Comment by diskandar27 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by diskandar27 | Hacker News Reader

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it seems the article boils down to the autonomy puzzle in Tesla. Could Tesla make the autonomy a realization with their approach? would waymo approach be better in the future?

One thing I think that is missing, although it mentioned people love their Tesla and so is other thing in life. It is the fact that I felt that this is derived from the way Tesla designed the car, it is intuitive just like when the first Iphone introduced. There is no whistle and bells like the traditional car. Just like iphone compare to Nokia.

My big take away is harder for the car company to become a software company than a software company become a car company. Not to mentioned as a car company, it has lots of 'legacy' or baggage that they have to deal with.

The works is two times harder I think for an incumbent to become a software company as a compare software company to become a hardware company. First: As an incumbent they have to unlearned the old way of doing or thinking about what a car company is. Second: If they are successful at the first one, then they have to learn how to do the software.

While for Tesla, is only 1 step which is to learn how to make car (about the hardware). Tesla does not need to unlearn about things because it has no legacy.

In my experience it is harder to unlearn about things rather than learning about things. I might be wrong :)

> It is the fact that I felt that this is derived from the way Tesla designed the car, it is intuitive just like when the first Iphone introduced.

I beg to differ. The iPhone was intuitive in that all the (built-in) apps were nicely laid out so you could easily interact with them while you are looking at the phone and giving it most of your attention. Kind of like a Tesla is nicely laid out so that you can mostly easily figure out how to, say, adjust the ventilation while looking at the big display and giving it a decent amount of attention.

This is far better than the car I grew up with that made you press the totally unintuitive recirculate button when you wanted recirculation.

</sarcasm>

To Tesla’s credit, their on/off/drive/reverse control is vastly superior to anyone else’s. Heck, several brands still screw up their “off” button badly enough that it kills people by CO poisoning.

> To Tesla’s credit, their on/off/drive/reverse control is vastly superior to anyone else’s.

They got it from Mercedes, as well as all the other steering wheel stalks (lights, window washers, cruise control), as well as the driver door window and mirrors control pad.

Good on them for selecting the best on the market, but it's not their invention.

As far as I know, Teslas are unique or nearly unique in that you can put the car in park and exit the car and there is no risk that you accidentally leave the car on. Certainly in Toyota vehicles (even brand new) you can arrive at your destination, do the wrong sequence of button presses, and end up with the car in park (so it won't roll), with the engine physically off (because the car has automatic stop-start, so it is likely to turn off the engine by itself when you park) and exit the car, and end up with the car in a state that will restart the engine when it starts to cool down or when the 12V system wants to be topped off and start emitting CO. In your garage.

I've made this mistake myself, although not in a garage, and I've noticed it before I actually exited the car. But a surprising number of people have actually died due to this UI failure.

I don't think his talking about the physical button and the model 3 one uses a custom made one with a different layout. Their old one at one point was a Mercedes one they later switches to another design don't remember from which OEM.

>Not to mentioned as a car company, it has lots of 'legacy' or baggage that they have to deal with.

Yeah, all "legacy" is bad. What could they possibly have learned in 100 years of building cars? Nothing that Tesla can't replicate in less than a decade! Meanwhile, Tesla owners are recommending a checklist of possible defects to look for when you go to pick up your vehicle. Non-super-fans will never tolerate that.

No bells and whistles? Simpler than the tactile interface of legacy cars? This is simply not true.

what does "non-superfans won't tolerate that" mean? I have a tesla, it's fine. it was made by humans, I'm sure it has some problems, but its just a car.

andrej karpathy is kinda pretty freaking legit but I think the waymo team is probably stronger/larger and has significantly more engineering maturity.

caveat: I don't do vision.

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