I think you guys are saying the same thing. Tesla's solution is general - once it works in one market, it works for all markets. Competitors' solutions are local - they are expanded to one market at a time. It's a matter of which one gets to large scale adoption first. I think Tesla is going to get there first. Even though their solution is binary - whether it works for all or it doesn't work at all, the immediate scalability is an attractive value proposition.
Vision-only solution paired with rapid advancement in artificial intelligence along with a robust data collection infrastructure will get Tesla there. My conjecture for Tesla nearing complete FSD by the end of the year got derided in the roundtable thread, but my hunch tells me that it's coming in the next year or two.
Completely agree with the idea that Tesla's solution is general, and that's the right approach. So strongly in fact that I think all the other efforts that aren't going down this path are wasting time and money. They will eventually hit a wall that they can't climb - the only way forward will be effectively starting over, with the possibility of using whatever they've developed under very stringent requirements. Like daylight, no rain, <30 mph, specific set of streets with a set list of starting and ending points - stuff like that.
FSD complete though is probably a matter of definition. If its defined as "FSD works and is no longer beta", then I can't disagree more. Partly because although I see it improving rapidly right now, with every release, and believe it will continue to do so.. autopilot has been out for like 6 years or something (maybe its just 6 years since I first got it and started using it), and that is still officially beta.
I hadn't really put that together until this last week, and I think I've realized why that is the case, and why its going to be a big problem until somebody tackles this from the legislative side.
To get deployable non-beta FSD, much less autonomous vehicles, we need a legal framework in which FSD and equivalent solutions aren't something that can be sued just on their own. You need a lot more - malice, indifferent regard to how well it works - a pretty high bar to clear.
I get here mostly by analogy. There is a pretty easy argument that the internet exists, as we know it today, because of
Section 230. Whether you agree with it or not (I agree), simplistically you can't sue TMC because I post something for which I can be sued; you're stuck with me and my pockets to go after. Without that protection the big entities we know today wouldn't exist. There might not be anywhere people can post content without an editor in the middle to vet content - more of a book publishing business model than social media.
Or proving defamation against a new organization - the bar is intentionally set high so that news can be reported on without worry about a blizzard of law suits. Even frivolous law suits cost a lot of money to defend, and the risk of those law suits will chill speech.
I've realized in the last few days that we're going to need something similar for FSD.
We have something similar for cars already. I don't know if its by law or not, but if I'm driving along and get in an accident while driving my Ford F150, the idea that me or my heirs can sue Ford for my dying while driving a truck they built is mostly laughable. In order for that lawsuit to go anywhere I'll need to prove there is something about how Ford designed that truck, or how it was built, or something along those lines. It's a high bar to clear, with the default assumption being that the car crash isn't the fault of the manufacturer.
Maybe this will mean there is a need for an "FSD Certification" type process. Have your vehicle(s) pass a test administered by some organization and you are certified as having safe software that can operate with this legal protection - maybe that would work, though I suspect not. I don't know how we get there, but we might be living with FSD Beta for a long time after most of us consider it beta.
I know autopilot became a tool for me that makes my life better, and that I rely on for significant quantity of driving, years ago. FSD Beta isn't there yet for me, but I can see signs of life that it will get there. Maybe even this year, but that won't be enough for Tesla to remove the Beta tag (that's my belief, and what I invest on).