If this is true, why do Waymo (or any of the top 10 self-driving companies besides Tesla) use Lidar?
Two facts:
1. Tesla can't use Lidar because of cost and aesthetics.
2. Elon has a strong incentive to oversell their approach to self-driving.
Two facts:
1. Tesla can't use Lidar because of cost and aesthetics.
2. Elon has a strong incentive to oversell their approach to self-driving.
1 - https://medium.com/@LyftLevel5/https-medium-com-lyftlevel5-r...
As it stands, Tesla's vision only system has no other backup system to tell us what is off limits.
If you have other sensors, like LIDAR, radar, and high resolution maps, then you can corroborate your predictions, so for example, if the visual system predicts a 99.9% chance you can make a safe right turn, checking the LIDAR and map will provide additional checks, even if your map is out of date. Consider:
1) camera system predicts you can make a right turn. You have no map, so you make it. 2) camera system predicts you can make a right turn, you have a map, the map says there's a wall there. You don't make the turn. If the map is wrong, you're still safe, you just missed your turn off. 3) camera system predicts you can make a right turn, you have a map, the map is out of date and says there's no wall there, but a new barrier has been erected and the map doesn't contain it. This is equivalent to situation #1 4) Same as #3 but you have SIDE RADAR, so you sense the barrier 5) Same as #3, but you have SIDE LIDAR, so you sense the barrier
The problem is, Tesla is not only going "all in" with their "we only need video cameras", but Elon Musk was asked directly at intersections if the lack of side radar was a problem, and he again fell back on "video is all you need", but if that's the case, why even have front radar?
Clearly, video is not enough, and if you have front radar, there's no reason to argue against side or rear radar, and by proxy, against LIDAR.
All of this comes down to the Tesla is shipped with a cheap and fixed sensor suite, they can't change it now, it's too late, and so they are trying to justify their previous design decisions with overconfident sales tactics and PR, and I think this is somewhat reckless and dangerous to the entire AV industry because the more Tesla's that crash and kill people, the more all AVs will be tarnished as dangerous by the public.
Musk is acting like Tesla is SpaceX and they can afford to blow up rockets or astronauts during iteration, but these are consumer products. People will trust these things to be safe, not to be "beta"
Musk swept this simple fact under the rug when asked during the press conference, again overselling a 100% visual solution.
I'm not saying Waymo can't handle it, but there is a pretty big difference between being able to handle Phoenix and its suburbs compared to Boston and its suburbs for example.
So their autopilot sensors, disengagement data, and algorithms from their autopilot cars aren't being used at all for their FSD program whatsoever?
> Tesla hasn't rolled out FSD publicly so it is unclear whether Tesla would have any data about it performs in Phoenix.
Isn't that because they are using their autopilot program + the people who upgraded to the FSD tech sensors to train their FSD tech under the previously mentioned autopilot program?
You can’t even mention Tesla in the same breath as Waymo.
> But the system still wasn’t at feature parity with the first generation Autopilot, primarily because of the lack of Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) feature. Electrek has now learned that the important feature is going to be released this week.
> As we reported during the release of the 8.1 update, AEB has been a high priority feature for Tesla, but due to the nature of the safety feature, the company needs to make sure to get the false positive rate as low as possible in order to implement it safely.
> Unlike with the first generation Autopilot, Tesla has to build the feature from the ground up using its own ‘Tesla Vision’ technology and the new sensor suite.
I think every place on Earth gets just about the same amount, ~182.5 days, of daylight in a year, right? (Not accounting for solar eclipses, or that the earth's spin is slowing)
Phoenix having relatively sunny and dry weather is a point taken though.