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One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

deepdream.substack.com

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Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#21

Post by superfrank »

hyuuu wrote: post #6

one point the author seems to be missing as to why we need full self driving everywhere is in the logistics industry. We are talking about interstate driving, from point A to point B, in this case it might involve industria environments such as a truck stop, weighing, loading/unloading etc, something that requires decision making across different environments (urban, highway, dense residential etc). Tesla FSD has the…

I don't understand why you think Waymo wouldn't be able to take the same approach.

They've already got the tech for urban and residential working in their taxi service. It would probably need some work to get it working for a semi truck, but the base technology is there. The only completely new thing would be getting it working for highway travel and it feels like they could take the same approach of starting with a few key arteries, geofencing those, only picking contracts that are in their geofenced area and scaling up from there.

I'm not an expert on this at all, but I'd be surprised if the 80/20 rule didn't apply to shipping corridors as well.

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#22

Post by nocoiner »

modeless wrote: post #18
UltraSane wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most recent release of FSD is no where near good enough to do what Waymo does.

I use it every day and you are right! But my point is with six months of improvements in the software at the rapid pace demonstrated last year, combined with a boost from bigger models running on more capable compute hardware, I think it's possible that it could be close. Certainly up to the point where Waymo was when they started public rides three years ago.

FSD has been promised every year for the better part of, what, a decade? I’m dubious that a six-month sprint would be make or break for this finally happening.

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#23

Post by dhosek »

Around the time that self-driving cars were said to be imminent, my kids were in preschool, and I realized that school pickup would be damned hard to implement as an automated thing. Cars have to line up and advance to the pickup spot using space that’s normally parking lanes. It’s definitely a 90th percentile challenge if not higher, but the sort of thing that literally happens daily in urban/suburban environments.

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#24

Post by jsnell »

Animats wrote: post #10
wagwang wrote: post #4

Wait... the big insight here is that people live in cities? Brother, this has been talked to death in the "is level 4 good enough" conversation.

Right. In the US, once the top 12 taxi markets have been served, Waymo will have most of the industry.[1] That's all the cities with more than 1000 taxis. Serve the next 10 cities, and it's down to Saginaw, MI, with 41 taxis. In San Francisco, Waymo has passed Lyft and is gaining on Uber. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_of_the_United_States

> Serve the next 10 cities, and it's down to Saginaw, MI, with 41 taxis.

That is not a credible data set (it's missing 5 of the top 10 cities by population, which just can't reflect reality).

Hell, the Wikipedia article isn't even internally consistent, several of the cities earning a full section have no entry in that table.

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#25

Post by [deleted] »

Animats wrote: post #10
wagwang wrote: post #4

Wait... the big insight here is that people live in cities? Brother, this has been talked to death in the "is level 4 good enough" conversation.

Right. In the US, once the top 12 taxi markets have been served, Waymo will have most of the industry.[1] That's all the cities with more than 1000 taxis. Serve the next 10 cities, and it's down to Saginaw, MI, with 41 taxis. In San Francisco, Waymo has passed Lyft and is gaining on Uber. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_of_the_United_States

[deleted]

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#27

Post by modeless »

nocoiner wrote: post #22
modeless wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it every day and you are right! But my point is with six months of improvements in the software at the rapid pace demonstrated last year, combined with a boost from bigger models running on more capable compute hardware, I think it's possible that it could be close. Certainly up to the point where Waymo was when they started public rides three years ago.

FSD has been promised every year for the better part of, what, a decade? I’m dubious that a six-month sprint would be make or break for this finally happening.

I'm 100% with you on Elon crying wolf. But it's not really relevant. What they've achieved with FSD 13 is really quite amazing. Given how fast AI is advancing, is it so hard to believe that a system to drive cars using cameras will be feasible this year?

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#28

Post by andrewmcwatters »

As a Comma 3x owner, Comma is not even in the same league as Tesla despite having better SAE level 2 steering. It jerks too much and they have a fraction of the usable sensors.

Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 is a better experience and no one is taking about it.

Tesla is also basically a non-competitor.

Waymo’s only technological competitors are in China. Anyone closely watching the industry has known this for years.

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#29

Post by skywhopper »

Animats wrote: post #10
wagwang wrote: post #4

Wait... the big insight here is that people live in cities? Brother, this has been talked to death in the "is level 4 good enough" conversation.

Right. In the US, once the top 12 taxi markets have been served, Waymo will have most of the industry.[1] That's all the cities with more than 1000 taxis. Serve the next 10 cities, and it's down to Saginaw, MI, with 41 taxis. In San Francisco, Waymo has passed Lyft and is gaining on Uber. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_of_the_United_States

Uh, that list is wildly incomplete. There are 240 metro areas bigger than Saginaw, Michigan in the United States.

Re: One thing Tesla and Comma.ai overlooked in self-driving

#30

Post by energywut »

nocoiner wrote: post #22
modeless wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it every day and you are right! But my point is with six months of improvements in the software at the rapid pace demonstrated last year, combined with a boost from bigger models running on more capable compute hardware, I think it's possible that it could be close. Certainly up to the point where Waymo was when they started public rides three years ago.

FSD has been promised every year for the better part of, what, a decade? I’m dubious that a six-month sprint would be make or break for this finally happening.

More than a decade. I bought my Tesla in 2014, and I recall the announcement because it came after I had bought but before I took possession of my car, and thus I was ineligible for the upgrade.

In hindsight, thank fuck. I would have dropped thousands on it in a heartbeat and never, ever seen it. (Also, that car was a nightmare to own and the service centers were really scammy. Getting rid of it was the best move I could have made.)

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