Tesla's competitors aren't testing "beta" self driving technology (marketed as magic "Full Self Driving" or "Autopilot") on public roads, which has predictably resulted in deaths and property damage. They are not iterating and improving, because if they were they would have fixed the flaw which lead to a decapitation 2016. Instead, they doubled down on their negligent sensor stack, and predictably another decapitation happened in 2019.
As a robotics engineer myself, it makes my brain bleed to watch Teslas operate autonomously (because watching them operate reveals how terribly they are engineered), and it makes me furious to think that these things are allowed to operate on public roads around people.
> they challenge conventional norms about how a specific part or process is typically done ... introducing so many cool things that we would not typically see in the car industry.
Tesla can keep whatever changes they would like to make to the car industry, imo. Challenging norms is sometimes okay but other times not. For example, when the norm is "we shouldn't beta-test autonomous machines on the general public because it is dangerous", maybe we should leave that one alone.
Tesla, especially Musk, is responsible for irreparably damaging the culture of safety that was created around autonomous cars circa 2007 at the DARPA Urban Challenge. Back then safety was a top concern -- beta-quality autonomous cars were equipped with flashing lights, had safety kill switches, were operated by trained technicians, and everyone in the vicinity were aware of their existence and more importantly consented to be a part of the test.
Today, thanks to Tesla, buggy driverless cars are operating covertly on public roads without the public's consent, by clueless people without any training. What an improvement, and definitely something we all asked for!
This has lead to people dying, as everyone has predicted. But does that deter Tesla? Of course not. They continue undeterred and even doubled down. If your friend loses their head or gets run over by a Tesla, will you thank Tesla's engineers for their high-quality products? Will you thank Elon Musk for his "move fast and break things" attitude when it comes to 2 ton death machines rolling around in your town?
> Plus the cross pollination between SpaceX and Tesla is introducing so many cool things that we would not typically see in the car industry.
This reminds me a of a story I heard of SpaceX engineers having to be brought in to Tesla to teach them the proper way to use pointers. Probably not the kind of cross-pollination you were thinking of. I guess that's a testament to Tesla's engineering prowess.