Comment by venzaspa

6 hours ago

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't really want to be just sitting in my car tapping my knees while the car drives for me.

I'd rather these guys just focus on building a Euro spec model of the R3 and getting it over here.

I used to think that I would only use FSD on long trips, where it's tiring, but now that it is so good, I end up using it on any trip that I nav (restaurants, stores, etc.).

And since I can't look at my phone (or sleep or read) I just sit there and think. It's surprisingly relaxing and I didn't realize how much I would appreciate it.

i thought the same thing but i bought a model y a few months ago and turns out that's exactly what I want. 90% self driving and really the 10% is entirely the last part of a drive because it picks stupid parking spots and doesn't know how to enter my driveway, other than that it's driven perfectly

well, perfectly is a bit much, it doesn't know how to dodge potholes yet and it sometimes misses exits/turns, but it's never done anything i would call dangerous

When autonomy is solved, they could put a bed or office or dining table in the car. But I agree, this halfway autonomy where you have to watch everything is kind of useless.

  • > When autonomy is solved, they could put a bed or office or dining table in the car.

    Have you ever tried reading a book while being driven around? You get car sick really fast, because your vestibular system does not like constantly getting jostled around with mismatching visual inputs. Eating dinner while being driven around is a similar story: anyone around you does something unexpected, and your dinner ends up being spilled all over the car.

    Self-driving cars will never have the same smoothness as planes or trains, simply because they have to share the roads with the general public. You might be able to sleep, but your commute isn't going to neatly match up with your sleeping schedule, so that's only really useful for longer road trips.

    > this halfway autonomy where you have to watch everything is kind of useless

    No, it is actively dangerous. Humans are extremely bad at staying fully-focused and being ready to act in the blink of an eye, while at the same time having literally nothing to do 99.99% of the time. If you don't let your attention wander, it is significantly less exhaustive to drive yourself. Halfway-autonomous cars exist primarily so that car manufacturers can demand extra money without having to accept any of the reliability.

    • > Have you ever tried reading a book while being driven around? You get car sick really fast, because your vestibular system does not like constantly getting jostled around with mismatching visual inputs.

      I don't suffer from this all, and judging by watching people in public transport I'm not alone.

    • I don’t know, it might just come down to how good a driver you are.

      I agree with the proposition that people are horrible at halfway autonomy.

      But I am horrible at driving, and I kind of think almost everybody is. I have a car that just does lane keeping and distance keeping cruise control. The number of times it is notified me that I’m sliding off the side of the road is large. Similarly it’s let off the gas a vast number of times when I was creeping up on the car in front of me and I didn’t notice.

      Maybe it’s having just one long, largely empty commute for five years. But I suspect it’s that you can drive any modern car without 100% concentration at which point people are prone to getting distracted.

      So I’m thinking the comparison should be halfway autonomy vs a modern “dumb” car and I think halfway autonomy is safer overall.

I was just talking about this the other day.

When would I want autonomous driving? For longer trips. Where do those happen? On the motorway where driving is mostly straight and simple.

When on the motorway, my Tesla's lane assist gives me basically all the benefits on the motorway I'd get from full self driving. FSD doesn't let me stop watching traffic or release the wheel, and I'd still have to take over to adjust to traffic conditions.. i.e. the same exact thing I'm doing with lane assist.

I'm not interested until I can literally sit in the back and take a nap.