Tesla Full Self Driving Test Software Goes Live in U.S

[JonChalk]

This YT Tesla owner has been on the Beta FSD and posts pretty honest videos about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPg_mi15mls

I subscribe and watch them out of technical interest, mainly because he tends to leave the "wireframe" type graphic up, showing what the system is seeing and responding to.

I'm not a huge Tesla fan - can take them or leave them as cars or a company - but it does look pretty good.

[Smiljan]

I think most of the Beta testers are youtubers who regularly promote the system. They were carefully vetted and all had to sign non disclosure agreements as not to reveal what they can and can't do, what they can film etc...

I may well be wrong but as an outsider looking in it seems to following the law of diminishing returns, the more and more details they iron out the slower the progress becomes and the harder the next step becomes. It may with the current hardware capabilities just remain a level 2 autonomous system that'll need constant and careful monitoring by the driver.

Level 5 autonomy still appears a long way off, maybe even decades.

[Carl_Manchester]

There is some level 4 news here from Daimler in the context of trucks and logistics:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-torc-amaz...

[Smiljan]

Interesting

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-ser...

California DMV said:

The following permit holders, who were required to report on January 1, 2021, reported no autonomous testing on California’s public roads during the reporting period......TESLA

Level 2 it is then.

https://www.tesla.com/autopilot?redirect=no

Yet using the same hardware they are pushing it as Level 5 capable.

I know they protest that they don't report any autonomous miles as they're worried the competition will just run a closed circuit over millions of miles and claim no disconnects but to me that's horsest. Just from the FSD Beta videos from the few select testers you can see the disconnect rate is huge still, that is more likely the reason they don't report.

Edited by Smiljan on Monday 8th March 11:25

[jjwilde]

I think their subscription system is sort of going to be a robotaxi test but you're the customer.

It will say it can take you on your journey for you for a certain price, say I want to drive to York, it will offer to self drive for £X. I'd hope if it fails you don't get charged.

That's how I imagine them testing and figuring out which routes autopilot works on and which areas need work.

[Heres Johnny]

I don’t think JJ read the Tesla document saying FSD is level 2 - it’s not going to drive you anywhere as a subscription while that’s the case, at best it might help you drive somewhere as a driver assistance. Even if you turned it on and it got you there, how is that a benefit if you have to monitor it every second of the journey and be in a position to take control in an instance?

It’s nothing like robotaxi where you’re the customer. Robotaxi is about the car not needing intervention.

[TheRainMaker]

jjwilde said:

It will say it can take you on your journey for you for a certain price, say I want to drive to York, it will offer to self drive for £X. I'd hope if it fails you don't get charged.

Let me get this right, I have to buy a car then pay extra for it to drive me to where I want to go?

You are crackers if you think this will catch on.

[Smiljan]

I'm not sold on the subscription model, it may not work out well for them depending how they arrange the pricing. Many commentators think there will be an initial activation fee in the several thousand range and then a model where you subscribe for another amount per year.

If they go for short subscription of say a month at a time, there's a real risk people will use it, dismiss it as unnecessary or not capable in their area and just unsubscribe. Or they'll just subscribe for months they're doing long trips and not the rest of the year.

The one off fee at purchase seems more reasonable to me, lets face it a decent stereo / sat nav upgrade on a Golf is £1500, Technology Plus Package on the 3 series is well over £3500 and doesn't get you that much. £6k for a well accomplished level 2 autonomy system doesn't seem ridiculous.

The question remains though, like the Tech Pack Plus and other expensive options, will people actually see enough value in it to spec it.

In the UK, now, not a chance. In the US, if you have long daily commutes and it's reliable all the time on your route - maybe so.

I'm still expecting them to take longer and longer to get to the end goal of Level 5 autonomy and personally I don't think they'll crack it with the current hardware the cars have.

[jjwilde]

TheRainMaker said:

jjwilde said:

It will say it can take you on your journey for you for a certain price, say I want to drive to York, it will offer to self drive for £X. I'd hope if it fails you don't get charged.

Let me get this right, I have to buy a car then pay extra for it to drive me to where I want to go?

You are crackers if you think this will catch on.

Well you can drive it yourself. They are going to do their subscription thing for convenience. I can go to Tesco myself, but sometimes I pay them to deliver for me.

I can drive myself to york, but I can see it being tempting if my car is offering to do it for me for £10 and I want to arrive fresh and chill, or just can't be arsed with driving.

That's the only way I'd ever pay for it, I'd never tick the £5k option box.

[Heres Johnny]

jjwilde said:

Well you can drive it yourself. They are going to do their subscription thing for convenience. I can go to Tesco myself, but sometimes I pay them to deliver for me.

I can drive myself to york, but I can see it being tempting if my car is offering to do it for me for £10 and I want to arrive fresh and chill, or just can't be arsed with driving.

That's the only way I'd ever pay for it, I'd never tick the £5k option box.

The better analogy for the foreseeable future is you can either drive to Tesco or you can sit in the cab and supervise the car driving to Tesco. You still don’t seem to get that the subscription is for a driver assistance feature at the moment, and may stay that way for some considerable time.

If it actually could do minds off driving then a few hundred a month would be worthwhile, although I don’t spend that much on taxis, I don’t spend £50 a month on taxis, so not sure why I’d feel the desire to pay much more for FSD. Let’s say I’d be happy to pay £100 a month a it would take 7 years of month in month out subscription to break even for Tesla based on the current price.

[aparna]

City streets is only a mere full self driving. At some point Musk will release ludicrous self driving and than finally plaid self driving.

[Smiljan]

To be fair it already has a Mad Max mode - yup, you couldn't make this st up

[Carl_Manchester]

TheRainMaker said:

jjwilde said:

It will say it can take you on your journey for you for a certain price, say I want to drive to York, it will offer to self drive for £X. I'd hope if it fails you don't get charged.

Let me get this right, I have to buy a car then pay extra for it to drive me to where I want to go?

You are crackers if you think this will catch on.

As posted previously, PH company director wearing AlpineStars and gloves to drive a manual-box straight six won’t see the benefits. there are, at least, one million people in the u.k. alone that are physically and/or mentally impaired that for them, even a level 2 or 3 system would give them the freedom that they don’t currently have because driving car is possible but takes significantly more effort to make it only viable in specific cases.

If the system works anywhere near as good as the real world day-in-the-life videos being shared, outside of the PH bubble, the system will sell by the bucket load. Grumpy luddites on PH need not apply.

[Heres Johnny]

Carl_Manchester said:

As posted previously, PH company director wearing AlpineStars and gloves to drive a manual-box straight six won’t see the benefits. there are, at least, one million people in the u.k. alone that are physically and/or mentally impaired that for them, even a level 2 or 3 system would give them the freedom that they don’t currently have because driving car is possible but takes significantly more effort to make it only viable in specific cases.

How does level 2 help them? Even level 3 doesn't really. Its level 4 where they would get benefits.

My Dad retired his license some years ago but in the later years he was very much more cautious in his driving and his reactions were slower. Being ready to deal with a unpredictable and mistaken manoeuvre by the car at speeds he is not comfortable with is significantly higher risk. The thought of him having the split second comprehension that his car mistakenly thought it was safe to pull out in front of a lorry to abort the move wouldn't happen. That is the point about these self driving systems, the driver has to do the driving mentally until level 4 where minds off driving is possible.

The physical impairment might have an argument, so long as they can take over when needed, but not the mental capacity.

[TheRainMaker]

Carl_Manchester said:

TheRainMaker said:

jjwilde said:

It will say it can take you on your journey for you for a certain price, say I want to drive to York, it will offer to self drive for £X. I'd hope if it fails you don't get charged.

Let me get this right, I have to buy a car then pay extra for it to drive me to where I want to go?

You are crackers if you think this will catch on.

As posted previously, PH company director wearing AlpineStars and gloves to drive a manual-box straight six won’t see the benefits. there are, at least, one million people in the u.k. alone that are physically and/or mentally impaired that for them, even a level 2 or 3 system would give them the freedom that they don’t currently have because driving car is possible but takes significantly more effort to make it only viable in specific cases.

If the system works anywhere near as good as the real world day-in-the-life videos being shared, outside of the PH bubble, the system will sell by the bucket load. Grumpy luddites on PH need not apply.

Think you might have your wires crossed here, I don’t have a problem with the system, it’s the way you have to pay to use it.

[jjwilde]

Heres Johnny said:

If it actually could do minds off driving then a few hundred a month would be worthwhile, although I don’t spend that much on taxis, I don’t spend £50 a month on taxis, so not sure why I’d feel the desire to pay much more for FSD.

I think it can currently drive a route like Newcastle -> York on the A1 without much (any?) need for you to get involved. That's the kind of driving I'd pay for on the fly, between big cities on the motorway, I find that driving tires me out the most, just hours staring at the road.

I really enjoy driving on B roads etc.

[Heres Johnny]

jjwilde said:

I think it can currently drive a route like Newcastle -> York on the A1 without much (any?) need for you to get involved. That's the kind of driving I'd pay for on the fly, between big cities on the motorway, I find that driving tires me out the most, just hours staring at the road.

I really enjoy driving on B roads etc.

Surely you know this is a driver assist and NOT self driving and the significance is the driver has to be alert to step in as they are ultimately responsible and have to be in control?

You have to be staring at the toad even with the its turned on until level 4 or 5 capability is obtained and sanctioned. I really can’t believe I need to explain this to somebody who claims to understand Tesla and the capabilities. No wonder you think the share price is justified when you don’t know it’s limitations and correct operation. Let’s hope for your sake Darwin doesn’t catch up with you soon.

[Smiljan]

Unfortunately this is the kind of characters around



Meanwhile In Orange County another Tesla burns, this time after mysteriously veering off the road - never mind nothing to see here, we all know petrol cars burn as well.

https://www.ocregister.com/2021/03/10/driver-kille...

Could be a pretty wild month if they really do push this beta to all the owners.

Before anyone starts frothing, nothing to suggest this Tesla was on autopilot,

Edited by Smiljan on Wednesday 10th March 22:56

[gangzoom]

Smiljan said:

Could be a pretty wild month if they really do push this beta to all the owners.

Even if it come out in the US sadly I doubt in the UK we'll get any chance to see even just the visualization.

[Smiljan]

Yup, regions could mean states or countries.

Sadly there's been another horrific Tesla into the side of a truck crash in Detroit today. A Model Y this time, time will tell if autopilot is a contributing factor again.

https://pathofex.com/woman-in-critical-condition-a...

It's a huge gamble to hand over this beta to everyone rather than wait for it to be finished and no longer in the test phase. Maybe in 8 days it'll be watered down or pushed back and they'll blame regulators for holding them back. There is form for that kind of tactic already.

Edited by Smiljan on Thursday 11th March 19:00