Comment by cbeach
6 hours ago
We tend to defend companies that push the frontiers of self-driving cars, because the technology has the potential to save lives and make life easier and cheaper for everyone.
As engineers, we understand that the technology will go from unsafe, to par-with-humans, to safer-than-humans, but in order for it to get to the latter, it requires much validation and training in an intermediate state, with appropriate safeguards.
Tesla's approach has been more risk averse and conservative than others. It has compiled data and trained its models on billions of miles of real world telemetry from its own fleet (all of which are equipped with advanced internet-connected computers). Then it has rolled out the robotaxi tech slowly and cautiously, with human safety drivers, and only in two areas.
I defend Tesla's tech, because I've owned and driven a Tesla (Model S) for many years, and its ten-year-old Autopilot (autosteer and cruise control with lane shift) is actually smoother and more reliable than many of its competitors current offerings.
I've also watched hours of footage of Tesla's current FSD on YouTube, and seen it evolve into something quite remarkable. I think the end-to-end neural net with human-like sensors is more sensible than other approaches, which use sensors like LIDAR as a crutch for their more rudimentary software.
Unlike many commenters on this platform I have no political issues with Elon, so that doesn't colour my judgement of Tesla as a company, and its technological achievements. I wish others would set aside their partisan tribablism and recognise that Tesla has completely revolutionised the EV market and continues to make significant positive contributions to technology as a whole, all while opening all its patents and opening its Supercharger network to vehicles from competitors. Its ethics are sound.
> but in order for it to get to the latter, it requires much validation and training in an intermediate state, with appropriate safeguards.
I expect self-driving cars to be launched unsupervised on public roads in only an order-of-magnitude safer than human drivers shape. Or not launch at all.
One can pay thousands of people to babysit these cars with their hands on the wheel for many years until that threshold is reached, and if no one is ready to pay for that effort then we'll just drive ourselves until the end of time.
Note: this is in response to > The "salute" in particular is simply a politically-expedient freeze-frame from a Musk speech, where he said "my heart goes out to you all" and happened to raise his arm. I could provide freeze-frame images of Obama and Hilary Clinton doing similar "salutes" and claim this makes them "far right fascists" but I would never insult the reader's intelligence by doing so.
For Obama and Clinton you can find freeze frames showing their arm in a similar position, but when you look at the full video it was in the middle of something that does not match a Nazi salute. Here are several examples: https://x.com/ExposingNV/status/1881647306724049116?t=CGKtg0...
If you had a camera in my kitchen you could find similar freeze frames of me whenever I make a sausge/egg/cheese on an English muffin breakfast sandwich because the ramekin I use to shape the egg patty is on the top shelf.
With Musk the full video shows it matches from when his arm starts moving to the end of the gesture. See cbeach
4 hours ago
When Musk starts invading neighbouring countries and rounding up ethnic minorities for extermination you can call him a Nazi with some legitimacy.
On the other hand, what you're trying to extrapolate here seems somewhat contrived.
> other approaches, which use sensors like LIDAR as a crutch for their more rudimentary software.
Do me a favor and take Musk and get on a plane with just a bunch of cameras instead of sevsors like radar, airspeed sensor, altimeter, GPS, ILS, etc.
No need for those crutches. Do autopiloting like a real man!
Human-piloted planes have altimeters and airspeed indicators; the failure of which have caused many accidents.
Tesla cars have speed sensors as well as GPS. (Altimeter and ILS not being relevant). I agree with Musk's claim they don't need LIDAR because human drivers don't; it's self-evidently true. But I think they _should_ have it because they can then be safer than humans; why settle for our current accident and death rate?
Following your logic (which is from the company marketing), why not remove GPS on the car in case they go wrong, as humans we don't need GPS? Cameras could go wrong too... then what happens?
Humans hear car/road noises, along with potential screams from outside or passenger shouts from inside, we sense vibrations, can respond to pedestrian or other driver hand signals, and constantly predict hazards through perceptions. How is the car doing all of this, if not for additional sensors and processing?
You can land a plane by eye, but what happens when there's fog? That's exactly like the situation in cars. LIDAR can provide extra sensory data where the cameras absolutely fail, just like our own eyes.
Knowing there's a solution to this, we are just to accept the car will fail where humans will? That's progress? Why wouldn't you want that extra data for such a small relative cost? LIDAR was already used on cars as a safety-only front collision avoidance system (that's how cheap it is to install).
In a properly designed system, adding data which is useful and cannot otherwise be inferred makes complete sense.
Given these cars are supposed to be so good that they will be working autonomously for you and pay themselves off in a year or two, the idea that LIDAR etc. is unnecessary and too expensive and will be lead to actively worse performance, is just insane logic for an "engineering" discussion.
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> I wish others would set aside their partisan tribablism and recognise that Tesla has completely revolutionised the EV market and continues to make significant positive contributions to technology as a whole, all while opening all its patents and opening its Supercharger network to vehicles from competitors.
The problem is, they lost their drive. The competition has caught up - Mercedes Benz has an actually certified Level 4 Autonomous Driving system, on the high-class end pretty much every major manufacturer has something competitive with Tesla, the low budget end has something like the Dacia Spring starting at 12.000€, and the actual long-haul truck (i.e. not the fake "truck" aka Cybertruck) segment has (at least) Volvo, MAN and DAF making full-size trucks.
Where is the actual unique selling point that Tesla has now?
> Tesla's approach has been more risk averse and conservative than others.
You lost me here. Tesla's approach has absolutely not been risk averse or conservative. They've allowed random public "testers" to beta test their self driving stack while even they called it a "beta". They've irresponsibly called the feature "full self driving" when it wasn't able to do any such thing. They've made completely outlandish promises (like FSD driving you from coast to coast in 2016). Finally they've staged marketing videos of FSD "working"[1]. Just deplorable stuff and using the public as their guinea pigs (and piggie bank).
> Its ethics are sound.
You've got to be joking. Where's the "/s"?
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/17/tesla-engineer-testifies-t...
Edit: Forgot another Tesla chonker of a promise. Remember when Elon said a Tesla car would be an appreciating asset because it would make you money by acting as a robotaxi when you're not using it? That was in 2019[2]. Has your Model S appreciated? Are you able to sell it for more today than the purchase price?
[2] https://electrek.co/2025/03/18/elon-musk-biggest-lie-tesla-v...
So I'm assuming you're fine with regular drivers using basic lane keep systems from other companies, which honestly doesn't even work well, even in the latest cars. (there's a reason Comma.ai exists) At least people who are using FSD are enthusiasts and understand the tech. You have some people using lane keep with adaptive cruise control and think the car is "self driving". That's dangerous.