Comment by Klaus23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Klaus23 | Hacker News Reader

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I doubt it. Yes, FSD is more flexible and can also drive reasonably well on city streets, but there is a reason why it is not certified for level 3 on motorways. It would most likely fail certification. With a level 3 system, I can take my eyes off the road and watch a movie. Doing that with FSD, even in the best conditions, is suicidal. Level 3 vehicles must have an extremely low failure rate. Any crash would quickly be picked up by the media.

FSD is a versatile level 2 system, but at best a prototype for level 3. If we are talking about prototypes, it has to be compared to prototypes from other manufacturers like this <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uSph0asNsk> fully autonomous system from ... 11 years ago. The reason FSD is available to the average consumer is mostly a matter of philosophy, not technology.

> With a level 3 system, I can take my eyes off the road and watch a movie. Doing that with FSD, even in the best conditions, is suicidal.

That is hyperbole at best. I've test driven a Tesla with FSD and it worked flawlessly, such that I would have been perfectly safe taking my eyes off the road. Of course one test drive is not sufficient data to say one should trust the system all the time, but you are making the claim that it is never trustworthy which isn't true.

Oh, it's 100% trustworthy until it suddenly isn't.

I have driven a number of level 2 cars on the motorway and almost all of them can do extended zero-intervention driving, but that does not make them safe. The failure rate compared to humans is still sky high.

Multiple independent FSD tests have shown that you need to take over several times an hour to avoid dangerous or illegal situations <https://electrek.co/2024/09/26/tesla-full-self-driving-third...>. The number will be lower on a motorway and you will sometimes have time to correct even if you are not looking, but the number of failures is still significant. If you take your eyes off the road, it is only a matter of time before you end up in a ditch.

I stand by my statement. The system is _never_ trustworthy enough to take your eyes off the road.

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