Poll: when will On-ramp to Off-ramp be released?

[strangecosmos]

On-ramp to Off-ramp is an Enhanced Autopilot feature that will presumably require the driver to keep their hands on the wheel, pay attention to the road, and occasionally intervene. The Tesla website describes On-ramp to Off-ramp like this:

Once on the freeway, your Tesla will determine which lane you need to be in and when. In addition to ensuring you reach your intended exit, Autopilot will watch for opportunities to move to a faster lane when you're caught behind slower traffic. When you reach your exit, your Tesla will depart the freeway, slow down and transition control back to you.

The Tesla website also says:

Enhanced Autopilot adds these new capabilities to the Tesla Autopilot driving experience. Your Tesla will match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway when your destination is near...

Comments from Elon, from Tesla VP Stuart Bowers, and articles from Electrek suggest that On-ramp to Off-ramp is included in Autopilot version 9, which Elon tweeted will "hopefully" be released by the end of September. For example, on the Joe Rogan podcast, Elon said:

We’re about to release the software that will enable you to just turn it on and it will drive from highway on-ramp to highway exit, do lane changes, overtake other cars, go from one interchange to the next.

The poll question is when On-ramp to Off-ramp will be released: by the end of 2018, by mid-2019, by the end of 2019, by mid-2020, and so on.

According to a tracker compiled by Tom Randall at Bloomberg (last updated January 31, 2018), Elon is on average 139 days late with his goals at Tesla, or 46% longer than his original target.

(I created a new poll because with the previous poll there was too much confusion about the question I was trying to ask. I hope it's clearer now.)

 

[strangecosmos]

If Autopilot v9 is released with On-ramp to Off-ramp 139 days (4½ months) after the end of September, that would put the release in February 2019. If it’s 46% later than the original target, it will be in October 2018.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

So far there isn't much vote of confidence in the Oct/Nov/Dec time frame.

My bet is still before Thanksgiving of this year. It was originally estimated as September (for general customers) so being late by 1-2 months is expected.

I have to place my bet on that because the first trip I did with AP was back in Thanksgiving of 2015. So it would be perfect if I could do the same trip again in Thanksgiving of 2018 with EAP. The major feature of EAP is "drive-on-nav" with the ability of changing lanes without user input.

 

[Tam]

Elon said that he has been using it already so it is already here and it is not vaporware.

However, it's not perfected so it's a matter of when Tesla would feel it's ready to release to owners without a significant backlash of complaining that it's so terrible and not ready for prime time.

 

[gearchruncher]

My bet is still before Thanksgiving of this year. It was originally estimated as September (for general customers) so being late by 1-2 months is expected.

Elon once said "looks like it's all going out next week" for the first release of AP2 back in 2016. Took 4 weeks to get any release at all, and 7 months to get "all" the features. He also said "next month" for auto wipers and it took 11 months.

It's not like he has a history of being right even when he says it is imminent.

Would you have voted "2019" for AP1 feature parity in 2016? Would you have voted "late 2018" for the first EAP feature on the day he tweeted FSD would start showing up in 3-6 months? We've been here before, and the best evidence we have is that the multipliers are huge, like 10x stated timeframes.

 

[strangecosmos]

He also said "next month" for auto wipers and it took 11 months.

Found sources for this. “Next month” tweet in February 2017.

Autowiper feature released in January 2018.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Elon once said "looks like it's all going out next week" for the first release of AP2 back in 2016. Took 4 weeks to get any release at all, and 7 months to get "all" the features. He also said "next month" for auto wipers and it took 11 months.

It's not like he has a history of being right even when he says it is imminent.

Would you have voted "2019" for AP1 feature parity in 2016? Would you have voted "late 2018" for the first EAP feature on the day he tweeted FSD would start showing up in 3-6 months? We've been here before, and the best evidence we have is that the multipliers are huge, like 10x stated timeframes.

When AP2 was first released I tried to tell people that the time estimates were at least 6 months off for feature parity let alone anything within the e part of EAP.

At the time I had AP1, and I was really annoyed with the FSD claim as there is no path towards FSD. So that started a bit of a fracture between Tesla, and I. I didn't care for the value of my car being reduced by some fraudulent claim.

I also didn't know what to tell people who asked me about the FSD feature. It felt weird to tell people to ignore some element of a car entirely, and pretend it didn't exist.

I only warmed back up to Tesla with the release of the P3D+, and track mode.

So then I traded in my Model S for it, and now I can start to feel the drumbeat of excitement start to build back up.

Now I do think Tesla is being more careful with the release of the "drive-on-nav" than previous releases. The date could easily slip a bit, but I don't think it's anything like the hell that was the initial year of AP2.

So in summary I'm cautiously optimistic. My timeframe of 1-3 months might be too optimistic, but anything over 6 months is way too cynical.

 

[strangecosmos]

It may have affected things that Sterling Anderson left around the time that Hardware 2 was deployed, and then Chris Lattner joined and left after 6 months. Andrej Karpathy has only been around since last June. I wonder if the change in Autopilot leadership led to lost time. Or if a lack of progress or other issues created conflict that led to Chris Lattner leaving.

After Karpathy joined, they apparently re-did “the foundation of the Tesla vision neural net”, which sounds like choosing a new neural network architecture. That was in late 2017. In early 2018, we started to see some real improvements in Autopilot.

So, maybe it just took 6-12 months for Enhanced Autopilot development to get on track, and we’ll actually see faster progress now that Karpathy’s been in his job for 15 months. It doesn’t seem reasonable to believe that Autopilot development will flounder forever just because it did for the first year.

The original target date set in Elon’s infamous “six months definitely” tweet was July 2017. So, October 2018 is 15 months past that original target date.

The tweet was not about On-ramp to Off-ramp, but about when the first features from the Full Self-Driving Capability package would be released. However, I would think that those features would roughly coincide with On-ramp to Off-ramp, or at least would be a proxy for overall progress on the Hardware 2 autonomy system.

If we treat July 2017 as our baseline, rather than September 2018, that reframes things. If Elon is 15 months late relative to a July 2017 baseline, that puts the release in October 2018. If he’s 20 months late, it puts the release in March 2019.

It doesn’t make sense to start from a new baseline every time Elon makes a new prediction about the same goal. If he ever achieves the goal, eventually his predictions (if he keeps making them publicly) will start to converge on the actual achievement of the goal. A goal that is eventually achieved can’t be 15 months away forever.

So, we can’t shift the baseline every time Elon updates his prediction. That will eventually end up being wrong.

 

[gearchruncher]

So, we want to use more recent Elon AP timelines?

On June 10th, he said:

That issue is better in latest Autopilot software rolling out now & fully fixed in August update as part of our long-awaited Tesla Version 9. To date, Autopilot resources have rightly focused entirely on safety. With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features.

On August 8th?

Hm and any idea when the first software update will be that has content exclusively for full self driving-optioned customers?

Sorry, meant to say same timeframe as hardware

And when is HW3? (August 8th also)

Probably 4 to 6 months. Those who order full self-driving get the upgrade at no cost. It isn’t needed just for enhanced Autopilot.

Oh good, another "probably x to y months" tweet...

First FSD feature has slipped 2+ years from original tweet, and slipped 3-5 months in the last three months. Again, zero evidence anything has changed.

 

[Steve757]

Maybe this is the wrong thread, but when I asked a Tesla rep about FSD, I got an interesting response. He said that when the software is released, it will only be activated in CA and AZ where it is legal. So, then I asked, when will it be legal here in VA? He wasn't sure but said that proposals are under consideration. Funny thing is - I can't find anywhere where this is under review. Does anyone know where Tesla would get the go ahead to enable FSD (once released)? If it was published somewhere we would all have access to it theoretically.

 

[run-the-joules]

Maybe this is the wrong thread, but when I asked a Tesla rep about FSD, I got an interesting response. He said that when the software is released, it will only be activated in CA and AZ where it is legal. So, then I asked, when will it be legal here in VA? He wasn't sure but said that proposals are under consideration. Funny thing is - I can't find anywhere where this is under review. Does anyone know where Tesla would get the go ahead to enable FSD (once released)? If it was published somewhere we would all have access to it theoretically.

He doesn't know crap about crap. It's like asking an Apple Store employee about future products: If they say anything, they're either making it up on the spot or are repeating someone who did. They are not on the list of people such things are disclosed to.

 

[HankLloydRight]

when the software is released, it will only be activated in CA and AZ

Do you drive over state lines and it gets deactivated?

That doesn't bode well for the FSD cross country demo drive now does it?

 

[run-the-joules]

Before the videos from verygreen got posted this morning I'd have said late 2019 at best. But I'm… honestly quite pleasantly surprised. Maybe this will happen sooner after all.

 

[strangecosmos]

Maybe this is the wrong thread, but when I asked a Tesla rep about FSD, I got an interesting response. He said that when the software is released, it will only be activated in CA and AZ where it is legal. So, then I asked, when will it be legal here in VA? He wasn't sure but said that proposals are under consideration. Funny thing is - I can't find anywhere where this is under review. Does anyone know where Tesla would get the go ahead to enable FSD (once released)? If it was published somewhere we would all have access to it theoretically.

This sounds like hearsay or broken telephone. In the U.S., there is work on unified national legislation. The latest proposed bill is currently stalled, but this is something that could be figured out by the end of 2019, which is Elon’s (quite possibly hyper-optimistic) prediction for when full self-driving will launch. I think as stuff happens like Waymo’s taxi service in the Phoenix area and Tesla’s On-ramp to Off-ramp feature, legislators will see self-driving cars as closer to becoming a reality and therefore as more of a priority.

 

[strangecosmos]

New tweet from Elon about Autopilot v9:

Going over final tweaks tonight. Hopefully in wide release end of week.

 

[Tam]

...legal here...

I only heard of 3 states that allow autonomous vehicles (with no human supervision required) currently:

1) Florida since 2016, then followed in the same year by:
2) Michigan, then a year after that, in 2017:
3) Georgia

Each of those states requires autonomous vehicles to obey all traffic rules (that means no pedestrian killing as in AZ allowed).

Among those, Michigan goes one step further by waiving the federal requirements for foot pedals (brake and accelerator) and steering wheel such as this version of GM Bolt:

Other states such as CA and AZ allow TESTING which requires human supervision.

Thus, that Tesla rep. didn't seem to be very knowledageble about the whole picture of autonomous vehicles permits in the U.S.

Notice that Germany wanted to ban Tesla Autopilot by citing the danger of the system when human does not drive.

Germany's effort failed because:

As long as Tesla maintains that human is responsible for the driving, then there is no reason that it cannot activate V9 or Full Self Driving in all of the U.S. and not just CA and AZ.

In future, once Tesla Full Self Driving is working so well that human would sleep in bed while their cars will automatically roam around without a driver to make a living for their owners, that's when you need to know which states allowing such a thing!

But for now, even with this coming V9, since human is still at the helm, there's no need to worry about which states because all states allow licensed human to do the driving, not just CA and AZ.

 

[strangecosmos]

Apparently, Autopilot v9 is going out to Early Access testers, at least according to Marc Benton on Twitter. Marc posted a photo (allegedly) of the Version 9.0 release notes, which say:

For those with Enhanced Autopilot, we are also introducing Navigate on Autopilot (Beta) — our newest Autopilot convenience feature, designed to get you to your destination more efficiently by guiding your car on and off the highway.

 

[Bebop]

New vote option.

“By this weekend”.

 

[strangecosmos]

Question: is Navigate on Autopilot the same feature as On-ramp to Off-ramp? Are these two names for the same feature, or are they two different features?

 

[Tam]

...Navigate on Autopilot the same feature as On-ramp to Off-ramp...

I think they mean the same for V9 but to be stricter, there's a difference in understanding:

"On-ramp to Off-ramp" is a more correct terminology which restricts the function to limited access highways only.

On the other hand:

"Navigate on Autopilot" is too generic which can be misinterpreted as from address-to-address and not just be geofenced "On-ramp to Off-ramp."