Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site • Hacker News Board

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#441

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:27 AM UTC

abletonlive wrote: post #400

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point was Elon has an incredible track record of success which follows a formula of overhype, delays, and eventual achievement if not overachievement. His biggest success is the rocket industry. Let's examine top competitors - corrupt ULA which flies rockets on 50 year old engines and does cost+ contracts, his other competitor was Russia, a corrupt kleptocracy that stopped innovating when USSR fell apart. Russia…

Your bias against elon is showing and it's not a good look. You're not being very rational.

I used to be a fan, then he showed up to the cave rescue operation with half a submarine, and in responce to crtiticism he called rescue divers pedoes.

So I started wondering, can he be a good leader when he can't take criticism? How does he retain best pepple if his ego is this fragile?

I am quite happy to see more people reassess him as he demonstrates capricious and callous behavioir, for exanple the Twitter aquisition whoch he first wanted then tried to get out of.

I think you will come around when he targets something yoi carw about.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#442

Post by varenc » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:28 AM UTC

adamwong246 wrote: post #100

advael wrote: post #6

Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss The official policy to deprive customers and victims of information as much as possible is shocking from the standpoint of being flagrantly, cynically customer-hostile to the point of probable illegality, but it's right out of both Musk's normal playbook and that of his erstwhile colleagues at e.g. Paypal For me, cars cross a very key danger threshold, which I express like this: "I am tru…

"FOSS self-driving cars" is a dream so bold I dare not dream it. In some other timeline, we have had an "internet of roads" built on cooperative standards. Instead we have trendy death-traps that make fart noises sold as status symbols.

A self-managed FOSS level 5 self-driving system, where you're not legally required to be actively monitoring it and ready to take over, seems very very hard.

We should require a huge and lengthy validation process for true autonomous level 5 self driving so keep others safe. It seems possible for an open source self driving system to go through this validation for one particular build of the system. But the moment I start modifying my own system (say, increasing `DRIVING_AGGRESSION` by 10 percent), it's no longer the same system that was verified as safe.

But even if personal modification is out of the question, the safety verification process needs to be so thorough and costly it seems difficult for anyone but a major for-profit company to go through it.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#443

Post by topspin » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:35 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #141

metalliqaz wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the software. They are trying to make due without the kind of sensors that are required to properly sense the immediate environment (LIDAR)

How expensive is LIDAR even? My xiaomi vacuum has LIDAR.

> My xiaomi vacuum has LIDAR.

I don't. Yet, somehow I operate vehicles with little to no "phantom braking or unintended acceleration."

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#444

Post by kbos87 » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:40 AM UTC

sushid wrote: post #147

iknowstuff wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every customer complaint about unintended acceleration of Teslas was proven in court to be the fault of the customer confusing the pedals. The accelerator pedal has two independent sensors measuring input - they both have to agree, and no input on the brake pedal must be detected for the vehicle to accelerate. They go a step further. They use their cameras to detect the environment and significantly slow down acceler…

Teslas have a problem with phantom braking (e.g. when there's a dark shadow it fails to detect that it's a shadow before going from ~70mph to ~55mph). Myself and countless friends I know have experienced it but that problem has yet to be solved.

I drive a Tesla day to day (with the latest FSD Beta) - yes, phantom breaking was real - but it's been almost completely remedied for the past few months in my opinion - and I'd be shocked if other automakers (as was mentioned above also have these problems) are as quick to iterate based on feedback.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#445

Post by Retric » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:41 AM UTC

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #335

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > And he’s admitted self driving was way more difficult than anyone realized, Sure and the guy is getting paid right now in cold hard cash, while all the synchopants keep ranting about hopes and dreams. As Jack Nicholson said in 'the Departed' and I quote : "What we generally do - in this country... is one guy brings the items and the other guy pays him. No tickee, no laundry!" First the self-driving car for all Am…

My point was Elon has an incredible track record of success which follows a formula of overhype, delays, and eventual achievement if not overachievement. You seem to have a more personal vendetta against him, I’m just looking at his insane success and envying hype/ management style

SpaceX has been quite successful, though it also came really close to failing.

Solar city actually failed as an independent company.

Boring company is floundering.

Twitter is having massive issues.

I think he’s done more harm to Tesla after taking it over from the original founders than been a benefit. It’s unclear but he definitely took massive risks which were unnecessary and has many serious failures such as how long their truck has slipped.

All together not a bad track record, but also not nearly as impressive as many people seem to think. I don’t want to suggest it’s luck, but many companies that might have been successful which came that close to failure simply failed. We look back on people who happened to have passed those thresholds because they go past them not necessarily because they had a better approach.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#446

Post by ehnto » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:42 AM UTC

rmbyrro wrote: post #404

ChatGTP wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same I have an old Suzuki and I wouldn't get rid of it for anything. On the other hand, I think the whole concept of cars is the actual problem, especially heavier cars. The tire dust alone is enough to think about weening ourselves off the project. Then there is strip mining the earth for cobalt and all the other nasty shit in the devices, it's pretty bad. Where I live e-bikes are really taking off, to me e-bikes an…

Don't ebikes generate tire dust as well? By "public transport" you mean shared ebikes? I don't think this can be a mainstream public transport solution if we want to move forward. Ebikes are unsafe, for starters. I expect a lot worse security issues than what's being reported with Teslas...

It's going to be significantly less tire dust, they weigh a 100th the weight.

Ebikes won't be mainstream in a typical American city though, the distances between home, goods and services and work are usually too great and cars are basically baked into the culture. Better mass transit and bikes for those living in denser cities, is likely America's only good option.

I don't think e-bikes are unsafe though, their lack of safety is dominantly because of cars, and infrastructure not being set up for cycling.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#447

Post by acyou » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:42 AM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #379

Fatnino wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flashy tech bells and whistles are there to compensate for the inherent problems with electric cars. They lag in range compared to gas cars, and get absolutely trounced when it comes to putting energy back in the car. Concrete example: this week I had to drive some people between San Jose and Hollywood. Google maps says that's 5:40 hours over 340 miles. I looked at renting a model 3 for the trip but it simply cou…

That’s a fun niche use case but most people just drive to work and school and back every weekday. Having to stop for 20-40 minutes on the odd occasion that you need to drive 340 miles in a day is worth never having to stop for gas for your daily commute.

How much time does it take to plug and unplug the car every day, vs. the gas station fill time?

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#448

Post by ironSkillet » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:46 AM UTC

notmypenguin wrote: post #343

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was Elon has an incredible track record of success which follows a formula of overhype, delays, and eventual achievement if not overachievement. You seem to have a more personal vendetta against him, I’m just looking at his insane success and envying hype/ management style

Easy there, cowboy, he’s had incredible success whipping his fans into frothing frenzies of self congratulatory adulation that would make a seesaw get dizzy. No other boss person since the mighty Steve has had this effect on the mass psyche, and Elon has arguably done a lot less. I claim teslas success is in spite of him, not because of him. Facts matter, and the SEC case was where I first realized his lack of leader…

...this...has to be a troll right? The guy helped bring space flight out of a stagnant era into commercial viability and put electric cars into the world's popular psyche.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#449

Post by yumraj » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:47 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #413

yumraj wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much .... all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week ... Look at it this way, assume humans drive, or need to be driven/travel, X miles per year. Today, assuming a car drives Y miles per year, the market needs X/Y cars. Given your argument, with self driving, a car runs nY miles per year, the demand for car will drop to X/nY , basically 1/n of before or maybe a little more…

If cars drive themselves, you can let them out as Ubers when you don’t need to drive it. That could definitely mean less cars if they are priced aggressively. Peak is still a problem, but public transit can focus on peak rather than non peak (assuming Robo taxis are price efficient). Even if we need 1/5 cars (and EVs do last longer, so without self driving, this will happen anyways), as long as the lost cars come fro…

> as long as the lost cars come from your competitors, it’s fine.

It’s a rather arrogant, and unrealistic assumption, (on Tesla’s part if they are making it) that they will capture the entire market. It’s not going to happen.

Re: Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site

#450

Post by justapassenger » Fri, May 26, 2023, 2:48 AM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #105

jyscao wrote: post #55

IMO Tesla would be better if they focused solely on making good EVs, rather than also trying to become the leader in self-driving. I get that they're trying to create a wider moat against their competitors, but if their self-driving software are found to have systematic failure modes in them as these internal docs seem to suggest, then that could very well do more harm to their reputation in the long run.

Eh, Tesla has already shown the world how to make commercially viable EVs. That's a torch the risk averse legacy auto manufacturers can take up, now that Tesla has done the derisking. Now someone needs to prove out self-driving, even at the risk of some short-term reputational harm. I don't think people realize the life-saving potential in solving this problem.

> I don't think people realize the life-saving potential in solving this problem.

People do realize it. Especially people who specialize in building safety critical systems.

And they are all aware that Tesla's doesn't do anything to build actually safety-critical systems. They just treat it as building a webapp for sharing photos of cats.