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Comment by pants2 | Hacker News Reader

Comma is going to be popular with the Tesla refugees who miss the autonomous capabilities.

Note for anyone from Comma reading this: I bought a car recently and limited my search to only Comma-well-supported models. None of the sales people at any dealership I went to had heard of Comma, and this was in San Diego (Comma's HQ).

Every sales rep that I mentioned the Comma to said "awesome, I'm going to tell everyone about that!"

If you want to sell more Commas, start giving demos at dealerships, and you'll soon have every Hyundai and Toyota car salesman in the US selling Commas for you.

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> Every sales rep that I mentioned the Comma to said "awesome, I'm going to tell everyone about that!"

What's the realistic chances that the salesperson said this as a method to gain trust with the buyer to try and get a sale in the end?

Was going to comment exactly this - funny that it's a literal car salesman.

Around 100%

Is there anything a car salesman won't say to get a sale?

Is the dealership going to take on the liability of the unit malfunctioning and crashing the car/injuring a rider? The obvious answer is no, and so you aren't going to see stuff like this on dealers' shelves anytime soon.

To be fair, without the baggage of tesla's ...overzealous... marketing, I think it will be possible for the dealers to pitch for it and yet deliver the message that it's "alpha" and risky.

And why exactly would they do that?

"Hey you should buy this aftermarket autopilot system along with the car. No it isn't sold by Toyota. It's some small company you haven't heard of. No there's no warranty. Nope no safety data. You have to accept all liability for use. Yeah it might kill you and your kids. But hey, you get to be an alpha tester!"

99% of customers are going to walk out of the dealership after hearing that pitch.

Well, if they are going to present it that uncharitably then yes, people would walk out. Cars with basic ADAS have been selling just fine, and their ".* assist" features have been sold by dealerships just fine. This just slots into the same category. "Manages your steering on long straight stretches of highways" is not a hard thing to convey.

What you said would be the case if they had the baggage of "full self driving" marketing over 10 years.

You mean present it non-deceptively without exaggerating to the detriment of the user.

What would the developers tell their partners or friends in confidence? Are their claims in confidence supported by evidence that they made efforts to validate in proportion to the magnitude of their claims? Does that differ from what they say commercially? If so, then they are communicating deceptively to further their monetary interests.

That is not to say that other manufacturers are not communicating deceptively all the time as well, but complaining about truthful statements because they do not exaggerate to the detriment of the user for the monetary benefit of the manufacturer is silly.

Yeah, they’d walk out because that’s a bad-faith example of a pitch.

A good sales person would talk about any self-driving feature built in (eg lane following) then mention the car is compatible with third-party self-driving products like Comma.ai.

Just like how they talk about brakes, wheels, exhaust on sports cars - all areas customers may mod after purchase.

That's a more realistic and reasonable way for the mention to unfold, but it's still not going to happen. The dealer is (usually) the party servicing the car's warranty, and they will definitely not appreciate or want to support this type of modification when a car is brought in.

> then mention the car is compatible with third-party self-driving products like Comma.ai

What's in it for the sales person or the dealership?

Isn't the pitch for Tesla FSD quite similar? You still have to accept all the liability, and take over if software cannot handle it or tries to do the wrong thing.

Why would the dealership take the liability of the unit?! Do you realize that they don't even take the liability of the car itself? (the manufacturer does)

Do they take the liability for Toyota when they crash? I doubt it.

If the user paid attention and it's a software issue that caused the crash, i don't see why not

I also misread the comment at first, they're referring to the dealer taking liability, rather than Toyota or Comma.

None of the above will accept liability, though, and that's what makes this a risky situation for potential users. Someone in another thread even suggested that an insurance company could refuse to pay a liability claim due to someone modifying their car this way, and that is equally terrifying given that no autonomous system yet invented is remotely close to Level 4.

If a human becomes distracted for a moment and causes a wreck, that's a risk that's currently well-handled by insurance, even if it happens every 20,000 miles the person can still be insurable. If by contrast they install this, even if it does a much better job for 25,000 miles, then wrecks, if they could be personally sued for someone's 7-figure dollar medical bills + pain and suffering (not an exaggeration for sure), that's a big problem.

No, it won't be. First of all, it's nowhere near as good as the latest versions of FSD. Second of all, there are more and more alternatives to Tesla EVs every month it seems.

Serious question because I am interested: why do you say it is nowhere near as good as the latest FSD?

We still see movies of the latest FSD crashing into stationary objects. So I wonder how Comma compares to other camera-only-systems.

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