5 ms·

If Mercedes-Benz is able to define conditions where their self driving software is guaranteed to work fully autonomously without human intervention and Tesla ca

If Mercedes-Benz is able to define conditions where their self driving software is guaranteed to work fully autonomously without human intervention and Tesla can't, that in itself is an actual advantage over Tesla's system even if Tesla's system can do more with human monitoring in other conditions. If Tesla is also able to get approval for this (which might be hard if they push OTA updates that completely change the way the software works all the time and can't guarantee there won't be regressions) then they should by all means do so.

ajross 5y ago
That's sort of true in the abstract, but misses the point. Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about solving real problems. Cars that are L3 only in traffic jams on the Autobahn aren't very autonomous, nor useful. If it's stop go and the system gets above 60kph, it cuts out. If the stoppage is due to construction, it won't work. I mean, sure, it's an advantage for people who actually need to drive in exactly those conditions. But it's not a engineering advantage of the system. Fast forward a year and look at where Daimler will be and where Tesla will be. Who's going to get to a L3 system on general roads first? Who's going to be running L4 driverless vehicles first? Which is to repeat: it's just a stunt. It's a way to "sound like" they're "ahead" in this area of technology, when clearly they aren't. In fact this car is doing more or less exactly what Teslas were doing in the first version of Autopilot more than six years ago. And note that in all that time, those Teslas haven't been hitting anyone in slow traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways either.
- resoluteteeth 5y ago
  > That's sort of true in the abstract, but misses the point. Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about solving real problems. Cars that are L3 only in traffic jams on the Autobahn aren't very autonomous, nor useful. If it's stop go and the system gets above 60kph, it cuts out. If the stoppage is due to construction, it won't work. > I mean, sure, it's an advantage for people who actually need to drive in exactly those conditions. > But it's not a engineering advantage of the system. Fast forward a year and look at where Daimler will be and where Tesla will be. Who's going to get to a L3 system on general roads first? Who's going to be running L4 driverless vehicles first? > Which is to repeat: it's just a stunt. It's a way to "sound like" they're "ahead" in this area of technology, when clearly they aren't. In fact this car is doing more or less exactly what Teslas were doing in the first version of Autopilot more than six years ago. And note that in all that time, those Teslas haven't been hitting anyone in slow traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways either. If it's a race to see which company can develop fully self-driving cars that work in all conditions in the next 5 years than maybe Tesla could be "ahead" of Mercedes-Benz (although it seems to be way behind other companies like Waymo). However, if we are actually decades away from fully self-driving cars that work in all conditions it is much more useful to have cars that can be trusted to operate without human supervision in limited but well defined conditions, because it is much more useful to be able to have a car that allows you to do something else other than focus on driving SOME of the time than a car that assists you more in some ways but requires supervision ALL of the time. If Tesla's approach precludes them from making self driving technology work reliably under limited conditions like this, it doesn't matter whether their self driving technology works better (but not reliably) in other conditions, because in practice it won't be as useful as more limited but reliable self driving systems. Some countries are already requiring the approach Mercedes-Benz is taking here for regulatory approval and based on the number of accidents Tesla vehicles have been involved in its possible that the US could adopt the same approach. If this happens it will not be useful at all to have a more advanced but incomplete and unreliable self-driving technology in the short term (but perhaps it will be possible to keep developing it without shipping it in cars until it reaches a sufficient level of reliability).
- detaro 5y ago
  Tesla "will be there in a year" since... 2016 or so? (Musk said in January that he is confident Tesla will achieve Level 5 autonomy in 2021, looking forward to that) > those Teslas haven't been hitting anyone in slow traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways either. weird then that Tesla, despite showman Musk at the helm, hasn't been doing the simple stunt of putting their money where their mouth is, getting L3 permission for their system and actually taking the risk for something that is "never happening" instead of finding ways of blaming the driver every time. It would be an easy way of providing an additional actual useful capability to their users on top of what they already have. No, it's not some massive technical leap, but "ok, we'll take the blame for our system failing" is still a big legal step.
- ra7 5y ago
  > Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about solving real problems. Sounds pretty hand-wavy. Autonomy is about defining conditions in which a self driving system can safely operate, also known as Operational Design Domain (ODD). Of course, ODD as a concept is foreign to Tesla FSD because it is "50% of the time, it works every time" i.e. you don't know when it works and when it doesn't. It's a YOLO driver assistance system with a misnomer. Not sure how many "real problems" that is solving and definitely won't be L4 anytime soon.

ajross 5y ago

That's sort of true in the abstract, but misses the point. Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about solving real problems. Cars that are L3 only in traffic jams on the Autobahn aren't very autonomous, nor useful. If it's stop go and the system gets above 60kph, it cuts out. If the stoppage is due to construction, it won't work. I mean, sure, it's an advantage for people who actually need to drive in exactly those conditions. But it's not a engineering advantage of the system. Fast forward a year and look at where Daimler will be and where Tesla will be. Who's going to get to a L3 system on general roads first? Who's going to be running L4 driverless vehicles first? Which is to repeat: it's just a stunt. It's a way to "sound like" they're "ahead" in this area of technology, when clearly they aren't. In fact this car is doing more or less exactly what Teslas were doing in the first version of Autopilot more than six years ago. And note that in all that time, those Teslas haven't been hitting anyone in slow traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways either.

resoluteteeth 5y ago
> That's sort of true in the abstract, but misses the point. Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about solving real problems. Cars that are L3 only in traffic jams on the Autobahn aren't very autonomous, nor useful. If it's stop go and the system gets above 60kph, it cuts out. If the stoppage is due to construction, it won't work. > I mean, sure, it's an advantage for people who actually need to drive in exactly those conditions. > But it's not a engineering advantage of the system. Fast forward a year and look at where Daimler will be and where Tesla will be. Who's going to get to a L3 system on general roads first? Who's going to be running L4 driverless vehicles first? > Which is to repeat: it's just a stunt. It's a way to "sound like" they're "ahead" in this area of technology, when clearly they aren't. In fact this car is doing more or less exactly what Teslas were doing in the first version of Autopilot more than six years ago. And note that in all that time, those Teslas haven't been hitting anyone in slow traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways either. If it's a race to see which company can develop fully self-driving cars that work in all conditions in the next 5 years than maybe Tesla could be "ahead" of Mercedes-Benz (although it seems to be way behind other companies like Waymo). However, if we are actually decades away from fully self-driving cars that work in all conditions it is much more useful to have cars that can be trusted to operate without human supervision in limited but well defined conditions, because it is much more useful to be able to have a car that allows you to do something else other than focus on driving SOME of the time than a car that assists you more in some ways but requires supervision ALL of the time. If Tesla's approach precludes them from making self driving technology work reliably under limited conditions like this, it doesn't matter whether their self driving technology works better (but not reliably) in other conditions, because in practice it won't be as useful as more limited but reliable self driving systems. Some countries are already requiring the approach Mercedes-Benz is taking here for regulatory approval and based on the number of accidents Tesla vehicles have been involved in its possible that the US could adopt the same approach. If this happens it will not be useful at all to have a more advanced but incomplete and unreliable self-driving technology in the short term (but perhaps it will be possible to keep developing it without shipping it in cars until it reaches a sufficient level of reliability).
detaro 5y ago
Tesla "will be there in a year" since... 2016 or so? (Musk said in January that he is confident Tesla will achieve Level 5 autonomy in 2021, looking forward to that) > those Teslas haven't been hitting anyone in slow traffic jams on well-maintained limited access highways either. weird then that Tesla, despite showman Musk at the helm, hasn't been doing the simple stunt of putting their money where their mouth is, getting L3 permission for their system and actually taking the risk for something that is "never happening" instead of finding ways of blaming the driver every time. It would be an easy way of providing an additional actual useful capability to their users on top of what they already have. No, it's not some massive technical leap, but "ok, we'll take the blame for our system failing" is still a big legal step.
ra7 5y ago
> Autonomy isn't about "defining conditions", it's about solving real problems. Sounds pretty hand-wavy. Autonomy is about defining conditions in which a self driving system can safely operate, also known as Operational Design Domain (ODD). Of course, ODD as a concept is foreign to Tesla FSD because it is "50% of the time, it works every time" i.e. you don't know when it works and when it doesn't. It's a YOLO driver assistance system with a misnomer. Not sure how many "real problems" that is solving and definitely won't be L4 anytime soon.