Elon: "Feature complete for full self driving this year"

[EVNow]

@EVNow Sure, I would agree Musk sometimes avoids answering uncomfortable questions properly and likes to go for hype. But defining feature complete by end of 2019 was a very specific question and he didn’t give a non-answer. He could have easily given a non-answer that would have been a ”hot take”.

Instead he said Yes to ”Level 5 no geofence”.

That is not at all what I said.

That *yes* was a hot take i.e. "ha ha, you think you asked a very difficult question ? let me answer with a single word".

ps : Do you work for a Tesla competitor ?

 

[diplomat33]

No, I still think you are mistaken. Nobody here is expecting — or thinks Musk claimed — FC will be released at the end of the year, let alone there being Tesla robotaxis in production by the end of the year.

I believe we are talking about what Tesla says they will have implemented as features by the end of the year in their development version.

That, Tesla/Musk defined as ”Level 5 no geofence” feature complete at the end of 2019. That is what they said on Autonomy Investor Day. If they said something else somewhere else that is another thing.

First of all, "L5 no geofence" is repetitive. L5 automatically means no geofence. You can't have L5 that is geofenced.

Second, L5 means the car can self-drive on all roads, all weather, all times of day and night, with no driver supervision at all. Is that what you think FC will be that at the end of this year? Because that is what I think you are saying. And that is not what Elon meant by FC L5.

When Elon said FC L5, he meant that it won't be geofenced or restricted. So FC will not be geofenced or limited to a certain time of day or certain weather which by definition is L5. But FC will not be finished L5. It will require driver supervision in the beginning.

 

[electronblue]

That is not at all what I said.

That *yes* was a hot take i.e. "ha ha, you think you asked a very difficult question ? let me answer with a single word".

Then we just disagree on what Musk’s answer was. That’s fine.

ps : Do you work for a Tesla competitor ?

No. I own a Tesla car, don’t own any car stock or the like and never worked in the industry.

 

[wcorey]

Nobody here is expecting — or thinks Musk claimed — FC will be released at the end of the year,

I thought we just got done hashing this out.
YES I believe they will. I could have sworn you agreed as well. Having the software in place but requiring supervision, ala, hand on wheel and nags is still feature complete.

 

[wcorey]

But FC will not be finished L5. It will require driver supervision in the beginning.

Yes, except I'd say FC and full L5 are orthogonal. One is, is the software complete, the other is, is the NN complete or knowledgebase ... whatever.

If I can drive from our house to the local Stop & Shop and the car does the steering, switches between roads, pulls into parking lots, and parks and all I need to do is have a hand on the wheel...Its FSD to me. And if in 6 months I can take a power nap enroute, ACES!
I think we are closing in on what is the crux of the disconnect here. To be sure there are those that don't believe either will be ready anytime soon.

 

[electronblue]

I thought we just got down hashing this out.
YES I believe they will. I could have sworn you agreed as well. Having the software in place but requiring supervision, ala, hand on wheel and nags is still feature complete.

Then let me correct.

I have not heard Musk saying the feature complete version would be released by year’s end. I simply take him at his word that ”Level 5 no geofence” is literally Feature Complete.

Feature Complete is never, ever a term that means released in software development. Quite the contrary, it means a work in progress testing and quality-wise, but a product that is complete in terms of all the features.

 

[BigD0g]

Wow, let’s all just step off the ledge. Remember how enhanced summon was coming in a few weeks, several months ago?

FC in Elon terms is like 3 - 20 years + new hardware in terms of an actual release to customers.

 

[wcorey]

Feature Complete is never, ever a term that means released in software development. Quite the contrary, it means a work in progress testing and quality-wise, but a product that is complete in terms of all the features.

I know I don't know your background, mine IS software engineering. So thank you for the schooling. Just as AutoSteer, NoA, Summon, are beta as opposed to GA, it is released. So where I believe you are misinformed is released does not mean GA.

 

[electronblue]

First of all, "L5 no geofence" is repetitive. L5 automatically means no geofence. You can't have L5 that is geofenced.

Well, to be exact, you can have Level 5 that is geofenced to a market or a regulatory area (it is all in the J3016). But mostly I am just repeating ”Level 5 no geofence” because that is what Musk answered yes to.

Second, L5 means the car can self-drive on all roads, all weather, all times of day and night, with no driver supervision at all. Is that what you think FC will be that at the end of this year? Because that is what I think you are saying.

That is what Musk said would be feature complete at the end of 2019, yes.

It isn’t me saying it. It was literally Musk saying it. You are inventing other interpretations for it. I am simply repeating what Musk said.

And that is not what Elon meant by FC L5. When Elon said FC L5, he meant that it won't be geofenced or restricted. So FC will not be geofenced or limited to a certain time of day or certain weather which by definition is L5. But FC will not be finished L5. It will require driver supervision in the beginning.

You don’t know what Musk meant, you have your own opinion about it. I go simply by his words on Autonomy Investor Day.

But I think you misunderstand something fundamental:

Feature complete is a fairly well-defined term in software development. It does not mean a released or reliable product, quite the opposite it is a state in software development.

Let’s take an example of simple software. Let’s say you are programming a simple Pac-Man like game. To be feature complete, the main character, the ghosts, the pills have to exist, at least some mazes and all their logic must exist. Pac-Man must eat the pills, the ghosts must hunt and kill Pac-Mac and so forth. But it might still miss some final graphics, it might miss a couple of the mazes (simply data input into the system) and the ghosts might sometimes wander through walls unintentionally and it could crash at times. Roughly speaking, that would be feature complete. Now if that Pac-Man game was missing the ghosts entirely and Pac-Mac was not eating the pills, that would not be feature complete.

What this means for Level 5 autonomous software is, it would have everything implemented that is required to drive without a driver and without a geofence (limited to a market is OK), but its reliability can be poor (so of course it needs a driver), it can be rough around the edges, make stupid mistakes and so forth, but it would have all the subsystems a full Level 5 no geofence system has.

 

[electronblue]

I know I don't know your background, mine IS software engineering. So thank you for the schooling. Just as AutoSteer, NoA, Summon, are beta as opposed to GA, it is released. So where I believe you are misinformed is released does not mean GA.

Then we disagree. Feature complete does not mean released to me. If you disagree, acknowledged.

I do not think Musk said ”Level 5 no geofence” is released at end of 2019. I think he said Tesla will be feature complete ”Level 5 no geofence” at end of 2019.

 

[wcorey]

I have not heard Musk saying the feature complete version would be released by year’s end.

Follow the thread up. I gave the url and time into it.

 

[electronblue]

Follow the thread up. I gave the url and time into it.

I’ll have to look into it soon but fair enough, if so.

If Musk really said they will release the system by the end of 2019, the one he said would be feature complete by the end of 2019, then that is an even bigger announcement that I knew of. I simply heard him state ”Level 5 no geofence” is feature complete by end of 2019, which I did not take would mean released.

 

[wcorey]

Then we disagree. Feature complete does not mean released to me. If you disagree, acknowledged.

We disagree. So what is your authority to speak on all things software lifecycle? The fact it is in my car and I do not have it via a NDA means it is released. The cars, all 5,000/wk ship with it. You are conflating GA with feature complete. The story is marked DONE in the Agile software management system. Anything else is a bug.

 

[wcorey]

I’ll have to look into it soon but fair enough, if so.

In the abbreviated Investor Day You Tube it is about 3:45 in. In the Ark interview I forgot the exact time in but did a post on it.
The only place where he mentioned L5 at all is the answer to the question at the tail end of Investor Day.

 

[electronblue]

The fact it is in my car and I do not have it via a NDA means it is released. The cars, all 5,000/wk ship with it. You are conflating GA with feature complete. The story is marked DONE in the Agile software management system. Anything else is a bug.

Sure, FC software can be deployed in a limited fashion, I didn’t think that was contested. I obviously assumed release would mean GA. I would assume that is the general meaning for most people?

So yeah Musk’s FC for ”Level 5 no geofence” at end of 2019 can certainly mean deployment to testing fleets but I did not take his words to mean a general release (unless I missed some other statement from him which is possible as I acknowledged in #1672).

To be clear, how widely do you think Musk’s ”Level 5 no geofence” software will be depolyed at the end of 2019?

I claim no authority over this. These are my views as a Tesla car owner.

 

[diplomat33]

What this means for Level 5 autonomous software is, it would have everything implemented that is required to drive without a driver and without a geofence (limited to a market is OK), but its reliability can be poor, it can be rough around the edges, make stupid mistakes and so forth, but it would have all the subsystems a full Level 5 no geofence system has.

Yes I agree that FC will have the features needed to drive without geofence or restriction. It will have the same ODD as L5, yes. That is what Elon meant by FC L5.

And I agree that FC will be rough around the edges, make mistakes, require driver supervision. My point is you cannot call that true L5. There is no such thing as L5 that has poor reliability and requires driver supervision.

 

[electronblue]

Yes I agree that FC will have the features needed to drive without geofence or restriction. It will have the same ODD as L5, yes. That is what Elon meant by FC L5.

And I agree that FC will be rough around the edges, make mistakes, require driver supervision. My point is you cannot call that true L5. There is no such thing as L5 that has poor reliability and requires driver supervision.

I never called it that, neither did Musk.

He called it Level 5 no geofence feature complete. That is different from Level 5 (or Level 5 no geofence). It is Level 5 feature complete.

Level 5 feature complete also means more than just the same ODD as Level 5. It means the same capability to handle the DDT without a driver in the car features-wise, just not reliability-wise.

Basically Level 5 feature complete means a fully functional Level 5 prototype, but one you can’t send out without a driver yet because it is missing — ahem — validation and regulatory approval.

Assuming traditional software development definition of feature complete is followed of course.

 

[wcorey]

To be clear, how widely do you think Musk’s ”Level 5 no geofence” software will be depolyed at the end of 2019?

FIrst off, apologies for snapping at you. When it comes to software engineering, dev or architecture I am not speaking out of my ass. If I declaratively say something about NN without attribution to someone else, then I most likely am (speaking on a subject I am not 'expert' on).

To answer your question. It'll be deployed on every car. It will be labeled BETA just as Summon, AS, and NoA are now. The feature (or story in Agile terminology) is no longer being worked on in development. So, in my history, being marked GA means no level 1 severity bugs, limited level 2 bugs. A level 1 bug (generally) means a critical error with no circumvention. a missing feature. a level 2 bug (generally) means a non-critical bug with a working circumvention. There are grey areas depending on the organization. Generally a developer that allows a sev 1 bug and the QA people that didn't catch it are in rough water come next round of layoffs unless that oversight was a freak accident.

 

[favo]

I wish someone would have asked Elon what specific milestones the are working on for FSD and when they might be released. I guess the only one we know about is Enhanced/Smart Summon, which will be out "soon."

I wonder if we will see regular, significant progress coming in updates the rest of the year, of if the nature of refining the NN for HW3 will be such that we will instead get a big drop in December with a pretty credible version of FC FSD or at least a bunch of cool features (like sign reading, handling city intersections, etc.) all at once.

 

[daniel]

@wcoreyMy take on why there is no discrepancy: Of course it will initially require supervision for reliability reasons. Feature complete does not mean production quality. But for feature complete to be the case, the features it implements would be at Level 5 no geofence level, everything needed for Level 5 no geofence, even if still unreliable and driver supervision still needed.

If it requires supervision, then by definition it is not Level 5. If the software is not yet reliable enough to operate without supervision then, again, by definition it is not Level 5. "Everything necessary for Level 5" includes software mature enough to not require supervision.

"All the hardware necessary for Level 5" is a different statement (Which Musk made and then had to retract, with regards to my HW2.5 car) than "Everything necessary for Level 5."

All that said, I believe that Musk truly believes what he says about when a driverless car will be available. I think he's full of beans, but I think he is not intentionally falsifying information.