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How would you react if say, within the next five years, Tesla actually manages to implement level 4 autonomy (geofenced to regions shown statistically safe), ra
by marvin 7y ago
How would you react if say, within the next five years, Tesla actually manages to implement level 4 autonomy (geofenced to regions shown statistically safe), raises the autopilot cost to $30,000 and takes for themselves 40% of all revenue earned on autopilot-operated taxi missions?
I don't know if you're about to back away from me slowly, being an isolated weirdo, but this is the company's stated ambition. Not with these specific numbers, but with the same broad strategic ideas.
It's probably a bit premature and in the region of fanboyism to buy into this vision with certainty today. Tesla certainly has its share of fanboys. But there's been many naysayers claiming impossibility of technological progress only to be proved hilariously wrong in hindsight.
Don't know whether you would accept a 1% or 50% probability of the above scenario happening in the timeframe I specified. But it's not zero, and the payoff would be huge if near-term robust self-driving turns out to hinge on sufficiently diverse, long-tail training data for computer vision neural networks. Tesla would basically replace Uber, sans diver payouts, with no near-term competition. No other company is near a similar position to gather real-world training data on a similar scale.
Tesla is currently betting their autonomous driving strategy on this. Obviously a big gamble, but not lunacy.
- t0mas88 7y agoBut the initial stated ambition was self driving by 2016, then 2018 and now "by the end of 2020". They very cleverly formulate it, and you fell for it, because their ambition has been adjusted to "being able to drive coast to coast with no hands on the wheel" and you took it as "create a robot taxi". What it really means is that their car can do lane-following and adaptive cruise well enough to follow a few highways coast to coast. With a driver fully awake and responsible sitting in the seat. That's miles and miles away from a robot-taxi and they know it.
- marvin 7y ago> you took it as "create a robot taxi" I didn't take it anywhere - this is the company's stated ambition. Timeline - meh. Everyone knows Elon Musk overpromises on super-optimistic timelines to drive his teams harder. Especially on things that have never been achieved before. It's practically a textbook management practice at this point. Maybe it's impossible and your derision will be warranted, we'll see. I love a good drama, especially when it comes to technology.