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A Tesla Model Y just delivered itself from the Texas Gigafactory to a customer 30 minutes away, for the first time, and you can see that some people really don't want to believe it:

sykesix (on the Falling Knives board):"That's a lot more than what Elon said happened. He said no safety operator intervened. Which is indeed a remarkable feat of technology. But that's not the same as no safety operator at all. If there was no safety operator involved he would have said so. He and Tesla also never mentioned a geofence, which means there was a geofence."

This is what Musk had posted :

“There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous! To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car or remotely operating the car on a public highway.”

So Musk didn't just say that 'no safety operator intervened', he said there was no one in the car, and no one controlling it from a distance. They probably did have someone watching what is was doing, and the whole thing was recorded, but it is hard to argue that this wasn't just what it was claimed to be, a bona fide self-delivery.

Given the number of skeptical commments, like the quoted post, Tesla has provided some additional information about the delivery, including the full 30 minute ride. Here is a sped-up version that takes 3 minutes, for anyone like me who doesn't have enough patience to watch the whole thing: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-silences-fsd-criti...

Tesla and Tesla investors are really at a crossroads. There's no way you can justify Tesla's lofty valuation ($1b, or 185 times earnings) based on flat or declining car sales, but if Robotaxis and Optimus robots really turn out to be useful, you can easily argue that Tesla's profits are going to explode upwards, and the current price might be a pretty good deal. Being more of a skeptic than a fan, I would put the latter at maybe a 30% chance, but it's enough for me to justify a 1% stake, and I might buy a bit more if the price continues to drop. More of a speculation than an investment, of course.

Regards, DTB

So Musk didn't just say that 'no safety operator intervened', he said there was no one in the car, and no one controlling it from a distance. They probably did have someone watching what is was doing, and the whole thing was recorded, but it is hard to argue that this wasn't just what it was claimed to be, a bona fide self-delivery.

Those are identical statements right? The person watching it is what I called the safety operator. You can call it a a remote monitor or what ever you like, but there was a person ready to intervene in case of trouble. As far as I can tell, we're in agreement.

This is the claim that I responded to:

True camera-only FSD. No safety driver/observer.

As you point out, there was a safety observer. It would be irresponsible not to have one, especially the first time. As I said previously this a remarkable technical achievement, but I see no reason to inflate it beyond what actually happened.

So Musk didn't just say that 'no safety operator intervened', he said there was no one in the car, and no one controlling it from a distance. They probably did have someone watching what is was doing, and the whole thing was recorded, but it is hard to argue that this wasn't just what it was claimed to be, a bona fide self-delivery.

Those are identical statements right?


Actually, no. There is a difference between "no safety operator intervened" and "there was no safety operator". The latter would show a lot more confidence in the service.

But the more important point is that such confidence looks like it is probably misplaced. The fact that after just a few recorded robotaxi rides in Austin, under perfect conditions, there were some pretty major obvious driving mistakes, indicates to me that they are still a long way from letting cars drive safely without human drivers, and it makes me wonder why they are pushing ahead with robotaxis OR self-delivery. The robotaxi rides make it clear that they are not ready yet, and self-delivery is just as dangerous for the other road users as a robotaxi. So it is hard to see why they wouldn't need a human operator, whether in the car or remotely, for both robotaxis and for self-deliveries.

Maybe the company is desperate for some good news, but if it's not ready, it's not ready, and rolling these things out when it's not ready will get them in the news all right, but not the way they want.

dtb

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car or remotely operating the car on a public highway.”

Elon probably just forgot about Waymo, which has driven MILLIONS of miles autonomously. Yes, they have safety officers who can control them remotely, but my understanding is they only look in when told to by the car or passengers. When they drop off their passengers, they drive to the next pickup request autonomously with no people in the car. They have 10 million paid rides, so Waymo driven fully autonomously with no people in the car to its next pickup MILLIONS of times.

Maybe he meant this was Tesla's first fully autonomous drive with no people in the car.

Someone accuses Elon of rushing FSD to market and endangering lives. Who cares that Tesla makes by far the safest cars, will save millions of lives with this new FSD technology and will also save the millions of lives of people who will not get sick from inhaling the toxic fumes ICE cars put out.

Since that someone may have been me, let me say that I try to keep an open mind. I think Musk deserves a ton of credit for what he has achieved with Tesla and with his other ventures too. And I have no doubt that Tesla will eventually get FSD to the point where it is safer than having a human driving, and will thereby save millions of lives.

But is the company there yet? Have you seen the videos of Robotaxis driving through left-turn lanes, bumping other cars and stopping in the middle of the street for no obvious reason, except maybe the glare of the sun? Given the fact that there have only been a few dozen of these cars driving around for a few days, it seems hard to believe they are quite there yet. Do you have some other explanation for this?

my guess is that the models are simply doing what humans do: glare in your eyes you slow down. Of course the car can still see fine but the humans that it's trying to mimic can't ... so the FSD ends up slowing down too.

Interesting idea. Sounds a bit similar to what Musk has described as a difficulty for neural nets when they're trying to learn how to stop at a stop sign, given the fact that the humans that they are imitating usually don't:


Musk explained the challenge posed by the fact that less than 0.5% of drivers come to a complete stop at stop signs.

This makes it incredibly difficult to program the vehicle with such sparse data on people obeying the law. This lack of data highlights Tesla's obstacles in training its AI systems to operate in real-world scenarios where human drivers frequently do not adhere to the rules.


Stock down today with the flare-up of Musk vs Trump flaming. I think both of them will back off pretty quickly, and it is all a side-show. The only real question is do we get to FSD soon or not. And, maybe I should add, to what extent does Tesla have a significant advantage in robotic manufacturing and robots in general, which is hard to judge. I still think I want to be on the Musk side of the bet and I took advantage of the price swoon today to get up to 1.5% of my portfolio. Maybe I will double that if we get down to $250 a share, which we might, since I expect the news in the next few months to stay bad. But the real question is what happens in 12-24 months, and I think this is Tesla's game to win.

DTB

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