Some of us were much more gullible back then. It was in the 2017 era than Google/Waymo executives were saying things like “Fully driverless rides on public roads starting immediately in Chandler, AZ; commercial service “launching soon.”“ “Fully self-driving cars… are just around the corner,” with paid public rides imminent.
Back then we had a higher opinion of Google and didn’t realize this was just vaporware like so many other companies in the computer business.
I’ll be honest. I was expecting the steam roller gag from Austin Powers.
I see a couple of Waymos a week, I’d guess. They’re always driving so normally, you’d never know they were driverless. I was crossing the street a couple of weeks ago on my morning walk, and I’d already waved the one right-turning vehicle to go ahead as I wasn’t quite at the corner yet. But it was a school bus, and I wasn’t able to see the Waymo behind it until the bus turned. The Waymo waited for me and didn’t try to follow the bus like a lot of human drivers sometimes do (!) but it got me thinking. Could I wave the Waymo to make its turn before I crossed? Would it notice and understand the gesture?
On the negative side, there was an hysterical post on our NextDoor about a Waymo that ran over a cat that was sleeping in the middle of the street in Venice.
I was expecting to see Kevin Kline slowly run over by a steam roller.
FSD 14.0 has been delayed but only to Monday supposedly because a bug needed to be fixed. It is supposed to be followed in short order by 14.1 and 14.2. Musk claims that 14.2 will feel “sentient”.
https://www.investors.com/news/tesla-fsd-v14-release-coming-monday-elon-musk-says/
An Uber delivery ‘vehicle’ ran into an actuary in Jersey City, knocking him off his bike (with fairly serious injuries), tried to eliminate the witness by running him over, fought off witnesses working to manhandle it to a stop, and charged off into the night cackling fiendishly.
(I made up that very last bit)
The crowd rushed over. Before anyone could catch their breath, the robot looped back, steering straight toward Shannon as he lay on the ground. Several bystanders yelled and jumped in front of it. One woman grabbed the side panel.
“Its wheels were still spinning,” said another witness. “Like it was trying to break free.”
That’s a little thing about the size of a picnic ice chest, not that it excuses the behavior. It must be for restaurant food delivery and operates on the sidewalk. It still must pack a wallop.
A couple hundred years ago English common law held that the cause of action for tortious injuries died with the injured person.
It was horse & carriages going back to finish off people they’d run over to preclude a lawsuit that finally forced a change in the code law to override that time-honored legal principle. Henceforth if a carriage killed somebody the surviving family had the right to sue.
Sounds like musk wants to go back to the future in yet another way. Or is that into the future by reviving the past?
That uber robot had nothing to do with Musk but he probably wouldn’t mind.
And speaking of Musk, I just got the new FSD (v14.1.4 to be exact). It’s the first v14.x to be available widely. On any given day around 13% of Teslas have FSD ability. A lot of those are HW3 and still on v12.6.4 which is supposed to be functionally equivalent to v13.2.9. This is key because Elon promised that he would upgrade the HW3 vehicles for free if they paid for lifetime FSD which means that they have to be the original owners since it doesn’t transfer with the car. The longer he delays, the more of these cars go out of service like my buddy who wrecked his a couple months ago. The promise is that they will have a version functionally similar to this in Q2 which I highly doubt but it keeps the delay going.
Anyway, I am driving from Santa Barbara to LA and back in an hour of so. This will be a good test since it will be stop and go traffic there and no traffic on the way back unless the Dodger game goes until 1am again.
Major reported changes:
Better use of computing power so a smoother drive.
Five driving modes that you can change on the fly (Sloth, Chill, Standard, Hurry and Mad Max 
). Previously there were three. Sloth never exceeds the speed limit ever. MM will make an many lane changes as needed to get to the destination more quickly.
Will pull over if it hears an emergency siren.
Will go the the destination and park in the street or find a space in the lot and park in it. Head in or back in. If indicated will park at the curb or in a driveway. It will also leave a spot in a lot or the curb from a stop to get to a destination.
Will see and avoid potholes and debris in the road.
If there is a temporary condition where the driver needs to take over. It will unset the driver takeover necessity if the condition is quickly alleviated.
Oops. Thanks for the correction
I’ve interacted as a ped with those robo icechests. Slow and stupid to decide and act, then quick in motion. A bad combination. The various flashing lights serve to have most peds give them a wide berth. Meaning they take the space of 5 or 8 peds. Not good on a crowded sidewalk.
A friend just tried the not-quite-14 FSD, and decided to sign up for it. He said he tried it a couple of years ago and decided against it, but it’s much better now.
Around 13% of Teslas have FSD capability at any given time excepting the occasional month where everyone gets it for free. Of course not everyone who has it has it enabled all of the time.
It’s significantly improved in my almost two years of having it. Supposedly 14.2 is going to be the gold standard and I bet they do another free month when that drops.
I’m interested in reports on exactly how this works in practice. My understanding is you can no longer set a maximum speed. One of my big issues is that the car frequently has the speed limit wrong. Whether it be temporary, like a school or construction zone, or permanent, where it doesn’t read the sign or the map data is wrong.
Yep. People are complaining about that. The scroll wheel now toggles between modes and not setting a max speed and this is an issue. I have had the limit be wrong too. Maybe it’s now much better at recognizing the correct speed so it’s way less likely to be an issue but I wouldn’t bet on it. The remedy would be to take over and drive for real which is annoying to say the least.
The previous way had it’s quirks too. You could have the max speed set for 70 when you are driving on surface streets and of course it would never go that fast because it was mindful of the actual (perceived) limit.
Another problem is signal controlled left turn lanes. It’s generally ok but it can’t handle weird ones like “Yield on green between 4 and 6 pm”. There are a couple of odd balls like that around me where I just disable FSD but I will carefully try them when I see them now.
Edit: another change in this version is that it now is much better at recognizing stopped school busses and won’t try to go around them.
Yep, starting with 12.x something it stopped being cruise control and became the maximum limit. Just like me aged dad, the car now picks speed based on how it feels, but with a limit on the maximum. 45 mph road narrows, slow down. 35 mph road is wide, go 50. Some other car is going too fast, speed up.
As you say, this means both driving faster than the speed limit, and driving slower than the set max speed. Not joking, really, I believe they trained the model on human drivers who do that normal human driver gas car thing of slowing down as they go up hill, because that is exactly what FSD does. There is absolutely no reason to go from 65 to 58, just because there is a hill on an otherwise empty freeway. FSD prior to v12 handled this perfectly.
“NHTSA is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information,” it told Reuters, adding that “[t]he human behind the wheel is fully responsible for driving the vehicle and complying with all traffic safety laws.”
“Tesla is deliberately programming cars to exceed speed limits and drive aggressively, putting everyone on our roads at risk. This ‘Mad Max’ rollout is the latest iteration of Tesla’s preference for aesthetics and sales over safety, and I urge regulators to take action to prevent this technology from being unleashed,” said Brett Schreiber, founding partner at the firm that won the aforementioned wrongful death lawsuit.
I have no intention of going Mad Max. I didn’t even use Hurry before. I am never in that much of a rush.
“I’m scared, Fif. You know why? It’s that rat circus out there. I’m beginning to enjoy it.”