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It still won't be a big bang moment. There might be a moment you can go hands off on highways, and a moment you can go hands off in urban environments. But it's

It still won't be a big bang moment. There might be a moment you can go hands off on highways, and a moment you can go hands off in urban environments. But it's still going to be gradual overall.

ghaff 2y ago
I've been a bit surprised that no one (well GM was mildly pushing in this direction at one point) has really gone after autonomous driving on selected highways within some weather parameters. I know urbanites get all worked up about robotaxis but a system that lets me chill for the next 100 miles of highway driving seems far more interesting if it's reliable/safe.
- chippiewill 2y ago
  Highways is this weird thing where building the L2/L3 capability is comparatively easy (Which is why Tesla autopilot has been halfway decent for a long time now, and BMW have a true L3 system in restricted areas where you can take eyes off the road), but L4 is really hard because a true L4 system has to always be safe even if the driver doesn't take over. You could be tens of miles between highway exits, and just stopping on a highway isn't exactly safe by default. An L4 system therefore needs to handle anything between its current position and the next exit which massively ramps up the number of possible situations it needs to be able to handle compared to the L2/L3 equivalent. L4 in an urban environment is weirdly feasible by comparison, even though we still don't have examples of extremely good L2/L3 systems yet (there's far more complexity by default compared to highways: lights, pedestrians, complex lane decisions, more visual noise, higher average relative speeds) we already have these L4 Taxis being rolled out. The reason is that if a driver doesn't take over it's much easier to find a "safe" place to stop. Apart from getting stuck in the middle of a junction, you can feasibly park up anywhere that has speeds <=40mph.
dilap 2y ago
My understanding is that Tesla's approach is to not require hyper-detailed maps. So far it doesn't work well enough, but if they do manage to get it working, then I think it will actually be a "boom, suddenly it works everywhere" moment. Waymo One, by contrast, requires extremely detailed maps of the service area, which is why they can only slowly roll it out place by place.
- chippiewill 2y ago
  It's not about maps, it's about operational design domain. The requirements for a self-driving vehicle on highways is very different from urban and and very different from sub-urban. Multiply that with how different countries and cities have very different looking roads, e.g. narrow windy roads in London vs wide straight roads in Phoenix. I agree it's not going to be an location-by-location rollout (other than for regulatory reasons). But I do think Tesla will find that their product "just works" in some places, and doesn't work at all in others - at least for a time. I don't think Tesla would sit on their hands and say "it's not ready yet" until they'd cracked everything. If it's safe to take a nap on Highways and not safe in an urban area then I think they'll just start selling that.

It still won't be a big bang moment. There might be a moment you can go hands off on highways, and a moment you can go hands off in urban environments. But it's still going to be gradual overall.

ghaff 2y ago

I've been a bit surprised that no one (well GM was mildly pushing in this direction at one point) has really gone after autonomous driving on selected highways within some weather parameters. I know urbanites get all worked up about robotaxis but a system that lets me chill for the next 100 miles of highway driving seems far more interesting if it's reliable/safe.

chippiewill 2y ago
Highways is this weird thing where building the L2/L3 capability is comparatively easy (Which is why Tesla autopilot has been halfway decent for a long time now, and BMW have a true L3 system in restricted areas where you can take eyes off the road), but L4 is really hard because a true L4 system has to always be safe even if the driver doesn't take over. You could be tens of miles between highway exits, and just stopping on a highway isn't exactly safe by default. An L4 system therefore needs to handle anything between its current position and the next exit which massively ramps up the number of possible situations it needs to be able to handle compared to the L2/L3 equivalent. L4 in an urban environment is weirdly feasible by comparison, even though we still don't have examples of extremely good L2/L3 systems yet (there's far more complexity by default compared to highways: lights, pedestrians, complex lane decisions, more visual noise, higher average relative speeds) we already have these L4 Taxis being rolled out. The reason is that if a driver doesn't take over it's much easier to find a "safe" place to stop. Apart from getting stuck in the middle of a junction, you can feasibly park up anywhere that has speeds <=40mph.

dilap 2y ago

My understanding is that Tesla's approach is to not require hyper-detailed maps. So far it doesn't work well enough, but if they do manage to get it working, then I think it will actually be a "boom, suddenly it works everywhere" moment. Waymo One, by contrast, requires extremely detailed maps of the service area, which is why they can only slowly roll it out place by place.

chippiewill 2y ago
It's not about maps, it's about operational design domain. The requirements for a self-driving vehicle on highways is very different from urban and and very different from sub-urban. Multiply that with how different countries and cities have very different looking roads, e.g. narrow windy roads in London vs wide straight roads in Phoenix. I agree it's not going to be an location-by-location rollout (other than for regulatory reasons). But I do think Tesla will find that their product "just works" in some places, and doesn't work at all in others - at least for a time. I don't think Tesla would sit on their hands and say "it's not ready yet" until they'd cracked everything. If it's safe to take a nap on Highways and not safe in an urban area then I think they'll just start selling that.