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My guess is that they sold FSD for a lump sum while the tech was experimental. Now that they see the light at the end of the tunnel, they're planning to transi

My guess is that they sold FSD for a lump sum while the tech was experimental. Now that they see the light at the end of the tunnel, they're planning to transition to a subscription model, and the cars that do have it will slowly fall out of circulation as they age, with many of them not having the right hardware for the real thing anyways. This is similar to what they did with supercharging.

mrkeen 2y ago
What software breakthroughs have they made that make you believe that FSD won't be 5 years away for the rest of time?
- torginus 2y ago
  Not sure - but Waymo and a few Chinese vendors already have self-driving robotaxis in production. That, combined with the AI boom, tells me that building a self-driving car (even if geofenced and/or L3) is on the horizon. If that's the case, Tesla will probably figure this out as well.
  - Zenzero 2y ago
    I'm no expert, but anyone can look at the sensors placed on a Waymo compared to a Tesla and likely rightly assume Waymo doesn't have all of that extra stuff just for looks. I don't see how Tesla is even a serious contender.
    - fooker 2y ago
      The hypothesis was that LIDAR was a crutch, humans manage with just vision. Whether this is correct for delivering self driving cars, we will find out soon enough. Long term though, it definitely makes sense. We just don't know what the missing pieces of the puzzle are.
      - seanhunter 2y ago
        > humans manage with just vision this is commonly repeated but very obviously untrue. We don't only have vision. We have a general intelligence, coupled with vision. In the absence of AGI, the base assumption has to be the sensor apparatus needs to be significantly superior to humans for an FSD system to drive at a comparable level.
        vel0city 2y ago
        Not to mention it is also untrue because we use senses other than just vision when we drive. We use our ears for acceleration information, sometimes hearing, and the feeling of the wheel when we drive.
        fooker 2y ago
        We don't have anything close to LIDAR though
        seanhunter 2y ago
        And a car doesn't have anything close to a human brain. Humans process sensory data in a fundamentally different way to anything that's possible for a self-driving car. The idea that we should base the decision about the sensors on what humans have just fundamentally makes no sense. Lidar substitutes hardware for something which humans find easy and CV systems find hard - creating a map of the environment. Humans do that by using a brain. CV systems based purely on video really struggle to do that in lots of edge cases. You can shortcut that in a car by using something like lidar.
        fooker 2y ago
        You are right. Would you agree then, that if the goal was to develop AGI, just relying on vision is a credible choice?
        seanhunter 2y ago
    - SkyPuncher 2y ago
      While I understand your argument and agree that more sensor means easier path to self-driving, our world is now full of systems that can infer amazing amounts of data from a few sensors. This is the progress of technology. Apple Watch is probably one of the greatest examples. So many of it's features are inferred via "basic" sensors. On a different angle, sports refereeing is largely becoming possible due to advances in camera based analysis. We can turn 2d images into a nearly centimeter accurate representation of a playing field in seconds.
      - piva00 2y ago
        > On a different angle, sports refereeing is largely becoming possible due to advances in camera based analysis. We can turn 2d images into a nearly centimeter accurate representation of a playing field in seconds. These cameras are in a very different and much less dynamic environment than on a road speeding at 100+ km/h while getting splashed on, shat on, dusted on, muddied, stroke by bugs, snowed, etc.
      - Zenzero 2y ago
        I have a hard time believing that stereoscopic image analysis will ever surpass the efficiency of lidar map analysis of 3d spaces. Given how hard self driving is, it would make sense to make the ugliest, sensor-packed vehicle a working model, and then miniaturize /prune from there. Starting with "basic" sensors is backwards. It is like aspiring to become a chess grandmaster so good you can play with your eyes closed, and starting out as a beginner with your eyes closed.
    - torginus 2y ago
      I think Tesla assumes that having more and better sensors doesn't really solve the hard problems - just like having more cooling in your computer allows for more performance, but its the die shrinks that get you the real scaling. It's possible that there exists some error metric inside Tesla that consistently goes down with more training and bigger neural nets in their Vision FSD - whereas switching to LIDAR would reduce that error by a fixed 30%. They just assume that vision will eventually work out.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    "Traditional" self-driving stacks use a ton of pre-built maps, lidar and other range sensors, and has teams of people keeping those maps registered and up to date. Tesla's plan is (or has become) to do an end-run around all that, and just train a giant network on camera-only sensor stacks, so that it can navigate without large 3D representations of the environment / city in which it works, without expensive lidar/radar sensor suites, and to skip the "partner" phase that Waymo and others do with particular cities. This allowed them to bring me, a MN customer, something like lvl 3 autonomy before any other company did. But it might not have the same upper-bound as other, more fine-tuned approaches do, and having ridden in Waymo, Nuro, etc vs my own Tesla, I can tell you the Tesla is wonkier for it. Time will tell.
    - torginus 2y ago
      End users don't care about the tech details as long as it works - and it does, so Tesla might start sweating about Waymo eating their lunches. Maybe they'll also move towards the mapping approach, which would mean they'd have to have maps constantly updated. That'd mean recurring costs for them. Besides, I'm pretty sure some degree of mapping is necessary - I know some seriously wonky roads with poor visibility, tons of shoulder lanes, roundabouts, and stop-and-go traffic, where I need to know which lane to get in half a kilometer before the turn comes up. Most people can't figure it out at the first glance - I usually see a couple trying and failing every day.
    - epolanski 2y ago
      > something like lvl 3 autonomy before any other company did I'm quite sure Mercedes-Benz was the first to bring lvl 3 autonomy on the market. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/mercedes-benzs-level-3-autonomous-driving-system-takes-over-in-heavy-traffic/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/mercedes-benzs-level-3-... It is also the only carmaker confident enough in the system that it takes full liability over it > Confidence in Drive Pilot is high within Mercedes-Benz, as the system has been active in Germany for over a year without incident. That confidence is demonstrated by Mercedes’ decision to assume liability for the vehicle while Drive Pilot is in use. That’s a particularly bold move since no other manufacturer offers that kind of assurance.
- sixQuarks 2y ago
  I have Tesla FSD, it already regularly drives me point to point with zero interventions.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    I don't think anyone disputes that Tesla has a very decent ADAS system, what you're describing. As an individual driver though, you don't have the statistical power or access to the design process to see what would be different about an autonomous system without the possibility of local intervention. It brings some very different requirements.
SmartJerry 2y ago
The title here is click bait. The article actually just says they changed the way FSD is worded, it is still offered.

mrkeen 2y ago

What software breakthroughs have they made that make you believe that FSD won't be 5 years away for the rest of time?

torginus 2y ago
Not sure - but Waymo and a few Chinese vendors already have self-driving robotaxis in production. That, combined with the AI boom, tells me that building a self-driving car (even if geofenced and/or L3) is on the horizon. If that's the case, Tesla will probably figure this out as well.
- Zenzero 2y ago
  I'm no expert, but anyone can look at the sensors placed on a Waymo compared to a Tesla and likely rightly assume Waymo doesn't have all of that extra stuff just for looks. I don't see how Tesla is even a serious contender.
  - fooker 2y ago
    The hypothesis was that LIDAR was a crutch, humans manage with just vision. Whether this is correct for delivering self driving cars, we will find out soon enough. Long term though, it definitely makes sense. We just don't know what the missing pieces of the puzzle are.
    - seanhunter 2y ago
      > humans manage with just vision this is commonly repeated but very obviously untrue. We don't only have vision. We have a general intelligence, coupled with vision. In the absence of AGI, the base assumption has to be the sensor apparatus needs to be significantly superior to humans for an FSD system to drive at a comparable level.
      - vel0city 2y ago
        Not to mention it is also untrue because we use senses other than just vision when we drive. We use our ears for acceleration information, sometimes hearing, and the feeling of the wheel when we drive.
        fooker 2y ago
        We don't have anything close to LIDAR though
        seanhunter 2y ago
        And a car doesn't have anything close to a human brain. Humans process sensory data in a fundamentally different way to anything that's possible for a self-driving car. The idea that we should base the decision about the sensors on what humans have just fundamentally makes no sense. Lidar substitutes hardware for something which humans find easy and CV systems find hard - creating a map of the environment. Humans do that by using a brain. CV systems based purely on video really struggle to do that in lots of edge cases. You can shortcut that in a car by using something like lidar.
      - fooker 2y ago
        You are right. Would you agree then, that if the goal was to develop AGI, just relying on vision is a credible choice?
        seanhunter 2y ago
  - SkyPuncher 2y ago
    While I understand your argument and agree that more sensor means easier path to self-driving, our world is now full of systems that can infer amazing amounts of data from a few sensors. This is the progress of technology. Apple Watch is probably one of the greatest examples. So many of it's features are inferred via "basic" sensors. On a different angle, sports refereeing is largely becoming possible due to advances in camera based analysis. We can turn 2d images into a nearly centimeter accurate representation of a playing field in seconds.
    - piva00 2y ago
      > On a different angle, sports refereeing is largely becoming possible due to advances in camera based analysis. We can turn 2d images into a nearly centimeter accurate representation of a playing field in seconds. These cameras are in a very different and much less dynamic environment than on a road speeding at 100+ km/h while getting splashed on, shat on, dusted on, muddied, stroke by bugs, snowed, etc.
    - Zenzero 2y ago
      I have a hard time believing that stereoscopic image analysis will ever surpass the efficiency of lidar map analysis of 3d spaces. Given how hard self driving is, it would make sense to make the ugliest, sensor-packed vehicle a working model, and then miniaturize /prune from there. Starting with "basic" sensors is backwards. It is like aspiring to become a chess grandmaster so good you can play with your eyes closed, and starting out as a beginner with your eyes closed.
  - torginus 2y ago
    I think Tesla assumes that having more and better sensors doesn't really solve the hard problems - just like having more cooling in your computer allows for more performance, but its the die shrinks that get you the real scaling. It's possible that there exists some error metric inside Tesla that consistently goes down with more training and bigger neural nets in their Vision FSD - whereas switching to LIDAR would reduce that error by a fixed 30%. They just assume that vision will eventually work out.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  "Traditional" self-driving stacks use a ton of pre-built maps, lidar and other range sensors, and has teams of people keeping those maps registered and up to date. Tesla's plan is (or has become) to do an end-run around all that, and just train a giant network on camera-only sensor stacks, so that it can navigate without large 3D representations of the environment / city in which it works, without expensive lidar/radar sensor suites, and to skip the "partner" phase that Waymo and others do with particular cities. This allowed them to bring me, a MN customer, something like lvl 3 autonomy before any other company did. But it might not have the same upper-bound as other, more fine-tuned approaches do, and having ridden in Waymo, Nuro, etc vs my own Tesla, I can tell you the Tesla is wonkier for it. Time will tell.
  - torginus 2y ago
    End users don't care about the tech details as long as it works - and it does, so Tesla might start sweating about Waymo eating their lunches. Maybe they'll also move towards the mapping approach, which would mean they'd have to have maps constantly updated. That'd mean recurring costs for them. Besides, I'm pretty sure some degree of mapping is necessary - I know some seriously wonky roads with poor visibility, tons of shoulder lanes, roundabouts, and stop-and-go traffic, where I need to know which lane to get in half a kilometer before the turn comes up. Most people can't figure it out at the first glance - I usually see a couple trying and failing every day.
  - epolanski 2y ago
    > something like lvl 3 autonomy before any other company did I'm quite sure Mercedes-Benz was the first to bring lvl 3 autonomy on the market. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/mercedes-benzs-level-3-autonomous-driving-system-takes-over-in-heavy-traffic/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/mercedes-benzs-level-3-... It is also the only carmaker confident enough in the system that it takes full liability over it > Confidence in Drive Pilot is high within Mercedes-Benz, as the system has been active in Germany for over a year without incident. That confidence is demonstrated by Mercedes’ decision to assume liability for the vehicle while Drive Pilot is in use. That’s a particularly bold move since no other manufacturer offers that kind of assurance.
sixQuarks 2y ago
I have Tesla FSD, it already regularly drives me point to point with zero interventions.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  I don't think anyone disputes that Tesla has a very decent ADAS system, what you're describing. As an individual driver though, you don't have the statistical power or access to the design process to see what would be different about an autonomous system without the possibility of local intervention. It brings some very different requirements.

SmartJerry 2y ago

The title here is click bait. The article actually just says they changed the way FSD is worded, it is still offered.