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Tesla has been promising a truly autonomous driving system for four years (as of next Monday) and I for one am looking forward to moving past the "just imagine" phase and seeing an actual system in action. Enough table talk, it's time to actually show your cards... let's see 'em.
Remember all the hype about "Smart Summon"? The buildup was insane, with Musk claiming that it would "really illustrate the value of having a massive fleet"... and then it came out, the flood of videos ranged from hilarious to terrifying and nobody spoke of it again.
Of course, there is a difference this time: people will be using "Full Self-Driving" at higher speeds and in complex situations to see what it's capable of, and the risk of an injury/death and/or an owner being used as a "moral crumple zone" is correspondingly higher.
But that's the situation that's been created here: since Musk and his chorus of enablers won't engage with substantive criticisms of its approach (which is a dramatic outlier in the AV industry) the only way to prove this is a bad idea is to let them endanger the public.
Over the past 4 years, I've heard far more concerns from AV developers about the possibility that Tesla's approach could prompt a regulatory crackdown than I've heard concerns that Tesla will put them out of business by proving they can do real L4/5 autonomy with ADAS hardware.
Make no mistake: if Tesla can prove it's created a safe, generalizable autonomous drive system with some non-HD cameras and one ADAS-grade radar, every other AV company disappears overnight. If you don't need geofences, HD maps and six-figure sensor suites the AV sector goes poof
Go ask the people working on the problem why they bet on those things. Ask them why they didn't pursue a camera-only approach. Heck, ask Mobileye why they won't deploy a camera-only system even though they've proven a level of camera-only performance that Tesla can only dream of.
It's not because they are dumb, or because it never occurred to them. It's because they are so invested in the technology that they won't risk its long-term prospects by playing fast and loose with safety.
That's why they worry about Tesla: this FSD thing could poison the well.
That's why they worry about Tesla: this FSD thing could poison the well.
