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I suppose it depends on what "capable" means. If you mean that a Tesla with FSD can be used to drive without human control, then that is definitely true since

I suppose it depends on what "capable" means. If you mean that a Tesla with FSD can be used to drive without human control, then that is definitely true since the tests for driver alertness can be bypassed. If you mean that a Tesla with FSD has the level of technological sophistication needed to drive autonomously, that is also true: if you bypass the checks for driver alertness, the Tesla can continue driving (albeit not safely). This is well beyond the range of most "driver assistance" technologies. If you mean that a Tesla can drive autonomously without bypassing any checks for driver alertness, then no, it cannot, but only assuming these checks never fail and are always sufficient to prevent it from being used without active monitoring. Tesla's case seems weak here, in that it relies on an extremely narrow interpretation of the law, according to which a system that can drive autonomously but tries to prevent you from doing so is not considered truly autonomous. But IANAL, so perhaps Tesla has a better case than I'd assume.

ajross 5y ago
> Tesla's case seems weak here, in that it relies on an extremely narrow interpretation of the law, To be clear: there is no case, nor has Tesla tried to make one. The linked article is an opinion essay by an academic in the field. The CA DMV hasn't said anything. For myself: I'd argue that we have ~23k FSD beta vehicles on US roads now that have been driving for 3-4 months and that if we're really concerned about the safety of the system (vs. getting into semantic arguments about the statute language of some random law) we should just go get the data and see. By my math that's going to be something in the tens of millions of miles now. That should be well above the noise floor.
- kadoban 5y ago
  How are "we" going to go get the data? Tesla isn't exactly open about these things. (no, marketing numbers aren't enough)
  - ajross 5y ago
    The subject being discussed is literally the regulatory authority of the California Department of Motor Vehicles. You don't think they track accidents statistic? I mean, if someone was coming along from the DMV and saying "here's a report showing a 95% confidence of a higher than average accident rate among FSD beta vehicles" then I'd be first in line to admit that, yes, we should probably halt deployment while we figure out what's going wrong. But that's not what's happening here at all. The people with the data are silent, which tells me something that confirms my priors as a FSD beta tester: this system as deployed is safe. It is.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - kadoban 5y ago
      Tesla isn't complying with the law, they're keeping the data to themselves. How would the CA DMV be getting accurate statistics? What form are random cops going to fill out for "Tesla fucked it again and this was FSD Beta version whatever" ? Or will cops exactly and reliably fill out accident reports in exactly the same way with impossible precision, and then who is going to notice? How many accidents will they miss? How many _near_ accidents will they miss? How many takeovers by the driver will they have no idea about?
      - ajross 5y ago
        How does the CDC get covid infection statistics? How does the NTSB do aviation safety studies? How does OSHA report on occupation risks? Of course the government can do this. In fact in this very area there was big news over the summer that the NHTSA had opened an investigation into Tesla autopilot after finding a collection of just 13 accidents over six years where a vehicle on AP hit an emergency vehicle! If they can pick out needles from the haystack like that, they can surely run an analysis over FSD beta. Look, if you're arguing that we need a unified system in place for reporting accidents and correctly tagging them to autonomous vehicle software stacks, then I'd tend to agree. But that's not an argument about Tesla safety, nor even with Tesla's compliance with existing regulation. All I'm saying is that (1) my personal experience with this system as deployed is that it's quite safe, frankly safer than driving personally, (2) there is a ton of data out there being generated by all these cars, and (3) let's go find it instead of pursuing brand flamewars like this.

ajross 5y ago

> Tesla's case seems weak here, in that it relies on an extremely narrow interpretation of the law, To be clear: there is no case, nor has Tesla tried to make one. The linked article is an opinion essay by an academic in the field. The CA DMV hasn't said anything. For myself: I'd argue that we have ~23k FSD beta vehicles on US roads now that have been driving for 3-4 months and that if we're really concerned about the safety of the system (vs. getting into semantic arguments about the statute language of some random law) we should just go get the data and see. By my math that's going to be something in the tens of millions of miles now. That should be well above the noise floor.

kadoban 5y ago
How are "we" going to go get the data? Tesla isn't exactly open about these things. (no, marketing numbers aren't enough)
- ajross 5y ago
  The subject being discussed is literally the regulatory authority of the California Department of Motor Vehicles. You don't think they track accidents statistic? I mean, if someone was coming along from the DMV and saying "here's a report showing a 95% confidence of a higher than average accident rate among FSD beta vehicles" then I'd be first in line to admit that, yes, we should probably halt deployment while we figure out what's going wrong. But that's not what's happening here at all. The people with the data are silent, which tells me something that confirms my priors as a FSD beta tester: this system as deployed is safe. It is.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Tesla isn't complying with the law, they're keeping the data to themselves. How would the CA DMV be getting accurate statistics? What form are random cops going to fill out for "Tesla fucked it again and this was FSD Beta version whatever" ? Or will cops exactly and reliably fill out accident reports in exactly the same way with impossible precision, and then who is going to notice? How many accidents will they miss? How many _near_ accidents will they miss? How many takeovers by the driver will they have no idea about?
    - ajross 5y ago
      How does the CDC get covid infection statistics? How does the NTSB do aviation safety studies? How does OSHA report on occupation risks? Of course the government can do this. In fact in this very area there was big news over the summer that the NHTSA had opened an investigation into Tesla autopilot after finding a collection of just 13 accidents over six years where a vehicle on AP hit an emergency vehicle! If they can pick out needles from the haystack like that, they can surely run an analysis over FSD beta. Look, if you're arguing that we need a unified system in place for reporting accidents and correctly tagging them to autonomous vehicle software stacks, then I'd tend to agree. But that's not an argument about Tesla safety, nor even with Tesla's compliance with existing regulation. All I'm saying is that (1) my personal experience with this system as deployed is that it's quite safe, frankly safer than driving personally, (2) there is a ton of data out there being generated by all these cars, and (3) let's go find it instead of pursuing brand flamewars like this.