Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#261

Post by wrs » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

RivieraKid wrote: post #253

krzkaczor wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I found interesting as well is that they (him and Elon) hated the idea of using high definition maps, saying that if you need them you don't do self-driving cars really. For example, when driving condition change (roadblock or anything) you're done.

If this is true, why do Waymo (or any of the top 10 self-driving companies besides Tesla) use Lidar? Two facts: 1. Tesla can't use Lidar because of cost and aesthetics. 2. Elon has a strong incentive to oversell their approach to self-driving.

From what I can see, overselling is Elon’s standard strategy for whatever technical approach he’s decided is the right one. (And I can’t really say that doesn’t work for him.)

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#262

Post by mrfusion » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #106

gambiting wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I don't want them to succeed because they are actively hostile towards 3rd party repairs and car modifications, plus their current model 3 microtransaction bullshit scares me as a customer, I'm dreading the moment other companies catch on with that. I'm specifically talking about the fact that the base model 3 ships with heated seats out of the factory but you can pay to have them unlocked with a software update.…

Personally speaking I would not want to share a road with an autonomous car that had been tinkered on by some random Joe. Autonomous farm vehicles or something, sure, but public roads are way too risky. This is not the desktop environment of your Linux laptop, it’s monstrously complex software controlling thousands of pounds of metal and batteries.

How about a random joe tinkering with his brakes? My redneck neighbors replace their own brake pads.

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#263

Post by cromwellian » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #185

gamblor956 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk is noted for his premature optimization. Case in point: both the Gigafactory (vastly overbuilt for the quantity of batteries actually produced) and the Alien Dreadnought (vastly overbuilt for the number of cars Tesla current produces...assuming that Tesla is ever able to get the fancy automation working). Boring Co digging a two-mile tunnel in West LA without bothering to learn how to pour concrete smoothly…

It's easier to optimize a working system than it is to get an optimized system working.

It's not easier to optimize a working system for consumers if "optimization" == "not dying". What will happen is you will deoptimize your brand's safety and find yourself regulated.

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#264

Post by ribosometronome » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:22 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #171

sairahul82 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any one is doing this. This is the point Karpathy is making. Vision is essential and needs to be perfect and also has all the information to recreate the 3d environment. That's why lidar is not required and is expensive.

lidar is not required and is expensive. Given that the only the company claiming that is the one whose cars sometimes hit (or even swerve into) clearly visible stationary concrete barriers in broad daylight [1, 2, 3, 4], I consider that claim far from proven. [1] 2019 https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/03/dashcam-video-shows-tes... [2] 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16772748 [3] 2017 https://bgr.com/2017/03…

Are there any other vehicles being driven autonomously at the same scale? It seems like it may be an unfair comparison.

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#265

Post by bogomipz » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

sairahul82 wrote: post #114

Karpathy's presentation is really good. Watch it later if you get some time. The key points are - Telsa is using fleet for learning (Fleet learning). This has 3 components, a. Trigger infrasture that collects the kind of data telsa is looking for training. The rational here is we don't need massive amounts of same kind of data but needs right kind of data for training neural networks correctly. b. Data Engine which l…

>"People drive vision only."

Can you elaborate on what you mean here? Do you mean that Tesla will only be using Computer Vision for autonomy? Doesn't or wouldn't Lidar compliment CV? Or is there a practical design consideration that makes them mutual exclusive?

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#266

Post by krzkaczor » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

RivieraKid wrote: post #253

krzkaczor wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I found interesting as well is that they (him and Elon) hated the idea of using high definition maps, saying that if you need them you don't do self-driving cars really. For example, when driving condition change (roadblock or anything) you're done.

If this is true, why do Waymo (or any of the top 10 self-driving companies besides Tesla) use Lidar? Two facts: 1. Tesla can't use Lidar because of cost and aesthetics. 2. Elon has a strong incentive to oversell their approach to self-driving.

As far as I understood HD maps are static data obtained by many various ways (not only lidar)[1]. AFAIR they claimed that Lidar itself provides some value (teaching neural networks how to measure the distance to various objects etc) but the gist is that image recognition is an absolute must-have for self-driving cars (which seems right to me).

1 - https://medium.com/@LyftLevel5/https-medium-com-lyftlevel5-r...

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#267

Post by opportune » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:25 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #184

Holy cow Elon said a lot of things that will drastically change the world in the next 2-3-5 years. I think it's very, very clear they've been doing a lot of stuff behind that scenes that nobody has given them credit for over these last 5 years. Everyone thought they were just throwing everything at the Model 3 ramp and doing nothing else, but it turns out the opposite is true. At the end Elon said autonomy is basical…

or he's setting overly optimistic timelines at usual. But I would love to get excited this easily

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#268

Post by grecy » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:25 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #208

grecy wrote: post #184

Holy cow Elon said a lot of things that will drastically change the world in the next 2-3-5 years. I think it's very, very clear they've been doing a lot of stuff behind that scenes that nobody has given them credit for over these last 5 years. Everyone thought they were just throwing everything at the Model 3 ramp and doing nothing else, but it turns out the opposite is true. At the end Elon said autonomy is basical…

None of what Elon said will change the world in the next 5 years... It's also pretty clear based on the selective presentation of data that they're even further behind Waymo than everyone thought. This was the time to actually prove that their ahead, and all they could give was more of Elon's hot air. At the end Elon said autonomy is basically their entire expense sheet! Must have missed that part, but if he actually…

> None of what Elon said will change the world in the next 5 years...

Oh come on! If even half of what he says comes true in the next five years the world will not be the same.

Entire car rated to 1 million miles (including the battery pack) with minimal servicing

Level five autonomy at the end of 2020. Remove steering wheels and pedals from cars a year after that.

After robo-fleet goes live Tesla will be "massively profitable"

Cars that today cost $38k will make $300k + in the next 11 years for their owners in the fleet

etc.

> Other companies are both capable of aiming high, planning, and succeeding

He mentioned that all their cars since 2016 have had redundant power steering, redundant wiring and even redundant power. Even if it loses the main power pack it can still steer and brake safely.

Give me ONE example of another auto manufacturer that has thought far enough ahead to design that kind of redundancy into their vehicles planning for self driving? It simply does not exist in the industry.

The man really is seeing the future and trying his best to make it happen.

Like I said there will be a huge debate about if he can actually do it.... I'm just saying that if he can it's going to be a very exciting time to be alive

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#269

Post by DuskStar » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:25 PM UTC

Traster wrote: post #138

gonehome wrote: post #88

Interesting pieces: - First principles hardware design of focused self driving computer (many times better than any competing existing hardware). Already shipping in all newly produced cars. Currently working on next gen that will be 3x better to ship in a couple years. - Lidar is an unnecessary mistake that competitors are making that won't succeed (too expensive, need too many, unnecessary). - Real world fleet test…

You missed the most glorious part of >Currently working on next gen that will be 3x better to ship in a couple years. Someone asked what the primary design objective of the next generation chip would be and the engineer muttered 'safety' before Musk made the 3x claim.

Eh, I'm pretty fine with that. Imagine the current gen slightly beats human drivers - also known as "revolutionary, but not perfect" - of course the next gen would focus on improving safety further.

Re: Tesla Live Stream – Autonomy Day [video]

#270

Post by RivieraKid » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

I watch Tesla fairly closely from both the bull and bear sides. In short, I don't believe Tesla is anywhere close to Waymo. They won't achieve FSD in 2020.

It's important to see this event in the context of their significant demand and cash problems. Even enthusiastic Tesla investors like Galileo Russell suggested that Tesla is in a cash crunch and should raise money. Which hints at the main mystery about Tesla, why haven't they raised money yet?

Take a moment and think about why are they doing this event now. Elon is setting a stage for a capital raise, he's pitching the autonomy narrative after the Model 3 cash cow narrative failed. They're trying to convince investors (and customers) to give them money because money-printing autonomous taxi service is coming next year.

Also, think about why basically everyone except Tesla uses Lidars. Is it because they're stupid or because Tesla cannot use Lidars even if they wanted to?

P.S.: Nvidia issued a statement saying that Tesla's claims about their chip are incorrect: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-says-tesla-inaccura...

Edit: In 2012, Waymo reached the milestone of handling 8 100-mile routes, specifically chosen to capture the full complexity of driving. I doubt Tesla is currently at that level. Source: https://events.technologyreview.com/video/watch/dmitri-dolgo...