Elon: FSD Beta tweets

[Twiglett]

More Elon Musk hype.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1677531425795391489

He really is pushing the BS level isn't he? So we aren't driving now, but FSDb is? Yet somehow we are still driving according to Tesla.
Isn't he missing the point that his company and the cars they build is what is telling us that we are always driving.

 

[Knightshade]

Lol. Luckily it’s not up to Tesla if they release a half baked level 4 system on the public. Regulatory authorities need to approve it first…

Which "regulatory authorities" do you think need to "approve it first"?

I ask because in multiple US states that's flatly not true. You could put an L4 car on the road today if you had one without waiting for anyone to test or "approve" anything.

Even in some of the states that DO require "approval" they ALSO don't test anything. The maker of the system literally just files a form saying "Our car is L4 and can follow all state and federal driving laws. Trust me Bro" and the state "approves" it.


They won't release a half baked system because the legal liability is insane- but the whole "OMG REGULATORS" bit has always been a red herring and isn't stopping them from doing anything.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

I just don't believe the approaches most companies take to geo-fenced L4 autonomy are generalizable. For the most part, it looks like they're overfitting their vehicles to a single city, one city at a time, and compensating for system deficiencies by using HD maps.

That's great if you live in the heart of a city, and never plan on leaving it. But for the vast majority of people, that type of autonomy is not accessible.

Totally limited to just cities… Super Cruise - Hands Free Driving | Cadillac Ownership

 

[texas_star_TM3]

Which "regulatory authorities" do you think need to "approve it first"?

I ask because in multiple US states that's flatly not true. You could put an L4 car on the road today if you had one without waiting for anyone to test or "approve" anything.

Even in some of the states that DO require "approval" they ALSO don't test anything. The maker of the system literally just files a form saying "Our car is L4 and can follow all state and federal driving laws. Trust me Bro" and the state "approves" it.


They won't release a half baked system because the legal liability is insane- but the whole "OMG REGULATORS" bit has always been a red herring and isn't stopping them from doing anything.

Why is Mercedes L3 then only approved in Nevada ? Also…Tesla isn’t accepting liability anytime soon so their FSD will be beta and “hands on the wheel” at your own risk forever… heck… they can’t even do hands free at this point

 

[FloridaJohn]

That's great if you live in the heart of a city, and never plan on leaving it. But for the vast majority of people, that type of autonomy is not accessible.

Well, a majority of Americans actually live in cities. From the US Census Bureau,

Despite the increase in the urban population, urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population, down from 80.7% in 2010.

So focusing on cities doesn’t sound like that terrible of a plan.

 

[sleepydoc]

Well, a majority of Americans actually live in cities. From the US Census Bureau,



So focusing on cities doesn’t sound like that terrible of a plan.

except they will not only be driving in cities.

 

[sleepydoc]

He really is pushing the BS level isn't he? So we aren't driving now, but FSDb is? Yet somehow we are still driving according to Tesla.
Isn't he missing the point that his company and the cars they build is what is telling us that we are always driving.

I really wish Elon would just stay quiet. No one actually believes what he says and tweets like that just provide fodder for trolls (who post them and claim people actually do believe them.)

If you ignore what Elon says and simply focus on FSD and there progress it has made it's an entirely different discussion.

 

[Knightshade]

Why is Mercedes L3 then only approved in Nevada ?

First- it's not just approved there. It's also allowed in parts of California-

California DMV Approves Mercedes-Benz Automated Driving System for Certain Highways and Conditions - California DMV

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEJune 8, 2023 Sacramento – The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) today issued an autonomous vehicle deployment permit to Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC, allowing the company to offer its DRIVE PILOT automated driving system on designated California highways under certain...

www.dmv.ca.gov

BTW it wasn't even 'approved' in Nevada so much as, well, here, let's let the DMV in Nevada confirm what I already told you-

Mercedez-Benz to deploy advanced automated driving system in Nevada

The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said on Thursday that German carmaker Mercedes-Benz can deploy advanced automated driving systems on its roads after it completed a self-certification.

www.reuters.com

The Nevada DMV noted it does not issue any permit or license based on an autonomous vehicle’s level of automation and allows all automation levels to operate on public streets.

Basically you (the car maker) just tells Nevada "Trust me bro it's autonomous!" to the state and they can deploy it. There's no "regulators" to wait for. At all.

Just like a number of other states.


Now California- THAT required approval because their state laws are much stricter- But even then it is self certification to the state

"Trust me bro, it does all the things you say autonomous cars need to do"

No testing by regulators. You certify you are L3 and you get an L3 permit.

They did it in Nevada first, then CA.

Mercedes is just choosing to go one at a time in an abundance of caution- but there's no "regulators" holding them back from having it in quite a few more today if they wished.

Also…Tesla isn’t accepting liability anytime soon so their FSD will be beta and “hands on the wheel” at your own risk forever… heck… they can’t even do hands free at this point

Again there is nothing about liability in SAE J3016

Tesla can announce their system is capable of L4 without saying a single word about liability and it'd still be L4.

Tesla could announce their L2 system will transfer all liability to Tesla and it'd still be L2.

Liability is a state by state legal matter having nothing to do with what SAE level your system qualifies as.

 

[willow_hiller]

Totally limited to just cities… Super Cruise - Hands Free Driving | Cadillac Ownership

I don't know what your point is, here. Super Cruise is also Level 2. Just because it's hands free doesn't mean you can take your eyes off the road.

 

[spacecoin]

Tesla could announce their L2 system will transfer all liability to Tesla and it'd still be L2.

Liability is a state by state legal matter having nothing to do with what SAE level your system qualifies as.

No, in L2 the system only does the partial OEDR (it assist the driver with it) and the driver is always driving.

Regaring L3+. sure, you could declare autonomy but if accidents keep piling up, no one would buy or use it. And those civil suits would rack up quickly. Regardless of if the word liabilty isn’t in J3016.

 

[spacecoin]

I just don't believe the approaches most companies take to geo-fenced L4 autonomy are generalizable. For the most part, it looks like they're overfitting their vehicles to a single city, one city at a time, and compensating for system deficiencies by using HD maps.

That's great if you live in the heart of a city, and never plan on leaving it. But for the vast majority of people, that type of autonomy is not accessible.

I sounds like you as wishing that Tesla was doing autonomy. I don’t think they are.

 

[willow_hiller]

I sounds like you as wishing that Tesla was doing autonomy. I don’t think they are.

I'm saying Tesla's system has a better foundation for generalized autonomy than one that's reliant on careful fine-tuning for specific cities. It's not yet at the point where they can remove the driver, but some day it might be.

 

[FloridaJohn]

except they will not only be driving in cities.

Of course, but there is a high probability that any given start and end point of a trip will be in a city.

Plus, the average driver only drives 29 miles per day.

 

[sleepydoc]

Of course, but there is a high probability that any given start and end point of a trip will be in a city.

'half autonomous' is not autonomous.

 

[Goose66]

I just don't believe the approaches most companies take to geo-fenced L4 autonomy are generalizable. For the most part, it looks like they're overfitting their vehicles to a single city, one city at a time, and compensating for system deficiencies by using HD maps.

That's great if you live in the heart of a city, and never plan on leaving it. But for the vast majority of people, that type of autonomy is not accessible.

80% of the U.S. population live in a handful of metropolitan areas. If you are using automation to build a driverless taxi service, then L4 in ODD of those metro areas is the perfect design approach.

L4 or L5 automation in consumer vehicles is practically useless, IMO. Give me a solid L3 on highways and interstates - that’s a useful feature.

 

[FloridaJohn]

'half autonomous' is not autonomous.

OK. You may want to pass that message on to Elon.

Just to refresh, this was the original post I was referring to:

I just don't believe the approaches most companies take to geo-fenced L4 autonomy are generalizable. For the most part, it looks like they're overfitting their vehicles to a single city, one city at a time, and compensating for system deficiencies by using HD maps.

That's great if you live in the heart of a city, and never plan on leaving it. But for the vast majority of people, that type of autonomy is not accessible.

Your claim was that the “vast majority of people” would not benefit from a “city-only” approach. My point was that this approach is perfectly fine since a “vast majority” (80%) of people live in those cities and travel on average less than 30 miles a day. If you add in some limited access highways you probably get 75% of all use cases.

 

[Knightshade]

No, in L2 the system only does the partial OEDR (it assist the driver with it) and the driver is always driving.

But that changes nothing about what I wrote.

Because liability has nothing to do with SAE levels

Who is responsible for what parts of the DDT DOES. But that's not the same thing.

So yes, Tesla COULD do exactly what I describe.

It makes little sense, but nothing about the levels would exclude the possibility.

That was my point, people keep conflating "legal liability" with "DDT responsibility" and it leads them to factually wrong conclusions like "You can't have an L3 system without the car maker taking liability"

You can, because one has literally nothing to do with the other in SAE terms. I agree it might well impact how consumers react to such a system, but it's not required for it to be a certain level.

 

[diplomat33]

For the most part, it looks like they're overfitting their vehicles to a single city, one city at a time, and compensating for system deficiencies by using HD maps.

I'm saying Tesla's system has a better foundation for generalized autonomy than one that's reliant on careful fine-tuning for specific cities

This is one those myths.. It is false. They are not doing that. Waymo mentioned in their latest conference talk that they collected massive data from 20 US cities to build a generalized Driver. It is the same Waymo Driver in every vehicle in the fleet, in every city. And yes, Waymo makes changes to their software but they make changes to the generalized Driver that they use across their entire fleet in every city. They do not overfit to each city. And if they find deficiencies, they improve the real-time perception/prediction/planning, they do not use the HD map to compensate. The HD map is just a prior.

It is actually Tesla which overfits to a city. Elon said in a tweet that Tesla overfits to Bay Area. It's why FSD beta works much better (almost intervention free) in certain areas and terrible in other places.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1430394007465730048

 

[Bitdepth]

I'm saying Tesla's system has a better foundation for generalized autonomy than one that's reliant on careful fine-tuning for specific cities. It's not yet at the point where they can remove the driver, but some day it might be.

Tesla's approach is not dissimilar from anyone else, except with less robust set of sensors and a choice to "not use" "HD Maps" aka priors. Everyone uses Maps to train their NN.

Everyone came to the same rational conclusion that having priors onboard the vehicle is a safety critical necessity. Why approach an intersection like it was the first time you are seeing it when you can have prior knowledge onboard the vehicle, so the software knows what to expect even when live sensor data might deviate. That is why it's called a prior, it's not an immutable truth about the current state of the world around the vehicle.

FSD beta under the hood courtesy of @verygreen.

The software is aware that there is an ALL_THE_WAY_STOP_SIGN 500m before the vision picks it up at 60m. That is what a prior is.

Everyone tunes their software for specific localities because driving varies based on regions. That is why there is a button to press and report disengagements so data can be collected to tune the system. Tesla is no more generalized than Waymo, Cruise, Zoox, NIO, Huawei, Mobileye, etc.

 

[willow_hiller]

It is the same Waymo Driver in every vehicle in the fleet, in every city.

Unless Waymo has shown one driving from one city to another, how do we know?

We can personally confirm or reject any claim Tesla makes about FSD Beta, but there's no way to verify anything Waymo has said.