Alarmed by Tesla’s self-driving test, state legislators demand answers from DMV

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Note that there are two “FSD Beta” programs:<p>1. The paid software unlock for “Full Self Driving” (currently in “beta”) available to everyone, which provides automatic driving from on-ramp to off-ramp, and a handful of parking features like auto-park and summon: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;support&#x2F;autopilot#usingautopilot" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tesla.com&#x2F;support&#x2F;autopilot#usingautopilot</a><p>2. The invite-only “FSD Beta” that unlocks the above FSD features on city streets, which is available to a subset of customers w&#x2F;#1 who have very high Tesla Safety Scores.

&gt; ...cited the apparent poor performance of what Tesla calls Full Self-Driving beta, a $10,000 option that gives owners advanced automated driving features and allows them to test cutting-edge autonomous technologies on public roads. (Beta is a software term that describes a product not quite ready for general sale to the public.)<p>Wait, does this mean people are actually <i>paying</i> extra money to become test dummies for this?

Actual user of the beta here. Happy to answer any questions that are honest. My opinion is let the technology develop in the open, warts and all.

Slightly off topic, but it&#x27;s fun to see company culture reflected in the algorithm behaviour.<p>There are thousands of clips of Tesla&#x27;s Fatal Self Driving being far too aggressive for American roads (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nitter.net&#x2F;taylorogan&#x2F;status&#x2F;1469404579439824899" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nitter.net&#x2F;taylorogan&#x2F;status&#x2F;1469404579439824899</a>).<p>Meanwhile, companies like AutoX have the problem of being far too conservative for Asian roads (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?app=desktop&amp;v=TFEvkmvIjVo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?app=desktop&amp;v=TFEvkmvIjVo</a>). AutoX has some of the best edge case handling I&#x27;ve seen.

I&#x27;m a big fan of Tesla but I&#x27;m fairly certain that, at some point, they&#x27;re going to voluntarily refund everyone the money they paid for self-driving. And, at some later point, they will probably make self-driving work but on a future generation of HW&#x2F;SW.<p>Genuine question: if this happens, will it kill Tesla to refund all of this money? I don&#x27;t pay close enough attention to their financials to know myself. I assume (and hope) not.

This is why I drive a big truck. When egomaniacs can trick the government into allowing them to set their half baked creations loose on public roads using unknowing and unwilling third parties as test subjects, I want to be the dominant term in any and all conservation of momentum equations that may ensue.<p>As an aside, I’ve driven maybe 50,000 miles in my lifetime. Of those, 47,000+ are using pre-2005 vehicles with zero “advanced safety features”. However, I can recall two times in my driving career where I felt collision was imminent, and both of them occurred in the &lt;5% of the time I was driving with “advanced safety features”. Yes, the computer was able to step in and avoid a collision, but it strikes me as odd that the only times I’ve needed it are when it’s available. In my opinion these new cars lull me into a false sense of security where I do not give appropriate attention to road conditions. Has anyone noticed the same? I fear that as the technology gets better and better people will pay less and less attention, putting more and more lives at risk when things inevitably go wrong.

If I had the money to buy an expensive car, I would want to drive it myself. If I could buy an airplane, I would want to fly it myself, too.<p>I don’t understand rich guys who fork over for what is essentially a baby carriage pushed by a robot nanny. Where is your self-respect?

When a 16-year old kids starts learning to drive on the city streets, is anybody alarmed? I doubt that is much safer.<p>We should treat the AIs just as children at this point. They are simply learning.

I really thought the breaks would have been slammed on Tesla&#x27;s shipping of autonomous car software after the incident where the guy was decapitated by a tractor trailer.

As they should, from all agencies involved. It is absolutely horrifying to see Tesla do this open beta test on public roads when no other non-Tesla entities (other cars, pedestrians, motorcyclists, bicyclists, etc) consented to being a part of a reckless experiment.<p>Moreover, Tesla influencers on social media tend to cherry pick and show only the nicer parts of their FSD Beta drives where no incidents and disengagements occur. Whereas you will often see in the comments some Beta users disagreeing and often showing the scary bits. And of course the pattern of Tesla influencers acting like an echo chamber absolutely disagreeing with anything critical of Tesla, jumping to Musk&#x27;s defense at every turn because...&quot;My mission!&quot;. An example:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;taylorogan&#x2F;status&#x2F;1469404579439824899" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mobile.twitter.com&#x2F;taylorogan&#x2F;status&#x2F;146940457943982...</a><p>A thread of the scariness of this Beta test on public roads:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Tweet_Removed&#x2F;status&#x2F;1438553523369615364?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Tweet_Removed&#x2F;status&#x2F;1438553523369615364...</a><p>Elon Musk has a history of overestimating Tesla&#x27;s capabilities when it comes to autonomy. And also flouting regulations to reach the end goal. He wants to make people believe in the illusion that Tesla are in some unsurmountable lead when it comes to autonomy but they are actually playing catchup and are dead last because of the approach they took.<p>Here&#x27;s a timeline of Musk dangling the carrot of full autonomy (SAE Level 5) for over 6 years now.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;SelfDrivingCars&#x2F;comments&#x2F;n6nsmt&#x2F;elons_tweet_does_not_match_engineering_reality&#x2F;gx8kure&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;SelfDrivingCars&#x2F;comments&#x2F;n6nsmt&#x2F;elo...</a><p>But people argue, &quot;Oh, but they are getting better and eventually will iron out all the edge cases!&quot;. This is not a matter of just making some settings change and things magically fix themselves. These are safety critical systems and not considering edge cases while advertising the feature as &quot;Full Self-Driving&quot; can lead to fatalities. The edge cases don&#x27;t seem to be finite and no amount of &quot;Dojo will solve this!&quot;, &quot;The system is learning more and more and will reach there!&quot; will solve the problem with their approach. At some point, he will have to eat humble pie and incorporate more sensors to increase safety. But with the ongoing chip shortage and the fact that they have to sell as many cars as possible lest the stock promotion crumbles makes it an even harder task.<p>It&#x27;s always some next version that will blow your mind. It&#x27;s always the next version that&#x27;s almost there.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1435967157662150675?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1435967157662150675?s=20</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1469541536128020485?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;elonmusk&#x2F;status&#x2F;1469541536128020485?s=20</a>

No wonder Tesla is leaving California, over and over again you see corruption and government control taking over inovation.