I just can’t understand why you’d give up control to a system that’s clearly still in beta. The cost of failure is way too high to take the risk.
If I’m not willing to be in vigilance mode I just drive myself.
- my city town inexplicably decided to make dashed white lines on the sides of bicycle lane sharing markers. The Tesla would see dashed white lines, which mean separate lanes going the same way and dance around trying to get into a lane but they were all too narrow. The traffic lane was double wide to account for church street parking, but not marked as such. So it the markings made a tiny center lane and two side lanes that were just a bit too small.
- on winding tree lined roads, when an on coming car first appeared around a bend it would assume the car might be going straight and would hit us. There would be a quick deceleration and dodge toward the shoulder until it realize the oncoming car was actually curving and would probably stay in its lane.
- when the pavement expands to include an unoccupied, unmarked parking lane for a short stretch the car would assume that the road suddenly got very wide lanes and it was too far to the center and jerk over.
At this point FSD does a passable job on my regular daily drives, except one intersection where something in its map is wrong, it wants to exit the right turn lane just before turning right. I don’t let it make turns in contested intersections yet, because it is a little timid and might confuse drivers. But that is improving. Just not there yet.
For exceptions, it does well finding and dealing with construction areas, garbage trucks, bicycles, and pedestrians.
I’d appreciate if they’d add “slightly dodge roadkill”. It will merrily run over the same dead squirrel four times a day with precision.
Autopilot and fsd still both specifically require an attentive driver.
Responsible adults who understand the systems will use them appropriately- and that might mean “not at all” in unusual/chaotic conditions.
For the rest, there’s Darwin awards.
First there was zero monitoring of attention. No steering wheel torque, nothing.
Then when pushed and threatened they added it, and set the "hands on steering wheel" interval to "ONCE every fifteen MINUTES".
Then they had to be threatened to reduce that to a sensible value.
All the while, Tesla: "the driver is only in the seat for legal purpose - the car is driving itself", or "use Summon to bring your car to you while you deal with a fussy child".
So you can call them lazy edge-case idiots all you like.
But you can't pretend that Tesla hasn't absolutely fostered and nurtured this culture, because they have.
Someone abandons common sense and abdicates responsibility for themselves in favor of believing the hype from a money-crazed billionaire?
Prime candidates for Darwin awards, whether they own a tesla or not.
I don't think it's about believing the hype. It's about having a system put in place which encourages you to stop paying attention.
I do think there have been great improvements in car safety thanks to AI. My car self brakes if it detects a pedestrian while I'm in reverse. It flashes lights in my side mirrors if another vehicle passes by. I think those systems are safety first and if you buy a car they are the responsibility of the car maker and not the buyer. I don't think you would expect people checking the airplane model when taking a flight. It's the responsibility of the airline and the manufacturer.
People who understand the system don't buy it because they realize it's a scam, everyone who bought it was duped. The most valuable thing at Tesla is the list of rubes they have.
You are not (currently) using an autonomous car. If you think so you are an idiot.
Let's define autonomous as self driving. According to their marketing page[1]:
> Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time.
So it has capabilities of autonomous driving, which means a Tesla can be considered an autonomous car. Unless I'm an idiot for trusting what their marketing page tells me, of course.
Oh, you sweet summer child...
> Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features, and full self-driving capabilities—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time.
What I understand is this:
Tesla cars come with hardware capable of providing features for the Autopilot system and come with full self driving capabilities. The functionality related to these capabilities will be improved over time through software updates.
If they meant that there will eventually be software that works with the hardware in the system, but there isn't software today, they should word it differently.
The cars come with advanced hardware. What is the hardware capable of? It is capable of self driving. How will the hardware achieve the thing it is capable of? Through software updates (that have not yet landed)
"Improve functionality over time" implies that the basic functionality of full self-driving is there already, and that it will be improved. No reasonable person would take it to mean "does not exist yet, and may never do".
They would also take "capable of" to mean "right now", not at some nebulous point in the future, especially given the context of the feature being a paid upgrade.
The definition of "full" is "not lacking or omitting anything; complete". One might reasonably expect "full self-driving" to mean a human does not need to intervene or monitor. I.e. What the industry commonly calls autonomous driving level 5. They clarify what they mean elsewhere on their web site:
> Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability > are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their > hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment. > While these features are designed to become more capable over time, > the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous.
So they don't even claim level 1 autonomy.
Even with your version, the hardware may very well never be capable of full self-driving at all. There's no evidence to suggest it will be - hopes, dreams and promises don't count. And they've done an upgrade on the earlier-gen Model S cars already, where they presumably made similar claims.
The whole thing is misleading at best, downright trading standards fraud at worst.
For what it's worth, my Model 3's carriageway departure warning kicks in randomly and the amount of phantom braking it does even on basic cruise control is terrible. Autopilot is worse. I find monitoring it in autopilot mode significantly more stressful than just driving the car myself. I wouldn't trust FSD at all, and certainly not enough to want to fork out the silly money it is.
> but all that says is that they eventually will provide the software running on the hardware you buy today to actually do it
Most of their language about "eventually" very very strongly implies that the only hold up is regulatory, not software.
Imagine believing this.
Tesla has something much more valuable: pigeons and dupes.