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FSD itself is not a failed bet as a driver-assist system. When it started Tesla was cash poor and often on the verge of collapse, so cutting costs made sense. T

FSD itself is not a failed bet as a driver-assist system. When it started Tesla was cash poor and often on the verge of collapse, so cutting costs made sense. They will never do as well as a mature Lidar-based solution, but over the years FSD added some value to some people, and might turn out to be a slight competitive advantage in selling cars. I also think Tesla and their robotaxis are egregiously overhyped, but cutting Lidar was not a terrible business decision at the time. Though it's a terrible decision to have still stuck to vision-only (and using low-quality cameras apparently) when they could have at least got Radar and cheap Lidars.

beeflet 1y ago
>and might turn out to be a slight competitive advantage in selling cars. Not if openpilot is competitive
persolb 1y ago
I wish they’d named FSD as Autopilot. FSD is amazing and I use it door to door wherever I drive. I got a LOT better about a year ago. But it still makes some dumb mistakes. It is not ‘full self driving.’ It’s 99% percent Autopilot… but I still need to pay attention to the road. (And it enforces this more/better than it used to via the driver camera camera) I don’t want to guess how long that last 1% will take to be a low enough level of risk. All I can say is that 4 years ago it would do something hazardous every couple minutes. Now I can go hours without disengaging for a safety issue. Most disengages I have now are because it is more cautious than a human driver, or because a scenario is something that I wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to fix IF it did the wrong thing.
- xnx 1y ago
  > I wish they’d named FSD as Autopilot. "Student driver" would probably be the most accurate and descriptive name. The system can drive acceptably in many situations, but it needs constant monitoring, and could make a fatal mistake at any time.
Closi 1y ago
I’m not saying autopilot was a bad business decision - autopilot has fuelled sales and no doubt has been a great success and is amazing tech for being in consumers cars at fairly low cost. I’m saying if the goal is to invent true robotaxis (because that’s the market you are going after) then I think waymo’s approach of following what works and cost-optimising later gets you there faster if you have enough funding.

beeflet 1y ago

>and might turn out to be a slight competitive advantage in selling cars. Not if openpilot is competitive

persolb 1y ago

I wish they’d named FSD as Autopilot. FSD is amazing and I use it door to door wherever I drive. I got a LOT better about a year ago. But it still makes some dumb mistakes. It is not ‘full self driving.’ It’s 99% percent Autopilot… but I still need to pay attention to the road. (And it enforces this more/better than it used to via the driver camera camera) I don’t want to guess how long that last 1% will take to be a low enough level of risk. All I can say is that 4 years ago it would do something hazardous every couple minutes. Now I can go hours without disengaging for a safety issue. Most disengages I have now are because it is more cautious than a human driver, or because a scenario is something that I wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to fix IF it did the wrong thing.

xnx 1y ago
> I wish they’d named FSD as Autopilot. "Student driver" would probably be the most accurate and descriptive name. The system can drive acceptably in many situations, but it needs constant monitoring, and could make a fatal mistake at any time.

Closi 1y ago

I’m not saying autopilot was a bad business decision - autopilot has fuelled sales and no doubt has been a great success and is amazing tech for being in consumers cars at fairly low cost. I’m saying if the goal is to invent true robotaxis (because that’s the market you are going after) then I think waymo’s approach of following what works and cost-optimising later gets you there faster if you have enough funding.