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Re:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month... by xiphias2 on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @02:47PM (#47052215)
It's clear that camera-only driving is getting better as we have better image understanding models every year. So there will be a point when camera based systems without lidars will get better than human drivers.

Technology is just not there yet, and Elon is impatient.

Re:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month... by MBCook on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @03:39PM (#47052986)
Then stop deploying camera only systems until that time comes.

Waymo could be working on camera only. I don’t know. But it’s not controlling the car. And until such a time they can prove with their data that it is just as safe, that seems like a very smart decision.

Tesla is not taking such a cautious approach. And they’re doing it on public roads. That’s the problem.

Re:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month... by sschueller on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @03:19PM (#47052735)
Lidar and radar will also get better and having all possible sensors will always out perform camera only.
Re:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month... by fwip on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @03:11PM (#47052611)
> So there will be a point when camera based systems without lidars will get better than human drivers.

No reason to assume that. A toddler that is increasing in walk speed every month will never be able to outrun a cheetah.

Re:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month... by shoo on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @03:44PM (#47053055)
in contrast, a toddler equipped with an ion thruster & a modest quantity of xeon propellant could achieve enough delta-v to attain cheetah-escape velocity, provided the initial trajectory during the first 31 hours of the mission was through a low-cheetah-density environment
Re:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month... by tzs on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @05:19PM (#47054226)
That initial trajectory also needs to go through a low air density environment. At normal air density near the surface of the Earth that ion thruster could only get a toddler up to ~10 km/h before the drag force from the air equals the thrust from the ion thruster.

The only way that ion thruster might save the toddler is if it was used to blast the cheetah in the face. It would take a pretty long time to actually cause enough damage to force the cheetah to stop, but it might be annoying enough and/or unusual enough to get it to decide to leave.

Re:Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month... by shoo on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @06:03PM (#47054696)
> low air density environment. At normal air density near the surface of the Earth that ion thruster could only get a toddler up to ~10 km/h

agreed. this also provides an explanation for the otherwise surprising fact that prey animals in the savannah have never been observed to naturally evolve ion thrusters.