That is, I fully understand that to get to Levels 3, 4, and 5, you need to pass through levels 1 and 2 in autonomous driving. But the issue is that I feel like these systems are basically at the "slight drunk teenager" stage, with you as the driver having to ensure they don't mess up too badly. Honestly, unless I can, say, read a book or do something else, these systems (I'm specifically referring to an advanced cruise control/lane keeping system) right now just require me to pay MORE attention and they stress me out more.
Fully understand we need folks to help train these systems, but, at least for me, they currently make the driving experience worse.
Speed control I'm fine with and is obvs. a mature tech that has been around for decades. Maybe it's the way I drive, but I find lane assist a liability -- especially on curves. More than once the car swerved unexpectedly one way or the other going around a bend. After the 2nd time that happened, I shut it off.
I've found adaptive cruise control to be a simple, noticeable improvement.
My five year old Honda has a very limited driver assist system (radar cruise control + lane centering), which (in my opinion) is very good at what it's trying to do. It has no pretensions of being a "self-driving" system, but it very successfully manages to reduce some of the stress of driving and make my driving better. I think the key point is it only automates the fine adjustments and provides alerts, but is very careful to never allow the driver to rely on it too much.
Until autonomous vehicles reach "read a book or fall asleep" levels, this is all I'm interested in. No thank you to any dumb "autopilot" system that I can't actually trust, but tries to control my wheel.
When I'm in stop and go traffic, I really like not having to constantly go back and fourth between the brake and gas pedal, I can just pay attention to what's happening in and around the lane and let the car keep a good follow distance.
I've gone over 100 miles at a time without having to touch the gas or brake pedal, even through stop and go traffic.
My only disdain for driving stems from sharing the road with other driver who are completely stupid and seem to lack and critical thinking skill(this shows up in especially in traffic jams and navigation within them on local roads with obstacles also present, like a parked truck loading).
Agree raw data, or even just per 10K mile stats, from Tesla should be table stakes. Why aren't they required to report such things by law?
Tesla releasing the actual raw data would be much more helpful, but of course they are refusing to do that, most likely because it would betray how overhyped, unreliable and dangerous the software is.
Is that enough? The software could decide to accelerate and switch lanes at such a fast rate that the driver wouldn't have time to intervene. It hasn't happened yet to my knowledge. But it may happen.
As an automotive engineer: Agreed. Realistic experience reports are useful, and that includes also e.g. what drivers are willing to attempt and how they risk-rate.
I don't know what the original poster would do, but hopefully they will be more inclined to think twice next time they consider performing the behavior in question. If they do think twice and the situation is unsafe, I certainly hope they won't put their kid at more risk just to spite an internet stranger.
But my primary interest is in the many more people who might be inclined to imitate the poster's behavior when they get the chance. Having the behavior contextualized like this can only help encourage them to think about the risks.
Even when it's as bad as throwing you in the wrong lane of traffic.
Those other cars don't claim to drive themselves.
But, he'd definitely risking other road users and pedestrians if that car keeps trying to run up sidewalks and cause other havoc on the roadway.
Now if the car failed in such a way that you couldn't disengage FSD, THAT would be a serious, catastrophic problem... but as far as I know, that's not really an issue here. (If that were an issue, obviously, it would be cause to have the whole damn car recalled.)
All of this to say, I think we can leave the guy alone for sharing his anecdote. When properly attentive, it shouldn't be particularly dangerous.
If a product being overhyped prevents you from using it after you paid for it, you're gonna have to live with no computer, no phone, no internet, no electricity, no cars, no bikes.
This police officer was responding to an RV which had run off the road, and was speaking with the driver. The driver, a bit shook up from the experience explained that he was driving down the highway, turned on the cruise control, and got up to make himself a sandwich...
I think the Simpsons done it at least 30 years ago.
Every piece of technology has a variety of failure modes, some more likely than others. FSD is not likely to take aim at a pedestrian and floor it, just like your brakes aren't likely to explode, and neither of you are irresponsible for making those assumptions
No single human fully understands these AI models, and they can change daily. Yet Tesla is putting them in control of multi-ton vehicles and leaving all liability on humans with worse reaction time and little to no understanding of how it works or tends to go wrong.
I think you are making scenarios that no reasonable person would assume. There is a difference between 'getting confused at an intersection and turning wrong' and 'actively trying to kill the occupant by accelerating at max speed while turning the steering'.
FSD is a blackbox. Even Tesla appears to be unable to prevent regressions. One of the most sophisticated companies in the world can't prevent regression in a safety critical software they frequently update. Let that sink in.
Regardless, you haven't answered the point about the quote. "Judge not lest ye be judged" does not mean we have to empty-headedly refrain from any sort of moral criticism. In context, it's about hypocrisy, reminding us to apply our standards to ourselves as stringently as we do others. I think it's only appropriate here if tsigo somehow indicated he would happily endanger his own children, which I don't see any sign of.
Deciding that you want to put your family into that steel slug for the very first test seems to me to be an entirely different level of poor decision making.
I was expecting FSD to be bad, but I sure wasn't expecting it to be that bad.
Maybe without disengaging any of the three incidents could have become problems, but for someone who knows how Autopilot works it was more comical than dangerous.
In reality, I had both hands on the wheel and nobody was ever actually in danger. But thanks for your faux-concern.
not sure you're qualified to make that assertion, simply based on the series of choices you've described yourself making here.
At no point was anyone—myself, my child, or another party—in any danger. Perhaps that would be different for someone who had never used Autopilot and didn't know how to disengage. But after a year driving that car, I'm comfortable in my assertion that the situation was safe.
But, by all means, please continue with the HN pedantry. We wouldn't want this place to change.
I think the software is a half-baked gimmick but come on "look guys, I care about children too" variety of in-group signaling with a side of back seat parenting adds less than nothing to the discussion of the subject at hand.
And INB4 someone intentionally misinterprets me as defending the quality of Tesla's product, I'm not.
Unfortunately, it increasing looks like the experiment has failed. But not because of us. We're pissed because Musk isn't doing his part in the deal. He's not pulling his weight. At this point, he's becoming more and more an anchor around the neck of technological progress. That didn't need to happen. It didn't need to be this way. So yeah, we're pissed off, not just because of the money we paid, but also because we feel like we were defrauded by his failure to pull his own weight in the deal.
I wouldn't be surprised to see him make his escape to the Bahamas before this decade is up.
Why not restrict your beta testing to a closed course? A race track? Some land you bought out in the middle of the desert? Have the kids make some some stop signs, plow your new roads, etc.
No one else on the road is consenting to a technology that could rapidly accelerate and course correct into their vehicle at some undetermined time.
Funding responsible self driving research seems like a great use of money to me, but testing an flawed system in the wild does not.
For those that didn't buy it, you can 'rent' it for a monthly subscription fee.
I hate to say it but starting to get this vibe too, particularly when I watch interviews from him which are 1-3 years old. They don't age well.
They're full of promises like, "only do good things for your fellow man, be useful etc" and those ethos seem to be lost now.
The fact that you associate those ideals with purchasing a consumer product made by a public company is intentional.
Enjoy beta testing FSD as an unwilling pedestrian.
(I assume this is why the Cybertruck features bulletproof glass, in case my self-firing gun (now in beta) misidentifies the tires.)
I still read this as Cyberduck every. damn. time.
>in case my self-firing gun (now in beta) misidentifies the tires.)
are you mounting that self-firing gun to a car with FSD? that would make for a great hands free experience.
In downtown Seattle doesn't it drive into the monorail columns?
It did not work and based on my experience, I am extremely skeptical it will ever work in places like Seattle. The car could not even navigate circling Greenlake without a disconnect.
Sold them at the high of the used car market because, in part, I estimate FSD is a liability for the brand and will, eventually, hurt their resale value. That and Elon Musk. Don't need to support that and won't in the future.
A friend of mine bought a Model Y and got access to FSD about six months ago. I've spent a fair bit of time in this car in the bay area and... I'm impressed? It doesn't drive like a professional but it feels safe.
My friend says it's been improving even in just the time he's had it. So maybe it used to be a lot worse?
I'm not in the market for a new car but the next time I am, FSD is going to be a big factor. Even if it's just as good as it is right now.
I had one of the first Model S vehicles that was autopilot-capable. Early enough that autopilot itself was added later. The early versions were... intense. Not just in the "if you take your hands of the wheel it might try to kill you" intense, but also in the "even using this as adaptive cruise with lane-keeping, sometimes it will suddenly try to veer off the road and murder you" sense. Even when working "as intended" it would routinely dip into exit ramps if you were in the right lane. As a result, I didn't use it all that often, but over not a lot of time it improved pretty dramatically.
At this point my wife and I are on newer Model 3s, and our experience with autopilot (not FSD) as a frequently-used driver assist has been... uneventful? Given the _original_ autopilot experience, though, neither of us is particularly eager to try out FSD yet. Autopilot strikes a good balance for us in terms of being a useful second pair of eyes and hands while unambiguously requiring us to drive the damn car.
But that is not what we have right now. Right now every driver on the road is exposed to a potential instant tragedy that is unavoidable. I mean, what is a self driving car going to do if a large semi drops a huge log or freight right in front of you? You have one second to impact. You can either attempt to hold your line and drive over the object, potentially killing/injuring the passengers. Or you can swerve left into oncoming traffic. Or you can swerve right into a busy two way frontage road.
No matter which choice is taken, I guarantee there will be a lawsuit. Perhaps one way forward would be perhaps something similar to what medical companies did in the 1980's with the creation of the "vaccine courts". Maybe we need some kind of new "autonomous driving" court which would be staffed with experts who would then decide what kind of cases have merit. That would at least better shield the parent companies and allow them to continue innovating instead of worrying about potential litigation.
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-neuralink-fabricat...
Only when compared to completely different industries, the most commonly cited being education or food.
When compared to its own industry, the numbers are still large.
It would've still stopped - the FSD system doesn't override the background tasks that power the AEB systems that stop the car from hitting humans or cars.
We don’t know that. An Tesla cannot claim it.
I know this was just an example scenario and your point is broader, but I'm struggling to think of another circumstance where autopilot is at fault 30 seconds post disengage, as it's effectively just a fancy adaptive cruise control.
I've never been at an intersection where straight ahead is a wrong way (wouldn't the traffic be then facing you?), but like any cruise control system, it would likely require driver attention.
Autopilot is not intended to be enable and go to sleep. It's simply fancy cruise control.
Unless you are referring to these [0] incidents from 2016, before FSD was released. That was Tesla Autopilot (which comes standard on all Tesla vehicles now).
Also, FSD uses active camera monitoring to make sure the driver is paying attention, so no you can't sleep in your while FSD is activated.
[0] https://www.wired.com/story/teslas-latest-autopilot-death-lo...
Would it have though?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mnG_Gbxf_w
At this point I can't imagine buying anything Tesla related. Or anything related to Elon Musk for that matter. He's a grifter who has managed to stand on the shoulders of giants and call himself tall.
(The loaners that I have had three of those four times have all had FSD.)
I am reasonably satisfied with Enhanced Autopilot on highways, though it’s unclear to me what, exactly, is ‘enhanced’ about it. And Navigate on Autopilot seems to add nothing of value.
It’s not flawless, especially on the seattle roads where knowing where the road actually is requires human level reasoning most of the time, so it drifts into parts of the road that I know from experience are for parking but the car assumes is just a widened road. Or there a lot of roads with margins that are gravel but are so subtly different from the damaged road surface it thinks that’s part of the road and tries to drift over before it realizes it’s not. These issues are nothing like the unmitigated disaster it used to be, though, and if they can keep the pace they’ve had over the last 6 months up for another 12 months, it’ll be remarkably useful.
I believe that's a "feature". I had it on a loaner too and it wants you to give it permission to cross the intersection by pressing down on the drive stalk or briefly press the accelerator pedal.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_eu/GUID-A701F7D...
But this raises the question, what would have actually happened if you just let the car be? Would it have gotten into accidents? Or maybe it just drives in this alien unfamiliar way but is actually safer?
As long as the roads are a mixed environment of autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles, driving in an unfamiliar way is by definition unsafe because other road users can't anticipate what your car is going to do. That's not even mentioning pedestrians or cyclists.
What I realized was just that I was being scared of the computer. It wasnt about to drive into traffic, and it wasnt about to crash into anything or anything like that.
What was happening was that I was rightly being overly cautious of the beta program, and taking control as soon as there was really anything other than driving in a straight line on an empty road.
Over time, it became a dependable, usable copilot for me. I would massively miss FSD if it was gone.
The car almost caused an accident 3 separate times.
The first, was when it almost drove into oncoming traffic at an intersection where the road curves north on both sides.
The second, was when it failed to understand a fork on the right side of the road, swerved back and forth twice, and then almost drove straight into a road sign.
The third, in downtown, was when a brick crosswalk confused it on a left turn, causing it to literally drive up onto the corner of the intersection. Thank God there weren't pedestrians there.
When we upgraded to a Y, I turned down FSD. I don't imagine I'll be paying for it ever again.