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California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

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Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#81

Mainstream full self driving would just create massive traffic and gridlock - pointless in the end. The induced demand would outweigh the benefits. States are better off acknowledging that sprawling car dependent cities are not sustainable. High frequency busses in the interim with rail transit is the real solution. Current self driving technology plus some key infrastructure changes with dedicated bus lanes and prio…

I assume if there were more self-driving cars, fewer people would own cars. I think more people would take Ubers, Lyfts, and other ride sharing services. So I think that could reduce the need for parking and the amount of traffic just by increasing the utilization rate of cars.

read the study I linked - what you suppose does not and has not happened in practice.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#82
post #2

How much could the recent Musk meltdown be related to FSD just not arriving? It seems like we have reached a point after many years of FSD being “next year” when it’s becoming clear that it’s further away than anyone thought. I’ve thought the difficulty was being vastly underestimated for a while. A reusable Lunar and Mars shuttle system is probably a lot easier than actual FSD.

I think 6 or 7 years ago, many people thought we would at least have something like Waymo's self-driving taxis in Phoenix in several cities, more publicly available, really starting to change transportation. We're not too far behind on that estimate. My guess is in less than 3 years - Waymo will be publicly available in large parts of Phoenix and probably another major metro - and within 10 years most of the south we…

Tesla FSD and Waymo FSD are trying to solve two completely different problems.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is one and the same. There will be no political will to invest in quality public transit unless there is lots of pain in using comfortable and convenient individual vehicle transit. Paying $100+ for a trip will make people support bus and train and bicycle infrastructure investments. Keep driving costs down at $0.60 to $1.00 per minute or per mile, and it makes sense to use your own car, which then means it makes…

in practice this doesn't make sense since people are broke. you're be punishing them for no reason, they would continue to drive on more and more congested roads, take longer to get to their destination and you wouldn't raise enough to build out public transit. everyone loses. well, actually, I guess rich people paying $100 a ride on underutilized roads would win. great for them I guess. this is already the status qu…

This retort always comes up, and the answer is that different problems have different solutions.

Solving each problem directly and in the simplest way possible results in the fewest unintended consequences.

Problem is congestion, aka too many cars in x location at y time? Make it more expensive.

Problem is some people are too poor? Redistribute wealth via progressive taxation.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#84

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.x... Wow introduced end of feb this year and passed by end of this year. Looking from outside, I am Amazed by the speed of American democracy .

The fact that it took California passing a specific law is ridiculous. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising/pro... This was as easy as it gets for the federal government to tell Tesla to drop it, but for some reason neither Dem or Repub administrations are acting on it.

> for some reason

Maybe they will act now as their $TSLA shares are worth 70% less than a year ago ;-)

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic would get somewhat worse. People would be willing to commute somewhat farther because they could spend that time reading the paper or working instead of driving the car. Errands that used to be annoying enough to delay get more frequent as well for the same reason. If we get to a car share model, where you subscribe and pay per mile, that might offset some car use. Really we need all of the above - self-drivi…

You could have a full self driving only lane that’s allows speeds up to 200MPH. Self driving cars could have better reaction times allowing for higher highway density with faster speeds.

[deleted]

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re getting downvoted but you’re not necessarily wrong. I love the idea of self driving vehicles and I’m excited about them, but I harbor no illusions about them fixing traffic. The key question I would ask to self driving proponents is this - if you waved your magic wand and suddenly changed every car on the road to self driving…how would that impact traffic? At the very least traffic wouldn’t decrease . You coul…

Traffic would get somewhat worse. People would be willing to commute somewhat farther because they could spend that time reading the paper or working instead of driving the car. Errands that used to be annoying enough to delay get more frequent as well for the same reason. If we get to a car share model, where you subscribe and pay per mile, that might offset some car use. Really we need all of the above - self-drivi…

Why do we “need less personal car ownership?” It’s not clear to me why that’s a key goal. I also think that’s just not going to happen, not until the flying cats with cities in the skies is a reality.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in practice this doesn't make sense since people are broke. you're be punishing them for no reason, they would continue to drive on more and more congested roads, take longer to get to their destination and you wouldn't raise enough to build out public transit. everyone loses. well, actually, I guess rich people paying $100 a ride on underutilized roads would win. great for them I guess. this is already the status qu…

This retort always comes up, and the answer is that different problems have different solutions. Solving each problem directly and in the simplest way possible results in the fewest unintended consequences. Problem is congestion, aka too many cars in x location at y time? Make it more expensive. Problem is some people are too poor? Redistribute wealth via progressive taxation.

the retort comes up because charging egregiously to use public roads that they're all paying for with their tax money makes no sense.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#88

Mainstream full self driving would just create massive traffic and gridlock - pointless in the end. The induced demand would outweigh the benefits. States are better off acknowledging that sprawling car dependent cities are not sustainable. High frequency busses in the interim with rail transit is the real solution. Current self driving technology plus some key infrastructure changes with dedicated bus lanes and prio…

Is this true even if you account for the fact that cities can reclaim lanes and buildings dedicated for parking?

I would think that a lot of congestion is related cars having to be parked near a specific venue such as a restaurant or an arena (especially in the latter case where there is a gathering of 1000+ people).

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seriously though there are ways of reducing traffic on the roads like increased registration taxes, raising the price of tolls, gas price hikes (or equivalent dc fast charging price hikes). Gridlock won’t be a problem. Yes, this is why traffic is so minimal in the top 10 MSAs in America.

It just means prices are not high enough. Make it $100 to travel at rush hour on a particular stretch of road, and congestion will go away very quickly.

There are societal reasons why this won’t be accepted by the public. It’s sort of analogous to allowing the rich to pay for a higher spot on an organ donor waitlist, in theory it is economically efficient but in practice it is unfair and will cause outrage.

Lots of good discussion on this idea here: https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-traffic/

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#90

Mainstream full self driving would just create massive traffic and gridlock - pointless in the end. The induced demand would outweigh the benefits. States are better off acknowledging that sprawling car dependent cities are not sustainable. High frequency busses in the interim with rail transit is the real solution. Current self driving technology plus some key infrastructure changes with dedicated bus lanes and prio…

I assume if there were more self-driving cars, fewer people would own cars. I think more people would take Ubers, Lyfts, and other ride sharing services. So I think that could reduce the need for parking and the amount of traffic just by increasing the utilization rate of cars.

Really? Do you find Uber and Lyft to be affordable or a financially sensible means of regular transportation?
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