Tesla Full Self-Driving System's Beta Developer Settings Leaked (arstechnica.com) 57
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It's a long time coming for Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature, and it hasn't been a cheap journey. The price for the self-driving feature has increased multiple times and is currently available for supported Teslas for $10,000.While Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta continues to expand to more Tesla owners ahead of a planned end-of-year launch, the actual settings for the system have been uncovered and published on Twitter by a well-known Tesla hacker named Green. Not only are there dozens of settings and available adjustments, but there's also a way to show a detailed vehicle view of the world while a Tesla is driving down the road.
In a Twitter thread, Green shares the status of internal states within the system while taking us on a tour of dozens of settings ranging from controls for FSD and Enhanced Summon to information about the Camera and Ultrasonics. The system also shows sliders for GPS, speed threshold, and other items that no one outside of Tesla should ever mess with. There's also an Augmented Vision area where developers can toggle what's seen on a Tesla display while driving. It includes toggles for Pretty, Developer, and Camera Image. Once Developer is enabled, it shows options for a whole host of data that can be shown on the infotainment system. This all may be information overload for the average Tesla owner, but it's a fun way to get more details on how a Tesla sees the world. Tesla being Tesla, the developer settings also have fun settings including California Stop (which generally means you don't bring the car to a halt but just slow down at a stop sign) and something called Chiropractor Adjust Skeleton, which is filed under the City Streets settings. What that means is a mystery, but both items are part of the FSD defaults in the developer controls.
In a Twitter thread, Green shares the status of internal states within the system while taking us on a tour of dozens of settings ranging from controls for FSD and Enhanced Summon to information about the Camera and Ultrasonics. The system also shows sliders for GPS, speed threshold, and other items that no one outside of Tesla should ever mess with. There's also an Augmented Vision area where developers can toggle what's seen on a Tesla display while driving. It includes toggles for Pretty, Developer, and Camera Image. Once Developer is enabled, it shows options for a whole host of data that can be shown on the infotainment system. This all may be information overload for the average Tesla owner, but it's a fun way to get more details on how a Tesla sees the world. Tesla being Tesla, the developer settings also have fun settings including California Stop (which generally means you don't bring the car to a halt but just slow down at a stop sign) and something called Chiropractor Adjust Skeleton, which is filed under the City Streets settings. What that means is a mystery, but both items are part of the FSD defaults in the developer controls.
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Came here to say this. It sounds like a testing mode for emergency stops that can cause whiplash.
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as one who is saving their pennies for a model 3.
i am listening.
there is a wealth of information that could add value to these types of vehicles.
and i know that tesla wants all the money they can get.
but folks like tesla can not afford to purchase the creativity that it takes to push their product.
but by exposing their a p i to the wild.
it allows for those that explore various non profitable niche markets to do fundamental engineering.
a classic example is the volks wagon fun buggy
Re: Chiropractor Adjust Skeleton (Score:2)
No user serviceable parts inside (Score:5, Interesting)
"The system also shows sliders for GPS, speed threshold, and other items that no one outside of Tesla should ever mess with."
But they will. Will make rolling coal seem quaint.
In a future dystopia where driving is not allowed, hacks to let you manually operate the self-driving cars will absolutely be a thing, and without any human input devices (pedals, steering wheel), it will all be done by "messing with those things".
Let you manually drive? That is quaint... (Score:2, Insightful)
In a future dystopia where driving is not allowed, hacks to let you manually operate the self-driving cars will absolutely be a thing,
Why would you do that, when instead you could hack the maximum speed and thresholds for when it decides to slow down, so that it could weave through any traffic at 140MPH using every ounce of the AI ability to make close calls without crashing... That would be one hell of a thrill ride.
Oh that and hacking the mandatory transponder so you come up as some other car going 140MP
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Re:Let you manually drive? That is quaint... (Score:5, Informative)
When computers drive the cars, 140MPH will be an energy cost consideration, not a safety consideration. Anyone doubting the impressive accuracy of computers has not been paying attention in the last 60 years. Computers are good at some things, and bad at others. One thing they are AMAZING at? Accuracy. Once a flaw is fixed in one, its fixed in all. The safety will reach astronomical levels, and it will be unbelievable that we used to kill 40,000 people in car crashes every year.
It will also be unbelievable when shitty cybersecurity doesn't result in millions of those AMAZING computers getting hacked every damn year.
Perhaps you haven't been paying attention for the last 60 years. Computer security, still sucks. Anyone doubting the impressive deadliness of a fully autonomous vehicle system hasn't seen 40,000 cars get hacked at the same time.
Let's peddle in a bit more reality now. Once a flaw is found in one, the rest are usually fucked.
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These cars aren't desktops bro. You seem to be under the impression that all computers suck and get hacked. Hardly any do, unless they run desktop systems, or share authentication with desktop systems, generally.
When cybersecurity failures hit the evening news, it's not because 50,000 Grandmas suddenly couldn't play Solitaire.
Again, peddle in a bit more reality here. What you call "desktops" most businesses call customers. Making systems communicate with them, is rather unavoidable if you want to be in business. The most secure "desktop" in the world is one that is turned off and locked in a closet. Doesn't mean it's worth a shit.
And in the end, Greed is driving it all (quite literally), liability be damned. Y
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When computers drive the cars, 140MPH will be an energy cost consideration, not a safety consideration.
Completely wrong. There IS an energy cost consideration, but there is also a safety consideration. It's not enough to model the energy dissipation of the tires and then write that down under "total energy consumed", you also have to look at things like "at what temperature does this tire explode". Or more obscurely, "at what speed do tire failures become common". Which raises the next point; if there is a catastrophic equipment failure at 140 MPH, odds are good that someone is going to die. We use e.g. 55 M
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When computers drive the cars, 140MPH will be an energy cost consideration, not a safety consideration.
Completely wrong. There IS an energy cost consideration, but there is also a safety consideration. It's not enough to model the energy dissipation of the tires and then write that down under "total energy consumed", you also have to look at things like "at what temperature does this tire explode". Or more obscurely, "at what speed do tire failures become common". Which raises the next point; if there is a catastrophic equipment failure at 140 MPH, odds are good that someone is going to die. We use e.g. 55 MPH for non-divided highways and 65 MPH for divided ones (in California, in general, with some exceptions, etc.) because of the risks involved in collisions at these speeds in collisions.
In order to have a road which is safe for 140 MPH travel, you need segregation between cars, you need broad runoffs with gravel to slow down lost vehicles, you need roll cages and fireproof clothing and crash helmets and whiplash arrestor straps...
You need run-flat tires.
Making the road insanely complicated so that your car doesn't have to suck really doesn't make a lot of sense. Just make sure your tires are made in such a way that a blowout doesn't require losing control of the vehicle.
Just mandate run-flat technology for all new tires sold, and mandate that only self-driving cars can use any roads with a speed limit over 85 MPH, and then after ten or fifteen years, eliminate the speed limit on major freeways and force the few remaining manual-dri
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Chances are, if you mandate run-flat tires, the tire manufacturers will find ways to make the less noisy. Right now, there's not a lot of motivation for doing so; if people complain about the noise, they can just recommend switching to non-run-flat tires.
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My BMW has run flats. They ride harshly for sure, but it sure is convenient never having to stop and change a flat.
Changing to normal tires is totally possible, the biggest drawback is in that case is my car has nowhere dedicated to put a spare. It would have to take up trunk space.
Re: Let you manually drive? That is quaint... (Score:2)
You would still be running on rubber tires, which are significant sources of pollution. And for what? If you have taken human drivers out of the equation then there is truly no good reason to not run on rails.
Re: Let you manually drive? That is quaint... (Score:2)
Also, tire failures are far from the only possibility. Wheels, suspension links, suspension joints, steering racks, and CV axles can all fail catastrophically at high speeds.
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In order to have a road which is safe for 140 MPH travel, you need segregation between cars, you need broad runoffs with gravel to slow down lost vehicles, you need roll cages and fireproof clothing and crash helmets and whiplash arrestor straps... It just doesn't make sense to try to go that fast on rubber tires, in cars, etc. If you want to go that fast in safety, you need a train.
Germany says hi.
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In order to have a road which is safe for 140 MPH travel, you need [etc.]
Germany says hi.
409 people died on the Autobahn in 2017 (year for which statistics popped right up, no other reason I chose it) and about half of those cases are attributed to excessive speed. Every developed nation has a goal of 0 traffic deaths. But maybe you were talking about Germany having trains? Ridership is down 40% since Covid but that's to be expected...
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409 people died on the Autobahn in 2017 (year for which statistics popped right up, no other reason I chose it) and about half of those cases are attributed to excessive speed. Every developed nation has a goal of 0 traffic deaths. But maybe you were talking about Germany having trains? Ridership is down 40% since Covid but that's to be expected...
Everybody wants no deaths of course, and you could eliminate the vast majority with a blanket speed limit of around 20km/h everywhere, but that ain't gonna happen.
Life has risks. German voters will decide if the risk/reward of the Autobahn is worth it. So far it is still there and not looking to go anywhere soon.
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Why would you do that, when instead you could hack the maximum speed and thresholds for when it decides to slow down, so that it could weave through any traffic at 140MPH using every ounce of the AI ability to make close calls without crashing...
Sure, as long as you can brake, turn, and accelerate at will in real time like a real driver, no reason not to let the AI augment it if it can indeed do things better.
Once you take away the machines autonomy however, its idea of better may conflict with yours. You could switch roles back and forth, but you would have to be careful never to share them.
max 10 over posted limit is unsafe (Score:1)
max 10 over posted limit is unsafe of some roads when next to no one it doing the posted speed.
It needs to be able to do 70-75 in an posted 55 zone and even some of the joke 45 work zones.
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I have to say that it really is rapidly improving.
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It is only unsafe because we have a lot of other people who decided that that traffic should be moving faster.
It is rather trivial logic, to adjust your speed to go with what the other traffic is doing. However, if you are doing 75 in a 55 zone, while it might be technically safer, you can still be pulled over for speeding.
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A more probable issue is that people will be modifying their cars in dangerous ways. We already have idiots using weights to defeat the autopilot safety system (hands on the wheel). You can even buy them on Amazon.
People will want to crank up the aggressiveness slider to shave a minute or two off their commute, knowing that other driverless cars will swerve out of the way while they take a nap.
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Or is this a Utopia case. Where we no longer have the stress of driving, having police hiding behind every corner of the road to supplement local municipal budgets.
Back in the day, every computer sold had some way to program it. Over time, software development tools became optional on computers. Because not everyone needed to program a computer.
I expect with full self driving proven safe and effective. There will be a small subset of people getting cars that you drive yourself, as an entertainment device
Actually, pretty impressed (Score:2)
You could spend a lot of time looking at those displays trying to figure out what they engineered and how well they did it.
Lots of settable parameters: good engineering practice.
What I was hoping for is a better display of the 4D model, but it is amazing hacking to get this much.
California Stop (Score:5, Funny)
A couple decades back I got pulled over for slow rolling through a stop sign in California, but I had New York plates on the car. The cop was like "you didn't really stop, you rolled through the stop sign .. that was a .. umm well I don't know what you guys call it in New York." .. My quick reply "We call it a California stop over there, I'm real sorry I thought it was legal here officer."
I got off with a warning.
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"We call it a California stop over there, I'm real sorry I thought it was legal here officer."
I live in California. Everyone does a "rolling stop" here. It saves time and gas, and is totally safe.
I've never heard of a cop hassling anyone for it, but still, if I notice a cop near the intersection, I do a complete stop.
Re: California Stop (Score:1)
Just don't do it on any land considered to be Indian reservation in Arizona. The cops there will (no joke) give you a speeding ticket for going 36 in a 35 zone. Once they told me that I "blew that stop sign" when they clocked me at 2mph in a California stop. Fortunately I got out of that one because the stupid assholes didn't even show up to court.
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Most states have a rule that the police can't stop you for less than 6mph over the limit. It's to prevent harassment.
The rule does not have the weight of law. A ticket for doing 37 in a 35 mph zone will almost always stand up in court.
For jursidictions with limited tax base for police funding, traffic tickets are often a significant revenue source, so the mandate to issue tickets can be aggressive.
Of course, if you give a police officer grief during a traffic stop for something like a burnt-out taiil light, you always run the risk of getting a ticket for a more costly infraction that occurred at the same time, like a spee
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There's a particular 1.3 mile stretch of road that grazes an Indian reservation, which a lot of commuters use daily, and has a speed limit of 25mph. There isn't any history of major accidents there, or any kind of routine unsafe behavior. Yet, every day, during rush hour, there are no less than two unmarked police cars patrolling that little stretch of road, looking for *anything* to give you a ticket for. This stretch of road is very far removed from anything that the police would be interested in (basical
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Part of that is because people are not required to have calibrated speedometers. There is a +/-% requirement to the manufacture of speedometers, but at highway speed, it is enough of a tolerance, that you can be 5 mph over the limit, and your cars speedometer says you are doing the speed limit.
After arguing over the calibration stuff in too many court cases, police just adopted a rule of thumb that lets them avoid the argument
Re:California Stop (Score:5, Insightful)
It saves time and gas, and is totally safe.
Ah yes, Saving time. Tell us, what do you do with those extra three seconds of your life? Invent a cure for cancer? Rescue puppies? Create world peace?
As for saving gas, considering how leadfooted people are when they drive, the race to get to an intersection followed by slamming on the brakes at the last possible moment, that quarter shot glass of gas you're using to go from a full stop is a rounding error.
As for safety, it's why you Californians entertain us with all those videos at intersections where people get t-boned because rolling through a stop sign is so safe.
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Cops will find reasons to hassle people for nearly any reason. An out of state driver is a good target, as they may not be as familiar to all the laws on the road, and probably doesn't want to fight the ticket in traffic court.
I remember a while back, I was driving in an other state on the highway. This was back when Police just started to use SUV, So I was driving at the speed limit, ahead of me I saw this dark SUV shifting lanes and being very aggressive with the other cars. I was thinking that it wa
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Re:California Stop (Score:5, Funny)
You asshats can't even agree on what side of the road to drive on.
All of Europe drives on the right except Britain, Ireland, Cyprus, and Malta, which drive on the left, and Italy which drives in the center.
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To people wondering how the Italians manage to do that, well, that's what's the horn is for. The most horn-honking I've ever heard in my life was in Rome.
Also, don't let this make you believe that Italy is a lawless country. Far from it. At said trip to Rome, while trying to figure out how to pass an intersection on foot where we had a green light, I witnessed a cop writing out a ticket to a car blowing the red light for a right turn. He had one more car queued up for a ticket behind that car, and as I was
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We eventually got over the intersection by following the lead of a native woman. Apparently, you just have to look like you are ready to commit suicide and start walking, and then the cars will hold back.
Yep. To cross the road in Rome you just... cross the road. The cars will stop.
Scary the first few times you do it but after that it's just like stepping onto a moving escalator.
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To quote John Cleese in Fawlty Towers
Mr. Hamilton : Took five hours from London. Couldn't find the freeway, had to take a little back street called the M5!
Basil Fawlty : [Irate] Well, I'm sorry if it wasn't wide enough for you. A lot of the English cars have steering wheels.
Re: California Stop (Score:2)
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Most people don't bother even slowing down for stop signs anymore.
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I know someone who was pulled out of a car at gunpoint by a police officer because they didn't come to a complete stop at a stop sign.
As a Brit it sounded like the most ridiculous traffic violation I've ever heard of (well, if you exclude jay-walking), topped off with an absolutely priceless stereotypical over-reaction from the police. (And if you knew the guy, you'd know that he'd have given them no cause whatsoever, even on checking his history, for that kind of over-reaction).
We have Stop signs. They ar
If they really want to hide it ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yay (Score:2)
Because who wouldn't want to upgrade to Deathtrap v0.9 and then fiddle with the hidden developer settings dialog?
The car view of the world should be standard (Score:3)
Did it see the semi truck over there? No way to know until it's too late.
California Roll (Score:2)
It's called a "California Roll", not a "California Stop". It is a pun on the Americanized-sushi item called a California Roll. (a roll with seaweed on the outside, rice, avocado, (usually fake) crab, and lots of mayonaise.
Fart mode! (Score:2)