<story><title>Federal safety official slams Tesla, regulators for misuse of its Autopilot tech</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-25/tesla-autopilot-crash-hearing</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nullc</author><text>I recently commented to a new Tesla buyer that their car seemed nice but I couldn&amp;#x27;t see myself ever spending so much money on a car.  They responded by gushing that self-driving would be available within a couple years and then the car would be making money and would pay for itself in no time so the car was actually better than free.&lt;p&gt;I asked why wouldn&amp;#x27;t they just wait until it was actually available and the claimed that at that point tesla would raise the prices to hundreds of thousands per car because of all the income they earn.&lt;p&gt;It took me a little effort to not respond by backing away slowly.&lt;p&gt;Are these beliefs widespread and is tesla promoting them?  Or was I just talking to an isolated weirdo?</text></item><item><author>dmitrygr</author><text>I remain amazed that Tesla can keep marketing &amp;quot;autopilot&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;full self driving&amp;quot; as such, despite the obviousness of the fact that it has and will continue to keep killing people silly enough to believe the hype.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully the NTSB recommendations on this include better and clearer explanations that full self-driving is anything but, and that those recommendations get implemented into serious laws with serious penalties.&lt;p&gt;I get that it is easy to outsell your rivals when you can market fairy tales. I just don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s okay when people start getting killed because of it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ajedi32</author><text>That view is consistent with Elon Musk&amp;#x27;s statements on the matter:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1151163201569972225&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1151163201569972225&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1117116982778679297&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1117116982778679297&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;FredericLambert&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1117118068654784512&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;FredericLambert&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;11171180686547845...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1182826581070245888&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1182826581070245888&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1151180650033995776&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;elonmusk&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1151180650033995776&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whether he&amp;#x27;s right depends almost entirely on how effective Tesla&amp;#x27;s heavily AI-focused approach to self driving turns out to be. If they can indeed reach the point where Tesla vehicles can operate fully autonomously with no one in the driver&amp;#x27;s seat, he may very well be right. It would be a long time before Tesla would be able to make enough cars to meet demand and a robotaxi service would be highly profitable in the mean time, so market rates may very well reach upwards of $200k per car.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s all conditional on Tesla being able to develop and deploy a L4 driving system before everyone else though. So far, early results on that front have not been encouraging. I suspect Elon has underestimated the difficulty of training modern AI systems to reach the level of consistency and reliability necessary for safety critical real-world applications.</text></comment>
<story><title>Federal safety official slams Tesla, regulators for misuse of its Autopilot tech</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-25/tesla-autopilot-crash-hearing</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nullc</author><text>I recently commented to a new Tesla buyer that their car seemed nice but I couldn&amp;#x27;t see myself ever spending so much money on a car.  They responded by gushing that self-driving would be available within a couple years and then the car would be making money and would pay for itself in no time so the car was actually better than free.&lt;p&gt;I asked why wouldn&amp;#x27;t they just wait until it was actually available and the claimed that at that point tesla would raise the prices to hundreds of thousands per car because of all the income they earn.&lt;p&gt;It took me a little effort to not respond by backing away slowly.&lt;p&gt;Are these beliefs widespread and is tesla promoting them?  Or was I just talking to an isolated weirdo?</text></item><item><author>dmitrygr</author><text>I remain amazed that Tesla can keep marketing &amp;quot;autopilot&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;full self driving&amp;quot; as such, despite the obviousness of the fact that it has and will continue to keep killing people silly enough to believe the hype.&lt;p&gt;Hopefully the NTSB recommendations on this include better and clearer explanations that full self-driving is anything but, and that those recommendations get implemented into serious laws with serious penalties.&lt;p&gt;I get that it is easy to outsell your rivals when you can market fairy tales. I just don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s okay when people start getting killed because of it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tenacious_tuna</author><text>anecdotal evidence with n=1, but I&amp;#x27;m a Tesla owner who refuses to pay for the &amp;quot;Full Self Driving&amp;quot; tech, expressly because I think it&amp;#x27;s way further off and overhyped compared to what I&amp;#x27;d actually want for the cost.&lt;p&gt;I especially think the &amp;quot;your car becomes a taxi and pays for itself&amp;quot; gimmick is beyond fantasy. I chalk it up to Musk being an actually mildly insane CEO, which has benefits to go with its downsides.&lt;p&gt;As for the cost of the car, I wanted an EV with more range than other manufacturers provided. (I also make use of the longer range on a regular basis--probably about 2 times a month?) (edit:) I also wanted a car that Went Fast. Not practical in any real sense, but a lot of fun.&lt;p&gt;There are around a dozen Tesla owners at my company. As far as I know, none of them are banking on their cars being a taxi and earning tons of dough. At least one has the FSD upgrade, and uses it primarily to back his car out of the garage on its own so his kids don&amp;#x27;t bang up the doors when they get in.</text></comment>