
Elon Musk Says Tesla Vehicles Will Drive Themselves in Two Years (2015) - apsec112
http://fortune.com/2015/12/21/elon-musk-interview/
======
agildehaus
[https://www.spacex.com/press/2012/12/19/spacex-announces-
lau...](https://www.spacex.com/press/2012/12/19/spacex-announces-launch-date-
worlds-most-powerful-rocket)

Which could easily have the title:

"Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will Launch Falcon Heavy In Two Years (2011)"

Sure, don't believe his dates, but he may just deliver it.

~~~
_Nat_
To add context to the above, looks like SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launched
2018-02-06 [1] after Elon Musk's 2011 claim [2]:

> “Falcon Heavy will arrive at our Vandenberg, California, launch complex by
> the end of next year, with liftoff to follow soon thereafter. First launch
> from our Cape Canaveral launch complex is planned for late 2013 or 2014.”

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy_test_flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy_test_flight)

[2]: [https://www.spacex.com/press/2012/12/19/spacex-announces-
lau...](https://www.spacex.com/press/2012/12/19/spacex-announces-launch-date-
worlds-most-powerful-rocket)

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sunstone
So in a similar vein to nuclear fusion, self driving cars are always two years
away.

~~~
ngcc_hk
Better. Cold Fusion is always 10 years away.

And even better it is partially work and kill a few ...

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mikorym
I'm guessing this is a tongue in the cheek response to this: [1]. I think that
clever people always run a risk of trying to be "too clever" and self driving
cars is the prime example of our generation.

A simpler solution would be to install electronic wiring on the roads
themselves to guide the cars and I daresay we would have self-driving cars
within a month of installation. Now, I am not saying we should do this (South
Africa, I'm scolding you for thuggery and vandalism) but it does support my
argument about "clever people" having collective detrimental group think.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/04/elon-musk-says-tesla-
is...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/04/elon-musk-says-tesla-is-vastly-
ahead-on-self-driving/)

~~~
eesmith
For examples:

"Look Ma, No Hands! Automated Bus Steers Itself" \-
[https://www.wired.com/2008/09/look-ma-no-
hand/](https://www.wired.com/2008/09/look-ma-no-hand/)

"Volvo Thinks Magnetic Roads Will Guide Tomorrow's Autonomous Cars" \-
[https://www.wired.com/2014/03/volvo-magnets-
autonomous/](https://www.wired.com/2014/03/volvo-magnets-autonomous/)

Guided vehicles on factory floors have been around for a while, see
[https://patents.google.com/?q=guided&q=vehicle&oq=guided+veh...](https://patents.google.com/?q=guided&q=vehicle&oq=guided+vehicle)
.

Since these have been around for decades (I think I saw a video from the 1960s
about a future world of self-driving cars with such sort of system), it's
likely not so easy to do.

~~~
eesmith
Bit late, but found that [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_self-
driving_cars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_self-driving_cars) says
:

> In 1957, a full size system was successfully demonstrated by RCA Labs and
> the State of Nebraska on a 400-foot strip of public highway at the
> intersection of U.S. Route 77 and Nebraska Highway 2, then just outside
> Lincoln, Nebraska. A series of experimental detector circuits buried in the
> pavement were a series of lights along the edge of the road. The detector
> circuits were able to send impulses to guide the car and determine the
> presence and velocity of any metallic vehicle on its surface. A previous
> test installation of the system in September 1954 along U.S. Route 73 and
> U.S. Route 75 in Cass County, Nebraska was utilized as an experimental
> traffic counter. It was developed in collaboration with General Motors, who
> paired two standard models with equipment consisting of special radio
> receivers and audible and visual warning devices that were able to simulate
> automatic steering, accelerating and brake control.[27][28][29]

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Santhosh1
I guess he sets impossible deadlines not for the public but for his employees.
He thinks he has a very limited time and has a lot to achieve. It is fine
until someone loses money because of this news.

~~~
Traster
It sounds much more like he sets impossible deadlines for his share price.

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sschueller
Does he actually believe this or is he manipulating the public?

~~~
anbop
With this category of blowhard (Musk, Trump, Kanye West) I think it’s a self-
reinforcing cycle of saying something rhetorically and then starting to
believe your own bullshit.

~~~
tincholio
I think that lumping Musk with either of the other two is quite harsh.

~~~
bjl
You're right, to my knowledge neither Trump nor Kanye have publicly accused
innocent people of pedophilia.

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ngcc_hk
Can but may be not. Can we have a kill switch we do not need to find and fight
against like 737 max.

Auto vs assist. Force vs option. Blind-Trust vs not-be-Lab-rat

Ok if anyone kill all programmer and the company executive is subject to
murder charge. How about that?

~~~
lsc
I mean, I suppose this doesn't really have all that much to do with automated
driving. But yes, I do support much greater liability for the people or
entities that operate motor vehicles.

I think you should focus on civil penalties, not criminal. Criminal penalties
for bad driving would not work in America, politically. Besides, higher
insurance minimums help to make the cost of operating dangerous machinery
around other people be born by the people who are choosing to operate that
machinery. much greater insurance requirements and greater civil penalties
will raise the cost of driving to include the cost of the injuries caused by
driving

(right now, where I am, the insurance minimum is like a month or two of
software engineer wages... so obviously, your insurance bill doesn't cover the
likely cost if you actually injure or kill a person)

Of course, this would make driving a lot more expensive (well, it would shift
the cost away from the people who are hit to the people who are choosing to
drive these dangerous machines) and realistically would only work in urban
areas where there is decent public transit. (Or maybe you could do something
with geofencing insurance; you are a lot more likely to hit a person in an
urban area, so maybe insurance in low-population areas would be cheaper, if
you never drove in areas with a lot of other people?)

If anything, I think self-driving cars would make this slightly better, as the
only sane way to insure them is for the company that created and maintained
the self-driving system insure it, and that means there are deeper pockets
behind the thing; deep enough to pay for the loss of a human life, or to
repair a human.

~~~
derekp7
Insurance is already cheaper if you live out in the boonies. City insurance is
almost 5x more expensive than if you are in a rural farm area.

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sytelus
TLDR; Fun exchange between Elon Musk and George Hotz. Later put a bet he can
do better than Mobileye. Musk declined citing difference between demoware vs
production. Musk hopes to have _level 4_ autonomy in two years.

