8 ms·

Tesla has yet to start testing its robotaxi without driver weeks before launch

55 points by TheAlchemist 1y ago

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
Doesn't Musk believe it's better to see what things don't work in production and then fix those rather than doing a lot of testing beforehand?
- amelius 1y ago
  It is only natural that capitalists want to play it like that. Put the burden of safety on society, etc. This is why we should have laws that say that even a small software update requires testing by an independent organization for at least several months.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    "small software update"? That would slow things down so much more. Maybe only if it is mission critical?
    - ragebol 1y ago
      If you can prove it's small and won't affect anything safety critical, then fine...
    - starquake 1y ago
      I would assume the mission would be something like "travel safely". Keyword being "safely" here.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - amelius 1y ago
      Bugs can be weird and cause all kinds of unexpected behavior. Maybe read this story about a recent update that took down systems around the world: https://www.wired.com/story/crowdstrike-outage-update-windows/ https://www.wired.com/story/crowdstrike-outage-update-window... > CrowdStrike wrote in a blog post that the root cause of the crash had been a single configuration file pushed as an update to Falcon.
  - unsupp0rted 1y ago
    This is why we can’t have nice things. If this had been the policy, we’d still be technologically in the 18th century.
    - bilekas 1y ago
      I'd argue the opposite.. For example in this case of they roll it out without tearing and something catastrophic happens. The faith in the tech will not be restored for generations, regardless of how much testing is done. Better to have these things working out the door straight away Instead of risking literal lives.
      - unsupp0rted 1y ago
        We just need some major wars or implacable ideological enemies to force us to test in prod. The biggest tech leaps happen there, because there’s no alternative.
        amelius 1y ago
        Yes, putting everything in service of the fastest possible technological advancement is a pretty dumb idea.
        unsupp0rted 1y ago
        Why? Would you rather be the world’s richest person in 1825 or lower middle class today? I like antibiotics, MRI, anesthetics during surgeries, unlimited information and entertainment, and the ability to travel places in less than 8 weeks and without getting tuberculosis along the way. Tech advancement has given the most people the most happiness, safety and prosperity. And it’s still barely a drop in the bucket compared to what is plainly visible already as the next level up.
        amelius 1y ago
        You are presenting a false dichotomy. Better testing procedures will not put us back in 1825.
  - bearjaws 1y ago
    Your idea is... something.. "Small software update" - good luck qualifying what this is "independent organization" - ever been audited? auditors love repeat business...
    - amelius 1y ago
      > "Small software update" - good luck qualifying what this is I said "__even__ a small software update", so in fact, every software update, no matter how small.
  - growlNark 1y ago
    > This is why we should have laws If you can figure out a way to make congress to do anything but waste space and time, let us all know. Maybe states (e.g. California, not the normal sense of the term) can regulate some sanity into Tesla.
  - api 1y ago
    If your suggestion about software were taken we would still be running MS-DOS. We humans don’t do moderation well. The two alternatives seem to be move fast and break things vs don’t move at all. Run or sit still. Free for all or stilted hyperconservative society.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- bambax 1y ago
  "Move fast and kill people."
  - _def 1y ago
    Tomb Driven Development
mg 1y ago
I wonder when buses in public transport will become autonomous. It seems like a much easier thing to do. They drive on fixed routes and do not have to handle complicated parking situations. Here in Germany, Volkswagen is working on autonomous buses with its Moia subsidiary: https://www.youtube.com/@moia6222/videos https://www.youtube.com/@moia6222/videos As far as I know, the self-driving software they use is provided by Mobileye. But I have not yet seen any stats about miles driven, number of engagements etc. So I have no idea how far along they are.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  I’ve seen buses have to threaten to cause an accident to force someone to make space for them to merge. That’s gonna be a risky bit of code.
  - jajko 1y ago
    Yes the corner cases for automated bus driving are pretty unique, and require some mix of situational awareness, empathy and aggressiveness. No way we can see this fully automated in next 20 years in regulated markets like most of Europe. Buses are some of the most aggressive traffic participants in order to get folks where needed without frequent massive delays. What can work is to have some HQ team of 5 people managing say 50 buses, stepping in in complex situations. And seeing this team being used less and less over time without affecting incident rate negatively. But internet connection would have to be absolutely perfect, I mean 100%, can't have a bus full of folks stuck in some signal-less tunnel. As I said, 2 decades minimum.
  - growlNark 1y ago
    Dedicated bus lanes make this much easier. Not that I ever expect such a car-centric place as America to allow such a thing to generally happen.
- jfim 1y ago
  The answer is, whenever there's enough money to be made there to support a self driving company's expenses to develop and operate it. These programs cost billions to develop, and public transit is likely not a profitable market niche at the moment. Also keep in mind that the driver also is responsible for handling fare evasion and ensuring the passengers stay at least somewhat ruly, which a self driving vehicle might not be able to do.
johnisgood 1y ago
In comparison, my girlfriend in LA has been using Waymo without issues. It is cheaper than Uber, too.
- slfnflctd 1y ago
  I think it's rather likely that Waymo has not recouped its initial investment, and even if you completely ignored that I'd be surprised if it doesn't currently still operate at a net loss. The whole situation is artificial and propped up by external funding right now. Making this a viable industry is going to take a lot more time, if it's possible at all.
  - maxerickson 1y ago
    They are barely operating. 250,000 rides a week. That translates into hundreds of millions of annual revenues, obviously not enough to pay back the billions invested.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    I don't disagree, it is just interesting to me that Waymo has actually "made it" and it does seem to work, more or less.
tdhz77 1y ago
They must not be reporting the 5 things they did every week.
akmarinov 1y ago
Well, that's because they're not launching in weeks. Elon's whole thing is overpromise and underdeliver - see FSD, Cybertruck
jgalt212 1y ago
The stock is up 50% from its April lows. They have no real incentive to execute. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/

55 points by TheAlchemist 1y ago

Doesn't Musk believe it's better to see what things don't work in production and then fix those rather than doing a lot of testing beforehand?

amelius 1y ago
It is only natural that capitalists want to play it like that. Put the burden of safety on society, etc. This is why we should have laws that say that even a small software update requires testing by an independent organization for at least several months.
- johnisgood 1y ago
  "small software update"? That would slow things down so much more. Maybe only if it is mission critical?
  - ragebol 1y ago
    If you can prove it's small and won't affect anything safety critical, then fine...
  - starquake 1y ago
    I would assume the mission would be something like "travel safely". Keyword being "safely" here.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - amelius 1y ago
    Bugs can be weird and cause all kinds of unexpected behavior. Maybe read this story about a recent update that took down systems around the world: https://www.wired.com/story/crowdstrike-outage-update-windows/ https://www.wired.com/story/crowdstrike-outage-update-window... > CrowdStrike wrote in a blog post that the root cause of the crash had been a single configuration file pushed as an update to Falcon.
- unsupp0rted 1y ago
  This is why we can’t have nice things. If this had been the policy, we’d still be technologically in the 18th century.
  - bilekas 1y ago
    I'd argue the opposite.. For example in this case of they roll it out without tearing and something catastrophic happens. The faith in the tech will not be restored for generations, regardless of how much testing is done. Better to have these things working out the door straight away Instead of risking literal lives.
    - unsupp0rted 1y ago
      We just need some major wars or implacable ideological enemies to force us to test in prod. The biggest tech leaps happen there, because there’s no alternative.
      - amelius 1y ago
        Yes, putting everything in service of the fastest possible technological advancement is a pretty dumb idea.
        unsupp0rted 1y ago
        Why? Would you rather be the world’s richest person in 1825 or lower middle class today? I like antibiotics, MRI, anesthetics during surgeries, unlimited information and entertainment, and the ability to travel places in less than 8 weeks and without getting tuberculosis along the way. Tech advancement has given the most people the most happiness, safety and prosperity. And it’s still barely a drop in the bucket compared to what is plainly visible already as the next level up.
        amelius 1y ago
        You are presenting a false dichotomy. Better testing procedures will not put us back in 1825.
- bearjaws 1y ago
  Your idea is... something.. "Small software update" - good luck qualifying what this is "independent organization" - ever been audited? auditors love repeat business...
  - amelius 1y ago
    > "Small software update" - good luck qualifying what this is I said "__even__ a small software update", so in fact, every software update, no matter how small.
- growlNark 1y ago
  > This is why we should have laws If you can figure out a way to make congress to do anything but waste space and time, let us all know. Maybe states (e.g. California, not the normal sense of the term) can regulate some sanity into Tesla.
- api 1y ago
  If your suggestion about software were taken we would still be running MS-DOS. We humans don’t do moderation well. The two alternatives seem to be move fast and break things vs don’t move at all. Run or sit still. Free for all or stilted hyperconservative society.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
bambax 1y ago
"Move fast and kill people."
- _def 1y ago
  Tomb Driven Development

mg 1y ago

I wonder when buses in public transport will become autonomous. It seems like a much easier thing to do. They drive on fixed routes and do not have to handle complicated parking situations. Here in Germany, Volkswagen is working on autonomous buses with its Moia subsidiary: https://www.youtube.com/@moia6222/videos https://www.youtube.com/@moia6222/videos As far as I know, the self-driving software they use is provided by Mobileye. But I have not yet seen any stats about miles driven, number of engagements etc. So I have no idea how far along they are.

ceejayoz 1y ago
I’ve seen buses have to threaten to cause an accident to force someone to make space for them to merge. That’s gonna be a risky bit of code.
- jajko 1y ago
  Yes the corner cases for automated bus driving are pretty unique, and require some mix of situational awareness, empathy and aggressiveness. No way we can see this fully automated in next 20 years in regulated markets like most of Europe. Buses are some of the most aggressive traffic participants in order to get folks where needed without frequent massive delays. What can work is to have some HQ team of 5 people managing say 50 buses, stepping in in complex situations. And seeing this team being used less and less over time without affecting incident rate negatively. But internet connection would have to be absolutely perfect, I mean 100%, can't have a bus full of folks stuck in some signal-less tunnel. As I said, 2 decades minimum.
- growlNark 1y ago
  Dedicated bus lanes make this much easier. Not that I ever expect such a car-centric place as America to allow such a thing to generally happen.
jfim 1y ago
The answer is, whenever there's enough money to be made there to support a self driving company's expenses to develop and operate it. These programs cost billions to develop, and public transit is likely not a profitable market niche at the moment. Also keep in mind that the driver also is responsible for handling fare evasion and ensuring the passengers stay at least somewhat ruly, which a self driving vehicle might not be able to do.

johnisgood 1y ago

In comparison, my girlfriend in LA has been using Waymo without issues. It is cheaper than Uber, too.

slfnflctd 1y ago
I think it's rather likely that Waymo has not recouped its initial investment, and even if you completely ignored that I'd be surprised if it doesn't currently still operate at a net loss. The whole situation is artificial and propped up by external funding right now. Making this a viable industry is going to take a lot more time, if it's possible at all.
- maxerickson 1y ago
  They are barely operating. 250,000 rides a week. That translates into hundreds of millions of annual revenues, obviously not enough to pay back the billions invested.
- johnisgood 1y ago
  I don't disagree, it is just interesting to me that Waymo has actually "made it" and it does seem to work, more or less.

tdhz77 1y ago

They must not be reporting the 5 things they did every week.

akmarinov 1y ago

Well, that's because they're not launching in weeks. Elon's whole thing is overpromise and underdeliver - see FSD, Cybertruck

jgalt212 1y ago

The stock is up 50% from its April lows. They have no real incentive to execute. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/