cmsonger

> but perhaps the messaging needs to be clearer that autopilot is more akin to advanced cruise control

Maybe. Here's the thing. The feature, by its very nature, does not punish inattention like normal driving. If you let go of the wheel and focus on your phone -- even using your knee to hold the wheel, chances are the longer you are distracted the more likely you are to have a minor wakeup that says "don't do that." Maybe your car starts to hit the bumps between lanes. Maybe your peripheral vision picks up something and you get an adrenalin jolt as you refocus attention on the road.

AP is not like that. 99.9% of the time it does a pretty good job on the expressway. (95% if you are in traffic and have defensive driving tendencies where you are projecting ahead 10-15 seconds and moving lanes accordingly.) So you literally can look at your phone for 15 seconds look up and find your car at reasonable distances from other cars and properly in the lane. All of the normal "don't do that" feedback loops for inattention are removed.

But then there's that unusual case, like this one, where AP gets it wrong and the consequences are extreme. Is this different from normal inattention? I think yes because normal inattention often leaves you feeling "I just took a risk" due to the natural, and usually small, consequences.

My point is this: It may not be that the labeling of the feature is dangerous. It may be that the feature itself, by its very nature of removing the less serious consequences of inattention, is dangerous.

Completely agree, but then if users followed Tesla's instructions about AP then we would not be here.

There is precedence that "it's up to the user" is not sufficient as a societal standard for what is legally allowed. (For example seat belt laws). It is reasonable to ask: "Should we allow such a feature in cars on our road?" For example, what if the car had struck a cyclist rather than a truck and the fatality went the other way?

> The most likely outcome is that they will figure it out, and much earlier than any of their competitors.

Disagree. The most likely outcome is that many folks who paid a lot of money for a car end up with a car with a screen that's flawed in some way. (I own an S that has the yellow box.)

It is also possible Tesla "figures it out" earlier than their competitors; but that's less likely as the former is now a certainty.

Completely agree. I read your comment as: "There exist OPs so far into the stupid space and senior colleagues far enough into the competent space that good advice may not be immediately apparent to OP, even through the lens of a first implementation." That's spot on and the example you cite is a good one.

It's just so hard to advise here without knowing more about OP and the senior colleague. (That should be the title of the novel "OP and the Senior Colleague.")

It's hard to know how to comment on this because there's a huge range in what might really be going on. You might be a bozo. He might be a bozo. You both might be bozos. Or maybe you are both pretty good and both just bad communicators.

So without really having any insight about what's up here, I have two pieces of advice.

Ask a lot of questions to understand why he thinks what he thinks. The job is not to explain to him why he's wrong; the job is to ask enough questions that you understand why he's reached some specific conclusion.

And focus on getting things done. Forward progress tends to get everyone aligned and give you something specific to talk about that's productive. If in the "blah blah blah" he's telling you 'this will never work' then you have proof positive that he's wrong. Great. If in the "blah blah blah" he's telling you that your solution is not re-entrant and it's going to crash then you are going to find out he's right.

Agree. I think more accurately it took a competitor doing it and showing the cars were desirable. No Tesla, no Rivian, no Ford investment in Rivian, no iPace, no eTron, etc. AT least IMO.

The model I saw last week when I was thinking about buying is different than the model I saw this week. The price I saw last week for the set of features I remember selecting is different than the price I see this week.

They need to calm the rate of change here. It's been all over the map in Q1.

They still do that and it affects the behavior of the car: Regenerative braking is turned off as you approach 100%.

As an owner, I use this feature occasionally. Once in a while I'm setting off on a trip where initial charge range really matters for some reason.

> That's high for a car company but pretty low for tech.

Yes! Totally agree.

> Self-driving is not necessary to maintain that valuation, only continued growth of the electric car market in general.

Disagree. The key properties of the car business are high capital costs and high variable costs and not huge margins. The key property of the tech business is low variable cost and often low capital costs (but not always) and high margins.

There's nothing "tech" about building electric cars vs. normal cars and 10 years from now the margins and capital expenses of electric car business will be like the existing ICE car business.

So this is Tesla saying: "Yeah, our financials are starting to look like a normal car company, but we've got this thing that you should keep value us even more like a tech company than you do today."

> It seems like they are almost betting the company on FSD.

IMO they don't have any choice. The more and longer they operate like a car company shipping bigger and bigger volumes, the more their financials will be undeniably trend towards those of the existing car companies and the more their existing market valuation will be hard to justify.

They need something like this to not get traded at traditional car industry multiples.

This focus on the hardware is silly. Assume for a second that their new hardware is 50x faster than their last hardware.

That does not mean that their cars can self drive today.

That does not mean that their cars can self drive three years from now.

It's 100% not proven or obvious how car self driving skill and car self driving error rates scale with compute -- but it's surely not linear.

> Auto Pilot takes so much stress away.

Except for the spontaneous brake checking. That's like waiting for someone to hit the "zap them" button. Got me most recently coming across a bridge. Sigh.

> So who's a liar?

"Liar" is a stronger word than I would use, but given the claims (including dates) that Tesla made when I purchased an S100D in early 2017 -- seems like the answer is Tesla.

If not "liar", at least incredibly dramatically wrong about what they actually delivered for EAP and FSD. I'd say the burden of proof is now firmly on Tesla as they've made and missed a number of claims about the performance of their automation features.

> Why shouldn't Facebook take down the ad that's calling for a break up of their Company?

For the same reason that TV stations should have to run ads for candidates that advocate for greater taxes on TV stations.

Facebook operates in a stable environment created by the US' democratic governmental structure. In their role as communication channel, they have an obligation to preserve the process that created the environment in which they arose.

I work in tech and while I might quibble with the wording, there's not one point that I feel is wrong on substance. They have bulldozed competition. They have profited from private information. They have tilted the playing field in their favor.

Ironically, I would have thought this last point was the most arguable. Then Facebook took down her ad. ... Sigh. FB so predictably short sighted sometimes.

> The TM3 price confusion seemed mostly caused by their change up in how auto pilot and full self driving were sold. With enhanced auto pilot being removed for a lesser version and FSD taking some features from EAP.

Don't miss the overall lowering of the AP bar. 2017 EAP: Going to drive you exit to exit on the expressway at twice the safety of a human driver. 2017 FSD: Summon your car from across the country.

2019 EAP: Keeps in the lane and controls the speed while you watch vigilantly, ready to take over at any moment. 2019 FSD: Moves around outside the lanes while you watch vigilantly, ready to take over at any moment.

> It's frustrating to know that despite how bad they are, despite every new discovery of terribleness, nothing's going to change, and they're just going to get bigger.

IMO, they need a non-profit competitor. There's nothing surprising or innovative left in "share photos and news with selected people" so there's not much value-to-consumers left to innovate on. There is innovation left in how to monetize consumers, but there's not likely to be much value to humanity in that; and there is likely to be a lot of harm. (Looking at you anti-vaxers.)

Non profit. There's needs to be a non-profit facebook alternative to stop all this idiocy.

Facebook still doing something ethically questionable. Must be a day ending in 'Y'.

Facebook doing something ethically questionable again. Must be a day ending in "Y".

> Seeing your neighbor put in a third of the effort and produce the same economic result is demoralizing.

Sorry to hear you are neighbors with a hedge fund manager. Do you have someone who inherited wealth on the other side of you too? That would be hell. ;)

Someone else does not have to do badly for you to do better.

> An industry can only be disruptive for so long.

I think another thing people tend to forget: regulations are often there for a real reason. Especially in the US there's a vocal majority who thinks that regulations are the problem. It's true sometimes. The reasons for the regulation were either bad in the first place, or have "aged out." But a lot of times: the regulation in the way of some business is there to protect consumers.

Step 1: Election day is a national holiday.

Fortunately they tend to be retired so there is less impact to their lives to go vote on a Tuesday in the middle of the work week. Wait. What? Ha!

> It blows my mind that people think recharging their cars on the go can be the future of transportation.

It's worth noting that article was written by someone who was driving a Tesla with 215 miles of range and who had clearly not done EV road tripping before. You cannot buy a Tesla model S with 215 miles of range anymore. The shortest model S is 259. The longest 335. And a thing you learn pretty quickly is that charging is super non-linear in its rate. 0->80 is much much much faster than 80->100.

I'm not disagreeing that EVs are worse for roadtripping. EVs are worse for road tripping -- but the car used and the choices of the author are exaggerating the issue.

www.abetterrouteplanner.com tends to be pretty spot on for "time spent charging" in the routes that it produces. If you want a better measure of the inconvenience, that's a good place to get such a measure.

That's probably partly why. They understand up close and personal what they are being asked to do and the money they can make for doing.

The TLDR, MSFT says "You can't trust any of us so you better regulate us now."

... or they are just mad that I refuse to give them a linkedin photo. :) Supposed to be funny, but also serious. Every time they ask for one, and then ask why not, I tell them because they are fundamentally untrustworthy. And they are untrustworthy, as is every public for profit business whose officers carry a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

IMO this position is well written and these two sentences succinctly articulate the situation:

"In particular, we don’t believe that the world will be best served by a commercial race to the bottom, with tech companies forced to choose between social responsibility and market success. We believe that the only way to protect against this race to the bottom is to build a floor of responsibility that supports healthy market competition."

That's a great video, thanks for posting.

I've long held a theory that many of the "basic infrastructure" pieces of technology would best be put forward by non-profits. The profit imperative can be an insidious corrosive influence.

Classy.

> Good. That's a well functioning market economy. Those who make poor investment choices need to feel the sting of losses else the market fails to work correctly.

Unless it affects grid reliability. Energy is not just a market. It's something that underpins modern society and the modern economy. I, for one, do not want my power to go out at 7pm because demand is peaking, traditional plants had to close, and the sun is going down.