I use FSD in my Model S daily to commute from SF to Palo Alto along with most of my other Bay Area driving. It does a better job currently than most people and it drives me 95% of the time now I haven't had the phantom braking.
I'm in a 2025 with HW4, but it's dramatic improvement over the last couple of years (previously had a 2018 Model 3) increased my confidence that Elon was right to focus on vision. It wasn't until late last year where I found myself using it more than not, now I use it almost every drive point to point (Cupertino to SF) and it does it.
I think people are generally sleeping on how good it is and the politicization means people are under valuing it for stupid reasons. I wouldn't consider a non Tesla because of this (unless it was a stick shift sports car, but that's for different reasons).
Their lead is so crazy far ahead it's weird to see this reality and then see the comments on hn that are so wrong. Though I guess it's been that way for years.
The position against lidar was that it traps you in a local max, that humans use vision, that roads and signs are designed for vision so you're going to have to solve that problem and when you do lidar becomes a redundant waste. The investment in lidar wastes time from training vision and may make it harder to do so. That's still the case. I love Waymo, but it's doomed to be localized to populated areas with high-res mapping - that's a great business, but it doesn't solve the general problem.
If Tesla keeps jumping on the vision lever and solves it they'll win it all. There's nothing in physics that makes that impossible so I think they'll pull it off.
I'd really encourage people to here with a bias to dismiss to ignore the comments and just go in real life to try it out for yourself.
This is extremely narrow minded.
As another commenter pointed out, you are driving on easy mode in terms of environment and where a majority of the training was done.
This is not a general solution, it is an SF one... at best.
Most humans also don't get in accidents or have problems with phantom breaking within the timeframe that you mentioned.
Oh please - people excuse and dismiss major accomplishments, you can send a skyscraper to mars and people on HN will still be calling you a fraud.
The Bay Area has massive traffic, complex interchanges, SF has tight difficult roads with heavy fog. Sometimes there’s heavy rain on 280. 17 is also non trivial.
What Tesla has done is not trivial and roads outside the bay are often easier.
People can ignore this to serve their own petty cognitive bias, but others reading their comments should go look at it for themselves.
Auto-Pilot is not FSD. It's akin to a regular carmaker's Automatic-Braking-System and Lane-Keep-Assist. If you're seeing it used dangerously that's user error.
> you can send a skyscraper to mars and people on HN will still be calling you a fraud
To date, SpaceX has sent nothing to Mars. Not to understate the company's accomplishment, but "people on HN" are fed up exactly with statements like yours.
People here just whine and complain - yes they’ve “only” just sent a skyscraper to space for now and caught the booster on reentry, it’s a work in progress (along with their reusable rockets, earth scale telecom side project etc.)
My point is people will still be calling him a fraud when they do get it to mars, no evidence is sufficient for the HN cynic that thinks their “above the fray” ethos makes them smart.
Tesla has had massive success despite the haters, the model y becoming the literally best selling car on earth and you wouldn’t know it from HN. FSD has gotten really good, good enough to use more than not as they continue to improve it.
The best thing about capitalism is the losers here don’t matter - the winners get rich and keep going.
You downplayed what Tesla FSD can do and said I was being narrow minded and the Bay Area driving is "easy mode" and said vision isn't a general solution. I think none of this is true.
HW4 is really a game changer. I was absolutely floored by HW4 FSD during a recent test drive. Tesla is accomplishing some truly groundbreaking technical achievements here. But you wouldn't know it through all the Elon Musk noise (pro and con). I'd encourage anyone to take a test drive and put FSD through its paces. I went in with a super critical mindset and walked away stunned.
It also makes this horrible kind of sense that Elon would see them both as admirable, this idea that you're the only person who matters. Ordinary people exist only for you to exploit them, and have no intrinsic worth.
I'm in a 2025 with HW4, but it's dramatic improvement over the last couple of years (previously had a 2018 Model 3) increased my confidence that Elon was right to focus on vision. It wasn't until late last year where I found myself using it more than not, now I use it almost every drive point to point (Cupertino to SF) and it does it.
I think people are generally sleeping on how good it is and the politicization means people are under valuing it for stupid reasons. I wouldn't consider a non Tesla because of this (unless it was a stick shift sports car, but that's for different reasons).
Their lead is so crazy far ahead it's weird to see this reality and then see the comments on hn that are so wrong. Though I guess it's been that way for years.
The position against lidar was that it traps you in a local max, that humans use vision, that roads and signs are designed for vision so you're going to have to solve that problem and when you do lidar becomes a redundant waste. The investment in lidar wastes time from training vision and may make it harder to do so. That's still the case. I love Waymo, but it's doomed to be localized to populated areas with high-res mapping - that's a great business, but it doesn't solve the general problem.
If Tesla keeps jumping on the vision lever and solves it they'll win it all. There's nothing in physics that makes that impossible so I think they'll pull it off.
I'd really encourage people to here with a bias to dismiss to ignore the comments and just go in real life to try it out for yourself.