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Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#181

Post by snoshy »

mxschumacher wrote: post #54
rcxdude wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience of how Tesla is viewed in the autonomous car industry. No-one thinks they are a serious contender when it comes to a driverless vehicle (and their business model basically doesn't match with the technology either: every other company is basically going to operate a taxi service because there's far more value to be captured and it can help pay for the hardware making driverless possible)

it's interesting how optimistic long term visions conflict - if you really think autonomous cabs will become widespread then by implication you are also saying that car sales will be drastically lower. Tough to be serious betting on both. The math of "you'll pay more for the car but the car will go out and make money for you as a robotic Uber" sounds like a pyramid scheme to me; if too many people do it, it can no lo…

I disagree, largely because you've cherry-picked parts of the overall strategy. The world is obviously not going to go from purely human driven to 100% autonomous overnight. There will be an intermediate phase where initially some few cars will be autonomous and privately owned, and for those owners making use of the car's full lifetime to serve as a taxi would be a no-brainer. It could pay off your (very expensive) Tesla in the matter of a year or two.

After the market for on-demand autonomous taxis is oversaturated, Tesla's plan is actually to stop selling vehicles altogether, or reduce it drastically. Musk has said that FSD vehicles will likely not be for sale after this point, so the "consumer-operated robotaxi" is inherently an intermediate solution.

Vehicle ownership will drastically change in nature after the advent of AVs. Tesla isn't going to be unique to having to adapt to this.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#182

Post by sorenjan »

ra7 wrote: post #26

I think the FSD beta rollout is completely irresponsible from Tesla. Rolling out a clearly half-baked safety critical technology to its customers (yes, I know it's only a few beta testers) who are untrained is nothing but a tactic to generate hype and get more customers to buy that $10k FSD package. This is on top of Tesla being the least transparent company out there in reporting safety data or their testing methodo…

I don't understand why it's legal. How can it be allowed to send out uncertified software to cars on public roads? Aren't there safety standards that need to be met? I thought that safety critical products where better regulated than this.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#183

Post by ardit33 »

pb7 wrote: post #179
xirbeosbwo1234 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't create that image on his own. He had a lot of help. He had a cameo in Iron Man 2 where Iron Man treated him as a peer! (That scene, by the way, is a perfect example of why I hate superhero movies.)

RDJ’s portrayal of Iron Man is partially based off Elon Musk, not the other way around. Edit: Since I’m being downvoted, here you go, today you learned: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/true-story-elon-musk-robert-d...

and Larry Ellison, Elon Musk was still too young on the scene in 2008, and not the celebrity he is today.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#184

Post by freewilly1040 »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #164
speedgoose wrote: post #18

Tesla is quite far from full self driving. They have too much phantom breaking on the simple adaptive cruise control in good conditions.

According to Elon, phantom braking was fixed in October: https://twitter.com/EVHQ2/status/1314287584105779200 .

“It should be”.... not exactly the lost reassuring response on a common failure mode of a safety critical system

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#185

Post by strangeattractr »

TheDong wrote: post #161
mxschumacher wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, making autonomous driving work in central Delhi or Agadir will be much different from a US highway. Maybe it's too cyberpunk, but I can already see the headline of road pirates capturing autonomous cars and taking them apart for spares. Those sensors, the GPU and computing units are quite valuable.

Your impression of Delhi and Agadir doesn't seem right to me. By the numbers, Delhi has the highest crime-rate in india, but it has a 5 times lower rate of crime than San Francisco does. And also, self-driving cars will all have enough cameras and be constantly connected to a server that theft will be far less likely for them than regular cars... and regular calls already seem to get by just fine without people strip…

Unreported crimes aren't factored into the stats you quote.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#186

Post by minwcnt5 »

jiofih wrote: post #140
raldi wrote: post #14

He seems so obviously correct that I can’t fathom how any engineer could see things otherwise.

Humans, surprisingly, don’t have LiDar, yet they can drive.

Humans have general intelligence and understand what their eyes are perceiving at a far deeper level than any CV system.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#187

Post by [deleted] »

mrtksn wrote: post #23
granzymes wrote: post #3

drivers came to trust it way too quickly. Drivers who were supposed to be closely monitoring the system instead spent their time looking at their phones, putting on makeup, and other distractions. Really hope no one dies because of Tesla's autopilot. This is a real risk. Quoting from below: if the car does it right 99% of the time it's just human nature to stop paying attention. The article makes a great point that s…

People die all the time, there are even higher profile cases like the Apple Engineer who slammed in the barriers at full speed: https://www.kqed.org/news/11801138/apple-engineer-killed-in-... There are some spectacular failures that are very scary because the car does something that a person would never do, unless unconscious, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmAG4dk-rU You don't hear much about it pro…

[deleted]

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#188

Post by Animats »

snoshy wrote: post #175
Animats wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Check out this one.[1] Watch the display for what it sees and isn't seeing. Awareness of oncoming traffic is almost nonexistent. Except when the FedEx truck is reflected in some windows; then it detects the reflection as a vehicle. Although the streets are almost empty, the driver takes over frequently. This is way below what Waymo and Cruise can do. [1] https://youtu.be/6G1Z2J3WUSg?t=231

Is this really all that important? There are 3 other cars ahead of the Tesla at this red light intersection. If you're able to react within tens or hundreds of milliseconds to a changing environment, it would actually make sense to reduce compute to save power for when the vehicle is in motion and not surrounded by other vehicles at a stop light. Edit: It seemed to handle that intersection just fine, but a couple of…

Here's an hour of a Cruise vehicle driving in San Francisco.[1] Watch it deal with a trash bag that fell out of a dumpster, a left turn across heavy opposing traffic, double-parked cars, cars pulling out of parking spaces, a FedEx truck changing lanes across their path... Makes Tesla look like amateur hour.

[1] https://youtu.be/EZ75QoAymug?t=122

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#189

Post by scythe »

justapassenger wrote: post #60
ra7 wrote: post #26

I think the FSD beta rollout is completely irresponsible from Tesla. Rolling out a clearly half-baked safety critical technology to its customers (yes, I know it's only a few beta testers) who are untrained is nothing but a tactic to generate hype and get more customers to buy that $10k FSD package. This is on top of Tesla being the least transparent company out there in reporting safety data or their testing methodo…

FSD rollout is purely driven by Elon’s ego. He’s addicted to fame and power, and that comes from image he created of himself being an Iron Man. I’m pretty sure he got to a point where he believes in it, and thinks he’s invincible and can solve any problem, because he’s so much smarter than everyone. Stock bubble making wealthiest man only helped to solidify that.

I don't think FSD rollout is the central goal. The goal is to build hype and thus market cap that Tesla can use to build factories. Ten years ago, Tesla had no factories (at high capacity). They've had absolutely ridiculous velocity since then precisely because of their ridiculous valuation. Even if this FSD thing doesn't work out, it might have been necessary for Tesla to get this far. If Tesla's stock crashes, they still have the factories. All they need is to make sure nobody can prove Elon knows he's full of it (securities fraud). His Twitter persona suits this strategy to a T.
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