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Come on down! You're the next contestant on The Autopilot-Release-Date Is Right...?

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wk057

Former Tesla Tinkerer
Feb 23, 2014
6,499
17,123
X
UPDATE 2015-10-15:

Contest has ended!


In 3rd place.... *opens envelope* ..... bylund with 2015-10-13 in post #153!

In 2nd place.... *accidentally drops envelope... picks it up... opens it* .... tom66 with 2015-10-14 in post #158!

And finally, the winner of The Autopilot Release Date is right... with one of the very first entries in the contest way back in July...

*** LineofSight! ***
With post number 10 in this thread and the exact date of 2015-10-15, you, sir, have just taken the prize! I am impressed! :)


Congratulations to LineofSight, tom66, and bylund for winning the contest!

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UPDATE
: Did up a spreadsheet with the latest entries. Remember not locked in until 24 hours and the sheet may not be up to date, so, check the thread if it looks behind (post numbers noted by names).
The Autopilot Release Date Is Right! - Google Sheets
Note: Only I can update the spreadsheet. You need to post to enter ;) Remember, only the first to lock in a date counts as an entry!

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Contest time!

So, for fun it was mentioned in my pretty heated thread about autopilot delay woes to do a Price Is Right style guessing game (thanks dsm363 for the idea) for the public release date for the software update that enables the highway lane keeping feature of Tesla's Autopilot.

In case you're not familiar with The Price Is Right, the goal is the guess the closest price you can without going over the actual price. In this case, the goal is to guess the date that is closest to the actual public release date for the lane keeping software update without your guess being after that date.

For example, if I guess July 30th and the update is released on July 29th, I automatically lose. If someone else had guessed July 27th and they were the closest, they would win. Whoever had the next earliest date (26th or earlier) would be second place, etc. If your date is after the actual release date then you can not win.

I want to try and lighten up this whole nonsense, so to make things even more interesting than just bragging rights I'm going to sponsor some prizes:



  • First place will win a Silver 1:18 scale die cast Model S P85. (For real. I already have a red one and it's really neat.)
    • attachment.php?attachmentid=88796.jpg



  • Second place will win a Silver Model S Hot Wheels Car. (Admittedly, not as cool... but still cool)
    • hotwheelmodels.jpg



  • Third place will win..... I don't really know, but I'll think of something. :p


Sound good?

The winner is defined as the person closest to the date of actual release without going over. There will be no ties. The first to post a date gets that date. Since editing your post after 24 hours isn't possible, you're locked in at that time. No cheating or anything silly, let's just have some fun.

If you happen pick the exact date I may throw in a surprise prize along with the above. :)

I reserve all rights to basically do whatever I want with this contest in the event of anything unusual or otherwise. So, play nice. My decision on the winners is final and I'll be fair, I promise. If there are too many problems I'll just forget about the whole thing.

Some basic rules:


  • Let's be nice. I'm not really sure how the forum admins feel about this. I didn't ask. I'm a rebel like that. lol. But no, seriously, if the mods or TMC admins have any issue let me know and I'll move this off-site or just scrap it. Not my intention to cause problems, just trying to have some fun with the situation!)
  • No ties. First to post a date owns it. If you post a date someone else already claimed.... well, that's your fault.
  • Don't cause problems for TMC by making a bunch of accounts to get entries. Only entries from TMC accounts created before this post count (sorry newbies) unless I personally say otherwise on a case by case basis. (Like, if Elon Musk himself emails or calls me and wants to make a guess... that would probably qualify...)
  • I have final say on everything here. I'll be fair, but I'm not going to play word games or feel like I need to spell everything out. Common sense prevails. I reserve all rights, etc etc, yadda yadda.
  • Prizes shipped free to pretty much anywhere in the world unless shipping cost is ridiculous, in which case I'll ask that you cover it or just pass the prize to the next runner up or something.
  • I can win, too. I have my guess/entry below. (I can always edit my OP (as per doug's post here), so I'm an exception to the rule about editing below... someone is welcome to quote my date to keep me honest, however)
  • Try not to duplicate dates already posted and waste space. As stated above, first to post a date owns it, per se, so check first.
  • Whole days only, no hours or anything beyond days.
  • Time zone for the release date will be Pacific time, since that's the Tesla standard time zone.
  • I will solely determine what qualifies as a public release of lane keeping. There will have to be some evidence to back this up to determine the winning date if I personally don't have the feature at the time. Obviously If I get it on my own car at the same time everyone is posting they got the update then that would be enough for me. But I'll make the final determination on when I believe it was publicly released. Hopefully Tesla does a blog post or something to make this even easier.
  • Questions about all of this? Post here and I'll try to keep a running FAQ in the OP here... but lets stay on topic.
  • Might help to set posts per page to 100 or something for duplicate date checking until either myself or someone else starts up a spreadsheet...
  • I'll try to keep a spreadsheet with entries once 24 hours passes and locks some posts in.
  • If you can still edit your post then your entry doesn't count. Your entry is locked in when your post becomes impossible to edit, which is 24 hours after posting. (Exception for mods/admins. I'm sure they'll be honest, but, I'll quote them to be sure. ;) ) Essentially this means that entries the day before the actual release of lane keeping won't count. Also please don't edit your post anyway... could confuse people who have posted after you.
  • I'll PM the winners when there are winners asking for a shipping address. If someone hacks your account or something and gives me a bogus address and they end up with the prize... not really my fault, so guard your passwords. :) I'm not going to try to verify anything, I'm just going to ship stuff.
  • Please keep the thread on topic! Questions about this little game, and entries for it should be it here.
  • Lots of other stuff I probably can't think of. Honestly I'm just doing this for some fun on a whim.... what am I forgetting?
  • Again, we're looking for highway lane keeping. As in, get on an interstate, enable autopilot, and the car steers for you. This is the feature we're talking about here.
  • Wow that got lengthy fast...
  • Use a full date. If you're ambiguous on a year it will be assumes to be the present year.
  • EDIT: If you edit after a long enough time period so that the edit time shows, I'll use that time stamp when figuring out who owns a said date... so, again, no cheating!
  • EDIT: Why Silver? Honestly? ... Because I already have the red one, so I wouldn't want two of the same in case I win. Hey, it's my contest, back off! :tongue: lol.


So, I'm going to pick Wednesday, September 9, 2015 as my own entry in the game... which I think may be a little optimistic, but we'll see.

Let the games begin. :) *evil laugh* :cool:

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2015-07-25: Wow, things filled up fast! 130 posts in < 12 hours. Nice turnout! A bunch of people have asked me, off thread, about the exact process for picking what the release date is. Before adding details on that, I want to point out this is just for fun. You don't lose anything if you don't win. Literally you just made a post on a forum. This is just for fun, folks, so if it turns out that the release date is determined to be off by a day from you winning or something, please don't be upset and just remember this is all to just bring some entertainment to the autopilot delays.

That said, a few more things about the release date. First, we all know that Tesla doesn't always put out an announcement, official or unofficial, when firmware is released... and when they do, it doesn't always coincide with the actual release date of the firmware. We're looking at the *actual* release date here. As in, verifiable in the hands of TMC forum members who aren't beta testers. So, for example, if I personally get the update on xx/xx/xxxx and Tesla announces that it is releasing it on xx/xx/xxxx+5 days ... well, the day I received it is the date used for determining this contest. If someone here posts release notes/video/whatever showing the update in action on xx/xx/xxxx ..... and no one else posts about receiving the update, and I don't receive the update...... it will really depend on who posted the info and how reliable that info is. One out of the many on this forum is going to be a tough call. So, I'm going to have to go with needing at least a couple of confirmed reports here if I don't personally receive the update in the first batch.

Long story short, if it's super ambiguous as to an actual release date.... I'll come up with something cool for the winners in a date range and I'm sure everyone will be happy. :) I'll be as fair as possible with the information available, but just remember that in the end this is all for fun and games. Best case would be Tesla putting out an announcement that it is being released on day xx/xx/xxxx and I along with others actually receive it that day. I'm not optimistic it will be that clear, but would be nice. :)

Also, It's been suggested that third prize be an 18650 cell from the Model S. This might be a cool prize for everyone in the top 10 or something, since I have quite a few of these leftover... hehe.
 
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I'll pickup my S85D on 19 august.
That will be the day that Tesla will ask me to take part in the beta-program.:biggrin:
Because of my participation in the beta-program they will fix the last problems on september 1st. :cool:

The release of autopilot : on my birthday : 4 september! :tongue:

hehehehe
 
August 10th. And I think Elon should be disqualified. He might have insider knowledge that would influence the date he picks.

I would imagine Elon has not only inside knowledge, but the ability to actually, at least to some extent, control the release date. That being said, if the man wants to play, I say let him play, (with the stipulation that the date he picks must be in the year 2015.)
 
And I think Elon should be disqualified. He might have insider knowledge that would influence the date he picks.

I would imagine Elon has not only inside knowledge, but the ability to actually control the release date. That being said, if the man wants to play, I say let him play, (with the stipulation that the date he picks must be in the year 2015.)

For some reason I'm sitting here cracking up over this. lol.