Yeah it has all the hallmarks of “we can build a fully automated plant - well turns out that humans are still way better at some things”. I hope they figure out if this path is a dead end, at least in the short term, or not sooner than later though.

This is patently what will happen when the time comes (if needed) that I'm surprised more people don't realize it.

Companies do it all the time - I'm not even sure it's really lying (as they "collectively" believe they'll be able to do it) but they are willing to pivot when the time is right.

Apple's famously done it - the App Store was never to be at first.

That electrek article doesn't make it very clear, but Ka band radar is not new. Project Soli used it for gesture detection. Those roadside "speedometer" signs run at 20ghz. Etc.

You could imagine an AESA phased array at 60ghz. But there's a reason you only see those radars on aircraft or military vessels: you need hundreds or thousands of individual transmitters. That's why they cost millions of dollars and draw kilowatts of power, it's not (entirely) defense contractor featherbedding. So where's the cost savings over LIDAR? You can drop the number of radios to save money, but then you don't have meaningfully more resolution then any other automotive single-point radar.

Yea, it’s possible they are going all-in on vision only right now because LIDAR is just too expensive right now to roll out to their fleet. If they get it to work without LIDAR, then that’s great. But it’s possible they’re building out a system that can quickly pivot to LIDAR if necessary and when LIDAR costs come down to make it economically feasible as well.

More importantly if the main part they’re working on is the “what to do with situation X” code then adding additional sensors for more accurate data later is relatively easy.

The cost of retrofits will eventually be covered by the $6-12k everyone has paid for "FSD", if they can drag this out until solid-state LIDAR is cheap enough. And meanwhile they get to book that revenue as pure profit.

> they get to book that revenue as pure profit.

Wouldn't you have to keep that on your books as liability in the same height as the income you had from the sale (as the true cost is not yet known)?

They do, they recognize the revenue at FSD milestones, not all upfront.

The milestones they've been using are bullshit - trivial and/or half-baked feature releases (e.g. stop sign and traffic light recognition) that are not reflective of the real challenges in shipping vision-only L5 autonomy. They already recognize half upfront, which is nuts.

To add, they also often have Lidar vehicles roaming around their Fremont factory and design center in Hawthorne, so they're definitely not ruling out any specific technology if it happens to provide measurable improvements at some time.

It’s very likely those LIDAR vehicles are used to gather ground truth to train depth models or calibrate sensors.

"test new millimeter wave radar equipment operating at 60GHz [1]"

I thought that radar was inside cabin only, to detect kids, etc.?

I thought the same, but have seen multiple product sheets and marketing materials from various manufacturers of this equipment describing it being used for exterior scene building and object discrimination (with about 40 meters of range). Continental (well known for its forward looking radar for automatic emergency braking) has a similar product that operates at ~77GHz.

There's a word for engineers that program cars to break the law resulting in deaths, and one of the first law codes specifies the appropriate punishment.

Tesla is not operating in a way any ethical engineer should tolerate.

GM, who owns Cruise, paid out claims for 124 deaths due to their ignition recall that they were aware of, did not disclose to regulators at the time, and had to forfeit $900 million to the United States government in 2014 [1]. Tesla's Autopilot has been attributed to 12 deaths [2].

Let they who is without engineering sin cast the first stone. Intent and risk appetite is a spectrum.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch...

[2] https://tesladeaths.com/

When quoting those 12 deaths, don't forget that 1) Autopilot is a driver assist feature (like cruise control, driver is always in control and at fault) 2) The majority of those incidents had a driver under the influence

Classic whataboutism. GM's irresponsible behavior doesn't excuse Tesla's irresponsible behavior.

I don’t believe Autopilot, a robust driver assist system with substantial safeguards, is irresponsible (as someone who has used it for ~60k miles of travel). I do believe allowing people to die because you don’t want to replace a defective ignition switch is. That’s not whataboutism, it’s pointing out hypocrisy. NHTSA believes Autopilot is safe enough to continue to allow its use on public roads. What makes a random HN participant a superior authority on the topic than them? Is it materially unsafe because someone here asserts so without backing up their claim? These are not rhetorical questions. 3700 people die per day from auto accidents that are ~95% human error caused and 12 deaths total while Autopilot was active is irresponsible?

Death is unavoidable, only preventable short term on a scale. To expect zero deaths is unreasonable.

The big problem with Autopilot is the sleazy way it’s been marketed and sold to customers and regulators versus what the system really is. Charging folks $10k for an option with the CEO insisting that “full self driving” is shipping next year is borderline fraud.

I won’t buy a GM product and I won’t buy a Tesla product either, happy?

It's worth being precise about the terminology: Autopilot comes with the car (autosteer), FSD is what costs $10k extra.

Conflating the two makes it harder to have a conversation about what either actually is or does.

But, they are both scams.

Autopilot (name aside) does the same exact thing that most car manufacturers offer in luxury cars. So I'm not sure what part you think is a scam.

You just have answered your own question :)

It's not whataboutism.

- Autopilot has been "on" during 12 fatal crashes. It's a level 2 driver assist so it isn't "responsible" for those deaths, the driver is. Autopilot data shows it improves safety. Could you explain the unethical part?

- The ignition recall, GM knew it was a problem, and it was. The unethical part is super clear.

These aren't equivalent at all. Actually this highlights the bad faith attacks on Tesla. There are reasonable controversial decisions to be discussed with Tesla's approach. But safety isn't one of them, they have the safest cars on the roads and the lowest crash/fatality rate.

I think they’re referring to the “rolling stop” code Tesla added - which is technically an illegal maneuver but not one resulting in death as far as I know.

Autodrive is going to force the actual law and the theoretical law to come into sync, otherwise automatic driving cars will cause other issues by sticking to the letter of the law when normal drivers do not.

It is definitely not "unethical" to have an AV drive just like a human does... Unlawful, perhaps.

When programming an AV to drive like a human does, are the programmers including all the contextual human judgement that goes along with the human decisions, or just throwing away the letter of the law because it's too much trouble? I have a hard time explaining to a human teenager the etiquette that goes along with something like merging onto a highway, and it varies by region.