Tesla says “Full Self-Driving” software doesn't make cars autonomous | Hacker News Reader

Tesla says “Full Self-Driving” software doesn't make cars autonomous

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44 pointsdaolf73 comments

It looks like they're about to run into trouble with the California DMV over false claims of autonomy.[1]

13 CCR § 228.28

§ 228.28. Statements About Autonomous Technology.

(a) No manufacturer or its agents shall represent in any advertising for the sale or lease of a vehicle that a vehicle is autonomous unless it meets all of the following requirements:

(1) The vehicle meets the definition of an autonomous vehicle specified in Vehicle Code section 38750 and section 228.02(b) of Article 3.8.

(2) The vehicle was manufactured by a manufacturer licensed pursuant to Vehicle Code section 11701 also holding a valid autonomous vehicle manufacturer's permit issued pursuant to this Article at the time of the vehicle's manufacture.

(b) The use of terms to describe the performance of a vehicle that is known, or by the exercise of reasonable care should be known, will likely induce a reasonably prudent person to believe a vehicle is autonomous, as defined in Vehicle Code section 38750 and 228.02(b) of Article 3.8, constitute an advertisement that the vehicle is autonomous for the purposes of this section and Vehicle Code section 11713.

Here's the CA definition of an autonomous vehicle:

(1) “Autonomous technology” means technology that has the capability to drive a vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator.

...

(B) An autonomous vehicle does not include a vehicle that is equipped with one or more collision avoidance systems, including, but not limited to, electronic blind spot assistance, automated emergency braking systems, park assist, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, lane departure warning, traffic jam and queuing assist, or other similar systems that enhance safety or provide driver assistance, but are not capable, collectively or singularly, of driving the vehicle without the active control or monitoring of a human operator.

As of right now, there is only one company that has an California autonomous vehicle deployment permit - Nuro. They have a little electric vehicle which makes deliveries without a driver. It's golf cart sized and has a top speed of 25MPH. Tesla just has the "testing with a driver" permit, the "learner's permit" for autonomous driving. 56 companies have that. Six other companies have advanced to the "testing without a driver" permit.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2021/03/09/californ...

He’ll just threaten to move everything to Texas and they’ll just roll over like always.

Tesla is specifically claiming their FSD Beta is not autonomous. They have never claimed it was autonomous and they specifically state that it requires human supervision.

"I'm extremely confident that level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen and I think will happen very quickly. I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year." - Musk, July 2020.

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/teslas-elon-musk-our-fully-aut...

What do you think your point was with that quote?

>"not capable of recognizing or responding" to "static objects and road debris, emergency vehicles, construction zones, large uncontrolled intersections with multiple incoming ways, occlusions, adverse weather, complicated or adversarial vehicles in the driving path, and unmapped roads."

They really gotta come up with some standard terms for this stuff that the car companies all comply with. The food industry has a lot of standards for what is in things you buy before you name it a thing. That way we all know what we're getting into ...

They shouldn't be using "autopilot", "full self driving", until it really is.

"Full Self Driving Beta" clearly implies that it's not done yet.

Alpha would imply it isn't done yet.

Beta would imply that it's feature complete, but still potentially has bugs that need to be worked out.

It’s kinda hard to make the distinction for a software system that controls a car. One important feature is for there to not be any of a large class of bugs.

Ha, sure, I agree that the roads aren't a place to beta test software.

But the fact that Musk describes it as not autonomous driving and still Level 2 driver assistant, and won't be autonomous driving for a while tells strikes me as specifically not feature complete.

To me, a beta for fully for autonomous driving vehicles would be a Level 4 or 5 capable vehicle that is restricted to Level 3 or 4 while the system tests and verifies the capabilities.

I see two problems here: 1) because "betas" are often used for marketing promotions or sold, there is actually an expectation that they be pretty complete for many customers 2) if it's really "beta" and not safe to use, I'm not sure that drivers should be allowed to unilaterally make everyone else around them beta testers.

I feel like with food "it's food, but in beta, so you might not get what you think you're getting" really shouldn't exist... and what exactly qualifies as beta is confusing all by itself.

I genuinely can’t understand why so many people are willing to make a large purchase from a company so willing to lie to and exploit its customers.

Identity

Partly, but I think it’s also about hope and wanting to feel a part of contributing towards progress. Some people want to be a part of something greater then themselves (cults, startups, nonprofits, teams of all sorts, whatever), which is about identity, but also nuanced.

Not to say it’s always rational.

What people identify with is usually pretty complex as far as their actual identity goes. They may choose fairly weird things, but if you ask them the meaning and their own identity attached to it is usually much larger than say ... an energy drink. But that thing fits into it, so there they are with energy drink stickers all over their vehicle.

I have a sticker for a local university on my car (just one...), I didn't even go there but what it means to me is the experiences I have when I do. That's much more than a logo.

I think the helping with progress rationale is probably part of purchase decision, as well as the product feel and performance itself, but there is also the fancy tech coolness aspect. It seems to be viewed in a similar way to Apple products. There are lots of positives with products from both companies but they also seem to be viewed almost like fancy tech jewelry.

I bought mine because, despite the limitations, it adds enough value that I wanted it.

Because the product is better than anything else on the market, and the lies are fairly benign and easily excused as brash optimism.

Pretty much exactly this. I want an autonomous car. I want an electric car. I want an electric car with an extensive charger network. I want fancy doodads in the cockpit. Teslas tick off all the boxes here, and... really no one else is close.

If it was the choice between Musk's offering and a car from a bland manufacturer without an asshole at the helm that still did everything the Tesla did? Sure, I'd drive the Mercedes or Cadillac or whatever. But there just is no such car. What I want is a Tesla, period.

> If it was the choice between Musk's offering and a car from a bland manufacturer without an asshole at the helm that still did everything the Tesla did?

I think most people know what Elon Musk is like. He promises a lot. He delivers a lot too. But his promises are always optimistic and running ahead of delivery. That's especially true on timelines, but true on other matters like functions or capabilities as well. I think most people take that into account when processing his statements, and mentally subtract some of the over-optimism from them.

They have the best electric drivetrain and are pretty bad for everything else.

I suppose another way to phrase that is that for anyone who considers the lies to be fairly benign and easily excuses them as brash optimism, there probably isn’t a better product on the market for them.

A Tesla is better than a BMW? In what ways? Certainly can't be the interior.

Powertrain, drivetrain, efficiency, ADAS, software UX. You do have a good point about the interior though. BMW wins at service too.

Because they are the best. I really wanted to buy a Porsche Taycan, but my friend has a 3 year old hybrid Porsche, and he can't use the charger that he used a year ago, because they updated the software version in the charging station. Also I heard that Porsche's self driving suite is dangerous even on the highway (where Tesla's makes it easier to do long trips).

Ya, this is really it. I bought a Model 3 about 6 months ago. I spent about 3 months researching, test-driving, talking with dealerships. I had zero interest in a Tesla when I started, but I begrudgingly bought one because it was so far ahead of every other car I tried—even ones that were higher price points.

The Taycan has a standard CCS charger, it would be pretty surprising if that stopped working given how pretty much all non-Teslas have it. What self driving suite are you talking about? Pretty sure the Taycan just has active lane keeping like a tonne of other new cars.

Yes, active lane keeping. I don't know much about them, as I have a 15 year old car that only has ABS that helps with breaking, but I read that Porsche's is much worse than Tesla's suite (even if you just want to stay in the same lane)

I feel jealousy in your words. Tesla is a cool electric car. That's it. Everyone else is still producing using fossil fuel cars but the trend is going in different directions (for a very good reason). So I genuinely can’t understand what is the problem with Tesla. I just hope other car companies stop selling their ass to the fuel moguls. P.S. I'm not a Tesla owner or a Elon toady

Are you talking about Tesla or Volkswagen?

Exploit? Really? They pay money and get a car that most seem very happy with. Where is the exploitation?

There’s been a gross overusage of the word exploit in the past 10 years or so. Just because you personally don’t find something to be a good deal doesn’t mean it’s exploitative.

Exploitation would involve taking advantage of someone in constrained circumstances to coerce them into doing something they would rather not do. This does not describe one single person who is capable of affording a Tesla.

There has not been a gross over-usage of the word exploit in the past 10 years. See google trends, the word's usage is trending downward. Its peak was actually around 2005.

Google trends tracks what people are searching not what they are using.

Nope, they have data since the 1800's. Don't think they had search engines back then.

That's Google Ngram Viewer. It's different from Trends, unless they have merged them recently.

Ah thanks, i didn't know that

Charging people 10k for a feature that will not be released during the lifetime of their car seems pretty exploitative to me.

That is not what exploitative means. You’re free to charge any amount for anything. Others are free to buy it or not. It’s not like you’re charging diabetics 10k for insulin. Nobody is forced to buy it.

If lying to take someone's money is not exploitation, I don't know what is.

The common term for deception for financial gain is fraud.

Maybe some examples will help.

Things that are exploitation:

Slavery

Prison Labor

Victorian workhouses

Retail managers forcing minimum-wage employees to clock out before cleaning the store, knowing they won't complain because they can't afford to lose their job.

Things that are not exploitation:

Rich people paying to enable future software updates on their luxury car.

The dictionary lists three meanings for exploitation. Your examples are all for meaning 1—the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. But there is also another one—the fact of making use of a situation to gain unfair advantage for oneself. Making use of people's optimism and warped perceptions about the imminentness of autonomous vehicles (warped perceptions which were formed in a large part by none other than Tesla itself) to part people from their money would fall under this definition.

And just to humour your point, let's say it's not exploitation. So what? It still would be deception, shameless lying, snake oil salesmanship, etc. etc. It's not like corporate actions are binary: exploitation and totally OK. Even if Tesla's actions were not exploitation, they would still be as wrong.

If I choose to buy it under the assumption I will get it, and then I don’t, then it’s pretty clear cut. If the deal wasn’t one where I was exploited I’d like the $10k back with interest.

You're not getting nothing for that 10k. I don't know where this idea's come from that nothing at all has been released.

Let me introduce you to something called the "stock market" also, be careful of "startups."

It's almost as if 'marketing' is a form of manipulation

Social: Tesla drivers could be seeking status and a strong virtue signal (Hey! I’m cool, eco and up-to-date).

Product: Tesla has the most foolproof and reliable charging network. Their cars have/had better range than the competition. Everyone’s heard about Autopilot whereas other manufacturers call it cruise control still.

True about the product. Highly dubious about the social. While there are enthusiast communities for every kind of car, Teslas also get a lot of hate for various reasons. In my view it’s the biggest obstacle (that and the ho-hum design).

I will probably buy anyway due to no other EV being even close functionally, but it’s a vulnerable position. Once platform-halo-bearing competitors like Apple enter the market and close the product gap, it’s a whole different ballgame.

For some reason this all brings to mind the very early 1900s, when every shady food manufacturer was slapping any label of ingredients on its cans, deceiving (or at best, confusing) the public with different or convoluted definitions, arbitrary standards of quality, made up terminology, hawking their brand of particular wares as honest while the rest was not.

You would be at a disadvantage to tell the truth in such an environment.

And then finally the FDA came along, when people (or Congress) had had enough of it. They laid out what certain words and terms meant, and what was allowed to be claimed. Sometimes I think we forget how much this was once needed, and that it doesn't just magically solve itself.

And we get words like cheese food :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processed_cheese#Legal_definit...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Dhrx4H-wA

These videos show the state of the latest self-driving features pretty well. It’s obviously not reliable or comprehensive, and definitely still needs a human driver. On the other hand progress is rapid and in simple situations it can drive autonomously point to point.

Also being able to handle an adversarial driver is qualitatively different to debris in the road, so there does seem nuance in the list of failure conditions would be helpful in terms of determining how important they are in reality.

I am sure many people will buy this just to see the quality of the systems for themselves. It does appear to be the most advanced driver assistance system widely deployed on the market.

We need a standard, government definition for what “full self driving” means.

Can I put my blind grandmother in the car, remove the steering wheel, and send her on her way? Anything less is an important step in the process but not “full self driving.”

The problem is...it’s reckless to assume that people will give any attention to the road if they’re told that their car is “full self driving.”

In the US, we already have a clear definition from the government: https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-vehicl...

For a good time, read through the different archived versions of Tesla.com/autopilot:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://tesla.com/autopilot

> All Tesla vehicles produced in our factory, including Model 3, have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.

This is like saying as a person with legs I have the hardware needed to run a 4-minute mile.

More like: as a person with brain you have the hardware needed to independently rediscover general relativity.

Any body-hardware analogies have a problem of fundamental difference related to ability to train one, but not the other.

"Tesla has one message for customers and investors, and another one for legal authorities."

That may not end well.

I guess that will have to wait for the "Fuller Self-Driving", or perhaps "Fullest Self-Driving" software?

This is misinformation. Tesla continued the letter with: "Please note that Tesla’s development of true autonomous features (SAE Levels 3+) will follow our iterative process (development, validation, early release, etc.) and any such features will not be released to the general public until we have fully validated them and received any required regulatory permits or approvals."

Nothing in the post contradicted that. It’s about Tesla FSD’s current status, not their hopes and dreams for the future of their software. And the current status is extremely divergent from what the name suggests. That’s the point.

No, the post implies that FSD will never be autonomous.

I am all for this discussion but it seems that we keep seeing the same points being posted here as filtered through the lens of the blogosphere and news outlets over and over. A few days ago it was the jalopnik article. Prior to that it was thdrive article. I’m sure others as well. I skimmed the article and I am not seeing any new information about full self driving. The less generous part of my personality thinks that this is fed by a short seller to all the aggregators.

I have commented about this already [1] so I won’t repeat myself but as a genuine question- why is this article being posted? I would imagine that the OP has seen the previous articles and the fact that they were flagged. What is the goal here?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26436143

So is this actually confusing anyone and causing danger? We can figure it out. One of the following must be true:

- It is confusing people, but the tech is actually pretty much autonomous, so we haven't noticed.

- It is confusing people, and Tesla drivers are dying in crashes at a rate massively in excess of other car manufacturers.

- Everybody knows that you still have to pay attention, and they don't give the car total control.

Option 1 is almost certainly not true since it requires the existence of near perfect self driving tech, which is generally agreed not to exist. Option 2 is definitely not true, because if Tesla drivers were dying at a much greater rate than drivers of other cars, this would be completely obvious and impossible to hide. So that leaves us with option 3, and all the repeated complaining about this is sanctimonious BS.

Death is not the only outcome of a crash. In fact, it’s relatively rare. Further, I’d argue a single death due to confusion of FSD’s capabilities is enough to make the complaining not “sanctimonious BS”, because that one death probably could be avoided by using a name that is more representative of the truth.

But death is a possible outcome of a crash, and an increase in crashes will lead to a corresponding increase in deaths, unless it somehow only prevents serious crashes (in which case, great). Also one death is a dumb threshold for anything.

This letter is being massively overhyped. The fact that the self driving package requires a lot of driver supervision is pretty obvious to anyone who actually drives a Tesla.

I'm still waiting to know when one of their cars severely injures or kills someone on the side of the road, cycling or running, etc. if the person who wrote the bad code goes to prison, the supervisor who failed to audit it, or the person who made the sensor or the person who pushed the button to activate the feature.

If Tesla has a 1/2 rate of accidents compared to human drivers, should people still go to prison? What if it’s 1/4, 1/8, etc?

I think a small enough rate of mistakes by Tesla el al, is not a huge problem, considering the technology is promising to substantially cut the fatality rates.

Let me know how you feel about that when it's not some stranger you read about in the news but a personal friend or family member.

My question is about liability, if a person is drunk or high and they drive over someone, they go to prison. If a person is sleeping in a tesla and runs someone over because they think it's magic and will drive for them, who is responsible and will do time?

Your reply is that it's all good because the tesla only killed half the number of people, so your friend or family member who got killed is just a freebie.

If the technology saves lives in a measurable way, then it should be used IMO. And yes, if my family member has 1/2 lower chance of dying in a car accident, I'll take it any day (I don't care if that lower chance comes from using AI or not).

If you are able to link actions of an individual to an injury in a jury-proof way, then sure I agree it should be done. It's likely not possible in most cases.

All the people I asked enjoy the car very much. So for the exception of that sad marketing twist the product seems to be quite enjoyable. I still can't afford it though :)

im probably going to get downvoted for posting this video but curious how folks on HN who have Teslas or shares in Tesla will react

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPMvQphJQiE

there are many many more

also I'd like to learn how a Robotaxi service would work and whether any insurance company would be willing to underwrite it.

Tesla is saying that "Full Self-Driving Beta" isn't done and can't be trusted yet. When it is, they'll remove the Beta label and send in a new form.

A lot of articles writing about very little because riling up the anti-Tesla sentiment is a good way to get clicks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com