Comment by brightball

21 days ago

I can't speak for lidar, but the Tesla self driving with cameras only on HW4 in my little Model 3 is so good that I don't even think about it anymore. I never thought I would trust this type of technology.

Over the last 2 days I drove from Greenville, SC to Raleigh, NC (4-5 hours) and back with self driving the entire way. Traffic, Charlotte, navigating parking lots to pull into a super charger. The only place I took over was the conference center parking lot for the Secure Carolina's Conference.

It drives at least as well or better than me in almost all cases...and I'm a pretty confident driver.

I say all that to say this...I can't imagine lidar improving on what I'm already seeing that much. Diminishing returns would be the biggest concern from a standpoint of cost justification. The fact that this type of technology exists in a vehicle as affordable as the Model 3 is mind blowing.

8 comments

brightball

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ImPostingOnHN  21 days ago

Anecdotal evidence isn't super useful here in preventing tragedy, because the people with negative anecdotes might be dead, and thus cannot give them.

To wit: Plenty of other tesla owners in a similar position as you, probably similarly praised the system, until it slammed them into a wall, car, or other obstacle, killing them.

  • smallmancontrov  21 days ago

    The one good thing about death statistics is that they are difficult to hide or game the reporting thresholds.

    https://www.tesladeaths.com/

    Autopilot kills loads of people but my understanding is that autopilot is the dumb driver assist while FSD is the one that tries to solve general purpose driving.

    Has FSD really only killed 2 people? FSD has driven 6 billion miles and the human driver death rate is 10 per billion so it has killed 2 where "as good as human" would mean 60. That seems really good tbh.

    EDIT: and it looks like "deactivate before collision" doesn't work as a cheat, NHTSA requires reporting if it was active at any time within 30 seconds of the crash: https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-orde...

    • brightball  21 days ago

      Yea, I believe the human miles without crash is something like 496,000, Tesla emergency intervention alone increases it to about 2 million and FSD is sitting at 6 million.

      My biggest gripe with FSD is typically that it's too safe in a few situations where I would have gone a little sooner at an intersection.

      EDIT: https://www.tesla.com/fsd/safety

      Miles Driven Before Major Collision

      699,000 - US Avg

      972,000 - Teslas Driven Manually (no active safety features)

      2.3 mil - Tesla Driven Manually (active safety features)

      5.1 mil - Tesla Driven with FSD (supervised)

      Miles Driven Before Minor Collision

      229,000 - US Avg

      308,000 - Teslas Driven Manually (no active safety features)

      741,000 - Tesla Driven Manually (active safety features)

      1.5 mil - Tesla Driven with FSD (supervised)

UltraSane  21 days ago

Tesla FSD cannot drive empty the way Waymo's have been able to for years. This proves Waymo's approach is much better.

  • brightball  20 days ago

    I don't have strong opinion on the technology itself, but what is the price difference? How likely is it to be added to consumer vehicles? Does the technology have to stick out in every direction or can it be better hidden? Are there negative side effects to having roads too full of lidar in terms of signal congestion?

    I don't know the answer to any of these but it seems like the camera based approach has some advantages to it as well. Doesn't seem that cut and dry.