
Why Tesla Is Going to Win in Autonomy - giacaglia
https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/self-driving-cars-f921d75f46c7
======
czr
* The given description of Tesla's "Shadow Mode" has been bouncing around for a while, but it's not accurate (see [https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1096325954375430144](https://twitter.com/greentheonly/status/1096325954375430144) for a description of what Tesla actually does).

* The description of LIDAR having "much more detail than other sensors" is confusing. LIDAR has more detail than radar, but LIDAR is much _less_ detailed than cameras.

* The description of the 2016 accident is not correct. MobilEye provided the EyeQ3 chip on the car, not just the software. "Since then, Tesla added radars for these situations" is flat out wrong; Tesla has always had radar as part of AP, and radar didn't (and won't) prevent that sort of accident ([https://twitter.com/artem_zin/status/748623772056428544](https://twitter.com/artem_zin/status/748623772056428544))

* 'the newest Tesla Autopilot software 9.0 has the largest vision neural network ever trained' wut?

* 'The DARPA Grand Challenge began in 2004'...'the winner, Waymo' wut?

* 'systems based on if-then statements' ?

* 'Comma.ai continues to develop its software, and drivers can buy and install it in their cars' the software is free, it's on Github.

Furthermore, the thesis in the HN title is not supported at all in the post as
far as I can tell.

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Nomentatus
Sobering to read that Waymo simply couldn't sell their software stack by
itself even though that was their plan A, a la Android. The only reason that
allows me to make sense of this is that old-line manufacturers just couldn't
bring themselves to believe that software (albeit nets not code) could be
quite valuable. Which may mean they're stuck in a very old-fashioned head-
space.

~~~
sterlind
Or perhaps they realize exactly how valuable Waymo is, and how dangerous it
would be to ally with them. The contract probably stipulated that auto
manufacturers cease efforts to develop a competitor to Waymo, meaning they'd
be tied to Alphabet forever. Under Android, most OEMs have razor-thin profit
margins and little ability to customize the stack.

If auto manufacturers think there's enough lead time for them to develop a
viable competitor (Cruise), why should they knuckle under to Alphabet? Cue
lobbyists fighting to keep each other from DMV certification..

~~~
Nomentatus
I haven't been especially clear. I said "could be valuable" \- I might also
have said "could be hard to replicate." Nets are hard to create because they
need masses of data to train as the article says. Paradoxically, at the same
time they're just about impossible to effectively protect as IP; functional
duplication of a net is (nearly) always possible if you're willing to put up
the money. So why not pay less to rent the software now and wait 'till
recreating the nets is far cheaper or already largely available as open
source? I suspect the old-line car companies have tossed away a ton of money
because they had zero understanding of neural net commerce or economics.

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blueboo
i seem to remember at least one other company doing software _and_ hardware...

lol the author 'forgot' about Cruise/GM

but what's that compared to the copious knowledge gained by haunting the tesla
subreddit

