Teslas and Motorcycles?

epbrown · 09-06-2022, 12:11 PM

I know we've got a few riders on here and I was curious what others think of this video from Fortnine. To me it seems plausible. When Musk derided the idea of LIDAR a while back, I remember quite a few engineer types disagreeing with him. (And yeah, I almost never get Youtube links to embed here.)

https://youtu.be/yRdzIs4FJJg

dtxscott · 09-07-2022, 08:07 AM

Great video from Fortnine. He does a great job.

In general, the only way to get autonomous driving to work is to remove humans from the equation. Meaning, all vehicles need to be autonomous and communicating with each other on radar, wireless comms and cameras. No more human drivers. Do I agree with this? Hell no.

As a rider, this stuff really bothers me. We are challenged enough with distracted drivers, much-less completely disconnected drivers.

All blame goes to the driver. They engage the system knowing the risks.

cockerpunk · 09-07-2022, 08:09 AM

full self driving is at least another generation past us, unless there significant infrastructure upgrades installed.

worse, as drivers spend less and less time actually driving when conditions are good/fair, the less practice they will have when they need to take control of the car, when conditions are less fair. this phenomena is well documented in the professional pilot sphere.

epbrown · 09-07-2022, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

full self driving is at least another generation past us, unless there significant infrastructure upgrades installed.

This I've been saying for years. We'll basically need to re-do the roads for full safe driving to work (I'd say to the interstates first) and it will only work in cities if we somehow remove people from the equation entirely; not just other drivers, but pedestrians, bikes, everything. Humans are too creatively stupid for AIs to ever keep up.

sc_rufctr · 09-07-2022, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by epbrown

I know we've got a few riders on here and I was curious what others think of this video from Fortnine. To me it seems plausible. When Musk derided the idea of LIDAR a while back, I remember quite a few engineer types disagreeing with him. (And yeah, I almost never get Youtube links to embed here.)

https://youtu.be/yRdzIs4FJJg

Excellent video. Thanks for posting... When I see young people presenting like this it gives me real hope for the future.

sc_rufctr · 09-07-2022, 03:59 PM

And I really like that someone is calling out Musk's BS in a sensible and responsible way.

McLovin · 09-07-2022, 06:23 PM

Elon Musk has certainly pushed EVs along more than anyone on earth, and I think they are good cars. I’ve put over 6000 miles on a FSD Tesla, including a road trip from Portland to San Diego, using FSD almost all the way.

That being said, I agree with the guy in the video. For general public use, it seems a bit dangerous to me, especially marketed as “Full Self Driving.” I’m not a big government intervention person, but “Full Self Driving” does seem inaccurate and misleading to me. It especially concerns me because I know some owners (older people) who believe it is a “Full self driving car.” Which it clearly is not, and that’s a dangerous belief. Whenever they tell me that, I beg them to not believe it and to be careful.

Another part of the danger is, ironically, that for most highway driving, it works remarkably well. Like, for most trips you can set the navigation and it literally will take you from on-ramp to off-ramp, even hundreds of miles, while making its own lane changes, going onto interchanges, etc., with zero driver input. Pretty amazing.

But after you get used to it, you naturally start oaying less and less attention. It’s human nature. But it’s still 5000 pounds of machine barreling along at 75 mph. When it does encounter a situation it misreads or can’t handle, it needs a fully attentive and responsive human. Which may or may not be present.

I have mixed feelings, but several of my relatives have FSD Teslas, and they do make me a bit concerned.

gregpark · 09-07-2022, 06:57 PM

I sold a car last year and a woman who lives in a town an hour away wanted to come see it. She pulled up in a new Tesla S which she let me drive (holy crap, those things are stupid fast). She said she drove up watching a video the entire way. The dash screen is huge. I'll bet there are a lot of Tesla owners out there doing the same. I ride motorcycles and this thought is unnerving

island911 · 09-07-2022, 07:14 PM

unnerving is right.

I do expect that this is simply a "blind-spot" in the code that will be soon filled.

although, still unnerving.

Also, so much for "loud pipes save lives" - Tesla says WHAT? I can't hear anything. thump thump

McLovin · 09-07-2022, 07:42 PM

Oh yeah, that’s another thing.
Most cars are pretty limited on what you can do on the screen while the car is driving.
Some things are locked out of the Tesla screen, but a surprising amount isn’t.
For example, I was able to surf the web!
(It did seem like videos were locked out, but there’s probably a hack for that).

epbrown · 09-08-2022, 12:19 PM

The thing that makes the Full Self Driving claim dangerous is risk compensation, a problem with driver aids in general. But modern safety systems are to the point that some people think they simply can't get hurt or killed driving; put them in a Tesla and they may think any failures are someone else's problem.