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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

#241

Post by danhor »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106
endisneigh wrote: post #16

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…

> Same thing that happened pre-COVID with "ridesharing" Fifteen minutes in an Uber is far more pleasant, productive, and I’d wager healthy, than ten minutes in gridlock. I can focus intensely on a task or thought or even take a nap. We should also build rail. But self-driving cars look more likely to complement rail than detract from it. (One can imagine multi-modal trains, onto which self-driving cars park so their…

We had cars on rails. It doesn't really make sense: The train is much heavier, thus has much lower acceleration and lower max speeds.

The mass & area needed per person is also much higher, increasing fares a lot.

Terminals & stops need to be much larger and take longer.

Self driving doesn't improve on any of this, even worse, it takes away the major advantage of not needing to drive.

There's a reason loading cars on trains as a way of travel is basically dead and self driving makes it worse.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#242

Post by maxerickson »

endisneigh wrote: post #52
maxerickson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tens of millions of people live in places where frequent bus service simply isn't practical. It's probably reasonable for society to make choices that overall incentivize against living in those areas, but that isn't going to change where people live anytime soon. And you can just use taxes to control any induced demand that comes from lower costs or new behaviors. The vehicles have sophisticated tracking systems and…

Though you're not wrong, in a hypothetical world where most vehicles on the road were self driving busses, the frequency could be dynamically set and reasonable for everyone.

I expect that "2 seat buses" would be quite popular in that scenario.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#243

Post by danny_codes »

drstewart wrote: post #205
endisneigh wrote: post #16

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…

>Mainstream full self driving would just create massive traffic and gridlock Can you show your work here? > 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. No, see, mass transit is pointless since it would just create massive demand that would overwhelm the system and thus fall apart. Citation: tr…

I think the FSD causes more traffic argument boils down to induced demand. More people on the road, finite road.

Mass transit has been anecdotally shown to scale extremely well. If it can handle Hong Kong it's hard to imagine a density where it doesn't work.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#244

Post by danny_codes »

keyanp wrote: post #89
lotsofpulp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Perhaps we can peg it to income? Progressive taxes are wonderful

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#245

Post by throw0101c »

ryukoposting wrote: post #197
throw0101c wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, a bunch of friends could buy a car together and split the costs. I could see a scenario where instead of (or in addition to) vehicles being pooled between "x" random people (taxis, Uber/Lyft, ZipCar), you could purchase a fractional share of a car ( Cf . NetJets): you get semi-exclusive use of (particular?) vehicles.

I considered this in college, but gave up on the idea eventually. Figuring out how to fairly split the cost of gas, tires, and maintenance isn't easy, and when you're a broke college kid, splitting the tab fairly is a big deal.

I'm sure there several companies would pop-up for a "X as a Service": you connect your own car to their API, and things like scheduling, mileage, depreciation, etc, would be computing for you. The company could also offer to sell/lease you a vehicle (NetJets-style).

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#246

Post by dragonwriter »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #105
keyanp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Yes, the political challenge of getting massive wealth redistribution passed in conjunction with public opposition to giving up the luxury of personal cars means the probability of the US ever getting its transit situation in order is very low until energy prices rise high enough to force a change.

It also means energy prices will not rise high enough until the government becomes incapable of subsidizing them, if you (s your argument does) neglect the possibility of political shifts.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#247

Post by lolinder »

notahacker wrote: post #223
lolinder wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a forum with a lot of people in it with different opinions. Speaking as one of those who's always disliked Tesla and been turned off by Musk, one explanation is that the skeptics now feel more empowered to speak out than they did before. Also, depending on how far back you're talking, you may be overestimating how much unadulterated love there was for it before: I've been following conversations on Tesla here f…

I think the biggest shift is less the emergence of skepticism which was always there, and more that the people who would previously counter that Elon had always shown impeccable judgement and laser focus on big decisions, that we should trust him the promised FSD would be delivered soon or that he truly believed in the cause of free speech and would completely transform social media for the better tend to have gone a…

Yes, I can see that! It's not that the skeptics weren't there before, it's that the Elon defenders are less willing to speak up than they were.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#248

Post by redox99 »

A lot of comments here seem to be extremely pessimistic of self driving (not just Tesla, but in general), claiming that it's "decades away".

As someone who has been following fairly closely the advances in self driving, I think most people are underestimating the current state and rate of improvement of these systems.

For Tesla, it's currently "L2+". Here's an example[1] of how good or bad it currently is, in a fairly easy environment. Just a year ago it was an absolute mess, even though it still has a long way to go, the improvement rate is really good. In places like Manhattan it's a mess, but I don't think FSD needs to be able to handle Manhattan to be useful, because not everybody lives in Manhattan.

For Waymo, it's currently L4 (operating without driver), however available only in very select locations. Here's an example[2]

Regarding vision vs lidar, anybody in the field knows that both approaches are viable for self driving[3], it's just a matter of which can get you there sooner (and LIDAR is basically agreed upon to be an easier but more expensive approach).

I used to think Tesla FSD was doomed to fail, computer vision good enough for self driving was more than a decade away, but I've changed my mind since. I now think vision based is viable, and really important because it will enable self driving for mainstream cars (not just expensive robotaxis)

From what I've seen, Tesla's FSD perception is quite good already, and the majority of the times FSD messes up it's because of it's planner, not because of perception. And that's considering it's cameras and computers are quite old already, when they decide to upgrade them it will lead to a pretty large improvement to perception.

My current estimate is that Tesla will achieve L3 in 2 years, and L4 in 4 years. It will require a HW upgrade (cameras and computer).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRqW9LJZaWY

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6mmjqJeDw0

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbyY2AQ_hdc

Edit: Instead of just downvoting, I'd appreciate if you left a comment pointing out what you disagree with. I'm very interested in this technology and other people's thoughts.

Re: California passes law banning Tesla from calling software FSD

#249

Post by dragonwriter »

endisneigh wrote: post #87
lotsofpulp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

So, stop paying for the roads with tax money. Fully internalize the costs with user fees, directing tax spending elsewhere, and the argument about fairness of tax spending goes away. In fact, raise the user fees high enough that the road users are subsidizing other public projects, specifically mass transit, as well as paying the full cost of the roads.

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