Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Autopilot Crisis Deepens With Loss of Third Autopilot Boss In 18 Months (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It is no secret that Tesla's Autopilot project is struggling. Last summer, we covered a report that Tesla was bleeding talent from its Autopilot division. Tesla Autopilot head Sterling Anderson quit Tesla at the end of 2016. His replacement was Chris Lattner, who had previously created the Swift programming language at Apple. But Lattner only lasted six months before departing last June. Now Lattner's replacement, Jim Keller, is leaving Tesla as well.
Keller was a well-known chip designer at AMD before he was recruited to lead Tesla's hardware engineering efforts for Autopilot in 2016. Keller has been working to develop custom silicon for Autopilot, potentially replacing the Nvidia chips being used in today's Tesla vehicles. When Lattner left Tesla last June, Keller was given broader authority over the Autopilot program as a whole. Keller's departure comes just weeks after the death of Walter Huang, a driver whose Model X vehicle slammed into a concrete lane divider in Mountain View, California. Tesla has said Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla has since gotten into public feuds with both Huang's family and the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the crash. "Today is Jim Keller's last day at Tesla, where he has overseen low-voltage hardware, Autopilot software and infotainment," Tesla said in a statement to Electrek. "Prior to joining Tesla, Jim's core passion was microprocessor engineering, and he's now joining a company where he'll be able to once again focus on this exclusively."
Keller was a well-known chip designer at AMD before he was recruited to lead Tesla's hardware engineering efforts for Autopilot in 2016. Keller has been working to develop custom silicon for Autopilot, potentially replacing the Nvidia chips being used in today's Tesla vehicles. When Lattner left Tesla last June, Keller was given broader authority over the Autopilot program as a whole. Keller's departure comes just weeks after the death of Walter Huang, a driver whose Model X vehicle slammed into a concrete lane divider in Mountain View, California. Tesla has said Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla has since gotten into public feuds with both Huang's family and the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the crash. "Today is Jim Keller's last day at Tesla, where he has overseen low-voltage hardware, Autopilot software and infotainment," Tesla said in a statement to Electrek. "Prior to joining Tesla, Jim's core passion was microprocessor engineering, and he's now joining a company where he'll be able to once again focus on this exclusively."
I suspect Tesla's method of using less hardware will be the main path in 15 years for autonomy, once we have car to car communications and car to traffic control communications as standard equipment in every vehicle and bugs worked out.
All the kinks worked out and equipment in every vehicle on the road in the next 15 years. Elon, is that you?
Some cars with humans or lasers can communicate safe passages and routes through construction, and other road conditions (wet/ice/snow...) And lesser equipped cars can then navigate recently validated routes more safely.
I'm sure you're not saying that a ~4,000 pound hunk of metal being propelled at ~60mph can make safe operational decisions based not on current environmental conditions but on environmental conditions that existed at some point before it reached a given area.
But, all the same, I wish they never got into this auto pilot self driving thing. It is a distraction from getting the affordable electric car done. That is the most important thing to get done.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Karen, even if it's not your intent, you're coming across like an insecure bully. WANNA BET???? HMMMM????? YOU MUST BE WRONG IF YOU WON'T BET!!!
Sit back and enjoy the show. And try to grow up a bit.
It's foolish to trust the predictions of a pundit (or a fund manager) who won't commit their own money.
Pundit? Fund manager? From whence come these straw men?
I have to say I find it fascinating that when I express an opinion on a discussion board I get the functional equivalent of "$10,000, Rick". This is clearly a touchy subject for some of you.
Since you clearly don't believe your own predictions, why should anyone else believe you?
I actually don't care if you believe me or not. You likely have more than enough Google bux to splash around on the casino table that you'll be fine. I fear, though, that poor Karen has overextended herself. Maybe you can spot her a few when things go thud.