# Self driving cars are still decades away **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 10, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499 "2017-10-10T17:38:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 135
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2688 "2025-06-26T00:20:07Z")
Almost no one is paying the $8k for lifetime FSD because it’s not transferable even if you total the car after six months. FSD is $99/month for a subscription. Some, like me, have it all the time. Some get it just on the occasional month when they are taking a big road trip. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2689 "2025-06-26T00:24:18Z")
Even better. I didn’t know it was offered as a subscription. That _really_ cuts down on the “reluctance to try it” proble.. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2690 "2025-06-26T23:22:06Z")
Robotaxi rollout , all 10 cars, is going great. [Tesla Robotaxi Safety Monitor Forced to Clamber Into Driver’s Seat and Take Over, Passenger Says](https://futurism.com/tesla-robotaxi-safety-driver-forced-to-drive) > In an incident shared on Wednesday, a popular Tesla content creator who goes by the handle “Dirty Tesla” said that after his robotaxi ride dropped him off, the vehicle struggled to exit the tight parking lot and appeared to back up into a parked car. After that car left, according to Dirty Tesla, the safety monitor got out of the front passenger seat, climbed into the driver’s seat to take over, and then drove away. > A video taken by Tesla influencer and investor Dave Lee [showed his robotaxi ride](https://futurism.com/the-byte/video-tesla-safety-monitor-halts) nearly rear-end a UPS truck that it failed to recognize was backing up into the same spot that the Tesla was turning into to drop off its passenger. The crash was avoided when the safety monitor quickly read the situation and tapped the “Stop in Lane” button on the touchscreen, bringing the self-driving car to a halt. > The incidents where the safety monitor didn’t intervene aren’t any less concerning. A growing Reddit list of these incidents — highlighted by the _Verge_ — includes cases where a robotaxi dropped off a passenger in the middle of an intersection, drove over a curb, unexpectedly slammed the brakes so hard that the person recording the video dropped her phone, and came to a complete stop in the middle of the road seemingly because it mistook a tree shadow for an object. We’ve all been there! (if we drunk-drove) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2691 "2025-06-26T23:45:24Z")
Kinda sad how a site called “Futurism,” not to mention older publications like Wired, are today just a constant barrage of anti-technology slop. Obviously, it’s not that FSD or any of the other tech they cover is beyond criticism. But self-driving should be something they’re _enthusiastic_ about, spending time on the numerous benefits it’ll bring, while acknowledging the incomplete progress toward the goal. Instead, they essentially always take the negative version of any possible story (not just Tesla, though they’re a common target). I wonder what went wrong. My just-so story is that, especially as journalism became less lucrative, anyone with a shred of actual interest in tech left for the industry itself, since it pays 10x better. The only people doing tech journalism are then the tech-illiterate (and usually borderline literary-illiterate), who then could only produce anti-tech pieces. This drove off the audience of tech enthusiasts, leaving only an audience of tech pessimists, which then increased the incentive to produce more anti-tech pieces. Sad to see. Again, I’m not against critical coverage. But when _all_ coverage is negative, it’s clear that they crossed from neutral journalism into anti-tech propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2025, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2692 "2025-06-26T23:52:25Z")
It’s not really an editorial, it’s a news report about what’s going on. What’s going on isn’t positive. A product was oversold in regard to its capabilities, and it’s failing. It’s not their job to fluff the story for the press agent of the respective companies. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2693 "2025-06-27T00:02:17Z")
What’s going on is _very_ positive. It’s an enormous step forward. The actual people taking rides–the people that these “journalists” are stealing their material from–are almost universally positive. And it would be rich to dismiss their opinions when _they’re_ the ones filming both the good and the bad. It’s only the reporting on them that’s been selective and misleading. But I’m speaking more generally in any case. Sites that focus on the positive aspects of tech are almost non-existent today, and Wired especially has been converted into its antithesis. It’s not like tech today has any less bluster or broken promises or failures or anything as it did 20 years ago, and yet something happened that converted it from pro-tech to anti-tech. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2694 "2025-06-27T00:09:22Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > But they’re that sort of company that mostly has no future unless they get acquired Well, that didn’t take long: > **[Uber in Talks With Its Founder, Travis Kalanick, to Fund Self-Driving Car Deal](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/technology/uber-travis-kalanick-self-driving-car-deal.html)** > > The ride-hailing company is in talks to help Mr. Kalanick, who was forced out in 2017, buy an autonomous vehicles start-up as the robot taxi service Waymo gains momentum. Cross Pony.ai off the list, assuming this deal goes through. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2695 "2025-06-27T00:17:18Z")
I mean, suppose you say “I am a person interested in technology and the future. Here is a site called Futurism that looks promising! I would like to read stories about the future and what it has in store!” And then you go to the site and are presented with this: [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/xk8dZV8.png "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/xk8dZV8) Never mind that their lead story is a lie (TSLA is up ~1% since the launch). But do _any_ of those stories present a positive view of the future? Ozempic and other GLP-1s are proving to be nearly miracle drugs… and they post some “linked to” slop that I can already tell is misleading. Lost spaceships in the ocean? What is this garbage? It’s a site for people that despise technology and only want to read stories about how awful it is without any attempt at balance, let alone a positive spin. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2696 "2025-06-27T00:21:51Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Cross Pony.ai off the list, assuming this deal goes through. No. Pony will continue its work and partnerships in China, this is just the potential sale of their US subsidiary. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2697 "2025-06-27T00:28:38Z")
Ok then, cross it out and replace it with “Pony.ai (China)”. I can’t tell how many employees are in the US vs. China. Also, did they shrink rapidly recently? Wikipedia and older sources say they have 1300-1400 employees, but Pony.ai’s page says only 506: [Pony.ai Employee Directory, Headcount & Staff | LeadIQ](https://leadiq.com/c/ponyai/5a1dbba6450000ee00b5cbb6/employee-directory#:~:text=How%20many%20employees%20does%20Pony,including%20AsiaNorth%20AmericaEurope.) > Pony.ai has approximately 506 employees as of June 2025 ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2698 "2025-06-27T00:47:13Z")
According to their 20-F filing from 2 months ago, they had 1,460 employees at YE2024. [https://ir.pony.ai/node/6971/html#ITEM6](https://ir.pony.ai/node/6971/html#ITEM6) _We had a total of 1,460 employees as of December 31, 2024. A substantial majority of our employees are based in China. The following table sets forth the breakdowns of our employees by functions as of December 31, 2024:_ Maybe you shouldn’t be trusting the half-populated page of something called “LeadIQ”? ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2699 "2025-06-27T00:47:39Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Really, why haven’t problems like this been fixed yet? Channeling my inner Apartheid Clyde: “End of this year, early next year at the latest, our robotaxis will roll off the factory floor and drive themselves to their deployment cities, fully automated, no human required. It would already be level 5 today if it weren’t for those pesky regulators.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2700 "2025-06-27T00:52:19Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Maybe you shouldn’t be trusting the half-populated page of something called “LeadIQ”? I was _asking_ about the apparent discrepancy, not _trusting_. Anyway, I agree that the 20-F is going to be the more accurate figure. Thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2701 "2025-06-27T00:54:57Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I would pay $8k to add FSD to my non-Tesla after about 3 seconds’ thought. That’s obviously practically impossible, but the concept is compelling. > > Evidently the rest of the public disagrees. I don’t disagree at all. I’d happily pay $8K for true level 5 FSD, without a steering wheel, in all but one of my vechicles (it’s a manual transmission convertible and I actually enjoy driving it). Since that’s not what Tesla offers, I wouldn’t pay extra for what they call FSD (supervised), which I consider a misnomer. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2702 "2025-06-27T01:02:01Z")
Meanwhile, FSD (Supervised) allows me to sit back, not have to touch a single control for hours at a time, transferring all my attention to the overall situation as opposed to having to deal with micro control inputs. Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In My Lane. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2703 "2025-06-27T01:28:54Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > not have to touch a single control for hours at a time, transferring all my attention to the overall situation This simply won’t work for myself and the majority of the population: if we don’t have to touch controls for hours at a time we are going to be transferring almost all our attention to a movie, a book, the internet or whatever–definitely not to what is happening on the road. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2704 "2025-06-27T01:28:58Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Meanwhile, FSD (Supervised) allows me to sit back, not have to touch a single control for hours at a time, transferring all my attention to the overall situation as opposed to having to deal with micro control inputs. Unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In My Lane. I’m glad that you enjoy it. I’d get bored, which is why I want FSD (completely unsupervised), so I can read a book, admire the scenery, make a sandwich, or even take a nap. THAT, I’d pay handsomely for. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2705 "2025-06-27T01:35:20Z")
FSD makes it much easier to admire the scenery, as well as eating a sandwich (if not making one). I’m still waiting for the naps. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2706 "2025-06-27T01:45:32Z")
The problem is that your description makes it sound like playing right field in little league. Bored shitless, but you have to be ready, just in case. I’m sure there are people who love playing right field, but it’s certainly not the majority. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499/2707 "2025-06-27T01:56:45Z")
Steering and throttle control down endless, almost straight highways leave me bored shitless. It doesn’t occupy my brain in any meaningful sense but I still have to do it. With FSD, that’s eliminated. So are the more tedious aspects of attention, like “am I still centered in my lane?” or “am I still at the speed limit?”. Yeah, I’d still prefer a nap. But this is much, much better than nothing, or even a normal ADAS system. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499.md?page=134) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-driving-cars-are-still-decades-away/798499.md?page=136)