[gibybo]

"full autonomy" means lots of different things to different people.

Some people think of it as being able to drive anywhere at any time in any condition. This is unlikely to ever happen before AGI. What matters in Tesla's case is more likely being able to drive in some small number of places in specific circumstances without a physical driver in the vehicle (but possibly a remote one to handle unusual circumstances).

Now I don't think Tesla is going to even get to that in 3 years, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Waymo there.

[mhermher]

What part of "full" is ambiguous. Maybe your point stands if just "autonomy" was used generically. But "full" has a specific implication.

[gibybo]

I think we're in agreement, but Tesla has a lot of customers buying into the "Full Self Driving" promise. If you look at the "Full Self Driving" package currently available for $5k on their website, you'll notice that it doesn't even claim to be able to drive without a driver. It talks about doing what EAP can do today + doing it on city streets. What EAP can do today is basically adaptive cruise control with lane keeping and automatic lane change (which also requires you to hold the steering wheel).

[slg]

The primary cause of the ambiguity is that "Full Self Driving" is a marketing term that Tesla uses and not a unconditional promise. It is just like how cell phone companies promise "Unlimited Data" with a variety of caveats. So there is a question of whether people are talking about the primary definition of "full" or Tesla's marketing definition of "full".

[mandeepj]

> not a unconditional promise

Please try to avoid using double or more negates. It’s a bit hard to read.

[username223]

> a remote one to handle unusual circumstances

How could that ever work? The "unusual circumstances" that matter will usually require either action in less than a second, like an improvised detour sign, or situational awareness, like a human directing traffic around some random obstacle. At best, Google will be making cars that pull over to the shoulder and call for help in a few years.

[gibybo]

>At best, Google will be making cars that pull over to the shoulder and call for help in a few years.

Ya, that's pretty much what I was getting at.

[JustSomeNobody]

> ...some small number of places in specific circumstances..

Airport parking/shuttle service. They could even augment the AI by using markers in the roadways. That's about as autonomous as we're going to get in the next decade.

[r_smart]

Driving through airport terminals is possibly one of the most chaotic possible environments, with people almost suicidally throwing themselves in front of you, not to even speak of the cabs, double lane parking, security guards telling you to move and other things. It's probably one of the harder environments to automate for outside of inclement weather.

[kbenson]

Some airports have shuttles on private circuits to take you from one wing of an airport to another wing of the airport. The ones I've seen that have this either have a rail system, or a human driver. It would be much cheaper to just throw a bus with some software to track digital route markers and some visual matching for unexpected situations than to build a dedicated point to point system rail/track system (and maybe marginally cheaper than hiring someone, depending on other costs).

[paulcole]

> "full autonomy" means lots of different things to different people.

And don't doubt that Elon/Tesla use this to their fullest advantage.