[netinstructions]

While you're waiting for the main event to start, here are some recent interviews with Elon about self-driving cars. He's very confident.

"To me right now, this seems 'game, set, and match,'" Musk said. "I could be wrong, but it appears to be the case that Tesla is vastly ahead of everyone."

I am eager to see what they unveil today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEv99vxKjVI

https://ark-invest.com/research/podcast/elon-musk-podcast

[dforrestwilson]

Hmmm so then why is Tesla ranked last for autonomous driving by third party researchers?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiR...

And Elon has a long history of making false claims about Tesla’s progress. For example in 2015 and 2016 he claimed that Teslas would be fully self-driving by 2018.

So why shouldn’t we be skeptical?

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/03/teslas-self-driving-str...

[DeonPenny]

But Navigant curriculum was very unscientific. There no actual quantitive reason Tesla is worse. Is was based mainly on business factors like go-to market strategy and vision.

[jerska]

The first article you link to sources another article as its source, which itself calls bullshit on the ranking.

Your link:

> According to Electrek, Tesla trails behind other companies in terms of autonomous driving tech based on a list created by Navigant Research, an independent research firm.

Electrek’s article:

> Electrek’s Take

> I think Navigant’s autonomous leaderboard is ridiculous. There are way too many brands that keep most of their development under wraps, which makes it hard to evaluate them and therefore, it gives very little value to a leaderboard like this in my opinion.

[whamlastxmas]

What other major manufacturer has anything close to Tesla's autopilot in a car I can buy today? As far as I know, no one.

[ryanlol]

Some big time source laundering going on in here, https://electrek.co/2019/04/19/tesla-falls-autonomous-drivin...

Your "third party research" is obviously bullshit, they go as far as including Apple in their ranking.

This right here is just typical worthless marketing press release spam from a management consultancy firm.

[cflewis]

My guess is he means "on the highway". The scary bits of self-driving is person detection, crossing detection, roadwork detection, cyclist detection (e.g. coming up on the right when you are trying to make a right turn).

The Waymo end-game that I heard was "able to go through a drive-thru". I highly doubt Tesla is anywhere near that point.

[Xylakant]

There have been news reports about the model 3 autopilot getting its speed limits from maps, lacking any sort of sign recognition or manual override to adjust to local conditions. The maps seem to be outdated for germany (1). That’s an essential feature even on the autobahn. Given that test result I’d even be skeptical about any claims of being ahead of the game on the highway.

(1) https://m.heise.de/autos/artikel/Test-Tesla-Model-3-4400919....

[jacquesm]

> through a drive-thru

The kind of drive-thru that Tesla is currently associated with involves semis rather than fast food and it would be really nice to hear that they've at least licked that particular bug (and for good, this time).

[cr0sh]

> The scary bits of self-driving is person detection, crossing detection, roadwork detection...

Your point it very astute.

Among a few other ML/AI MOOCs, I completed Udacity's "Self-Driving Car Engineer" nanodegree - so when I'm out driving, I often come upon situations where I wonder "how would a self-driving car navigate this?"

Today, driving in to work (note: USA), I noticed one intersection I've been through many times before, and that question came to mind. The intersection is interesting, because on approaching it, the road curves to the right, and you can actually see one of the traffic lights on the left before you even see the intersection. By the time you see the intersection, you're already on top of it.

So as you round the curve, you see the lone traffic signal (red/yellow/green); if it is red, do you start to brake, or do you wait until you can "see" more traffic signals? If you wait - will you have time to slow down and/or stop? ...and so forth.

This and others are all kind of "edge cases" that will need to be trained on, and/or perhaps other cues for self-driving vehicles installed or set up so the vehicles can navigate such areas successfully. I know when I first went through the intersection it was a bit of a surprise; it's not a very safe intersection (going home in the opposite direction is not any better; in that direction, you're headed downhill, have to cross the intersection, and immediately start turning to the left after going through - the curve is really abrupt, and you have protected/unprotected left-hand turns both directions, etc).

[eaurouge]

Well they’re vastly ahead in one area: data collection. No other company is even close. You could argue about the quality of data but the platform is there and ever growing, and they can upgrade their hardware in the future and augment existing data.

[stefan_]

Don't kid yourself, the car has no bandwidth storage or performance to send back anything other than a few raw frames from disengage events or other rare triggers.

[nikofeyn]

how can you claim that? more than waymo? that would be extremely doubtful. google has been driving around cars with sensors and cameras for over a decade.

[tigershark]

Maybe too much confident if you ask me..

[netinstructions]

I agree. The interview with MIT researcher Lex Fridman was difficult to watch because it didn't seem like they were on the same page at all - Lex asking thoughtful and pointed questions and Elon dismissing them as if the questions themselves are moot because self driving is right around the corner.

It was mind boggling. I am hoping Tesla can provide some specifics today because it seems Elon is living in a fantasy world (albeit one I'd like to live in if we can actually get safe self-driving cars).

[Hamuko]

I hope Elon has tested the autopilot in Finland during the winter then.