative systems. Meaning, collision breaking, lane-keep assist, road-departure warning, adaptive cruise, blind spot monitoring, etc. You can get these on an Accord nowadays. General purpose cars are used in too many situations for general purpose autonomous systems to operate in. Moreover, the addition of autonomous systems means that the human behind the wheel will be less vigilant about keeping themselves and other drivers safe. I very strongly believe that autonomous systems beyond L2 actually do not make the car safer, except in situations where the driver is impaired; they just make the car more convenient. L4 has definite possibility for things like uber where pickup and dropoff are within the same city. But it seems increasingly unlikely that we'll see L5 within our lifetimes, at least from any ethical company who doesn't oversell what the system is capable of.
mtgx 9y ago
> Their decision to limit the initial problem domain is genius I believe it's called "Level 4" autonomous driving. It's meant to drive only on safe routes for which the carmakers have already tested their technology. In theory, all self-driving cars should be classified as Level 4 right now, because I don't think any of them is good enough for being classified as Level 5.
- ghaff 9y ago
  As the article notes, current systems are maybe Level 2ish but the guidelines are vague enough that it's hard to say for sure.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  Level 4? What are you on about? Level 4 is "no driver attention is ever required for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat". That's very far from anything on the market today.
  - dang 9y ago
    > What are you on about? Please don't be rude here. Your comment would be fine with just the two last sentences.
    - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
      Sorry @mtgx, that was rude of me.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  Levels quantify the level of autonomy Level 4 is hands off and eyes off. They do not quantify the domain a car can be level 4 in one domain and level 3 2 or 0 in any other. The domain specific qualification is what all car manufacturers are essentially going for with the exception of Tesla which will all due respect is using a system which is borderline level 3 according the the manufacturer with a single sensor type that was designed primarily for ADAS and calling it an autopilot. The MobilEye powered Tesla’s will never be a level 4/5 certified even the NVIDIA ones, in fact with how the current regulation is brewing current Tesla Autopilot actually might regress considerably more than some of it's competitors like Audi and GM because Tesla wants to provide full autonomy but doesn't have anywhere near the hardware to do so, and as regulation will eventually catch up to them they are quite likely to lose it.
reaperducer 9y ago
> Their decision to limit the initial problem domain is genius Is it? It sounds like "If you can't think of an answer, change the question." That's like Microsoft saying "We can't keep viruses out of our computers, so we're not going to try. Instead, we just won't let them access the internet anymore."* (*Yes, I know that pre-internet C-64's and Apple ]['s had viruses, too. Work with me here, people!)
- mannykannot 9y ago
  There is no evidence in this article that GM's system is technically inferior - if anything, the opposite. Whatever the question is, your strained analogies are beside the point.
criley2 9y ago
>SpaceX wants to go to Mars. Why haven't they yet? Do you consider them uninnovative? The proper analogy is "SpaceX wants to go to Mars, and is pushing aggressively to do so" while a "Competitor sees SpaceX's cost cutting for LEO, and is aggressively copying that feature while completlely ignoring Mars" In this case, Tesla is shooting for Mars (Complete autonomy in all situations) and is rolling out each phase. GM, on the other hand, noticed that Tesla's phase 1 autonomy was marketable, so they copy pasted a profitable feature without copying the overall goal of getting to mars (of making an autonomous car). Every single GE car with this feature will have THIS feature and nothing else. Every single new Tesla will have todays features, AND tomorrows features, through software updates, because Tesla is attempting to achieve FAR FAR MORE than GM, and is willing to backport those enhancements. Today GM looks better. In five years, it might look archaic.
- smogcutter 9y ago
  Software updates won't add lidar to the cars. Sure, the ability to update software easily is an advantage for Tesla, but they're ultimately just as limited by the hardware on the car as GM is. If it turns out the current hardware isn't good enough to do what Tesla wants, todays cars are going to look just as dated in 5 years as GM's.
- LukaAl 9y ago
  Nope, GM has already self-driving cars on the street here in San Francisco. Remember they own Cruise. So, GM has decided to go to Mars as Tesla did. It has acquired the tech to go to Mars and started testing it. In the meanwhile realized it could copy a page from Tesla's book and put some semi-autonomous vehicle on the road. And, according to this article, did an excellent job. I'm no way a GM fanboy (do they even exists), but could we be fair?
  - asah 9y ago
    Can confirm: I see Cruise vehicles virtually every day in SF.
  - criley2 9y ago
    "I'm no way a GM fanboy (do they even exists), but could we be fair?" You didn't even read my post, and you want to talk about fair? I very clearly state that Tesla is updating new features into cars, while GM is not. That Tesla gets phase 1, phase 2, and beyond, while GM merely labels phase 1 by a marketing name and will never update it ever. There is a massive chasm here between buying a car today that will "may take you to mars", and buying a car today that "will absolutely, never, ever, ever be capable of going to mars". So let's be fair.

by 013a 9y ago

ramenmeal 9y ago

Curious though, would you buy this car over a Tesla (basing your decision on the self driving features only)? The reason I ask is because if I buy a Tesla, I have the idea that one day it will be completely self driving one day. With this Cadillac, I would expect it to only do this specific subset of self driving for the life of the car.

ghaff 9y ago
Probably the Cadillac. I have no expectation of a Tesla or anyone else having a 100% autonomous vehicle during the lifetime of current cars, much less one that it retrofitted to current hardware.
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
> I have the idea that one day it will be completely self driving one day Why do you think that? Can you explain how this would happen, when the car appears to lack the physical hardware (e.g. LIDARs, computing power) to do so in anything but clear conditions on highways? Moreover, why would Tesla be interested in doing so? They gain nothing, reduce a customer's desire to upgrade to the latest model, and put themselves into major extra liability if the system ever fucks up.
- trevyn 9y ago
  They would gain a massive fleet of self-driving cars overnight. Remember, Elon doesn’t think like other industrialists. I fully believe that he views profit as little more than a tool to reach his other goals. Also, having worked on autonomous vehicles, my opinion is that LIDAR is really overrated, and if compute power is an issue, that can be a straightforward modular upgrade.
  - gamblor956 9y ago
    Here's the thing: if upgrading the hardware is as straightforward as you say it is, than GM is in a far better position to provide true self-driving in its cars. After all, it's already got the hardware and hardpoints for installing hardware. Swapping out existing LIDAR arrays for newer arrays, or current processors for optimized self-driving processors, would be a piece of cake. Especially with GM's extremely large supply chain, capable of producing more cars in an hour than Tesla can produce in a year, and the corresponding parts for all of those cars.
  - bonestamp2 9y ago
    > LIDAR is really overrated Fair enough, although it does have better range than ultrasonic and it can see through rain/fog/snow better than cameras.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- icebraining 9y ago
  Tesla claims every new car already has the necessary hardware, and they're already pre-selling the upgrade. They could very well be lying, of course.
  - sf_rob 9y ago
    Which really means that a major motivator for Tesla at this point will be the threat of a class action lawsuit for selling a feature that doesn't exist and whose timeline keeps getting pushed back.
telchar 9y ago
As a Tesla model 3 reservation holder, I wish they would decide they're an electric car company, not an electric autonomous car company. I badly want the former. I'm not interested in the self-driving part until it's really good. This half-hearted level 2 stuff is uninteresting to me - I see it as dangerous and marginally useful. The fact that it comes with heavy handed control and surveillance by the company makes it worse. I'd rather wait 5-10 years for someone like Waymo to figure it out and then roll it out than see a car I really want today get crapped up with features that are incidental to its raison d'etre. Honestly this and the delays may be enough to make me cancel my res.
aetherson 9y ago
Nobody outside of Tesla appear to buy the idea that a car without LIDAR can be fully autonomous within a relevant timeline. I mean, sure, maybe we'll solve fully autonomy with only the limited sensors on a Tesla in 20 years, but question whether you will still have a car you buy tomorrow 20 years from now. Tesla claims that they can do it with the sensors they have, but please do note that none of the other autonomous vehicle players -- many of whom appear to have much more sophisticated offerings than Tesla -- think it can be done.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  > but question whether you will still have a car you buy tomorrow 20 years from now I know I'm in the minority, but both of my cars that I drive are almost 20 years old (one's a 1999, the other a 2004). Prior to the 2004, I owned a truck from 1996 (ran great until I spun a journal bearing for no good reason). I also once owned a 1979 Ford Bronco...
013a 9y ago
Personally, neither. I strongly believe that the only autonomous tech a general purpose, manned car should ever have is assistive and emergency systems, not replicative systems. Meaning, collision breaking, lane-keep assist, road-departure warning, adaptive cruise, blind spot monitoring, etc. You can get these on an Accord nowadays. General purpose cars are used in too many situations for general purpose autonomous systems to operate in. Moreover, the addition of autonomous systems means that the human behind the wheel will be less vigilant about keeping themselves and other drivers safe. I very strongly believe that autonomous systems beyond L2 actually do not make the car safer, except in situations where the driver is impaired; they just make the car more convenient. L4 has definite possibility for things like uber where pickup and dropoff are within the same city. But it seems increasingly unlikely that we'll see L5 within our lifetimes, at least from any ethical company who doesn't oversell what the system is capable of.

mtgx 9y ago

> Their decision to limit the initial problem domain is genius I believe it's called "Level 4" autonomous driving. It's meant to drive only on safe routes for which the carmakers have already tested their technology. In theory, all self-driving cars should be classified as Level 4 right now, because I don't think any of them is good enough for being classified as Level 5.

ghaff 9y ago
As the article notes, current systems are maybe Level 2ish but the guidelines are vague enough that it's hard to say for sure.
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
Level 4? What are you on about? Level 4 is "no driver attention is ever required for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat". That's very far from anything on the market today.
- dang 9y ago
  > What are you on about? Please don't be rude here. Your comment would be fine with just the two last sentences.
  - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    Sorry @mtgx, that was rude of me.
dogma1138 9y ago
Levels quantify the level of autonomy Level 4 is hands off and eyes off. They do not quantify the domain a car can be level 4 in one domain and level 3 2 or 0 in any other. The domain specific qualification is what all car manufacturers are essentially going for with the exception of Tesla which will all due respect is using a system which is borderline level 3 according the the manufacturer with a single sensor type that was designed primarily for ADAS and calling it an autopilot. The MobilEye powered Tesla’s will never be a level 4/5 certified even the NVIDIA ones, in fact with how the current regulation is brewing current Tesla Autopilot actually might regress considerably more than some of it's competitors like Audi and GM because Tesla wants to provide full autonomy but doesn't have anywhere near the hardware to do so, and as regulation will eventually catch up to them they are quite likely to lose it.

reaperducer 9y ago

> Their decision to limit the initial problem domain is genius Is it? It sounds like "If you can't think of an answer, change the question." That's like Microsoft saying "We can't keep viruses out of our computers, so we're not going to try. Instead, we just won't let them access the internet anymore."* (*Yes, I know that pre-internet C-64's and Apple ]['s had viruses, too. Work with me here, people!)

mannykannot 9y ago
There is no evidence in this article that GM's system is technically inferior - if anything, the opposite. Whatever the question is, your strained analogies are beside the point.

criley2 9y ago

>SpaceX wants to go to Mars. Why haven't they yet? Do you consider them uninnovative? The proper analogy is "SpaceX wants to go to Mars, and is pushing aggressively to do so" while a "Competitor sees SpaceX's cost cutting for LEO, and is aggressively copying that feature while completlely ignoring Mars" In this case, Tesla is shooting for Mars (Complete autonomy in all situations) and is rolling out each phase. GM, on the other hand, noticed that Tesla's phase 1 autonomy was marketable, so they copy pasted a profitable feature without copying the overall goal of getting to mars (of making an autonomous car). Every single GE car with this feature will have THIS feature and nothing else. Every single new Tesla will have todays features, AND tomorrows features, through software updates, because Tesla is attempting to achieve FAR FAR MORE than GM, and is willing to backport those enhancements. Today GM looks better. In five years, it might look archaic.

smogcutter 9y ago
Software updates won't add lidar to the cars. Sure, the ability to update software easily is an advantage for Tesla, but they're ultimately just as limited by the hardware on the car as GM is. If it turns out the current hardware isn't good enough to do what Tesla wants, todays cars are going to look just as dated in 5 years as GM's.
LukaAl 9y ago
Nope, GM has already self-driving cars on the street here in San Francisco. Remember they own Cruise. So, GM has decided to go to Mars as Tesla did. It has acquired the tech to go to Mars and started testing it. In the meanwhile realized it could copy a page from Tesla's book and put some semi-autonomous vehicle on the road. And, according to this article, did an excellent job. I'm no way a GM fanboy (do they even exists), but could we be fair?
- asah 9y ago
  Can confirm: I see Cruise vehicles virtually every day in SF.
- criley2 9y ago
  "I'm no way a GM fanboy (do they even exists), but could we be fair?" You didn't even read my post, and you want to talk about fair? I very clearly state that Tesla is updating new features into cars, while GM is not. That Tesla gets phase 1, phase 2, and beyond, while GM merely labels phase 1 by a marketing name and will never update it ever. There is a massive chasm here between buying a car today that will "may take you to mars", and buying a car today that "will absolutely, never, ever, ever be capable of going to mars". So let's be fair.