Coast-To-Coast Autonomous Tesla Trips 2-3 Years Out, Says Elon Musk (google.com)

Jalopnik reports that Elon Musk's predicted window for being able (for Tesla owners, that is) to call up your autonomous car and have it find its own way from New York to California, or vice versa, is astonishingly close: 24-36 months from now. From the article: As far as the summoning feature is concerned, Tesla plans for the 33-foot range to greatly expand—soon. Within two years, Musk predicted that owners will be able to summon their car from across the country. “If you’re in New York and your car is in Los Angeles, you can summon your car to you from your phone and tell the car to find you,” Musk said. “It’ll automatically charge itself along the journey. I might be slightly optimistic about that, but not significantly optimistic.” In getting from one place to another, Musk said autopilot “is better than human in highway driving, or at least it will be soon with machine learning.” If it’s not already better than human, Musk said it will be within the coming months. But right now, Musk said the car still needs a human around, just in case. “The car currently has sensors to achieve that cross-country goal,” Musk said. “But you’d need more hardware and software, you’d need more cameras, more radars, redundant electronics, redundant power buses and that sort of thing.

Comments

Seems overly optimistic

[hawguy]

Their "self parking car" can just barely back itself out of a garage (limited to up to 39 feet) without anyone in the car. It seems unlikely that they'll transition from this to true autonomous long distance operation in 3 years.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[Deep Esophagus]

My car went on a coast-to-coast trip without me and all I got was this lousy lawsuit.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[ClickOnThis]

It would an understatement to say that Elon Musk has made some outrageous predictions for his companies and the world. At this time, we can't be sure they'll come true because his due-dates are still in the future.

That said, it is believable to me that cross-country autonomy could be technically possible in 2 or 3 years. After all, going 33 feet is just the first step in going 33 more feet, and then 33 more, and so on. I think the current 33-foot limit is caused by early prudence rather than technology limitations.

What I find hard to accept the idea that it will be legally possible in 2 or 3 years. But, I wouldn't be surprised if Elon negotiated a special route with the governments of selected states, to provide a demonstration. And maybe a human convoy escorting it?

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[haruchai]

Google's self driving cars have racked up over 1 million miles in the past few years. They're probably already capable of a coast-to-coast autonomous trip - in good weather.
What's uncertain is if they can cope with really poor driving conditions.
http://venturebeat.com/2015/06...

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[haruchai]

City driving is MUCH harder than highway.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[shawn2772]

A million miles at no higher than 25mph.

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/te...

No, most of the miles driven by Google's cars have been with the highway-speed versions, not the newer custom-built versions that are currently being tested on city streets, and are limited to 25 mph.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[penguinoid]

I'd be willing to bet that they're better in really poor driving conditions than humans are.

Perhaps, but for now the most important thing is the effort to prove the self-driving car safe. If that means driving only in perfect weather and traffic conditions on pre-scanned roads with two professional human drivers, then so be it.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[haruchai]

What?? They can't use Google Maps?! :-D

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[uncqual]

Indeed.

I recall driving a rental car many years ago at about 9:30AM in a section of NYC that was very congested - and most of the cars were taxis (it was pretty much a sea of yellow). The only way to make progress was to play a little game of chicken with the taxi drivers and shove the nose of my car in front of their bumpers when there really wasn't enough room to do so "safely". And, that's exactly what they were doing with me and each other also so I didn't get honked at or cursed at -- it was just how you could get where you were going.

However everyone, myself included, was making what would be considered illegal lane changes and IF there had been an accident fault would have been allocated to the driver shoving their nose into the tiny bit of daylight between two cars in the adjacent lane.

I can't imagine that the google lawyers would let the engineers code the software to drive that way OR to come as close to pedestrians that were jaywalking here and there. I suspect a google self driving car would just sit there and start whimpering and maybe 12 hours later finally think it was safe to progress when traffic was lighter.

A more actual example... I was reading someone complaining because a google self-driving car was in front of them in a residential area and a garbage truck picking up rubbish was in front of the google car. The google car didn't have the sense to pass the truck (perfectly legal and what drivers normally do) as it stopped every 50 feet to pick up another bin all the way up the block. This left the person behind having to pass not only the truck, but the google car that was dutifully tailing the truck. The more google cars that piled up behind a garbage truck, the harder this passing would be.

In light rush hour where I live, there are all sorts of instances where merging onto a freeway requires playing a bit of chicken -- else you would end up at the end of the merge lane in a dead stop (and that's REALLY difficult to recover from and creates a giant mess for everyone). Sometimes someone will act unpredictably (either intentionally closing a gap to keep you from taking it or, more often, trying to "help" you at the last minute by trying to create a slot in front of them when you were planning on sliding in behind them). Other times, you just have to act like you're going to take a slot that's really a little too small to take without making someone slow down a bit (almost everyone is already closer to the car in front of them than they should be so there are no gaps to merge into leaving proper clearances behind and ahead of you). Again, I can't imagine the lawyers (or the programmers) allowing self-driving cars to be that aggressive and, in the end, I'll bet it won't be uncommon to see traffic jams caused by cars that couldn't merge "safely" so just stop at the end of the merge lane - that won't be popular.

Mixing self driving cars running code overseen by lawyers and conservative programmers with meat bag driven cars in congested situations seems to be very challenging. However, once on the freeway going in a straight line w/o any need to deviate, I'm pretty sure, on the average, self driving cars are/will soon be much safer than meat bag driven cars whose drivers are on their cell phone or shaving or putting on mascara (yep, I've seen that - amazing).

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[Euler]

Exactly this. For this reason, I've found it easy to be dismissive of Google's claims. They have hardly discussed situations like this, not to mention bad weather, construction, etc. Google tends to promise big potential, then drop projects, because, hey, 'failure is good.'
The problem with Elon's claims is that he has credibility. He has a history of doing exactly what he claims and persevering at it. So he is either putting his credibility at risk, or he has some ace up his sleeve to mitigate _all_ of the odd cases in the short term.
I will say, in the long run the driverless car will change the nature of roadways in one way or another to eliminate the situations described. You can't really predict how these things unfold, but the basic underlying premise will change. But that is measured in decades, not 2 years.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[del_diablo]

It could also end with most of New York losing their drivers licenses over the entry months of self driving cars. Simply by automating reporting of dangerous drivers.
Thats not even a scary ideal, but it would lead to lots of fun court time and messing around until the legal crisis that has been delayed for decades is forced to be solved.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[KGIII]

It might be a legal crisis but, for some definition, it actually works. Remember, if it's behind your B pillar - it's not your fault. People keep saying that Google's got it covered and citing a million miles. I'm a little rusty and biased but I'd like to think that, at one time, I had the world's greatest traffic sim game. This might sound like an appeal to authority (indeed, it kind of is) but it's gonna be a while before we get even a simple majority of private passenger vehicles that are fully autonomous and doing so is going to be a real kick in the privacy sack. I've typed it all out before and I've had too long a weekend to type it all again. Suffice to say, it's gonna be a minute.

That does not mean that Musk could not do a one-off of this in a few years. If anyone thinks that disproves my view (or even Google's many miles) then you probably haven't actually seen what goes into modeling traffic and don't understand the complexity. There are so many externalities to consider that even the color of the sky has a noticeable impact on driving style, speed, risk taking, and more - and that's not even counting physical aspects like visibility.

Ah well... I'm really not in a novella mood but I may just return with one. :/ I could probably just copy and paste some of my old comments but that'd be cheating.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[jklovanc]

Not even close

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[maeka]

Mobileye is collision avoidance and Tesla is enhanced lane following.

Which is why I believe Tesla is claiming coast-to-coast driving.

Autonomous vehicles going from A to B on the well marked, (mostly) pedestrian free interstate highway system is relatively easy. And with Tesla charging stations at some rest stops all one needs to do is add a few mapped "delivery lots" at popular exits and one has created a first-grade autonomous vehicle route.

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[Applehu Akbar]

"A million miles at no higher than 25mph."

Hasn't this already been done in Volvos?

Re:Seems overly optimistic

[cat_jesus]

One thing I would like to see with autonomous cars is a new set of required lights when they are in operation. This way you can easily identify the cars that are driving themselves. Also at some point autonomous cars will network together on highways and form a virtual train. I think another beacon should be required when they are in this mode.

We really need to work on infrastructure in the US and making it easier for automated vehicles to be the norm would go a long way to reducing deaths and accidents and will pave the way to flying cars. I'm not kidding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The biggest issue with flying cars has been having people pilot the damn things. We're at the point now that we can automate the piloting of all vehicles. Imagine the reduction of congestion on roads if a huge number of people took to the sky. It's not that big of a deal to me since I work from home but I remember the suffering of a long commute. Autonomous vehicles both automobile and drone would help a lot of people tremendously. It would also generate a lot of economic activity.

The law may not be ready that quick and what happe

[Joe_Dragon]

The law may not be ready that quick and what happens with some thing goes wrong in driver less mode with no one in the car?

Will the car even try get out of the way of a road block with out even trying to due it (just that base don't crash mode)

Parking lot

[Ziest]

I want a car that will drop me off at the store or the movies, go park itself and when I'm ready it will come to me in front of the store. The endless walking around in parking lots trying to remember where I park the car is a giant pain in the ass.

Re:Parking lot

[wvmarle]

I think there is a reason these auto makers go for a "coast to coast" first. It's all highways, and easy driving.

Your problem is a much harder one: improperly mapped surroundings, lots of moving obstacles (ranging from people to dumpsters placed haphazardly), etc.

I'll be impressed when this car can do what you describe. Or navigate from one end of a big city to the other - without using the city's ring roads, but really going through city traffic, dealing with traffic lights, cyclists, detours, and all the other unexpected obstacles thrown at city drivers.

Re:Parking lot

[fluffernutter]

I've been in blinding blizzards on the highway. Storms where you are lucky to see the ditches on either side, forget about the lines in the middle or the shoulders. I'd like to know what's going to happen when one hits and the autonomous car is nowhere near a safe parking spot.

Re:Parking lot

[Harlequin80]

You are stuck using only visible light to perceive the world around you. Any autonomous system would have sensors that are working outside that band and hence are going to be more or less affected by various conditions. You would expect the system to use lidar, radar, and ultrasonic at the absolute minimum. It would also have sensors that are closer to the ground and at better angles than your eyes so while the lines may be invisible to you in the drivers seat the sensors can see them clearly.

My expectation of behaviour would be that the AI is able to make a remarkably accurate estimate of braking distance and then reduce its speed to a level where its sensor range exceeds that of braking distance + a margin of error.

Re:Parking lot

[adnonsense]

In pre-digital days I used to carry around a graphite-based stylus for noting the car's location on a carbon-based "tablet" with a nifty non-battery-reliant offline storage solution, though these days I just take a photo with my moble pocket computing device. Saves having to wait for reliable autonomous cars to be developed.

Re:Parking lot

[KGIII]

I used to drink - and drive. Oh, it was probably reasonably safe - as I was usually not on the road. I no longer do this, by the way. But, 'tis time for a Gramps Story...

At any rate, a buddy and I were out drinking and driving. I'd chosen a Subaru for this journey - this Subaru had one purpose in life and one purpose only. I bought it just to put it places that it was not meant to go - and it might surprise you the places that thing went. Oh, it'd get stuck but a bumper-jack and a winch would usually take care of anything.

Alas, one day we're out in the spring... This is post-retirement, when I really was old enough to know better but too drunk to care. I was up atop a nearby mountain and decided to take the back way into a town called Eustis. (You might want to look at a map - my home is up above Rangeley, a bit to the *West* of Rangeley.)

Now, in the summer you might, and I do mean might, be able to get through there with a nice 4WD with good clearance. That's Subaru territory. There's something to be said about a Subaru that you don't mind beating all to hell. This is not even a good place to walk - never mind drive. But - there are "roads." By road, I mean an old logging trail known as a "tote road."

So, we're happily drinking and not hurting anyone except ourselves and the Subaru when we manage to get so stuck that not a jack nor a winch will get us out. That's okay, we don't mind. We've got a bunch of beer a couple of bottles of rum and a granola bar.

About a day later, we stomp out of the woods and get to my house. We sleep it off, wake up, get drunk again, sleep it off, and then wake up and remember that we left a car in the woods. Where? Fucked if we know. So, we hop in the truck and go looking. We spent nearly three full days looking for this Subaru (it doesn't help that it was brown.)

Eventually, through sheer luck, we finally spotted our footprints and were able to then work our way in the right direction and find the Subaru. The winch was broken, the jack was half missing, and it was very stuck. We spent a long, long time shoveling but it finally came loose.

So, point of the story is, it is possible to lose your car and it doesn't even take a parking lot to do it in. I'm not sure that a Tesla would have been a great help in that situation. I don't think autonomy will quite get a car into that position, so there's that. But, that's the story of the lost Subaru. :/ Yes, yes lessons were learned and no, no I don't drink any more really. I figured I'd better quit while I was ahead and before I killed myself, someone else, or got an OUI. It's strange how I went from being a functional alcoholic to a sloppy drunk right after retirement. Ah well...

Re:Parking lot

[KGIII]

Wow... This is two days in a row where I get to suggest that you'd probably die if you lived where my home is. (I'm cheating and spending this winter in Florida.)

Seriously, if you stop traveling because there are a few inches of snow on the road - you're gonna die. We have periods where it simply doesn't stop snowing - for days. We have times when I, a private citizen, go out and help with the plowing, pull people out of ditches, and generally help clean things up. What would you do it you got four feet of snow over ten days and the power was out for half of that and then a week after the storm stopped?

No, you don't have to be a "rugged individual." Even old ladies do just fine. You? You're gonna die. :/ Don't move here. We lose a few people like that every year. We lose a few that are outside and unprepared, a few on ATVs, and a few on snowmobiles but we mostly do just fine so long as you think ahead and learn a few things to help keep you alive. My electricity, for instance, is such that I consider my mains connection as my backup.

I have two generators (and a third one that can be put into use), underground diesel storage, solar, and wind - and then mains if things get problematic. I have not one but two plow trucks. While I've yet to put it to good use, I now own a restored tow truck. There are a couple of four-wheelers and two snowmobiles. Why? 'Cause not being able to get out in inclement weather will kill you.

The last time I mentioned this was yesterday (I think) when someone said that you don't have a backup for your fridge and stove. Err... Yes, yes I do. I'd have to be straight up retarded to not have a backup for that. I even have backup food suppliers as well as backup food supplies. I grow, hunt, and fish for a lot of my food. I have neighbors with farms (for some vague term of neighbor - it's a bit different in Maine as to what is a neighbor). I then have a village in either direction where I can go get food. I'm not sure but I'd actually probably consider the village and the grocery stores to be backups and my own food to be my primary - that's what I prefer to eat just 'cause it's enjoyable and tastes nice. (Yes, yes I would eat Bambi's dad. If I get a permit, I'll eat his mother too.)

Seriously, if a few inches of snow on the road means you don't drive then you would die. Depending on the vehicle, I tend to hunker down when the snow gets to be greater than a foot unless I've got the plow on. If I've got the plow then I'm good for a couple of feet, maybe a bit more. I don't have a giant dump truck or anything so I can't tackle huge amounts of a couple of feet of heavy snow. They usually don't let it build up more than a foot. I've seen storms where there were three plow trucks (the big ones, on dump trucks, that had sanders and were owned by the state) off the road between my house and the village. The grader that they brought out to get them out of the ditches was stuck on a hill.

Truth be told, it's a blast! You can pretty much do what you want on the roads - so long as you don't hurt anyone, and the cops don't care. They're busy. There are usually giant snowbanks so you don't get hurt. Don't think of it as a scary thing - think of it as an adventure. It's like going sledding except you've got the radio and heat. I keep an old Volvo 245 (from 1982) just for this very type of weather. Oh, it's horrible in the snow if you don't know what you're doing - it's RWD. However, it's about as much fun as you can legally have with your clothes on to push it through a foot of snow. It's like a tank once you figure out how to drive it.

Heh, yeah, you'd probably not enjoy it much if you stay home because there's a few inches of snow. Some of us wait until there are at least a few inches of snow before we bother going out. I guess it's a matter of perspective.

AI always wins

[penguinoid]

It's like with cops and robbers. The thief needs to get lucky every single time, the cops only need to get lucky once. With AI it's even more unfair, not only does the AI only need to learn to drive once, after which it is always better -- but it can be incrementally improved besides, and possesses fundamentally superior perception and reaction time.

Re:Bull Spit

[Harlequin80]

Whether or not Tesla is able to get the car to self drive that distance is not in any way shape or form related to whether it will be legal.

Personally I think that it would be extremely unlikely for self driving cars to not become a reality. There is too much money being spent on it by too many smart people. It may be that the US ends up being late to the game though due to the nature of the US legal system.

Yeah, right.

[Irate Engineer]

That's a good one. And I'm sure Elon Musk is going to be launching rockets and flying them back to land softly on a pad for reuse.

Oh, wait...

Re:Bull Spit

[110010001000]

Yes it is related when he says OWNERS WILL BE ABLE TO in 2-3 years. They won't be able to, legally or technically.

Re:cannonball run, anyone?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I predict this feature will last exactly long enough for some organized crime hackers to amass a self-stealing fleet of Teslas.

as barbaric as not washing hands

[liquid_schwartz]

In the near term future, say 3-8 years, accident injuries and deaths will plummet as this technology is adopted. The notion of letting just anybody drive with minimal training will seem as barbaric as surgery without washing your hands first. The cost savings in both human suffering as well as dollars will have us scratching our heads on why we didn't mandate this earlier. I fully expect my grandchildren to be both amazed as well as slightly horrified that I drove along with millions of others at high speed despite the risk of drunks / sleepy / distracted drivers killing us.

Re:as barbaric as not washing hands

[Anonymous Coward]

"The cost savings in both human suffering as well as dollars will have us scratching our heads on why we didn't mandate this earlier."
 
Oh God.... here we go again...
 
It was not and will not be mandated for some time due to technological limitations. The concept probably goes back decades or more but what will happen is that when it comes to fruition there will be a gaggle of Musk worshipers who will claim that no one had the idea before Musk and no one "worked" on the idea until after Musk brought it to the masses in a tidy little package. Anyone else who puts this out will be compared to Edison and called a thief and a cheat by this gang of fanboys. Endless Facebook memes will give Musk credit for making anything worthwhile in his lifetime and even credit him with some inventions that were patented before his lifetime just like how they're doing with Tesla today.
 
Musk was wise in choosing the name of his auto company as that's what he'll end up being in technology history.... another engineer given the credit for other peoples' work and others vilified for their accomplishments.
 
You losers will even be claiming that he was "an alien" that was "centuries ahead of his time" and without which we'd "still be living in the dark ages."

Re:as barbaric as not washing hands

[Harlequin80]

North West Rail Link (NWRL) which is a huge urban metro line in Sydney is driverless.

Forget identity theft...

[Anonymous Coward]

...hack a persons account and you'll soon be able to steal his brand new Tesla!

"No officer, I didn't steal it, it followed me home... all the way from Florida!"

Re:In 48 to 72 months Tesla car summons you

[haruchai]

You forgot "In Soviet Russia,"

I see to funny problems

[EmperorOfCanada]

The first funny problem is when you are in NYC and you accidentally bum dial your LA car to come get you. You arrive back in LA to find your car "stolen" so you bring up you app to find that it is getting its kicks on route 66.

The other is when you move from NYC to LA but still haven't updated your contact list to say that "Home" is in LA not NYC. You drunkenly get into your car and say, "Home James" it then proceeds to take you to your old address in NYC. You are hung over so you don't wake until 2pm, 12 hours after leaving. It has been doing a fairly steady 70 for 12 hours, putting you over 800 miles from home. Also this translates to a 12 hour ride to return.

Old news

[Smiddi]

Meh, this is hardly breaking news. Im sure I saw this done back in the 80's by a Mr Michael Knight.

Re:cannonball run, anyone?

[penguinoid]

That's why it will have espionage, ahem, security features!

Re:Bull Spit

[Kjella]

Personally I think that it would be extremely unlikely for self driving cars to not become a reality. There is too much money being spent on it by too many smart people. It may be that the US ends up being late to the game though due to the nature of the US legal system.

Eventually. Like speech recognition, which also seemed to always be 3-5 years out until it finally went mainstream a few years ago. But I'm thinking more like 2030 or 2040 than 2020 at least around here, from what I can tell they haven't even begun to test snow and ice. I totally understand why they start with making it work under optimal conditions, but it also means they have a looooooooong way to go with non-optimal conditions.

Re:Bull Spit

[110010001000]

Different manufacturers (Lexus, BMW) have done automated highway driving for years. Highway driving is the easy one. I know you think Tesla invented the idea, but they really didn't. It isn't hard to make a car follow lane markers on a highway and avoid other cars. The hard part is the 20% of the rest. Get a grip on how complex non-highway driving is.

Re:Do you get "federal approval" to blow your nose

[110010001000]

I think you need it, because, um, you do. You don't think you can drive non-approved vehicles on public roads do you? You need Federal approval of kids car seats! You need state approval as well depending on the road you are on.

What's taking so long?

[h33t l4x0r]

It's not rocket science.

When are we getting the 40K car?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Come on Elon. You think coast-to-coast autonomous car is possible in 2 years but you can't give us a 40K car in 2 years?

Re:When are we getting the 40K car?

[thegarbz]

Your sub $40k car is not going to come from a high tech startup shaking up the industry. It's going to come from the competition once they realise what is happening and get on the bandwagon.

I say go more expensive. Increase the funds to drive the innovation which can trickle down to the rest of us through other means. I believe I will be driving a self driving electric car sometime in the next 15 years, but not necessarily a Tesla.

Re:cannonball run, anyone?

[gweihir]

"Self stealing", indeed. Nice! I predict that it will take far longer than 10 years to make this sufficiently secure.

Re:Bull Spit

[jeffb (2.718)]

Really?

Speech recognition in the 1990s, or even the 2000s, was awful. It didn't lack use cases; it lacked truly massive storage and processing power, and (for the best recognition) the always-on-nearly-everywhere network infrastructure to support shipping off sound samples to the the sites where that storage and processing lives. Until processors and infrastructure reached that tipping point, it just didn't work well enough to be useful outside of niche cases.

Now, I can tell my Samsung S5's to-do app "get Mott's applesauce", and watch it spell out "get mods", then "applesauce", then go back and erase "mods" and replace it with "Mott's", appropriately capitalized and punctuated. That's... better than most people posting on the Internet can do, frankly. Why? Because it can match what I might have said against an enormous corpus of things other people have said or written, and do an excellent job of adapting to context. Good luck implementing that with 1990s technology.

Re:Bull Spit

[catchblue22]

You might want to get a better grip on reality. Tesla Autopilot is already 80% of the way there, and the other 20% may not be available to consumers yet, but it has had millions of miles of testing...

It seems that Slashdot has been infested with willfully ignorant ball-less trolls. This is supposed to be a site for nerds. There is no greater nerd than Elon Musk. He is infused in sci-fi. He builds rockets...he designed much of the first SpaceX rocket (Falcon-1) himself. He builds arguably the best car in the world, and certainly the most technologically advanced (the Model S). It has the most advanced auto-driving features of any production car in the world. He literally bet the entire fortune he made from the sale of Paypal (200 million dollars) on Tesla and SpaceX after the 2008 market crash; most so called capitalists in our elite would never take such risks. Any libertarians amongst the readership here should worship Musk. He is more the Ayn Randian superhero than anyone I can think of. And if they return that Musk has taken some government help (like money for building the Dragon capsule to ferry cargo to the Space station for NASA or a $7500 subsidy for clean energy vehicle purchases), I would ask them what they think of defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin who receive 75% or more of their income from government contracts, or oil companies who have literally had wars fought in their name by governments. If those so-called libertarians don't denounce such things, then they are the worst type of corporate troll hypocrites.

Self-driving cars, hooray!

[bistromath007]

I definitely want to pay a steep premium to purchase my own tiny little train car. I especially can't wait until the release the software update that automatically drives me to the police station if the computer hears me say anything seditious.

Re:cannonball run, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not until a terrorist puts a bunch of explosives in the trunk and auto-delivers them somewhere?

Re:Say crazy stuff, get free money

[KGIII]

I have no love for Musk but I must say, people seem to like him. I took a huge risk and bought 2000 shares in Tesla when they were $24 each. (I think that was the price. Somewhere around there.) I haven't actually checked the latest prices but that's because I have no desire to unload them yet and "there'll be time enough for counting, when the dealings done."

So, if you attract as much geek-glee as Musk and get a bunch of people to listen to you - then I might take a shot on investing in your scheme too. Unlike most, I have a fairly set-in-stone bail out time. I'll have made more than enough by then and it will be time to get out of the way and let someone else join in on the fun. Or, more accurately, be the one standing when the music stops.

However, I do wish him luck and am already set to go on the list for a Tesla come this summer. Mostly because I love automobiles and the thought of instant torque makes my testicles hum with joy. Seriously, you put your ear down there and I bet you can hear 'em. I might even see if I can get a set of slicks for 'em and bring it over to Oxford and see how it does on the track. Just the thought of that makes that dull humming rise a full octave. I'm pretty sure that Ludicrous Speed will make them break out into a full blown Gregorian chant while Mr. Helmet Head stands at full attention.

No more rental cars!

[speedplane]

If you're flying cross-country, would be cool to send your car off a few days earlier and have it pick you up from the airport when you arrive.

Re:Bull Spit

[KGIII]

I have a nice shiny new BMW - it's even bespoke! I'm pretty sure that there's some automated driving bits available if I ever figure out the menu and wanted to enable it. The missus figured it out at one point? Basically, you tell it to try to drive with traffic but only go so fast. Then you tell it to stay in the damned lane and it seems to do that too. I gotta tell ya, I have no idea and can't imagine why I'd have bought a BMW only to have it drive itself. I find the very idea an abomination but I'm pretty sure it does a bunch of things. It'll slow down if it sees something that's going into the road or near it - the HUD will even alert you to it.

At any rate, I sure as hell didn't buy a BMW, manual shift, with two turbos and some ~450 ponies to have it drive itself. Unfortunately, no amount of begging could get it without some of the bells and whistles so I told 'em to cram 'em all in there. *sighs* I don't even want to use most of those things. The HUD is kind of nice and it is well done. I pretty much have to either stop or wait until a break in traffic to go adjusting things - I still don't know where half the things are and what a quarter of them do. If I could have picked it up with a much more mundane control system then I would have. I offered to pay quite well for it but the most I could get was directed to an after-market company who *might* be able to do so but it would void all warranties. I guess it's possible to tweak another ~200 HP out of it, though the same after-market, and they go ahead and strip out a whole bunch of things to make it lighter, they lower it a whisker, and they tighten up the suspension and put in five point restraints. That... That seemed just a bit excessive. Fun? Yes, but excessive.

I was invited to go to the factory and see it being built. They were gonna let me drive around Germany for two weeks and then they'd ship it here to the US. I wasn't even going to have to pay extra for shipping. I thought about it but declined. We've fine roads here and I watch enough documentaries to know how my car was made. I can always go back to Germany (I've been before) and just rent something, it's not even obscenely expensive. You can even rent something fancy, a coach, and hit the Nurburgring for not a whole lot of money. The best part is, if you crash then you don't even ruin your own vehicle. Drive it like you stole it, they've got insurance. I spent about a week, took some course work, spent some time with a coach, and spent a day each with a McLaren, Porsche, and Nissan on the track. I want to say that the whole thing was less than 20,000 Euro? A nice outfit - called RSR by the way. If you get the chance - jump on it. Well worth every penny but, holy shit, I digress...

What was the topic again? Oh... Yes... So, no, I didn't go see it getting built. I also don't see fully autonomous vehicles, for private passengers, any time soon. It just doesn't seem likely. The car I have with me does, sort of, have some autonomous capacity but I don't actually use it. I find the very idea of it an affront to my sensibilities! If you're gonna make an autonomous vehicle, do it to a Honda, a Ford, or something. If you're buying a BMW and you want it to drive itself, you probably shouldn't have bought a BMW. It's about as silly as an automatic transmission in a sports car. Sure, the automatic can actually perform better than a human now - but sometimes it's about the how and not about the destination.

Re:cannonball run, anyone?

[michelcolman]

Better put enough explosives in, or you'll get something like this (sans the driver):

Re:Bull Spit

[michelcolman]

until all generic visual captchas (not specific algorithms for specific types) can be solved better than humans.

Oh, we're almost there then. I'm human and I regularly fail at CAPTCHA's.

Re:Bull Spit

[KGIII]

Oh silly you. I don't own it to impress you - I own it because I want it. I have a bunch of cars, actually. The BMW is just one tool for one particular job. I don't expect you to recognize the value of an old Volvo, a really old Jeep, or a Saab from the early 1990s. It's okay - I'm not trying to impress you. I'm enjoying myself. Silly you. You think your opinion matters in regards to my purchasing habits. Nope. The BMW is an awesome driver's car and a bunch of fun. It's even low-key. Unless you recognize it as what it is, you'd not have a clue how fast it goes or how much it cost. That's one of the reasons I bought it - I don't *want* your approval. I want *my* approval. Silly rabbit.

Oh really?

[Viol8]

Musk is a businessman first, nerd second. And this is a site for nerds - nerds most of whome probably drive and can see the huge number of situations in which a self drive car is going to exhibit behaviour very very far from the optimal, all of which have been mentioned in other posts so I won't re-iterate. If you want to swallow the musk kool aid thats up to you, but those of us who see beyond the blantant marketeering and angling for investment cash might hold off on the congrats for a while.

Re: Bull Spit

[Lennie]

My thoughts on autonomous driving and car enthusiasts like yourself has always been:
with more people being driving around in autonomous cars, driving on the road yourself could become a lot less frustrating (less idiots on the road, more predictable traffic).

Also I don't see the appeal of driving yourself when it's bumper to bumper traffic. Stop, wait, slow, stop, wait, slow... that is the kind of situation where you'd want to car to do the driving so you can do other things with your time. A lot of high end cars like Tesla and BMW can already do that I believe.

Re:Bull Spit

[bigpat]

... from what I can tell they haven't even begun to test snow and ice. I totally understand why they start with making it work under optimal conditions, but it also means they have a looooooooong way to go with non-optimal conditions.

You can say that about most human drivers...