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The issue is very simple here, but it has nothing to do with technology. The automotive road code is actually a very complicated thing, developed over long per
by happytiger 3y ago
The issue is very simple here, but it has nothing to do with technology.
The automotive road code is actually a very complicated thing, developed over long period of time. For example, here in California, the Caltrans organization has very large manuals about how to build things, and it’s really shaped by a whole lot of lawsuits that have happened over a very long period of time.
These legal and regulatory frameworks and case examples have some nebulous risk when it comes to a product like FSD and need time to adapt to the self driving liability and legal landscape.
One of the major things that’s holding up full self driving from a licensing perspective is this risk, with second movers waiting for the risk of this regulatory environment to unwind so that they don’t end up prematurely selecting a technology that hits a dead end or hitching themselves to a wagon that limits their options if things don’t go well.
It’s a lot slower than people realize, with the friends that I have that do this as a specialty looking at 2040 as a target, for example in one case, or 2035 with another. These are PEs. The people that that I know that are involved in these cases, as professional engineers, really, don’t see the legal and regulatory framework catching up with the technology for some time. This is often the case. The paperwork don’t catch up right away. ;)
So you can imagine that the idea of locking yourself into one companies’ntechnology, and hitching your investors cash to the risk profile of Tesla in particular, which is fairly high, is not real attractive when you’re still waiting to see how things turn out with the larger regulatory framework.
And that’s why you’re not gonna see a lot of people jumping in until market pressures make it so difficult that they have to, because the incentives push for them to delay as long as possible before making a commitment to see how things are headed.
- __m 3y ago> the legal and regulatory framework catching up with the technology for some time Is that true though? What legal framework do you have in mind? Immunity? That’s never going to happen.
- happytiger 3y agoNo. It’s the great big book of how roads are built. It’s the roads that aren’t ready for electric cars. It’s those rules that need to catch up.
- treflop 3y agoWhat you’re saying may be true but let’s say hypothetically Tesla’s FSD was extremely good and the bee’s knees — car makers would work hard to overcome any obstacle just to get it. But if the technology is kind of mid, their attempts will be lukewarm at best.
- Justsignedup 3y agoTo add, if the company itself is risky, with wild outlandish statements by the CEO, other companies might say "well, he can gamble all he wants, but I cannot take this risk and help him at his gambles." Maybe 10 years ago people would be willing to invest into musk, but after twitter people see his ability to truly lead / innovate as "companies may be succeeding despite him, not due to him". So the reality is, it is all about risk. Tesla's tech may be hypothetically amazing, but Musk's history shows that he fakes the funk a lot, and nobody is willing to take the risk that he might be again. Edit: Don't forget the golden rule of software dependency: If an API or Library you use fails, no client is going to look at it and say "yeah, its okay, this other company fucked up". No. You fucked up. And now "Ford self driving is a nightmare". And the next headline would be "Musk says Ford implemented FSD incorrectly". They will not accept that sort of risk.