Tesla’s full self-driving computer is now in all new cars

https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/teslas-computer-is-now-in-all-new-cars-and-a-next-gen-chip-is-already-halfway-done/

by kjhughes • 7 years ago

23 35 7 years ago

jpm_sd• 7 years ago

Tesla's "maybe someday it will be capable of full self-driving" computer is now in all new cars. Also, Full Self Driving is a marketing term that may or may not ever mean Level 4 or Level 5 autonomy.

toomuchtodo5• 7 years ago

The progress is real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlThdr3O5Qo

century192• 7 years ago

It overtakes a few cars on the inside in that video. Is that allowed?

danso2• 7 years ago

How does that video show more progress than the self-driving demo that's been on the Tesla Autopilot homepage since 2016 [0]? The 2016 version seems to feature much more in-town driving, including interaction with pedestrians, whereas the newest demo seems to be mostly highway driving?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG68SKoG7vE

KaiserPro2• 7 years ago

Not really.

Rolling around a road, in broad daylight, with no adverse conditions and no "interesting" events isn't progress.

yes, merging onto a freeway is mildly impressive, but its not anywhere near state of the art.

What I'd like to see is what happens when someone swerves out in front of the car? does it stop dead? or panic and hand back control to the driver, just in time to crash? What about rain, or snow?

How does it handle diversions? what about new roads?

None of this is really about hardware, sure more power helps, as does sensors with lower noise floors and greater pre-processing. The difficult part is, and has always been, software.

What Tesla is doing is knowingly allow people to to unsafe software to gather scenarios that can be used as learning events. Not only that, they are getting people to pay a premium. I imagine that tesla will then rent the next generation of trained models back to the drivers, even though they paid for, and provided the training set.

dangrossman2• 7 years ago

That video is less impressive than the one they released in 2016 using off-the-shelf hardware and software from Nvidia. The only progress it shows is that they have almost replicated the state-of-the-art circa 3 years ago when shown on one of the easiest pre-planned routes possible.

ModernMech3• 7 years ago

Things I would have been uncomfortable with in that video:

- Passing on the right. I almost never do that.

- Speeding: 75 in a 65 (0:28)

- Merging into a lane next to a car that was pulling off on the shoulder. That's a recipe for disaster. (0:41)

- Speeding: 70 in a 65 (1:03)

- The car angling the wheels right before a left hand turn (1:12)

- Merging over a solid line (1:15)

- Merging into the right turn lane at 30 and then taking the turn at 20. (1:20)

huslage• 7 years ago

Musk stated that they were looking for Level 4/5 next year. They demoed it to the analysts, in admittedly controlled circumstances. I have little doubt that they mean what they say even if their timeline is off.

dangrossman2• 7 years ago

They also said that when they held the very same press conference in 2016, promising coast-to-coast self-driving by the end of 2017. This is also the third time they've said that all Tesla cars have all the hardware needed for self-driving -- with three different sets of hardware now. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me three times? I have significant doubt that they mean what they say.

6d6b733• 7 years ago

"Musk stated that they were looking for Level 4/5 next year."

Some conditions may apply. Driving under inclement weather conditions, or in a dirty car, or in winter, during heavy traffic, on a road with poorly painted etc.. is not supported. /s

gopher2• 7 years ago

Musk is a proven liar at this point. It's like when Trump says Mexico will pay for the wall. It's newsworthy sure... but basically zero informational value in it or basis in fact.

ModernMech3• 7 years ago

in admittedly controlled circumstances

That's everything right there. It's not 4/5 if it's in tightly controlled circumstances. I can make anything level 4/5 if I get to control the conditions. It's the same as claiming 100% model performance by testing on training data.

dboreham3• 7 years ago

their timeline is off

Off by a few decades.

danso2• 7 years ago

The highest upvoted Tesla-related HN thread is from Oct. 20, 2016: "All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware" [0]

I think it's very cool Tesla is building its own chips. But the rate of improvement in software just doesn't seem to be there yet, if Autopilot's public updates are any indication. It's hard to believe that AP could have these kind of basic regressions from just a month ago [1], while it purportedly is solving much harder problems.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12748863

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b36x27/

username223• 7 years ago

"All you need to do is improve the software," Musk said.

I had to double-check to make sure that April 1 had passed. At this point it's hard to take Musk's "Full Self-Driving" schtick seriously. They developed their own custom silicon, and now they "just" need to write the software that will allow it, plus the sensors on a Tesla, to be "Full Self-Driving."

tibbydudeza• 7 years ago

Impressive demo but it is not representative of the traffic conditions during peak times in most cities.

sctb• 7 years ago

Big discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19720832.

windexh8er• 7 years ago

NVidia has an interesting response [0] to Tesla's event yesterday. They appear to not want to seem too accepting of Tesla's progress, but clearly give credit where due yet try to indicate their superiority in their products. Ultimately I feel like it will be NVidia winning this long term as they will have the luxury of scale across N number of vendors buying into their product. But for Tesla it may be / is a niche differentiator for the time being. CV and self driving hardware in cars will become akin to other tech specs: something some consumers care about but a component of the car that is expected. I would guess Tesla wants to keep on the performance edge of that moving forward.

[0] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/04/23/tesla-self-driving/

Abishek_Muthian• 7 years ago

The article on self-driving Tesla, doesn't mention its lack of LIDAR. Has the industry come into terms that Tesla will one day pull of Level 4 autonomy without LIDAR?

6d6b733• 7 years ago

FSD can be done without LIDAR, but the real question is - should it be done without it? It's the same with redundancy - when I drive my car, there is no redundancy so computer based systems technically don't need it as well, but is this a smart thing to do? NO. Can FSD be done using vision only ? Yes. Would it be safer to have Vision + Lidar? Most definitely. So why Musk won't do it? Cost + Ego + Time

taneq• 7 years ago

In the Telsa live stream there were several mentions of LIDAR, specifically stating that in Tesla's opinion (or at least Musk's opinion) it's a crutch and should not be used by self-driving cars.

LAMike• 7 years ago

My prediction: Tesla will stop selling cars to the public by 2023.

Why would they? their whole plan from the beginning was to do a reverse Uber - a fleet of self driving cars that acts as a taxi service.

Cost of a model 3 to TSLA: 25k

Average Revenue per year for self driving taxi: $12/hr * 24 * 365 = 105k

Producing just 100k cars a year for this program would generate 10B dollars a year in revenue, if they can make 1M cars a year, it's 100B... making TSLA a trillion dollar company even with a Ford valuation.

Most of that revenue will be more profitable than a gas powered car since they also own an energy company, and the software that runs the cars.

(Very glad I got a reservation worth of stock when the Model 3 was announced a few years ago, so I am biased)

6d6b733• 7 years ago

First mistake you're making is that people will trust FSD from the get go. It will take time for people to get used ot driving self-driving cars, so 2023 is unrealistic. Second is assuming that they really are close to solving Level 4/5 driving (imho they are not). 3. There is no way that the cars will be able to drive 24/7/365. You need to charge them, clean, and do maintenance. 4. Supply and demand - there will be competition, and some of it from companies with very deep pockets. 6. With all the issues Tesla is having right now, it's not likely that they will survive until 2023

dboreham3• 7 years ago

Producing just 100k cars a year for this program would generate 10B dollars a year in revenue

No competition fallacy. If some market exists that's $<huge>, you can only sustain a high profit margin in serving that market if there are no competitors (which seems unlikely).

Also falling into the "self driving is possible" fallacy..

youeseh• 7 years ago

What about old cars? Free retrofit?

Tesla’s full self-driving computer is now in all new cars

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