Q3 Earnings Call: Questions about FSD

[diplomat33]

You are misunderstanding and misrepresenting my position still.

My expectations for what Tesla is doing or will do have got nothing to do with this. I am merely commenting here on what Tesla has said those expectations should be. So if (again I am not saying I do at all) we take Tesla at their word on Autonomy Investor Day, we are to expect they are SAE Level 5 no geofence feature complete at end of 2019 internally because that is what they answered Yes to and have not retracted.

My second point — again nothing to do with my own expectations — is that IF they did not tell the truth when they said that, but instead they were expecting to be — say — minimum viable product feature complete for a Level 2 urban NoA, I would not find that chain of events acceptable/moral/ethical/honest what have you given the disparity between a Level 5 no geofence feature set and a Level 2 urban NoA MVP feature set. Vast disparity.

Again NOTHING to do with what I expect from Tesla. I will not be surprised by an alternative outcome at all. I am just commenting on 1) what they have claimed in public and 2) what I would find an unethcial breech of that.

Thanks.

I agree with you that if Tesla tried to pass off a minimum viable feature complete L2 urban NOA as "L5 feature complete no goefence" that would be very dishonest.

And we both agree that Elon is promising "L5 feature complete no geofence" by end of this year. The question is, what does that mean? What is "L5 feature complete no geofence"? If we don't get more specific about what we mean then we are both just hiding behind definitions. And ultimately, what matters is when Tesla does deliver features by year's end and Elon gets up and declares "feature complete" is done, how do we determine if he is right or not? Those are the questions I am trying to get at.

Tesla has defined "L5 feature complete no geofence" as the following features with driver supervision and no geofencing:
- Lane Keeping
- TACC
- Auto Park
- Auto Lane Change
- NOA Highway
- Smart Summon
- Traffic Light and Stop Sign Response
- Automatic Driving on City Streets

So we know that when Tesla delivers the remaining features on this list then they will have achieved "L5 feature complete no geofence". The question will be, do we agree or not?

For reference here are the definitions we are discussing:

SAE L5: The sustained and unconditional (i.e., not ODD-specific) performance by an ADS of the entire DDT and DDT fallback without any expectation that a user will respond to a request to intervene.

Feature Complete: a piece of software has all of its planned or primary features implemented but is not yet final due to bugs, performance or stability issues. This occurs at the end of alpha testing of development.

Geofence: A virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. A geo-fence could be dynamically generated—as in a radius around a point location, or a geo-fence can be a predefined set of boundaries.

And here is what Elon said in the earnings call from the fool.com transcript:

"Yeah, feature-complete, I mean, it's -- the car is able to drive from one's house to work, most likely without interventions. So it will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive -- it will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy -- low speed autonomy with Summon. You've got high-speed autonomy on the highway, and intermediate speed autonomy, which really just means traffic lights and stop signs.

So feature-complete means it's most likely able to do that without intervention, without human intervention, but it would still be supervised. And I've gone through this timeline before several times, but it is often misconstrued that there's three major levels to autonomy. There's the car being able to be autonomous, but requiring supervision and intervention at times. That's feature complete. Then there's -- and it doesn't mean like every scenario, everywhere on earth, including ever corner case, it just means most of the time.

And then, there's another level which is that we think it's -- that from a Tesla standpoint, we think the car is safe enough to be driven without supervision. Then the third level would be that regulators are also convinced that the car can be driven autonomously without supervision. Those are three different levels."

 

[boonedocks]

Thanks.

I agree with you that if Tesla tried to pass off a minimum viable feature complete L2 urban NOA as "L5 feature complete no goefence" that would be very dishonest.

And we both agree that Elon is promising "L5 feature complete no geofence" by end of this year. The question is, what does that mean? What is "L5 feature complete no geofence"? If we don't get more specific about what we mean then we are both just hiding behind definitions. And ultimately, what matters is when Tesla does deliver features by year's end and Elon gets up and declares "feature complete" is done, how do we determine if he is right or not? Those are the questions I am trying to get at.

Tesla has defined "L5 feature complete no geofence" as the following features with driver supervision and no geofencing:
- Lane Keeping
- TACC
- Auto Park
- Auto Lane Change
- NOA Highway
- Smart Summon
- Traffic Light and Stop Sign Response
- Automatic Driving on City Streets

So we know that when Tesla delivers the remaining features to beta early access then they will have achieved "L5 feature complete no geofence". The question will be, do we agree or not?

For reference here are the definitions we are discussing:

SAE L5: The sustained and unconditional (i.e., not ODD-specific) performance by an ADS of the entire DDT and DDT fallback without any expectation that a user will respond to a request to intervene.

Feature Complete: a piece of software has all of its planned or primary features implemented but is not yet final due to bugs, performance or stability issues. This occurs at the end of alpha testing of development.

Geofence: A virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. A geo-fence could be dynamically generated—as in a radius around a point location, or a geo-fence can be a predefined set of boundaries.

And here is what Elon said in the earnings call from the fool.com transcript:

"Yeah, feature-complete, I mean, it's -- the car is able to drive from one's house to work, most likely without interventions. So it will still be supervised, but it will be able to drive -- it will fill in the gap from low-speed autonomy -- low speed autonomy with Summon. You've got high-speed autonomy on the highway, and intermediate speed autonomy, which really just means traffic lights and stop signs.

So feature-complete means it's most likely able to do that without intervention, without human intervention, but it would still be supervised. And I've gone through this timeline before several times, but it is often misconstrued that there's three major levels to autonomy. There's the car being able to be autonomous, but requiring supervision and intervention at times. That's feature complete. Then there's -- and it doesn't mean like every scenario, everywhere on earth, including ever corner case, it just means most of the time.

And then, there's another level which is that we think it's -- that from a Tesla standpoint, we think the car is safe enough to be driven without supervision. Then the third level would be that regulators are also convinced that the car can be driven autonomously without supervision. Those are three different levels."

Meanwhile Elon will shout L5 feature complete from the Twitter Mountain tops and from the board room speaker phone.....and I'll still have to keep constant pressure (more than if I am steering myself) on a steering wheel on my daily commute where I have 15 miles of almost straight roads in several different areas....Please just make A/P TACC A/S do lane keeping in HOV lanes on straight roads hands free....I'll be happy for quite a while if Tesla will just do that. I don't use "Come to Me" "Summon" etc. etc. etc. Just my long daily commute of 95+ miles of expressway....

 

[diplomat33]

Meanwhile Elon will shout L5 feature complete from the Twitter Mountain tops and from the board room speaker phone.....and I'll still have to keep constant pressure (more than if I am steering myself) on a steering wheel on my daily commute where I have 15 miles of almost straight roads in several different areas....Please just make A/P TACC A/S do lane keeping in HOV lanes on straight roads hands free....I'll be happy for quite a while if Tesla will just do that. I don't use "Come to Me" "Summon" etc. etc. etc. Just my long daily commute of 95+ miles of expressway....

Yes. "L5 Feature Complete" will require driver supervision. So Tesla will most likely keep the "hold the wheel" nags pretty frequent even after "L5 feature complete" is achieved. Tesla might reduce the nags a bit as the reliability improves, but Tesla will probably only remove the "hold the wheel" nags completely when they reach Elon's "stage 2 of FSD" (reliability is high enough that Tesla feels that driver supervision is not needed anymore).

But this is why correct expectations are important. If you don't understand that "L5 feature complete" will still have "hold the wheel" nags, then you will probably be disappointed and even angry when "L5 feature complete" is released.

 

[am_dmd]

Yes. "L5 Feature Complete" will require driver supervision. So Tesla will most likely keep the "hold the wheel" nags pretty frequent even after "L5 feature complete" is achieved. Tesla might reduce the nags a bit as the reliability improves, but Tesla will probably only remove the "hold the wheel" nags completely when they reach Elon's "stage 2 of FSD" (reliability is high enough that Tesla feels that driver supervision is not needed anymore).

But this is why correct expectations are important. If you don't understand that "L5 feature complete" will still have "hold the wheel" nags, then you will probably be disappointed and even angry when "L5 feature complete" is released.

I know you don't work for Tesla but what's your source?
Will there be exact routes where L5 will work? Otherwise Tesla can always claim we told you 'feature complete' but it does not work on these routes
Also any insider info on AP2 upgrades? Or at least your intuition?

 

[boonedocks]

Yes. "L5 Feature Complete" will require driver supervision. So Tesla will most likely keep the "hold the wheel" nags pretty frequent even after "L5 feature complete" is achieved. Tesla might reduce the nags a bit as the reliability improves, but Tesla will probably only remove the "hold the wheel" nags completely when they reach Elon's "stage 2 of FSD" (reliability is high enough that Tesla feels that driver supervision is not needed anymore).

But this is why correct expectations are important. If you don't understand that "L5 feature complete" will still have "hold the wheel" nags, then you will probably be disappointed and even angry when "L5 feature complete" is released.

I do want to make clear that my Tesla(s) 2015-2019 models have been my most favorite cars ever. I do believe in the Tesla mission and don't want to see anything negative happen to Tesla. "BTW there is a lawsuit brewing in Germany concerning FSD as we speak"

My issue is that as Elon has always done, he is a master at lip service and speech and selective words that unduly cause problems in the Tesla marketplace. Saying L5 in the name sentence as the Feature Complete, in other words slapping hands together "Finished", this is what people hear. Take L5 out of your vernacular Elon and replace with ADAS is getting better and better and now does this..and this...and this....and save FSD L5 etc etc etc for when it actually does something . The video of a Model X "fully self driving L5" from 2016 is what people are hearing with their ears today about L5 feature complete....not what he is meaning.

 

[J1mbo]

Yes. "L5 Feature Complete" will require driver supervision. So Tesla will most likely keep the "hold the wheel" nags pretty frequent even after "L5 feature complete" is achieved. Tesla might reduce the nags a bit as the reliability improves, but Tesla will probably only remove the "hold the wheel" nags completely when they reach Elon's "stage 2 of FSD" (reliability is high enough that Tesla feels that driver supervision is not needed anymore).

Yup. Hard to think of anything that could do more harm to Tesla than releasing - and promoting - an unsafe hands-off system where Tesla has liability. They dodged a bullet with the original release of AP1 IMO.

 

[diplomat33]

I do want to make clear that my Tesla(s) 2015-2019 models have been my most favorite cars ever. I do believe in the Tesla mission and don't want to see anything negative happen to Tesla. "BTW there is a lawsuit brewing in Germany concerning FSD as we speak"

My issue is that as Elon has always done, he is a master at lip service and speech and selective words that unduly cause problems in the Tesla marketplace. Saying L5 in the name sentence as the Feature Complete, in other words slapping hands together "Finished", this is what people hear. Take L5 out of your vernacular Elon and replace with ADAS is getting better and better and now does this..and this...and this....and save FSD L5 etc etc etc for when it actually does something . The video of a Model X "fully self driving L5" from 2016 is what people are hearing with their ears today about L5 feature complete....not what he is meaning.

Definitely agree. I wish Elon would be more careful with his words. Unfortunately, he can't take back what he said. It will come back to bite him.

 

[boonedocks]

Definitely agree. I wish Elon would be more careful with his words. Unfortunately, he can't take back what he said. It will come back to bite him.

.....and 100% agree as well. But he can quietly and selectively correct himself and bring reality in to where Tesla is at and what we can genuinely expect to see. We can all laugh when a restaurant says "Worlds Best BBQ" knowing there is no way to qualify that...Where we can NOT laugh is when someone says "Robotaxi, it will drive itself, L5 (feature complete) by years end, videos of the CEO driving hands free and stating it as hands free to a reporter, etc etc etc... Just be honest about it..that's all...no need to sugar coat something thats already delicious on its own as my mom use to say...

 

[electronblue]

Definitely agree. I wish Elon would be more careful with his words. Unfortunately, he can't take back what he said. It will come back to bite him.

Of course he can take it back — any time. Issue a retraction, explanation, candid change of plans and remedies as needed.

Instead he has spent the last years doubling down and/or turning to silence as a way to forget past promises (such as the AP1 features that were supposed to come in December 2016, Early Access Program for early FSD buyers etc.)

 

[electronblue]

Tesla has defined "L5 feature complete no geofence" as the following features with driver supervision and no geofencing:
- Lane Keeping
- TACC
- Auto Park
- Auto Lane Change
- NOA Highway
- Smart Summon
- Traffic Light and Stop Sign Response
- Automatic Driving on City Streets

So we know that when Tesla delivers the remaining features on this list then they will have achieved "L5 feature complete no geofence". The question will be, do we agree or not?

If that really is Tesla’s list — the one Elon referred to with Yes — I would expect that does not mean Level 5 feature complete unless massive amounts of new features are added to each and every one.

But I would agree we don’t know and it is pointless to speculate in my view. We’ll know when we know.

 

[diplomat33]

If that really is Tesla’s list — the one Elon referred to with Yes — I would expect that does not mean Level 5 feature complete unless massive amounts of new features are added to each and every one.

But I would agree we don’t know and it is pointless to speculate in my view. We’ll know when we know.

Personally, I think it is the list. Although we should keep in mind that some features like "automatic driving on city streets" are very broad so they may contain a lot of sub features not specifically mentioned. So, yeah, we could get more "features" that are implied but not explicitly stated in that list.

And, the fact that you think "L5 feature complete no goefence" would require "massive amounts" of additional features, makes me think that you consider "L5 feature complete no geofence" to be a lot more than what Tesla thinks it is.

 

[Mardak]

Maybe an alternate way to approach the confusion with a different question:

Why hasn't Tesla released "feature complete FSD" yet?

Clearly the vehicles are able to detect some red traffic lights to provide warnings, so are they trying to get up to some 99.9…% accuracy before even releasing it to early access? Are there too many shadow mode "interventions" where crossing the street straight predicted an incorrect lane shift? Would they hold back releasing to early access if it was only for HW3 FSD computer? Similarly, would they hold back an intermediate "traffic light" and/or "stop sign" release without having "city driving" ready?

 

[diplomat33]

Maybe an alternate way to approach the confusion with a different question:

Why hasn't Tesla released "feature complete FSD" yet?

Clearly the vehicles are able to detect some red traffic lights to provide warnings, so are they trying to get up to some 99.9…% accuracy before even releasing it to early access? Are there too many shadow mode "interventions" where crossing the street straight predicted an incorrect lane shift? Would they hold back releasing to early access if it was only for HW3 FSD computer? Similarly, would they hold back an intermediate "traffic light" and/or "stop sign" release without having "city driving" ready?

Yes, I think Tesla is waiting for traffic light and stop sign detection to reach some defined level of 9's of reliability before releasing it to early access. Traffic light and stop sign detection is one of those features that definitely has to work because if it fails, the consequences can be disastrous. Even with the caveat of "driver supervision" with "hold the wheel" nags, you still need a high rate of reliability before you can release a feature like that.

 

[Mardak]

From various reports, it's clear that v10 included much improved neural network for at least lane and path predictions, so it seems likely the traffic light detection was improved too. Tesla is most likely gathering shadow mode data on how the latest traffic light detection is performing on this latest iteration. Thus if the original expectations of "feature complete" were based on an earlier expected release date of v10 to gather this data, it would seem natural to expect "feature complete" deployment delayed by a similar amount of v10's delay.

Personally, I've noticed more "big red alert" for red traffic lights with v10 compared to before, so that might indicate the confidence level of detecting the lights is higher than before to even alert the driver. Although there have been a couple instances where I knew the cross traffic's lights were already yellow and turning red soon, so I didn't brake to deactivate AutoPilot. So when the alert triggered for approaching a red light too fast, the light was actually green by the time I reached the line. Naively, this sends back a "false positive" report because I didn't end up braking, but technically the alert was correct in detecting a red light. Complexities of dealing with real data from the fleet…

 

[electronblue]

And, the fact that you think "L5 feature complete no goefence" would require "massive amounts" of additional features, makes me think that you consider "L5 feature complete no geofence" to be a lot more than what Tesla thinks it is.

It doesn’t matter what I think or what Tesla thinks. ”Level 5 no geofence feature complete” is well-defined and has a meaning reasonably informed person would come to. I guarantee you that meaning is not what you seem to think Tesla thinks it is.

Now, what Tesla releases, you may well be right. Which means Tesla probably lied on Autonomy Investor Day about expecting Level 5 no geofence feature complete at the end of 2019. But I hold out hope they actually told the truth — not because I expect the features, but because the lie would be bad. With that I’ll say my thanks and bow out of an infinite loop.

 

[EVNow]

I do want to make clear that my Tesla(s) 2015-2019 models have been my most favorite cars ever. I do believe in the Tesla mission and don't want to see anything negative happen to Tesla. "BTW there is a lawsuit brewing in Germany concerning FSD as we speak"

How much of that is because of German competition ?

This is from a post in the market thread.

They completely ignored all the text pointing out the limitations and restrictions, right below the text they quoted *facepalm*

From Tesla's German reservation page, under Autopilot (emphasis mine):

"Die gegenwärtig aktivierten Funktionen verlangen eine aktive Überwachung durch den Fahrer - ein autonomer Betrieb des Fahrzeugs ist damit nicht möglich.Einige Merkmale erfordern eine manuelle Blinkerbetätigung und weisen nur einen beschränkten Funktionsbereich auf. Die Aktivierung und Verwendung von Autonomiefunktionen verlangen dagegen den Nachweis über Milliarden von gefahrenen Kilometern, dass ihre Zuverlässigkeit das Vermögen von menschlichen Fahrern weit überschreitet. Zudem sind für den autonomen Betrieb gesetzliche Genehmigungen erforderlich, die je nach Rechtsprechung noch länger dauern dürften. Im Zuge der Weiterentwicklung dieser Selbstfahrfähigkeiten wird Ihr Fahrzeug kontinuierlich über Mobilfunk aktualisiert und aufgewertet."

----

Google Translate:

"The currently activated functions require active monitoring by the driver - thus autonomous operation of the vehicle is not possible. Some features require manual turn signal operation and have only a limited functional area. The activation and use of autonomy functions, on the other hand, requires proof of billions of miles driven that their reliability far exceeds that of human drivers. In addition, statutory licenses are required for autonomous operation, which may take even longer, depending on the case law. In the course of the further development of these self-driving abilities, your vehicle will be continually updated and upgraded via mobile communications."​

 

[EVNow]

The context was Tesla’s robotaxi software (since the hardware has been there all this time) and for software the definition is:

”A version of a piece of software having all the functionality intended for the final version but requiring some improvements and fixes before release.”

This is a decent definition but the devil is in the details. Does it cover "edge cases" - and what are the edge cases in case of FSD ?

Elon answered at Autonomy Investor Day that Tesla is expecting to be SAE* ”Level 5 no geofence feature complete” at end of 2019.

That is a lie.

He actually said "yes" to a question that had two(3?) parts
- L5
- Not geofenced
- End of the year

We have talked about this before - but Musk has never talked explicitly about L5 that I'm aware of. He was primarily answering the 2 & 3 of the above. He had repeatedly talked about those 2 parts in the autonomy day quite a bit. But in the entire 3 hours he nevered talked about levels (AFAIK).

So, fairest interpretation of what he said was Tesla would be FSD FC end of the year - definitions being Tesla's own as they have put it down on the website now, not some esoteric level definition from SAE.

ps : Reminds me of how the media crucified Gore for "saying" he invented Internet - which ofcourse he never did.

 

[_jal_]

Meanwhile Elon will shout L5 feature complete from the Twitter Mountain tops and from the board room speaker phone.....and I'll still have to keep constant pressure (more than if I am steering myself) on a steering wheel on my daily commute where I have 15 miles of almost straight roads in several different areas....Please just make A/P TACC A/S do lane keeping in HOV lanes on straight roads hands free....I'll be happy for quite a while if Tesla will just do that. I don't use "Come to Me" "Summon" etc. etc. etc. Just my long daily commute of 95+ miles of expressway....

I forewent FSD on my new car, but had EAP on my previous car. It was so bad with lane changes and navigating simple interchanges that I stopped using NoA. I'd pay $20k today if I could get on the highway, have it navigate the two interchanges and get me onto the off ramp without having the nag thing. All the rest is snake oil as far as I'm concerned now.

 

[Daniel in SD]

We have talked about this before - but Musk has never talked explicitly about L5 that I'm aware of.

Transcript: Elon Musk's Autopilot 2.0 Conference Call

 

[diplomat33]

It doesn’t matter what I think or what Tesla thinks. ”Level 5 no geofence feature complete” is well-defined and has a meaning reasonably informed person would come to. I guarantee you that meaning is not what you seem to think Tesla thinks it is.

Now, what Tesla releases, you may well be right. Which means Tesla probably lied on Autonomy Investor Day about expecting Level 5 no geofence feature complete at the end of 2019. But I hold out hope they actually told the truth — not because I expect the features, but because the lie would be bad. With that I’ll say my thanks and bow out of an infinite loop.

Yeah, we are kinda going in circles.

I would point that the definition I found on wiki for "feature complete" is a bit different than yours:

"A feature complete version of a piece of software has all of its planned or primary features implemented but is not yet final due to bugs, performance or stability issues. This occurs at the end of alpha testing of development." Feature complete - Wikipedia

As I understand this definition, feature complete is not all final features, but just the planned or primary features that the dev team decide to put in their software in order to go from alpha to beta.

In terms of FSD, this means that "L5 feature complete no geofence" would not be all L5 features but just the primary features that the Tesla development team decide should go into the FSD software in order to get to what they feel is beta L5 autonomy.

Tesla seems to have decided, based on the FSD sales page, that lane keeping, TACC, auto park, auto lane change, smart summon, NOA highway, traffic light and stop sign and automatic driving on city streets are those primary features for "L5 feature complete no geofence" that will get them to beta L5 autonomy. The software development team gets to decide what those features are since they are developing the software. And presumably, Tesla believes that these primary features are indeed good enough for beta L5 autonomy. You or I may disagree but that seems to be what they are doing.