5 ms·
This is really cool One thing I'd suggest, for any hardware product, is that when doing your bill of materials to provide links and show estimated costs. Sure,
by godelski 2y ago
This is really cool
One thing I'd suggest, for any hardware product, is that when doing your bill of materials to provide links and show estimated costs. Sure, these will change but having a rough idea of the costs is really helpful, especially when perusing on from things like HN. It can be a big difference for someone to decide if they want to try it on their own or not. It is the ballpark figures that matter, not the specifics.
You did all that research, write it down. If for no one but yourself! Providing links is highly helpful because names can be funky and helps people (including your future self) know if this is the same thing or not. It's always noisy, but these things reduce noise. Importantly, they take no time while you're doing the project (you literally bought the parts, so you have the link and the price). It saves yourself a lot of hassle, not just for others. Document because no one remembers anything after a few days or weeks. It takes 10 seconds to write it down and 30 minutes to do the thing all over again, so be lazy and document. I think this is one of the biggest lessons I learned when I started as an engineer. You save yourself so much time. You just got to fight that dumb part in your head that is trying to convince you that it doesn't save time. (Same with documenting code[0])
Here. I did a quick "15 minute" look. May not be accurate
Lidar:
One of:
LD06: $80 https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803352905216.html
LD19: $70 https://www.amazon.com/DTOF-D300-Distance-Obstacle-Education/dp/B0B1V8D36H
STL27L: $160 https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2726.html
Camera and Lens: $60 https://www.amazon.com/Arducam-Raspberry-Camera-Distortion-Compatible/dp/B0B1MN721K
Raspberry Pi 4: $50
NEMA17 42-23 stepper: $10 https://www.amazon.com/SIMAX3D-Nema17-Stepper-Motor/dp/B0CQLFNSMJ
That gives us $200-$280 before counting the power supply and buck converter.
[0] When I wrote the code only me and god understood what was going on. But as time marched on, now only god knows.
- juujian 2y agoIncredible that this is too expense for a company like Tesla.
- xnickb 2y agoMoney better spent on marketing. Like that song about "him having a plan". After all car sales don't drive the stock market. Public opinion does.
- dhosek 2y agoI’ll bet a lot of Tesla investors are wishing neither of those applied these days.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- derac 2y agoThe requirements for electronics in a car are pretty extreme (temp, durability), not that I disagree, but it's not apples to oranges.
- cosmie 2y agoThat hasn’t stopped Tesla before. They have a track record of treating automotive-grade quality standards as optional when doing electronics sourcing[1]. As the article notes, Tesla conveniently “fixed” their thermals and durability issue that caused by inventing a feature called cabin overheat protection and marketing it as for people/animals overheating and not for the non-automotive-spec electronics in the cabin. If you can’t bring auto quality electronics to the car, just change the car so it avoids standard auto thermal conditions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows-why-automotive-grade-matters https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...
- daniel_iversen 2y agoDon’t they constantly get tested as the safest car in the world? I saw it years ago in some American news and the first google result is from New Zealand last year https://www.drivencarguide.co.nz/news/tesla-model-y-is-the-safest-car-of-2024-aa-driven-coty/#:~:text=The%20AA%20Safest%20cars%20for,its%20overall%20score%20of%2091.50. https://www.drivencarguide.co.nz/news/tesla-model-y-is-the-s...
- lucb1e 2y ago> requirements for electronics in a car are pretty extreme + the salaries of everyone working on that stuff, not just assembly but also writing the code to support it Not that I disagree, either: at the volumes that a modest car company puts out, I'd assume it's easily worth the, say, 3% cost premium on the car's total price to have something that can actually see things you don't see and thus makes a safer system. It might even reduce costs by having lower requirements for the vision hardware and software, but that's not something I can know. There's a lot of unknowns here that I think mean we can't really do a good comparison indeed
- theoryofx 2y agoThe lidars used on self-driving vehicles are far more capable and far more expensive.
- jsiepkes 2y agoAt this point having "something" would probably even beat having nothing. I guess it's simply a big numbers thing. If you sell lots of cars, shaving a couple of hundred dollars of each car adds up.
- xbmcuser 2y agoNot by that much current generation hardware for cars is $500-700. And some of the oem expect to bring it price down below $200 with the next generation equipment. Now that BYD put self driving in almost every car it will supercharge adoption and lidar prices might drop even a lot faster with economies of scale.
- jpk 2y agoMy (tenuous) understanding is that the challenge with lidar isn't necessarily the cost of the sensor(s) but the bandwidth and compute required to meaningfully process the point cloud the sensors produce, at a rate/latency acceptable for driving. So the sensors themselves can be a few hundred bucks but what other parts of the system also need to be more expensive?
- fragmede 2y agoWhat is the cost of a human life worth? edit: seriously, a $4,000 sensor and an extra, say, $3,000 for an upgraded computer module so your car can drive itself is just too much too afford?
- rogerrogerr 2y agoValuation of a statistical life is $5-10M, depending on who you ask[0]. So it’s too much to afford, or at least not singularly justifiable, unless more than 1 out of every 2000 cars kills someone in a way that would be prevented by LIDAR. 0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1098301521002138 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109830152...
- dx4100 2y agoThis isn't really something you'd ship in a car though. It's cool that we have such a rich ecosystem of devices that this can be made "off-the-shelf" - but for production use in a car? Not really practical.
- nisa 2y agoWhat is the HN opinion on Tesla skipping lidar? Having spent some time with computer vision in university I think it's insane to skip it - sure stereo reconstruction is powerful but lighting conditions have such an impact on results that having some robust depth data feels like a no-brainer and skipping it feels like malignant neglect.
- MOARDONGZPLZ 2y agoI can only speak for myself, but I work on this stuff in this industry: Tesla’s choice is asinine at this point. It’s one thing to claim cameras only and find that won’t work and pivot, but they are so dug in that they can’t admit they were wrong and won’t do so. So it’s asinine now.
- yndoendo 2y agoWhat do yes call a person that has only visual sensory? Disabled. Humans have sight, touch, taste, sound, smell, and vascular sensory. Only a portion of systems used in self drive automation.
- BenjiWiebe 2y agoWell I haven't used taste nor smell in my driving yet. Touch only as far as vibration and steering wheel torque (both not difficult to sense with electronics). That narrows it down a bit.
- wileydragonfly 2y agoNever once smelled or tasted something funny when driving and realize you’d better pull over… like… right now? I have.
- acka 2y agoHumans also have a vestibular system[1] and proprioception[2], which I think are very important in making judgments about safe following distance, car handling, and road conditions, in particular in adverse conditions like strong side winds and slippery or icy roads, which may not always be visually obvious. While some of this can be handled by an IMU, I think humans still have a strong advantage in fusing their various sensory inputs, thanks to millions of years of evolution. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibular_system [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception
- dreamcompiler 2y agoKarpathy addressed this question at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33397093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33397093 Of course he was working for Tesla back then. His opinions might be different today given that Elon is no longer signing his paycheck.
- jdminhbg 2y agoHis opinions aren’t much different in interviews I’ve heard since, although of course that doesn’t mean he’s completely unbiased now.
- godelski 2y agoWhat a weird argument by Karpathy. He has a degree in physics. How does this dude not know that radar can see things not possible through camera vision. That argument there doesn't make any sense. That there's supply chains and things break and this makes it unsafe? Well that's true for every single bolt, every nut, ever little thing. I understand a drive to simplicity but you can't just throw fancy words in there like entropy while ignoring the literal physics that says camera + radar is less entropy than camera no radar. There is literally more (unique!) information available to you!
- qgin 2y agoThey wanted to sell “self driving ready” packages 10 years ago, when LiDAR actually was expensive. So at the time, they had to make big deal about LiDAR being unnecessary.
- mcny 2y agoBut now it has come down in price reportedly by more than a factor of ten so at some point a logical person would revisit that decision
- avsegal 2y agoThis isn't too expensive for Tesla, it's just nowhere near the level needed for an AV. Automotive lidars are 10-20 scans/second, rated for dust/rain/etc, and need a range of at least 50 meters, but 100-200 is more ideal. Not a fan of Tesla's approach, but I wanted to clarify that it's not like they can just use a lidar like this and call it a day. The specs are completely different and that really drives up cost!
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoMaybe something like this: https://linuxgizmos.com/sony-introduces-as-dt1-described-as-the-worlds-smallest-and-lightest-precision-lidar-sensor/ https://linuxgizmos.com/sony-introduces-as-dt1-described-as-... > With a horizontal field of view of 30° or more and 576 ranging points (24 x 24), the sensor supports a frame rate of 30 fps, with a reduced 15 fps mode for maximum distance operation.
- firesteelrain 2y agoDo we really need LiDAR in a Tesla? I own a Chevy Trax and it has LKAS and ADAS. Not even using LiDAR just sensor fusion with camera and radar. It’s a cheap car too. It’s car assisted driving. I have driven a Tesla once but not with the added feature.
- Aurornis 2y agoLearning projects like this is about to get a lot less accessible due to the extreme tariffs and elimination of the de minimis exemption. Take that BOM and multiply it by 2X or 3X depending on the source and how many different shipments arrived. I can’t tell you how depressing it is to go from having access to cheap learning materials for introducing kids (and adults) to electronics, and now it’s being taxed away in the name of improving the US competitiveness or something. Total footgun.
- jillyboel 2y agoFor Americans, that is.
- godelski 2y agoDoesn't change the fact that the advice is still beneficial. At worst you still have a good history of the effect of these tariffs. I'd call the tariffs the second death of hardware though. The first was when we killed all the parts stores. That was a slower death, coupled with the loss of right to repair. But we've been making big strides in that domain, so I hope we can undo that death. If we can also undo the dumb tariffs too then ironically we might have a chance to bring back hardware which somewhat seems inline with what that party (claims to/pretends to) wants.
- macintux 2y agoA new Radio Shack dealer just opened in a rural area, with an emphasis on radio (it's near an off-roading park), and your comment reminded me what terrible timing this is for them. Such a cruel twist. https://tekshack.com https://tekshack.com
- a_subsystem 2y agoThis is the most ungrateful comment I've read today, harping away about how 'it should have been done'. Well you fucking do it then. I know that my time is so short (because I have a family) that if I can even do a project then I'm almost certainly not going to document it because getting it done will be enough of a stretch for me, and if I need to come back and re-do it again, I am probably not going to even bother. Not all of us live in mom's basement and have the luxury of extra time.
- uxcolumbo 2y agoIt was not ungrateful. It was a general suggestion for everyone doing hardware projects and OP did a lookup and provided the additional info / links, which sparked further discussions. Chill.
- taylorportman 2y agoHe did 'do it', and saved us all the 10-15minutes it took.
- godelski 2y ago> Well you fucking do it then. I did > I know that my time is so short My argument was to do this BECAUSE your time is short. Helping others is the side benefit. There are completely selfish reasons to document. It's more important to document when your time is short and more when it gets interrupted. Unless you have a perfect memory, write it down. Not all of us have the luxury to continually work on a project to maintain context continuously.
- firesteelrain 2y agoThe good thing it’s on GitHub so you can submit a pull request for a BOM to help the person out.
- accrual 2y agoI know what a buck converter is but I wonder why it's called 'buck converter'. A dictionary doesn't seem to have any words that mean roughly "reducing the amount of something". [0] Similarly, Wikipedia doesn't elaborate on the etymology. [1] [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buck https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buck [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_converter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_converter
- throw432196 2y agoAs I recall, it is the surname of the inventor. Perhaps William Buck.