Tesla's decision to only use cameras and no lidar will bite them in the ass.
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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*Musk’s. He regularly overrules the Tesla engineers.
This. That cocksucker has such ~a tiny dick~ fragile ego he makes huge decisions without any expertise simply because he says so. Thats how he built the whole “genius” thing around him. Reality of it is that he is an annoying dumbass who thinks he knows it all and anyone in the same room with more than one brain cell is immediately annoyed with him. But he has a lot of money so i guess LeTtEr X cOoL
Came here to say this. Couldn’t be more on point. Using both cameras and LiDAR in tandem will be necessary for true self driving vehicles.
fortunately LIDAR unit costs are going down, so multiple units, fusing their data with regular camera arrays should resolve a very good view, and be good at error-correcting for each other's shortcomings.
Already is.
Cameras are better for surveillance of people and can better be sold. Lidar data not.
Currently they seem to be leading the race though even though the competition is using radar and lidar
If buy leading the race you mean the only company to have an actual product available for purchase then yeah.
But the reason they were able to get to market so quickly is because they don't actually have any concerns about it being functional or safe. That's a real boon to them because it helps them move quickly ahead of the competition that do care about those things.
Of course one good argue that an unsafe self-driving system is in fact not a self-driving system and therefore they are not the first to market.
The average consumer would define self driving as "if my car crashes, my car should be sued". Is that how it works with a tesla crash, who pays for that?
It's on the driver's responsibility
Then what's the point in it?
What's the point in a self-driving system that has been babysat in order to ensure it doesn't murder you, random pedestrians and other road users. If I want a car that is unsafe if I take my hands off the wheel I can get a regular car, it already does that.
Tesla themselves call it FSD, Full Self Driving. That is at best false advertising and at worst reckless endangerment. It isn't fully capable, and it requires the driver's attention so it isn't self-driving. Literally every part of its name is wrong.
It's called FSD beta
No, I mean leading the race as in having the most capable sefl driving system in existence which I believe is the case.
I don't know what you're basing the claim on that it's not functional and safe.
I am basing my claim on it not being functional and safe.
I'm basing my claim on the fact that it drives into trucks. Since I don't want to be driven into a truck by my car, I would consider that to be a failure state.
Do some research.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed it's flawless. After all it's still in beta version. If you hit a truck it's because the driver wasn't paying attention.
I still don't know what you're basing these claims on except your own opinion apparently. "It's not safe" compared to what? As far as I know Tesla FSD has had less accidents per mile than an average driver.
In the 2nd quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.41 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.2 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.
Perhaps you should do some more research?
Bet even the self driving software of BMW won't use turn signals when they change lanes.
It would be a bug if it did signal 🤣
Turn what?
I hate that the article opens with
Just a decade ago, the concept of self-driving cars might have seemed like something out of a science fiction movie
Ten years ago there was already a ton of competition in self driving car research. They were first legalized on the roads 10 years ago. Tesla autopilot (including it even though it was a scam) was sold 9 years ago. Google spun off its self driving car division as waymo in 2016.
This feels like one of those "bruh Zelda ocarina of time came out 29 years ago, we old" memes
Hell, Mercedes and Bosch were testing it all the way back in 1993:
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And what happened though, was it unfilled hype or that death caused by that Uber autopilot? Back when waymo was grabbing headlines you would've thought we'd be a lot closer to driver less by now.
This will probably be under monthly subscription
"The route you selected contains a highway. Please purchase the Highway Driving Pack in addition to your City Driving Pack to reach your destination"
Sounds like a pretty bad Black Mirror episode
Fekkin hell that sounds like a boring dystopia
Hey, Presto! You've invented toll roads!
Almost certainly.
But self-driving also depends on up-to-date mapping data and continually improved algorithms for the autonomous systems to work properly. An ongoing cost to the customer makes the most sense for a service that has operating costs to the service provider.
I mean, does it? Presumably the idea (that Tesla had anyway) is to try and mimic what humans do, and we don't need mapping data to drive "safely" (for a given value of safe). Of course, humans also get lost, but again, the GPS updates is basically free at this point for the mapping help humans need. (Garmin stopped charging yearly long ago, Open Maps and Google Maps and Wayze all are "free").
In the interest of competition, I am very happy that Tesla chose a different path. Self driving is not guaranteed to ever work so we need to try things until at least one works
Self driving cars are great and all, but can we get someone seriously working on alternative fuels? EV is really pretty unsustainable. All the resources going to build batteries that are unrecycleable is a massive waste in my opinion. And the unless something drastic changes, the ranges that are needed for logistics and America aren't going to ultimately fix anything.
If they can create an alternative fuel that is significantly less polluting, or figure out how to make hydrogen less explody, the existing infrastructure worldwide of gas stations can still be efficiently used. And hopefully there will be a to retrofit existing vehicles to use this alternatives.
batteries that are unrecycleable
Is this actually the case?
My understanding is that EV batteries are actually very recyclable, up to 90%. I imagine it's more labor intensive than your conventional lead-acid batteries though.
I mean, shouldn't we be working on both? Just because they're working on one, that doesn't necessarily mean they're not working on the other.
They also are working on alternative fuels in a big way. Japan have made some incredible leaps with hydrogen/ammonia based production and fuels, and solid state batteries are looking to be pretty game changing. The EU also included a huge budget to invest in green fuels research (likely because of automotive companies lobbying for it) so plenty is being done. Even if EVs aren't the best currently, increasing the size of the market for them will continue to create investments in serving those markets more efficiently, so we absolutely should keep investing in both.
I'm not an expert or anything, but I doubt we'll see a price-competitive synthetic fuel in the time it takes for renewables to become the standard. Renewable electricity gets cheaper as more panels and turbines are built, so it makes some economical sense too.
My understanding was that the challenge in making the next leap in self driving was not based in hardware (detecting objects with cameras vs LiDAR), but in software. As in, it isn't as difficult to detect the presence of objects as it is to make consistent and safe decisions based on that information.
But using LIDAR, you increase your data's accuracy and dimensionality, giving you more options to play with. It probably won't be a game changer, but it may be better than a camera only system.
Gathering more data, and being able to process it seems obvious as a way forward. How much better is this "new" LIDAR?
Edit: seems Tesla cars doesn't even use LIDAR...
That's not necessarily true. What you get is two separate things inputting raw data into a system that both need to be parsed. Sometimes, one won't agree with the other and can cause issues with how the car thinks it should respond.
Nobody has a fully working system at this point, so it's premature to make claims about what hardware is and isn't needed. It may very well be that LIDAR is a requirement, but until somebody figures it out, we're all just speculating.