Elon Musk: Smartest Guy in The World or Complete Clown?

[rideit]

I just heard the Cybertruck referred to as an ‘Incel Camino’.

Excellent.
Also ‘wankpanzer’, and my riff on that, ‘wank tank’.

[TahoeJ]

Incel Camino. Holy shit that’s perfect.

[neckdeep]

Tesla has rolled out a free 30 day trial of FSD to our model 3. Figured I’d give it a go.
Holy shit it is terrifying!!!

I engaged it on a moderately winding section of interstate - damn thing couldn’t keep anything close to a constant speed, the surging and slowing down around bends was absurd. Nor can it remain in the same place in a lane - constantly drifting from the left of the lane to the right and back again. It would get uncomfortably close to another vehicle in adjacent lane and I had to override the steering at which point it disengaged and beeps warnings etc.
Lastly the absolute inability to deal with any sort of common but irregular situation is down right dangerous - on a divided highway with two lanes in both directions I had a vehicle pull out and across my direction into the turn lane median and accelerate in opposite direction. A good 80-100 yards in front and comfortably clear of us. Human driver might ease off slightly if anything at all. Fucking Tesla FSD full panic braked from 60 to 20. Scared the shit out of me and I’m awfully lucky the dude that was tailgating too close a few minutes prior had dropped back.

IME FSD is not remotely close to ready for primetime and should not be legal on public roads. It’s dangerous and unpredictable.
So if you see a tesla driving erratically it may be an asshole behind the wheel or it may be asshole relying on Elno’s driver assistance systems - either way drive defensively and give wide berth.

Elmo just settled the big wrongful death case because the evidence was probably going to nuke what's left of the autopilot tech premium attached to Tesla's valuation.

Basically, the system can't reliably process the complexity of real life so most of the time its just defaulting to lane markings. Supposedly, there's numerous instances of Teslas making crazy lane shifts when the vehicle loses its lane markings and aquires the markings from another lane. This is why Elmo is so desperate to develop proprietary AI. His FSD system can't "think"; not even close to it.

A Tesla engineer was going to testify that, at present, FSD is basically just a glorified lane departure warning system but instead of chiming a warning, it can kill you. Elmo panicked and made an 11th hour settlement offer because he personally stood to loose many billions on paper when it emerges that FSD is a fake it till you make it.

[californiagrown]

he personally stood to loose many billions on paper

Do we know how much of his wealth (at least on paper) is divided up between SpaceX, Tesla, Xcorp, Nueralink, etc?


Musk is a perfect example of the cliche silicon valley startup stereotype of get a good idea that you think is possible, sell the shit out of that idea as 100% executable to secure funding, and then scale as fast as possible in the sheer hope that you can actually make that idea work and be profitable. If you throw enough money and resources at an idea and buy enough time, it will likely end up working... you just have to keep faking it long enough till you make it. Sounds like tesla is getting caught in the "still faking it" stage.

About a decade ago weren't there a bunch of companies working on self driving car tech? What happened? Did google/Tesla/Uber buy them all up and then force them to focus on one specific tech/angle instead of letting them develop separately and seeing which tech/angle ended up working best?

[Vt-Freeheel]

re/ self driving
I think some of the companies came to the conclusion that they lacked the resources to make it viable in a reasonable amount of time.


Majority is Tesla

https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...rth-companies/

[heckacali]

A nearly measurable percentage of cars on the road in San Francisco the last few years are Waymo self driving.
it's kind of crazy to see how many.

They are auto-taxis taking passengers now.

[frorider]

Not ready for prime time: robo taxis in SF

https://www.curbed.com/article/waymo...francisco.html

[PB]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...k-19395015.php

I wouldn't get in one of these even for 10 pairs of new Stocklis.

[mcski]

I’ve been in a Waymo taxi and see them operate around our main neighborhood shopping street regularly. The ride was very impressive. If given the choice between it and an Uber, I’d take the Waymo. It’s predictive and problem solving capabilities are very impressive

Haven’t had any experience in Cruise. Waymo seems more advanced tho

The systems Elmo touts are a joke in comparison

[ColMan]

Tesla has rolled out a free 30 day trial of FSD to our model 3. Figured I’d give it a go.
Holy shit it is terrifying!!!

I engaged it on a moderately winding section of interstate - damn thing couldn’t keep anything close to a constant speed, the surging and slowing down around bends was absurd. Nor can it remain in the same place in a lane - constantly drifting from the left of the lane to the right and back again. It would get uncomfortably close to another vehicle in adjacent lane and I had to override the steering at which point it disengaged and beeps warnings etc.
Lastly the absolute inability to deal with any sort of common but irregular situation is down right dangerous - on a divided highway with two lanes in both directions I had a vehicle pull out and across my direction into the turn lane median and accelerate in opposite direction. A good 80-100 yards in front and comfortably clear of us. Human driver might ease off slightly if anything at all. Fucking Tesla FSD full panic braked from 60 to 20. Scared the shit out of me and I’m awfully lucky the dude that was tailgating too close a few minutes prior had dropped back.

IME FSD is not remotely close to ready for primetime and should not be legal on public roads. It’s dangerous and unpredictable.
So if you see a tesla driving erratically it may be an asshole behind the wheel or it may be asshole relying on Elno’s driver assistance systems - either way drive defensively and give wide berth.

I've used it a few times and wasn't impressed. More of a gimmick than anything. For a MYLR in Colorado ($32,500 after rebates) FSD ($12k) amounts to an extra 37% for something that is basically useless.

[dunfree]

About a decade ago weren't there a bunch of companies working on self driving car tech? What happened? Did google/Tesla/Uber buy them all up and then force them to focus on one specific tech/angle instead of letting them develop separately and seeing which tech/angle ended up working best?

there were collective delusions about how easy the problem was to solve for the general use case, and even bigger delusions about how fiscally valuable their solutions would be.

[skaredshtles]

I’ve been in a Waymo taxi and see them operate around our main neighborhood shopping street regularly. The ride was very impressive. If given the choice between it and an Uber, I’d take the Waymo. It’s predictive and problem solving capabilities are very impressive

This is kinda how I view it. Sure they aren't infallible, but I'm pretty sure they're better than 98% of the driving population. And only going to get better.

Self-driving is inevitable - and will be driven short- and mid-term by Boomer demand as they become increasingly unable to drive themselves.

[dan_pdx]

It may be true that it's better than most drivers, but personally I'd rather drive myself than trust self driving even if I know autonomous vehicles have 90% (or whatever) fewer collisions. I'd rather take my chances with my crappy human abilities than risk the much smaller chance of dying due to faulty AI. I'm sure most would feel the same

[mcski]

I forgot I was in a robot car in less that 5 minutes. It felt so normal the missing driver wasn’t noticeable. I think the Waymo tech will be limited to commercial vehicles for a while because of the cost, but it’s way better than even the above average driver in terms of making safe driving decisions

[Supermoon]

There’s Waymo here in Phoenix as well and I would take it if it wasn’t more expensive than Lyft or Uber.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Owner finding out he paid $100k for a mark of shame:

“I don’t know if others have similar experience, but as I drive around in CT, most reactions are good/fun, but I’ve had several teenagers flip me off, yell “I hate your truck”, and just today, a girl roll down her window and just yell “F*ck You”.

Perhaps it’s the storyline that they’re dangerous? Or bad for the environment? Something on TikTok saying they’re evil?”

https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com...ertruck.14739/

[ironhippy]

Hummers got a lot of hate for being too big, too wasteful and just ugly. Seems to fit the bill here, plus add in the fact that a lot of people don't like Elon/Tesla and it's a nice perfect storm.

Also the only people who have them can afford to waste 100 grand on vanity purchase. That alone will bring some hate.

[powdrhound]

Owner finding out he paid $100k for a mark of shame:

Most of the comments prove that the majority of CT owners are someone I don’t want to know.

[Cocximus]

Lol at North Americans all of a sudden being concerned about wasteful vehicles. Quick someone post a picture of an open lithium mine.

[CarlMega]

Tesla continues to deservedly get hammered. great stock for momentum traders.

[neckdeep]

https://publish.reddit.com/embed?url...its_workforce/

You're so Elmo if in the same week, you both demand massive compensation based on pure hype and also tacitly admit things are going so badly that you've got to ax 10% of your workforce.

Takeaways?

1. No such thing as awkward timing when you're on the spectrum.

2. If you're going to blackmail shareholders for $50B while stock prices swandive, you'd best get it done before that exceeds 10% of market cap.

[CarlMega]

^blue flaming dumpster still has better lines than cyber truck

[highangle]

Hummers got a lot of hate for being too big, too wasteful and just ugly. Seems to fit the bill here, plus add in the fact that a lot of people don't like Elon/Tesla and it's a nice perfect storm.

Also the only people who have them can afford to waste 100 grand on vanity purchase. That alone will bring some hate.

Vehicles aren't software and you can't patch all the bugs after getting stupid expensive vehicles in customer hands too soon.

But the FuckYou Birds in JBdJ's post likely fall into 2 classes:

1) People who once thought better of Elon

2) Chick Fil A/Hobby Lobby regulars

[highangle]

^blue flaming dumpster still has better lines than cyber truck

Bro I sawed a Pinewood Derby entry better looking than that when I was in Cub Scouts, and my little halfass job was the lamest looking rig in the race.

I think about that shit every time I see a picture of a Cybertruck.

[Not DJSapp]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...k-19395015.php

I wouldn't get in one of these even for 10 pairs of new Stocklis.

The nice thing about all these robo-taxis is that pedestrians are suddenly a lot more aware before they step off a curb. Driving through downtown SF isn't quite as fraught with suicidal peds stepping out whenever they feel like it anymore.