Autonomous Car Progress

[Tikib2020]

I think Tesla are going to make faster progress than people here are expecting.

Tesla have been working on improving their training speed and it's paying off with features being released faster.

And there aren't that many features between here and FSD(being able to do a whole journey supervised) and the distance between FSD and level 4 isn't as big as people think.

And for those thinking they are going to just get to FSD and then claim 'mission accomplished', it's nonsense, Elon has said several times that Tesla intend to take a cut of the robotaxis income, both by running a robotaxis business that people can opt into and by increasing the price of the FSD package.

There is a HUGE financial incentive for Tesla to upgrade it's cars to level 4.

 

[mikes_fsd]

And there aren't that many features between here and FSD

I am going to have to disagree with that statement. There are a lot of scenarios still to be covered.
I will agree that as the learning speeds up, these will become easier to "learn" for the NN's.

And for the purposes of this thread, we've agreed to not consider L4 as FSD.
FSD means:

• Anywhere - not geo-fenced
• Anytime - not some weird schedule or weather dependent (as long as you would drive in that weather and are not a storm chaser)
• Anyone - you can use it without pre-registering or other hoops.

 

[diplomat33]

"Cruise self-driving vehicles use sensors as the eyes and ears of the vehicle. When we introduced the Cruise Origin, we showcased an articulating sensor that has the ability to pivot 360 degrees and “see” in light or pitch black at superhuman speed. Our sensors will be able to see beyond what’s humanly possible and react faster and more safely to the things that people are able to see."

Read the whole blog here. it's pretty interesting. It goes into a lot more detail on how Cruise's articulating radar works:

The Decision Behind Using Articulating Sensors on Cruise AVs

 

[diplomat33]

FSD means:

• Anywhere - not geo-fenced
• Anytime - not some weird schedule or weather dependent (as long as you would drive in that weather and are not a storm chaser)
• Anyone - you can use it without pre-registering or other hoops.

I agree with the first 2 since they define L5. And we agreed that FSD is L5. But I am not sure what the last one has to do with FSD. Are you saying that if you have to download a ride-hailing app and register to use a robotaxi that disqualifies it from being FSD? Having to register or what not to use a FSD service has nothing to do with whether the car is truly autonomous or not. After all, autonomous driving is strictly about what the car is capable of doing on its own.

 

[daniel]

I think Tesla are going to make faster progress than people here are expecting.

Tesla have been working on improving their training speed and it's paying off with features being released faster.

And there aren't that many features between here and FSD(being able to do a whole journey supervised) and the distance between FSD and level 4 isn't as big as people think.

And for those thinking they are going to just get to FSD and then claim 'mission accomplished', it's nonsense, Elon has said several times that Tesla intend to take a cut of the robotaxis income, both by running a robotaxis business that people can opt into and by increasing the price of the FSD package.

There is a HUGE financial incentive for Tesla to upgrade it's cars to level 4.

I agree that Tesla's ultimate goal is Level 5 autonomy. I'm speaking of the scenario in which the cars bought with the "FSD" package in 2018/2019 begin to age out of the fleet and the owners say "You promised my car would drive itself. It's lived out its expected life and never reached L5." I posit that Tesla will say, "We gave you 'Feature Complete.' We fulfilled our promise." Alternatively, in five years Tesla acknowledges that Level 5 will need some hardware that cannot be retrofitted on to the 2018/2019 cars, and again falls back on "We gave you Feature Complete."

Tesla is not going to say "Mission accomplished." Tesla is going to say, "We gave you what you paid for," to people who paid for FSD at a time when Tesla and Musk were saying that FSD meant the car would not need a driver.

Full Self Driving (L5) is more than just "features." It's the ability to use those features without anybody in or monitoring the car. You could say "All they need now is NoA city and they have all the features." But the car needs to be able to deal with all the exceptions, edge cases, and quirks of the road, by itself, without a driver in the car.

"Being able to do a whole journey supervised" is not FSD. FSD is being able to do every journey unsupervised. And from supervised NoA City to FSD is an enormous chasm that involves a level of AI that does not yet exist.

 

[Knightshade]

I agree that Tesla's ultimate goal is Level 5 autonomy. I'm speaking of the scenario in which the cars bought with the "FSD" package in 2018/2019 begin to age out of the fleet and the owners say "You promised my car would drive itself. It's lived out its expected life and never reached L5." I posit that Tesla will say, "We gave you 'Feature Complete.' We fulfilled our promise." Alternatively, in five years Tesla acknowledges that Level 5 will need some hardware that cannot be retrofitted on to the 2018/2019 cars, and again falls back on "We gave you Feature Complete."

But they can't, since it won't be.

Tesla is not going to say "Mission accomplished." Tesla is going to say, "We gave you what you paid for," to people who paid for FSD at a time when Tesla and Musk were saying that FSD meant the car would not need a driver.

Full Self Driving (L5) is more than just "features." It's the ability to use those features without anybody in or monitoring the car.

Technically even for the pre-march-2019 folks they only promised L4 WITH a driver in the car.

(counting things they actually put on the website and promised during purchase- not counting random tweets from elon)

You could say "All they need now is NoA city and they have all the features."

For the post-march-2019 folks yes, not the earlier buyers.

 

[banned-66611]

I think Tesla are going to make faster progress than people here are expecting.

Based on the previous 4 years of making slower than expected progress and repeatedly failing to meet self-imposed deadlines I doubt it.

Let me ask you something. Did you pay for Full Self Driving? And if so how long are you willing to wait for them to deliver it?

 

[banned-66611]

I will agree that as the learning speeds up, these will become easier to "learn" for the NN's.

It's usually the opposite. As your NNs get closer to a usable state you find more and more corner cases and biases that become difficult to fix.

 

[banned-66611]

Technically even for the pre-march-2019 folks they only promised L4 WITH a driver in the car.

They promised full L5. Musk said you could summon from the other side of the country. The Tesla web site said it would charge itself.

Oh yeah, don't forget they still need to do the self charging bit.

 

[diplomat33]

Elon gives an update on the FSD rewrite:

 

[willow_hiller]

Elon gives an update on the FSD rewrite:

Oh no. Is "Most likely 2 to 4 months" going to be the new "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely"?

 

[diplomat33]

Oh no. Is "Most likely 2 to 4 months" going to be the new "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely"?

Yes or even more than 6 months. Don't forget that Elon thought that "feature complete" would be done by the end of last year. We are now 6 months later and no "feature complete" in slight and according to Elon, they had to rewrite almost the entire perception stack.

Also, notice the caveat in Elon's tweet at the end where he says "it's a question of what functionality is proven to be safe". In other words, even if Tesla finishes the rewrite and they write the software to handle intersections, reverse summon, etc... we could still get nothing if it is not deemed reliable enough yet. Elon is giving himself a big out if they don't release anything in the next 2-4 months.

If we are lucky we might get a small piece of "autosteer on city street" by the end of this year. We might get a very beta version of "reverse summon" by the end of this year, maybe. But I think we can forget about robotaxis or "feature complete" this year.

 

[Knightshade]

They promised full L5.

No, they didn't.


See attached for that they actually promised. It's easily read as L4.

Musk said you could summon from the other side of the country.

The website didn't.

Again "what musk said" and what "the company told you during purchase" are different things legally.

The Tesla web site said it would charge itself.

WITH a driver in the car. And charging itself has nothing to do with driving levels either.

Notice where it says "almost all circumstances"

That's the disclaimer to get you L4, not 5.

Notice where it mentions person in driver's seat, and person stepping out of car?

 

[diplomat33]

We've been over this many times folks. Tesla never actually attached a specific SAE level to "FSD" on the website. Tesla simply gave a narrative description of what they hope "FSD" will be able to do in the future. The description is not complete or explicit so folks will probably interpret the description differently.

I think Tesla has a pretty good idea of what features they would like to deliver to customers in the future, like handling intersections, responding to traffic lights and stop signs and dropping the driver off and auto parking, but I am not sure Tesla really knows exactly what SAE level they will deliver. On one hand, we have Elon famously saying "yes" to the question about whether "feature complete" would be "L5 no geofence". We also have Elon saying that Tesla could release robotaxis only in certain areas first which sounds a lot like Waymo's L4. And then we have a Tesla rep telling the CA DMV that the FSD demo was L3.

Tesla will of course try to deliver the most features they can and will try to remove driver supervision if they determine it is reliable and safe to do so, but in terms of levels of autonomy, it will really depend on what progress they make.

 

[Knightshade]

Car drives you "almost anywhere" with nothing required of human in seat is 100% L4 at a minimum though.

It'd be 5 if they took out "almost"

 

[mikes_fsd]

But I am not sure what the last one has to do with FSD. Are you saying that if you have to download a ride-hailing app and register to use a robotaxi that disqualifies it from being FSD?

A ride hailing app is not a screening process, so does not disqualify.
Waymo had to approve you - the user - to use their service when they first launched. It was not you just download an app and request a ride.
By anyone, I mean, no more roadblocks than using an Uber or Lyft app.

 

[diplomat33]

A ride hailing app is not a screening process, so does not disqualify.
Waymo had to approve you - the user - to use their service when they first launched. It was not you just download an app and request a ride.
By anyone, I mean, no more roadblocks than using an Uber or Lyft app.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[mikes_fsd]

Oh no. Is "Most likely 2 to 4 months" going to be the new "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely"?

Yes or even more than 6 months.

Elon's ability to estimate time to market has improved by at least an order of magnitude over the past couple years.
Plus, everything I am seeing from Karpathy et al is pretty much "we are on the right path and we see progress".

 

[DanCar]

A ride hailing app is not a screening process, so does not disqualify.
Waymo had to approve you - the user - to use their service when they first launched. It was not you just download an app and request a ride.
By anyone, I mean, no more roadblocks than using an Uber or Lyft app.

The point being made is that Waymo is available to very few. And very few of those very few actually get driverless. Which to some means it doesn't really exist, except to a very few. When there a regular wide spread videos of waymo driverless, then opinions will change to be more positive. I have lots of friends and family in the Chandler region who requested Waymo, none where approved. Everyone gets approved for Uber and Lyft so it is a big roadblock.

 

[diplomat33]

Elon's ability to estimate time to market has improved by at least an order of magnitude of the past couple years.
Plus, everything I am seeing from Karpathy et al is pretty much "we are on the right path and we see progress".

You are more optimistic that me. Being "on the right path and seeing progress" does not guarantee that a product will be released by a certain deadline.

Elon wrote "2 to 4 months" depending on everything being safe and reliable to release. So 2 to 4 months is a best case scenario. It could certainly take 6 months if the features need more work.