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When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

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Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#91
post #10

As time goes on, Tesla's fiasco becomes more and more embarrassing. Waymos are all over the place in the cities they serve, doing pretty much what they're supposed to do. Nuro has some fully autonomous vehicles running around. Baidu's Apollo Go is deployed in 16 cities in China, although they use remote driving as a backup. Tesla, though, is still hyping a technology that seems to have maxed out years ago.

I just had a thought - a Waymo car costs $200k (maybe more) from a quick google search. YoY returns of $200k on S&P are about 10%, while an Uber driver takes home about $40-$50k - so in terms of cost, they are about 2x-2.5x of each other, with the Waymore likely needing expensive maintenance/support infrastructure, bringing the total much closer.

Which means if Tesla can really build that Cybercab - with an underpowered motor, small battery, plastic body panels, just cameras (which I think they promised to sell under $20k) - they'll be able to hit a business expense level and profitability that Waymo will only be able, in say, 10 years.

Even if you don't want to talk about non-existing hardware, a Model 3's manufacturing cost is surely much lower than a Waymo.

Once (if) they make self driving work at any point in time before Waymo gets to the same level of cost - they'll be the more profitable business.

Not only that, they'll be able to enter markets where the cost of Waymo and what you can charge for taxi rides is so far apart that it doesn't make sense for them - in this sense, they'll have a first mover advantage.

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it’s evident in broader statistics yet, but I think that because Tesla got the early adopter market (tech savvy people), they are now losing that same market first. I had a party at my house a couple months ago, mostly SF tech people. I found the Tesla owners chatting together, and the topic was how much FSD sucks and they don’t trust it. I asked and no-one said they would buy a Tesla again. Distrust beca…

I own six EVs (three cars, one of which is a Tesla, and three motorcycles). My first EV was my Tesla. We're on the cusp of trading the Tesla in for a Rivian most likely. I should be Tesla's target customer, but instead I'm exactly who you described: - I don't like the brand. I don't like Elon. I don't like the reputation that the car attaches to me. - I don't trust the technology. I've gotten two FSD trials, both sca…

> instead of making cars for real people that love cars.

Whoosh. They've been saying Tesla is an AI company for nearly a decade. AI has been propping up entire US economy for last few years. EV bandwagon has left long time ago.

Saying all that I wouldn't mind even cheaper Tesla - small screen, 1 camera instead of 11, fully offline, fully stainless steel, fully open source - basically minimally tech and maximally maintainable and maximum longevity.

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own six EVs (three cars, one of which is a Tesla, and three motorcycles). My first EV was my Tesla. We're on the cusp of trading the Tesla in for a Rivian most likely. I should be Tesla's target customer, but instead I'm exactly who you described: - I don't like the brand. I don't like Elon. I don't like the reputation that the car attaches to me. - I don't trust the technology. I've gotten two FSD trials, both sca…

The execution on the roadster baffles me. IIRC the deposit was 250K, and I know people who signed up on the first day. Can you imagine a more dedicated fan? How do you not deliver to that group ? How big an own-goal is that?

Their ~mission was cheap cars for masses. There are plenty of high end EVs out there. It's nuts when smart people compare 7 year old 35k Tesla to a brand new 80k Polestar or 100k Lucid.

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#94
post #3

> However, at this week’s shareholder meeting, Musk stated that Tesla may allow “texting and driving” within “a month or two.” The family of the first person killed by that will know who to sue for a punitive trillion dollars.

Sorry, but disabling autopilot/FSD to use your phone is much crazier.

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#95
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an anecdote, it sounds like an exaggeration bordering flat out lying. A 2000 miles trip "without touching anything" to drive the car is statistically impossible for any reasonable drive (e.g. not endless straight lines on an Australian highway), especially for a Tesla famously known for needing interventions often. Even more advanced autonomous driving systems are far too limited to take arbitrary 2000 mil…

13 is quite good. 14 is even better. 2,000 may be stretching it but it is possible if the driver is trusting enough. Personally many of my disengagements isn't because it is being dangerous, but just sub-optimal such as not driving as aggressive as I want to, not getting into off-ramp lane as early as I like, or just picking weird navigational choices. Trying to recall but I haven't had a safety involved disengagemen…

Driver profiles seem like a terrible answer to the question of choosing a maximum speed, both for the driver of the vehicle, and for Tesla — because it shifts the understanding of the car's behaviour from the driver to Tesla. I think it's insane that Tesla would take that risk.

IMHO, it's okay for the driver profiles to affect everything other than max speed, including aggressiveness of acceleration and propensity to change lanes. But since exceeding speed limits is "technically" breaking the law, the default behaviour of FSD should be to strictly obey speed limits, and drivers should be given a set of sliders to manually override speed limits. Perhaps like a graphic EQ with sliders for every 10 MPH where you can manually input decide how many MPH over that limit is acceptable.

This would be an inelegant interface, and intentionally so. Drivers should be fully in control of the decision to exceed the speed limit, and by how much. FSD should drive like a hard-nosed driving instructor unless the driver gives unambiguous permission to do otherwise.

[0] Note that I am describing this based on my understanding of the US environment. I am Australian, and our speed limits are strictly enforced at the posted speed, without exception. On any road, you should expect a fine if going 3—6 km/h [2—4 MPH] and caught by a fixed or mobile camera. This applies literally anywhere, including highways. By contrast in the USA, I understand that 5—10 MPH on highways has been socially normalised, and law enforcement generally disregards it.)

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#96
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Novelty is enough to look like "shockingly good". You were comparing "no self driving" to "some self driving". A jump from 0 to something always seems big. Standard driver assists were also impressive when they appeared on cars. In the meantime Tesla still makes a lot of claims about safety but doesn't trust the FSD enough to publish transparent, verifiable stats. That speaks louder than any of our anecdotes. > You a…

> Every single person I know driving a Tesla told me the FSD (not AP) is bad I really don't believe this because everyone I know who drives a Tesla tells me the opposite. I tend to think this is an artifact of people who just irrationally hate Tesla because IRL every negative thing I hear about Teslas comes from people who don't own the cars and hate Elon Musk. > they would never trust it to drive without very carefu…

> I really don't believe this

> I don't believe

> this is an artifact of people who just irrationally hate Tesla

> more of the same emotionally driven desire to see a pattern

Don't you find it curious that every opinion you don't like must be from irrational people hating Tesla, but opinions you do like are all rational and objective? It's as if we didn't define the sunk cost fallacy for exactly this. You're a rational person, if Tesla was confident in the numbers wouldn't we have an avalanche of independently verifiable stats? Instead we're here playing this "nuh-uh" games with you pretending you're speaking with an authority nobody else has. Does any other company go to such lengths to bury the evidence of their success? The evidence that supports their claims?

And of course I can tell FSD drivers, literally nobody else on the street will so often brake hard with absolutely no reason, or veer abruptly then correct and straighten out so hard it wobbles, both on highways and in the city. If it's not the car then it must be the drivers but they wouldn't make such irrational moves.

P.S. The internet is full of video evidence of FSD making serious and unjustified mistakes. Every version brings new evidence. How do you explain those? Irrational haters inventing issues? Car misbehaving only for them? Because you see, even if you film 10 times and get the mistake only once it's still very serious.

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was genuinely good. You lack data to draw this conclusion. The most important factor is deaths per mile, which is sparse, so it requires aggregating data from many drivers before you have enough statistical power.

[flagged]

Where "good" is pretty much identical to having a specific rate of accidents over a specific set of conditions, then in fact data is absolutely necessary to determine that. Lol.

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#98
post #3

> However, at this week’s shareholder meeting, Musk stated that Tesla may allow “texting and driving” within “a month or two.” The family of the first person killed by that will know who to sue for a punitive trillion dollars.

Sorry, but disabling autopilot/FSD to use your phone is much crazier.

These are, after all, the only options available to a Tesla driver!

Re: When Tesla's FSD works well, it gets credit. When it doesn't, you get blamed

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own six EVs (three cars, one of which is a Tesla, and three motorcycles). My first EV was my Tesla. We're on the cusp of trading the Tesla in for a Rivian most likely. I should be Tesla's target customer, but instead I'm exactly who you described: - I don't like the brand. I don't like Elon. I don't like the reputation that the car attaches to me. - I don't trust the technology. I've gotten two FSD trials, both sca…

> instead of making cars for real people that love cars. Whoosh. They've been saying Tesla is an AI company for nearly a decade. AI has been propping up entire US economy for last few years. EV bandwagon has left long time ago. Saying all that I wouldn't mind even cheaper Tesla - small screen, 1 camera instead of 11, fully offline, fully stainless steel, fully open source - basically minimally tech and maximally main…

> Saying all that I wouldn't mind even cheaper Tesla - small screen, 1 camera instead of 11, fully offline, fully stainless steel, fully open source - basically minimally tech and maximally maintainable and maximum longevity.

What you describe would probably cost more money, not less. The market is small and analog tech is actually more expensive to produce with than digital tech.

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