even in "auto pilot" mode in a plane, that doesn't mean you can go take a nap while the plane is flying either.. other objects in the sky that arent part of flight plans can interfere. auto pilot on a plane is usually so pilots can eat but still pay attention in front of them. problem is most of the public doesnt know better. hell, 99% of people dont read manuals to products they buy before calling customer service.

I'll never understand why people have such issue with the name autopilot. Its exactly what the feature is like and a great name. You turn it on for long drives on the highway and it takes much of the workload away. Basically city driving is your take off and landing and you autopilot the long boring sections. Anyone that has ever used it for a several hour drive understands how fresh and alert you arrive. Drive all day through the country and into a city at rush hour and your fatigued. Autopilot that all day drive and you are alert and ready to go on arrival it is honestly like you didn't just drive all day. Maybe its just people have no idea how autopilot on a plane actually works or why it was invented.

Cool! First photo is Superchargers, second is destination charging for anyone that doesn't know. Destination is like 35 mph but good for when you're sleeping overnight!

I agree with this. I've seen some people do stupid stuff with it, but I know I've been able to avoid at least two different accidents because autopilot allowed me to look to the left and see idiots on their phones drifting into me, where with my last car I would have been more worried about if I needed to slow ahead of me to be able to glance at a car near my rear door.

Perhaps it is an issue because everyone thinks planes fly without pilots or something? I really have no idea, and always thought autopilot meant the plane was flying, and the pilot was making sure it was doing everything properly... just like in my car?

Thanks for That, I learned something today.

https://electrek.co/2019/03/14/tesla-model-y-electric-suv-unveil

Do you think you can fit a pin in there? Would be the ultimate pin hauler...

Doubtful, at least not with the head on.

I think you could. If my 3 had a hatch I think I could fit one. The Y is bigger.

Almost certainly. I’m sure the storage space will be competitive with its peers.

Looks like it. Head in first. Front seats maybe up a little at worst. I don’t think people realize how much room they have to work with when there’s no gas tank, drive shaft, exhaust, etc.. my Model 3 is pretty spacious.

D758CCBF-E9FF-4AEC-A466-2D486C91235F (resized).jpeg

One of the best Model 3 reviews I’ve read to date...

https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2019/03/14/gearheads-enjoy-tesla-model-3

The model Y has seating for 7 and a hatchback. I bet it will haul a pin inside.

My Mazda5 would fit a Stern NIB. I'd hope this could also do that. This seems like a similarly sized car, a very small 3 row suv. I might have to keep an eye on this model when its time for a new car.

IMG_2667 (resized).JPG

My tiny 2005 RAV4 has hauled every kind of pin, widebody, etc. I will say STTNG with the gun handle on the front was tight.

The difference is the sloping back window on the Model Y. The 2005 RAV4 and Mazda 5 are more of a boxed rear end so the space at the very rear of the vehicle is still useful because of the interior height. I believe someone said a Lexus RX350, which is a longer vehicle than a 2005 RAV4, cannot hold a pinball machine with the head on because of the sloped rear window.

Yeah, but I'd still think if you loaded with the head in first you'd be fine.

It will be interesting to see. I guess putting in the game loaded butt-end first is going to require a few guys to lift and lay the game down when taking it out.

I plan on buying a Y. Had a down payment on two 3’s and waited three years through all the ups and downs , earnings reports, car analyses, PS threads and tweets. Ultimately I didn’t want a car but a SUV with space to haul a pin, so got a refund.

The 3 experience taught me a few lessons. Since this is a car thread, I am going to make a pinball-ument.

1) Don’t buy (a pin) the car until you know exactly what it is.

2) Don’t pay anything or make a deposit until (a pin) the car is ready to be made.

3) Don’t take on unnecessary debt to buy (a pin) the car.

4) There is no rush to buy (a pin) the car. They will be available beginning 2021 whether you preordered or not. Someone’s always reselling and Tesla will announce special runs along the way. They will be run at least thru 2024.

5) if (a pin) the car company goes out of business, you don’t want to buying (a pin) the car then. Must have patience until the time is right and then proceed.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ark-invest-tesla-is-three-years-ahead-of-all-its-competitors

* Tesla is 3 years ahead of peers like Nvidia in autonomous hardware, given the specs of the custom chip it released late last year.

* Elon Musk said that Tesla started building the chip (Tesla Autopilot artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer) three years ago, and that it will enable a 2000 percent improvement over the Nvidia system it will replace.

* ARK estimates that EV sales could reach 26 million by 2023, up from 1.3 million in 2018, if battery production scales accordingly.

* By year-end 2020, Tesla drivers will be able to relinquish all responsibility to Autopilot and fall asleep while being transported from point to point, pending regulatory approval, per Elon Musk.

I love my Model 3 but the whole FSD fiasco is a joke. They suckered me into paying for it when I configured and it was a scam. It is the one thing about Tesla that I hate, never give them money in advance and don't believe a word they say about FSD.

sorry but what is FSD ?

There's just no way this will happen - MAYBE in a few, very localized areas. I know Tesla is doing it's own internal testing with employees, but before any widespread autopilot comes into use, there is going to have to be significant testing outside of Tesla's own people. And that hasn't even started yet.

But the sad part is that when, not if, there is a significant accident "caused" by a Tesla on autopilot, it's probably going to derail things for a very, very long time - simply due to perception and media. Not to mention the financial implications that will cause Tesla to be heavily sued by anyone involved in a Tesla autopilot accident. It's one thing for the driver to be sued, it's another for the company because people will go after a LOT more $$$ from Tesla than if an individual caused the accident. And now there will be at least two parties suing - the owner of the Tesla and whomever else was involved in the accident. There's a lot of hurdles to overcome, and laws to be made.

Full Self Driving

There has already been several significant accidents caused by autopilot and even deaths. There is no expectation that it will be flawless it only has to be better statistically than a person.

current system is 20fps. new system is 2,000fps. barring issues like sun or bad road markers, it will start reacting to any situation FAR faster than any human can.

Since tesla has SO many sensors / cameras on-board (that I'm assuming is being recorded), it should be the ideal blackbox. I'm guessing if a case really went to court, they could take that data, create a driving simulation to recreate the accident (sun, road markers, vehicles involved), and have jurors drive in that simulation and see how many (if any) avoid the accident. If none of them do any better than the tesla auto pilot, it'll prove it wasn't at fault. If you ever watched the movie sully, this is exactly what they did. They accused the pilot that he could have made it to a nearby airport, and when they made the simulation realistic (not immediately headed for an airport, but accessing the damage and going through the manual protocol), no pilot would have ever made it to the airport.

I know that's the line they are selling but its just marketing. I'm a software engineer and don't get fooled with the whole neural network, machine learning, 2000 fps jargon. When you say barring issues like the sun that is a massive thing to just overlook. I guess it will be safe if you only drive indoors. Autopilot is one thing and its pretty impressive for what it is but it has glaring issues detecting stationary objects and falls apart completely with poor road markings. They have not shown any evidence they are anywhere near FSD nor do they have the hardware required to get to the level of autonomy they are boasting.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most, if not all, of the autopilot accidents were attributed to mostly human error. Even when autopilot was at fault, technically the human component did something wrong (ie did not have their hands on the wheel like Tesla instructed, not paying attention, etc) that would have made the accident avoidable. Tesla even points this out.

Full autonomous autopilot is a different animal - there will be no human driver to pass all or part of the blame to. Public perception may be the biggest hurdle to overcome. And the first accidents will be major news. There's no doubt to me that full autopilot will be much, much safer than human driving, especially in the long run. I'd be tempted to say that I'd feel safer with my own daughter driving on autopilot than driving themselves (beginning driver).

Tesla always points the finger at the human being that is to be expected. Anyone that has driven any distance on autopilot quickly sees its faults. It is great under known conditions but it falls apart in a hurry at any type of unknown. Autopilot does a good job on well marked and maintained highways but its dumber than Wile E Coyote, and would follow lines right into a painted tunnel.

I jumped in and paid for the $2000 FSD "upgrade. Why?

Includes a HW3 upgrade. And they are tying many new features to the FSD package. SO even if FSD doesn't ship for 2 years, many features will require the upgrade.

$2K was a relative deal so I jumped on it.

Although I'm jumping ship from my Model 3 Performance the day the Model Y Performance ships. Or some other company makes a better car.

$2K is a deal and I its worth it just for the hardware. They suckered me for the extra thousand and I'm not impressed how shady they have been about it. I don't care about any of the other pricing, we made a deal and that was the price at the time. The FSD though is another matter.

I disagree with this slightly. I think that anyone who drives a long distance on auto pilot who understands the limitations of the system quickly sees it's advantages.

I have avoided minimally two accidents because I had auto pilot on, and it allowed me to check my surroundings without feeling like I might have something pop up in front of me and cause a big issue. In one case, I was on two lane road that merged to one, and I saw a car coming up in the lane beside me in my rear view mirror. Since I was on autopilot and I knew that it was going to pay attention to where the wheel should be going forward, I was able to turn and look directly at the car which then decided to try merging directly into my left side (they were almost parallel with me). Autopilot allowed me to visually look at something that I wouldn't have otherwise done, and take corrective action to get out of the situation.

But, if you are someone who puts it on and then reads a book or watches a video or something, you're not using it right. Right now, it definitely has certain limits, including some that I think should be easier to fix than they apparently are like my car phantom brakes under an interchange when the geo-fencing worries the car is on the road above what I'm on where the speed has to be reduced for the curve, so I'll drop from 63 to 40 and then a few seconds later get back to 63 thanks to that. If you're aware of the limits and where / why it has issues, it is easy to correct them. For me, I just now drive with my foot on the "go" pedal there, and it works. It has gotten significantly better, I think.

As much as I like autopilot, and as much as I agree with the company that they needed to redefine what it was to make the entry level cheaper for new car buyers, I agree they did this terribly stupidly.

I think they should have made three levels, AP, EAP, FSD.

AutoPilot would be just what it was it is, and could be tacked on for either $2k or $3k.

Enhanced AutoPilot would have Navigate on Autopilot, basic summon, etc - AKA the stuff that people who bought EAP have as part of that package. This would cost enough after regular AutoPilot to make it $5k to get to this level.

FSD should have additional things. Enhanced Summon, the Stop Light thing for autopilot (which sounds fascinating, awesome, and terrifying all at once), and more stuff like that. This could have been $3k then.

If they reduced the costs to make it so that no one was paying "less" than what they had before when they hadn't delivered ANYTHING for FSD yet, I would have no issue with it. If they delivered FSD features and then reduced the price, no issues. And I don't feel like anyone who got FSD was expecting full autonomy before they reduced it, but they were fairly expecting *something*.

Do that pricing for a year and then lower it perhaps, but it was stupid. AND, I didn't have FSD, and I still felt it was dumb as could be.

Don't get me wrong Autopilot is amazing and I know it makes me a better driver. My comment was more to people saying they would rather let the car drive on autopilot than let their daughter drive. For a long drive between cities autopilot makes you so much better a driver. If you drive all day then into a city at rush hour, your fatigued and brain dead. You drive on autopilot all day and into a city at rush hour you feel sharp and ready to go. It does a wonderful job at reducing your stress and fatigue. I could not live without it. That being said its nowhere near autonomous driving any kind of issue with the road or lines and it can go crazy. I took my 3 through a mountain pass just last weekend and any stretch that the plows, ice and sand have worn off the lines it's pretty much a death trap. It just alerts like crazy, swerving all over the road before just disabling. Another stretch had new lanes with old and new lines and it tried to follow the old lines right into the concrete median.

It's hard for me to know exactly what it was doing obviously without being there, but I was shocked in a snowstorm where I was traveling with places where the lines would be obscured by snow how well it did. Admittedly, those were straighter roads, but still...

I do think it's actively getting better, and that's all that I ask for. I definitely know it's not perfect - at once place in town that it initially didn't know, it learned it in an update, but then unlearned it, and now it likes to try to take a sharp right hand turn (like, maybe 20 forward feet in the turn lane) at 45 mph. I figure it will get fixed again, but can't let your guard down yet.

But yes, SO MUCH LESS DRIVING FATIGUE.

it can react to any situation it can detect.. computer vision is not a solved problem.

aside: i think we're over this hill now but 10 years ago there was hesitation about neural nets since you can't prove it works.. you cant point to the line of code that handles a feature, all you can do is test it.. and you know it passes those tests.. but you can't really extrapolate performance outside of the testing/training regime. i.e., how do you 'bug fix' a neural network (there isnt a specific line of code you can identify as root cause), and how do you assure yourself you haven't impacted other behaviors.. i.e., the new training could 'undo' some other training.

it will be interesting how all this plays out from regulatory, legal. agree with idea of the first to market may set whole industry back if they rush it

Imagine your Tesla just got upgraded to "Full Self Driving" (or any other car you own comes with FSD). Are you really foolish enough to pull out Facebook and start reading or take a nap? Even if fully "approved" by whoever approves such things and even if extensive testing shows it to be reliable, would you really trust the system with the life of you and your family? I'm sure some people would, but it's beyond my ability. Steering wheel, go, and stop manual overrides are 100% necessary and will remain that way for a long time and as a matter of life and death.

When driving on Autopilot, my attention changes in character from steering, going and stopping to making sure the computer is doing those things appropriately (and I *often* have to override manually). The AP accidents are a result of drivers trusting the system completely. Granted AP is *not* claiming to be FSD, but even when FSD is a thing, to close one's eyes until arriving at the destination, even briefly, will certainly result in a crash and death, if only on rare occasions.

FSD will be reality some day - no doubt. I think it will coincide with a technologically upgraded road network, gasoline being no longer used, and all cars being equipped with cooperating technology. For at least my lifetime, we are at least heading in the right direction.

Note that when I said this, I was talking about the future when full, autonomous autopilot is integrated into society. Not today's partial autopilot.

Ah, autopilot will never be autonomous your talking about two different things. Autopilot is just traffic aware cruise control and basic auto steer to keep the car in the lane. FSD or Full Self Driving is autonomous driving technology. Autopilot is like it is in a plane it can't take off or land but it can keep the plane on course once its in the air. Autopilot cant drive the car it can just keep it at the right speed and between the lines on the highway.

My two cents on the two features.
Autopilot, it's a gift from the heavens in the grind of rush hour. If your daily commute contains any busy highway during rush hour do not hesitate. I dont know if it comes with auto lane change or not anymore. It sucks without lane change, so if it doesn't come with that than forget it.
Full Self Driving, this has a bunch of stuff now so I'll give me opinion on each.
-Autopark, it takes for ever. Drives so slow it just annoys the driver and everyone waiting for you to just hurry up and park. Also not to be trusted parking near pick ups trucks, their bumper can be too high and it wont see them and it will hit them.
-Navigate on Autopilot, this is the ability for the car to take highway interchanges and exits. Again it tends to go way to slow on them, and its flaky nags you to change lanes and makes errors. I personally never use it and find it annoying, it often seems to put me in the wrong lane. Depends on map data so it might work better depending on location.
-Summon, its an interesting trick and I have used once to move the car a couple feet to avoid a puddle. Not worth money but fun to show your friends. If you had a super narrow garage and you had to park in it everyday it might have some value. Generally flaky though and doesn't control great with the app.
-Everything else is just a promise to deliver at some point in the future.

this guy is very brave testing auto pilot during a snow storm

I like the analogy of an elevator.
We used to have elevator operators that would drive the elevator up and down the building. Opening the doors for people and stopping the car on the right floor. Eventually we were able to run computer code that could drive the elevator for us. We no longer needed an operator. Now this system wasn’t foolproof, but it became better and better over time, so that now a days we don’t even worry that there’s no operators in the car. Even today elevators break and kill people, it doesn’t happen often, but it still happenes.

The collective confidence that society has in the system is good enough to not worry if you’ll die when you get on an elevator; and we’ll get there with autonomous cars soon too. As a society we will have to decide what percentage of failure is acceptable. Autonomous cars will never 100% crash free. (Your a fool if your waiting for that.) for comparison airplanes still crash an kill people on the regular, yet people don’t hesitate to get on board by the millions daily. Cruse ships run into problems occasionally, yet people are not afraid board.

Time and time again we put our faith in systems that are known to be faulty. We just trust that the system is reliable enough to get us to our destination this time.

elevator is a vastly simpler system so.. not sure about that analogy. you could look at airplanes actually as counter example.. we've been using them for 100 years but there is still fear of flying/some % don't trust them or will ever use them, super regulated, if 2 crash under similar circumstances in a few months they are all grounded until it is sorted out.

i would feel autonomous vehicles are more likely to go that route than elevator.. elevator is a much simpler device.

seperate will be when mfg will actually tell you that its ok to not pay attention.. as then the liability is really on them. i mean, what would the owner even need collision coverage for? its going to be either the other driver or their manufacturers fault. cant imagine car mfg lawyers are excited by this prospect. maybe legal precidents are yet to be set though.. but who wants to go first?

It's guaranteed every autonomous car death will get major press and elevators (which do kill people) get next to none.

jalopnik reviews tesla vs bmw vs chevy bolt. they are surprisingly positive with tesla's design
https://jalopnik.com/watch-us-dig-into-a-totally-disassembled-tesla-model-3-1833772985

My car was in the shop to get a dent ironed out since it's probably going to be on the floor of the MGC and I wanted that nicer. I loaned my mom's Honda Accord that is like four years old.

Holy crap, it's like I forgot how to drive. It took me like a day to not barrel down on red lights freaking out that the car wasn't slowing, it was bothering me that it was shaking so much, and I was really bothered by how many buttons there were. I also don't think I remembered to lock it once properly, and every time I went to it I forgot I had to take the keys out to open it. And man, I was shocked by how much I could *smell* the gas in it.

It really showed me just how much I appreciate all the stress that my 3 takes away from my day to day life. Next year, one week from the MGC, I am NOT putting that car in the shop. I don't need to add MORE stress.

After a few months of owning a Model 3, the first time I drove my wife’s new BMW X2 was a fiasco. I too felt like I forgot how to drive. I looked at the key fob like it was a rubber chicken ... I didn’t know how to start the car. I put the wipers on trying to put the car in gear. One look at the dash and it seemed like it had a billion buttons ... my mind was blown. I absolutely HATED the jerky acceleration with the completely alien feeling of automatic transmission shifts. When we got to the boardwalk I pulled into a spot, but forgot to put the car in park ... quickly hit the brakes and then hit the wiper washer button trying to put it in park. Arg ... felt like an idiot. Then I got out and walked away ... leaving the key fob in the center console. Didn’t notice until we got back.

After that I told my wife I never wanna drive her car again.

My Model 3 is a spaceship, and I effin’ love it.

Exact same experience here.

hope you guys never have to rent a car somewhere

I’m in for sure!! Charging station down the street