Elon: FSD Beta tweets

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

What’s funny is everyone is arguing what Elon meant when he said self driving hopefully out at the end of the year when the truth is he meant nothing by it and everyone here knows it.

I think the discussion is about the scale of the lie/delusion.

 

[wknickless]

The fact there is any discussion at all shows that we don't know what Tesla is planning to do. Someone, please get Elon/Tesla to actually tell us what the goal is. The real goal, self-driving means nothing. Give us an exact detailed description of the ODD. If they don't know what they are doing, that's poor. If they do know and don't want to tell us, that's poor communication. Vague misleading statements, missed deadlines, etc, is also poor. Or exciting. I guess it depends if you go on proof or faith.

Project management is all about scope, schedule and budget.

Let’s say you’re building a school. Thousands of them have been built before. Based on that track record a good project manager can take the requirements (where the school will be, how many students will be taught, local building codes, etc.), estimate how much it will cost to build the school and how long it will take. Add in a cost and time contingency for the unknown of 10-20%. Put together a PERT chart of what has to happen, from architecture to engineering to permitting to construction to commissioning. As the project moves forward, compare progress against that PERT chart. If costs exceed the plan, or delays crop up, apply contingency reserves as needed to bring progress back on track.

FSD has never been done before. (Okay, maybe it’s been done a handful of times with LIDAR and high resolution maps and a supercomputer in the car’s trunk—but not thousands of times before like school construction.) I do contract research and development for a living, and every good R&D project manager will be up front with the client and negotiate whether scope, schedule, and budget will be allowed to flex. The good project manager will still do all the same planning up front, to include creating cost estimates and PERT charts, but everyone involved has to accept that discovering unknown unknowns can—no, WILL—radically change the estimates during project execution. And rarely are those surprises in the direction of requiring less time or money.

Elon/Tesla’s publicly stated time estimates for delivering on (e.g.) FSD incorporate and reflect only known known and known unknown problems. Not because they’re lying, but because they can only plan for the things they can reasonably anticipate.

The re-architecture and re-work leading up to 10.69 is pretty obviously one of those situations where they discovered (through experience!) their prior approach had hit a brick wall, so they had to back up and regroup and try again with a bunch of new technology like occupancy neural nets. Not only did they have to rework their technical architecture, but all their prior project planning materials (e.g. PERT charts and budgets) had to be redone.

This sort of thing happens all the time in research and development. And when it does happen, the planners have to go back and ask whether they want to spend more money, take longer to accomplish the scope, or change the scope to fit the prior cost and time estimates. Tesla is unwilling to change the scope (Level 5 autonomous driving using visual cameras alone) and only has a certain sustainable cash flow/engineering talent pool to draw on, so the schedule is what ends up taking the hit.

 

[wknickless]

The good project manager will still do all the same planning up front, to include creating cost estimates and PERT charts, but everyone involved has to accept that discovering unknown unknowns can—no, WILL—radically change the estimates during project execution. And rarely are those surprises in the direction of requiring less time or money.

Consider a historical example where schedule was the overriding priority: the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb.

Planners knew early on they needed a certain amount of fissile material to make bombs. But they didn’t know what technical and engineering approach had the fewest unknown unknown problems. So they considered no less than five approaches and launched at least four major industrial efforts to produce that material:

1. Uranium isotope separation/enrichment through particle accelerators. The Calutrons at Oak Ridge created the highly enriched uranium for the Hiroshima bomb. But after the war they eventually shut them down because they weren’t as cost-efficient as other mechanisms.
2. Uranium isotope separation/enrichment through barrier separation. These also contributed to the highly enriched uranium for the Hiroshima bomb and kept running for many years, but eventually this approach was abandoned as also not cost-effective as other mechanisms.
3. Uranium isotope separation/enrichment through mechanical centrifuges. Early planners discarded this approach because they calculated the development time was not competitive and therefore the resources should be devoted to the other approaches. But after the war the centrifuges were developed and that’s how most uranium enrichment is performed today for both civilian and military programs.
4. Breeding plutonium in graphite-moderated reactors. The B reactor at Hanford created the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb and this process turned out to be relatively cost effective so it continued through the Cold War.
5. Breeding plutonium in heavy water-moderated reactors. The CANDU reactors in Canada evolved into power generators, but you don’t hear much about them these days.

You don’t hear much about rogue states trying to build Calutrons, barrier separation plants, or CANDU reactors. That’s because—in hindsight—everyone knows the graphite-moderated reactors and centrifuges are the most cost effective ways of making fissile material.

But with a war on, the planners justified the massive industrial investments in four different approaches just so they could get one of them done to stop the killing. (Did you know that the Manhattan Project built more floor space during the war than the entire US automobile industry had in their factories?)

80 years from now everyone will have learned what approaches work and don’t work (at all or cost effectively) for self driving cars. But in the meantime, Tesla is obviously not willing to throw that kind of resources at multiple parallel approaches just to save a few months or years.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Even if "something" was out at the end of the year, nobody here can agree on what that actually is. He should be confined to a small room with a piece of paper and pen and forced to write down for once and for all just WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Vague timelines or even exact timelines don't mean anything if it's not explained what it is.

The fact there is any discussion at all shows that we don't know what Tesla is planning to do. Someone, please get Elon/Tesla to actually tell us what the goal is. The real goal, self-driving means nothing. Give us an exact detailed description of the ODD. If they don't know what they are doing, that's poor. If they do know and don't want to tell us, that's poor communication. Vague misleading statements, missed deadlines, etc, is also poor. Or exciting. I guess it depends if you go on proof or faith.

It will be interesting if they release it in Europe where it apparently requires regulatory approval. Presumably there will be data presented in that process.

The goal is, and has always been, robotaxis!
The robotaxi model shown at AI Day 2 will probably give us a lot of information about future plans.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

It will be interesting if they release it in Europe where it apparently requires regulatory approval. Presumably there will be data presented in that process.

The goal is, and has always been, robotaxis!
The robotaxi model shown at AI Day 2 will probably give us a lot of information about future plans.

Yep, won’t be able to buy a Tesla for much longer.

Crazy how all of a sudden we’re there. So exciting.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Yep, won’t be able to buy a Tesla for much longer.

Hopefully they'll still let me upgrade to HW3 and robotaxi capability, though I assume it will be monthly subscription only. Really a per mile charge would make the most sense for robotaxis.

 

[2101Guy]

I think the discussion is about the scale of the lie/delusion.

And there you have it..

horn activation via yoke by software update, nyc to LA with no human input by end of 2017, self parking by end of 2019, birds eye view by end of 2021, L5 by end of 2021

at what point do you simply...stop lying?

 

[EVNow]

at what point do you simply...stop lying?

At what point will you ... stop sh*t posting?

 

[2101Guy]

At what point will you ... stop sh*t posting?

What happened to having me "on ignore"

 

[JohnB007]

What happened to having me "on ignore"

Seems that when an ignored person quotes his own text, for some reason, that post is still visible... Not exactly implemented well!

 

[EVNow]

What happened to having me "on ignore"

Yet another lie.

Never said I'll put you on ignore. Infact, I don't have anyone on ignore .... not even @Bladerskb

I live in the hope, like Gandhi said, that everyone can be reformed.

 

[qdeathstar]

What happened to having me "on ignore"

Are the admin allowing trolling for trolling sake? I mean, this isn’t even clever trolling.

 

[qdeathstar]

Consider a historical example where schedule was the overriding priority: the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb.

Planners knew early on they needed a certain amount of fissile material to make bombs. But they didn’t know what technical and engineering approach had the fewest unknown unknown problems. So they considered no less than five approaches and launched at least four major industrial efforts to produce that material:

1. Uranium isotope separation/enrichment through particle accelerators. The Calutrons at Oak Ridge created the highly enriched uranium for the Hiroshima bomb. But after the war they eventually shut them down because they weren’t as cost-efficient as other mechanisms.
2. Uranium isotope separation/enrichment through barrier separation. These also contributed to the highly enriched uranium for the Hiroshima bomb and kept running for many years, but eventually this approach was abandoned as also not cost-effective as other mechanisms.
3. Uranium isotope separation/enrichment through mechanical centrifuges. Early planners discarded this approach because they calculated the development time was not competitive and therefore the resources should be devoted to the other approaches. But after the war the centrifuges were developed and that’s how most uranium enrichment is performed today for both civilian and military programs.
4. Breeding plutonium in graphite-moderated reactors. The B reactor at Hanford created the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb and this process turned out to be relatively cost effective so it continued through the Cold War.
5. Breeding plutonium in heavy water-moderated reactors. The CANDU reactors in Canada evolved into power generators, but you don’t hear much about them these days.

You don’t hear much about rogue states trying to build Calutrons, barrier separation plants, or CANDU reactors. That’s because—in hindsight—everyone knows the graphite-moderated reactors and centrifuges are the most cost effective ways of making fissile material.

But with a war on, the planners justified the massive industrial investments in four different approaches just so they could get one of them done to stop the killing. (Did you know that the Manhattan Project built more floor space during the war than the entire US automobile industry had in their factories?)

80 years from now everyone will have learned what approaches work and don’t work (at all or cost effectively) for self driving cars. But in the meantime, Tesla is obviously not willing to throw that kind of resources at multiple parallel approaches just to save a few months or years.

Tesla creating their own weapons of mass destruction with a fleet wide rollout of not full self driving seems like a pretty good analogy.

 

[2101Guy]

Seems that when an ignored person quotes his own text, for some reason, that post is still visible... Not exactly implemented well!

Are the admin allowing trolling for trolling sake? I mean, this isn’t even clever trolling.

but yet, you continue to read and respond.

 

[pilotSteve]

Yeah, it would be great if they changed the name from full self driving to self driving which is the two word description Elon used in the video.

IMHO he should have gone with "self driving" in 2016 when I bought "FSD". "Full" is gratuitous and misleading marketing fluff. Even naming it "self driving" remains deceptive six years later. Partially my sour attitude is older cars even with MCU2 upgrades and HW3 computer also require camera upgrades which (according to my service center) are back ordered and not available.

It's difficult to keep my attitude positive toward Tesla and Elon with this litany of broken promises for us early customers.

 

[2101Guy]

Yet another lie.

Never said I'll put you on ignore. Infact, I don't have anyone on ignore .... not even @Bladerskb

I live in the hope, like Gandhi said, that everyone can be reformed.

Evidence of a Elon shill and outward hater (but secret lover), of my posts.


Which one of these is not like the other?

 

[2101Guy]

"Full" is gratuitous and misleading marketing fluff. Even naming it "self driving" remains deceptive six years later.

 

[Acisplat]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1564748039344082949

So another 2 weeks in Elon time

 

[thewishmaster]

One more tweet from the thread above:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1564746666414166028

 

[boonedocks]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1564748039344082949

So another 2 weeks in Elon time

I wonder how many of the FOMO people bought in to Elons $3k price hike and 10.69 won't even be out to the masses (meaning the NON-Shillers that are also part of the beta program) for review by the 9/5/22 increase.