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Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

arstechnica.com

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Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#321

Post by ohgodplsno »

TheDong wrote: post #161
mxschumacher wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, making autonomous driving work in central Delhi or Agadir will be much different from a US highway. Maybe it's too cyberpunk, but I can already see the headline of road pirates capturing autonomous cars and taking them apart for spares. Those sensors, the GPU and computing units are quite valuable.

Your impression of Delhi and Agadir doesn't seem right to me. By the numbers, Delhi has the highest crime-rate in india, but it has a 5 times lower rate of crime than San Francisco does. And also, self-driving cars will all have enough cameras and be constantly connected to a server that theft will be far less likely for them than regular cars... and regular calls already seem to get by just fine without people strip…

You seem to think that data being sent to a server will stop physical theft. That's an... Optimistic point of view to say the least.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#322

Post by geoman123 »

pound wrote: post #199
jiofih wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: - autopilot was not engaged, only cruise control - the anti-collision applied brakes but not soon enough - the driver walked away without a scratch

How do you differentiate between autopilot and cruise control in Tesla case? I assume by lane keeping engaged?

cruise control just keeps the speed set, as with every other vehicle. autopilot will lane-keep and adjust speed with traffic

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#323

Post by polishdude20 »

Animats wrote: post #168
jiofih wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of trusting this anecdote, why don’t you jump over to YouTube and search for “Tesla FSD” to see what it really looks like? Lots of very instructive videos available from people on the beta program.

Yes. Check out this one.[1] Watch the display for what it sees and isn't seeing. Awareness of oncoming traffic is almost nonexistent. Except when the FedEx truck is reflected in some windows; then it detects the reflection as a vehicle. Although the streets are almost empty, the driver takes over frequently. This is way below what Waymo and Cruise can do. [1] https://youtu.be/6G1Z2J3WUSg?t=231

I always thought that it should be just as easy and safe to drive by looking at only the tesla screen and driving based on that before self driving can get anywhere close to complete. If the vehicles sensors can't pick things up , then the vehicle can't react to them.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#324

Post by thereare5lights »

ra7 wrote: post #26

I think the FSD beta rollout is completely irresponsible from Tesla. Rolling out a clearly half-baked safety critical technology to its customers (yes, I know it's only a few beta testers) who are untrained is nothing but a tactic to generate hype and get more customers to buy that $10k FSD package. This is on top of Tesla being the least transparent company out there in reporting safety data or their testing methodo…

> nothing but a tactic to generate hype

Congratulations, you've figured out Elon Musk.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#325

Post by giorgis »

Is anyone here working in the self-driving industry? I have a background in Mechanical Engineering so that means knowledge in controls/motion planning stuff.

Is this still something that's being worked on in companies like Waymo? Or is it in less demand compared to computer vision/object detection problems? I like the idea of working on both technologies however I feel the knowledge gap between them is big.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#326

Post by mewpmewp2 »

mxschumacher wrote: post #73
rcxdude wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly. I did a fairly deep dive into what path the car industry is going to take with respect to electric cars (especially what a mass market electric car is going to look like), and it all had a huge asterisk associated with it of "but mass car ownership might stop being a thing before any of this happens", at which point thing change drasticly, because then you have a much smaller market of probably more sp…

I should probably dig a little more into the microeconomics, but for me as a consumer the only difference between an autonomous car and an (human) Uber is price. If we assume that the price of the car stays the same, insurance and fuel still have to be paid and the cab app gets their cut - how much of my ride is really attributable to the cost of the human driver? So how much human labor can be automated away to the…

You could incorporate augmented reality into car windows etc to talk about the city too. All of what you mentioned are solvable problems via tech.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#327

Post by Green_man »

burmanm wrote: post #270
stordoff wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick: 99.(many 9s)% of the time. I had the power steering drop out going into a turn (fuel pump failure IIRC), and it could have easily caused an accident (I physically couldn't turn the wheel enough to complete the turn).

If power steering fails in speed, it doesn't really matter - the power steering does very little when the car has some velocity. If you can't turn the wheel at speed, then there's something else than power steering pump failing (the steering must have been locked by something else). Or you have very serious muscle weakness, at which point I'm not sure if driving a car is a smart option in any case.

I expect the total force required to turn depends also on the vehicle's weight, degree of turn, etc. My manual, 90's Japanese sedan (approximately 3,000 lbs iirc) stalled on me while I was exiting a freeway at ~30mph, along a round, ~270° turn. My first instinct was to try put the car back into gear, but before I could effectively do that, I realized I needed both hands on the wheel just to wrestle the car through the turn. I could have easily caused an accident. The disorientation of losing power steering while turning, and having to move my right hand from shifter to wheel made this a serious situation. If my car were heavier, or the turn were tighter, or if I reacted slower, (all of which are more likely than a very serious muscle weakness), it could have been much worse.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#328

Post by xedeon »

Animats wrote: post #188
snoshy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really all that important? There are 3 other cars ahead of the Tesla at this red light intersection. If you're able to react within tens or hundreds of milliseconds to a changing environment, it would actually make sense to reduce compute to save power for when the vehicle is in motion and not surrounded by other vehicles at a stop light. Edit: It seemed to handle that intersection just fine, but a couple of…

Here's an hour of a Cruise vehicle driving in San Francisco.[1] Watch it deal with a trash bag that fell out of a dumpster, a left turn across heavy opposing traffic, double-parked cars, cars pulling out of parking spaces, a FedEx truck changing lanes across their path... Makes Tesla look like amateur hour. [1] https://youtu.be/EZ75QoAymug?t=122

https://youtu.be/v9-sYOMDuI8?t=66

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#329

Post by ohgodplsno »

jfoster wrote: post #123
sixQuarks wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow, getting downvoted for stating this fact. I can't believe the anti-Musk bias here on HN. You would think HN would actually appreciate one of the more innovative entrepreneurs on the planet.

I think it might be due to a form of jealousy. Sad to see HN so unenthusiastic about a guy who is probably the most amazing entrepreneur of our time. It's not that he hasn't invited a little bit of controversy (eg. comments about the diver, covid, etc.) but I think those are inconsequential when it comes to HN's attitude toward him.

Can I be unenthusiastic about a billionaire who reopened his factory in the middle of a pandemic, where the rate of injuries of his factories is one of the highest of the entire country, where the turnover is ridiculously high because of how he squeezes everything out of young engineers, where he tests out """self driving""" on public roads where you or I could be working? Or maybe I could be unenthusiastic about the strike breaking, the utter disrespect he has for people who criticise his PR attempts, going as far as to call them pedophiles?

Or maybe unenthusiastic about the fact that all he has is a vision, but has never built anything by himself. When you get kicked out because _Peter Thiel_ is more tolerable than you, that says a tiny bit about his character.

It's not "a little controversy". It's being a sack of shit of a human being.

Re: Waymo CEO dismisses Tesla self-driving plan: “This is not how it works”

#330

Post by jfim »

nickik wrote: post #208
rcxdude wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This matches my experience of how Tesla is viewed in the autonomous car industry. No-one thinks they are a serious contender when it comes to a driverless vehicle (and their business model basically doesn't match with the technology either: every other company is basically going to operate a taxi service because there's far more value to be captured and it can help pay for the hardware making driverless possible)

Nobody in the autonomous car industry had produced anything yet. Tesla has the best system of those actually in use. Their arrogance is about as convincing as that of the rocket companies or car companies that didn't think EV were gone happen. Saying 'in my industry they are joke' is kind of a joke by itself by now. Also Tesla wants to operate a taxi services too so I don't understand your argument.

> Nobody in the autonomous car industry had produced anything yet. Tesla has the best system of those actually in use.

Waymo is actually operating a driverless paid service in Arizona [0] with point to point pick up and drop off. Does Tesla actually offer this service today?

[0] https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/01/04/waymo-driverless-...

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