Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Is Last In the Driverless Vehicle Race, Report Says (usnews.com)
Navigant Research has compiled a new report on 19 companies working on automated driving systems, and surprisingly, Tesla came in last place. U.S. News & World Report: Navigant ranked the 19 major companies developing AV technology based on 10 criteria, including vision, market strategy, partnerships, production strategy, technology, product quality and staying power. According to the report, General Motors Co. and Waymo, the auto unit of Alphabet, are the top two AV investment opportunities in the market today. Tesla and Apple are the two biggest laggards in the AV race, according to Navigant's rankings.
Investors are acutely aware of Tesla's production and distribution disadvantages compared to legacy automakers like GM, but Navigant is also highly critical of Tesla's technology. "The autopilot system on current products has stagnated and, in many respects, regressed since it was first launched in late 2015," Navigant says in the report, according to Ars Technica. "More than one year after launching V2, Autopilot still lacks some of the functionality of the original, and there are many anecdotal reports from owners of unpredictable behavior."
Investors are acutely aware of Tesla's production and distribution disadvantages compared to legacy automakers like GM, but Navigant is also highly critical of Tesla's technology. "The autopilot system on current products has stagnated and, in many respects, regressed since it was first launched in late 2015," Navigant says in the report, according to Ars Technica. "More than one year after launching V2, Autopilot still lacks some of the functionality of the original, and there are many anecdotal reports from owners of unpredictable behavior."
Tesla was biting off more than they could chew with auto-drive. Besides, if you want auto-drive, then you probably don't want a sports car. Sports cars are usually for people who like to drive.
Table-ized A.I.
Navigant ranked the 19 major companies developing AV technology based on 10 criteria, including vision, market strategy, partnerships, production strategy, technology, product quality and staying power.
I ranked 27,013 market research firms based on the relevance of their research and the value of their brand. The only reason Navigant didn't finish last is because I included Trump's twitter feed in the list.
lucm, indeed.
Not sure I want to be in the winner's car in this race
Tesla and Apple are the two biggest laggards
That they list a company that doesn't even have a product in the market, neither active nor announced, and which is working on something only according to rumours, tells me a lot about how trustworthy this article is.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why is marketing strategies even listed?
Really. Since "marketing" and "staying power" count for more than "working and deployed technology", Tesla should be proud to be last on the list.
This is one of those articles where it is clear that the journalist made the list first, putting Tesla last to get more clicks, and then made up BS numbers to justify it.
"Tesla has a pretty huge advantage over other companies, in that there is a TON of data from around the world, in so many different conditions"
Very true but you have to be able to make sense of all that data. Tests by Tesla owners selectively covering the cameras to see at which point Autopilot would become unavailable found that it's only using the front camera / radar, just like the old system.
Whether or not they're collecting data from the other sensors is unknown but their progress has been minimal in the past 6 months.
Also after promising a x-country autonomous drive by end of 2017, not only has it not been accomplished by no revised timeline has yet been offered.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The technology needs the road painted correctly. Does your state paint the roads correctly? Is your state EV ready with the edges of its roads painted?
Are your federal and state taxes ensuing the correct painted lines are been used?
Wont someone think of the algorithm that expected a painted road edge?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Hilariously Ford are in the top tier, by Fords own admission they're playing catchup.
Navigant are blind IMHO.
There are only 3 major contenders, Waymo, Tesla and Volvo. All of them actively have driverless cars out on the road. Baidu are just starting that, Ford, GM etc. are rebranding things like 'lane feedback' as driverless control (it isn't).
Toyota a top tier??? Seriously? I've got a Toyota. The lights are Auto, Off, On..... no "daytime driving lights mode", Off isn't off, its on, it leaves the accent lights on, even when the car is switched off and flattens the battery. Auto is so sensitive it switches on as you pass under a cloud. Obviously the switch gear and lights don't match up, that light set would need Auto, Off, Daytime, Nighttime, 4 modes, not 3. Connect Bluetooth to a Toyota head unit? Are you crazy? Life it toooo short. Rant aside, Toyota are all talk talk on self driving cars with very little to show.
Tests by Tesla owners selectively covering the cameras to see at which point Autopilot would become unavailable found that it's only using the front camera / radar, just like the old system.
Sure but that does not mean they are not collecting from the other cameras/sensors while people drive, and can learn from that as well for more advanced systems.
their progress has been minimal in the past 6 months.
I imagine they are being very careful with updates, but that doesn't mean major upgrades are not around the corner...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
GM hasn't ever positioned themselves as "even mainly a[n] AV maker".
So obviously they aren't including only companies that have "positioned themselves as even mainly a[n] AV maker".
They are ranking the companies that are doing anything significant with self-driving vehicles.
Given Elon Musk promised a cross-country self-driven ride by the end of 2017, I think Telsa qualifies.
What does the suite of hardware cost that Cruise and Waymo are using on the roof of their cars, $100,000? Because that is a commercial technology if they can't integrate their self-driving sensor suite at a price comparable to other vehicles in the same class. I know there's hope that the cost of lidar will come way down, but when? Because if it takes four years for the cost of lidar to become viable for mass-production, that gives Tesla four years to perfect their vision system. Regardless, I think Tesla's real advantage is that once (if) they get their system to work at Level 4, they'll instantly have a global fleet of autonomous cars ready to provide TaaS in areas where they have extensive familiarity. Everyone else will have to ramp up their fleets, over years.
Well, as things are going now, the "traditional" automakers will build and sell the electric cars but, Tesla will sell them the batteries and rent them the supercharger stations.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
They are first or near first in one important way, having had a vehicle with many self-driving car features on the road, testing and improving them for 3+ years. Other companies like the volt now are getting there, but Tesla is not lost in the part about actually have working cars with some features.
It's not just about appearances. It's about cost, drag, and power consumption. Lidar is a pain on all three of those (in addition to looks). You simply can't sell cars with big $10k domes bulging out of the top upping your drag coefficient by 10-20% and consuming a couple kilowatts of power. That would be a disaster to your range, and make your vehicle totally uncompetitive.
Funny how you don't get anecdotal reports concerning the others, given that most of them don't have owners to make said anecdotal reports. And of most of the competitors' systems, they're comically bad. And they have the gall to actually market the car as currently "self-driving" (unlike Tesla which markets self-driving as an additional package which you can buy but won't be active for years).
Some of my favorite quotes from the test drive comparison:
Santa Ana Winds: Like the Dustbowl, but with awards shows.
You simply can't sell cars with big $10k domes bulging out of the top upping your drag coefficient by 10-20% and consuming a couple kilowatts of power.
That's why people who know about this stuff are predicting 2020 or later for self driving, because that's when lidar will become cheap and compact enough to make it practical. The tech is already working in the lab, but it takes time to commercialize and the characterise to understand the differences between the larger units.
The breakthrough has been to find electrical ways of directing the emitted light, rather than needing to have a spinning mirror.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC