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Things at Tesla are worse than they appear
(edition.cnn.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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Not good. There’s still some remnant of the idealistic vision, hiding from the Nazi.
It's going to be a disaster. Tesla "FSD" is glorified cruise control on level 2 on the autonomous driving scale.
It's already a disaster. The economics don't add up and the few on the road break down all the time.
don't other truck manufacturers that actually know how to build a truck also make electrified models?
There are other electric semi trucks out there, but none (at least as of last year) compare in specs and capabilities. The big issue is their power consumption is much higher than the Tesla Semi which has been repeatedly validated by their testers as even better than what Tesla advertises. Efficiency will be king in this kind of business.
Worse efficiency = less range = more batteries = less load capacity = less money per delivery
E.g this is from DHL
https://www.dhl.com/global-en/delivered/responsibility/dhl-tests-tesla-semi-electric-truck.html
Edit: Just some examples... I don't know if these have been verified in use unlike the Tesla, so all theoretical based on the advertised miles/battery size.
And those are all shorter range at that.
Edit: I should also add... we don't know the price of the Tesla Semi. Its possible that its ridiculously priced and the increased efficiency is negated even over the life of the vehicle compared to the other trucks. That's a big unknown given these are pilot vehicles.
I tried fsd demo this spring and it’s getting pretty good. I wouldn’t use it but it was perfect on well marked roads. The thing is it made me realize just how poorly maintained our roads are and everything is an edge case. For example it didn’t stay in lane at one Intersection but the intersection was a weird offset plus the lines were all faded away. Although I also disnt give it any chance to recover so I suppose it could have been ok: Im not risking it not recovering
It might surprise everyone but mostly by staying in a well maintained well mapped area, like Waymo did. There’s no way it fulfills the claim of self-driving everywhere without more improvements
The robots is will have the next generation computer and higher resolution cameras which may help. However that also allows more overhead for the next ai update
I get what you mean but it's still stuck at level 2 and it always will be. No matter how good it is, if you move your eyes from the road, it will eventually kill you. Cameras alone are not sufficient enough for autonomous driving.
I disagree with this assertion, because they’re correct that the only being that can currently drive is relying on vision. Vision alone is sufficient for driving.
But autonomous driving really hasn’t succeeded yet. We still have no idea what is required for autonomous driving or whether we can do it at all, regardless of sensors.
So you’re implying that we can definitely do autonomous driving but can’t do it the way humans do, whereas I say we won’t know the requirements until we find some that succeed, and we may never
Yeah sure. If you want the same bad results as humans deliver, in terms of crash rates, than it's possible. I wouldn't trust it. Also human vision and processing is completely different from computer vision and processing.
Presumably we have the intelligence to set requirements before something can be called self-driving - that’s usually what the fuss is about, whether the marketing is claiming it’s something it’s not.
If they fail with their approach, I’m fine with that, just like I’m fine if Waymo fails with their approach. Of either succeeds, why should I care how? Obviously there’s a problem if it runs over some old lady at a stop sign and drags them down the street but that’s clearly a failure for them
We already have that https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update
The thing is humans are horrible drivers, costing a huge toll in lives and property every year.
We may already be at the point where we need to deal with the ethics of inadequate self-driving causing too many accidents vs human causing more. We can clearly see the shortcomings of all self driving technology so far, but is it ethical to block Immature technology if it does overall save lives?
Maybe it’s the trolley problem. Should we take the branch that leads to deaths or the branch that leads to more deaths
True
Are you talking about waymo vs human driver? It's currently (and maybe never) economical to roll that out globally. That would cost trillions and probably wouldn't even be feasible everywhere.
Teslas aren't autonomous but just mere driving assistants so you can't compare them. Otherwise you'd also have to include the Mercedeses (which btw have the first commercial Level 3 car), BMWs, BYDs, ...
It would be very unethical to allow companies to profit from dangerous and unsafe technology that kills people.
No manufacturer does good self-driving yet.
Several manufacturers including Tesla make driver assistants more reliable than humans in at least some cases, possibly most of the time.
It’s easy to say you don’t want to allow companies to profit from unsafe technology that kills people but what is the other choice? If you send the trolley down the other track, you’re choosing different deaths at the hands of unsafe humans. We will soon be at the point, or already are, that your choice kills more people. Is that really such an easy choice?
Where do you get that? From Elon?
Yes safety features and driving assistants make driving safer. Letting the car drive by itself not (especially with Teslas).
Elon claims Tesla is already past that point. I’ll accept a much larger approximation that several manufacturers are past or near that point. Even if you’re skeptical of the claim, it’s clearly close enough to be concerned about.
Elon claims a lot of shit. Most of them are lies. He cannot prove with real data that "FSD" really crashes less.
Again, Teslas aren't even considered autonomous cars.
Don't get me wrong, I want to be optimistic. But currently it looks like this will take much longer to succeed than Elon and other hype men claimed.
You’re being too pedantic. We clearly have cars that do a lot of their own driving, we clearly have people (multiple) making claims, and we clearly have at least one company piloting self-driving taxis. Let’s consider our ethics before it’s too late