The End of Tesla?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2znwoOp2rw4

by agnosticmantis • 11 months ago

35 33 11 months ago

One day, we will have a safe autonomous car, but not yet from Tesla.

Fade_Dance• 11 months ago

Waymo and Apollo (probably the two leaders) are arguably already safer than humans. The disengagement data is publicly reported in California, and there have been other studies as well: https://storage.googleapis.com/waymo-uploads/files/documents...

simianwords9• 11 months ago

I find analogy to flight travel very relevant.

Imagine air travel invented but with current societies standards, cultures and laws.

Would it have been difficult to introduce it and convince that it is safe?

Air travel also was initially slightly unsafe but over time became safer with lots of deliberate effort put.

The similarities are striking: you could have one or two crashes like the person who unfortunately encountered the accident with Tesla. Just like you could have a few crashes.

AtlasBarfed• 11 months ago

"deliberate effort"

That would be regulation and institutional oversight by the government.

Inconvenient to say out loud on the altar of big tech capitalism.

simianwords9• 11 months ago

It is in the incentive for capitalists to make their products safer.

4gotunameagain4• 11 months ago

I am not so sure about that. Flight travel offer incredible benefits, well worth the risk.

Self driving is really not that ground braking, from a transportation point of view. There are already trains and buses where you can get in, sit, and play with your phone so you don't have to drive.

I think it is very fair for people not willing to bear the risk. For planes though? Even now, if you sold people the idea of easy overseas vacations, they would be willing to risk it I'd say, or at least allow others to take the risk.

simianwords9• 11 months ago

Incorrect. What are the price savings possible with self driving cars because there is no driver to pay?

It’s more than 70% discount. This has so many implications everywhere - cost of living comes down. Things that were previously too costly to achieve will be profitable now.

TheAceOfHearts• 11 months ago

I think one of the key factors to consider is whether the people pushing these new technologies are communicating clearly and acting in good faith. Many of these self driving technologies are pushed using very confusing and misleading names.

Beyond that, Elon has a history of making claims and promises which don't pan out, without ever taking accountability. In 2016 Elon claimed that you'd be able to summon a Tesla from New York to Los Angeles autonomously by 2018. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he really believed that claim in 2016; at what point between 2016 and 2018 do you think he realized it wasn't going to happen and why didn't he speak up at that point? It would've been as simple as tweeting: "wow, we really underestimated the challenges, my previous claim was wrong and this problem will take longer to resolve".

It's fine to have ambitious deadlines and talk about what timelines you're hoping to hit. But this should be tempered by taking accountability and providing updates when new information becomes available. Nobody expects perfection, just the bare minimum of transparency and honesty.

The accountability and lack-of-transparency problems persists to this day. Elon has made tons of claims over the years and he rarely provides any updates or follows up. A recent example: he talked up how Twitter would open source the recommendation algorithm, but instead we got a one-time source snapshot which never got updated.

torium• 11 months ago

Beyond that, Elon has a history of making claims and promises which don't pan out

Unbelievably generous take, to the point of naivity.

When describing his cars abilities, he said they can go from car park in New York to car park in California. He said "We can do this today".

No, he's just a liar.

UmGuys• 11 months ago

In 2008 Elon promised an entirely solar powered Tesla Roadster. I was young and dumb enough that it took me until about 2011 to realize it was never coming and he's a liar.

phplovesong• 11 months ago

Elons nazi salute will go down in history as one of the most expensive blunders.

Hes so dumb (and high on ket) that he did not understand 95% of his customer base are not maga nutjobs, but progressive democrats. This is even more evident in Europe.

4gotunameagain4• 11 months ago

Oh I'm sure he understood that. He just thought that the combination of going all in on the other side + insane political leverage (which he managed to lose quite fast) would bring more profit than it would dissipate. Thankfully this turned out to not be true.

If he ever gets investigated for the massive promotion(?) misinformation(?) propaganda(?) campaign he did for Trump to win, I'm gonna love it.

And I used to like Elon. Such a shame.

bigyabai• 11 months ago

It's hard to even game theory what he wanted from it. I'm not a complete Musk detractor, I don't think he's so autistic that he didn't know what he was doing. The only good-faith explanation seems to be that he needed to pull the cord on his progressive image ASAP to fulfill some perverse incentive we don't know about. Something pressured him enough to crack, resulting in awkward performative gestures to try and grab the attention of the media.

That, or he's a Strangelove incarnate that managed to hide his proclivities for Nazism up until now.

The End of Tesla?

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