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I am so tired of people defending Tesla. I’ve wrote off Tesla long time ago but what gets me are the people defending their tech. We all can go see the products

by lvl155 8mo ago

I am so tired of people defending Tesla. I’ve wrote off Tesla long time ago but what gets me are the people defending their tech. We all can go see the products and experience them. The tech needs to be at least 100x more error free vs humans. It cannot be on par with human error rate.

flanked-evergl 8mo ago
Cite?
cbeach 8mo ago
We tend to defend companies that push the frontiers of self-driving cars, because the technology has the potential to save lives and make life easier and cheaper for everyone. As engineers, we understand that the technology will go from unsafe, to par-with-humans, to safer-than-humans, but in order for it to get to the latter, it requires much validation and training in an intermediate state, with appropriate safeguards. Tesla's approach has been more risk averse and conservative than others. It has compiled data and trained its models on billions of miles of real world telemetry from its own fleet (all of which are equipped with advanced internet-connected computers). Then it has rolled out the robotaxi tech slowly and cautiously, with human safety drivers, and only in two areas. I defend Tesla's tech, because I've owned and driven a Tesla (Model S) for many years, and its ten-year-old Autopilot (autosteer and cruise control with lane shift) is actually smoother and more reliable than many of its competitors current offerings. I've also watched hours of footage of Tesla's current FSD on YouTube, and seen it evolve into something quite remarkable. I think the end-to-end neural net with human-like sensors is more sensible than other approaches, which use sensors like LIDAR as a crutch for their more rudimentary software. Unlike many commenters on this platform I have no political issues with Elon, so that doesn't colour my judgement of Tesla as a company, and its technological achievements. I wish others would set aside their partisan tribablism and recognise that Tesla has completely revolutionised the EV market and continues to make significant positive contributions to technology as a whole, all while opening all its patents and opening its Supercharger network to vehicles from competitors. Its ethics are sound.
- noncoml 8mo ago
  > other approaches, which use sensors like LIDAR as a crutch for their more rudimentary software. Do me a favor and take Musk and get on a plane with just a bunch of cameras instead of sevsors like radar, airspeed sensor, altimeter, GPS, ILS, etc. No need for those crutches. Do autopiloting like a real man!
  - coryrc 8mo ago
    Human-piloted planes have altimeters and airspeed indicators; the failure of which have caused many accidents. Tesla cars have speed sensors as well as GPS. (Altimeter and ILS not being relevant). I agree with Musk's claim they don't need LIDAR because human drivers don't; it's self-evidently true. But I think they _should_ have it because they can then be safer than humans; why settle for our current accident and death rate?
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - noncoml 8mo ago
      [flagged]
    - pardon_me 8mo ago
      Following your logic (which is from the company marketing), why not remove GPS on the car in case they go wrong, as humans we don't need GPS? Cameras could go wrong too... then what happens? Humans hear car/road noises, along with potential screams from outside or passenger shouts from inside, we sense vibrations, can respond to pedestrian or other driver hand signals, and constantly predict hazards through perceptions. How is the car doing all of this, if not for additional sensors and processing? You can land a plane by eye, but what happens when there's fog? That's exactly like the situation in cars. LIDAR can provide extra sensory data where the cameras absolutely fail, just like our own eyes. Knowing there's a solution to this, we are just to accept the car will fail where humans will? That's progress? Why wouldn't you want that extra data for such a small relative cost? LIDAR was already used on cars as a safety-only front collision avoidance system (that's how cheap it is to install). In a properly designed system, adding data which is useful and cannot otherwise be inferred makes complete sense. Given these cars are supposed to be so good that they will be working autonomously for you and pay themselves off in a year or two, the idea that LIDAR etc. is unnecessary and too expensive and will be lead to actively worse performance, is just insane logic for an "engineering" discussion.
peebeebee 8mo ago
Tesla was THE company that started the EV-revolution, while VW was actively manipulating emission data. I don't like Elon and his politics, but I'm very grateful for Tesla to have shaken up the car industry. Everyone is better for it.
- derbOac 8mo ago
  Maybe? For years the highest selling EV was the Leaf. I agree Tesla kind of increased the desirability of EVs at least in the US, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't have happened anyway. It's a hard question to answer, because you're talking about a counterfactual. I feel like there's probably some broader type of cognitive bias at play (where we assume something common wouldn't have been common otherwise, because it is common) but I don't know what the term for it might be.
- pardon_me 8mo ago
  How do we know everyone's better for it? Massive amounts of public and private funding went into it and we still haven't seen the outcome, it's too soon. Consider how many car manufacturers are backtracking, the fact that China will now win the EV race, utility energy prices have skyrocketed, and the damage done not only to the brand but people's view towards EVs in general. Forcing this play happened too soon.

by lvl155 8mo ago

flanked-evergl 8mo ago

Cite?

cbeach 8mo ago

We tend to defend companies that push the frontiers of self-driving cars, because the technology has the potential to save lives and make life easier and cheaper for everyone. As engineers, we understand that the technology will go from unsafe, to par-with-humans, to safer-than-humans, but in order for it to get to the latter, it requires much validation and training in an intermediate state, with appropriate safeguards. Tesla's approach has been more risk averse and conservative than others. It has compiled data and trained its models on billions of miles of real world telemetry from its own fleet (all of which are equipped with advanced internet-connected computers). Then it has rolled out the robotaxi tech slowly and cautiously, with human safety drivers, and only in two areas. I defend Tesla's tech, because I've owned and driven a Tesla (Model S) for many years, and its ten-year-old Autopilot (autosteer and cruise control with lane shift) is actually smoother and more reliable than many of its competitors current offerings. I've also watched hours of footage of Tesla's current FSD on YouTube, and seen it evolve into something quite remarkable. I think the end-to-end neural net with human-like sensors is more sensible than other approaches, which use sensors like LIDAR as a crutch for their more rudimentary software. Unlike many commenters on this platform I have no political issues with Elon, so that doesn't colour my judgement of Tesla as a company, and its technological achievements. I wish others would set aside their partisan tribablism and recognise that Tesla has completely revolutionised the EV market and continues to make significant positive contributions to technology as a whole, all while opening all its patents and opening its Supercharger network to vehicles from competitors. Its ethics are sound.

noncoml 8mo ago
> other approaches, which use sensors like LIDAR as a crutch for their more rudimentary software. Do me a favor and take Musk and get on a plane with just a bunch of cameras instead of sevsors like radar, airspeed sensor, altimeter, GPS, ILS, etc. No need for those crutches. Do autopiloting like a real man!
- coryrc 8mo ago
  Human-piloted planes have altimeters and airspeed indicators; the failure of which have caused many accidents. Tesla cars have speed sensors as well as GPS. (Altimeter and ILS not being relevant). I agree with Musk's claim they don't need LIDAR because human drivers don't; it's self-evidently true. But I think they _should_ have it because they can then be safer than humans; why settle for our current accident and death rate?
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - noncoml 8mo ago
    [flagged]
  - pardon_me 8mo ago
    Following your logic (which is from the company marketing), why not remove GPS on the car in case they go wrong, as humans we don't need GPS? Cameras could go wrong too... then what happens? Humans hear car/road noises, along with potential screams from outside or passenger shouts from inside, we sense vibrations, can respond to pedestrian or other driver hand signals, and constantly predict hazards through perceptions. How is the car doing all of this, if not for additional sensors and processing? You can land a plane by eye, but what happens when there's fog? That's exactly like the situation in cars. LIDAR can provide extra sensory data where the cameras absolutely fail, just like our own eyes. Knowing there's a solution to this, we are just to accept the car will fail where humans will? That's progress? Why wouldn't you want that extra data for such a small relative cost? LIDAR was already used on cars as a safety-only front collision avoidance system (that's how cheap it is to install). In a properly designed system, adding data which is useful and cannot otherwise be inferred makes complete sense. Given these cars are supposed to be so good that they will be working autonomously for you and pay themselves off in a year or two, the idea that LIDAR etc. is unnecessary and too expensive and will be lead to actively worse performance, is just insane logic for an "engineering" discussion.

peebeebee 8mo ago

Tesla was THE company that started the EV-revolution, while VW was actively manipulating emission data. I don't like Elon and his politics, but I'm very grateful for Tesla to have shaken up the car industry. Everyone is better for it.

derbOac 8mo ago
Maybe? For years the highest selling EV was the Leaf. I agree Tesla kind of increased the desirability of EVs at least in the US, but I'm not convinced it wouldn't have happened anyway. It's a hard question to answer, because you're talking about a counterfactual. I feel like there's probably some broader type of cognitive bias at play (where we assume something common wouldn't have been common otherwise, because it is common) but I don't know what the term for it might be.
pardon_me 8mo ago
How do we know everyone's better for it? Massive amounts of public and private funding went into it and we still haven't seen the outcome, it's too soon. Consider how many car manufacturers are backtracking, the fact that China will now win the EV race, utility energy prices have skyrocketed, and the damage done not only to the brand but people's view towards EVs in general. Forcing this play happened too soon.