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I think the primary fallacy in the theory is confusing companies like Waymo with companies like Tesla, and mingling their (in)capabilities. Both have a very di

by mikejb 6y ago

I think the primary fallacy in the theory is confusing companies like Waymo with companies like Tesla, and mingling their (in)capabilities. Both have a very different approach in trying to get to self-driving, and when combining what both can't do, it would seem nobody can do anything. And whilst both throw out their fair share of "demo videos" (=advertising), they have different track records for what they can (and actually do), and what they can't (but claim to do).

Dumblydorr 6y ago
You just named the two companies closest to autonomy, IMO. Waymo has the lead in actual self driving, Tesla has the lead in actually commercializing features. I'm confident these two companies will reach mostly autonomous driving before many of the other fakers.
- mikejb 6y ago
  I named these 2 companies because the parent referenced them in their argument. But I agree that they are the ones that are the ahead in their individual approaches, though I think Tesla is not really that near to autonomous driving. They have a lot of features in development that their test drivers (=consumers) are using, and that gives the impression that they got that already (Elon even claimed Tesla has FSD on highways in early 2019), but the step to "the driver doesn't always have to pay attention" is gigantic and far away - and on that scale, Tesla's lead to other manufacturers (who don't do that kind of marketing or testing on consumers) is relatively small. They're still doing better than a lot of the wannabe-unicorns that pursue self-driving or Lidar though.
- michaelt 6y ago
  Tesla has certainly got the furthest forward in releasing features - but I fear they've gone a long way down a dead end by putting all their eggs in the we-don't-need-LIDAR basket. And that decision means their Level 1 autonomy is nowhere near good enough to form a foundation for Level 4 autonomy.

by mikejb 6y ago

Dumblydorr 6y ago

You just named the two companies closest to autonomy, IMO. Waymo has the lead in actual self driving, Tesla has the lead in actually commercializing features. I'm confident these two companies will reach mostly autonomous driving before many of the other fakers.

mikejb 6y ago
I named these 2 companies because the parent referenced them in their argument. But I agree that they are the ones that are the ahead in their individual approaches, though I think Tesla is not really that near to autonomous driving. They have a lot of features in development that their test drivers (=consumers) are using, and that gives the impression that they got that already (Elon even claimed Tesla has FSD on highways in early 2019), but the step to "the driver doesn't always have to pay attention" is gigantic and far away - and on that scale, Tesla's lead to other manufacturers (who don't do that kind of marketing or testing on consumers) is relatively small. They're still doing better than a lot of the wannabe-unicorns that pursue self-driving or Lidar though.
michaelt 6y ago
Tesla has certainly got the furthest forward in releasing features - but I fear they've gone a long way down a dead end by putting all their eggs in the we-don't-need-LIDAR basket. And that decision means their Level 1 autonomy is nowhere near good enough to form a foundation for Level 4 autonomy.