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Comment by taylodl | Hacker News Reader

Here's what self-driving means to me:

* Tesla absorbs all legal consequences of any accident while using their self-driving technology

* The driver doesn't have to sit in the driver seat continually monitoring the situation, i.e. driving - but in a really weird way

Which is to say, Tesla does not have self-driving tech and they're not going to have self-driving tech at any time in the near future. If I have to continue sitting in the driver seat and continue driving/not-driving and be responsible for anything the car does, then the hell with it. That's not self-driving and I wouldn't pay for that either. Especially the insane prices they're charging. Nope. Not gonna happen.

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Especially if Tesla is going to play a game of "If you fall, you're fired before you hit the ground" with disabling autopilot in imminent accidents.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-invest...

It just floors me that someone is not yet in jail for this. It's so fantastical so as to seem surreal. But it's real.

This is... I have no words. I really hope people keep their attention on the road, your life and others', isn't worth the extra minutes doomscrolling.

> The driver doesn't have to sit in the driver seat continually monitoring the situation

This is imo the biggest problems that forces users from not buying the tech. I used the beta, and not only did I have to basically pay attention, but at times, when I was already paying attention, Tesla would ask me to apply pressure on the steering to the point where self driving disengaged and I had to take quick actions. On top of that, just driving around my neighborhood, it failed miserably. It couldn't park itself when the entire curb was empty and I stopped in a non ideal spot. It would often incorrectly identify parked cars on curved streets and brake. A couple of times it almost ran over pedestrians at a stop sign, mostly because it accelerates too much on turns at a stop sign. It absolutely refuses to drive faster than the speed limits, going 25 on two lane main streets where everyone expects you to go 40.

At some point, its more stressful for the driver on self driving than driving yourself.

> It absolutely refuses to drive faster than the speed limits, going 25 on two lane main streets where everyone expects you to go 40.

This is not an issue with self driving but rather law enforcement.

The law enforcement will stop you if you hold up the traffic by going 25

But it won’t if you go over the speed limit?

I’m not sure what a self driving car is supposed to do here. Hell, as a foreigner, I myself wouldn’t know what to do.

I think this is pretty common all around the world.

But the again, you raise a fair point. I don't know what course of action an autonomous vehicle is supposed to take here. If anything, in HCI, you want consistent actions to be taken, for users to reward you with a higher level of trust.

I'm highly suspicious of such a claim. So you're saying that in a 25mph zone, a cop will pull you for doing 25mph because you're holding up people that wish to exceed the speed limit? Not in any U. S. state that I've lived in.

You can be if you’re impeding the flow of traffic. It is one of those iykyk rules of the road. Ideally, you need to be in speed limit + 5 to not get a ticket. But, if everyone else is going faster and you suddenly are the one driving slower, you’re not only blocking the traffic, but also creating unsafe driving conditions. In cases like that, you’re supposed to go the lane speed. In my case, it’s a 2 lane major street that funnels most traffic within the city, but unfortunately the limits set on the street are 25, like rest of the city. The standard practice on this particular street is to go at least 30 and stay in the right lane if you’re not willing to go beyond 30. Tesla not only drives 25 max, but also sometimes insists on driving in the left lane.

https://www.ticketcrusherslaw.com/traffic-ticket/speeding-ti....

No one is going to get a ticket for going the speed limit.

Well I shared the link to the legal explanation with the exact law listed. It’s up to you to not believe it.

The legal explanation clearly states it is applicable to highways only. I'm sure 25mph / 40kmh is not the intended way of driving there.

So yeah, I still don't believe you that I'd be fined for driving 25mph in an area, where 25mph is the speed limit.

“unless the reduced speed is necessary for safe operation”

If somehow you got a ticket for this, you’d just say it was necessary for safe operation, after all, why else would there be a speed limit in the first place?

I agree with your bullet points but one thing to keep in mind regarding the second one is that it is currently a legal requirement to have a human driver ready to take over at all times (which is to say that the legislator thinks that there is no real, safe full self-driving capability yet).

It’s not an impossible thing though; for example there are truly driverless robotaxis running in SF right now. (The Waymo ones)

> currently a legal requirement to have a human driver ready to take over at all times

Waymos aren't running with a human driver ready to take over at all times, so that's not correct.

Waymo may have a specific license to operate their service in very limited areas but for vehicles sold to the public the situation is as I described pretty much globally as far as I know.

$25 a week isn’t insane for the convenience that Tesla’s FSD product offers, and that would still be true if it were geofenced to just highways.

Apparently, I, and the overwhelming majority of Tesla's customers, are failing to see this convenience. Care to enlighten us?

I didn’t say that everyone should buy it, I said the pricing isn’t insane.

You can disagree on the value and still recognize that $25/week is not pathological.

$25/week indefinitely for a hardware feature in your car that you already paid for?

To be frank, it's not only a hardware feature.

The FSD I experienced last month was (to paraphrase someone else) like sitting in the passenger seat with a new teenage driver, ready to grab the wheel at any moment.

It's wrong too often to be convenient. I'm not paying $25/week for more work as a driver.

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