I think the reference to retirement funds is in relation to the fact many of them are under collateralized. They need to take new investor's money to pay out old investors.
Have you watched the footage of the current "beta"? It's a scam. It runs into stationary objects. It drives into oncoming traffic. It runs red lights, makes illegal turns, drives straight toward other cars, and can't stay on the road. And that's footage recorded and edited by Tesla's biggest fans.
"Full Self Driving" does not exist. Every indication is that it never will.
I still can't believe no one's gone to prison over this. Tesla's "self driving" features are probably the biggest fraud in history with a body count to match.
People don’t fully appreciate how different driving in multiple locations/conditions is to a neural network.
Since most drivers only operate in certain fixed conditions often (e.g. driving to work or along certain routes during the day/night), people are going to get vastly different experiences of the same software.
This is why you get some people claiming FSD beta is a fraud and others claiming that it works well with 0 disengagements 99% of the time.
I think their tech is probably a LOT better than what you’re making it out to be but no where close to living up to its promise of full self driving.
People are terrible at driving. Releasing a half baked product to get data needed to improve it makes complete sense and deserves to be encouraged, even if people die. Because it the end it's likely that many lives will be saved.
What does this mean? Hasn't Tesla been selling FSD beta for like 5 years now?
I don't really trust anything Elon says anymore. I feel like he's not followed through on commitments about FSD far too many times. I'd personally never buy a TSLA until they get things much more in order (build quality/fit and finish, and actually deliver FSD)
For the vast majority of people Tesla's vehicles are a practical, real, available, easy, modern, electric, car experience that are a near drop in replacement for ICE vehicles because you can road trip with them. There are zero competing offerings available today that have the range of a Tesla and an extensive associated integrated hi-amperage charging network. The only gripe is that FSD hasn't been delivered on the projected timelines (and may never be). I suspect you wouldn't buy a Tesla based on moonshot FSD claims anyway, so what's holding you back? The Elon hate train?
The reason why "the vast majority of people" are not considering purchasing an electric vehicle have to do with uncertainty about the charging experience and long term maintenance and repair costs. It has nothing to do with FSD.
Once the costs of ownership are well understood, that uncertainly will be resolved and the cars can be priced correctly. That will take time -- if I buy a 10 year old corolla with 100K miles I will know (after the usual mechanic inspection) what my expected maintenance costs will be, on average, for the next 5 years of ownership.
You can't really say that for an out-of-warantee Tesla because there isn't a large group of independent mechanics that can service it and because there is a lot of uncertainty about the battery life and service costs. Over time, if Teslas remain popular, and if the company doesn't DRM them out of existence, such networks will develop and we will accumulate actuarial data on repair costs that will reduce risk.
Until then, this market will remain primarily one of price insensitive or risk-insensitive customers -- e.g. wealthier people and possibly government or other large corporate fleet sales. That is exactly what you would expect for new technologies. But for most people, a car is a major proportion of their networth, one they need to get to work, and so they are going to be risk averse (which is exactly what they should be).
My next car will most likely be a 10 year old Lexus or Acura product. Even if it's a different manufacturer it will be an ICE vehicle and not an electric vehicle. Purchasing an out of warranty Tesla isn't remotely close to a viable option as it's not possible for me to price it. But used car prices drive new car prices because most purchasers are not planning on driving the car until it has zero value, they are counting on the used car market to pay for half of their car purchasing costs. Really for new technologies, Tesla should focus on leasing their cars if they want to reach out beyond the price insensitive market.
I'm suggesting that people are buying Teslas. I honestly can't go on a 5-10 min drive these days without seeing one or two (more and more every week it seems like) and I don't live in some particularly affluent upper-middle-class area. Buying them just makes sense to a lot of people for various reasons. Most aren't worried about FSD and the track record so far for Tesla total cost of ownership seems to lean in Tesla's favor. The motor in a Tesla literally has one moving part... they don't need regular maintenance like an ICE engine with lubricants and sparkers and belts and fluids and transmissions. Even the brakes don't wear the same way because induction is breaking the car 99% of the time. The only big question for me is when does the battery lose so much charge that it affects the range quality of life and if that were to happen does the price of replacing it make sense (I am generally pretty optimistic that battery prices will have dropped in 8 years) or does it become a shorter range around town car (kept or sold as such) and we get a new one with fresh range. Even at half the range it's still directly competitive with all other EVs out there today, so that's a thing too.
What percent of car owners drive Teslas? There are ~300 million vehicles on the roads in the US. Pre chip shortage, ~17 million new cars sold each year. Of those, electric vehicles are what, 2% of the new car market and ~0.6% of the total market (used car market is twice as large as the new car market)? That is not "the vast majority of people".
Where I live I see FJ cruisers, Porsches, and Bentleys every day, but I understand that my area is not typical. It's a wealthy area in which offroading is very popular. I also see Teslas and BMWs (more Mercedes than BMW and more BMW than Tesla).
I also understand that those cars tend to be more memorable, so it's foolish to pretend that FJ Cruisers, Porsches, or Bentleys are suitable for the vast majority of the public just because they seem suitable for many people in my area. In the same way, perhaps you should recalibrate your expectations as well when extrapolating based on what you see in your area.
Now what prevents a Porsche or Bentley from being suitable is that these are for niche performance or price insensitive markets. But what prevents something like the Tesla from being suitable is the charging network and repairability uncertainty. With a Bentley, you know you will pay through the nose for repairs which is why Bentleys depreciate so massively. But with Toyotas you know their reputation for durability, which is why used FJ Cruisers cost more than used Bentleys. But how much should a used Tesla go for? I honestly don't know -- and neither does anyone else right now. Unless you have a lot of money to play around with, that's too much of a risk. You don't spend 15-20% of your household net worth on something that you can't price.
I think you’re massively overthinking things. Most people look at the Model 3, see it costs the same as a Toyota Camry, want to help the environment and have Spotify in their car, skip the dealership, go to tesla.com, see dirt cheap financing available, and make the purchase. If they don’t it’s because they’re not comfortable giving up their gas car yet because that’s what they know. Not because they can’t “price it”. Further in the current market Teslas depreciate noticeably less than ICE vehicles because they don’t need maintenance.
You may not be able to price a Tesla, and that’s fine, but don’t get some impression that just because you can’t that other’s cant and moreover that it’s the sole factor contributing to why they allegedly don’t buy. Where I live nobody is “pricing” their $65k Truck, they just want a big fucking truck 30% of their household net worth be damned! You’re full of FUD.
Lastly looking at overall population numbers is kinda silly. We’re not going to wake up and everyone has replaced their perfectly fine car with a tesla. If you look at market share growth Tesla shot up in 2017 with the Model 3. And it wasn’t just a balloon, their growth has continued. They sold 500k cars last year, a little less than half of their previous total up to that year. Again: people are buying Tesla and more people by percentage are buying every year. A Tesla was a rarity 5 years ago but that’s no longer the case. The fact that we can observe this with only 1.5MM Teslas on the road is pretty cool.
This version is much more advanced than their previous versions, but I generally agree with you. Its nowhere close to being able to get you through most drives without assistance.
The "safety score" is a really really creepy thing. Not only that they are using it for this, but that they're collecting this data in the first place.
> Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a full page popup that explains what the safety score is and how data is shared.
I don't think that's accurate. Tesla collects a whole host of telemetry on all of their drivers. "Shadow Autopilot", etc., etc.
They show zero hesitation in releasing that telemetry to the media, or elsewhere, if there's the slightest hint it will put you under scrutiny rather than them. Even misleadingly so - witness a fatal accident where Tesla said "the driver was not paying attention - the vehicle had warned him about taking his hands off the steering wheel", neglecting the ever so slight detail that it had warned him, once, and that warning occurred a quarter hour before the crash.
Tesla collect all this data constantly, not just for entry into the FSD beta program.
Nobody can drive a car without passing a test demonstrating they can drive safely. If passing the government approved driving test doesn’t make someone good enough to use your software it probably shouldn’t be allowed on the road.
The difference is scalability. Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on. They do not rely on HD maps.
Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise, they can quickly dominate the driverless market.
> Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on.
This sounds like premature optimization. The real unsolved problem here is autonomous technology (software and hardware), not manufacturing equipped vehicles. No point having millions of vehicles if your self driving technology doesn't actually work.
> They do not rely on HD maps.
Precisely why FSD doesn't work and is still level 2. The AV players have shown fully autonomous driving needs HD maps and (inconspicuously) the only one not to graduate out of level 2 self driving is the one that's not using HD maps — Tesla. Creating/maintaining HD maps isn't nearly as hard as you think it is, but the benefits are incredible for safe driving.
> Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise
It's tough to anchor Tesla's arrival based on the rest of the industry's progress. Cruise and Waymo are heavily dependent on Lidar; Tesla is solving a fairly different technological problem.
I'll sell you a self-driving car. Please be advised that it will drive into walls, fail to brake for stationary obstacles, drive straight off the road, and is in fact a Saturn with a brick on the gas pedal. I didn't say it was a good self-driving car.
Tesla doesn't have competition because they aren't in the game at all. They do not make self-driving cars and probably never will.
Tesla's business model (and stock valuation) is based on launching a robotaxi service. I'd say that this news introduces more competition for the robotaxi aspect, not the selling you a car aspect.
Just got my Plaid 2 days ago. I already feel uncomfortable about how it changes lanes and merges into lanes. Def making other drivers notice something is up with the way it steers, especially during traffic. Not even talking about city streets.
Also noticing that other drivers leave a lot more space instantly, and let me pass as soon as the turn signal is on, not sure if they are worried about it being on Autopilot.
It looks like any entry of the car into the crosswalk would be illegal at that point. RCW 46.61.235, "Crosswalks", states:
> (1) The operator of an approaching vehicle shall stop and remain stopped to allow a pedestrian, bicycle, or personal delivery device to cross the roadway within an unmarked or marked crosswalk when the pedestrian, bicycle, or personal delivery device is upon or within one lane of the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling or onto which it is turning. For purposes of this section "half of the roadway" means all traffic lanes carrying traffic in one direction of travel, and includes the entire width of a one-way roadway.
The street it was turning and/or veering into is a one-way street abd so the entire width counts as "half of the roadway" and thus any pedestrian in the crosswalk counts as being "upon or within one lane of the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling or onto which it is turning".
You can only drive into the crosswalk if it is a two-way road, no pedestrians are in the part of the crosswalk on the side that you are driving, there are at least two lanes going the other way, and none of the pedestrians on the other side are in the lane on that side that is adjacent to your side.
RCWs > Title 46 > Chapter 46.61 > Section 46.61.305
(1) No person shall turn a vehicle or move right or left upon a roadway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety nor without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided.
(2) A signal of intention to turn or move right or left when required shall be given continuously during not less than the last one hundred feet traveled by the vehicle before turning.
Every other state has similar laws.
The Tesla was not signaling before or during that turn. That on its own makes the turn illegal.
Isn't that just "failing to signal a turn"? If you told me someone made an "illegal turn", I'd think they made right on a intersection with a non right turn sign.
You're right and I noted the section of the washington state driving code that applies. I'm pretty sure that every state in the US has a variant of this same law and picking the wrong one doesn't matter for the purposes of this thread.
Sure, but it's weird to bring up CA vehicle law, specifically, when it's completely irrelevant. You could have made the broader point without the irrelevant detail.
RCWs > Title 46 > Chapter 46.61 > Section 46.61.305
(1) No person shall turn a vehicle or move right or left upon a roadway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety nor without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided.
(2) A signal of intention to turn or move right or left when required shall be given continuously during not less than the last one hundred feet traveled by the vehicle before turning.
Do we think that every state in the US doesn't have a similar law?
What is the end-game here? What do you possibly want to argue? The car was perfectly aware it was making a turn, but decided to not use the turn signal because.. peer pressure?
If you look at the blue track on the screen, the car is indicating it's going to go straight, not that it plans to turn right. I think the word veer is applicable because it is sudden and unexpected. If this was only a mistimed right turn, I might feel differently.
I mean it does look like it got lost, but the blue line in the "this is what I'm sensing and going to do in the next 30 seconds" view started indicating a full turn the instant it started turning.
I'm talking about on the right-hand-side, where it shows the route it's going to take. There's no indication on there it should turn right at this location. It looks like it should go straight through the intersection.
I see the display on the left side, which shows the car's trajectory, and it shows it's going to continue going straight and then suddenly switches to a turn. I would expect it to show that the turn is going to happen sooner, not suddenly switch from straight to turning.
what good is a blue line of what it’s planning, if the blue line changes the instant a new plan is made, such that the driver is surprised their car is making a right turn?
The entire talking point of FSD is that it's supposed to be better than human drivers. This ain't it.
>it didn't "veer" either, it performed a normal turn.
The definition of veer is "to change direction". This did that. Stop arguing semantics.
>The pedestrians had just started crossing
I fail to see how this matters at all. Even if the pedestrians hadn't started crossing yet, and were still on the sidewalk, it would have been wrong for the Tesla to make the turn without yielding to the peds.
"You must yield to pedestrians entering or using a crosswalk in your travel path."
At least one pedestrian was unambiguously "using a crosswalk" in the car's travel path, and the other one was entering the crosswalk as well. I wouldn't consider this a marginal case.
I think Teslas are otherwise great cars but I would never use FSD in a million years. I think it should be banned on public streets until it's gone through testing that is far more rigorous.
By the way, the "safer than the mean human driver" bit is irrelevant when you consider the distribution of human drivers. They need to be safer than (say) the 95th percentile of human drivers, which is a far higher bar to clear than the mean.
I believe only Sputnik vaccine has different first and second dose, but their vaccine is of different category (it belongs to the same as AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson). The reason is that these vaccine use a vector (adenovirus) and there's a risk that body will develop antibodies for the vector and the second dose might not be as effective.
"Some vaccines require two doses because the immune response to the first dose is rather weak. The second dose helps to better reinforce this immune response." - I would have to think over time that could be optimized somehow to just require one w/ ML and test results, etc.
What's the connection between the killer's identity still being unknown and the strength of this cipher? The killer lied: the plaintext doesn't contain personal information, or if it does, it's a riddle unrelated to the cipher.
They sent more than 3, the first 3 were solved quickly, this was a 4th that was sent years later. I believe the only undeciphered message is the text at the end of the 3rd cipher:
> This person killed several people, and THAT is your biggest problem?
There's a discussion about how strong the cipher is, and:
thatwasunusual> ...and still the killer is unknown. That's pretty good, IMO.
Someone pointed out that measuring the strength of the cipher by the fact that the killer is unknown is a bad metric, and you seem to believe this as a defence of murder?
They are merely pointing out there is no connection between the fact the killer is unknown and if the cipher was strong or weak.
I think the mistakes could have been intentional traps, to make code breaking more difficult and waste more resources. Once you solved it you can understand the message (good propaganda), but using misspelled words could throw off some attempts and generate "false negative" results when beginning to solve it, making detectives believe they are on the wrong tracks.
Given he fooled everyone for 40+ years I find it hard to believe he would overlook details, especially when it's about his main publicity tool.
In his public (non encrypted) letters he has some spelling mistakes.
swiches instead of switches, cid instead of kid, figgure instead of figure, cerous instead of curious
There are more.
Even if it was intentional, I am not sure that spelling mistakes would make 60s/70s decryption attempts any worse. They did not work by brute force and it's unlikely he predicted someone will use a supercomputer to crack his code decades later.
How about all the people work for Visa etc and their commutes and all the other things that come with it. If you think about it Bitcoin is completely autonomous
If we're counting the footprint of Visa's 19,500 employees [1], we'd have to start counting the footprint of every Bitcoin miner and ASIC manufacturer. Which is (a) silly and (b) unlikely to affect a difference of orders of magnitude.
But visa doesn't provide most of the functions of bitcoin infrastructure. Visa does need to hold the balance of my account. Visa does need or make available all of my equity worth of assets for me to transfer. Visa does not custody my assets. This is literally apple to oranges (or visa to bitcoin)
Based off of current GPU availability (which isnt mining bitcoin per se but is) does cover coins which are comparable) I would say no, Bitcoin probably has more physical locations and more people involved
I don't agree that PoW's massive energy consumption is excused by your argument, but it is true that for every employee an enterprise has to employ to provide its goods/services, there's massive associated energy consumption.
I remember reading that the extra food that a cyclist consumes, and the energy required to grow and transport it, far exceeds the energy that is used by a bus per passenger.
Humans are high maintenance machines, and cryptocurrency, in automating previously manual processes done by humans, could potentially result in major energy savings. But not in Bitcoin's iteration, where it's consuming as much energy as whole countries, to process only 300,000 transactions a day.
