
Selling full autonomy before it's ready could backfire for Tesla - mcone
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/04/why-selling-full-self-driving-before-its-ready-could-backfire-for-tesla/
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jijojv
There's already a lawsuit from 4/2017 covering "Enhanced" Autopilot...

[https://www.truthinadvertising.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/0...](https://www.truthinadvertising.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/06/Sheikh-v-Tesla-complaint.pdf) Tesla’s Marketing and
Sale of Vaporware 21\. As Dictionary.com states, vaporware is “[c]omputer
software that is advertised but still nonexistent.” Tesla advertised vaporware
to consumers, knowing full well that this particular come-on would
particularly excite its target market of high-tech aficionados.

Now we need one for self-driving for those who were duped into buying a Tesla
just for that.

~~~
jijojv
Not to mention all the AP1 owners who were misled with this tweet.
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920)
In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by
borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY 10 Jan 2016

AP1 owners who purchased Tesla in Q1/Q2'16 are SOL as in Q3'16 they released
AP2 since AP1 didn't have full self-driving h/w despite his Jan'16 tweet.

~~~
freerobby
Elon stated as early as the AP1 launch event that AP1 hardware was
insufficient for full autonomy. The claim of a coming cross-country summon
feature does not imply that it will be retroactively made possible on every
Tesla vehicle ever produced.

If there is ever a successful lawsuit brought by AP1 owners, it is much more
likely to focus on the promises that were made to them but never delivered,
e.g. "meeting you at the curb" from your garage on private property.

------
CookWithMe
Their marketing claim of "Full Self-Driving Hardware" is evil-genius - it's
very similar to the Halting problem[0] - Turing proofed that we can not
develop an algorithm that can predict whether any program will eventually
halt.

It's very similar with this marketing claim. We can never show that the
hardware is not capable of being self-driving. Maybe, someone, at some point
in the future, could pull it off. Even if the rest of the industry uses Lidar,
beefier chips etc., it is not proof that it can not be done with that
hardware. Tesla can keep playing that game, until virtually no one owns the
current generation of cars anymore.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem)

~~~
mrspeaker
I think it's very different from the halting problem because there is no
perfect solution (like there is with "either the problem halts or it does
not"). A self-driving car just needs to be good enough, where "good enough"
means X% more reliable than the average human driver.

I personally am terrified of human drivers and will not walk close to the edge
of a road because I don't trust them to be paying attention. As shown
recently, self-driving cars appear to not yet be at that level (though I don't
know the numbers - perhaps they are).

When self-driving cars reliably have same-or-few accidents per year (by
volume) then I think they can claim "Full Self-Driving".

~~~
taf2
Humans write the software the power those self driving cars... was it an error
that always repeated it self or did only happen every billion iterations? I’m
all for self driving but it’s still horrifying to think of the edge cases with
software touching the physical world...

~~~
darepublic
It's moreso the cases where the ML model(s) fail(s) to perform the correct
action. Essentially the inputs after being passed through the weighted neural
network fail to sum up to the correct number == rip pedestrian/passengers.

------
s17n
Question for Tesla owners: if you're actually keeping your hands on the wheel
and staying mentally engaged, what's the point of autopilot?

~~~
jgibson
Not having to constantly make minor adjustments to throttle position to
maintain the correct speed is a big bonus for me, both in traffic and out of
it. I find I can focus much more on watching my surroundings, and whats
happening 500m down the road, rather than constantly looking at the
speedometer. This also makes a big difference to how tired I feel after long
trips. The same applies to the Lateral Control part of Autopilot, although I
use that less.

(To be fair, many other cars provide adaptive cruise control too, but Tesla's
is the best I've tried so far).

~~~
ghaff
I'm interested in trying out one of the current adaptive cruise control
systems. I pretty much got out of the habit of using cruise control. Most of
the roads I drive on have enough traffic that I find cruise control leads to
me prioritizing maintaining a constant speed rather than sensibly staying in
the flow of traffic. I.e. shifting lanes rather than slowing down a couple
mph.

------
danso
> _Tesla charges $5,000 for Autopilot 's lane-keeping and advanced cruise
> control features. On top of that, customers can pay $3,000 for what Tesla
> describes as "Full Self-Driving Capability."_

Is $5,000 what owners of other cars pay for similar driver-assist features?

~~~
michaelt
In order to sincerely claim a car has the hardware needed to support a full
self-driving capability the car would need several LIDARs, several good
quality cameras, a high-precision GPS receiver, and a respectable Inertial
Measurement Unit.

If you get all that hardware, $5,000 is a great price; back in 2005, any one
of those components would have set you back that much.

Of course, if Tesla doesn't have that full complement of sensors - and from
the price, they might not have all those sensors - the promised self-driving
capabilities may never materialise.

~~~
dingo_bat
> In order to sincerely claim a car has the hardware needed to support a full
> self-driving capability the car would need several LIDARs, several good
> quality cameras, a high-precision GPS receiver, and a respectable Inertial
> Measurement Unit.

No, it needs decent cameras with coverage in all directions. That's all what a
human needs so that's enough hardware.

~~~
michaelt
Of the vehicles that completed the DARPA Grand Challenge and the DARPA Urban
Challenge, how many do you think used LIDAR on their vehicles?

I'll tell you: 100%. Out of 11 teams finishing, every single one used LIDAR.

And I'll tell you why too: With LIDAR you need much simpler algorithms, and
that directly translates into fewer bugs, meaning fewer instances of your
vehicle crashing into stationary concrete barriers on clear days.

~~~
dingo_bat
It just means your AI is not intelligent enough. The hardware is sufficient,
as proven by billions of humans.

------
whatever1
The big leap in deep neural nets, gave us the illusion that we will solve many
of our problems overnight. The fact is that we probably need at least one more
decade to get things right

~~~
vokep
The leap was that now we have a plan for how to tackle these problems, we have
tools that will actually work. Seemingly overnight those tools appeared and we
realized their potential. However, we still need to learn how to best use
these new tools and perfect them. Just because we can do something doesn't
mean we can do it good enough, yet.

~~~
pzone
But it's still easy to sucker 3 grand from all the people who didn't realize
this.

------
_o_
I was repeating this to people (typically I was downvoted, the same way I will
be now), but the hype is just too huge. People need superheroes, in comics and
in real life, they need to depend on some preacher, that will show them
illusion of better life. And the marketing is using that, again we are in same
scheme, instead of listening to technical people, everyone is relying on
marketing which will say everything to boost up the stocks. <slowly clapping>
Bravo! (I never had a driving license, I do all my "moving" with public
transport or bike and self driving car would be usefull, but not yet - or
sooner than in 10 years)

------
yuhong
I wonder about the idea of not "full" self-driving, but with turns and lane
changes being automated instead of a steering wheel for example for idiot-
proof driving. A joystick may be available as a fallback for manual steering.
Of course, there would also be collision detection for example too.

------
pcunite
Why not sell full autonomy for certain roads only? Like, put sensors every
three feet on the interstate, and have a sensor in the car read the proximity
sensor. Perfect full auto driving.

~~~
imtringued
Following lanes isn't the problem. Collision avoidance is the big unsolved
problem for Tesla.

~~~
Animats
_Collision avoidance is the big unsolved problem for Tesla._

Er, yes.

Tesla is really good at following painted lane lines. Very smooth steering.
Sometimes right into solid obstacles.

