Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#61

Post by toss1 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

>>Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology may be a failure, Tesla lawyers admit — but it’s not a fraud.

But it IS a fraud when you state or imply that it is usable with capabilities X, Y, and Z, and it actually is not.

Merely calling it "Full Self Driving" is a very clear statement that the damn thing will drive itself, and do so fully.

1st DDG Definition: Full: "2. Complete in every particular."

So, if is supposed to drive itself. Moreover, Tesla & Musk claim this capability is complete in every particular, as in it does it itself, not requiring me to add any capability.

This FSD claim has been going on since like 2014, with "autopilot Hardware 2.0" shipping when Barack Obama was still president [0].

Yet we still have nothing resembling actual "Full Self Driving" - which would be get in the car, tell it where to go, and get there without touching any controls or worrying about errors.

It'd be one thing if it was promised last year and it was not quite here yet.

But this is closer to a decade and FSD is NOWHERE CLOSE to this capability. This is one of the biggest vaporware scams ever.

[0] https://insideevs.com/news/443886/tesla-autopilot-evolution-...

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#62

Post by bagels » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #55

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #14

I've owned Tesla's since 2016. At no time did I base my purchases on what the cars might be able to do in the future, only what they can do right now. Nor did I see any compelling reason to donate $10k - $15k to their R&D effort. The cars were compelling enough on their own merits and remain so. The FSD fiasco really does a disservice to what is otherwise a revolutionary car company producing excellent automobiles.

How is Tesla revolutionary? We had electric cars (on Moon!!) in 1969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle

The Tesla is slightly more comfortable, convenient, and I don't have to commission a whole Apollo program to get one.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#63

Post by sn41 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #24

fbdab103 wrote: post #20

If only Madoff had tried this trick. He did not commit fraud against investors - he had really hoped to make them that much money, but he failed to do it.

I think SBF is about to demonstrate for the world whether that strategy works.

Hey, as long as you're embarrassed, it should be fine. /s

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#64

Post by fbdab103 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #10

sudhirj wrote: post #3

Saying you want to climb Mount Everest and not being able to get all the way to the top is failure, not fraud. The fact that Musk charged people to watch muddies the waters a bit, though.

Putting up a doctored video demonstrating FSD to me seems like a massive fraud.

I am not familiar with the referenced video, but I thought Nikola [0] was in hot water (ie real legal trouble) for their video of an electric truck coasting down a hill.

[0] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/315151-electric-vehicle-...

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#65

Post by cameldrv » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #2

It might be a plausible argument for stuff sold 6 years ago when the future was uncertain. But in 2022 I'm not seeing how it's plausible as an excuse. Considering it's still being sold and marketed as 'Full self driving'. Clearly even level 4 autonomy is far beyond what any near future technology is capable of. If at the very least due to the fact that a very commonly encountered condition, construction work, effecti…

What do you mean? Waymo and Cruise have already deployed level 4 vehicles.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#66

Post by throwaway1777 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #14

I've owned Tesla's since 2016. At no time did I base my purchases on what the cars might be able to do in the future, only what they can do right now. Nor did I see any compelling reason to donate $10k - $15k to their R&D effort. The cars were compelling enough on their own merits and remain so. The FSD fiasco really does a disservice to what is otherwise a revolutionary car company producing excellent automobiles.

Yeah excellent aside from the subpar build quality and horrible service. The ev tech is the main part of a Tesla that was revolutionary. Unfortunately this is all irrelevant to the self driving fraud perspective and the multitudes who bought cars or more important stock in the company based on future prospects that Tesla advertised.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#67

Post by ncr100 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #4

MichaelZuo wrote: post #2

It might be a plausible argument for stuff sold 6 years ago when the future was uncertain. But in 2022 I'm not seeing how it's plausible as an excuse. Considering it's still being sold and marketed as 'Full self driving'. Clearly even level 4 autonomy is far beyond what any near future technology is capable of. If at the very least due to the fact that a very commonly encountered condition, construction work, effecti…

Pretend you don’t know anything about the different levels. You’re just a random person looking to buy a car. What does “full self driving” sound like to you?

I feel our government should regulate this kind of speech more aggressively, to boost the safety of the public.

Announcing a capability, and importantly MUSK acting as a widely-recognized public figure like it's ready - shaming every other fledgling competitor, before it's ready, is amounting to GASLIGHTING.

A speculate this is what we should expect from the company-owner's notable, controversial personality type.

Immediately upon receiving "Full Self Driving Beta", in the 201x's, some Tesla drivers CRASHED because they turned ON the lane-keep-assist and then left the car to do the driving .. straight into the back of a stopped truck, or a split open lane-divider, and died.

To reiterate, this mis-leadership has resulted in death.

I suspect that CEO personality-type is a salient factor in whether a company should be allowed to operate. Should we stop this .. should we prevent actual Companies operating? Not just a group of hobbyists but tax-paying, licensed, employing companies. It is OUR government. We can stop this predictable travesty of gaslighting -> good-faith belief -> bad outcomes.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#68

Post by steve_adams_86 » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #40

MichaelZuo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would sound like it could handle all commonly occurring road conditions. Such as rain, fog, snow, construction work, tunnels, bridges, downtown intersections, bike lanes, etc... I wouldn't expect it to handle rare phenomena such as hurricanes, hail storms, a collapsed bridge, etc...

Tesla FSD can barely handle a balmy 70 degree day, so I think you'd be disappointed. I might biased because I work on actual self-driving efforts, but nothing at all about Tesla has ever indicated they were serious about solving self driving in any capacity. The day that Elon proclaimed they already had the sensor suite decided was the day that they openly admitted this was fraud.

My opinion doesn’t matter, but your last point resonates with me because this struck me as totally bizarre too.

I don’t work in sensing let alone using AI with sensing data, but I’m around it a lot and my second-hand knowledge kind of set off some red flags.

In remote sensing for landscape architecture, hydrography, and other similar fields (making sense of static things where no one is at risk of dying immediately, and humans review the data), the care and knowledge that goes into choosing sensor suites and processing the data properly is huge. Yet Tesla comes out saying “we’ve got some mediocre cameras and we’re gonna run with it!”

Seriously? What? I get that it’s a lot of cameras but making sense of 3d space isn’t trivial at all. It’s so bizarre.

Again, I know nothing, they know more than I do. The whole thing just doesn’t sit right.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#69

Post by ghaff » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

jvm___ wrote: post #39

rootusrootus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time I touch the controls on the car is to input the address I want to be driven to.

And you can use it like a taxi service and send a non-driving human as a passenger. Or no passenger and just send it to an address to retrieve or deliver a package.

It's probably reasonable to expect that there are some asterisks like paved roads only and can't drive in literally all weather conditions. But, yeah, no human supervision needed.

Re: Tesla calls self-driving technology 'failure,' not fraud

#70

Post by alsodumb » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #55

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #14

I've owned Tesla's since 2016. At no time did I base my purchases on what the cars might be able to do in the future, only what they can do right now. Nor did I see any compelling reason to donate $10k - $15k to their R&D effort. The cars were compelling enough on their own merits and remain so. The FSD fiasco really does a disservice to what is otherwise a revolutionary car company producing excellent automobiles.

How is Tesla revolutionary? We had electric cars (on Moon!!) in 1969 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Roving_Vehicle

We had social media before Facebook/instagram era too. Heck we had electric cars before gasoline powered cars became a thing.

I think it’s obvious at this point that Tesla was the first to bring commercial electric vehicles in production at scale, and the first to make it compete with ICE vehicles for the masses - well beyond the niche who’ve been using an electric car since Leaf era.