Musk confirms Tesla will never make an undrivable car.

[popman]

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors confirmed via twitter that the company has no plans to produce cars which can't be human-driven.

 

 

 

Links;

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/577946471804235776

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/577946893646364673

 

 

Based on the kinds of places I've been when high technology fails on me, I don't think I'd want to buy a car that couldn't be manually controlled in some way.

[Victorious Secret]

People suck at driving, thats just a fact. The best drives humanity has are those who race, who actually can react fast. 

 

Cars have been better than drivers for a decade IMO. People will always be the weakest link. We just suck. Especially a vast majority of the population that only commutes to work and doesn't care. People like that need to hand over the reigns to a computer that is more attentive than they ever will be. 

[dadasmithywinkle]

I'll stick with my gas guzzling, human driven, 4x4 truck. 

[Agosto]

I'll stick with my gas guzzling, human driven, 4x4 truck.

Because yes

'Murrica

[techswede]

I almost like Elon now. Almost.

[dadasmithywinkle]

Because yes

'Murrica

Murica indeed. Until a good looking eletric car is made that can go through a river without shorting out, gas and/or diesel is what I'll stick to.

[Admiral Naismith]

I'll stick with my gas guzzling, human driven, 4x4 truck. 

Is it named the Prius killer?

[dadasmithywinkle]

Is it named the Prius killer?

I have thought about putting these stickerss next to the tail pipe

[spartaman64]

i get really nervous when driving because i feel like im going to die at any minute and isnt driving one of the most dangerous thing you can do

[Admiral Naismith]

I have thought about putting these stickerss next to the tail pipe

 

 

Heh, 'Prius Repellent' is brilliant

[rashdanml]

People suck at driving, thats just a fact. The best drives humanity has are those who race, who actually can react fast. 

 

Cars have been better than drivers for a decade IMO. People will always be the weakest link. We just suck. Especially a vast majority of the population that only commutes to work and doesn't care. People like that need to hand over the reigns to a computer that is more attentive than they ever will be. 

To be honest, it's not just cars. Modern conveniences are making people lazier and lazier, contributing to the lack of basic skills. I can't even begin to count the number of people who can't do something as simple as reading a map. 

[popman]

To be honest, it's not just cars. Modern conveniences are making people lazier and lazier, contributing to the lack of basic skills. I can't even begin to count the number of people who can't do something as simple as reading a map. 

I couldn't read a map properly until the geography lesson I was in that covered it.

Even then, I can only properly read certain kinds of maps.

 

I doubt that convenience makes anyone lazier, pretty much everyone does more stuff with the effort that got freed up by that convenience.

[RyomaSJibenG]

these techs are kind of double edge, its good side is that its more convenient and efficient

 

the bad side is when people become lazy and low quality

 

just look at the escalator vs stair

just look at the youngsters stuck with the smartphone and can't do shit if anything ever happen

[rashdanml]

I couldn't read a map properly until the geography lesson I was in that covered it.

Even then, I can only properly read certain kinds of maps.

 

I doubt that convenience makes anyone lazier, pretty much everyone does more stuff with the effort that got freed up by that convenience.

Except the bigger problem in these situations is that people get so used to the conveniences (by only learning how to use them), taking it away cripples them. Conveniences save time, which is fantastic, but not being able to function at ALL without them is starting to become more and more of a problem. 

[JAKEBAB]

Why not just make cars kinda like i robot where you can manually override if you really want to and always keep the steering wheel. Google's way looks dumb and extremely dangerous without a wheel imo.

[RyomaSJibenG]

Why not just make cars kinda like i robot where you can manually override if you really want to and always keep the steering wheel. Google's way looks dumb and extremely dangerous without a wheel imo.

yep, its for safety too in case something happen to the auto-pilot, passenger can take over and drive normally

[79wjd]

People suck at driving, thats just a fact. The best drives humanity has are those who race, who actually can react fast. 

 

Cars have been better than drivers for a decade IMO. People will always be the weakest link. We just suck. Especially a vast majority of the population that only commutes to work and doesn't care. People like that need to hand over the reigns to a computer that is more attentive than they ever will be. 

You should try driving in NJ. Some of the worst roads and drivers I've EVER come across. Our driving test is literally making a few turns in a parking lot and parallel parking between two cones. 

 

New tech does scare me a bit though....Most drivers are really just awful, and with the driver tech we have now (lane detection, etc...) I fear people will completely lose their already shitty driving ability.

[ACatWithThumbs]

Getting people away from the wheel is the best thing that can happen.
People don't know how to drive with millions of car accidents and around 30k deaths a year and that is only for the US.
I don't see that happening for at least another 30-50 years though as not only is the compute power missing but many laws have to change and we don't know how people will react to that.

 

[euniqe]

People suck at driving, thats just a fact. The best drives humanity has are those who race, who actually can react fast. 

 

Cars have been better than drivers for a decade IMO. People will always be the weakest link. We just suck. Especially a vast majority of the population that only commutes to work and doesn't care. People like that need to hand over the reigns to a computer that is more attentive than they ever will be. 

 

 

HELL no modern cars are not better than humans. The majority, yes, but definitely NOT outright. 

 

Every single traction control system or "stability control" system i've EVER come across (and i've driven my share of cars let me tell you) are fucking shite at actually regaining control of the vehicle. I'd even go so far as to say that some (few, but definitely some) are actually dangerous.

I was in my company's work ute and clipped a curb going round a roundabout, and made a tiny "chirp" as the wheel that hit the curb gained an insignificant bit of slip. The tracion control system shut down the throttle completely. People started honking, actually, as they wondered why i wasn't accelerating out of the roundabout. It took 10 whole seconds before I could move again. 

 

Now i'm sorry - but if you consider things like weight distriubution around a corner - suddenly lifting off of the throttle is FUCKING dangerous. This is exactly how you provoke oversteer and end up backwards over a cliff. weight lifts off of the rear wheels and takes grip away from them. I know this, because I get my front wheel drive ford focus sideways all the time (shhhh). 

 

I will never, ever have faith in a system that can only predict and not KNOW what is actually happening outside its limited data range.

[Sky Daddy]

a lot of people are crazy drivers, i kind of wish all cars were computer operated

 

at least to some degree, cars should be programmed to not allow people to drive like complete assholes

[Bensemus]

HELL no modern cars are not better than humans. The majority, yes, but definitely NOT outright. 

 

Every single traction control system or "stability control" system i've EVER come across (and i've driven my share of cars let me tell you) are fucking shite at actually regaining control of the vehicle. I'd even go so far as to say that some (few, but definitely some) are actually dangerous.

I was in my company's work ute and clipped a curb going round a roundabout, and made a tiny "chirp" as the wheel that hit the curb gained an insignificant bit of slip. The tracion control system shut down the throttle completely. People started honking, actually, as they wondered why i wasn't accelerating out of the roundabout. It took 10 whole seconds before I could move again. 

 

Now i'm sorry - but if you consider things like weight distriubution around a corner - suddenly lifting off of the throttle is FUCKING dangerous. This is exactly how you provoke oversteer and end up backwards over a cliff. weight lifts off of the rear wheels and takes grip away from them. I know this, because I get my front wheel drive ford focus sideways all the time (shhhh). 

 

I will never, ever have faith in a system that can only predict and not KNOW what is actually happening outside its limited data range.

The thing with automated cars becoming the norm is intercommunication between cars. That is what we really need. All this other tech is limited to the single car like you said. Once they can communicate all of our current road signs and traffic lights could be removed and at intersections you would just need a little button for people to signal their intent to cross. Even better would be overpasses for people so they don't have to come near the cars, making it safer and allowing the cars to go faster.... The other thing is getting rid of personal cars altogether. Look and how much space we waste on parking. Have each city run a car sharing program that citizens pay into. It would work like that taxi service that you summon with an app except no human driver. Next is getting rid of semi drivers and using self driving trucks that can drive 24/7. I can't see any reason a company would want to keep human drivers after those are invented. I realize a crap ton of jobs would be lost but unless there are laws preventing this companies would love to take humans out from behind the wheel.

[TheSLSAMG]

You should try driving in NJ. Some of the worst roads and drivers I've EVER come across. Our driving test is literally making a few turns in a parking lot and parallel parking between two cones. 

 

New tech does scare me a bit though....Most drivers are really just awful, and with the driver tech we have now (lane detection, etc...) I fear people will completely lose their already shitty driving ability.

But New York man, people are taking stupid pills here, I swear! Go onto the College of Staten Island campus, the place is full of asshats and craters to the point where you would think it were the moon. NJ's definitely terrible as well.

[MeDownYou]

solution to all this ....TELEPORTERS!@

[patrickjp93]

Except the bigger problem in these situations is that people get so used to the conveniences (by only learning how to use them), taking it away cripples them. Conveniences save time, which is fantastic, but not being able to function at ALL without them is starting to become more and more of a problem. 

The same is true in programming. Compilers make programming go much faster, but you lose explicit control. Now, most programmers do not have the mental fortitude (not an insult. It's just that difficult) to beat modern compilers in optimization except in a couple cookie-cutter cases, the list of which is growing ever shorter ever since C++ brought lambdas into the fold. However, a human should always be able to beat a finite-rule compiler given enough time to analyze, code, and troubleshoot. But, is that time spent worth it vs. just using the 90% efficient code the compiler pops out? That depends on whether or not you are in HPC as a career. If not, the compiler is probably good enough.

 

I keep saying how great OpenMP is for multithreading literally anything and why every decent C++ programmer should be familiar with it and use it (with CilkPlus being icing on the cake for physics engines). Truthfully, the convenience of it will take away from potential performance if you spent the extra DAYS of hard-coding your thread management vs. the minutes to couple hours to just use OpenMP pragmas, but for consumer software this would already be many times better than what we have now. In fact, knowing Microsoft and Intel's close relationship, I'd bet half a million bucks there's OpenMP buried in DirectX 12 (Intel heads the standard at Khronos, but AMD can implement it and does (it's currently on 4.0 instead of 4.1, but that's negligible for all but the HPC space)) which is why the multithreading support jumped from almost none to a ton.

 

We need advanced tools which shorten the learning curve to get farther into many of today's fields of study, partly because there is so much more to learn now, but also because our lower level education has not kept pace to evolve and push harder sooner. All we can do is recognize we have those weaknesses and try to learn to compensate for them in what little spare time we have (at least until Google and MIT figure out that living to 500 thing which was mentioned a couple weeks back).

[79wjd]

But New York man, people are taking stupid pills here, I swear! Go onto the College of Staten Island campus, the place is full of asshats and craters to the point where you would think it were the moon. NJ's definitely terrible as well.

Meh, NY drivers are better than NJ drivers; you guys at least have passing roads (single lane roads with a dotted yellow line -- something which is very scarce in NJ).

Plus you guys actually have decent signage...so that's a nice plus. (Also taking the driver's test on an actual road...with other people...in a real world environment is another plus).