Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 163 posts

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#21

Post by eganist »

andrelayer wrote: post #6
gadnuk wrote: post #2

As they should, from all agencies involved. It is absolutely horrifying to see Tesla do this open beta test on public roads when no other non-Tesla entities (other cars, pedestrians, motorcyclists, bicyclists, etc) consented to being a part of a reckless experiment. Moreover, Tesla influencers on social media tend to cherry pick and show only the nicer parts of their FSD Beta drives where no incidents and disengageme…

There is the argument that they are already safer than human drivers though and it'd be morally objectionable to stop. Not saying I'm completely on that side, but it is a valid utilitarian argument.

If this argument holds consistently with every subset of cases, possibly. But for certain edge cases, humans still consistently outperform Tesla fsd (white trucks against the sun, for example) [citation needed], which means in certain scenarios that cannot be foreseen, the risk to the non consenting public is higher than with the average driver.

Ergo there's a predictable and preventable source of accidents that must be suppressed.

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#22

Post by staunch »

I'm a big fan of Tesla but I'm fairly certain that, at some point, they're going to voluntarily refund everyone the money they paid for self-driving. And, at some later point, they will probably make self-driving work but on a future generation of HW/SW.

Genuine question: if this happens, will it kill Tesla to refund all of this money? I don't pay close enough attention to their financials to know myself. I assume (and hope) not.

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#23

Post by thinkmassive »

Note that there are two “FSD Beta” programs:

1. The paid software unlock for “Full Self Driving” (currently in “beta”) available to everyone, which provides automatic driving from on-ramp to off-ramp, and a handful of parking features like auto-park and summon: https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot#usingautopilot

2. The invite-only “FSD Beta” that unlocks the above FSD features on city streets, which is available to a subset of customers w/#1 who have very high Tesla Safety Scores.

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#24

Post by kadoban »

mcot2 wrote: post #10
gadnuk wrote: post #2

As they should, from all agencies involved. It is absolutely horrifying to see Tesla do this open beta test on public roads when no other non-Tesla entities (other cars, pedestrians, motorcyclists, bicyclists, etc) consented to being a part of a reckless experiment. Moreover, Tesla influencers on social media tend to cherry pick and show only the nicer parts of their FSD Beta drives where no incidents and disengageme…

As someone who is actively participating in the beta you couldn’t be more off base in your assertions. It sucks to see progress stifled by people that have no idea what they are talking about. With the thousands of people actively using the FSD Beta safely, show me significant evidence of an increased level of accidents that have occured. You can’t because the evidence does not exist.

"the evidence does not exist" because it's not true or because Tesla is hiding it? We should know which, and these legislators asking questions seems to be a good start towards getting answers.

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#25

Post by triska »

andrelayer wrote: post #6
gadnuk wrote: post #2

As they should, from all agencies involved. It is absolutely horrifying to see Tesla do this open beta test on public roads when no other non-Tesla entities (other cars, pedestrians, motorcyclists, bicyclists, etc) consented to being a part of a reckless experiment. Moreover, Tesla influencers on social media tend to cherry pick and show only the nicer parts of their FSD Beta drives where no incidents and disengageme…

There is the argument that they are already safer than human drivers though and it'd be morally objectionable to stop. Not saying I'm completely on that side, but it is a valid utilitarian argument.

This argument seems not fully thought through: First, "already" makes it appear that this property is monotonically increasing, i.e., that they will stay safer from now on, even if more people use this feature. From what we see in the video, it seems this cannot be concluded: If this technology is used in more vehicles, it would appear that also the rate of accidents may increase, possibly rendering it less safe in total. We do not know how many accidents were avoided because other drivers prevented them. Second, the types of accidents will likely also change, in a way that in total could make the technology less safe. Third, what if the drivers are not fully alert all the time, as they appear in this video, to quickly take over when the technology fails in such colossal ways as we see in the video, does it still remain safer?

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#26

Post by catillac »

gadnuk wrote: post #2

As they should, from all agencies involved. It is absolutely horrifying to see Tesla do this open beta test on public roads when no other non-Tesla entities (other cars, pedestrians, motorcyclists, bicyclists, etc) consented to being a part of a reckless experiment. Moreover, Tesla influencers on social media tend to cherry pick and show only the nicer parts of their FSD Beta drives where no incidents and disengageme…

The Tesla influencers — the explicit and implicit ones — have really soured me on the brand. I have driven in the original Tesla, loved the model S, owned a model Z, and had a cybertruck on order for a while (and intended to follow through with the purchase). I am a big Tesla fan, but the constant stream from the influencers rings like the “no matter what, this event is good for crypto” people. No matter what, Tesla acolytes jump in and only show the good things and rail against anything bad. I have cancelled my cybertruck order partially because of this behavior, Elons behavior, and in no small part because I saw a Rivian on the road the other day!

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#27

Post by mcot2 »

dbsmith83 wrote: post #13

> ...cited the apparent poor performance of what Tesla calls Full Self-Driving beta, a $10,000 option that gives owners advanced automated driving features and allows them to test cutting-edge autonomous technologies on public roads. (Beta is a software term that describes a product not quite ready for general sale to the public.) Wait, does this mean people are actually paying extra money to become test dummies for…

Edited to remove snarky reply of:

“No, you should do some basic research first.”

The FSD beta is no additional cost over the (currently) $10,000 package that adds additional AP capabilities and hardware upgrades. My computer was already upgraded for example.

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#28

Post by option »

kadoban wrote: post #18
lanevorockz wrote: post #8

No wonder Tesla is leaving California, over and over again you see corruption and government control taking over inovation.

Shouldn't the government ask why a "beta" software that's being sold as "full self driving" is operating with seemingly no oversight?

while using it you are required to be fully in attention, keep your hands on the steering wheel and ready to take control at any time. What is not clear about that?

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#29

Post by javajosh »

mcot2 wrote: post #27
dbsmith83 wrote: post #13

> ...cited the apparent poor performance of what Tesla calls Full Self-Driving beta, a $10,000 option that gives owners advanced automated driving features and allows them to test cutting-edge autonomous technologies on public roads. (Beta is a software term that describes a product not quite ready for general sale to the public.) Wait, does this mean people are actually paying extra money to become test dummies for…

Edited to remove snarky reply of: “No, you should do some basic research first.” The FSD beta is no additional cost over the (currently) $10,000 package that adds additional AP capabilities and hardware upgrades. My computer was already upgraded for example.

You, too! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

#30

Post by kadoban »

option wrote: post #28
kadoban wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't the government ask why a "beta" software that's being sold as "full self driving" is operating with seemingly no oversight?

while using it you are required to be fully in attention, keep your hands on the steering wheel and ready to take control at any time. What is not clear about that?

What's not clear is if that's good enough. I doubt it is.
Post reply on HN