Comment by jfim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jfim | Hacker News Reader

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I'd disagree, what they do say is there.

There is hardware that could potentially be used for the car to drive itself. It might not be sufficient for safe unattended operation, but there is hardware that can steer the car and make it move.

They have a design for a system that could drive the car unattended. It could be a piece of paper that says "Requirements: car must drive itself" with a couple boxes and arrows, or it could be more elaborate.

They might deliver software that can be left unattended. Or they may not, who knows.

They can deliver updates over the air.

Is that what people expect? Probably not. Can you currently sit in a Tesla and go from A to B safely without paying attention to the car? No. Will they ever be able to deliver the experience that the average person expects after reading the second paragraph? Maybe, maybe not. Will it be reasonably safe to leave it to drive unattended? Who knows. Would the average person who paid for "full self driving" feel deceived if they never delivered that experience? Probably.

It's definitely been crafted to describe something that might potentially be delivered someday, yet leaving enough wiggle room to be able to say "we never said it could be left unattended and never promised we'd ever deliver something that could be" in court.

You're adding a ton of words there in your reading that massively changes what they're saying.

> All new Tesla cars have the hardware needed in the future for full self-driving in almost all circumstances. The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat.

They're not saying it is potentially designed or that they believe it has the capabilities to do the things they say it can do in their second paragraph. No where in their writing are the words "believe" or "probably" or "maybe". It states the cars are designed with all the hardware needed. Not that they might have all the hardware needed, or that Tesla believes it has all the hardware needed, but that these cars physically can do the job today, they just haven't been showing reliability and getting regulatory approval.

The word hardware does a lot of work here for them. Technically the car has the hardware required for the features described, that does not mean it has the software yet, in fact the software demonstrably is not there yet and that is why the word hardware is in there. The implication is they can be upgraded to FSD in future with a software update.

Look at this part at the end:

> The future use of these features without supervision is dependent on achieving reliability far in excess of human drivers as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience...

Many people would interpret that as "we are going to ship these features when they are going to be reliable, and we are going to keep on working on them until they are" but it actually means "if we manage to make them reliable, then they'll be usable without supervision, but we might not do so, so you might have to supervise the thing forever."

It has the hardware that is needed for full self driving (but that might require active supervision). It is designed to not require action by the person in the driver's seat (but is supervision really an action?).

People don't talk this way with one another, but that's how corporations talk. Comcast may say "200 megabits* (*where technology allows)" which means that one might get 200 megabits, or one might not and they have enough fine print to make sure that they can get away with it. Some VP might say "we'll never sell your personal information" and then a few years later it turns out that they do sell your personal information, because it's allowed in the fine print, the VP isn't with them anymore, the product has been renamed from Foo to Foo+, and clearly the VP was referring to Foo, not Foo+. Assume positive intent with people; for corporations, assume the shrewdest intent that the legal team will argue for if they were to be in court.

Now back to Tesla, maybe they will ship FSD, with no supervision required, and people will be able to watch Netflix while commuting to work. Maybe they won't. It'd be pretty cool if they did ship it. They have enough wiggle room in the feature description to not have to ship it, that's all.

> Can you currently sit in a Tesla and go from A to B safely without paying attention to the car? No.

End of story, it doesn't have "full" self driving. They have not delivered on the promise. They may do so in the future but categorically have not done so yet.

They have delivered on the promise where the promise is in the fine print: the car is delivered with the hardware Tesla currently believes is required for Full Self Driving.

Until the software is up to the task, people who buy the FSD option get a bunch of convenience ADAS features like auto park, lane changes while on autopilot, taking exits or entry ramps while on auto pilot, navigating interchanges on autopilot, and stopping for traffic control.

The software currently delivers everything that the brochure says it can do, and Tesla is viably working towards the future product which can do the bits they want it to do, namely drive the car without supervision in most scenarios.

I have all the hardware “required” to win a formula one Grand Prix. Have I won a formula one Grand Prix?

I’ll believe they have all the hardware required when they deliver on the promise.

No you do not have the hardware required to win the F1. There is more to an F1 car than “engine” and “wheels”. The specs you have to conform to are a rule book several pages longer than any nation’s Design Rules for passenger vehicles.

As for winning the F1 Grand Prix, you have a lifetime of experience in race driving to acquire before you are even going to be crossing the finish line before the race is over.

Please do not engage in such absurd reductionism, that kind of comment is what I would expect to see in /r/selfdrivingcars or /r/cars from the rabid Tesla-haters.

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