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Comment by enahs-sf | Hacker News Reader

Kind of surprised Tesla isn’t further along. Maybe FSD is further than we thought.

Owner here of a TM3 here.

To me the issue is that Tesla seems to be shooting for the moon, trying to do it all in one shot, rather than its on rails method that we have seen from other manufacturers. By on rails I mean only on very accurately mapped routes with no deviation.

I would not trust my car with my eyes closed, I do however trust it with supervision which still is a major relief from the stress of driving.

One issue that seems being dodged is, my current software and hardware allows the cars too represent stop signs, traffic lights, cones, and oddly trashcans. Guess what is missing, speed limit signs. The suspicion is that MobileEye holds the patent and either Tesla won't pay for it or MobileEye won't license it. So how you can have a self driving car that cannot recognize speed limit signs is not evident to me; road data is not complete.

That can be part of the maps data, right? EG Google maps shows the speed limit when navigating.

What about variable speed limits, construction, etc?

Tesla don't need one of these because they're starting out "with driver" for FSD. Like they do for AutoPilot, the driver is expected to take control if the vehicle is doing something unexpected.

Elon Musk is the Elizabeth Holmes of driverless cars.

Musk tweeted today "Functionality still looking good for this year. Regulatory approval is the big unknown"

With regards to the "first robo taxi deployment"

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1249210220200550405?s=21

It's worth noting that Musk has previously claimed that Tesla would have fully autonomous vehicles by 2017, by mid 2019, by the end of 2019, by mid 2020, and now apparently by the end of 2020, pending regulatory approval.

I'm not convinced.

*for certain idiosyncratic definitions of “fully autonomous”

Also worth noting he claimed they will do first fly of Falcon 9 in 2007, but happened in 2010. Same with Model3 production rates etc. Also worth noting that others just don't provide any time frames in fear of failing those. Musk is just more open with plans and often too optimistic, but they still have most advanced self driving capabilities that are actually mass selling now.

He also fully and openly admits his timing is often wrong. Specifically for this exact target actually, during the big investor meeting for it, he said he is sure they'll be able to do this but the time estimate could be off.

Because lying to investors can get you in trouble.

> still have most advanced self driving capabilities that are actually mass selling now.

But they don't have autonomy. They have driver assist. And this bad marketing gets people killed.

I didn't say they have. But autonomy doesn't mean immunity from fatalities as well. Their cars as it is already lower overall fatality rate.

But they don't have autonomy. Maybe they lower fatality rate but they are not anywhere near Waymo (or Cruise for that matter) if you look at the metrics.

It's weird that I have to point out second time I _didn't say they have autonomy_. And what's wrong with lowering fatality rate whatever your competitors are doing? Also, I'm anxious to see Waymo released, but current reality is what it is, Waymo is still in testing.

> And what's wrong with lowering fatality rate whatever your competitors are doing?

It's not actually clear that Tesla lowers the fatality rate. Tesla's driver assist features only work on highways, and highway miles are some of the safest. But the data you get compares assisted teslas on highways to average drivers on all roads. And it's not clear that Tesla is categorically better than competitor's driver assist technology (https://qz.com/1414132/teslas-first-accident-report-claims-i...).

So nothing you've claimed is strongly supported by evidence, and given that these are safety claims that you're parroting from tesla, I'm going to reiterate: Tesla's claims of improved safety and marketing are dangerous since they aren't true.

> It's weird that I have to point out second time I _didn't say they have autonomy_.

Right, but Tesla does, they call their driver assist "Autopilot".

Autopilot != autonomy in cars or in planes.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. In planes (and especially in planes in pop culture), autopilot does allow flight without keeping your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, so to speak.

I am pretty sure Musk runs on Mars time. One year on earth are 1,9 years on Mars ;)

Another way to look at it is Musk has been right about engineering/manufacturing goals but has consistently missed on AI goals.

> Musk is just more open with plans and often too optimistic,

Or call it what it is, lying. He habitually lies about timelines.

> still have most advanced self driving capabilities that are actually mass selling now.

Easy to be the most advanced if you're the only one "selling".

I wouldn't go so far as to call it lying. Unless you believe anyone who makes an inaccurate forward looking statement is lying, in which case I would say the majority of people lie the majority of the time when making forward looking statements.

It's a lie because he knows he can't reasonably achieve anything he's promising on any of the stated timelines. It's Theranos but with cars.

It's possible. Do you have any specific examples?

My experience with forward looking statements has been that people interpret something with many caveats as promises with no caveats.

It's not lying if he believes what he says. Do you have proofs that he deliberately does it?

> Easy to be the most advanced if you're the only one "selling". I don't understand what you mean with quotes.

The constant pattern of over promising and at most under delivering indicates shenanigans.

Telsa's FSD package is a scam that will never be delivered. It's not a sale because there's no service delivered, it's a lie meant to trick people and investors out of their money.

They also overdeliver sometimes.

This is true, no one expected a fart app for a car.

If you are noting deadlines, how about ones else beat? Model Y was 6 months early.

That's cool. My point was that Musk is not afraid to say optimistic time frames based on current expectations, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I prefer it much more than the usual way corporations work - play safe and don't promise anything.

It's also worth noting that rockets have been done before.

Not with landing of the booster, which is the whole point of Falcon 9.

They released the Model Y ahead of schedule.

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