Just to be clear, because a lot of people who don’t follow this closely may not appreciate it, the 3-D spatial awareness component of Tesla’s stack has been solved problem for a couple of years now. The long tail problem is path planning and decision-making. LIDAR doesn’t make that any easier, even in theory.
Yes we all know that Waymo has done this but this thread is about Tesla.
3-D spatial awareness component of Tesla’s stack has been solved problem for a couple of years now
A lot of people have died because their self driving Teslas did not have spatial awareness and crashed into stationary objects at full speed. Clearly we have different definitions of construction "solved".
A lot of people have died because their self driving Teslas
Two is not "a lot".
In the USA in 2023, the fatality rate of human drivers was 1.26 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles in the USA.
Over the 60 million miles driven by Waymo vehicles, the number of fatalities involving a Waymo is one. This is a fatality rate of 1.67 deaths per 100 million miles. (It should be noted that this isn't a statistically meaningful number because Waymo vehicles have driven so few miles.)
Over the 3.8 billion miles driven by Tesla FSD, the number of fatalities involving a Tesla running the FSD software stack is two. This a fatality rate of 0.05 deaths per 100 million miles. If those 3.8 billion miles were driven by humans, you would expect 46 more deaths to have occurred.
Tesla advanced driving features (AP and FSD) have killed more people than every other automaker‘s comparable systems. Combined.
Tesla FSD killed 2 people this year alone. No other automakers self driving systems have killed or even seriously injured anyone.
Elon Musk isn't going to give you a job for shilling for him on HN so stop embarrassing yourself.
Your first claim is baseless, as no statistics exist to make that claim. Tesla is the only major manufacturer which voluntarily provides all crash information to regulators. No other major manufacturer collects and discloses comparable statistics. Therefore it cannot be asserted that ADAS-involved deaths are more frequent in Tesla vehicles.
It's often said that Autopilot is uniquely dangerous because it gives drivers a false sense of confidence. This is a "feels true" claim. However, many other manufacturers have ADAS systems which exceed the technical AND subjective performance of Tesla Autopilot. On that basis, we should assume that ADAS-involved fatality rates are higher with those brands.
Your second claim exceeds the data published by both reputable AND biased sources. Even if true, that still places FSD well over an order of magnitude more safe than human drivers, with a supposed 3 deaths compared to the expected 48 deaths with human-piloted vehicles.
As for your last sentence, overuse of cutting comments makes them dull.
The one fatal accident involving a Waymo on the other hand was an empty Waymo that was stopped at a red light along with several other cars when another car (a Tesla, BTW) going just under 100 mph slammed into that group of stopped cars from behind, killing a passengers and a dog in one of them, and injuring people in several of them.
There have been zero from the current players.
> Over the 3.8 billion miles driven by Tesla FSD, the number of fatalities involving a Tesla running the FSD software stack is two.
Then why doesn't Tesla publish a full accounting of their crash reports?
They could sideline him, perhaps put him in an oubliette for a while, then make some serious improvements to the current product line and start cultivating a culture of working without Musk.
It will be extremely difficult for the board to justify that having Elon and letting him do whatever he wants is more damaging for the stock than kicking him out.
I don't get who is still out there believes him enough to put their own money into this company. But the stock keeps going up. I just don't get it?
No sane board member would consider that a serious option.
Even then, Tesla's duck is cooked. They're facing strong winds, reputational and otherwise, at the exact same time as the competition have come of age.
The perfect storm. It will take time, but Tesla are done.
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/insider-a...
The robotaxis are the biggest risk of all. It's not a "hence" that can be relied on for a win and to change the conversation. It's a huge embarrassment and a reminder of Musk's repeated false promises.
Waymo has of course been operating for some time now.
I think autonomous taxis are inevitable for Tesla and others.
Is that meant to be making a case for Tesla's robotaxis? Because 25% of trips requiring interventions sounds dismal for a service that is rolling out now.
I have no doubt that there's a good percentage of FSD users out there who don't intervene to avoid lowering stats even if they rationally know that they should have.
Not saying that you’re one of those, but as others have pointed out: 25% of rides with a force intervention is absymal and didn’t have the impressession that you thought so too.
25% puts it in party trick category, not something that should be allowed on the road.
I agree. But I think the autonomously native are going to eat the legacy manufacturers, including Tesla, for lunch.
We haven’t even started seeing partisan regulatory backlash against Tesla’s autonomous taxis yet. I’d be shocked if they’re ever permitted in New York or California, for example. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wind up banned in Europe, China and India, too. And that’s before weighing how Trump could dick Tesla around.
For comparison, that's many times worse than a drunk driver.
- Brand damage done to typical Tesla buyers and in countries that subsidize EVs;
- Downturn in sales in Q1 and likely future continued declines;
- Likely loss of the EV tax credit in the US;
- A likely upcoming recession with (currently) one quarter of negative GDP growth;
- Tariff risks;
- Competition, particularly from Chinese automakers;
- Supply chain risks; and
- Risks to the Tesla business in China as political and tariff fallout as the administration seeks to ratchet up a trade war with China.
Yet Tesla still trades at a P/# of 173.
TSLA is a bet on Elon. That's it. But it won't be because of any fundamental success in the business. It'll be a question of how much looting of government coffers it can do.
Elon has realized he needs to diversify the business, hence the robotaxis. My bet is that will never go GA and likely will kill or seriously wound someone and get sued out of existence.