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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

#721
post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is a self driving car, it is so clearly the future, I wish it existed now, it is going to be awesome (in my opinion)." Even now, several years into the current news/development arc of self-driving cars, I still can't believe this is going to be the future. We're really never going to european (or japanese) style train networks ? We're really going to keep binging on roads ? We, as a nation of fat slobs [1] are re…

train networks and subways are significantly more expensive to build, operate and maintain, even electrified ones. Roads + autonomous electric cars are hard to beat in terms of efficiency, utility and ease of operation.

Efficiency of what though?

Space? Roads take up way more space than tracks.

Efficiency of cost? Roads are very expensive. Often more expensive per passenger mile than railroads.

Efficiency of energy use? Moving a 2000kg electric car around for 1 person is never going to be efficient.

Efficiency of through-put? Roads even with autonomous cars will never have the throughput of a train-line.

Also I think you significantly underestimate the cost of road building and maintenance.

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

#722
post #700
post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an area where it's easy to be too credulous. If you want "iPhone 1 of self-driving cars", Google has been tooling around in them for a while now. They do a great job under ideal conditions, on a sunny day. The future already happened! It simply isn't enough to post a video of a car driving in light traffic on a beautiful, California afternoon. That isn't what makes the problem hard. Mess up with your video-ba…

This isn't web development. You don't risk lives with your beta release First: Why do you always need to assume web dev is stupid. Or less impactful. Imagine a bank website showing 10,000 less in your account. I myself paid several customers a penalty/reimbursement, when because of our website, they suffered. And I am sure there are websites/apps which are more critical. Second: You are assuming, they have done a hal…

Well, for starters, the only thing Tesla has "released" here is a video. So there's that. I don't know if they hurried the release of the video. The real product launch is the sensor suite...and those haven't shipped in any quantity, yet.

As for AI, there's no magical "algo" that solves the problem of an all-black video frame. Having more black video frames than anyone else doesn't exactly solve that problem. See also: rain, snow and fog.

But finally, nobody said that web developers are stupid. Calm down. But it's completely fair to note that, however much money you lose for your customers with half-baked beta releases, you're still not killing them. The stakes are higher here. The expectations of proof are higher as well.

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

#723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strategy Musk has clearly been using for a long time now with this is to put as much hardware and software into the field as possible, often even without the customers knowing it's there, and gathering vast amounts of data from it, and gradually forcing it into widespread availability and acceptance, all while letting the system learn and improve itself, which is a necessary step. He's doing what he does best: fo…

It's an extremely bold commitment on Tesla's part. The available details are a bit ambiguous, but it appears they're putting $8k worth of hardware into every new car though Tesla owners need only pay for it if they want it enabled. All this in spite of tremendous uncertainty not just with regards to the regulatory environment but to the not yet fully developed capabilities of their own software.

There's no way it's $8k of hardware. The hardware is pretty simple, it's the r+d that's expensive

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

#724

Isn't this hackernews?? So many "but what if this and that and this..." & "and yeah let's see if it can handle X & Y" This is the iPhone 1 of self-driving cars! That's akin to saying Apple should have waited to release their phone until iPhone 7 "because of this & that & this..." Don't we have to start somewhere ?? Aren't there supposed to be a big user base here who understands that it's an evolutionary process - we…

I laughed out loud when I googled "tsla" after watching the video and the top headline in the news section of the google results was "Analyst doubts the new move by Tesla Motors." Clicking on the article for humor's value, I continued to read: > However, Edmunds.com, Inc. analyst Jessica Caldwell questions the value of purchasing a self-driving car before regulations catch up. Caldwell said that, meanwhile, competito…

> It's just hilarious the contortions of logic people will go to in order to put Musk down.

It's probably because there is a substantial gap between what Musk spins, and reality.

Take Tesla 3 pre-orders, for instance. Tesla spins 400,000 pre-orders for a car that you might not receive in the next three years as the most amazing innovation in automobile manufacturing.

Historically, there have been a few other companies that had hundreds of thousands of pre-orders, where you would end up waiting years for your car to be built and delivered to you. Their names were Lada, Volga, etc. Soviet auto companies had the exact same problem Tesla has - inability to meet demand.

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

#726
post #621

Isn't this hackernews?? So many "but what if this and that and this..." & "and yeah let's see if it can handle X & Y" This is the iPhone 1 of self-driving cars! That's akin to saying Apple should have waited to release their phone until iPhone 7 "because of this & that & this..." Don't we have to start somewhere ?? Aren't there supposed to be a big user base here who understands that it's an evolutionary process - we…

This is an area where it's easy to be too credulous. If you want "iPhone 1 of self-driving cars", Google has been tooling around in them for a while now. They do a great job under ideal conditions, on a sunny day. The future already happened! It simply isn't enough to post a video of a car driving in light traffic on a beautiful, California afternoon. That isn't what makes the problem hard. Mess up with your video-ba…

Google's cars are not iPhone 1. They still just have a few dozen or a few hundred, who knows, and they have only been driving 2 million miles until now. They are not even for sale and will not be any time soon. Oor ever, if they don't market their own electric cars very soon or hook up with a car manufacturer.

Tesla can collect data from 5 billion miles of driving already one year after the Giga Factory is full operation, if production reaches the planned 500,000 in 2018 and each car drives 10,000 miles annually. And then the miles accumulate exponentially.

Here is my guess: After a few million miles of shadow driving, i.e. a few weeks after the first few thousand new Teslas have been sold, Tesla is likely ready for the real thing under perfect driving conditions like those Google experiences in California. So Tesla is going to open for the self driving capabilities in such geographic areas during the day when weather is nice.

After a few hundred million miles of shadow driving, i.e. within half a year or so when Tesla has marketed 1-200,000 cars that have driven for a couple of months, Tesla will have collected enough data to drive in more difficult traffic conditions, like other American urban areas.

After a billion miles, around a year after Tesla has gotten the Giga Factory up in full speed and the first 2-300,000 cars have been on the streets for half a year, Tesla is probably ready for certain bad weather conditions, like rain, light snow, light fog, and for driving in the dark.

Give it another few billion miles, so still before 2020, and the streets of Istanbul or the snowy roads of Nebraska have been tamed.

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

#727
post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is a self driving car, it is so clearly the future, I wish it existed now, it is going to be awesome (in my opinion)." Even now, several years into the current news/development arc of self-driving cars, I still can't believe this is going to be the future. We're really never going to european (or japanese) style train networks ? We're really going to keep binging on roads ? We, as a nation of fat slobs [1] are re…

The math in the following image is not going to change regardless who is driving the car. If you want to have a city, you need to have public transport. If you want to have a suburban sprawl, that's another story. http://www.boredpanda.com/space-required-to-transport-60-peo...

the math changes because the autonomous cars become the public transport. all the cars on the left aren't necessary because they wont sit in a lot all day, they will continue to drive and deliver passengers all day. it creates an option of a private form of public transportation, something that only sort of 'half' exists with uber, since you obviously still have the human driver factor (who requires pay, health insurance, hours off, can be drunk on the job, etc) which makes costs/prices go up. If you can automate the driver, rates fall drastically. if you can make the cars electric, you help the planet. it all works nicely together if everything plays out right.

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

#728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look forward to having to insert and remove three car seats for every short trip... EDIT: By 'car seat' I mean a seat for an infant/toddler/child.

Maybe the cars will be safe enough we can get rid of those restrictive laws.

It's not just about safety - a car seat is not ergonomically designed to accommodate a toddler.

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

#729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strategy Musk has clearly been using for a long time now with this is to put as much hardware and software into the field as possible, often even without the customers knowing it's there, and gathering vast amounts of data from it, and gradually forcing it into widespread availability and acceptance, all while letting the system learn and improve itself, which is a necessary step. He's doing what he does best: fo…

I'm not disagreeing with you. I like the move; I think it's smart. But saying it's an "autonomous car" because it has the sensors and computers just isn't so. When it gets the software, then it's an "autonomous car." To use GPs analogy to the iPhone1: If Apple had just shipped the hardware without iOS, it wouldn't have been the iPhone.

I don't think the iPhone had iOS 10 ;). Apple is a pretty good analogy for what Tesla's HW/SW plans seems to be. "Reasonable" backwards software support (at least compared to the otherwise "none") while iterating hardware.

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

#730
post #545

I feel like this video would have been even more awesome if Elon himself had been the passenger!

How so?

I suppose it was to show how much he believes in his own product, if he demonstrates that he trusts it to drive him around safely. When you see an "inventor" testing their own product it is usually good press. Given, I realize he is not the "inventor" per se (more of the "enabler"?), but still it is a show of good faith in one's own product.

Not because of hero worship.

I can't say I've ever seen a video of Elon riding in a self driving Tesla before, seems like it would be very tangible proof how much he trusts the autopilot.

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