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Because your brain is freed up from taking in all of the data points for constantly steering and speeding up and slowing down, it's incredibly less exhausting.

by pwpw 4y ago

Because your brain is freed up from taking in all of the data points for constantly steering and speeding up and slowing down, it's incredibly less exhausting. Instead, you can focus on observing a lot more of the road and capturing things that you previously would have been unable to focus on. It's not often it deviates from expected behavior and catches you off guard with some radically unpredictable maneuver. When driving longer distances between cities, it's a night and day difference compared to my car that only has radar cruise control but still requires steering. Perhaps it's something you have to experience firsthand to truly see how much less exhausting of an experience it is. By taking away throttle control and steering, you leave yourself with only decision making. It's reducing major components of normal driving behavior. It's not perfect, but knowing its strengths and weaknesses allows for better driving in my opinion.

ohgodplsno 4y ago
Throttle control and steering _are_ decision making. If you can't do these as well as every other task you need to do, you don't belong behind a wheel, period. And before i hear a "That's exclusionary", yes, excluding people unable to be safe while driving 2 tons of steel launched at high speeds is a good thing
rainsford 4y ago
It could definitely be one of those experience it to understand it things, since I've never driven very far in a car with more advanced self-driving (trying it in a colleague's Tesla on a short drive to lunch is about the extent of my experience). I'm a private pilot though and what you're describing sounds a lot like the autopilots on small planes. It handles keeping course and altitude for you, so you can focus on the rest of the flight and it is indeed way less taxing than hand flying a longer distance. And like Tesla, a plane autopilot will occasionally do something weird so you can't entirely ignore it. I would think the difference though is that in a plane, nothing the autopilot does will be fatal or dangerous very quickly, so you have plenty of time to notice and correct it as long as you aren't sleeping or something. When you're driving a car though, a second of steering in the wrong direction can quickly turn into an accident, so you as the driver have to be constantly ready to immediately take over. Even in the chance is low, as long as it's often enough to be a factor, you still need that instant readiness. I wonder if the value is more on longer drives, as you said, vs city driving. The fatigue factor driving between cities is a bigger issue, and the driving tasks are simpler with less opportunity for the car to do something crazy than in busy city driving.
- _ea1k 4y ago
  Longer drives are where I have noticed it to be significantly less fatiguing. The hands free systems would be even better on some of those roads.
mellavora 4y ago
> By taking away throttle control and steering, you leave yourself with only decision making. It's reducing major components of normal driving behavior. It's not perfect, but knowing its strengths and weaknesses allows for better driving in my opinion. Assuming you know its strengths and weaknesses. See next post, below. I'm wondering if "reducing major components of normal driving behavior" is such a good idea? What I'm getting at-- the delusion/illusion that the brain/mind is somehow separate from the body-- that learning can all be in the abstract without any connection to tangible reality. How can you make throttle decisions if you don't have throttle control? Wouldn't having throttle control at all times mean you have more awareness of the machine you are controlling and can thus decide faster and act better? Because this control is already part of your thoughts?
bfgoodrich 4y ago
I can see how that might be the case for a very new driver, but for anyone who has driven for any period, "throttle control and steering" is completely autonomous and requires negligible consideration. Instead my focus is entirely on exceptional situations. The current FSD seems like I now have to focus on throttle and steering and the exceptions just to keep guard that the system doesn't do something disastrous. As others have said, I cannot fathom how having to babysit an occasionally suicidal driving system is better than having no system at all. It seems perfectly balanced at the absolutely worst point of both being reliable enough that you stop paying attention, but unreliable enough that it catches you not paying attention. If an FSD system really let me sit and watch a movie or read or book or something -- if it was that good -- then I 100% get it and would be signed up. But one that you have to babysit seems worse than pointless.
- Handytinge 4y ago
  > for anyone who has driven for any period, "throttle control and steering" is completely autonomous and requires negligible consideration. As someone who has driven a Tesla 10s of thousands of km now and was driving for decades before, I disagree. I can see why you'd think that, however it's like a muscle that's been tight for years. You're so used to it, you don't noticr it anymore. Once it loosens, you're surprised how much better it feels.
annexrichmond 4y ago
Most new cars have Adaptive Cruise Control these days, often in base models, without the need to pay $12k that Tesla is charging now.

by pwpw 4y ago

ohgodplsno 4y ago

Throttle control and steering _are_ decision making. If you can't do these as well as every other task you need to do, you don't belong behind a wheel, period. And before i hear a "That's exclusionary", yes, excluding people unable to be safe while driving 2 tons of steel launched at high speeds is a good thing

rainsford 4y ago

It could definitely be one of those experience it to understand it things, since I've never driven very far in a car with more advanced self-driving (trying it in a colleague's Tesla on a short drive to lunch is about the extent of my experience). I'm a private pilot though and what you're describing sounds a lot like the autopilots on small planes. It handles keeping course and altitude for you, so you can focus on the rest of the flight and it is indeed way less taxing than hand flying a longer distance. And like Tesla, a plane autopilot will occasionally do something weird so you can't entirely ignore it. I would think the difference though is that in a plane, nothing the autopilot does will be fatal or dangerous very quickly, so you have plenty of time to notice and correct it as long as you aren't sleeping or something. When you're driving a car though, a second of steering in the wrong direction can quickly turn into an accident, so you as the driver have to be constantly ready to immediately take over. Even in the chance is low, as long as it's often enough to be a factor, you still need that instant readiness. I wonder if the value is more on longer drives, as you said, vs city driving. The fatigue factor driving between cities is a bigger issue, and the driving tasks are simpler with less opportunity for the car to do something crazy than in busy city driving.

_ea1k 4y ago
Longer drives are where I have noticed it to be significantly less fatiguing. The hands free systems would be even better on some of those roads.

mellavora 4y ago

> By taking away throttle control and steering, you leave yourself with only decision making. It's reducing major components of normal driving behavior. It's not perfect, but knowing its strengths and weaknesses allows for better driving in my opinion. Assuming you know its strengths and weaknesses. See next post, below. I'm wondering if "reducing major components of normal driving behavior" is such a good idea? What I'm getting at-- the delusion/illusion that the brain/mind is somehow separate from the body-- that learning can all be in the abstract without any connection to tangible reality. How can you make throttle decisions if you don't have throttle control? Wouldn't having throttle control at all times mean you have more awareness of the machine you are controlling and can thus decide faster and act better? Because this control is already part of your thoughts?

bfgoodrich 4y ago

I can see how that might be the case for a very new driver, but for anyone who has driven for any period, "throttle control and steering" is completely autonomous and requires negligible consideration. Instead my focus is entirely on exceptional situations. The current FSD seems like I now have to focus on throttle and steering and the exceptions just to keep guard that the system doesn't do something disastrous. As others have said, I cannot fathom how having to babysit an occasionally suicidal driving system is better than having no system at all. It seems perfectly balanced at the absolutely worst point of both being reliable enough that you stop paying attention, but unreliable enough that it catches you not paying attention. If an FSD system really let me sit and watch a movie or read or book or something -- if it was that good -- then I 100% get it and would be signed up. But one that you have to babysit seems worse than pointless.

Handytinge 4y ago
> for anyone who has driven for any period, "throttle control and steering" is completely autonomous and requires negligible consideration. As someone who has driven a Tesla 10s of thousands of km now and was driving for decades before, I disagree. I can see why you'd think that, however it's like a muscle that's been tight for years. You're so used to it, you don't noticr it anymore. Once it loosens, you're surprised how much better it feels.

annexrichmond 4y ago

Most new cars have Adaptive Cruise Control these days, often in base models, without the need to pay $12k that Tesla is charging now.