WTF - Biggest moment in auto history - buried under presidential debate??

[calisnow]

I think you're way overstating it. It's really improved city planning and public transit that will really shape our future, not self driving cars. You'll see some improvement in transit times when everyone subscribes to it. Who knows when that will be.

I said "shape" - not "improve." If you believe improved city planning and better public transit will shape our future, you must be an optimist living in San Francisco. Oh wait. . .

But seriously - while you wait for your fellow San Franciscans to pull their anti-development heads out of their _______ and solve the housing crisis, the tech companies are building cars which will make hundreds of thousands of people more happy to live in the suburbs. Self driving cars do not have the problem of needing society to agree on public transport solutions and to built more logical cities.

Self driving cars work with what we have now. Is that the best way to plan our future? No - I agree with you it is not. I do however think that the autonomous cars will have a greater impact because they do not have the momentum problem of getting citizens and politicians to agree on change and make tough decisions.

I predict an explosion of suburbia bigger than what we have now - such as the Inland Empire of Southern California. I already know people who drive two hours to afford a house. There will be 10 more for each of them that exist now when you can push the button and nap in the car. And that day is coming very soon.

 

[calisnow]

The bigger moment is when they annouce a self driving car. What they announced is a bunch of cameras/sensors and a new computer. Thats not where the breakthrough lies.

Of course the breakthrough lies in software - that's a given. And Tesla has show us that the breakthrough has been made - at least inside their own company. AP 1.0 shows this - it continues to amaze me daily with its performance in marginal conditions. You're not blown away by your own car and watching its AI navigate bad conditions using autopilot right now? All that is left is ironing out corner cases. And if you have 40X more computing power and a fleet of customer cars you can train deeper neural nets and find those corner cases. MBZ has been shipping sensor laden cars for years yet still can't keep a car in lanes.

The regulators will play ball - they work for corporate America anyway. This moment is here, you can order the cars. It's coming. Everyone else in the industry is showing vaporware until they have shippable product. Tesla, two years after AP 1.0 came out, is still the only company producing a decent-performing lane steering product. It gets better by the month and now they drop a computer 40X more powerful inside and add more cameras. This is a fait accompli. We can disagree - set a marker on your calendar to revisit this post and message me 2 years from now. We'll see...

 

[BluestarE3]

The bigger moment is when they annouce a self driving car.

What they announced is a bunch of cameras/sensors and a new computer. You can likely go to mouser/ali/amazon today and order everything that got announced. Thats not where the breakthrough lies.

True, but as of now, Tesla is pushing this capability harder and faster than anyone else. Some may feel this is irresponsible; whereas others view this as daring to be innovative. This is a big step toward that goal and, as usual, Tesla is the one pushing the envelope.

 

[HumanGenome]

It is one of the biggest moments in automotive history if you support Tesla and hedge your bet on this hardware will leading to full autonomy.

Tesla has been anything but smoke n' mirrors in terms of overpromising. Countless times people have had to eat their hats, wash peoples cars, etc for being straight wrong about something they don't think Tesla can do.

I applaud the realism and conservative approach, it surely is fuel for true innovators like Elon and co. Be prepared for the "told ya so" in due time.

 

[Ludus]

It isn't the biggest announcement until the new hardware collects enough data and the software is refined enough to gain regulatory approval. That could be 2 years, it could be 10 years, or anything in between.

It's pretty big. It confirms that Tesla is the unchallenged leader in autonomous vehicles globally. It starts the end game that will lead to real L5 vehicles within a year or two. In 12 months Tesla will minimally have 100k vehicles streaming the full data set with L5 sensors and computer, several hundred thousand if model 3 is on schedule. That's billions of miles in 12 months. Pretty much what's needed to really train the neural network on all those odd real world situations needed for L5 autonomy.

Regulatory approval may be important to individual owners who want to start telling their cars to pick them up, but the company can start fielding Mobility Fleets a long time before most places approve. Florida is pretty much OK already and it's a great state to start. Florida has 20 million people, no snow and a lot of seniors that don't drive. Florida alone can absorb as many L5 Teslas in company fleets as they're likely to be able to field for awhile, 100's of thousands per year if they could build them (they might spare 10's of thousands).

 

[Ludus]

I don't think they chose to bury the story, they just didn't think it mattered that it got buried. Video should be coming out shortly of the system working in normal traffic that will get some buzz. Everyone they want to reach will be aware of the story anyway.

They have no reason to maximize the exposure. This is something that will slowly work it's way through talk about autonomy boosted by every follow up story of progress.

 

[ggnykk]

full audio of the conference call.

 

[Ludus]

Thanks, I was looking for that

 

[Skotty]

I love Tesla, but I'm not a believer in autonomous driving. Maybe if 7.1 and 8.0 were near perfect and getting better, I might be less pessimistic. The S has been around for 4 years. How far has the media player gone in that time? Okay, so maybe that's what their less skilled employees work on. But it still seems like a decades long software development endeavor, and not directly in line with their core mission of advancing the advent of sustainable transport.

Despite my overwhelming pessimism on this, I do support their effort. I said it is not _directly_ in line with their core mission, but it is indirectly in line, in that people love the concept, and it will most likely help them sell more cars and be more successful. But that's only if things don't get ugly, like years and years going by without much progress on the software leading to huge lawsuits from disappointed customers who expected more, or ugly accidents from pushed out software that wasn't ready. I think this is likely the biggest risk Tesla has ever undertaken. I worry greatly, but wish them well in their attempt. Godspeed, Tesla.

 

[BluestarE3]

I love Tesla, but I'm not a believer in autonomous driving. Maybe if 7.1 and 8.0 were near perfect and getting better, I might be less pessimistic. The S has been around for 4 years. How far has the media player gone in that time? Okay, so maybe that's what their less skilled employees work on. But it still seems like a decades long software development endeavor, and not directly in line with their core mission of advancing the advent of sustainable transport.

Despite my overwhelming pessimism on this, I do support their effort. I said it is not _directly_ in line with their core mission, but it is indirectly in line, in that people love the concept, and it will most likely help them sell more cars and be more successful. But that's only if things don't get ugly, like years and years going by without much progress on the software leading to huge lawsuits from disappointed customers who expected more, or ugly accidents from pushed out software that wasn't ready. I think this is likely the biggest risk Tesla has ever undertaken. I worry greatly, but wish them well in their attempt. Godspeed, Tesla.

Although I'm not particularly interested in autopilot or autonomous capabilities right now, I can see myself turning to this in the future as I age and reach a point where I can no longer trust my eyesight or reflexes to operate a vehicle safely. So even if it takes 5 or 10 years for all this to come to fruition, I should be able to benefit from this in my lifetime. In the meantime, I share some of your concerns about potential challenges and setbacks along the way toward achieving full autonomy. One other concern I have is being able to gain regulatory approval from a myriad of jurisdictions once these systems can be demonstrated to perform safely and reliably.

I'm glad Tesla is taking the lead on moving this technology forward in actual production vehicles. Elon is resolute in his belief that this technology can save lives and is willing to take risks with his company in order to achieve a greater good. Yes, I realize it's not all for altruism and that there's money to be made by being first to offer something competitors don't have; however, I think many companies lose their way (their soul, if you will) when they are solely driven by profit and neglect the altruistic side.