4 ms·

Isn´t what they have right now safer than human driving?

slg 4y ago
This is the type of question that will start arguments on both sides, but the truth is no one outside Tesla could possibly have the data to say one way or the other.
xmprt 4y ago
Safer than human driving isn't the bar that needs to be cleared. I consider myself a much safer driver than the average human (which also includes 70 year olds with driver's licenses) and I don't drive when I'm sleepy or drunk or even a little impaired. Even if the claim that it's "safer than human driving" is true, I would only ever use it if it was safer than my driving.
- fragmede 4y ago
  Fun fact: most people believe they're a safer than the average driver. Many people even believe this while driving drunk. Unless we start putting interlocks on all cars (which isn't entirely hypothetical[0]), they're just going to keep driving around drunk. Would you rather they drive drunk, or have an imperfect system that's better than drunk them, driving a car that also has an AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) system? [0] https://www.motortrend.com/news/anti-drunk-driving-technology-mandated-infrastructure-bill/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/anti-drunk-driving-technolog...
  - archagon 4y ago
    Practically speaking, even if self-driving technology was widely available today, it would take decades for manual cars to get off the road.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    I know I am not as good as the average driver, simply because I have much less practice, but I make up for it by extreme vigilance and caution, and I've never been in any sort of accident or moving violation. I think the world would be a better place if most people believed they were bad drivers like I do, and were much more vigilant and less aggressive.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  And of course the pragmatic reality is that nearly everybody considers themselves "better than average." Tesla isn't merely competing with the actual average human driver, they're competing with the average human driver's unrealistically rosy perception of their own driving prowess.
  - ovis 4y ago
    It's not necessarily unrealistic. It only takes one terrible driver to drag down the mean and make everyone else better than average!
    - tzs 4y ago
      A good example of how nearly everyone can be above average is number of arms. If, like 99+% of the population, you have two arms then you have an above average number of arms.
    - TomSwirly 4y ago
      Yeah, no. Driving skill is almost certainly normally distributed, and if so, your answer is wrong.
LarryMullins 4y ago
From personal experience, I can say what they have now drives worse than a drunk teenager.
rcxdude 4y ago
They haven't demonstrated that in a like-for-like comparison. Tesla's autopilot, in circumstances where it can be engaged, and with human supervision, has more miles between accidents than average human drivers in all circumstances (such as older cars, worse roads, and worse weather). But in the circumstances where Autopilot can be used humans are also much better than that average.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  From watching a number of videos, I'm also under the impression that Autopilot is currently still so unreliable that the average beta tester of the system is overall _more_ attentive (and often more stressed) to the road than they would otherwise be, so they can intervene in questionable cases or even just override otherwise embarrassing road maneuvers. Given that the typical Autopilot ride has multiple disengagements that also makes it really hard to judge the performance of the system properly - if you always have to have a hyper-ready human waiting in the wings to catch mistakes to produce nice stats, that's certainly still far away from what most people want in such a system. You'd need to demonstrate better safety without disengagements and without a human backup, as the human drivers you compare to don't have one, either. Marques Brownlee demonstrated this nicely in a recent video review of his daily work commute using Autopilot.
  - redox99 4y ago
    I believe you're confusing autopilot with FSD beta.
    - sho_hn 4y ago
      I did, even though the video I cited taught me the difference. Thanks. :-)
carlivar 4y ago
Hard to say. Are there published comparisons to affluent humans driving relatively new cars manually?
buran77 4y ago
What they have now is a small subset of "driving" so not really useful to compare as it's misleading at best. Otherwise you could say student drivers are the best drivers since they almost never cause accidents.
aglavine 4y ago
Downvoted for doing a question that nobody denies. I love Hacker News these days.

slg 4y ago

This is the type of question that will start arguments on both sides, but the truth is no one outside Tesla could possibly have the data to say one way or the other.

xmprt 4y ago

Safer than human driving isn't the bar that needs to be cleared. I consider myself a much safer driver than the average human (which also includes 70 year olds with driver's licenses) and I don't drive when I'm sleepy or drunk or even a little impaired. Even if the claim that it's "safer than human driving" is true, I would only ever use it if it was safer than my driving.

fragmede 4y ago
Fun fact: most people believe they're a safer than the average driver. Many people even believe this while driving drunk. Unless we start putting interlocks on all cars (which isn't entirely hypothetical[0]), they're just going to keep driving around drunk. Would you rather they drive drunk, or have an imperfect system that's better than drunk them, driving a car that also has an AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) system? [0] https://www.motortrend.com/news/anti-drunk-driving-technology-mandated-infrastructure-bill/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/anti-drunk-driving-technolog...
- archagon 4y ago
  Practically speaking, even if self-driving technology was widely available today, it would take decades for manual cars to get off the road.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  I know I am not as good as the average driver, simply because I have much less practice, but I make up for it by extreme vigilance and caution, and I've never been in any sort of accident or moving violation. I think the world would be a better place if most people believed they were bad drivers like I do, and were much more vigilant and less aggressive.
JohnBooty 4y ago
And of course the pragmatic reality is that nearly everybody considers themselves "better than average." Tesla isn't merely competing with the actual average human driver, they're competing with the average human driver's unrealistically rosy perception of their own driving prowess.
- ovis 4y ago
  It's not necessarily unrealistic. It only takes one terrible driver to drag down the mean and make everyone else better than average!
  - tzs 4y ago
    A good example of how nearly everyone can be above average is number of arms. If, like 99+% of the population, you have two arms then you have an above average number of arms.
  - TomSwirly 4y ago
    Yeah, no. Driving skill is almost certainly normally distributed, and if so, your answer is wrong.

LarryMullins 4y ago

From personal experience, I can say what they have now drives worse than a drunk teenager.

rcxdude 4y ago

They haven't demonstrated that in a like-for-like comparison. Tesla's autopilot, in circumstances where it can be engaged, and with human supervision, has more miles between accidents than average human drivers in all circumstances (such as older cars, worse roads, and worse weather). But in the circumstances where Autopilot can be used humans are also much better than that average.

sho_hn 4y ago
From watching a number of videos, I'm also under the impression that Autopilot is currently still so unreliable that the average beta tester of the system is overall _more_ attentive (and often more stressed) to the road than they would otherwise be, so they can intervene in questionable cases or even just override otherwise embarrassing road maneuvers. Given that the typical Autopilot ride has multiple disengagements that also makes it really hard to judge the performance of the system properly - if you always have to have a hyper-ready human waiting in the wings to catch mistakes to produce nice stats, that's certainly still far away from what most people want in such a system. You'd need to demonstrate better safety without disengagements and without a human backup, as the human drivers you compare to don't have one, either. Marques Brownlee demonstrated this nicely in a recent video review of his daily work commute using Autopilot.
- redox99 4y ago
  I believe you're confusing autopilot with FSD beta.
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    I did, even though the video I cited taught me the difference. Thanks. :-)

carlivar 4y ago

Hard to say. Are there published comparisons to affluent humans driving relatively new cars manually?

buran77 4y ago

What they have now is a small subset of "driving" so not really useful to compare as it's misleading at best. Otherwise you could say student drivers are the best drivers since they almost never cause accidents.

aglavine 4y ago

Downvoted for doing a question that nobody denies. I love Hacker News these days.