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Comment by kjksf | Hacker News Reader

If I understand his argument correctly, Tesla would be in compliance if they allowed anyone who buys FSD to use it immediately, just like Ford allows anyone to use Blue Cruise on Mach-E.

One of the essential parts of the argument is that Tesla falls under current law because they are selective about who they allow to use FSD.

So Tesla could trivially be in compliance if they ditch the careful rollout. Give the software to anyone who pays for (instead of, as is the case currently, slowly expanding the number of people).

And maybe change the name to Yellow Cruise instead of FSD and stop telling people it's beta software.

And voila, compliant with CA DMV legislation.

I hope that this person understands his own argument in which case it's hard to believe that he is concerned about safety.

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If they could roll it out to everyone they would do so in an instant. They cannot though because the system is not ready and needs a lot of testing, which is the point the author is making.

Yeah, regardless of this supposed legal incentive, I don’t see any reason why Tesla wouldn’t roll it out to everyone if they thought it was ready for that.

It's 100% not ready. There's so many videos people are posting about it nearly hitting pedestrians, going the wrong way down a 1 way, nearly going straight into a curb, etc - all of these only stopped by the driver quickly grabbing the wheel and taking control.

It also doesn't seem to help that enabling FSD on Tesla makes it use the visual camera only, which seems counterproductive. The ultrasonic sensors seem to be critically important because visuals can be obstructed easier.

> There's so many videos people are posting about it nearly hitting pedestrians

Can you post a link to a video of FSD nearly hitting a pedestrian? Because searching on YouTube, I couldn't find a single one.

There was a video posted on reddit a couple of days ago. I think it was in San Jose, a number of times it tried to go into the tram lane and once or twice it almost hit pedestrians crossing a road when turning. Maybe that gives you enough information to find the link.

https://www.loopinsight.com/2021/12/13/drive-around-san-jose...

> The ultrasonic sensors seem to be critically important because visuals can be obstructed easier.

The car still uses ultrasonics when parking but AFAIK it has never used them for driving around. Perhaps you meant radar?

Yeah sorry, got the sensors mixed up. But going visual-only seems to be quite the handicap. I think other makers are going to have an edge over tesla if they keep radar.

It was publicly known that Musk was personally involved with requiring all sensors to be completely hidden from view, even to the point of inhibiting the car's view of its surroundings. This was back when other cars had the large LIDAR installations on top of the roof, which was probably better, but obviously didn't give the regular-car look Tesla wanted.

Please please be careful when reasoning from cherry picked data. You can go to http://reddit.com/r/idiotsincars and see much worse, every day.

All I can say to comments like this is "call a friend and get a ride". There are ~23k cars on US roads with this system now. They're not hard to find. And it's really pretty mind blowing. For sure the most fun I've had behind the wheel in 25 years of licensed driving.

> Please please be careful when reasoning from cherry picked data.

The very fact that you are able to cherry-pick failure cases from a mere fleet of 23k cars means the system is by no means ready.

In fact, you/Tesla/everyone involved should encourage people to "try your best to cherry-pick failure cases". What you are advocating is the opposite of being responsible (let's try to ignore the failure cases and focus on when it works!)

>For sure the most fun I've had behind the wheel in 25 years of licensed driving.

I'm sorry but the amount of "fun" you have behind the wheel is not remotely close to being a success criteria for a system named "full self driving".

> What you are advocating is the opposite of being responsible

To be clear: what I was actually saying was not to ignore videos on youtube, but to be responsible about interpreting them. When data sets get large, you need to stop reasoning on the basis of anecdotes (because there will always be single data points to support any perspective) and start making your decisions on the basis of data.

Basically: is FSD beta as deployed any more dangerous than human drivers? I think it's clear to everyone that the answer is "no", for the simple reason that the roads are filled with bad drivers already. In fact the one actually documented accident involving a beta car of which I'm aware[1] was one where the car got T-boned by a red light runner.

Really, I'm being sincere: stop being angry on the internet about this and get yourself a ride. You'll see things differently, I all but guarantee it.

[1] Sort of. It was on twitter and I've lost the reference and might be misremembering.

>I hope that this person understands his own argument in which case it's hard to believe that he is concerned about safety.

I think he understands his own argument. I don't think you don't understand the implications of why they haven't rolled it out.

Isn't Blue Cruise only available on select mapped highways, and only described as a SAE J3016 level-2 system? That seems to be a crucial difference.

```The name ["Full Self Driving"] unequivocally communicates Tesla's goal for development, and the company's "beta" qualifier communicates the stage of that development. Tesla intends for its "full self-driving" to become, well, full self-driving, and its limited beta release is a key step in that process.```

Seems like your analysis skipped that part.

There is a huge difference between goal and actual state. You can't enable FSD Beta without clicking several checkboxes in clear language saying you have to pay attention every second on the road, you're responsible for single action of a car on the road. And it provides more restriction on a driver compares to regular driving, such as distraction camera monitor, phone monitor, hands off the wheel etc..

It's so boring to see how trolls have no numbers, no real issues but just trying attack the marketing name/aspirational goal.

Ooooh. Checkboxes. That will definitely prevent abuse.

Even if the Tesla owner is responsible about it, other people could drive the car and they wouldn’t have to agree to anything. They can go nuts.

I’ve seen plenty of videos online too. I have no interest in driving next to a car being driven by a crazy AI that seems to have the driving skill of a 13-year-old playing GTA and not know the rules.

I don’t have a Tesla. I was forcibly opted into this program. There is nothing to prevent other people from doing stupid and ridiculous things with this system and seriously injuring or killing me.

Heck, they can do the right thing. I’ve seen videos were trying to take over control doesn’t seem to work. Where it tries to drive directly in the traffic in the wrong lane.

This is insanely dangerous and I want no part of it but I don’t have any mechanism to stop it but to hope regulators do something. Tesla put MY life on the line.

They use eye tracking camera, to prevent you from lookin not on the road, sensors of the wheel, and also checking you're not on the phone. They doing way more compares to any car maker to keep you safe as non owner of the tesla. I guess been so emotional you better stay in your basement until Level 4-5 will become a reality.

Tesla added the camera eye tracking very late in the game, just like they didn't add driver hands-off wheel detection and enforcement to autopilot until it had been available quite some time.

I think this is one of the issues with Tesla FSD - the company basically has had to be forced to take safety seriously repeatedly and has not done so from the outset.

Similarly, you and I are both forced to share the roads with folks who are impaired in various ways, whether it's declining reflexes, vision, cognitive function - or just straight up drunk driving. As somebody who comes from a country with very strict anti drunk-driving rules (checkpoints randomly on commonly used roads frequently enough to deter it), it blows my mind that I have to share the roads in the US with drivers who think having "just 4 beers" before their 45 minute drive home is fine.

Since the US hasn't shown many signs for cracking down on drunk driving, and adding better infrastructure for folks who can no longer drive for various reasons is equally a non-starter at the moment - I'm all in favor of any system that speeds up the arrival of genuinely fully autonomous driving. Tesla hasn't killed or injured anyone using this "FSD beta" program to date, despite a large number of miles driven, so their existing precautions appear to be working.

Even in the interim, before we reach fully autonomous driving, "better than the average human driver" is still a huge performance milestone worth aiming for before we start obsessing over "perfect" (Not saying FSD Beta is there yet, but Autopilot on Highways might be).

> Not saying FSD Beta is there yet, but Autopilot on Highways might be

Anecdotally I've found the new FSD Beta a huge leap forward when used like "Autopilot" (basically no destination, drive in a straight line for lane keeping). It understands the roads 500% better than the older builds in terms of lane layout, little or no lines, etc.

I don't fully understand your argument - are you saying FSD should be tested publicly, because we allow other impaired drivers as well? Wouldn't the solution be to strictly enforce the ban of impaired driving, on the one hand, and test FSD privately using trained supervisors, on the other hand?

If effectively enforcing the ban on impaired driving was a viable option that was truly on the table then yes, I would 100% be in favor of requiring this testing to happen privately. Breathalyzer for engine start, eye tracking to prevent phone usage (which Tesla has btw), more frequent vision/driving tests, etc would improve road safety significantly. But that's just never going to happen, it's a completely unrealistic scenario that requires a huge culture shift, and would be incredibly unpopular policy. Not to mention the public transport infrastructure that needs to be built to support all of these folks who suddenly are no longer allowed to drive but live in areas where driving is a necessity of everyday life. The demographics who'd be affected hardest by these kinds of changes are also vocal voters with high turnout.

Given the state of the public roads now, full of dangerously impaired driver's as it is, we've clearly decided as a society that it's worth the risk to allow this behavior to continue. So in that light, I think it's worth allowing these public tests of autonomous systems under some strict set of rules. I agree these rules shouldn't be exclusively self-enforced by Tesla and co., and there should be some more stringent open transparent reporting requirements around how many systems are active, miles driven, incident reports etc. But with the right controls and oversight in place I think it's a worthwhile endeavor to allow the testing to continue in the spirit of accelerating autonomous driving becoming a reality. It's the impaired drivers that _make_ it more urgent for this system to exist in the first place.

> Since the US hasn't shown many signs for cracking down on drunk driving…

Kind of curious where you live because the police seem to only look for drunk drivers these days, for the money.

In Phoenix you have to make the police do their job (like take their bumper off) if they don’t think you’ve been drinking because they know they just have to wait a bit to write up a big-dollar ticket.

I assume you refer to the invite-only beta with FSD that works on city streets, but Tesla's naming is (intentionally?) very confusing.

It would go a long way if Tesla simply renamed the invite-only program to FSD Alpha, and continued referring to "enhanced Autopilot" that's available to everyone for an additional fee as FSD Beta.

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