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Tesla years ahead?

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With Tesla setting the expectation that full autonomy will be running on Tesla vehicles sometime next year, where does that put all the other players? In August 2016, Ford was talking about a 2021 target for autonomous driving. GM is planning on releasing it's Super Cruise feature that looks very much like AP1 sometime in 2017 (only on the Cadillac platform). It seems like Tesla is about 2+ years ahead of some of it's major competitors. With this much of a lead and the possibility of 200,000+ fully autonomous vehicles on the road ahead of its competitors, how will the industry respond?
 
With Tesla setting the expectation that full autonomy will be running on Tesla vehicles sometime next year, where does that put all the other players? In August 2016, Ford was talking about a 2021 target for autonomous driving. GM is planning on releasing it's Super Cruise feature that looks very much like AP1 sometime in 2017 (only on the Cadillac platform). It seems like Tesla is about 2+ years ahead of some of it's major competitors. With this much of a lead and the possibility of 200,000+ fully autonomous vehicles on the road ahead of its competitors, how will the industry respond?

It leaves others in the same position they always were. Tesla's not going to have full autonomy next year. What Tesla _will_ have is real hardware shadowing real driving in all kinds of conditions, gathering a lot of the data required to help develop the software.
 
Jen-Hsun, CEO of Nvidia would disagree.

Tesla’s Autopilot chip supplier NVIDIA on new self-driving system: ‘It’s basically 5 yrs ahead and coming in 2017’

On a conference call with CEO Jen-Hsun Huang following the results, analysts were particularly interested in the company’s push in AI and the automotive industry, especially since Tesla’s started delivering every single one of its vehicles with NVIDIA’s Drive PX2 supercomputer.

Huang offered some very interesting insights into how he sees Tesla’s self-driving program playing out.

He says that by introducing the necessary hardware for full autonomy now, Tesla “sent a shock wave through the automotive industry”:

“And I think what Tesla has done by launching and having on the road in the very near-future here, a full autonomous driving capability using AI, that has sent a shock wave through the automotive industry. It’s basically five years ahead. Anybody who’s talking about 2021 and that’s just a non-starter anymore. And I think that that’s probably the most significant bit in the automotive industry. I just don’t – anybody who is talking about autonomous capabilities in 2020 and 2021 is at the moment re-evaluating in a very significant way.”
 
By early 2018 Tesla will have several billion miles of AP 2 data and will have driven cross country fully autonomous LA to NYC. They'll likely have the snake chargers rolling out to Superchargers and Tesla Network in beta. I think they'll go for the first L4-L5 TN fleet someplace in Florida before the end of 2018 and if things go smoothly be expanding with 10's of thousands of Fleet vehicles in Florida in 2019, city by city.

This will be company owned and operated fleets without driver controls that operate only in designated service areas (like Uber).

It's not clear what other jurisdictions will have rules in place, but I think Tesla has a big lead and will keep it if they can get fully autonomous TN fleets operating first.
 
If we are judging things by manufacturer videos seems MB showed this same video 3 years ago:

Does this not mean MB has had a 3 year head start and Tesla is just now catching up?


You are incredibly correct!!! Obviously MB S-class autopilot is already available and they will be able to release this substantial upgrade at any time. They are just waiting for the optimum moment when Tesla thinks they are ahead and then WOOSH in swoops MB with an overnight upgrade to car sold in the last three years.

Somebody should just tell Elon to quit now before Mercedes pays attention to them.
 
You are incredibly correct!!! Obviously MB S-class autopilot is already available and they will be able to release this substantial upgrade at any time. They are just waiting for the optimum moment when Tesla thinks they are ahead and then WOOSH in swoops MB with an overnight upgrade to car sold in the last three years.

Somebody should just tell Elon to quit now before Mercedes pays attention to them.

Ez tiger. No need to get defensive. Simply observing videos like this have been made before. Let's perhaps compare who's in lead when product ships?
 
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Since we are sharing videos, here's a new one from Telsa demonstrating AP2.0 in more complex driving scenarios than the previous AP2.0 video from a few weeks ago. Also shows the input view of various camera angles.


Here's and edited version of the same video slowed down to what looks to be close to normal speed.

 
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Ez tiger. No need to get defensive. Simply observing videos like this have been made before. Let's perhaps compare who's in lead when product ships?

Tesla is doing this on production hardware that is already shipping with the software roll out starting in month or two. Plus the v1 was already shipped for the last year. Big difference from M-B which has just started shipping a barely usable lane keeping system despite this video.

If you are going to post something like this without context you shouldn't be surprised when it is challenged.
 
I believe that @30seconds post was dripping with sarcasm. He should have used an emoji ;)
Perhaps. I will assert however that it is not logical to think someone showing the same capability 3 years ago and no shipped product to date has just been sitting with their thumbs up their a$$es. @30seconds would have us believe Tesla must be ahead simply cause they installed cameras and a gpu. Well shoot I just put the latest MacBook with NVIDIA chipset in the back seat of my car. I must be in the lead as well. ... Oh and here is the requisite emoji. ;)
 
Since we are sharing videos, here's a new one from Telsa demonstrating AP2.0 in more complex driving scenarios than the previous AP2.0 video from a few weeks ago. Also shows the input view of various camera angles.

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Here's and edited version of the same video slowed down to what looks to be close to normal speed.

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That's interesting. Looks like it had a few pauses.
 
When I drive my Tesla I feel like I've traveled about 50 years back in time to the days of old, slow, loud gas powered cars. With auto pilot activated I observe how things were in the "old days" when human drivers drove recklessly in and out of traffic, stopping and going with none of the safe, fluid, efficient travel of my Tesla.

So yeah, I'd say Tesla is about 50 years ahead.
 
GM is planning on releasing it's Super Cruise feature that looks very much like AP1 sometime in 2017 (only on the Cadillac platform)
What's interesting about Super Cruise is that apparently it has a camera looking at the driver checking for drowsiness, etc. and will automatically pull over to the side of the road. I think observing driver condition is a good idea, though perhaps brings up privacy concerns. Also the issue is perhaps moot if Tesla expects to have full autonomy soon.

Driver interaction with Autopilot
 
Tesla is years ahead in lane keeping perhaps. I think full L5 autonomy is a pipe dream that the regulators will make a nightmare.

Blind spot detection and autopark are horrible with respect to the competition. I don't think AP 2.0 will change that anytime soon.

Tesla's feature set pushes the limits of what the sensors can do. Most of the functionality is in perma-beta and may never get dependable for normal use.

Just my opinion and I am sure I will be crushed with dislikes, but only adaptive cruise control and lane keeping work reliably enough to add value in my AP 1.0 Tesla. Everything else has promise, but is silicon snakeoil at the moment.