A better queuing system is badly needed at Tesla Superchargers. Some do have a queuing area automatically forming, but a few are an exercise in frustration and chaos, like at the Computer History Museum and at the East Palo Alto Target. At the former one, I have witnessed otherwise friendly and peaceful folks almost come to fistfights with those cutting ahead of them inadvertently due to the L-shaped compact area and lack of visibility.
Read MoreThe Tesla Autonomy Day last week Monday April 22 was an interesting affair. Two things are clear. The fact that Elon Musk has an inspiring vision is an understatement. And, that his predicted timelines for full self-driving (FSD) are credible is somewhat of a stretch.
Rather than the softball ones lobbied by the analysts, questions I would have liked to see answered:
Does each car have its own machine learning model and does it do model training as well? What is the need for a lot of computation power in the car?
Is each car learning in real-time and adapting itself from what its driver is doing?
There are several good reasons why Tesla AutoPilot requires hands on the wheel at all times. Scenarios that the AI cannot handle yet are:
An object on the road in front of the car that is not safe to run over
A perpendicular vehicle (there have been 2 fatal crashes with near identical conditions)
Cones in a construction zone
Humans have been driving automobiles for well over a century. I myself have over 2 decades of experience under my belt. In all this time, we have taught ourselves to drive hours at a stretch, tweaking the experience over months, years and decades. An hour long daily commute can happen largely on auto-pilot, without needing much exertion.
Enter the Tesla Autopilot. Introduced 5 years ago, almost 200,000 cars have collectively driven 1.2 billion miles on Autopilot. 6 months ago I got my Model S 100D. And every week since, I have been getting more comfortable with the Autopilot features.
A self-driving car may be the ultimate gift for a gadget geek. But would you trust your life with it? What if it doesn’t stop in time? Just needs to fail once. There’s so much variability — day/night, weather, seasons, road conditions, sunlight and shadows, aggressive driving styles, motorbikes, big rigs etc. How much testing could Tesla possibly have done? Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s safe.
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