FSD Production release with current camera hardware?

[2101Guy]

so no birds eye view, not yoke horn activation via airbag, no robotaxi service, no NYC to LA with no human input, no dropping you off at door then going to self park itself..

At what point does Elon simply say to himself "let me start being truthful to my customers"

 

[stopcrazypp]

I do have FSD, on both my 2018 and 2022 Model S. Both cars were sold as FSD capable.

Yes, you made it clear you have FSD, but you don't have FSD Beta access from what I gather right?

This is a copy paste from my 2018 order:
"Full Self-Driving Capability

This doubles the number of active cameras from four to eight, enabling full self-driving in almost all circumstances, at what we believe will be a probability of safety at least twice as good as the average human driver. The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat. For Superchargers that have automatic charge connection enabled, you will not even need to plug in your vehicle.

All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go. If you don’t say anything, the car will look at your calendar and take you there as the assumed destination or just home if nothing is on the calendar. Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed. When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. A tap on your phone summons it back to you.

Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval. Please note also that using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing and ride hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year."

As you can see. No mention about hardware upgrades required. Just extensive software validation. Although the 2018 has already had a HW upgrade for the CPU. However I think the cameras are going to be an issue. I.e. this thread.

If you have a 2018 model, you were promised more things than those that ordered after 2019. However, any Elon talk about wide release is simply to release the autosteer on city streets feature, which is a L2 feature (driver must pay attention and be ready to take over at any time). To fulfill any promises prior to 2019 that suggested L4 functionality will take a much longer time, Tesla is not even working on that yet (according to CA DMV filing last year Tesla was not working only any L3+ feature).

L4 might require better cameras or different computer hardware, or even other sensors (of course Tesla strategy seems to be to finish door-to-door L2 first and improve on that with existing hardware until reliability reaches L4 level), but again, given it seems you don't have FSD Beta yet, I don't think you necessarily have the perspective to judge the progress even on that front, given you would be running on very old software (AFAIK without Beta access the software being run is AP software, which is far more primitive than FSD Beta; also for highway portion, even on FSD Beta that portion is still running on old code).

 

[glide]

At what point does Elon simply say to himself "let me start being truthful to my customers"

When he starts running out of suckers.

Judging by some of the replies on this forum, that won’t be anytime soon.

 

[RedOctober]

This is a great topic. My car has FSD but the cameras are 2017. I also believe it will need new cameras to one day attain FSD. So what level do you believe the FSD is currently operating at, L1, L2? The car still cannot operate on FSD without road markings, in the rain most times or snow.

 

[Dewg]

Some of us had/have no idea Elon is/was on Twitter before we bought our cars. As his statements on social media are not on the corporate website, we bought based on what was presented in official materials on the site. Doesn't change what he said, or the reality for those that did in fact buy purely based on his Twitter statements. But it does invalidate any argument that *everyone* that bought FSD is a sucker for listening to him.

 

[glide]

Some of us had/have no idea Elon is/was on Twitter before we bought our cars. As his statements on social media are not on the corporate website, we bought based on what was presented in official materials on the site. Doesn't change what he said, or the reality for those that did in fact buy purely based on his Twitter statements. But it does invalidate any argument that *everyone* that bought FSD is a sucker for listening to him.

Not sure I understand. If you believe what is on the website, the vehicle does everything as advertised.

It clearly spells out what FSD is, what it is capable at the time of purchase, and to some extent what it will be cable of in the future.

All the nonsense about a self driving robotaxi that will generate income for its owner has always come from Elon statements on Twitter or in the press.

 

[AndrewZ]

FSD is a Level 2 ADAS, you're there as the driver to make up for the system's many shortcomings. Nobody knows what a Level 3+ Tesla looks like, such a thing doesn't exist and still won't exist when this year ends.


The current goal is getting FSD to the fleet as a Level 2 driver assist, then Tesla can realize the revenue in their quarterly financials. The existing Beta program is working to refine the user experience prior to that wide release, after which some other iterative process will begin with the goal of getting to Level 3+ -- this is exactly the plan laid out in the leaked emails between Tesla and the California DMV.

 

[Olle]

I have driven FSD Beta since summer 2021 and not encountered total blinding. Maybe something is wrong with your cameras? I have noticed more phantom breaking in low light conditions though.

I think the premise for this question vastly underestimates the difficulty of autonomous driving. Comparing the visualization with the FSD beta behavior, you will notice that most driving errors stem from judgement, not form lack of detection.
I get what you say with the cameras not having the position to see past cars in lane or past obstacles. A truly autonomous system should solve problems like that through object permanence, inference or repositioning. That's trivial for a system advanced enough for true autonomy.

Changing camera positions now would be putting the carriage before the horse IMO.

I do agree that if the cameras truly get blinded or covered up by e.g. snow and there is no way for the computer to compensate, an upgrade is needed. But only for future cars. The ones already on the road will just pull to the side and ask the occupant to wipe off or cancel the trip, something like that.

 

[dl_jehu]

at what we believe will be a probability of safety at least twice as good as the average human driver. The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat.

So Tesla is advertising L4 or L5 autonomous - they are really working on L2 autonomous and failing badly at that AND jacking up the price. FSD beta puts me in dangerous situations every time I drive it - and the videos for 10.69 don't look promising. Nowhere near the average human driver.

Also hilarious that the safety score for FSD Beta would be like 20 - hard breaking, hard turns, hard acceleration, following too close (especially during lane changes), etc.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Not sure I understand. If you believe what is on the website, the vehicle does everything as advertised.

It clearly spells out what FSD is, what it is capable at the time of purchase, and to some extent what it will be cable of in the future.

All the nonsense about a self driving robotaxi that will generate income for its owner has always come from Elon statements on Twitter or in the press.

To be fair if you bought before 2018, as quoted even by the OP, even on the order page there was L4 functionality promised (even though it doesn't say L4 outright).
They did remove that wording from the order page around 2019 and moved to promising autosteer on city streets.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I do agree that if the cameras truly get blinded or covered up by e.g. snow and there is no way for the computer to compensate, an upgrade is needed. But only for future cars. The ones already on the road will just pull to the side and ask the occupant to wipe off or cancel the trip, something like that.

That is a good point and applies to L4 vehicles too. There is nothing in the definition that requires it to operate in snow or even rain. As long as vehicle has the ability to safely pull over with no interaction from the passenger, cancelling the trip due to weather conditions is a perfectly valid option for L4.

 

[AndrewZ]

That is a good point and applies to L4 vehicles too. There is nothing in the definition that requires it to operate in snow or even rain. As long as vehicle has the ability to safely pull over with no interaction from the passenger, cancelling the trip due to weather conditions is a perfectly valid option for L4.

I think most experts in this field, and not many exist, would likely argue sensor fusion is key to solving even being able to pull over safely when the vision cameras are blinded. At the very least, some sort of backup sensors could be used to orientate the vehicle properly for an emergency pull over while hopefully not slamming into static objects, other vehicles pulled over, or who knows what else.

Object/surroundings permeance might be sufficient but I'm not even sure what's required to build a system that remembers its surroundings like that

 

[stopcrazypp]

I think most experts in this field, and not many exist, would likely argue sensor fusion is key to solving even being able to pull over safely when the vision cameras are blinded. At the very least, some sort of backup sensors could be used to orientate the vehicle properly for an emergency pull over while hopefully not slamming into static objects, other vehicles pulled over, or who knows what else.

Object/surroundings permeance might be sufficient but I'm not even sure what's required to build a system that remembers its surroundings like that

Not talking about all cameras 100% blinded (or even all rear facing or partially rear facing cameras blinded), but in that case, as long as the car has a safe fallback like pulling over in existing lane gradually and putting on hazards, that is also a valid option even for L4 (as that is the safest practical option given the circumstances).

However, when the conditions allow for a safe pull over, a L4 car should have the ability to do that (it should go to the safest option). That's kind of the major difference with L3, where even though most L3 cars will still come to an emergency stop in the same lane if the driver doesn't respond (heck even L2 cars can do that), it doesn't have the ability to do the safest option (like pulling over to the side of the road or even driving to the closest parking area) and by the time it reaches that point the driver is fully responsible (while with L4 passengers, in the car have no responsibility).

 

[Dewg]

I think another feature that needs to be addressed is redundancy. Once FSD is reliable enough for release, and driving safer than a human, then Tesla needs to work on sensor redundancy. I think this is true for all AVs. There needs to be minimal backup sensors that can take over in the event the primary sensors fail. When a 4000 pound vehicle is travelling 85MPH, and the primary sensor(s) fail(s), the only option right now is to throw on the hazards and slow the car to a stop. If the road/freeway/highway has fairly tight curves this can be a problem as the car could lose the ability to navigate those curves while slowing down.

 

[bro1999]

As for the birds eye, it is not really related to FSD, although I agree it is something they should have done right from the start more for the human drivers sake.

With respect to Dan's test. Agree, especially if the sun is low and the car is driving towards it. In most of the shots in Dan's ad you can see the angle of the sun is basically in front of the car at the moment of impact, although not always, but a lot of the time. I suspect they can get an easier repro of the problem that way, and will be hard for Tesla to fix with software only.

The first 2017 Bolt EVs that rolled off the production lines in late 2016 had a birdseye view (low res, yes, but birdseye nontheless). The fact it's almost 2023 and Tesla still does not have a birdseye view feature is frankly mindboggling.

 

[stopcrazypp]

The first 2017 Bolt EVs that rolled off the production lines in late 2016 had a birdseye view (low res, yes, but birdseye nontheless). The fact it's almost 2023 and Tesla still does not have a birdseye view feature is frankly mindboggling.

Not mindboggling at all, given Tesla doesn't have the cameras for it (only the rear view camera is there), the low mounted front camera and ground facing side cameras typically put under the mirrors are not there.

 

[Mark II]

Yes, you made it clear you have FSD, but you don't have FSD Beta access from what I gather right?

If you have a 2018 model, you were promised more things than those that ordered after 2019. However, any Elon talk about wide release is simply to release the autosteer on city streets feature, which is a L2 feature (driver must pay attention and be ready to take over at any time). To fulfill any promises prior to 2019 that suggested L4 functionality will take a much longer time, Tesla is not even working on that yet (according to CA DMV filing last year Tesla was not working only any L3+ feature).

L4 might require better cameras or different computer hardware, or even other sensors (of course Tesla strategy seems to be to finish door-to-door L2 first and improve on that with existing hardware until reliability reaches L4 level), but again, given it seems you don't have FSD Beta yet, I don't think you necessarily have the perspective to judge the progress even on that front, given you would be running on very old software (AFAIK without Beta access the software being run is AP software, which is far more primitive than FSD Beta; also for highway portion, even on FSD Beta that portion is still running on old code).

Sorry, to be super clear, I have FSD Beta. However, that is not even relevant to this thread. My question is if the current hardware could ever achieve Full Self Driving. I don't mean L2, since that is not what was sold to me. I.e. my invoice does not say L2 capable hardware. It very clearly states FSD capable hardware.

So the question is, can ours cars, that have been sold as having FSD capable hardware, actually ever achieve true FSD, as defined by Elon himself and on my purchase page for 2018 model S? Looking at the issues I outlined at the start, it is not even relevant if I have FSD Beta or not, since that is software only. I am talking about hardware, and can the software overcome the hardware limitations at any point in the future, not this year, but some year.

 

[Mark II]

Not sure I understand. If you believe what is on the website, the vehicle does everything as advertised.

It clearly spells out what FSD is, what it is capable at the time of purchase, and to some extent what it will be cable of in the future.

All the nonsense about a self driving robotaxi that will generate income for its owner has always come from Elon statements on Twitter or in the press.

That is not true. The website very clearly stated, as I quoted earlier in this thread, what my car will achieve one day with the hardware I had at the time of purchase. In the past it was always believed that if the hardware was not capable you would get a free upgrade, so long as you purchased the FSD package, and that has been true so far. However I have my reservations if they will ever be able to upgrade the cameras due to the points listed at the start of the thread. Simply putting in better cameras in the existing positions won't fix the problems.

 

[Mark II]

FSD is a Level 2 ADAS, you're there as the driver to make up for the system's many shortcomings. Nobody knows what a Level 3+ Tesla looks like, such a thing doesn't exist and still won't exist when this year ends.


The current goal is getting FSD to the fleet as a Level 2 driver assist, then Tesla can realize the revenue in their quarterly financials. The existing Beta program is working to refine the user experience prior to that wide release, after which some other iterative process will begin with the goal of getting to Level 3+ -- this is exactly the plan laid out in the leaked emails between Tesla and the California DMV.

This is not true. Show me any official posting that says FSD is L2. Just because they happen to file something with California DMV that is L2 for the broader release of FSD Beta does not mean that is what the final production FSD will be, or what has been promised for many years, including on their website.

See my earlier post and tell me why you think that is L2? FSD Production release with current camera hardware?

I think people confuse FSD Beta broader release with FSD production. FSD Beta broader release just means it will be in the normal production builds, but still a Beta. Just like the traffic light options is still a Beta, but broadly available.

 

[Mark II]

I have driven FSD Beta since summer 2021 and not encountered total blinding. Maybe something is wrong with your cameras? I have noticed more phantom breaking in low light conditions though.

I think the premise for this question vastly underestimates the difficulty of autonomous driving. Comparing the visualization with the FSD beta behavior, you will notice that most driving errors stem from judgement, not form lack of detection.
I get what you say with the cameras not having the position to see past cars in lane or past obstacles. A truly autonomous system should solve problems like that through object permanence, inference or repositioning. That's trivial for a system advanced enough for true autonomy.

Changing camera positions now would be putting the carriage before the horse IMO.

I do agree that if the cameras truly get blinded or covered up by e.g. snow and there is no way for the computer to compensate, an upgrade is needed. But only for future cars. The ones already on the road will just pull to the side and ask the occupant to wipe off or cancel the trip, something like that.

That is kind of my point. There will need to be driver intervention for the current cameras, which is not what FSD means, as defined by Tesla themselves, not Elon. See my earlier post: FSD Production release with current camera hardware?