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Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

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Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#51

Post by MadnessASAP »

fpoling wrote: post #36
_aavaa_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having multiple sources of data is a benefit, not a problem. Entire signal processing and engineering domains exist to take advantage of this. Even the humble Kalyan filter lets you combine multiple noisy sources to get a more accurate result than would be possible if using any one source.

Kalman filters and more advanced aggregators add non-trivial latency. So even if one does not care about cost, there can be a drawback from having an extra sensor.

The latency from video capture and recognition is going to be so significant that it makes all other latency sources not even worth mentioning.

Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#52

Post by rich_sasha »

TheAmazingRace wrote: post #4

When you have a CEO like Elon who swears up and down that you only need cameras for autonomous driving vehicles, and skimping out on crucial extras like Li-DAR, can anyone be surprised by this result? Tesla also likes to take the motto of "move fast and break things" to a fault.

Musk's success story is taking very bold bets almost flippantly. These things have a premium associates with them, because to most people they are so toxic that they would never consider them.

Every time when he has the choice to do something conservative or bold, he goes for the latter, and so long as he has a bit of luck, that is very much a winning strategy. To most people, I guess the stress of always betting everything on red would be unbearable. I mean, the guy got a $300m cash payout in 1999! Hands up who would keep working 100 hour weeks for 26 years after that.

I'm not saying it is either bad or good. He clearly did well out of it for himself financially. But I guess the whole cameras/lidar thing is similar. Because it's big, bold, from the outset unlikely to work, and it's a massive "fake it till you make it" thing.

But if he can crack it, again I guess he hits the jackpot. Never mind cars, they are expensive enough that Lidar cost is a rounding error. But if he can then stick 3d vision into any old cheap cameras, surely that is worth a lot. In fact wasn't this part of Tesla's great vision - to diversify away from cars and into robots etc. I'm sure the military would order thousands and millions of cheapo cameras that work 90% as well as a fancy Lidar - while being fully solid state etc.

That he is using his clients as lab rats for it is yet another reason why I'm not buying one. But to me this is totally in character for Musk.

Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#53

Post by goosejuice »

dyauspitr wrote: post #42
guywithahat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I've looked into the topic the less I think the removal of lidar was a cost issue. I think there are a lot of benefits to simplifying your sensor tech stack, and while I won't pretend to know the best solution removing things like lidar and ultrasonic sensors seem to have been a decision about improving performance. By doubling down on cameras your technical team can remain focused on certain sensor technolo…

This is a solved problem. Many people I know including myself use Waymo’s on a weekly basis. They are rock solid. Waymo has pretty unequivocally solved the problem. There is no wait and see.

Nevermind the Waymos rolling by stopped school busses.

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/06/nx-s1-5635614/waymo-school-bu...

Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#54

Post by bsder »

fpoling wrote: post #40
vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually you would go in with the max amount of sensors and data, make it work and then see what can be left out. It seems dumb to limit yourself from beginning if you don’t know yet what really works. But then I am not a multi billionaire so what do i know?

Well we know that vision works based on human experience. So few years ago it was a reasonable bet that cameras alone could solve this. The problem with Tesla is that they still continue to insist on that after it became apparent that vision alone with the current tech and machine learning does not work. They even do not want to use a radar again even if the radar does not cost much and is very beneficial for safety.

> Well we know that vision works based on human experience.

Actually, we know that vision alone doesn't work.

Sun glare. Fog. Whiteouts. Intense downpours. All of them cause humans to get into accidents, and electronic cameras aren't even as good as human eyes due to dynamic range limitations.

Dead reckoning with GPS and maps are a huge advantage that autonomous cars have over humans. No matter what the conditions are, autonomous cars know where the car is and where the road is. No sliding off the road because you missed a turn.

Being able to control and sense the electric motors at each wheel is a big advantage over "driving feel" from the steering wheel and your inbuilt sense of acceleration.

Radar/lidar is just all upside above and beyond what humans can do.

Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#57

Post by _ea1k »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #7
_ea1k wrote: post #2

[flagged]

They are basically Anti Tesla propaganda, as Fred has admitted.

Yes, regardless of the product quality, this article really pushes hard to find a negative narrative without thinking about alternative explanations.

There are real, legitimate concerns here, but they are hidden behind a lot of assumptions.

Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#58

Post by BrenBarn »

rich_sasha wrote: post #52
TheAmazingRace wrote: post #4

When you have a CEO like Elon who swears up and down that you only need cameras for autonomous driving vehicles, and skimping out on crucial extras like Li-DAR, can anyone be surprised by this result? Tesla also likes to take the motto of "move fast and break things" to a fault.

Musk's success story is taking very bold bets almost flippantly. These things have a premium associates with them, because to most people they are so toxic that they would never consider them. Every time when he has the choice to do something conservative or bold, he goes for the latter, and so long as he has a bit of luck, that is very much a winning strategy. To most people, I guess the stress of always betting eve…

The fact that he's able to fake it until he makes it is a failure of our society. He should be impoverished and incarcerated.

Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#59

Post by xp84 »

goosejuice wrote: post #53
dyauspitr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a solved problem. Many people I know including myself use Waymo’s on a weekly basis. They are rock solid. Waymo has pretty unequivocally solved the problem. There is no wait and see.

Nevermind the Waymos rolling by stopped school busses. https://www.npr.org/2025/12/06/nx-s1-5635614/waymo-school-bu...

This seems solvable, no? Not saying it isn’t really damn important, but those have stop signs and flashing lights. It seems like they can fix that.

Re: Tesla reports another Robotaxi crash

#60

Post by Rebelgecko »

koinedad wrote: post #11

The title makes it sound way worse than the 7 reported crashes listed in the article. I’d be interested to see a comparison with Waymo and other self driving technologies in the same area (assuming the exist).

I couldn't find Waymo's stats for all crashes in 12 seconds of googling, but they have breakdowns for "crashes with serious injury" (none yet) "crashes resulting in injury" (5x reduction) and "crashes where airbag deployed" (14x reduction), relative to humans in Austin

Austin has relatively low miles so the confidence intervals are wider but not too far from what they show for other cities

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