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Comment by modeless | Hacker News Reader

Agreed on summon and auto park, they are total garbage and not at all useful. Navigate on Autopilot is slightly better, and can actually be nice occasionally, though there are plenty of situations where it just doesn't work. But there is a bit of the enhanced autopilot package that is genuinely useful, and that's autopilot lane changes. Being able to execute lane changes on the freeway just by pressing the turn signal once and without disengaging autopilot works well and is useful. Is it worth $6k? Maybe not, but it's something.

Personally, I bought FSD because I wanted to test it, not because I thought it would be robotaxi-level anytime soon. And also because I believe that Tesla will one day be forced to give free camera and computer upgrades to everyone that purchased FSD (on top of the HW3 upgrade I already got), because the current in-car cameras and computers are not enough to implement what they promised.

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My new 2023 BMW M340i also has lane change, lane keeping, radar/adaptive based cruise control and under 70kmh on the highway in traffic you don't even need to touch the steering wheel.

The bmw system costs $2k Canadian.

https://youtu.be/7M-J3JydpPA

A comparison between Tesla self driving and bmw, bmw seems superior.

Tesla has spent so much time focused on going to level 5 that other manufacturers had plenty of time to catch up.

Ya, the Tesla basic Autopilot & Enhanced Autopilot both are on the same codebase that has received minimal updates since the start of 2020 when they dedicated 100% of their AI towards releasing and improving upon the actual FSD Beta stack. The FSD Beta is quite better at lane keeping, including general 'avoiding obstacles' and whatnot.

>The FSD Beta is quite better at lane keeping, including general 'avoiding obstacles' and whatnot.

Tesla always has something just around the corner that's "better", and they get full credit for it as if already exists. Like their robot tapping into a multi-trillion market.

http://youtube.com/search?q=fsd+beta

Does BMW make their own technology now, or do they still use Mobileye products?

I was quite happy with my old Mobileye equipped i3. It never got updated though.

My wife’s x7 has it and it’s nice.

According to Forbes it is Mobile until 20225 when the full lineup will switch to Qualcomm.[1]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2022/03/11/bmw-qu...

Lane change is also buggy now for my Model Y. Since the last couple updates about 5% of the time it jerks back into the current lane after moving about 50% across the line, as if it had suddenly seen a ghost in that other lane. There is nothing there of course, but its jerking motion back to the current lane is very frustrating and embarrassing. Other drivers must think I'm having a seizure.

I drive the car 100% manually now. I don't even use cruise control it's that bad. $60K on a car that doesn't even have usable cruise control is disappointing.

My experiences with FSD tell me that it will never fulfill its promises and I'm just out $10K. Some other manufacturer maybe could do it, but not Tesla under its current leadership.

I'm hoping Lucid can pick up the mantle where Tesla left off.

> Personally, I bought FSD because I wanted to test it

Funny how Tesla is able to pull this off. I can't think of another brand that so easily gets people to throw large sums of money at it while expecting so little in return.

I wonder what percentage of Telsa car owners are also shareholders.

Nobody gives Toyota $6k for no good reason, but TM is not in the same league as TSLA.

Toyota isn't even really offering something "new" though? People often throw money after random gimmicks to see what things are like as an early participant. I know people who had early VR headsets and I remember my father getting early portable computers (that weren't quite portable enough ;P). You learn what works and what doesn't and maybe it helps you in your job or maybe it just gives you something to talk about over dinner, but it can be fun to see a car almost (but not quite ;P) drive itself.

I considered working in the self driving field for a while. Being an early adopter puts you in a great position for that kind of thing.

While I didn't take advantage of it for self driving, or the iPhone (though I did buy the first one), I did for VR (backed the Oculus Rift Kickstarter and then made a career in VR) and deep learning (jumped in early and also made it part of my career) and Bitcoin (not part of my career, but still good).

I consider the cost of being an early adopter of things like FSD money well spent given the opportunities it can create for you. I think a lot of people are making money on YouTube simply recording themselves driving around with FSD Beta on.

> I think a lot of people are making money on YouTube simply recording themselves driving around with FSD Beta on

And the videos with the most hits are the ones where it almost gets the driver or nearby drivers or pedestrians killed.

I have a hard time putting FSD in the same category as VR or the iPhone, because those can't kill you. When you bought your first iPhone, I would bet you had high hopes that it would be a nice project and do what it said it would do, in contrast to your admitted low expectations when you paid for FSD.

So little? I'm testing the most advanced driving system available to the public. It does things no other available system even attempts to do. It's pretty cool to be able to try it first, and I don't consider that 'little'.

Also, FSD was $3k when I bought it, so that helps, and it came with a guaranteed computer upgrade too. I wouldn't pay the $15k it costs today.

> I'm testing the most advanced driving system available to the public.

Why can't the most advanced driving system park the car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA

I'd say you've been suckered into doing Tesla's testing work for them. Worse than that, you're even paying them for the very great privilege of being an unpaid intern.

It's perverse. They advertised at you and I think we have to say the manipulation has worked.

Because the parking code hasn't been touched in years. All their effort right now is on driving, and that part is improving rapidly, far ahead of other car manufacturers, obviously with a long way still to go.

Being an early adopter of technology always involves paying to test unfinished work. Even the first iPhone (which I also bought) was deficient in many ways. And yet being an early adopter has brought me personally a lot of benefits. The world is not zero sum, turns out.

> Because the parking code hasn't been touched in years.

So.. the most advanced driving system is so far ahead that it's years behind?

> Being an early adopter of technology always involves paying to test unfinished work.

It really doesn't.

> Funny how Tesla is able to pull this off. I can't think of another brand that so easily gets people to throw large sums of money at it while expecting so little in return.

The tech-bro -- basically us here -- crowd thinks that they're immune to marketing. But they get suckered in just as well as anyone, it's just a matter of playing to different preconceived notions.

> I believe that Tesla will one day be forced to give free camera and computer upgrades to everyone that purchased FSD (on top of the HW3 upgrade I already got), because the current in-car cameras and computers are not enough to implement what they promised.

This is called "specific performance" [1] and it is extremely rare for courts to compel fulfilling a contract when the standard approach of monetary damages will suffice. At the very worst case scenario for Tesla, they could be forced to refund those upgrades or even buy back the cars. One big way specific performance is used is if someone contracts to transfer real estate or infrastructure to be used as part of a bigger development project, but tries to pull out. Or if a subcontractor partially fulfills their duties as part of a bigger project, but is holding up key components.

Imagine someone has contracted with a tax accountant to help them respond to an audit. The contract says the client can fire the accountant and end the relationship at any time. The contract also says that if the client fires the accountant, they must pay $1000, and once payment is received, the accountant will transfer all records to the client within 24 hours.

The client fires the accountant and writes a check for $1000. The accountant refuses to take the check and refuses to transfer the files. A court might order specific performance that the accountant must fulfill the terms of the contract. This kind of issue is easy for courts to mandate specific performance, it is pretty straightforward to determine if the files have been transferred or not. The client faces monetary damages for sure if they don't get the files to give to their new accountant. But monetary damages aren't really a good way to make the wrong right.

But assuming a court sides against Tesla, what is the most commonsense remedy to make the wrong right? Refund the sales of a product that was not as advertised, or force the company to make the product into what was advertised? Courts don't have the kind of expertise or understanding of what is technically possible in future technology development.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance

I'd accept a refund or buyback too, no problem. But I don't think that a court ordering specific performance is the only way that early FSD buyers might get free or discounted upgrades. That's not really what I was expecting.

If Tesla was ever ordered to refund every FSD package ever sold, how much money would that take? What sort of hit would the stock price take as investors priced out the "solving FSD will be worth a bajillion dollars" premium? I'm not sure Tesla could refund all its FSD sales.

Nobody knows for sure. But they are quite profitable now and I'm sure they could manage it one way or another.

It’s pretty crazy you payed 6k to beta test something that you didn’t even believe would work. It’s nice to have a rabid fanbase.

I do believe it will work. Eventually. After hardware upgrades. And it's the only system available to the public that even attempts to do some of these things, so it's the only option if you want to test early. OpenPilot is cool too but it doesn't do everything.

Also I paid $3k for FSD.

> I do believe it will work. Eventually. After hardware upgrades.

Ok but that's not what Elon ever sold, even once, even a little bit.

He's promised full self-driving is one year away for each of the last nine years. [1]

So I'm happy you paid a huge sum of money to beta test a product on a completely unrealistic timeline, but that's not going to suffice for most customers. I have to imagine that many, if not most, people took the company at their word.

[edit] Here's a compilation video. [2]

[1] https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-driving-ne...

[2] https://youtu.be/o7oZ-AQszEI

Yes, Elon has been and continues to be inexcusably optimistic on AI timelines. I think it would be reasonable to fine Tesla for false promises on timelines and on stuff like "all cars contain all necessary hardware for FSD". But being wrong about those things doesn't warrant criminal charges. I was completely aware that the timelines were wrong at the time, but I also believed (correctly) that FSD would be available in a testable form eventually and had no problem spending 5% of the purchase price of my car to participate in the future testing.

> inexcusably optimistic

I will definitely bookmark this as a nice replacement for "lying".

It's only lying if he doesn't believe it. And he demonstrably does. He has a whole division at Tesla designing a humanoid robot for mass production in the next few years on the assumption that the AI will be ready by then. He keeps removing sensors from their cars on the assumption that AI can replace them in a few months' time. He started a brain implant company with basically no near term market potential because he believes it will be important for interfacing with the upcoming AIs. If he didn't believe his own statements about AI he wouldn't be doing those things. It may be borderline delusional, but that's not the same thing as lying.

Consider that in the past plenty of other people in the industry have underestimated things that he's overestimated, such as the potential for reusable rockets, and the timeline for electric cars becoming viable, and the timeline for low-cost phased array antennas to support Starlink. And those have been incredible success stories for him, despite his initial overestimation, which really was overestimation, that many called stupid at the time, with some justification. And AI may yet turn out that way too. Even if he's wildly optimistic about timelines, he may still end up closer to correct than the conservative establishment in the industry which has a very strong status quo bias, like with disposable rockets and internal combustion engines.

> It's only lying if he doesn't believe it.

Whether he believes it or not doesn't mean jack. You are still out several thousand dollars for something that doesn't work.

I bet Liz Holmes really truly thought Theranos products were going to work too.

It clearly means something, both from a legal perspective and a moral perspective.

Even if both Elon and Holmes believed they were doing the right thing, that doesn't mean they weren't negligent (broadly that they should have known better) or that they didn't cause material harm to those who relied on their representations. This creates both civil and criminal liabilities. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure it does.

I said it means something, not that it absolves them of any responsibility whatsoever. I already said it would make sense to fine Tesla. But the whether they were mistaken or malicious still matters a lot.

Autopilot is basically worthless to me. I use it for a couple minutes at a time at most. The first time it slammed on the brakes on an empty highway, taking me from 70 to 40, I completely lost faith.

I agree the hardware won't be enough, but I find more likely that the software will actually get available after your current car has passed its normal lifetime, and you'll have gotten rid of it already.

Well, I kept my last car 13 years, and so far this one has actually been more reliable than the last. I paid to get early access, which I already received, so I consider it worth something already. Based on the pace of improvement, it's a pretty safe bet that it will be at least fairly useful before I'm done with the car a decade from now.

I agree, lane changes are a really nice feature for me that made it worth it although depending on how price sensitive you are it might not be worth it. I think people forget or don’t realize that tesla is purposely pricing this stuff for the kinds of people who think $6,000 is pocket change. If that’s not you, don’t buy it.

You're still responsible if your lane change causes an accident.

I don't see how it's worth $1. Do you trust the system to properly gauge the speed of a vehicle accelerating to pass you? If not then you need hands and eyes at the ready.

You still need to monitor cruise control as well, but that doesn't make it useless. It's nice on long drives.

IMO the boundaries of cruise control’s abilities are extremely clear, so it doesn’t require a ton of overhead to know whether you’re pushing up against them.

Eh, I'm not so sure about that anymore. Many cars these days have radar assisted cruise control so I think some of the same issues do apply.

My 7y old VW Touran has autopark which works (nb: for parking places big enough). But maybe it's not the same thing as Tesla's?

I hired an annoying little Renault a couple of years ago. It would quite happily park either parallel or end-on, did a fairly reasonable job of it too. I didn't use it much, because it's almost as easy to park a car that size manually as it is to hit a couple of buttons :P. I think the difference between that and Tesla is that the Renault still wanted me to put the (manual) gearbox into reverse and use the accelerator to move the car, it was only controlling the steering wheel.

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