8 ms·

I just, you know, steer my Volt. With my hands. And eyeballs. If I need to do something on a drive I get my wife to drive. I honestly do not understand the ob

by helf 4y ago

I just, you know, steer my Volt. With my hands. And eyeballs. If I need to do something on a drive I get my wife to drive. I honestly do not understand the obsession with self driving or driver assist. I drove a Ford with active lane assist and having the car physically move the steering wheel is the worst. But apparently Im one of those weirdos who actually enjoys driving.

Zigurd 4y ago
Stopping humans from driving cars could save many lives. A million people worldwide, die in road accidents every year. Half are cyclists or pedestrians. But I tend to believe Gill Pratt, at Toyota, who says he doesn't know how to make level 5 AVs, more than I believe Elon.
- Drunk_Engineer 4y ago
  While nobody knows how to make a level 5 AV, we do know how to eliminate road deaths: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-and-oslo-cut-pedestrian-deaths-to-zero https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-a...
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  A third of all fatalities are caused by drunk drivers. That's easier to solve than self-driving cars. Another big chunk are weather related, driving at night, driving while sleepy, etc. The median driver is pretty safe, there are better ways to spend money than building automated car toys for them to play with.
  - Zigurd 4y ago
    That may be a US number. Other places that have stricter drunk driving laws, or that culturally have less drinking, can also have much worse road safety. AVs can also solve other problems like efficiency and surge-ability in public transportation. Not just a toy for the rich.
mplanchard 4y ago
People are super dangerous in cars, so it's nice to have technologies to make driving safer. I also enjoy driving, but I love the adaptive cruise control in my Toyota, because it makes the most frustrating kind of driving (lots of traffic on the highway) super easy to deal with. It makes me much less hesitant to make the trip from Austin to San Antonio, because rather than having to be hyper-vigilant for two hours due to constantly shifting stop-and-go traffic, I can let the car control the speed and instead focus more on watching out for crazy drivers. I am not sure whether I feel the same way about full self-driving. At that point, in my mind, you'd be better off taking a train, since you're very likely to become super distracted/tired with nothing to focus on. That said, if it makes the roads safer in aggregate, I'm not against it. Given the kind of information we see in this article and other factors, though, I'll never buy a Tesla. I'll wait until it hits the major car manufacturers.
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  It is nice to have technology to make driving safer. Maybe someday Tesla can get some.
  - brandonagr2 4y ago
    https://www.tesla.com/blog/model-y-earns-5-star-safety-rating-euro-ncap https://www.tesla.com/blog/model-y-earns-5-star-safety-ratin...
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > People are super dangerous in cars That is a very subjective description. One fatality per 100,000,000 miles actually seems pretty good, given how complex driving can be. And even then, that number includes the shitty drivers that account for most wrecks. The median driver is quite good, objectively.
  - c-cube 4y ago
    Does that also include pedestrians and cyclists killed by drivers?
Blackthorn 4y ago
> I honestly do not understand the obsession with self driving or driver assist. Self driving would be a complete game changer for the disabled.
- andrewmunsell 4y ago
  Or, the elderly. How many times have we seen accidents due to an confused individual driving down the wrong side of the street or mistaking the accelerator for brake? Tesla may not ever get FSD working with its current approach, but if a competitor can do it (even geofenced like how Waymo and Cruise operate today!) and the economies of scale could kick in to make it more affordable than Ubering everywhere, then it would be a huge benefit to those that are even unable to use public transportation.
- beAbU 4y ago
  What benefit does this bring over public transport or something like taxis/ride sharing services? If I can be allowed to grossly generalze here: would the elderly and the disabled be in a position to afford a vehicle as expensive as this? Would they /need/ a permanent vehicle to take them to wherever they need to be, if they already have everything they need right there (hospice, retirement complex etc)? Remember: I'm grossly generalizing here, but I think my point stands. The way I see it: I've been making use of FSD vehicles to take me to work and back for almost a decade now. Sometimes even the vehicle arrives right to my front door and takes me directly to my destination. The fact that it's wetware instead of software has no material impact on my experience or expectations. Thus I'll always go for the cheapest option. In my view FSD is trying to solve a problem that only exists in the mind of the isolated techie who forgets about the real world sometimes.
  - Blackthorn 4y ago
    > What benefit does this bring over public transport or something like taxis/ride sharing services? No offense but do you own a car? Or do you only ever take public transport and taxis / ride-shares all the time? Being able to do things on your own, when you want to, on your own schedule, especially in places that are not cities and have much worse infrastructure on both public transit and ride sharing, is immensely freeing.
leetharris 4y ago
I drive 150+ mile trips all the time. Autopilot is a game changer. FSD is far less impactful on city streets as I enjoy city driving, but it gets mind numbing on long highway drives.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > I drive 150+ mile trips all the time. Autopilot is a game changer. Ha, AP puts me in situations (especially at merge points) I'd never put myself in. It certainly doesn't make the drive less stressful. Quite the opposite. And my wife won't even let me turn on AP now when she and the kids are in the car (this would be most road trips) because it's startling when the car brakes suddenly for an overpass.
lkbm 4y ago
I'm one of those weirdos who enjoys cycling, and the biggest threat to my life, by far, is humans driving cars. Drunk humans, tired humans, humans eating food, humans otherwise distracted, or humans just being human. When I think about the people I know who died under age forty, I think it's majority car accidents. At least a plurality. This holds roughly true in the statistics: car accidents have been at least in the running for leading cause of death for Americans under 30 for years. We need to address this issue, and self-driving cars are rapidly approaching viability as a solution. Even if we don't eliminate human drivers, having viable alternatives means we can be strict about who drives. Right now, for so, so many people, driving is a necessity, and thus we're unwilling to limit access to people who are actually good and safe at driving. If you get in an accident, your insurance company will your rates, but you keep your license. If you get in another, we'll...they raise them some more more. It's really quite difficult to actually lose your license in the US. My friend had to get a breathalyzer after multiple DUIs, but he got to keep his license through all of it. If driving were seen as an optional privilege, we could limit it to people who do it safely, and perhaps those people would only do it while sober and alert given the option to use self driving when they aren't.
upofadown 4y ago
You can't use your smart phone while driving. People tend to use their smart phones anyway which has caused a big increase in distracted driving and the resultant carnage. What's the world coming to when some schmuck on public transit can do things like play games or even get work done where a driver can not do that? What's worse is that smart phones make public transit a lot more usable and attractive in general. Self driving cars keep the automotive transportation mode more competitive.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rafaelero 4y ago
> I honestly do not understand the obsession with self driving or driver assist. What a lack of imagination.

by helf 4y ago

Zigurd 4y ago

Stopping humans from driving cars could save many lives. A million people worldwide, die in road accidents every year. Half are cyclists or pedestrians. But I tend to believe Gill Pratt, at Toyota, who says he doesn't know how to make level 5 AVs, more than I believe Elon.

Drunk_Engineer 4y ago
While nobody knows how to make a level 5 AV, we do know how to eliminate road deaths: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-and-oslo-cut-pedestrian-deaths-to-zero https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-a...
rootusrootus 4y ago
A third of all fatalities are caused by drunk drivers. That's easier to solve than self-driving cars. Another big chunk are weather related, driving at night, driving while sleepy, etc. The median driver is pretty safe, there are better ways to spend money than building automated car toys for them to play with.
- Zigurd 4y ago
  That may be a US number. Other places that have stricter drunk driving laws, or that culturally have less drinking, can also have much worse road safety. AVs can also solve other problems like efficiency and surge-ability in public transportation. Not just a toy for the rich.

mplanchard 4y ago

People are super dangerous in cars, so it's nice to have technologies to make driving safer. I also enjoy driving, but I love the adaptive cruise control in my Toyota, because it makes the most frustrating kind of driving (lots of traffic on the highway) super easy to deal with. It makes me much less hesitant to make the trip from Austin to San Antonio, because rather than having to be hyper-vigilant for two hours due to constantly shifting stop-and-go traffic, I can let the car control the speed and instead focus more on watching out for crazy drivers. I am not sure whether I feel the same way about full self-driving. At that point, in my mind, you'd be better off taking a train, since you're very likely to become super distracted/tired with nothing to focus on. That said, if it makes the roads safer in aggregate, I'm not against it. Given the kind of information we see in this article and other factors, though, I'll never buy a Tesla. I'll wait until it hits the major car manufacturers.

TheCoelacanth 4y ago
It is nice to have technology to make driving safer. Maybe someday Tesla can get some.
- brandonagr2 4y ago
  https://www.tesla.com/blog/model-y-earns-5-star-safety-rating-euro-ncap https://www.tesla.com/blog/model-y-earns-5-star-safety-ratin...
rootusrootus 4y ago
> People are super dangerous in cars That is a very subjective description. One fatality per 100,000,000 miles actually seems pretty good, given how complex driving can be. And even then, that number includes the shitty drivers that account for most wrecks. The median driver is quite good, objectively.
- c-cube 4y ago
  Does that also include pedestrians and cyclists killed by drivers?

Blackthorn 4y ago

> I honestly do not understand the obsession with self driving or driver assist. Self driving would be a complete game changer for the disabled.

andrewmunsell 4y ago
Or, the elderly. How many times have we seen accidents due to an confused individual driving down the wrong side of the street or mistaking the accelerator for brake? Tesla may not ever get FSD working with its current approach, but if a competitor can do it (even geofenced like how Waymo and Cruise operate today!) and the economies of scale could kick in to make it more affordable than Ubering everywhere, then it would be a huge benefit to those that are even unable to use public transportation.
beAbU 4y ago
What benefit does this bring over public transport or something like taxis/ride sharing services? If I can be allowed to grossly generalze here: would the elderly and the disabled be in a position to afford a vehicle as expensive as this? Would they /need/ a permanent vehicle to take them to wherever they need to be, if they already have everything they need right there (hospice, retirement complex etc)? Remember: I'm grossly generalizing here, but I think my point stands. The way I see it: I've been making use of FSD vehicles to take me to work and back for almost a decade now. Sometimes even the vehicle arrives right to my front door and takes me directly to my destination. The fact that it's wetware instead of software has no material impact on my experience or expectations. Thus I'll always go for the cheapest option. In my view FSD is trying to solve a problem that only exists in the mind of the isolated techie who forgets about the real world sometimes.
- Blackthorn 4y ago
  > What benefit does this bring over public transport or something like taxis/ride sharing services? No offense but do you own a car? Or do you only ever take public transport and taxis / ride-shares all the time? Being able to do things on your own, when you want to, on your own schedule, especially in places that are not cities and have much worse infrastructure on both public transit and ride sharing, is immensely freeing.

leetharris 4y ago

I drive 150+ mile trips all the time. Autopilot is a game changer. FSD is far less impactful on city streets as I enjoy city driving, but it gets mind numbing on long highway drives.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> I drive 150+ mile trips all the time. Autopilot is a game changer. Ha, AP puts me in situations (especially at merge points) I'd never put myself in. It certainly doesn't make the drive less stressful. Quite the opposite. And my wife won't even let me turn on AP now when she and the kids are in the car (this would be most road trips) because it's startling when the car brakes suddenly for an overpass.

lkbm 4y ago

I'm one of those weirdos who enjoys cycling, and the biggest threat to my life, by far, is humans driving cars. Drunk humans, tired humans, humans eating food, humans otherwise distracted, or humans just being human. When I think about the people I know who died under age forty, I think it's majority car accidents. At least a plurality. This holds roughly true in the statistics: car accidents have been at least in the running for leading cause of death for Americans under 30 for years. We need to address this issue, and self-driving cars are rapidly approaching viability as a solution. Even if we don't eliminate human drivers, having viable alternatives means we can be strict about who drives. Right now, for so, so many people, driving is a necessity, and thus we're unwilling to limit access to people who are actually good and safe at driving. If you get in an accident, your insurance company will your rates, but you keep your license. If you get in another, we'll...they raise them some more more. It's really quite difficult to actually lose your license in the US. My friend had to get a breathalyzer after multiple DUIs, but he got to keep his license through all of it. If driving were seen as an optional privilege, we could limit it to people who do it safely, and perhaps those people would only do it while sober and alert given the option to use self driving when they aren't.

upofadown 4y ago

You can't use your smart phone while driving. People tend to use their smart phones anyway which has caused a big increase in distracted driving and the resultant carnage. What's the world coming to when some schmuck on public transit can do things like play games or even get work done where a driver can not do that? What's worse is that smart phones make public transit a lot more usable and attractive in general. Self driving cars keep the automotive transportation mode more competitive.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rafaelero 4y ago

> I honestly do not understand the obsession with self driving or driver assist. What a lack of imagination.