Elon Musk Says Autopilot Self-Driving Beta Will Start Next Tuesday
caranddriver.com
caranddriver.com
I'm so glad it will be that easy. I guess we'll know if there's still some bugs if it still drives into highway barriers or other stationary objects at full speed? But somehow it'll still probably be the users fault
Thing is, over time the tricky bits have gotten better (or even possible)
An example of a tricky bit -- crossing a multilane intersection and getting back in your lane when the dotted lines disappear and start up again.
That not most of the time events are exactly what makes it not FSD. And all the promises FSD could bring to the table that don't amount to less driver leg work.
Autonomous cars are a revolution, could actually make cars efficient, and introduce a different ownership model. Tesla's FSD is just a very capable driver assist, which can't deliver on the promises of real autonomous cars.
Even in the late 90s, there was experimentation with self driving cars that were running a single Pentium with a handful of megabytes of RAM and inexpensive black and white cameras [0].
Now whether the software for that hardware is ready (or will be any time soon) is a different question.
[0] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ARGO-and-the-MilleMigl...
2020 would be almost redeemed if driverless cars are released for real...
Self driving will be one of those things that’s so gradual that you barely notice it arriving because there is no concrete “it’s here!” moment. It doesn’t just get unveiled one day.
For example, I bought a base line suv this year that drives itself on highways most of the time. I think it’s the coolest thing ever. And a better version will be around every year until one day I wake up and think, “Oh wow self driving snuck up on me!”
I’ve had that very moment about my smartphone recently. My Star Trek data pad snuck up on me.
For the car example, yeah. At first my car just stayed in the lane, then an update and it could change lanes, next it could choose to pass slower cars for me, then it could go highway to highway taking offramps by itself. And now it stops at red lights and stop signs.
It's not everything or nothing, by the time full self driving is here we'll have already been used to 90% of it and it won't feel like such a big step.
Are there anything specific that you feel are nowhere close?
My current school run in London (small streets, changeable weather, congestion, roadworks a plenty) - absolutely awful. I imagine it’s similar for New York. I have been driving my Model 3 in London a lot more recently due to the pandemic, and autopilot is nowhere near ready. Almost worse than useless.
Waymo is exclusively driverless right now. So that's where we are occupying parallel universes. I see videos on YouTube of Waymos with no drivers delivering people that were recorded by riders and came out in the last few days. So in my universe, it already exists. In your universe, it's not close.
Tesla does have amazing abilities and they are close. They will have their limited beta. And it may take a year or two in the end but eventually they will roll it out.
Can Waymo drive everywhere? No it cannot so the question of parallel universes is not even relevant.
And Elon Musk keep doing "impossible" things. It really makes you think you should not listen to people who tells you it's impossible :) (I decline all responsibility)
for example, I remember when speech recognition would "take over". Well, it didn't and people forgot about saying that. And then gradually it started doing "yes" and "no" during phone calls, then doing phone trees, and then "siri/alexa/etc is so awful" and now people use it all the time.