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Selling Full Autonomy Before It's Ready Could Backfire For Tesla (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Tesla has an Autopilot problem, and it goes far beyond the fallout from last month's deadly crash in Mountain View, California. Tesla charges $5,000 for Autopilot's lane-keeping and advanced cruise control features. On top of that, customers can pay $3,000 for what Tesla describes as "Full Self-Driving Capability." "All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go," Tesla's ordering page says. "Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed." None of these "full self-driving" capabilities are available yet. "Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction," the page says. "It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval."
But the big reason full self-driving isn't available yet has nothing to do with "regulatory approval." The problem is that Tesla hasn't created the technology yet. Indeed, the company could be years away from completing work on it, and some experts doubt it will ever be possible to achieve full self-driving capabilities with the hardware installed on today's Tesla vehicles. "It's a vastly more difficult problem than most people realize," said Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst at Navigant Research and a former auto industry engineer. Tesla has a history of pre-selling products based on optimistic delivery schedules. This approach has served the company pretty well in the past, as customers ultimately loved their cars once they ultimately showed up. But that strategy could backfire hugely when it comes to Autopilot.
But the big reason full self-driving isn't available yet has nothing to do with "regulatory approval." The problem is that Tesla hasn't created the technology yet. Indeed, the company could be years away from completing work on it, and some experts doubt it will ever be possible to achieve full self-driving capabilities with the hardware installed on today's Tesla vehicles. "It's a vastly more difficult problem than most people realize," said Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst at Navigant Research and a former auto industry engineer. Tesla has a history of pre-selling products based on optimistic delivery schedules. This approach has served the company pretty well in the past, as customers ultimately loved their cars once they ultimately showed up. But that strategy could backfire hugely when it comes to Autopilot.
Selling Anything Before It's Ready Could Backfire For Anyone
Of course, now it looks more like an Onion's headline, but that is, in itself, a hint...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The people who think it takes hard AI to achieve full autonomy in a self driving car vastly overestimate the cognitive abilities of human drivers..
And others vastly underestimate the challenges of designing a system that can perform better than humans without human oversight. Particularly in an environment that was designed specifically for human drivers interacting with other human drivers. We have a very long way to go.
It does take hard AI. The dumbest person is infinitely smarter than the best computer.
My guess is as folks start to realize they are mileage limited with long recharge times
I doubt if any Tesla owner was unaware of these issues before they bought the car.
they could get a REALLY NICE fossil fueled option for less money so they put it up for sale.
FF cars come with zero nerd-cred. Nobody cares. You have to park at the back of the lot, while the EVs get the premium parking spaces near the entrance.
Disclaimer: I am a very satisfied Tesla owner. Well, technically my wife owns it, but she lets me drive it if I wash the dishes everyday.
You paid $70k for a car. No one said anything about a high-end luxury car. Tesla's certainly aren't that. They are the equivalent of a $30k Ford in terms of luxury. But at least you get free updates!
And others vastly underestimate the challenges of designing a system that can perform better than humans without human oversight
And still OTHERS appear to be utterly ignorant as to the state of the art in self-driving car research and delivery.
Kind of strange for a place like Slashdot to have some many people so very, very ignorant of technology.
Please explain the "state of the art" for all those ignorant people. You could be one of them as far as I know.
The law needs to be adjusted to accept the reality that nothing is perfect
The problem (traffic, roads, laws, standards) will get redefined to fit the new AI solution, same as when we transitioned from horses to cars. When you get enough autocars out there, the roads will begin to get engineered to mitigate the weaknesses of AIs, bit by bit.. This is exactly what happened to cars: we created and adapted roads, laws, enforcement, etc to match car's needs and continue to do so. The Model T was high off the ground to deal with the rutted, muddy dirt roads (or no roads at all) they were likely to encounter. Today, we have aerodynamic skirts a few inches off the pavement for efficiency. Pavement--smooth pavement--is simply assumed.
That's what always happens with any disruptive technology: we end up adapting everything, including ourselves, to meet it part way.
An example of things that will probably be changed soon than later: road construction zones will be required to implement certain protocols (signage, markers, notifying some central database, whatever) to make them easier for AIs to traverse. Failure to do so will entail liability for accidents.
My guess is that true full autonomy will first roll out in a big way on certain long-haul trucking routes. Many freeways are a fairly clean, well-defined situation and the prize for trucking companies is too big to ignore. Those parts of the chosen freeways that are problematic for the AIs will be upgraded, either due to lobbying by large trucking firms, and/or those firms'll kick in some of their own $ to make those changes happen sooner.
They are deliberately comparing autonomous cars against average drivers and not normal drivers. The average includes drunks and irresponsible drivers who have the vast majority of accidents. When of if the AI beats an average driver it will still be an order of magnitude more unsafe than a normal driver.