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All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

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Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#331

I get that tech companies want self-driving cars really bad because they smell billions of dollars in "disruption" but no matter how good AI gets, I have a suspicion it won't actually do better than a decent human driver can do. It's not about processing speed, it's about experience and reflexes, which granted, not everyone has. Let's see a self-driving car win a Formula 1 race--and even that controlled racetrack env…

> it's about experience and reflexes

Experience is hard.

But computers can have reflexes that are enormously better than any human.

And reflexes are a huge part of safe driving.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#332
post #313
post #91

I think what people are missing here is an understanding of how these systems are tested and deployed at scale. While I have no involvement with Tesla I do have first-hand knowledge of similar programs at tier 1 automotive suppliers. The suppliers provide (or are looking to provide) an electronics suite to car manufacturers. The car manufacturers want the system to be safe lest they be sued out of existence. One part…

All miles are not created equals though. Sure Tesla will gather a lot of data quickly but most of this data will be from people who use their car for their daily commute, everyday at roughly the same hour. This doesn't have the same value as data from different areas/road conditions/time of day

The USA is a big country with a lot of variety though. Different timezones, climates, terrain. It does provide some coverage I would think.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#333
post #99

More cameras. Better sonars (very short range). Better radar processing, but apparently the same old single radar at bumper height. Still no windshield-height radar. No radar scanning in elevation. No LIDAR. That's a better, but still weak sensor suite. It's probably enough for freeway driving under good conditions. It's far below Google's sensor suite. Or Volvo's. Now they just have to write software smart enough to…

> It's probably enough for freeway driving under good conditions.

It might rule out driving in fog or snow, but if the weather is OK then the sensor suite is probably enough for driving on any paved road.

I think you are underestimating how quickly Tesla's AI software can improve. The AI will always be running and checking to see if the driver does anything unexpected. For example if you brake or swerve suddenly when the AI did not expect you to do so, all the sensor data and state of the AI will be sent back to Tesla headquarters. Tesla will amass millions of these 'significant events' and be able to back-test updates to their AI logic against every single event. It will be test-driven development on steroids, allowing rapid software improvement while maintaining high quality.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans manage with only two cameras.

Actually we also have very sophisticated direction finding sound processing, and tactile sensors on the wheel and seat plus proprioceptors (a trade secret that no at tesla has been able to reproduce). This allows for e.g. driving over snow and being able to process the sound of the snow as it is driven over as a hint to the rest of the driving system.

You are giving humans way too much credit.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#335
Hardware performance is not a problem for Level 5 autonomy - the software is. If Tesla insists on deploying full self-driving capability in the next couple of years, they will be litigated out of existence. We are a few decades away from autopilot to "understand" what it is doing. Right now it is just parroting the most common scenarios. This may be as good or slightly better than the average driver, but it still will result in many deaths, if deployed in hundreds of thousands of cars. Unless Tesla somehow shields itself from legal liability, it will be sued to oblivion.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#336
post #99

More cameras. Better sonars (very short range). Better radar processing, but apparently the same old single radar at bumper height. Still no windshield-height radar. No radar scanning in elevation. No LIDAR. That's a better, but still weak sensor suite. It's probably enough for freeway driving under good conditions. It's far below Google's sensor suite. Or Volvo's. Now they just have to write software smart enough to…

Humans manage with only two cameras.

Yeah, but our cameras have adaptive resolution, a large field of view, very good dynamic range + low-light performance, multi-axis control, and they are tightly integrated with a sophisticated processing system.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#337
post #91

I think what people are missing here is an understanding of how these systems are tested and deployed at scale. While I have no involvement with Tesla I do have first-hand knowledge of similar programs at tier 1 automotive suppliers. The suppliers provide (or are looking to provide) an electronics suite to car manufacturers. The car manufacturers want the system to be safe lest they be sued out of existence. One part…

The only problem is, Tesla's sensor suite is too weak to ever get to full autonomy. So once they upgrade the sensors, what good is the data from the old sensors? Perhaps it's possible to extrapolate the data somehow, to have a database of "situations" rather than actual sensor data?

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#338
post #91

I think what people are missing here is an understanding of how these systems are tested and deployed at scale. While I have no involvement with Tesla I do have first-hand knowledge of similar programs at tier 1 automotive suppliers. The suppliers provide (or are looking to provide) an electronics suite to car manufacturers. The car manufacturers want the system to be safe lest they be sued out of existence. One part…

The only problem is, Tesla's sensor suite is too weak to ever get to full autonomy. So once they upgrade the sensors, what good is the data from the old sensors? Perhaps it's possible to extrapolate the data somehow, to have a database of "situations" rather than actual sensor data?

Your sensor suite is two cameras below the level of the rear view mirror and two microphones.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#339

Hardware performance is not a problem for Level 5 autonomy - the software is. If Tesla insists on deploying full self-driving capability in the next couple of years, they will be litigated out of existence. We are a few decades away from autopilot to "understand" what it is doing. Right now it is just parroting the most common scenarios. This may be as good or slightly better than the average driver, but it still wil…

I don't think so. It's not hard to make an algorithm that drives slower/extra careful when facing unusual circumstances. It's the same thing human drivers do btw.

Re: All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, Tesla acts like it owns that data. Their privacy policy permits them to monitor your vehicle unless you opt out. But there's no reason you can't download that data yourself, if you can figure out how to do so. Does anybody make an antenna-level middle box for GSM phones? Something you hook into the antenna cable as a firewall/monitor?

Does this mean that Tesla owners could band together and sell all this massively valuable data to Google?

It's data from a completely different sensor suite than Google uses so might not be as useful to them, but I don't see why not.
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