[kalefranz]

> What exactly does make Tesla a tech company

In asking that question, my guess is that you’ve never experienced being a Tesla owner. And that’s fair. I’m a Tesla owner myself, for full disclosure.

I’ve found that a Tesla is truly a computer on wheels; not unlike an iPhone is a computer in your hand. In many ways, Tesla is a software company that makes their own hardware. Unlike every other auto manufacturer, their software has full and complete control over every aspect of their hardware. Their hardware-software vertical integration is for real. They also have single software releases that deploy OTA to their whole fleet of in-service “devices.” From a software and release engineering perspective, incumbent auto manufacturers are decades behind.

> Nearly all car manufacturers have adaptive cruise control somewhere in their lineup

I’d argue the difference is that _every_ vehicle Tesla sells today is cable of being upgraded to the latest state of autonomy—just by an OTA software update and/or flipping some feature flags. While the claim of full Level 5 autonomy without lidar is controversial, it’s possible that most Teslas on the road today will be capable of being upgraded to L5 capability via a software update.

All that said, the QA issues in those photos are pretty jarring. No excuses there.

[ra7]

> While the claim of full Level 5 autonomy without lidar is controversial, it’s possible that most Teslas on the road today will be capable of being upgraded to L5 capability via a software update.

How can you claim the current hardware on Teslas is capable of L5 when they haven’t even demonstrated L4 capability? Just saying it’s capable for full autonomy doesn’t actually make it so, they need to actually prove it.

Also, you (and Elon Musk) talk about Level 5 so casually when all the self driving companies out there strictly claim to aim for only Level 4.

[Erlich_Bachman]

Because humans are perfectly capable of doing this task with vision only. Which means it's effectively a visual modelilng task, and is only a question of computation technology, modelling and available FLOPS inside the car. It seems perfectly possible that the hardware in a current Tesla car is capable of this.

[ra7]

Sorry, this is just wishful thinking. Computers don’t have human brains which have evolved over millions of years. So just saying “if humans do it with only vision, so can computers” is frankly weak logic. The technology isn’t there yet to match human brain performance, unless you believe Tesla will achieve several breakthroughs in computer vision and AI to do this.

[Erlich_Bachman]

Who said that the technology was there? Did you even read the previous comments or just jumped onto the hate wagon because of preconceptions?

The question was why it is possible. Not why "it should work today", nor "why it will most definitely 100% happen guaranteed in the next couple of years".

[ra7]

So the technology isn’t there and nobody has gotten anywhere close to achieving those significant breakthroughs in vision or AI, but it’s “perfectly possible” with current hardware “because humans do it”? This answer makes no sense.

The real answer is nobody knows whether current hardware is enough or not, including Tesla. Until they demonstrate it, it’s just a claim. But they can’t sell the cars on FSD promise if they say it.

[Erlich_Bachman]

Humans don't need lidar -> that means all the information is present in the visual channel -> it is at least theoretically possible to do with cameras -> tesla cars have cameras -> tesla cars might have possibility to do it.

[rasz]

Stereo vision. Teslas to this day dont ship stereo front facing cameras. They arent even full color.

[Godel_unicode]

> just by an OTA software update and/or flipping some feature flags

Sounds like you might not have "experienced being a Tesla owner". There are a ton of Tesla's which, according to the company, will definitely require hardware updates for full self-driving.

https://www.tesla.com/support/full-self-driving-computer

They're not a tech company, but they think (and loudly say) they are, and that causes these kinds of problems. Using tech jargon does not a tech company make.

[modo_mario]

> my guess is that you’ve never experienced being a Tesla owner

This reminds me of something or rather some people as it oozes marketing speak when the experience of being a [product] owner is being talked about.

> not unlike an iPhone is a computer in your hand

And there it is.

[sidibe]

They have similar levels of customer loyalty that baffle some outsiders, but at least one has a reputation for outstanding polish and customer experience and the other one has awful customer service and quality stories you can find every day.