# Tesla Will Make Its Cars Fully Self-Driving, but Not Turn the System On Yet - nyt 10.19.16



## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/business/tesla-autonomous-autopilot-vehicles.html
*Tesla Will Make Its Cars Fully Self-Driving, but Not Turn the System On Yet*

DETROIT - Tesla Motors said on Wednesday that it would equip all of its new vehicles with technology that enables fully autonomous driving, but would not activate the system until it undergoes further testing.

In a blog post, the maker of electric cars said the new hardware included cameras, sensors and radars that allow the vehicles to operate without a human driver.

The company said the technology would be installed in all of its models, including the much-anticipated Model 3 sedan, which is expected to reach the United States market next year.

"We are excited to announce that, as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory - including Model 3 - will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability," the company said.

Tesla's chief executive, Elon Musk, had been hinting in recent weeks that the company was eager to improve upon its existing Autopilot feature, which assists drivers rather than controls the vehicle entirely.

Federal regulators have been investigating the safety of the Autopilot system since the driver of a Model S sedan was killed on May 7 in Florida.

The vehicle, operating in Autopilot mode, collided with a white tractor-trailer, which the system failed to recognize because of bright sunlight.

Tesla recently announced improvements to the Autopilot feature that Mr. Musk has said would have prevented the Florida accident.

But the company now appears to be moving beyond systems that assist human drivers, to newer technology that enables fully autonomous driving.

"It looks like Tesla's Autopilot features are that much closer to actually being a true Autopilot and not just a name for a suite of autonomous features," said Akshay Anand, an analyst with automotive research firm Kelley Blue Book.

The Tesla blog post said that although the hardware would be installed in all new vehicles, the fully autonomous driving system would not be enabled until more testing was performed.

"Before activating the features enabled by the new hardware, we will further calibrate the system using millions of miles of real-world driving," the company said, without announcing a specific timetable.

Tesla is undergoing a significant expansion with the addition of the Model 3, which will be priced at $35,000 - less than half the cost of its higher-end sedans and Model X sport utility vehicle.

The company is ratcheting up production of the Model 3 at its California plant, and expects to begin filling more than 300,000 pre-orders sometime next year.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

Look at all these snake oil salesmen. They gotta keep pumping up this technology in a vein attempt to keep the money flowing in. Why the hell would anyone even want to own a self-driving car. It still makes no sense to me. I want to be in completely control over my car at all times, or be in a car where someone else is. They still think everyone is going to be buying these death traps.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

"...vein attempt to keep the money flowing in..."
Nice unintentional pun.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-car-dies-tesla-pushes-envelope-self-driving-2016-10
*As the Apple car dies, Tesla pushes the envelope on self-driving*
Matthew DeBoard - Business Insider - 10.20.16

I have to admit that for Wednesday's much-anticipated Tesla announcement, I was hoping for a new vehicle - the SUV version of the Model 3 mass-market car, the so-called "Model Y."

That didn't happen, but we got something arguably better: a sophisticated new suite of self-driving hardware technologies for all forthcoming Tesla vehicles, plus what CEO Elon Musk described as a separate "supercomputer" brain to coordinate all the cameras and sensors.

Together, these will make full autonomy a reality at some point in the future, Tesla said.

It won't come cheap: the complete self-driving package will cost $8,000. But if you think about it, that's astonishingly inexpensive to deliver the car of the future and be the first to cross the finish line on truly full autonomy.

Tesla's announcement went beyond Apple doubling down on it Autopilot self-driving tech after a fatal accident in May - Musk and the team are trying to make good on a pledge he made last year, on Twitter, to hire "hardcore" software engineers to work on Autopilot advancement, engineers who would report directly to him.

To get from where we are now - Level 1 or 2 self-driving - to Level 4 or 5 full-autonomy will require some breakthroughs, but it now looks as if Tesla is gearing up for just that.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Silicon Valley, it appears as thought the mysterious Apple Car "Project Titan" has flamed out amid incoherent management and an inability to figure out whether to build an entire car or to focus on autonomous driving and a disruptive in-vehicle user interface: the much-discussed iPhone on wheels.

*A tale of two cars*
The contrast is instructive. At the moment, we're seeing a second great proliferation of automotive startups, many proposing to create self-driving electric vehicles. None are building or selling any cars, however. Google's self-driving cars have racked up millions of miles on actual roads, but nobody at Google seems to know how to commercialize this impressive technology.

Tesla, however, will probably sell around 80,000 vehicles this year. By 2018, it plans to sell 500,000.

From here on, all those new Tesla's will possess the hardware and software to be fully self-driving. Critically, those technologies will be completely integrated with Tesla vehicles, through the manufacturing process. That's important because a bolt-on self-driving technology might work with one type of vehicle but fail utterly on another.

*Not happening. *
The bottom line is that if you want to go all-in in autonomy, you have to be a carmaker, with all the traditional manufacturing capability that such a business identity requires.

Some new entrants to the space probably think they can dodge this, avoiding the costly process of constructing their own factories and getting good at assembling conventional automobiles - or at least conventional _looking_ automobiles, machines with doors and tires and windows.

But as Tesla has now demonstrated, that can't be done. Creating a fully self-driving car and getting it on the road means that the "car" part has to come first.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/20/watch-this-autonomous-tesla-drive-from-home-to-work-on-its-own/
*Watch this autonomous Tesla drive from home to work on its own*
TechCrunch


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

best part of the video above is watching the car drop off the rider and then look for, find and parallel park in a parking space.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> Look at all these snake oil salesmen. They gotta keep pumping up this technology in a vein attempt to keep the money flowing in. ... They still think everyone is going to be buying these death traps.


hehe... pretty sure people said the same thing about the Model T


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

This is pretty scammy. The feds have issued an order ("guidelines") saying they want to test and approve all self-driving software before it's rolled out to the public. These tests will involve "ethics" inquiries to determine what the software will decide to do if it senses an oncoming crash. These inquiries will involve many committees, opportunities for public comment, and may even involve congressional hearings.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/av/pdf/Federal_Automated_Vehicles_Policy.pdf

So consumers will be paying for the hardware before the software is finalized and approved. I've never heard of any "quick" Federal approval process in the history of this country so I bet consumers are going to be driving around with a lot of needless cameras and other doo dads on their cars that won't be used any time soon (if ever).

I predict that by the time Tesla's SDC software is approved by the feds and is ready to install on the already-sold cars, the tech will have advanced enough that the hardware on the cars will already be in obsolescence.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

Flarpy said:


> This is pretty scammy. ... consumers will be paying for the hardware before the software is finalized and approved. ... so I bet consumers are going to be driving around with a lot of needless cameras and other doo dads on their cars that won't be used any time soon (if ever).


'cept no one is forcing anyone to purchase the vehicle with all those doo-dad options.


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## Flarpy (Apr 17, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> 'cept no one is forcing anyone to purchase the vehicle with all those doo-dad options.


Unless you want a Tesla


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## 123dragon (Sep 14, 2016)

Flarpy said:


> I predict that by the time Tesla's SDC software is approved by the feds and is ready to install on the already-sold cars, the tech will have advanced enough that the hardware on the cars will already be in obsolescence.


These studies have been ongoing for over 10 years at this point. It also is being done by multiple agencies. Highways @ DOT is also doing research that I am aware off. Riding in a couple of self driving cars I do believe within 5 years is possible for some area's maybe not all. The first one that anyone in the DC area will have access to is the self driving bus that will operate at the MGM casino.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> best part of the video above is watching the car drop off the rider and then look for, find and parallel park in a parking space.


It's all fun n games until it kills someone because it doesn't have a human brain.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> It's all fun n games until it kills someone because it doesn't have a human brain.


huh? spoken like no car driven under the control of a human brain has ever killed anyone?
(right now, around 35,000 people a year in the US die in auto accidents.)


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## Jermin8r89 (Mar 10, 2016)

Hmmm... Wasnt there a massive cyber attack this morning. Alot... Of stupid people who want things by other people so i guess if these cars get hacked in a mass people are gonna be like "oh well". Yea tesla car kills a family and others jump on the killing machiene. Im a millianieal and im ambarssed to be one


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## rembrandt (Jul 3, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> huh? spoken like no car driven under the control of a human brain has ever killed anyone?
> (right now, around 35,000 people a year in the US die in auto accidents.)


The programmers of these SDC software are human being or extra terrestrial omnipotent divine power ? Are they free from zero day volunerabilities ?


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

rembrandt said:


> The programmers of these SDC software are human being or extra terrestrial omnipotent divine power ? Are they free from zero day volunerabilities ?


The 'programmers' are the computers themselves, as they are built on AI models - and unlike humans, the sensors and computers don't get distracted - or at least they don't get distracted nearly as much as human drivers do. 
Will people die in self driven cars? Yes. 
Will fewer people die in self driven cars than human driven cars? Probably.

Will human drivers get better at driving over generations. Not likely.
Will self driven cars become safer over time? Absolutely.


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## rembrandt (Jul 3, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> The 'programmers' are the computers themselves, as they are built on AI models - and unlike humans, the sensors and computers don't get distracted - or at least they don't get distracted nearly as much as human drivers do.
> Will people die in self driven cars? Yes.
> Will fewer people die in self driven cars than human driven cars? Probably.
> 
> ...


Based on AI model that can self programme ? Please provide source with authentic link ( no junk journalist) of back up your claim. 
Based on your reply above , I seriously doubt that you understand what an AI model currently means and how it works.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

rembrandt said:


> Based on AI model that can self programme ? Please provide source with authentic link ( no junk journalist) of back up your claim.
> Based on your reply above , I seriously doubt that you understand what an AI model currently means and how it works.


haha - my claim? No... just an opinion.
Underestimating what I (or anyone else you don't know) understands is fool's game.
"Deep learning is the closest algorithm to how the human brain learns; it's not rule-based," explains Carol Reiley, president and co-founder of Drive.ai. "It's much like how a 16-year-old, or young driver learns. Instead of hard-coding rules, you're given a lot of different examples -what is right, wrong, safe, what is a car, what is not a car. It starts to generate its own set of rules on how to navigate in the road." - http://fortune.com/2016/08/30/self-driving-drive-ai/
​


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## rembrandt (Jul 3, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> haha - my claim? No... just an opinion.
> Underestimating what I (or anyone else you don't know) understands is fool's game.
> "Deep learning is the closest algorithm to how the human brain learns; it's not rule-based," explains Carol Reiley, president and co-founder of Drive.ai. "It's much like how a 16-year-old, or young driver learns. Instead of hard-coding rules, you're given a lot of different examples -what is right, wrong, safe, what is a car, what is not a car. It starts to generate its own set of rules on how to navigate in the road." - http://fortune.com/2016/08/30/self-driving-drive-ai/
> ​


lol. Just a conjecture from Carol Reily or this pice of quotation is an invalid reference as far as Neuroscience is concerned. 'Marketing experts' will love this though.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

rembrandt said:


> lol. Just a conjecture from Carol Reily or this pice of quotation is an invalid reference as far as Neuroscience is concerned. 'Marketing experts' will love this though.


lol - yeah, well instead of applying principles of neuroscience you might considering viewing the topic as the software industry does, which is all that's applicable here. Or remain on your high horse!


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## rembrandt (Jul 3, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> lol - yeah, well instead of applying principles of neuroscience you might considering viewing the topic as the software industry does, which is all that's applicable here. Or remain on your high horse!


You could not cite software reference as I originally requested , instead you cited Neuroscience conjecture from Carol. Neither you answered my question about Zero day volunerability where you have no clue let alone software. That would sound alien language to you.

You keep on posting non sense and flooding the forum with those non sense which is a pure form of vandalism. Stop this vandalism.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

rembrandt said:


> You keep on posting non sense and flooding the forum with those non sense which is a pure form of vandalism. Stop this vandalism.


Sameep Tandon, CEO and co-founder of Drive.ai [is] focused on developing deep learning software-a sophisticated form of artificial intelligence-and applying it to everything the self-driving car does from recognizing objects to making decisions. The company's initial market approach will focus on proving the technology with route-based vehicle fleets for industries such as freight delivery, *ride-sharing*, and public or private transit... "Instead of hard-coding rules, you're given a lot of different examples -what is right, wrong, safe, what is a car, what is not a car. *It starts to generate its own set of rules* on how to navigate in the road."

The industry calls it artificial intelligence.

Zero Day vulnerabilities? Seriously? There's no way in heaven or earth to eliminate them. We would never have stepped foot on the moon, or invented antibiotics if the standard of no zero day vulnerabilities were applied to technological advances.

You must like the view from up there to continue to argue semantics.
hehe... "_flooding the forums..._" riiiight.


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## rembrandt (Jul 3, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> Sameep Tandon, CEO and co-founder of Drive.ai [is] focused on developing deep learning software-a sophisticated form of artificial intelligence-and applying it to everything the self-driving car does from recognizing objects to making decisions. The company's initial market approach will focus on proving the technology with route-based vehicle fleets for industries such as freight delivery, *ride-sharing*, and public or private transit... "Instead of hard-coding rules, you're given a lot of different examples -what is right, wrong, safe, what is a car, what is not a car. *It starts to generate its own set of rules* on how to navigate in the road."
> 
> The industry calls it artificial intelligence.
> 
> ...


How many deaths will be required to fix those zero day bugs ?


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

rembrandt said:


> How many deaths will be required to fix those zero day bugs ?


So your assumption is that zero day bugs (of which there is really no-such thing if you believe Hegel's theory of the dialectic) all result in deaths...
that's a bad assumption.
But the real point, and why governments are allowing this technology to move forward, is that in 2014 in the US there were "10.2 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.08 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled"(a) - and the industry believes that the rate for for semi-autonomous and fully autonomous cars will be far lower than that of manually driven cars.

(a) _Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute_


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## rembrandt (Jul 3, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> So your assumption is that zero day bugs (of which there is really no-such thing if you believe Hegel's theory of the dialectic) all result in deaths...
> that's a bad assumption.
> But the real point, and why governments are allowing this technology to move forward, is that in 2014 in the US there were "10.2 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.08 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled"(a) - and the industry believes that the rate for for semi-autonomous and fully autonomous cars will be far lower than that of manually driven cars.
> 
> (a) _Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Highway Loss Data Institute_


Hegel is metaphysics and that is not the point. You are taking the path of 'straw man argument' ( google it ) . We are talking about science that is based on impirical evidence. 
What is the name of the software or the technology approved by the federal government to be used on public roads ? When was it approved as government won't allow self certification in this case of SDC ?


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

rembrandt said:


> Hegel is metaphysics and that is not the point. You are taking the path of 'straw man argument' ( google it ) . We are talking about science that is based on impirical evidence.
> What is the name of the software or the technology approved by the federal government to be used on public roads ? When was it approved as government won't allow self certification in this case of SDC ?


conversing with you on the subject of whether or not SDC will incorporate AI is obviously a waste of time. It's not a matter of opinion, it's fact. The empirical (spelled correctly) evidence is in the vehicles being tested on the road today - and being developed by companies all over the map. To suggest otherwise is to deny that the sky is blue - or that man never landed on the moon.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> hehe... pretty sure people said the same thing about the Model T


Wrecks in Model Ts were pretty bad. Plenty of folks died in (or after being thrown out of) Model Ts.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Wrecks in Model Ts were pretty bad. Plenty of folks died in (or after being thrown out of) Model Ts.


Exactly. And people still bought cars.


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

Michael - Cleveland said:


> conversing with you on the subject of whether or not SDC will incorporate AI is obviously a waste of time. It's not a matter of opinion, it's fact. The empirical (spelled correctly) evidence is in the vehicles being tested on the road today - and being developed by companies all over the map. To suggest otherwise is to deny that the sky is blue - or that man never landed on the moon.


The public has a great thing going with the way Uber is giving them dirt cheap rides and rarely do any trips end up in accidents. Self driving cars bring nothing beneficial whatsoever to their experience. You seem to think that the public is somehow going to embrace self driving cars. You and those pushing this technology are going to be in for a rude awakening when this ridiculous technology, even if ever actually put on the road to begin with, falls flat on its face because the public isn't interested.

Uber is only trying to do this to make a profit. There is no benefit whatsoever to self driving cars. Period. End of story.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> The public has a great thing going with the way Uber is giving them dirt cheap rides and rarely do any trips end up in accidents. Self driving cars bring nothing beneficial whatsoever to their experience. You seem to think that the public is somehow going to embrace self driving cars. You and those pushing this technology are going to be in for a rude awakening when this ridiculous technology, even if ever actually put on the road to begin with, falls flat on its face because the public isn't interested.


Hard to tell you how much I resent it when people put words in my mouth to promote their own agenda.
I do not, and never have 'pushed this technology'. This is the NEWS section. I post articles written by others about topics of interest to me and other Uber/Lyft drivers.

But here's what I do know from my own half-century plus on this earth:
People are always at first reluctant when it comes to new technology. But it doesn't take long for a new generation who grows up with that technology to take it as second nature to their way of life. There is no reason to believe that the same won't hold true for SDCs. It is nothing short of arrogant for anyone to say now - especially with the incredible advancements made already in just the development and testing of SDCs - that the public will never accept the platform or adopt it in the future.


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