[foobarian]

> I take it that you're saying that if we provide the Tesla a road which contains nothing to hit, it won't hit anything?

Not quite. I am saying that basing the judgment on a rare anomaly is a bit premature. It's a sample size of 1, but I base this on my own driving record of 30 years and much more than 3000 miles where I never encountered an obstacle like this on a highway.

> Also, not interesting

I would have liked to see the planned cross-country trip completed; I think that would've provided more realistic information about how this car handles with FSD. The scenario of when there is a damn couch or half an engine on the highway is what's not interesting to me, because it is just so rare. Seeing regular traffic, merges, orange cones, construction zones, etc. etc. now that would have been interesting.

[fuzzfactor]

Here's an edge case I'm sure everybody has seen very rarely, but that's still not as uncommon as you think. Watch the video by Martinez if the top video is not correct:

https://abc13.com/post/loose-spool-involved-in-crash-near-be...

This was the 5th time in two months.

Now 2018 might have been a record year, but there have been a number of others since then.

Fortunately for us all, drivers don't have to go through Houston to get from CA to NY, but you're likely to encounter unique regional obstacles the further you go from where everything is pre-memorized.

As we know 18-wheelers are routinely going between Houston and Dallas most of the way autonomously, and a couple weeks ago I was walking down Main and right at one of the traffic lights was one of the Waymos, who are diligently memorizing the downtown area right now.

I'll give Tesla the benefit of the doubt, but they are not yet in the same league as some other companies.

[jjav]

> It's a sample size of 1, but I base this on my own driving record of 30 years and much more than 3000 miles where I never encountered an obstacle like this on a highway.

How is that relevant? You may not personally encountered this precise circumstance but that doesn't mean anything.

If you were to encounter this same scenario, however, it is a near certainty that you wouldn't crash into it. And yet the self-driving did. That's what matters.

> I would have liked to see the planned cross-country trip completed

I mean once the car significantly damaged itself, it's not like it can continue.

Big credit to the people running the experiment for letting it run and show failure. Many vloggers might've just interfered manually to avoid the accident and edited that part of the video out in order to continue and claim success.