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Comment by ypzhang2 | Hacker News Reader

By disengagement reports cruise is second behind Waymo and these two are way ahead of everyone else. They are testing 160 or so Chevy bolts in California it seems like.

https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2019/02/13/update-dis...

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It is a mistake to use that report as some type of ranking due to it only measuring disengagements on public roads in California. There are some big names on that list that simply have no data like Tesla, Ford, VW, and Lyft.

Tesla isn't there because charlatan can't produce reports that would look good on Tesla. If it were he would be tweeting about it. If a California based company can't employ 4 dudes driving around California to provide this report (which is kinda important to get regulatory approval), you have to wonder how bad Tesla really is.

The latest noise by Musk about Tesla's FSD is purely to raise money and take away the focus that he can't produce cars profitably. Nothing else

This is my feeling also. Tesla is absolutely nowhere, but they keep making noise and announcements. And what is amazing is that it works. Most people think Tesla is up there with the other self driving car companies

They have some quite impressive demo videos.

Also they've been operating in demanding conditions compared to Waymo.

eg NYC rush hour https://twitter.com/DrCamiloOrtiz/status/1114328048915099649

Lane change in heavy traffic https://twitter.com/hamids/status/1120472369762590722

while when reporters "Followed a Waymo Self-driving Car for Miles' the Waymos seemed to have some issues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spw176TZ7-8

Absolutely nowhere? At least give the man some credit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlThdr3O5Qo

Fine. They are at the point where they can eventually record a video on a fairly easy, almost empty, perfect condition, predefined suburban track. Noone knows how many attempts that video took.

This is the point that Waymo reached in 2012 if I remember correctly.

I don't know the details of the law, but I would bet that Teslas don't qualify on a technicality of the law rather than the fact that Tesla simply has not operated an autonomous vehicle on a public road in the state of California. You might be right that they are doing it to save embarrassment, but that is a rather cynical mindset considering it can also be explained by just not wanting to publicize their progress.

It is also worth pointing out that Tesla's ability to run software on its fleet of hundreds of thousands of cars gives them a huge advantage regarding data collection. If their cars are truly as safe as they claim (a huge if and one we have no real public proof of yet), the lack of having this report on disengagements in California is not going to be a stumbling block in getting regulatory approval.

EDIT: Since I am being downvoted, I looked up the regulation [1]. Teslas likely don't to qualify as "autonomous vehicles" according to definition b. Although that is a pretty bad definition in my opinion. Also I am not praising Tesla here, just pointing out that their ability to avoid this regulation is not an indication of the quality of their self-driving tech.

[1] - https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/d48f347b-8815-458e...

Considering that Elon Musk has never once failed to publicize even imagined progress (that would simply be par for any other business), it would boggle the mind to believe that he would be keeping any type of market-leading progress a secret, especially in the market where he has literally bet the future of the company and this type of news could encourage competitors to drop out of the market.

the lack of having this report on disengagements in California is not going to be a stumbling block in getting regulatory approval.

Actually, if Tesla hopes to legally sell self-driving cars in CA, that is going to be a huge stumbling block.

How many businesses volunteer themselves to be subject to regulation that doesn't apply to them, especially when that regulation gives their competitors insights into the company's R&D capabilities?

Tesla has sold over 50k Model 3s in California in 2018[1]. Regulators would be ridiculous if they put more value in the data from 111 Waymo vehicles compared to the data from tens of thousand of Tesla vehicles.

And once again, I am not saying Tesla is leading here or has superior technology. But people like you are letting their bias against Musk and Tesla cloud their judgement on this issue.

[1] - https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-su...

So you are saying instead if running the required test vehicles with trained drivers in California like Waymo does Tesla is running unsupervised Beta tests with 50k cars? For self-driving? Not sure if that's how new cars are certified...

Does qualifying for that report help Tesla in any way?

Yes. If it were positive and shows them to be the leader, then the market will assign an extra X Billion Dollars to it's MarketCap.

And this is super important when raising the $2B Tesla is seeking.

Interesting to call Elon Musk charlatan considering he put an actual electric car on the road that is on its way to sell 400k units in a year and kicking other non charlatan like BMW and GMs ass

This discussion is about Autopilot/FSD not the car itself. Tesla certainly didn't sell 400k cars with the FSD option.

They sold 400k cars with hardware they believe is sufficient for full self driving (perhaps with limited upgrades).

Tesla is the only one actually attempting to empower individuals with FSD tech. Everyone else has given up and/or wants to monopolize it for private fleets. Everyone claims to be shooting for the same FSD capability. Different strategies is, of course, wrongly conflated with "fraud."

I tend to think Tesla is behind Waymo. It's hard to say beyond that. But for actual mass deployment of serious hardware, no one is ahead of Tesla.

Charlatan in 2016: Teslas built right now has all the hardware required for FSD

Charlatan in 2019: The previous version by nVidia was such garbage (processing 1.5 fps, really?). Teslas built right now has all the hardware required for FSD.

Charlatan, a few minutes later: We are working on the next version of FSD hardware (that'd most definitely render 2019 obsolete)

There is Musk, the sometimes engineer, then there is Musk, the charlatan. An Engineer would never claim 'the latest hardware will be the greatest ever'

What I find interesting is that Nvidia claimed on their website that their hardware could do self driving. That’s the same hardware that Tesla has used and has to upgrade to the new Neural Net chip. Do you think Nvidia is going to pay for the hardware upgrade Teslas need? Tesla is doing so. They believe the current version of the NN is good enough for FSD, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.

What I find so fascinating about this discussion is how Tesla is necessarily the most transparent player yet everyone else (with the same stated FSD goals) is given a pass due to secrecy. I suppose that means secrecy works.

What do you mean Tesla is the most transparent player? They absolutely never showed anything else than slides and a 2 minute video. That's probably the least transparent from all the big players. You can go to Mountain View and see cars running right now. Or go to Phoenix and get into a Waymo car.

Again you got ahead of yourself with the Tesla hype.

Nvidia probably wrote this b/c Tesla is using it. And Tesla is claiming the hardware is (was) enough b/c Nvidia wrote it.

Learning a problem is harder 3 years later isn’t unusual in software world. All the autonomous car companies said this is harder. Waymo has no driverless cars anywhere and there are quotes saying it would be ready.

Also, Elon always promised hardware upgrade if needed.

"Learning a problem is harder"

We're talking about the holy grail of AI in the automotive industry, not a SaaS side project.

This isn't assigning the Summer Vision Project in 1966.

Everyone knew that this was going to be a monumental problem, and the only person in the room who was claiming they already had all the tools to solve the problem (a problem that no one else is even willing to say they fully understood how to approach yet) is also the guy with a record for lying through his teeth so much there's a term for it.

I'm excited to see real attempts at FSD. Not from the company that gets most of it's hype from AP1, which used the same sensor suit GM was putting in cars years ago for off-label applications so they could go around waving "autopilot", which resulted in easily preventable deaths.

iPhone in 2008 had all the hardware to run an iPhone. iPhone in 2019 also has all the hardware to run an iPhone. You don't want to Tesla to continually improve their hardware ?

> Tesla is the only one actually attempting to empower individuals with FSD tech. Everyone else has given up and/or wants to monopolize it for private fleets.

There's a guy in a village next to me that is "attempting to empower individuals" with energy medicine (healing people with the touch of his hands). Everyone else, including medicine researchers, has given up on this.

All Model 3 is equipped with hardware to support FSD

Plenty of people pre-ordered No Man's Sky - then were upset when they received less than what they thought they'd been promised. That's the risk when you pay upfront for a product that doesn't exist.

Maybe people who've paid for the Tesla FSD package will receive what I imagine when I hear "full self driving". Or maybe, like No Man's Sky backers, they'll get something they're less happy with.

How can people believe this?

Tesla claim they have all the hardware for FSD, but FSD is still science fiction. It literally doesn't exist. Waymo is closest but they use Lidar, which Tesla's aren't equipped with.

Maybe Tesla will work it out and make a great self driving car on cheap hardware. I'll believe it when I see it

Waymo is closer to what? driving on some simple californian roads?

Waymo is already available to the public in Arizona:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-waymo-selfdriving-focus/w...

Tesla’s most recent FSD video took place around Palo Alto. The same area where its 2016 video was filmed.

Musk has his head in the clouds. While this is good for his long-term plans to do the impossible, it means you can never believe him on progress or dates until you can touch the product.

Charlatan is an appropriate word for Musk but in a limited sense. He is surely making false claims about Tesla's self driving abilities which clearly border on fraud. But Tesla car itself is a very good car and has been selling like hot cakes.

I think Tesla is a very good EV. Quite possibly the best EV on the market. But it's pretty pathetic as a car, especially as a car at the price they ask for it.

That's of course a separate can of worms, but I too never understood why people buy electric cars in their current form. Imagine you had a laptop that can last a month on full charge, vs your typical laptop of today that lasts a day at best - people would obviously choose the former. And yet, in cars, people choose the latter, and pay extra for the privilege. [1]

[1] Except that situation with cars is much worse than with laptops, as you can continue using a laptop while it's charging.

I can see people willing to put up with inconveniences for the sake of supposed environmental reasons, and some people just like the shiny new thing with touchscreens and computers and Elon's reality distortion field...

What is funny is when they try to convince people that a Tesla actually is a luxury car, which it quite obviously isn't. Model S lacks some meaningful amenities that a Hyunday at half the price has, build quality would make a Yugo gag, and if it does break down or gets in an accident you might be waiting months for it to be fixed. But I guess it's nice to convince yourself that there were some reasons you've paid $60K for for something less practical than a Yaris...

The recent Top Gear Model 3 vs BMW M3 test has the Tesla doing rather well as a car. They put it ahead of the BMW overall https://www.topgear.com/videos/video/video-tesla-model-3-vs-...

I'm sure it's fast... But something that makes you look to the side and down to even see what it's doing (and uses touchscreen) not only isn't a good car, people who designed it should not be allowed to put crap on public roads in the first place. Hell, the thing doesn't even have cooled seats you get it a Hyundai or something.

Nope. Great EV. Vastly overpriced golf cart as a car.

Waymo and Cruise taxies have to operate in all conditions before they can roll out general purpose taxies. E.g. if you hail one and on the way home, there is construction and a cop directing traffic, you can’t take over and drive.

With a Tesla, they can deliver incremental value, without having to be able to handle every possible scenario.

Also aren’t Cruise and Waymo in same boat touting progress to raise money?

Then its probably fool hardy to have any sort of ranking for self driving efficacy due to lack of publicly accessible data.

I completely agree. The problem is the report linked is one of the few pieces of public data so people tend to inflate its importance and value.

the disengagement reports are self reported and aren't comparing "apples to apples" between companies. This isn't a reliable metric.

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