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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

Tesla is technically from Silicon Valley. And it's the leader of the pack on this.

I think Apple under Steve Jobs would've pulled it off as well, especially if Steve decided to go "thermonuclear war" on Musk for "stealing" his employees. But with Tim Cook the chances were much smaller. Tim Cook still hasn't started moving Macs to ARM, and Steve Jobs would've probably done it like 2 years ago. Windows is actually going to do that first, even though it's significantly harder for Microsoft to pull it off than it is for Apple. Microsoft tends to support legacy stuff a lot longer, and it has a lot more to support.

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Tesla's autonomous stuff is the most prominent in the media. It's not at all obvious that this translates into any sort of technical advantage.

I'm surprised at how little attention Tesla has given to the idea of robotaxis. At the time they decided getting Mobileye's chips into every Tesla would be a good idea they should have started a dedicated L4 development program, with the big spinning lidars and everything else.

The idea of taking an incremental approach has been abandoned by every serious player except Tesla. Musk is more interested in sizzle than steak. Selling cars and keeping investors excited near term seems a bigger priority than being ready for the day L4 becomes a real thing.

Properly validating a fully autonomous car isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. Tesla is acting like a hare, but I'm betting on the tortoises.

Tesla has robotaxis clearly in mind with their technology. They made several statements about a possible taxi like service based on their cars. They think they can achieve complete autonomy with their current tech package. They also hinted that your tesla could drive itself to service appointments. I don't know whether they actually manage to pull this off, but they clearly intend to.

Having the car drive itself away is in my mind one of the most important features to get increase 100% electric market. You can have the car drive to a charger and automatically drive back once full, mitigating a shortage of charging stations as people leave their cars there long after they are charged 100%.

it's a marathon. Tesla is acting like a hare, but I'm betting on the tortoises.

Funny you should say that. On the track a Tesla behaves the same way.

Here's a track test where the P85D falls flat on its face before even completing a single lap. The Tesla winds up being comparable to a Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8. http://www.carscoops.com/2016/09/the-tesla-model-s-p85-makes...

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