[AlotOfReading]

I've been through 3 public AV launches. I don't lead with that because "resume" measuring contests are boring and what I write should be evaluated on its own merit, not by who says it. This account is readily identifiable to anyone who knows me.

With that out of the way, it's much easier to write a hardware safety case than one for software. It's easier to write a software safety case for a traditional software architecture than one based on ML. It's much easier to write a safety case for focused models than an E2E system. None of these should be controversial statements.

You're arguing that Tesla is deliberately jumping to the hardest safety case in order to avoid the simpler safety case. I know many people who have worked on the relevant teams at Tesla. I don't think they're ignorant of the difficulty of Tesla's choices or making decisions based on what's easier to validate.

Sensor fusion is not the difficult part. You only have to look at the fact that virtually every other company in the industry (even the ones using E2E and not using LIDAR like Wayve) does it. Either we have to accept that everyone else is stupid, or there are other factors involved in Tesla's decision-making.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure if I could write a safety case about Tesla's system that meets my own personal standards. It's pretty clear from their actions and the various regulatory/legal inquiries that they don't have what I consider an effective safety process regardless.