The catastrophe of FSD and erosion of trust in Tesla

[aronth5]

I'm glad they worked during your one rain event this year.

Common theme across all cars is the variability between cars and what owners expect. Wipers have been fine for almost 2 years now and I don't pay any attention to them anymore. Once in a great while they will do something odd but nothing that requires any intervention. Perhaps I have more patience then others. Biggest problem I have in the rain is when I use FSD on the highways and after 5-10 minutes FSD becomes limited.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Common theme across all cars is the variability between cars and what owners expect. Wipers have been fine for almost 2 years now and I don't pay any attention to them anymore. Once in a great while they will do something odd but nothing that requires any intervention. Perhaps I have more patience then others. Biggest problem I have in the rain is when I use FSD on the highways and after 5-10 minutes FSD becomes limited.

The biggest issue I have in the rain is the side rear view facing cameras become useless for both myself, and auto-lane change because the water forms bubbles on the lens and the image bounces around.

On the freeway it quickly leads to auto-lane change not being available. Tesla Vision is also more limited in the rain than Vision+Radar. With moderate rain it will start to slow because of "weather".

As to auto-wipers I've rarely seen a PNW type praise the auto-wipers. For me its highly dependent on the rain type.

Is it as good as my MB Sprinter? No
Are the auto wipers on my MB Sprinter always awesome? No
Is it as good as I recall my 2015 Model S being? No
Is it as bad as going without automatic wipers like in my Jeep? No

It's just somewhere in the middle where its mostly fun to poke fun at simple because they replaced such a cheap sensor with a neural network. Then they decided to disconnect the link between wipers being on and auto-lights going on.

Maybe erratic auto-wipers was why they did that. Ideally they would just leave them on for 15+ minutes if the wipers were activated for more than 15 seconds or something like that.

 

[DocRob]

From the manual:
"Traffic-Aware Cruise Control is primarily intended for driving on dry, straight roads, such as highways."

 

[EVNow]

This isn't about how well people can supervise a car.

It’s about …. Playing the devils advocate ?

 

[CyberGus]

From the manual:
"Traffic-Aware Cruise Control is primarily intended for driving on dry, straight roads, such as highways."

Well if you drive an EV in the rain you’ll be electrocuted, duh

 

[enemji]

Please do not assume

Really curious how exactly you see data from beta cars being used in training. Questions like: How you choose the segments of camera data to transfer, how do you transfer camera feed data, how you store camera feed data before transfer, how do you compress camera feed data and how you deal with compression loss (vs original data used by in car NN), how would you use driver output after disengagement due to working FSD never putting car to such situation, would you use driver output while car is not in FSD mode, ...

I do not assume. I very clearly said “seems”

 

[_Redshift_]

This is why I think its impossible for social media companies like facebook, IG, etc to really provide a healthy platform.

The only way for a human to win is not to play the game. That a lot of times its really only ourselves that we have to blame.

If Moderation is heavy handed then people don't bother having any tough conversation. Like today on a FB group I commented about the great Rivian Giveaway of 2022 where Rivian is selling vehicles below the true market value. Not by just a little bit, but around $20K or more per vehicle. I spent like 20 minutes writing the comment, and when I went to post it the original post was deleted. Maybe the mods deleted it or maybe the poster deleted it. It doesn't really matter as that was clearly a big waste of time despite how interesting I thought the situation was.

If Moderation is light then people attack each other and its just a blood bath.

If Moderation is just right like on TMC then people get addicted to the site like me. Haha

There was close to no moderation on the now defunct Tesla forums. Yes, people were at each other‘s necks on a few politically charged threads, but overall the information you got there was awesome. Especially during the early years of 2010-2014.

Many of those early adopters left the forum, but a few really respected forum users were still there when Tesla shut it down for unknown reasons.

This forum is more moderated, but I think the moderators here do a good job of allowing freedom of expression without being heavy handed.

 

[enemji]

I never understood the blood-bath concept, or why people attack others, sometimes viciously, over issues they are powerless to resolve. Society would be so much better if people worked together to the betterment of society and themselves. Instead of saying "I'm right and you're wrong", people should find common ground and try to stay positive. Also, it's helpful to step back and look at the big picture. Look at trends over time instead of focusing on the moment. My mom used to tell me, when I was a kid, "there are people starving in [insert region here - usually Africa or China]". It made me think that no matter what problems I'm having, my life is so much better off than many people on Earth. I still struggle sometimes with that, and have to remind myself that lesson.

That goes back to how the spouse has been treating that person… sort of a viscous cycle

 

[Wyeme]

Personally, i hope someone (individuals/people/groups) sue Tesla for how the beta is managed/implemented. Not because you posted a some warning and fine print does/should not relieve them of responsibility. would that be similar to giving alcohol to a minor (without supervision)?

 

[Dewg]

Personally, i hope someone (individuals/people/groups) sue Tesla for how the beta is managed/implemented. Not because you posted a some warning and fine print does/should not relieve them of responsibility. would that be similar to giving alcohol to a minor (without supervision)?

Or giving hot coffee to someone who spills it on their lap and sues because the coffee was, you know... hot. Or the person who thinks those Tide pods look mighty tasty.

 

[DrDabbles]

No one from Tesla has said

Good to know you think so little of Andrej, who has given multiple talks diving into some of the networks and data collection. It's a shame you don't do more investigation before discussing these things. But that's the caliber of discussion we often find in these topics. Someone raises legitimate concerns and they're immediately shouted down by people that haven't even used the system, or simply lie about it. Oh well. Without customers pushing Tesla to actually improve, we're likely to see a decade more of this.

 

[Dewg]

The only way to describe this reply is "ignorance". You don't know the facts of the case, but here you are spouting absolute nonsense about it. Why don't you actually go read about this instead of continuing to spout fact-free takes? It wouldn't take you more than a few minutes, and you'd honestly learn something that would completely change your mind about an opinion you've clearly been carrying for decades.

This one comment alone completely discredits everything you've said so far. That's how wrong your take is. Please do go read up on the case.

Dabbles, why are you so angry? We're on the same side here. We're both Tesla owners and we are both in FSD Beta. We are helping Tesla improve their systems and give people an excellent L2 and hopefully soon L3 driving experience. I've written many posts, including a featured article about the FSD experience.

I choose to look at things from a positive perspective. I've seen FSD improve steadily over the last several months. It definitely has its problems from time to time, but has improved if looked at as trends over time.

I'm sorry the system isn't improving at the pace you expect, or that the features aren't at what you feel are industry standard. I understand that people are frustrated, but instead of arguing about issues we cannot resolve, perhaps we can share our experiences with others and help them where we can. Such as trying different settings, or calibrating the cameras, rebooting the car periodically, or even opening support tickets for possible hardware problems.

Lets work together to help people. It's the best we can do.

 

[Ramphex]

I think we can start by recommending people to email fsdbeta at tesla dot com, then holding their breath until they respond.

 

[enemji]

Or giving hot coffee to someone who spills it on their lap and sues because the coffee was, you know... hot. Or the person who thinks those Tide pods look mighty tasty.

The literacy rate in the country is 88%. So yea..

 

[enemji]

Andrew is taking a 4 month sabbatical. Hopefully that helps

 

[DrDabbles]

Dabbles, why are you so angry?

It isn't anger. You're reading this with the wrong tone entirely. It's disappointment.

I choose to look at things from a positive perspective.

Unless it's an old woman that gets third degree burns, asks the company responsible (who had been warned multiple times and had lost previous lawsuits multiple times) to pay only her medical bills, and when they refused she had to sue. Again. I'm not angry you didn't know this, I'm disappointed you're repeating the corporate line that they used to smear her with all these decades later.

I'm sorry the system isn't improving at the pace you expect,

That's the thing. I had zero expectation that this would work from the beginning. My frustration is with the disingenuous tweets, and the outright lies. You keep saying things like "nobody knows..." but Tesla have talked openly about lots of these things. Perhaps you don't know, but many of us do. But you're using your position of not knowing to try to argue with people that do, and that's just not really a defensible position to take.

 

[bradtem]

People's opinions of FSD come in many forms. Many people without experience in actual self-driving technology are quite impressed by it. That might include you. But you may be puzzled that pretty much everybody with actual experience thinks it's a very poor effort at present, with a great deal more distance to go, unlikely to be achieved prior to other projects (from tech companies, not car companies) going commercial, and possibly not for a great deal of time, if ever, on the current sensor configuration.

Why this disconnect? People of course are not satisfied at appeal to authority and expertise, that is not enough, though it certainly is a hint when the inexperienced like it and the experienced find it wanting. That is reason to try to examine your own view. In trying to understand this difference, I have come upon several factors:

• The gamble: While many agree with the Tesla team that driving with just cameras might be possible some day, even Tesla admits it requires breakthroughs which do not yet exist, and for which the path is not known. A breakthrough could come next week, or take years. As such, one can have optimism about FSD because you have optimism about Tesla's ability to be the one to make this breakthrough. On the other hand, approaches with more than cameras no longer need any more fundamental breakthroughs, though they do need more work. One can bet either way.
• The "Geofence" illusion: Many think that Tesla's attempt to drive without maps is a feature, which lets it someday handle more territory. They deride the pilot projects which work in only a few cities, imagining them inferior to a system which doesn't work but doesn't work in many more cities. They think mapping is inherently too difficult and expensive, or that handling extremely rare surprise areas where maps are out of date is somehow harer than handling never having maps in the first place. (They also think that surprises for out of date maps must be common rather than extremely rare.) In fact, making the vehicle work at all anywhere is the hard problem. Expanding the map region is the easy problem. (You can watch my Youtube video and article on why Tesla would get working faster, not slower, if they moved to requiring maps, if you want more detail. )
• The false confidence: Many are impressed that they drove a trip without needing interventions. Though I have not managed my to get my Model 3 to do that yet, I have seen reports and videos of those who have. People say "wow" but don't understand how spectacularly unimpressive that is. To be ready for production, you need a car to be able to drive for a whole human lifetime without an intervention to prevent a significant accident. An hour, a day, a week? They mean nothing. Really. Waymo's cars have done 10 human lifetimes without ever being at fault for an accident in reality or in sim, and they're still only in pilot projects, though very close to release. And you're impressed by an hour? Instead, the fact that it often can't go 5 minutes is the real datum you should pay attention to.
• The neural network leap of faith: There are many people who feel that the AI capacity of deep neural networks is unbounded. That if you just throw enough training and a big enough processor at it, there is nothing, even driving, that it can't solve. There are experts who believe this, and there are experts who don't believe it and they have arguments. But none would say they are sure. This is part of the gamble. However, it is important to know that when it comes to neural network expertise, a wide consensus is that Google (which spawned Waymo and provides tech to it) has by far the most advanced neural network expertise, as well as the highest performance neuromorphic processors. So if you believe in this approach, Tesla is not the likely winner. Tesla is not without its advantages, but they are fewer than many imagine.
• The bold claims: Tesla definitely makes the boldest claims about when they will make it work. Unfortunately the track record on those claims is now so poor that they must be disregarded. I am at a loss to understand why Elon Musk keeps making those claims. He is somebody of great achievement which is what has led people to have faith and accept these bold claims, but when it comes to predicting the progress of FSD, he is no longer somebody of great achievement in that particular area. I am happy to trust his predictions on space and EVs and several other areas, but no longer on this.
• The generation of antagonism: While being brash is often the path to success, you can overdo it, and antagonize people at all levels, from the California DMV to the President of the USA, to the point that it slows you down rather than gives you freedom. I fear Tesla has tripped over that line.
• The "Beta" name: Tesla FSD is not even remotely close to a beta. In software development, a project moves to beta testing when it is in a near-release state, when internal alpha testing is not finding bugs fast enough to keep the team occupied. A product is not a beta if it is regularly getting major rewrites of components and experts more of those, along with many new features. That's a prototype, not a beta. Some companies have in recent history certainly stretched the meaning of beta quite a bit, but none nearly so much as calling FSD a beta. Don't be fooled by that name.

 

[OncomingStorm]

People's opinions of FSD come in many forms. Many people without experience in actual self-driving technology are quite impressed by it. That might include you. But you may be puzzled that pretty much everybody with actual experience thinks it's a very poor effort at present, with a great deal more distance to go, unlikely to be achieved prior to other projects (from tech companies, not car companies) going commercial, and possibly not for a great deal of time, if ever, on the current sensor configuration.

Why this disconnect? People of course are not satisfied at appeal to authority and expertise, that is not enough, though it certainly is a hint when the inexperienced like it and the experienced find it wanting. That is reason to try to examine your own view. In trying to understand this difference, I have come upon several factors:

• The gamble: While many agree with the Tesla team that driving with just cameras might be possible some day, even Tesla admits it requires breakthroughs which do not yet exist, and for which the path is not known. A breakthrough could come next week, or take years. As such, one can have optimism about FSD because you have optimism about Tesla's ability to be the one to make this breakthrough. On the other hand, approaches with more than cameras no longer need any more fundamental breakthroughs, though they do need more work. One can bet either way.
• The "Geofence" illusion: Many think that Tesla's attempt to drive without maps is a feature, which lets it someday handle more territory. They deride the pilot projects which work in only a few cities, imagining them inferior to a system which doesn't work but doesn't work in many more cities. They think mapping is inherently too difficult and expensive, or that handling extremely rare surprise areas where maps are out of date is somehow harer than handling never having maps in the first place. (They also think that surprises for out of date maps must be common rather than extremely rare.) In fact, making the vehicle work at all anywhere is the hard problem. Expanding the map region is the easy problem. (You can watch my Youtube video and article on why Tesla would get working faster, not slower, if they moved to requiring maps, if you want more detail. )
• The false confidence: Many are impressed that they drove a trip without needing interventions. Though I have not managed my to get my Model 3 to do that yet, I have seen reports and videos of those who have. People say "wow" but don't understand how spectacularly unimpressive that is. To be ready for production, you need a car to be able to drive for a whole human lifetime without an intervention to prevent a significant accident. An hour, a day, a week? They mean nothing. Really. Waymo's cars have done 10 human lifetimes without ever being at fault for an accident in reality or in sim, and they're still only in pilot projects, though very close to release. And you're impressed by an hour? Instead, the fact that it often can't go 5 minutes is the real datum you should pay attention to.
• The neural network leap of faith: There are many people who feel that the AI capacity of deep neural networks is unbounded. That if you just throw enough training and a big enough processor at it, there is nothing, even driving, that it can't solve. There are experts who believe this, and there are experts who don't believe it and they have arguments. But none would say they are sure. This is part of the gamble. However, it is important to know that when it comes to neural network expertise, a wide consensus is that Google (which spawned Waymo and provides tech to it) has by far the most advanced neural network expertise, as well as the highest performance neuromorphic processors. So if you believe in this approach, Tesla is not the likely winner. Tesla is not without its advantages, but they are fewer than many imagine.
• The bold claims: Tesla definitely makes the boldest claims about when they will make it work. Unfortunately the track record on those claims is now so poor that they must be disregarded. I am at a loss to understand why Elon Musk keeps making those claims. He is somebody of great achievement which is what has led people to have faith and accept these bold claims, but when it comes to predicting the progress of FSD, he is no longer somebody of great achievement in that particular area. I am happy to trust his predictions on space and EVs and several other areas, but no longer on this.
• The generation of antagonism: While being brash is often the path to success, you can overdo it, and antagonize people at all levels, from the California DMV to the President of the USA, to the point that it slows you down rather than gives you freedom. I fear Tesla has tripped over that line.
• The "Beta" name: Tesla FSD is not even remotely close to a beta. In software development, a project moves to beta testing when it is in a near-release state, when internal alpha testing is not finding bugs fast enough to keep the team occupied. A product is not a beta if it is regularly getting major rewrites of components and experts more of those, along with many new features. That's a prototype, not a beta. Some companies have in recent history certainly stretched the meaning of beta quite a bit, but none nearly so much as calling FSD a beta. Don't be fooled by that name.

its fine to have an opinion but dont preface it like you are some kind of expert and are just trying to clear things up thats disingenuous... obviously you think waymo is gonna "beat" tesla, but thats apples and oranges and personally i think the piecemeal approach to something like this will ultimately take longer. waymo is in what a couple of cities? even if they expand to a new city every year thats 10 cities in 10 years, i'd bet money tesla will be much further along when push comes to shove, but again, thats just my opinion

 

[Goose66]

I think I am getting close to dumping FSD Beta altogether and go back to regular firmware builds. I was going to see what v11 looked like first, but that's been delayed several months now, so who knows how long we will wait. Meanwhile, I'm afraid I'm gonna run over a dog or small person in a parking lot with my backup camera constantly freezing, even though a fix is available in the latest firmware (which Tesla FSD Beta testers can't get).

 

[Yelobird]

I think I am getting close to dumping FSD Beta altogether and go back to regular firmware builds. I was going to see what v11 looked like first, but that's been delayed several months now, so who knows how long we will wait. Meanwhile, I'm afraid I'm gonna run over a dog or small person in a parking lot with my backup camera constantly freezing, even though a fix is available in the latest firmware (which Tesla FSD Beta testers can't get).

Bye! If it makes you happy no need to get our approval.