[martythemaniak]

What's interesting is that about 80% Tesla's entire valuation is FSD and Optimus, and the underlying assumption with FSD is that it'll magically turn on for all Tesla's in a day and they'll have a monopoly and extract all the profit needed for that valuation. Apart from any comparisons with Waymo, I suspect self-driving will broadly follow other AI tech, where we'll see a proliferation of competitive self-driving tech on the heels of first movers. Local protectionism will also probably play a big role in this.

[Zigurd]

I would bet against the imminent commodification of autonomous vehicle technology. Way too early. No consensus on the technology approach.

Here's a speculative but plausible take: Zoox and Waymo are both products of cloud computing and data gathering giants. Maybe that's the important factor.

[Fricken]

>No consensus on the technology approach

Waymo, Cruise, Zoox, Pony.ai, Baidu's Apollo, Argo.ai and Aurora all have/had very similar approaches to the technology. Tesla is the major outlier and they haven't accomplished much in spite of the hype.

[Zigurd]

I don't want to split hairs but I think the focus on sensors misses the point. There's a lot of diversity in terms of other on-board hardware, software architecture, and the role of geospatial data in the AV system.

It's a product area that is very far from being able to horizontalize. Waymo Driver is going to run on Waymo hardware for a long time to come. Toyota is supposedly trying to use Waymo technology for personal vehicles. I expect adapting it will take years. The software is nothing like an app running on an operating system. All of these systems probably require years of effort to move them to a different hardware platform.

[Fricken]

>There's a lot of diversity in terms of other on-board hardware, software architecture, and the role of geospatial data in the AV system

I'm curious to know where you get information on stuff like this. The Google self-driving car project was fairly transparent in the early days but since things have gotten competitive everybody is pretty tight-lipped about the particulars of what they're doing.

[AlotOfReading]

It's a small industry and people talk. You can also infer more about the systems from the bits that are public and/or reasonable.

Unfortunately, information ages quickly. Stuff that Waymo published about their architecture only a few years ago is now wildly out of date.

That said, diversity is decreasing. Most players are standardizing on relatively similar hardware platforms using nvidia compute, with connectivity heavily focused around ethernet as opposed to older buses.

[Zigurd]

There's a lot of information about these systems out there. Waymo has has described in detail how their remote monitoring works. It doesn't rely on perfect connectivity. It doesn't rely on low latency. It can't even steer the vehicle remotely. It can tell the vehicle what it's next move should be. But all of the processing to get it to where the remote monitor thinks it should go is in the vehicle. It's details like this that distinguish between a demo and a product.

I make TikTok's about technology and project management. Elon's management style has been, some might say, a running gag in my videos, so I am more tuned into these topics than your average bear.

[imtringued]

Tesla employees are using LiDAR in secret to gather training data, because they will get fired by Elon if he finds out. Tesla is in the business of blatant self sabotage.

[SpaceNoodled]

Wasn't Zoox bought by Amazon only a few years ago?

[tim333]

There is already a proliferation of self driving tech in various stages of readiness, especially if you include Chinese companies.

[PhunkyPhil]

I think self-driving targets a problem that doesn't really exist. The issue isn't that the act of driving is a laborious task, it's simply the amount of time spent in a car, which FSD doesn't address.

[addaon]

> The issue isn't that the act of driving is a laborious task

Said like someone who doesn't have elderly parents, and doesn't plan to age…

[PhunkyPhil]

FSD is not being marketed as an aide for elderly people or those with disabilities, it's being marketed as a panacea for all driving related problems

[Zigurd]

FSD isn't a complete product. Somehow they got away with selling an early beta for thousands of dollars. Zoox, despite an objectively odd priority on building a purpose built vehicle, became a generally available product ahead of FSD. That should be shameful.

[kevlened]

Too much time spent inside may be a problem, but FSD turns car cabins into rooms. If we're inside already, a room with a destination is often better than a stationary one.

[PhunkyPhil]

This is true.

Now to start a tangent, what's the easier problem to solve: FSD, or a robust public transport system? Moving rooms have always been around in the form of trains, busses, streetcars etc...

[OkayPhysicist]

Turns out, we have an answer to this: Self driving is easier. By a lot. It's not even close. No entrenched interests trying to block your infrastructure plans by claiming that your rail line passes through the territory of some flightless owl, no need to be called racist for cutting through the cheapeast land in the city to build out rails, no need to dig tunnels for subways. No need to overcome class prejudices where the middle class don't want to ride BART with the naked dude with a needle behind his ear.

To people outside the Bay, self driving might still seem like some far-off future tech. I can tell you that the future is already here. I haven't used an Uber in the last 3 years because I will always pick Waymo instead.

[PhunkyPhil]

Fair enough. I will ask, how many billions have been spent in not only FSD but the car infrastructure that makes room for FSD investment?

I'm being slightly fanatical, but if our priorities were not car-centric in the 50's, do you think we would have spent more, or less money over the last 70 years on the transportation economy?

[AlotOfReading]

You're assigning decades of infrastructure costs to AVs, none of which was done with the intention of supporting them. They'd work fine on 1950s roads.

The global AV industry has taken roughly as much funding as California HSR has on its own, and less than what HSR will need to finish.

I've been doing public transit advocacy for my entire adult life. I've worked in the AV industry somewhat less than that. My advocacy has produced a couple of bike lanes and bus stops, contrasted against 3 AV launches.

I'd love to build more public transit, but experience tells me that the most effective thing I can do to support my community is AVs.

[acdha]

I do agree that it's not the panacea some people are hoping but true self-driving would change the experience for many people from a couple hours a day of not doing anything other than listen to music / podcasts / audiobooks to being able to do real work if they have things which can be done a laptop. Since multiple generations have been moving further out to car-only suburbs, I think that'd be very popular even if it's still not as nice as having a shorter commute.

[OkayPhysicist]

It absolutely targets a problem that exists. Even in places with pretty great public transit, there is some demand for taxis/Uber/etc. Oftentimes even moreso, because if I don't need a car for 90% of trips, I might not have a car at all. So I use an Uber or a taxi when a certain trip demands it.

By far the worst part about said Ubers and Taxis is the driver. They're an unpredictable element in a situation where I greatly appreciate predictability. Unlike my parents, I didn't grow up with staff, so I'm not used to simply pretending this person I'm sharing a space with doesn't exist. Instead, I need to navigate the fuzzy line between courtesy and service.

Waymos have none of this shit. They're clean, show up when they say they will, I can play my own music, adjust the air conditioning, and have obnoxious conversations with my friends. They drive safely, and, as a cherry on top, they're cool as hell.

[PhunkyPhil]

> It absolutely targets a problem that exists. Even in places with pretty great public transit, there is some demand for taxis/Uber/etc. Oftentimes even moreso, because if I don't need a car for 90% of trips, I might not have a car at all. So I use an Uber or a taxi when a certain trip demands it.

This says nothing about self driving cars

> So I'm not used to simply pretending this person I'm sharing a space with doesn't exist. Instead, I need to navigate the fuzzy line between courtesy and service.

I don't mean to be harsh, but, get over it? We live in a service economy. Do you feel the same way about the barista taking your coffee order?

> Waymos have none of this shit. They're clean, show up when they say they will, I can play my own music, adjust the air conditioning, and have obnoxious conversations with my friends. They drive safely, and, as a cherry on top, they're cool as hell.

I don't like the assumption you're making that Waymos are the only solution to ubers, taxis or driving yourself. Well designed and well working public transportation (Which is doable and exists in the world) is far cheaper and far more predictable than any form of car-based transportation.

Not only that, but you're not responding to my actual argument. The annoying part of driving is not the act of driving, it's the time spent in your commute.

[OkayPhysicist]

> I don't like the assumption you're making that Waymos are the only solution to ubers, taxis or driving yourself. Well designed and well working public transportation (Which is doable and exists in the world) is far cheaper and far more predictable than any form of car-based transportation.

I very literally did not make that assumption. I pointed out, in a sentence you quoted yourself, that public transit can drastically reduce the amount of point-to-point personal transportation an individual wants or needs. However, sometimes, you really can't beat the convenience of "I am at point A, I want to be at point B, and I don't want to deal with a series of stops and transfers to get there". Maybe your starting or ending point is an unusual location. Maybe it's an unusual time of day. Maybe you're wearing a tuxedo or a cast and don't want to do the amount of walking public transit normally requires.

In any case, point-to-point transit is sometimes worth the expense. And when it is, self-driving taxis are fantastic. Compared to driving myself, I don't have to commit at least 75% of my attention to not killing myself or others. I can just read a book, or watch a movie, or do the morning crossword. Compared to taxis or Uber, I don't need to deal with a driver.

[ryandrake]

Point-to-point is also the only option when you get way out of the city and no form of public transportation is work-able. If you live in the actual middle of nowhere, with miles between homes' driveways, and dozens of miles between residential areas and the nearest store, you're never going to get trains or bus stops that cover everyone's home.

[bluGill]

FSD should address safety - humans are bad drivers even when they are sober and not overtired.