8 ms·

Tesla’s autopilot won’t achieve full autonomy, Waymo CEO says

19 points by robgibbons 6y ago

plaidfuji 6y ago
... says Google. But this does ring true, and the come-to-Jesus moment on Tesla’s valuation will be when people realize this is the case. If they had a legitimate shot at being the first true players in self-driving, their valuation (which currently prices them on par with something like the sum of the top three automakers...) isn’t insane. But if it really is just lane-keep assist with intelligent cruise control, I’m pretty sure the Mercedes S Class had that... back before 2010?
- hourislate 6y ago
  >their valuation (which currently prices them on par with something like the sum of the top three automakers...) They are now worth more than the sum of every automaker in the world. This Visual is dated but is still relevant. https://imgur.com/iSHYca5 https://imgur.com/iSHYca5 With that said, I still wish them great success.
- bko 6y ago
  Tesla is the only participant that has a true path to self driving technology. Legacy car makers are Goliaths set in the past. They're stuck to the annual release cycle and can't even over the air updates and a touch screen on par with an iPad from 8 years ago. Legacy automakers have failed to deliver on electric cars for decades. Musk talked about this. There was nothing special about the time he entered the market with Tesla. Any one of the auto makers could (and still theoretically can) develop an appealing electric car. They're simpler, cleaner and more efficient. But not a single one has been able to deliver a reasonable product. They're subsidizing the price of electric and losing 7-10k per [0] and still cannot produce a compelling product. The legacy car companies are basically blackberry, as someone has finally shown there exists a way to create and produce a compelling car outside of the legacy participants. Tesla actually has a path forward on self driving. They have the infrastructure, real driver data, and millions of cars on the road that can accept over the air updates. Waymo has a few Taxis in a few cities. [0] https://insideevs.com/news/336213/moodys-says-automakers-lose-7000-to-10000-per-electric-car-sold/ https://insideevs.com/news/336213/moodys-says-automakers-los...
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Tesla has just over a million cars on the road. Waymo has approximately 100,000. 100000 vehicles that have proven the ability to reach L4 autonomy, unlike tesla's. And waymos approach isn't too be a car manufacturer, but an Uber competitor. So fewer vehicles is fine. > They're subsidizing the price of electric and losing 7-10k per [0] To be fair, so is tesla.
  - uncoder0 6y ago
    In my opinion, the problem is Tesla and Elon refuse to acknowledge the value of LIDAR. A fused sensor approach is the only way we're going to get full autonomy. I was in this field in 2007 on the DARPA Urban challenge so maybe the state of the art indicates otherwise now however, from the NHTSA investigations into crashes from Tesla's autopilot all of them would have been fixed with even basic LIDAR.
    - bko 6y ago
      Lidar adds complexity and domain that's not available to humans. Humans drive without lidar, so presumably we can train a neural net to drive without it as well. Lidar is almost like adding a hand crafted dimension to the decision making process. It makes the system more explainable, but doesn't necessarily mean it will help achieve better results. I look at ML in games like chess and go. Originally, they had a set of hand crafted features, like the concept of "eyes" in go. But later iterations removed those and the network performed better. I think lidar is the same thing where it'll add unnecessary complexity and ultimately hurt in learning.
    - alicorn 6y ago
      This baffles me as well. The technology to solve so many problems hard to approach with other tools is right there, why not use it.
      - agildehaus 6y ago
        LIDAR also provides more accurate data than stereo cameras could ever hope to achieve. Why not use it? Why limit ourselves to what humans have?
- sidibe 6y ago
  The problem with gradually going from drivers assistance to self driving is there will be some period, possibly a very long period, where the cars almost never need intervention but aren't safe enough to actually not need it. There will be a lot of accidents if it's released widely during this period (yes much more than human driver accidents. aside: there seem to be a lot of Tesla fans who think humans are much worse drivers than they are). This is what Google saw a decade ago when their self driving cars started getting good and their drivers started being irresponsible, so they decided to start from the idea the driver couldn't be a crutch and the car always had to be able to do something safe. Getting this level of robustness is why it seems to some that they've made no progress in 10 years.
  - nickik 6y ago
    > yes much more than human driver accidents. What are you basing this on? You can just say 'despite what Tesla fans believe' as an argument. One datapoint from google 10 years ago is not really convincing. Specially as car also gets better at measuring human attention. CommaAI pilot is already doing quite well on that. Tesla is working on it internally as well. And also, we can do things like assess the situation and adjust necessary attention. If you are by yourself driving threw the desert, you can relax the condition. If you are in a city the car keeps you honest. That this will clearly cause more accidents then human by themselves is not at all clear.
    - lars_thomas 6y ago
      Do you have personal experience with commaAI's pilot? I don't so basing all on videos alone. In a video to promote the bleeding edge of their development with Lex Fridman Hotz was driving the car to a specific part of a freeway that had a tilt and he was able to let go off the wheel for a brief moment. In another part the car was driving by itself in an urban setting and the highlight was that it was able to stop by itself at an intersection. This is light years removed from anything resembling a self driving system. But again, if you have more insight than the few videos I am basing this on please share. Would be interesting to hear more.
- scsilver 6y ago
  Im thinking the tesla valuation is more than the car company, the car company is just making the economy of scale battery production profitable/or just funded, while the greater goal is the decentralized power generation and storage network of the solar roof + power wall. If we think of them as a energy infrastructure company + subsidiary car company/freight company (tesla semi) then I can see the valuation making some sense. Tesla doesnt need perfect automation to handle cheap, automated, short run freight lines, leveraging clean cheap electricity, and low maintenance trucks(no ICE, less drive train maintenance, no driver time at wheel restrictions)
- nickik 6y ago
  It doesn't 'ring true' to me. Tesla might be far a way, but closer then the others. Specially when we are talking about 'as an actual business'. Waymo and co are simply having a gigantic money burning party and will continue. Tesla can work on this and support all their efforts as a value at to the current products.
  - Karishma1234 6y ago
    Yup. Tesla has built a real profitable company with a decent car and has brought a real shift in thinking about the cars of the future. If there is ever a real self driving car then I wont own it but rather rent it like Uber. Waymo on other hand sounds like a cool engineering project that is not going anywhere and Google will shut it down in next 10 years.
- staticman2 6y ago
  I watched a finance YouTube podcast where they observed the price of Tesla stock can best be explained by "Tesla is a religion." I think this is true. Tesla is a religion to people so it's not clear that the stock will have a come to Jesus moment since religions don't need to deal with facts. People want the stock for religious reasons and will buy the price up. Even in this thread you have someone saying "Elon always succeeds" which is obviously a religious idea. It is impossible for someone who believes this to have a come to Jesus moment.
  - birdyrooster 6y ago
    It seems like they already came to Jesus and that Jesus was Elon.
  - HellDunkel 6y ago
    Tesla is doing a good job after all. Given the discussion going on here the stock price needs no religious interpretation. Shareholders are simply betting on (semi) autonomy, climate friendly energy storage, next gen vehicles. Doesnt seem mad to me.
lovetocode 6y ago
Bloomberg should probably do more research.
kneel 6y ago
At this point it’s best not to bet against Elon. I’d bet his timelines are off, that’s always been the case. But his army of engineers know what they’re doing.
- tveita 6y ago
  > At this point it’s best not to bet against Elon. Maybe in a "should you short Tesla stock" or "will a Californian jury rule against him" sense. But on the other hand, if you bet a friend on how many Tesla Robotaxis would be on the road by the end of 2020 you could be sitting on a nice bottle of whisky by now.
  - nickik 6y ago
    Betting one friend on a small timing detail is fun and all, but that not really what people mean when people talk about 'not betting against Elon'. We are talking about big things. Elon said they will capture Apollo size booster directly from the air on ocean space ports. And the majority of people were like 'mh, sound reasonable will probably work in a few years'. Think about laterally any other person or government saying that people would be like 'yeah, sure maybe in a decade plus and 20 billion or more'.
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      > Elon said Elon said coronavirus would be finished in the US by April, 2020. How'd that work out for him?
      - nickik 6y ago
        I love how people always take on of a few examples and point out to that. You would think such bad arguments are above this forum. Also, that is not something that Elon or his companies would do so it doesn't really speak to my point.
        clouddrover 6y ago
renewiltord 6y ago
Other stuff from the legends at Bloomberg: SuperMicro is absolutely definitely backdooring all their motherboards with spychips to China. Sure, if you were dumb enough to believe that last time, you might consider Bloomberg a reputable source this time, but otherwise why would you?
- Armisael16 6y ago
  RTFA. This clearly is not a position that Bloomberg as a publication is taking. It’s a report on interindustry shittalk - not the highest form of reporting but not even comparable to the story you’re referencing.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I did and you know what, I'd be an idiot if I believed anyone in the article said what they said because Bloomberg News is bullshitters.
ilaksh 6y ago
I am a huge fan of what Waymo has accomplished. And I think in the beginning Tesla's FSD Beta was so bad that it was reckless to release to the testers. BUT. Look at the very latest version of the Tesla FSD Beta ("beta 10") as of now. It is literally doing the full self-driving task with very few disengagements now. And the improvements over the course of the last few months have been dramatic. At this point it is not really safe without watching closely and has a fair way to go before it gets to the high 9s, especially in arbitrary situations as they intend. But if you look at the progress they have made and how many fewer disengagements there are now, I do not think it is reasonable to assume that they can't get to the finish line. They look like their trajectory is actually to get there.
- nickik 6y ago
  Lets be honest here. If Tesla had invested the waste majority of their efforts on 1 city, not having to deal with all the problems of broken line markings, crazy signs, signs in different language, driving threw fog at night, driving mountains roads, driving country side in China and so on. Could the Tesla software do what Waymo does? Specially if you map out the whole city? I would argue it could. I agree that Tesla is quite far away, but in terms of a general solution for waste majority of the world, Tesla is the closest.
  - ilaksh 6y ago
    I believe so. Because if it was one city then they could iron out all the edge cases there. And even with all the places it's deployed now, it is starting to get close. But personally I think that Waymo is going to be a bit safer because it has the LIDAR which even if you don't think that matters, it can definitely see farther because of its position above the car. And I think that Waymo will be deployed in several cities by the end of 2021 or 2022 at least. And I think it's great to have competition. Cruise will also probably be able to deploy. But Tesla probably will force them to build systems that require less stringent mapping so they can add cities quickly.
Barrin92 6y ago
nobody's autopilot will achieve full autonomy in the near future. Full autonomy actually meaning, you could rip the steering wheel out of the car and have it drive through any city you wish instead of "it drives through grid streets in American suburbs correctly like, 95% of the time" The entire current approach has no correctness guarantees, ML systems are horrible at dealing with tail-risk, there's a human communication element to driving and so on. It's a ridiculously hard problem, honestly AGI hard. I much more suspect that before we get autonomous driving we'll get more 'rail like' street systems, geofencing etc.. that limit how drivers and cars can behave, that's kind of how the whole hyperloop thing works ironically enough. Obviously if we wanted that we could just build better metro systems to begin with which already drive themselves.
- scsilver 6y ago
  Where do you think we are in fully autonomous planes. Curious if that problem is easier or harder than cars.
  - sn_master 6y ago
    Planes have centralized Air Traffic Control that dictates every move from take off until landing of all planes within their zone. The planes only have to follow the ATC orders and not worry about other planes except for very rare emergencies. Even in those, ATC usually gives them a large block away from other planes to sort things out. Cars in comparison can start at any moment, from any location and want to go anywhere they like without knowing what other cars are doing, or -worse- the road conditions (potholes, ice etc). Putting blame is also easier, because legally all pilots agree to be recorded while flying since they're doing business. It'll be much harder I guess to allow recording inside cars.
    - scsilver 6y ago
      Could atc ramp scale in its ability to handle a denser set of planes? Could a network of planes host a decentralized atc that manages the traffic, similar to a decentralized road traffic control that would help manage automated cars through a 5g conmection in a city.
LatteLazy 6y ago
The most interesting thing about driving is that it requires a general intelligence to do it. Sure 99.99% of the time, you stay in lane, obey lights and don't ram things. But for a few seconds every hour you actually need to think. This is why I'm bearish on fully autonomous cars, at least without major changes to infrastructure.

19 points by robgibbons 6y ago

... says Google. But this does ring true, and the come-to-Jesus moment on Tesla’s valuation will be when people realize this is the case. If they had a legitimate shot at being the first true players in self-driving, their valuation (which currently prices them on par with something like the sum of the top three automakers...) isn’t insane. But if it really is just lane-keep assist with intelligent cruise control, I’m pretty sure the Mercedes S Class had that... back before 2010?

hourislate 6y ago
>their valuation (which currently prices them on par with something like the sum of the top three automakers...) They are now worth more than the sum of every automaker in the world. This Visual is dated but is still relevant. https://imgur.com/iSHYca5 https://imgur.com/iSHYca5 With that said, I still wish them great success.
bko 6y ago
Tesla is the only participant that has a true path to self driving technology. Legacy car makers are Goliaths set in the past. They're stuck to the annual release cycle and can't even over the air updates and a touch screen on par with an iPad from 8 years ago. Legacy automakers have failed to deliver on electric cars for decades. Musk talked about this. There was nothing special about the time he entered the market with Tesla. Any one of the auto makers could (and still theoretically can) develop an appealing electric car. They're simpler, cleaner and more efficient. But not a single one has been able to deliver a reasonable product. They're subsidizing the price of electric and losing 7-10k per [0] and still cannot produce a compelling product. The legacy car companies are basically blackberry, as someone has finally shown there exists a way to create and produce a compelling car outside of the legacy participants. Tesla actually has a path forward on self driving. They have the infrastructure, real driver data, and millions of cars on the road that can accept over the air updates. Waymo has a few Taxis in a few cities. [0] https://insideevs.com/news/336213/moodys-says-automakers-lose-7000-to-10000-per-electric-car-sold/ https://insideevs.com/news/336213/moodys-says-automakers-los...
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  Tesla has just over a million cars on the road. Waymo has approximately 100,000. 100000 vehicles that have proven the ability to reach L4 autonomy, unlike tesla's. And waymos approach isn't too be a car manufacturer, but an Uber competitor. So fewer vehicles is fine. > They're subsidizing the price of electric and losing 7-10k per [0] To be fair, so is tesla.
- uncoder0 6y ago
  In my opinion, the problem is Tesla and Elon refuse to acknowledge the value of LIDAR. A fused sensor approach is the only way we're going to get full autonomy. I was in this field in 2007 on the DARPA Urban challenge so maybe the state of the art indicates otherwise now however, from the NHTSA investigations into crashes from Tesla's autopilot all of them would have been fixed with even basic LIDAR.
  - bko 6y ago
    Lidar adds complexity and domain that's not available to humans. Humans drive without lidar, so presumably we can train a neural net to drive without it as well. Lidar is almost like adding a hand crafted dimension to the decision making process. It makes the system more explainable, but doesn't necessarily mean it will help achieve better results. I look at ML in games like chess and go. Originally, they had a set of hand crafted features, like the concept of "eyes" in go. But later iterations removed those and the network performed better. I think lidar is the same thing where it'll add unnecessary complexity and ultimately hurt in learning.
  - alicorn 6y ago
    This baffles me as well. The technology to solve so many problems hard to approach with other tools is right there, why not use it.
    - agildehaus 6y ago
      LIDAR also provides more accurate data than stereo cameras could ever hope to achieve. Why not use it? Why limit ourselves to what humans have?
sidibe 6y ago
The problem with gradually going from drivers assistance to self driving is there will be some period, possibly a very long period, where the cars almost never need intervention but aren't safe enough to actually not need it. There will be a lot of accidents if it's released widely during this period (yes much more than human driver accidents. aside: there seem to be a lot of Tesla fans who think humans are much worse drivers than they are). This is what Google saw a decade ago when their self driving cars started getting good and their drivers started being irresponsible, so they decided to start from the idea the driver couldn't be a crutch and the car always had to be able to do something safe. Getting this level of robustness is why it seems to some that they've made no progress in 10 years.
- nickik 6y ago
  > yes much more than human driver accidents. What are you basing this on? You can just say 'despite what Tesla fans believe' as an argument. One datapoint from google 10 years ago is not really convincing. Specially as car also gets better at measuring human attention. CommaAI pilot is already doing quite well on that. Tesla is working on it internally as well. And also, we can do things like assess the situation and adjust necessary attention. If you are by yourself driving threw the desert, you can relax the condition. If you are in a city the car keeps you honest. That this will clearly cause more accidents then human by themselves is not at all clear.
  - lars_thomas 6y ago
    Do you have personal experience with commaAI's pilot? I don't so basing all on videos alone. In a video to promote the bleeding edge of their development with Lex Fridman Hotz was driving the car to a specific part of a freeway that had a tilt and he was able to let go off the wheel for a brief moment. In another part the car was driving by itself in an urban setting and the highlight was that it was able to stop by itself at an intersection. This is light years removed from anything resembling a self driving system. But again, if you have more insight than the few videos I am basing this on please share. Would be interesting to hear more.
scsilver 6y ago
Im thinking the tesla valuation is more than the car company, the car company is just making the economy of scale battery production profitable/or just funded, while the greater goal is the decentralized power generation and storage network of the solar roof + power wall. If we think of them as a energy infrastructure company + subsidiary car company/freight company (tesla semi) then I can see the valuation making some sense. Tesla doesnt need perfect automation to handle cheap, automated, short run freight lines, leveraging clean cheap electricity, and low maintenance trucks(no ICE, less drive train maintenance, no driver time at wheel restrictions)
nickik 6y ago
It doesn't 'ring true' to me. Tesla might be far a way, but closer then the others. Specially when we are talking about 'as an actual business'. Waymo and co are simply having a gigantic money burning party and will continue. Tesla can work on this and support all their efforts as a value at to the current products.
- Karishma1234 6y ago
  Yup. Tesla has built a real profitable company with a decent car and has brought a real shift in thinking about the cars of the future. If there is ever a real self driving car then I wont own it but rather rent it like Uber. Waymo on other hand sounds like a cool engineering project that is not going anywhere and Google will shut it down in next 10 years.
staticman2 6y ago
I watched a finance YouTube podcast where they observed the price of Tesla stock can best be explained by "Tesla is a religion." I think this is true. Tesla is a religion to people so it's not clear that the stock will have a come to Jesus moment since religions don't need to deal with facts. People want the stock for religious reasons and will buy the price up. Even in this thread you have someone saying "Elon always succeeds" which is obviously a religious idea. It is impossible for someone who believes this to have a come to Jesus moment.
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  It seems like they already came to Jesus and that Jesus was Elon.
- HellDunkel 6y ago
  Tesla is doing a good job after all. Given the discussion going on here the stock price needs no religious interpretation. Shareholders are simply betting on (semi) autonomy, climate friendly energy storage, next gen vehicles. Doesnt seem mad to me.

lovetocode 6y ago

Bloomberg should probably do more research.

kneel 6y ago

At this point it’s best not to bet against Elon. I’d bet his timelines are off, that’s always been the case. But his army of engineers know what they’re doing.

tveita 6y ago
> At this point it’s best not to bet against Elon. Maybe in a "should you short Tesla stock" or "will a Californian jury rule against him" sense. But on the other hand, if you bet a friend on how many Tesla Robotaxis would be on the road by the end of 2020 you could be sitting on a nice bottle of whisky by now.
- nickik 6y ago
  Betting one friend on a small timing detail is fun and all, but that not really what people mean when people talk about 'not betting against Elon'. We are talking about big things. Elon said they will capture Apollo size booster directly from the air on ocean space ports. And the majority of people were like 'mh, sound reasonable will probably work in a few years'. Think about laterally any other person or government saying that people would be like 'yeah, sure maybe in a decade plus and 20 billion or more'.
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    > Elon said Elon said coronavirus would be finished in the US by April, 2020. How'd that work out for him?
    - nickik 6y ago
      I love how people always take on of a few examples and point out to that. You would think such bad arguments are above this forum. Also, that is not something that Elon or his companies would do so it doesn't really speak to my point.
      - clouddrover 6y ago

renewiltord 6y ago

Other stuff from the legends at Bloomberg: SuperMicro is absolutely definitely backdooring all their motherboards with spychips to China. Sure, if you were dumb enough to believe that last time, you might consider Bloomberg a reputable source this time, but otherwise why would you?

Armisael16 6y ago
RTFA. This clearly is not a position that Bloomberg as a publication is taking. It’s a report on interindustry shittalk - not the highest form of reporting but not even comparable to the story you’re referencing.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  I did and you know what, I'd be an idiot if I believed anyone in the article said what they said because Bloomberg News is bullshitters.

ilaksh 6y ago

I am a huge fan of what Waymo has accomplished. And I think in the beginning Tesla's FSD Beta was so bad that it was reckless to release to the testers. BUT. Look at the very latest version of the Tesla FSD Beta ("beta 10") as of now. It is literally doing the full self-driving task with very few disengagements now. And the improvements over the course of the last few months have been dramatic. At this point it is not really safe without watching closely and has a fair way to go before it gets to the high 9s, especially in arbitrary situations as they intend. But if you look at the progress they have made and how many fewer disengagements there are now, I do not think it is reasonable to assume that they can't get to the finish line. They look like their trajectory is actually to get there.

nickik 6y ago
Lets be honest here. If Tesla had invested the waste majority of their efforts on 1 city, not having to deal with all the problems of broken line markings, crazy signs, signs in different language, driving threw fog at night, driving mountains roads, driving country side in China and so on. Could the Tesla software do what Waymo does? Specially if you map out the whole city? I would argue it could. I agree that Tesla is quite far away, but in terms of a general solution for waste majority of the world, Tesla is the closest.
- ilaksh 6y ago
  I believe so. Because if it was one city then they could iron out all the edge cases there. And even with all the places it's deployed now, it is starting to get close. But personally I think that Waymo is going to be a bit safer because it has the LIDAR which even if you don't think that matters, it can definitely see farther because of its position above the car. And I think that Waymo will be deployed in several cities by the end of 2021 or 2022 at least. And I think it's great to have competition. Cruise will also probably be able to deploy. But Tesla probably will force them to build systems that require less stringent mapping so they can add cities quickly.

Barrin92 6y ago

nobody's autopilot will achieve full autonomy in the near future. Full autonomy actually meaning, you could rip the steering wheel out of the car and have it drive through any city you wish instead of "it drives through grid streets in American suburbs correctly like, 95% of the time" The entire current approach has no correctness guarantees, ML systems are horrible at dealing with tail-risk, there's a human communication element to driving and so on. It's a ridiculously hard problem, honestly AGI hard. I much more suspect that before we get autonomous driving we'll get more 'rail like' street systems, geofencing etc.. that limit how drivers and cars can behave, that's kind of how the whole hyperloop thing works ironically enough. Obviously if we wanted that we could just build better metro systems to begin with which already drive themselves.

scsilver 6y ago
Where do you think we are in fully autonomous planes. Curious if that problem is easier or harder than cars.
- sn_master 6y ago
  Planes have centralized Air Traffic Control that dictates every move from take off until landing of all planes within their zone. The planes only have to follow the ATC orders and not worry about other planes except for very rare emergencies. Even in those, ATC usually gives them a large block away from other planes to sort things out. Cars in comparison can start at any moment, from any location and want to go anywhere they like without knowing what other cars are doing, or -worse- the road conditions (potholes, ice etc). Putting blame is also easier, because legally all pilots agree to be recorded while flying since they're doing business. It'll be much harder I guess to allow recording inside cars.
  - scsilver 6y ago
    Could atc ramp scale in its ability to handle a denser set of planes? Could a network of planes host a decentralized atc that manages the traffic, similar to a decentralized road traffic control that would help manage automated cars through a 5g conmection in a city.

LatteLazy 6y ago

The most interesting thing about driving is that it requires a general intelligence to do it. Sure 99.99% of the time, you stay in lane, obey lights and don't ram things. But for a few seconds every hour you actually need to think. This is why I'm bearish on fully autonomous cars, at least without major changes to infrastructure.