3 ms·

I don't think that's necessarily true. There are plenty of people in the AV space that routinely drive significantly better than this and are already doing comp

I don't think that's necessarily true. There are plenty of people in the AV space that routinely drive significantly better than this and are already doing completely driverless service in some geofences. The problem with Tesla's approach has always been that Elon wanted to sell it before he actually knew anything about how to solve it. It's lead to series of compounding errors in Tesla's approach to AVs. The vehicle's sensor suite is woefully inadequate and its compute (yes, even with the fancy Tesla chip) is woefully underpowered... all because Elon never really pushed to figure out where the boundary of the problem was. They started with lane-keeping on highways where everything is easy and pre-sold a "full self-driving" software update with absolutely no roadmap to get there. To overcome the poor sensor suite and anemic compute, they've boxed themselves into having to invent AGI to solve the problem. Everyone else in the space has happily chosen to spend more on sensors and compute to make the problem computationally tractable, because those things will easily get cheaper over time. I'm fairly convinced that if Tesla wants to ship true FSD within the next decade, the necessary sensor and compute retrofit would nearly bankrupt the company. The only way out is likely to slowly move the goal posts within the legalese to make FSD just a fancy Level 2 driver assist and claim that's always what it was meant to be.

tibbydudeza 5y ago
We need so many compute and TFLOPS before the software has been completed but it won't surprise me if they come up with Tesla Cloud driving powered by Starlink with a bunch of hamsters in a warehouse somewhere actually driving the car. I mean they trained pigeon's to guide bombs in WW2.
cogman10 5y ago
Definitely agree on the sensor suite. Even wanting to do things vision only is ok, but the cars simply don't have enough cameras for redundancy. You are a little rain or mud away from having a system that no longer operates.
potatolicious 5y ago
Yep, also over-promising that legacy cars with the "FSD-readiness" upgrade would be guaranteed to support FSD was a completely unforced error. At this point it's pretty obvious none of the original "FSD ready" cars Tesla shipped will be able to handle L4/L5 autonomy hardware-wise. Arguably none of the cars currently rolling off the line will be either - others have made the point in the thread: while nobody has really cracked autonomy fully, other players (see: Waymo, Cruise) are clearly much further along with a very different sensor and compute suite than anything Tesla has shipped or currently ships.
- CyanLite2 5y ago
  I think there's a clear space in North America for a viable L3 system. That is, completely hands-free driving at slow speeds (30-50mph) that allows me to eat a sandwich, respond to a few emails, and text on my phone without having to look at the road or grab the wheel every 15 seconds. Sure, ping me if I'm coming up on a construction zone or if it pours down raining. And don't worry about making unprotected lefts and other tricky situations, I can do that. But just keep the car on the road while I'm making the same drive to the office every morning and let me reclaim some of that commute time.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    I think that sounds good on paper, but the reality would likely be pretty lousy. Humans are still the critical safety component in the system, and all we've done is made it easier for them to have no idea what's going on in a situation before they need to respond to a crisis.
  - potatolicious 5y ago
    Isn't what you are describing actually L4 autonomy? At L3 the human still needs to be attentive and ready to intervene at very short notice - so you definitely cannot eat a sandwich or text while in the driver seat. L4 autonomy is where the vehicle is fail-safe. It cannot handle all conditions, but is able to recognize conditions it cannot handle and hand control back to the driver. Importantly if the driver is not responsive to takeover the vehicle can put itself into a safe state (mostly just means pulling over in a safe place). L4 is the minimum at which you can be fully distracted from driving. I don't think Tesla has a viable path to L4 using its current hardware...
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
> The problem with Tesla's approach has always been that Elon wanted to sell it before he actually knew anything about how to solve it. Wasn’t there recently a medical testing company that completely blew up, with associated felony charges, for attempting this sort of strategy?
- bobsomers 5y ago
  Heh, it's an interesting comparison. I think in this case Tesla can get it working just enough for the Elon to shift the goalposts and avoid legal disaster. But it will likely never be safe enough to divert your attention, and their timelines for delivering what they've promised are patently absurd.

tibbydudeza 5y ago

We need so many compute and TFLOPS before the software has been completed but it won't surprise me if they come up with Tesla Cloud driving powered by Starlink with a bunch of hamsters in a warehouse somewhere actually driving the car. I mean they trained pigeon's to guide bombs in WW2.

cogman10 5y ago

Definitely agree on the sensor suite. Even wanting to do things vision only is ok, but the cars simply don't have enough cameras for redundancy. You are a little rain or mud away from having a system that no longer operates.

potatolicious 5y ago

Yep, also over-promising that legacy cars with the "FSD-readiness" upgrade would be guaranteed to support FSD was a completely unforced error. At this point it's pretty obvious none of the original "FSD ready" cars Tesla shipped will be able to handle L4/L5 autonomy hardware-wise. Arguably none of the cars currently rolling off the line will be either - others have made the point in the thread: while nobody has really cracked autonomy fully, other players (see: Waymo, Cruise) are clearly much further along with a very different sensor and compute suite than anything Tesla has shipped or currently ships.

CyanLite2 5y ago
I think there's a clear space in North America for a viable L3 system. That is, completely hands-free driving at slow speeds (30-50mph) that allows me to eat a sandwich, respond to a few emails, and text on my phone without having to look at the road or grab the wheel every 15 seconds. Sure, ping me if I'm coming up on a construction zone or if it pours down raining. And don't worry about making unprotected lefts and other tricky situations, I can do that. But just keep the car on the road while I'm making the same drive to the office every morning and let me reclaim some of that commute time.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  I think that sounds good on paper, but the reality would likely be pretty lousy. Humans are still the critical safety component in the system, and all we've done is made it easier for them to have no idea what's going on in a situation before they need to respond to a crisis.
- potatolicious 5y ago
  Isn't what you are describing actually L4 autonomy? At L3 the human still needs to be attentive and ready to intervene at very short notice - so you definitely cannot eat a sandwich or text while in the driver seat. L4 autonomy is where the vehicle is fail-safe. It cannot handle all conditions, but is able to recognize conditions it cannot handle and hand control back to the driver. Importantly if the driver is not responsive to takeover the vehicle can put itself into a safe state (mostly just means pulling over in a safe place). L4 is the minimum at which you can be fully distracted from driving. I don't think Tesla has a viable path to L4 using its current hardware...

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

> The problem with Tesla's approach has always been that Elon wanted to sell it before he actually knew anything about how to solve it. Wasn’t there recently a medical testing company that completely blew up, with associated felony charges, for attempting this sort of strategy?

bobsomers 5y ago
Heh, it's an interesting comparison. I think in this case Tesla can get it working just enough for the Elon to shift the goalposts and avoid legal disaster. But it will likely never be safe enough to divert your attention, and their timelines for delivering what they've promised are patently absurd.