Elon Musk's Own Engineers Say He Exaggerates Autopilot Capabilities (theverge.com) 110
boudie2 writes: According to his own employees, Elon Musk has been exaggerating the capabilities of Tesla's Autopilot system. Documents obtained from the California Department of Motor Vehicles show that despite Musk's tweets to the contrary, "Elon's tweet does not match engineering reality per CJ. Tesla is at Level 2 currently." CJ Moore is the company's director of Autopilot software. "Level 2 technology refers to a semi-automated driving system, which requires supervision by a human driver," reports The Verge. "Tesla is unlikely to achieve Level 5 (L5) autonomy, in which its cars can drive themselves anywhere, under any conditions, without any human supervision, by the end of 2021, Tesla representatives told the DMV.
Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:1)
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When did Tesla start selling Full Self Driving as a distinct feature? How much longer should those first buyers have to wait for a feature they already paid for?
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Re: Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:2)
I thought that is what "autopilot" meant... I mean literally. ... and b5y literally, I mean the opposite of metaphorically, and not some definition made up by some marketing department in a country that has a history of making up its own definition for English words.
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It was originally sold in 2016. Back then it was promoted as being able to drive coast to coast by itself, including self recharging and cleaning as needed. It would drive you to work, then you get out and it goes to park itself, and collects you later. That was on the Tesla website under the description of the feature.
The price has fluctuated over the years, sometimes as low as $3,000, currently $10,000.
Tesla has also been walking back the capabilities of "full self driving", removing promises that it woul
Re:Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:5, Insightful)
So? This is not news. ThebModel X was behind schedule, the roadster 2 is also. So is cybertruck. Doesnt mean it wont get there. Just means two senior members of Tesla disagree on the trajectory.
Musk has been predicting FSD is just around the corner for years. He either doesn't understand the difficulty of the task (and how far they have to go) or he's deliberately misrepresenting the tech they have to keep the hype going.
Frankly, considering that he was just caught misleading people about the circumstances of a fatal accident [slashdot.org] I'm inclined to believe the latter.
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Frankly, considering that he was just caught misleading people about the circumstances of a fatal accident [slashdot.org] I'm inclined to believe the latter.
According to subsequent news articles this theory was debunked [abc.net.au] as someone was found to be at the wheel of the car involved in the TX crash.
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Lying? (Score:2)
> Tesla is lying about it, because we know there wasn't.
That logic doesn't follow because they aren't the only possibilities. They could be just wrong, and basing their statements on some false data. Ie misplaced confidence in their data. That, of course, would be unheard of in an American company.
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Except that Elon Musk is a fraud and a liar, and liars lie.
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Model 3's and Model Y's do have inside cameras. But these purposely left off for privacy purposes and reserved for future services.
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True. Sorry, I thought your comment about being able to afford a $20 camera meant that you didn't know they did on some vehicles. I imagine they will also put them on the new model S and X vehicles too, but whether they will use them for that purpose is to be seen.
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Let me correct that for you. There was no driver buckled in to the driver's seat when the fire department arrived. There are no witnesses and very little evidence that there was not a driver at the time of the crash. Damage to the steering wheel indicates there was a driver. The fact that the car was "driving" at the time of the crash is evidence that there was a driver. Is it possible to make any car accelerate without a driver? Yes. It is much harder in a Tesla because of the interlocks, but sure i
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Musk has been predicting FSD is just around the corner for years. He either doesn't understand the difficulty of the task (and how far they have to go) or he's deliberately misrepresenting the tech they have to keep the hype going.
Or... he's just doing what the CEO of every company in the world is supposed to be doing - making people dream of owning his company's product.
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Why cant you say the actual reality that Musk is a bullshit artist instead of pretending its an innocent mistake ?
Re:Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:4, Insightful)
Musk has been predicting FSD is just around the corner for years. He either doesn't understand the difficulty of the task (and how far they have to go) or he's deliberately misrepresenting the tech they have to keep the hype going.
I am pretty sure he does not understand what he is talking about. Despite what many people believe, Musk is not actually an engineer has has no understanding of the complexities involved.
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Nobody understands the difficulty of something that has never been done before. For instance, landing the booster of an orbital class rocket and reusing it 9 times or more. But I would bet that Elon and Tesla have a better and more accurate understanding than anyone else on the planet. They certainly have several orders of magnitude more data, and arguably better engineers than anyone else.
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Nobody understands the difficulty of something that has never been done before.
I don't understand the difficulty of building a warp drive, but I'm pretty sure I'm not building one tomorrow.
Just watch the Tesla display showing where the other vehicles on the road are, it quite regularly doesn't know the location of vehicles immediately around it.
You can't drive if you can't see.
But I would bet that Elon and Tesla have a better and more accurate understanding than anyone else on the planet. They certainly have several orders of magnitude more data, and arguably better engineers than anyone else.
No one involved in self-driving thinks that Tesla has the best self-driving (though they're trying a harder approach). And I have no idea why you think Elon Musk in particular would be a particular expert, but w
Re:Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yet we know the Musk has a penchant for fraud and has called on it many times, at least once formally. His products are good, but generally overstated.
I'm neutral on Tesla. They seem fine but I'd rather have a cheap used car and spend my money elsewhere.
Now, Falcon 9 is not overstated. It has decimated the competition and is so much more economical to fly than anything before it that SpaceX created Starlink to keep themselves busy while the market catches up. And that's without even considering whether or not Starship pans out. You have your undies in a bunch about Tesla but that's not the company Elon Musk will be remembered for.
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Now, Falcon 9 is not overstated. It has decimated the competition and is so much more economical to fly than anything before it
Is it really? While rocket technology is always cool, how much of the competitive pricing is because the US government is subsidizing it? How much of it is smokes and mirrors?
SpaceX rockets were supposed to cost significantly less than the competition, but NASA paid $1.6 billion for 12 launches [wikipedia.org], more than twice as expensive expensive as the advertised $60 million per launch [cnbc.com].
As for decimating the competition, why do I see a lot of launches listed for the Chinese [wikipedia.org] and Russian [wikipedia.org] rockets? Or did you intend the ori
Re: Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:3)
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The Russians charges $80 million per launch and the Chinese $70 million. ISS resupply missions do not contain any military or classified requirements. It was politics that excluded them from the bidding process. Not to mention Russians had to resupply the ISS anyways for their part of the station so they had all the tech already.
There's also the recent broadband subsidy of $800 million [cnbc.com], when the service is nowhere near ready for use.
Note that I'm not arguing whether it's right to subsidize SpaceX or space d
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The Russians charges $80 million per launch and the Chinese $70 million.
For how much payload to where? What are you quoting?
ISS resupply missions do not contain any military or classified requirements. It was politics that excluded them from the bidding process. Not to mention Russians had to resupply the ISS anyways for their part of the station so they had all the tech already.
Why would the contract go to someone who was already supplying the station? The purpose of the program was to diversify.
There's also the recent broadband subsidy of $800 million [cnbc.com], when the service is nowhere near ready for use.
They have not received a dime of that subsidy at this point. When that award was announced they had already launched 15 times placing 900 production satellites in orbit. Now they are up to 25 times and 1,500 satellites. Whether they get the money or not, they are clearly not dependent on it.
Note that I'm not arguing whether it's right to subsidize SpaceX or space development in general, the latter of which I think is very important. I would like to see it done in plain sight though.
What is being hidden again?
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For how much payload to where? What are you quoting?
Are you retarded or something? To LEO of course. GTO would be way more expensive and who in their right mind would buy a space launch that doesn't reach LEO?
Here's Chinese [parabolicarc.com] costs. This is from a while back so it probably dropped a bit since then.
Here's Russian man-rated [space.com] costs. Here's non-man-rated [dw.com]. I also saw some saying $35 million is the true cost, while the rest is markup, but I'm not going to include speculative numbers here.
Why would the contract go to someone who was already supplying the station?
Because you want them to do more?
The purpose of the program was to diversify.
Not to resupply the station? Do you have a sour
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By the way, China has a growing private space sector that could be really interesting in the next few years.
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Is it really? While rocket technology is always cool, how much of the competitive pricing is because the US government is subsidizing it? How much of it is smokes and mirrors?
They have received a few relatively small grants. Mostly they have received fixed price contracts for far less than the competition.
SpaceX rockets were supposed to cost significantly less than the competition, but NASA paid $1.6 billion for 12 launches [wikipedia.org], more than twice as expensive expensive as the advertised $60 million per launch [cnbc.com].
I assume you're quoting the price for commercial resupply. Because you apparently do recognize the difference between the price for putting satellites in orbit and theprice for flying a spacecraft to the ISS and back, I am going to disregard this objection.
As for decimating the competition, why do I see a lot of launches listed for the Chinese [wikipedia.org] and Russian [wikipedia.org] rockets? Or did you intend the original meaning of "decimate" to mean reduced by 10%?
Now do Arianespace and ULA.
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I guess you have a few billions in your pocket for chewing gum or something. Not sure how that is small.
Yes all launchers are built on gov gifts, why cant you jsut be honest and say yes SpaceX is no different from Boeing, the C or Russians ?
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Rocketry is very simple compared to self-driving. It is also a low-hanging fruit, because the government-funded space agencies are lazy, conservative and stagnant. All it took was somebody hiring the right people and providing enough money.
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They aren't "his products", though. Tesla is a company of 70,000+ employees. A grave injustice is constantly attributing everything Tesla achieves to Elon Musk. Tesla is a potentially great company being held back by a pathological liar and fraud.
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Re: Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:4, Insightful)
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No. As anyone who has ever tried the currently released limited edition FSD not to mention the excellent betas being tested and available for viewing on youtube, the car very much does the driving, and the "Driver" is more of a monitor just in case an edge condition occurs. In reality, the current FSD (not feature complete) is not a driver assistance feature (assist the human) so much as the human operator assists the virtual driver.
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True. That is why Tesla is not selling FSD as feature complete and bends over backward to explain to purchasers and operators that the capability and the regulations do not allow that yet. They are buying future capability at the current price.
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Obligatory SMBC:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fsd [smbc-comics.com]
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2 out of 5 doesn't mean "full" in English or any other language.
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> doesn't mean "full" in English or any other language.
QFT.
I can't believe Tesla is actually increasing sales enough with this word to make this all worthwhile.
The means justify the ends.
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Level 2 is partial driving automation [synopsys.com]. The human must monitor at all times: that's where Tesla is currently.
To be "full self driving" it should at least be level 3, where the car can recognize and alert the user to take control with sufficient time.
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Re: Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:2)
If a level 2 capable Tesla is "full self driving", what do you call a level 3 Honda?
You can buy self driving Honda's in Japan now. Tesla have been leapfrogged by the traditional car makers, the ones who test and certify their tech before selling to customers.
It's not going to be long until Mercedes starts selling theirs and other manufacturers licence Honda's system
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You can buy a Legend for about 7.5 million yen. It's self descibed "level 3" self driving is adaptive cruise control and lane keeping under 65km/hr. It only operates if someone is holding the steering wheel. These features have been around for years on other brands. Protip: marketing people lie.
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A game that Tesla/Musk is exploiting, as are you. You want to hide behind deliberately confusing semantics.
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That Elon Musk is a huckster who makes claims that do not match the engineering? Sure. But it's news that a Tesla engineer is actually revealing that he's full of crap behind the scenes.
Methinks said engineer will soon be told that his services are no longer required.
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Yup - was just gonna say, that's what they used to call a "career-limiting-move". Back when everybody was an "upwardly-mobile" yuppie with huge hair and cheap polyester suits.
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> Yup - was just gonna say, that's what they used to call a "career-limiting-move".
CLM [catb.org] is one of many TLAs [catb.org] that exist in tech, government, and military culture.
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> CLM is one of many TLAs that exist in tech, government, and military culture.
I should change my initials! I have a habit of telling people to fuck off and quit when they tell me the lawsuits will be cheaper to settle than doing the software right to prevent avoidable deaths.
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Yeah, having a spine generally results in bearing the load from the door on your ass.
But it's important. Good on you.
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There seems to be a constant retelling as fact an alternative history where Elon and by extension Tesla has "Promised" FSD by a certain date. Elon is constantly asked (yes for many years) when he thinks FSD will be done and full autonomy is reached. He gives his currently best guess on when certain features will be released. He also always goes on to explain (though it is often edited out) that when "the march of nines" reaches the point that FSD is so much better than human drivers that they will be all
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I think it's not news for other reasons. Fact is, I've never seen a CxO who wasn't "wildly optimistic" towards the press, regardless of what may be actually happening internally. I have come to believe that they believe their own hype. So no, this behavior isn't news.
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True, but have you even seen the stock price of the company of said CEO's increase to more than the next 6 largest vehicle manufacturers combined? Based on the idea that "a fleet of a million Robotaxis will go online in just a few more months with a simple OTA update"? ;)
Re: Elon and CJ have different timelines (Score:2)
The Falcon heavy was also often promised and then delivered way behind schedule.
I guess the difference is no one paid for a Falcon Heavy lift in 2011.
That sounds about right. (Score:5, Interesting)
I am inclined to trust this engineer over the loud CEO. I am willing to agree to a lot of things that seem to be valid, and to scoff at other things that don't seem to have a solid basis. Yes, this surely sounds really subjective, and you have every right to call me a "dog on the Internet with an opinion."
I still think that true "AI" is not existent. Sure, machine learning is very real. And useful. And Tesla has used it for helping their cars. Or more specifically, helping the drivers of their cars to avoid their driving duties. Should I emphasize the word DUTIES?! EVERY driver MUST by law be safe and prudent.
Sure, I understand that so many drivers are NOT safe. Maybe I was one of them at some time (long ago). My point is that simple tech can be helpful. But the idea of "AI" is bullshit. And I condemn those who try to claim this non-existent AI is actually here.
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The
Re: That sounds about right. (Score:3)
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The cars will begin purposefully killing each other?
Nah, just getting into petty disputes with each other on Twitter.
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> The cars will begin purposefully killing each other?
The toasters will become creative and distracted, experimenting and burning your toast every once in a while.
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Anything you can do, you can make a computer do better.
No lol, and even things where computers are able to do well in controlled conditions (like MRI tumor recognition), when faced with the real world, computers don't do as well.
There is a subset of problems where computers perform better than humans.
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Tesla, like all self driving car efforts, does not use true AI. They do image recognition, but planning and decision making are done by algorithm.
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Nobody uses true AI, because that does not exist. At this time, it is still completely unclear whether it is even possible in this universe, despite many no-clue people claiming it is. (No, "humans do it" is not a valid argument, because nobody knows how humans do it either. No, claiming "the brain does it" is not scientifically valid either, because there is no proof it does and alternatives exist.)
The actual indications from following the field for now something like 30 years I have is that it looks rathe
Re: That sounds about right. (Score:2)
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There is plenty of evidence that the brain "does" intelligence. It is much stronger than any alternative
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You can and probably should believe both. They are not mutually exclusive. Elon is talking about capability from a technical standpoint. The engineer in this context is talking about what the lawyers, insurance companies, and regulators are willing to accept. Any level 4 and level 5 capable system can and should be artificially restricted to level 2 until it is legal to do otherwise.
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This whole story is utter bullshit. There is a small detail that The Verge missed. One word: "Currently" was removed from the beginning of the sentence. That makes a huuuge difference.
Everyone, including Elon agrees that Currently FSD is only at level 2. It needs supervision, it makes you accept that you will supervise, and gets angry at you if you stop.
Elon thinks they will reach level 5 towards the end of this year, with regulatory acceptance maybe coming later. I haven't heard any engineers disagree
No shit (Score:4, Informative)
"Tesla is unlikely to achieve Level 5 (L5) autonomy, in which its cars can drive themselves anywhere, under any conditions, without any human supervision, by the end of 2021, Tesla representatives told the DMV.
You don't say. We're already a third of the way through 2021 and Tesla, nor anyone, has come out with a vehicle which can drive on a marked road without assistance and without running into issues. To think Tesla can achieve Level 5 in 8 months is ludicrous, and anyone saying anything to the contrary is flat out lying.
2030 would be a possible starting point for when we might see evidence of Level 5, but not before.
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The problem is Musk keeps predicting that it's just around the corner. He was sure that it would be rolled out and taking paying passengers by the end of 2020, and before that 2019, and 2017 before that.
That wouldn't be such an issue if it wasn't for the fact that people paid for that feature 5 years ago and still don't have it. Their cars are coming to the end of their leases and warranties and there is no sign of it.
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Yeah, Tesla should make refunds available for those who bought FSD under that pretext.
Elon is right that the ability will become asymptotic at some point, it's just when that point is.
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Indeed. But the thing is, we still have a delay of a few decades from successful lab-demo to general availability (no, the CS field is _not_ faster). We do not have a successful lab demo of L5 self-driving at this time.
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Wyamo is level 4. That alone is extremely useful.
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2030 would be a possible starting point for when we might see evidence of Level 5, but not before.
Maybe. Or even later. I have seen where they were about 35 years ago and all the simple stuff was solved back then already, just sensors and computing power missing. My impression is that there was basically no progress at all on the hard parts since then.
The Secret of His Success (Score:1)
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Donald who?
Fake it 'till you make it (Score:2)
Maybe He Could be in Danger of Homicide Charges (Score:3)
Re: Maybe He Could be in Danger of Homicide Charge (Score:2)
Lol. I think he oversold it too, but lets put this in perspective:
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/da... [cdc.gov]
*Cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the United States each year*
And the difference is the cigarettes were used as directed.
The US is a HUGE buyer beware culture. Musk is nothing compared to what else has flown here.
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If you mean by yapping, he tweets about how good version 9 of FSD is your statement is partially true. But he and the rest of Tesla is very consistent in telling everyone in every communication that a driver is currently required to have his or her butt in the seat and paying attention.
He's a sales man (Score:2)
Sales man sells things by talking them up. More news at 11.
Re:He's a sales man (Score:4, Insightful)
huckster | \ hk-str
Definition of huckster
1 : hawker, peddler especially : one who sells or advertises something in an aggressive, dishonest, or annoying way
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
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huckster | \ hk-str
Definition of huckster
1 : hawker, peddler especially : one who sells or advertises something in an aggressive, dishonest, or annoying way
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
I don't remember seeing a Tesla ad anywhere.
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Not disagreeing with your post.
In your signature, I think you mean 'Formerly', not 'Formally'. :-)
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There's a vi keybinding mode for emacs, part of the accessibility project, so maybe he's inter-$EDITORial.
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Looks like my choices are:
1) Blame some type of autocorrect
2) Attack you viciously for being a pedant
3) Thank you profusely for correcting my embarrassing brainfart
Let's go with 3.
Obligatory SMBC (Score:2)
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fsd [smbc-comics.com]
Level Five (Score:1)
Musk is forecasting the rate of technological progress and others at the company are informing a government agency of Tesla's expectations for seeking level 5 certification. There is certainly going to be a significant interval between when Tesla achieves level 5 performance capabilities in practice and when Tesla feels that they have accumulated enough data with drivers at the wheel to be confident that they those drivers do not need to be at the wheel.
It goes like this:
1. Get to level five performance ca
Another dumb "HEADLINE!" (Score:2)
Actually reading the article
"Hey, engineer guy, what's the actual timeline like for this self driving stuff at Tesla?" - DMV
"WTF I dunno, it's a fucking software project." - Head Engineer Guy
Verge deceptively left out a very important word (Score:3)
The Verge left out the word "currently" out of a key quote, drastically altering its meaning. Details here [reddit.com].
As the quote appeared in Car and Driver:
As the quote appeared in The Verge:
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Waymo CEO Says Tesla Autopilot Will Never Be True Self-Driving
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2... [arstechnica.com]
Elon may never make it to Mars... (Score:2)
... but his reputation as a loudmouth is already there. The man cannot shut up and loves to make the wildest, most provocative pronouncements he can come up with.
Not exactly news.
Yes -- Evidenced and Makes Sense (Score:2)
If what I've gleaned is correct, the approach Tesla is using for its full auto-pilot is fundamentally limited (as is). My understanding is that, instead of using Lidar or radar, it's using just cameras. The approach of object identification is to first identify lines and from those, shapes, to signature phenomenon of interest. Also with stereo cameras, you can identify distance by the offset of an object's position between cameras. This is all very easy to program and it can identify objects independent
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