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Ed Self-Driving Cars: Pros, Cons, and Predictions

Evaluate Self-Driving Cars on a scale of 1-5 (1 = Terrible, 3 = Meh, 5 = Great)

  • 1

    Votes: 10 6.6%

  • 2

    Votes: 11 7.2%

  • 3

    Votes: 24 15.8%

  • 4

    Votes: 28 18.4%

  • 5

    Votes: 79 52.0%
  • Total voters
    152
  • Poll closed .
Dabop said:
At this point, Tesla is toast...
Their stock is plummeting, their sales have fallen off a cliff, their reputation is horrible and their biggest shareholder is pushing for Musk's involvement with the company to be terminated...
:ROFLMAO:

All this will will severely impact on their ability to finance any further improvements and its doubtful that they will even be able to survive...
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Well that aged like milk.

TSLA is up 61.88% since March 21 (date of your post, exactly 6 months ago). The Tesla Model Y was named Edmunds' Best Driving Car of 2025, and Australia's best mid-size electric SUV in the 2025 CarExpert Choice Awards. In the first half of 2025 the Model Y and Model 3 combined captured 39.4% of the US BEV market (the Chevrolet Equinox was in 3rd place with 4.9% and the Ford Mustang Mach E 4th with 3.8%). Tesla is also still very popular in Europe, with sales increasing in many EU countries.

Tesla sales in China (the world's largest EV market by far) are expected to equal or exceed 2024, while other 'foreign' car makers are seeing a big drop in China. Many Local brands aren't doing so well either. Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway just sold all their stock in BYD over mounting debt and flatlining sales.

Next month Tesla shareholders will vote on whether to approve a 'CEO perfomance award' for Musk that could see him eventually receive Tesla shares worth potentially $1 trillion if he meets all the highly ambitious targets (or nothing if he doesn't meet any of them). If this goes ahead then Musk will work fuill time to achieve the goals won't have much time for politics. It will also mean that the majority of shareholders heartily approve of his involvement in the company.

Tesla's robotaxi service is up and running, and rapidly expanding into more cities. Cybercab and Tesla Semi production facilites are nearing completion. Yesterday Tesla got the patent approved for their 'unboxed production method' which could cut production costs in half. The Cybercab may be the first model to use this construction technique, which could also make a US$25,000 Tesla car possible. FSD v14 is slated to roll out next week. It is expected to feature a tenfold increase in parameter count. Musk suggested that it will feel 'almost sentient', and after seeing what v13 is already capable of I believe him.

If Musk can keep all (or even some of) these balls in the air then he will have earned that performance award, and people will be kicking themselves again for not buying Tesla shares. Then the haters will have even more to whine about. But don't stop making dire predictions - there's always a chance they do go down in flames, and then you can crow about being right!
 
Tesla's stock price has never been in line with reality.
Its sales are way below expectations - what's worse,they are below its competitors in every market not controlled by the US. Other EV are both better and cheaper, and have a lot more innovation in the pipeline.
It was obvious that by sheer force of scale Chinese manufacturers would eventually dominate all but the upscale/luxury EV market and that time is starting now.
And Tesla has no credible plan b.
 
Roger, for the sake of the company Tesla: why would you under any circumstances want them to pay Musk the performance reward?
It seems that you are far more concerned with the well-being of Musk than the well-being of his companies.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
I had the same situation here, except it was me I was fighting trying to decide which way to go.

What we really need is to not have roadworks screwing up motorways. That will never happen though, so the next best thing is to consider the needs of self-driving systems. This could include such things as temporarily painting over incorrect road markings, standardized signage, and supplying up to date map info for cars to access.
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IIRC, in the cases on the news report the road markings were painted over. Presumably it was a situation the system hand not been trained on, or a situation it had been trained on (e.g., dirty road with partially obscured road markings) resulted in it making the wrong decision. The insurmountable problem is that these systems need to have knowledge about the world beyond what sensors can provide and is feasible and economical to put in a car.
Roger Ramjets said:
But of course that won't happen either, so the only practical solution is AI trained on as many miles as possible. Tesla is getting there. FSD (supervised) has just been released in Australia and New Zealand. Today I watched a video of a Tesla driving 'hands free' down a single lane dirt road in Australia with no markings and trees casting shadows over the road. It worked perfectly, including easing left to let an oncoming car go by. The 'driver' and passenger were talking about other stuff, completely at ease with letting the car drive itself.
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An N of 1. A demo that has no doubt been refined many, many times before the media were let anywhere near it. I.e. it's marketing ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.
Roger Ramjets said:
In few years time we will look back at post like yours and recognize them for what they are - pure Ludditism.
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Yeah that's me, a Luddite to my core.
IMG_20250927_111825.jpg
(Please excuse the mess!)
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
IIRC, in the cases on the news report the road markings were painted over. Presumably it was a situation the system hand not been trained on, or a situation it had been trained on (e.g., dirty road with partially obscured road markings) resulted in it making the wrong decision. The insurmountable problem is that these systems need to have knowledge about the world beyond what sensors can provide and is feasible and economical to put in a car.

An N of 1. A demo that has no doubt been refined many, many times before the media were let anywhere near it. I.e. it's marketing ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.

Yeah that's me, a Luddite to my core.
View attachment 64228
(Please excuse the mess!)
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Yes, I think it a great shame that people who understand some things about machinery and how it works and does not work now are declared luddites by those who seem to rely more on imagining how it might.

I know it's a losing battle, but the Luddites were opposed to mechanization for social reasons, not mechanical ones.

Though I might be better considered a Luddite by some, because along with the practical limitations of self driving cars in rural environments like mine, I also think that the entire idea is a misdirection of time, effort, and resources, an electronic buggy whip.
 
Tesla
Roger Ramjets said:
...
Tesla is also still very popular in Europe, with sales increasing in many EU countries.

Tesla sales in China (the world's largest EV market by far) are expected to equal or exceed 2024, while other 'foreign' car makers are seeing a big drop in China. Many Local brands aren't doing so well either. Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway just sold all their stock in BYD over mounting debt and flatlining sales.
Click to expand...

1) In which European countries and at what numbers. Also source please.
Just little reminder, Tesla is not really having good time here. In the first half of year it has barely 5,6% share of EVs. (https://cleantechnica.com/2025/09/06/europe-ev-sales-report-tesla-skoda-has-1-plus-2-win/)

Your framing of Chinese market is hilarious. The only way to make 4,8% share look good. (https://cleantechnica.com/2025/09/20/byd-down-21-phevs-down-7-yoy-august-2025-china-ev-sales-report/)

And globally Tesla is not doing that hot either... (https://cleantechnica.com/2025/09/07/global-ev-sales-report-plugin-vehicles-reach-26-share/

And BTW: I am being nice and coutn ONLY EVs...

...
Tesla's robotaxi service is up and running, and rapidly expanding into more cities. ...
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Just with some slight issues...

arstechnica.com

Three crashes in the first day? Tesla’s robotaxi test in Austin.

Tesla’s crash rate is orders of magnitude worse than Waymo’s.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
There was a report on Radio 4 a few months ago about people driving cars with lane assist having to fight with their cars through motorway roadworks where the old lane markings were being "seen" by the system.

As I'm sure has been already said in this thread a number of times, these systems will work fine except when you really need them to.
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You don't need to fight with your car. You just turn it off. (Before you start driving it, preferably.)
 
There have been a few 'interesting' Waymo videos on youtube...

People trapped in a car, while it aimlessly circles the driveways of their destination address.
(airport in one case, hotel in another).
Police officers chasing an empty car down, after it drove on the wrong side of the road for an extended period.
Waymo cars blowing their horns at each other in the dead of night, while jostling for charging stations.

etc.

I'm looking forward to the Tesla vs Waymo road wars in the future.

(Pew-pew! Pew-pew-pew!)
 
"An unregulated Robotaxi Service, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of self driving vehicles to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
 
They're not sentient. Mine reactivates it if I get out and back in again. I know this. So I switch it back off again before moving off. It will not reactivate while I'm driving.
 
Habit is a wonderful thing. There is also a clear indication on the driver's screen to show whether the system is active or not. Also, a recent software update has calmed the car's response to a bit of a twitch of the steering wheel. So if I feel that, I realise I forgot the pre-flight routine and can switch it off at that point before it can start to be intrusive. (This seldom happens, I nearly always remember.)
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
"Normal people... believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet." - Scott Adams
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I think Adams is being too hard on engineers here. The examples of engineering I've ever looked at suggests that engineers by and large prefer to have exactly the features to meet the spec; no more, no less.

It's actually the customers - the normal people - who are fond of ignorantly assuming that there's room for more features.

When you find that They are breaking your product that just works, it's not because the engineers got greedy. It's because some other, more important customer got stupid, and/or marketing and management got greedy.
 
Long ago I saw a review of one of the latest iterations of the famous BMW flat-twin motorcycle in the 1980's described as "the triumph of development over design." Of course sometimes that's grand. BMW motorcycles and Porsche cars are monuments to engineering. The audio cassette started out as one of the worst possible ways to get music on tape, but ended up one of the best. But sometimes I think engineers do too much to perfect things that shouldn't be there at all. If we see the proliferation of private cars and their traffic and highways as a problem, then making them better will, despite being admirable and clever, and despite its solving some local problems such as safety and efficiency, be a net step in the wrong direction.
 
bruto said:
Long ago I saw a review of one of the latest iterations of the famous BMW flat-twin motorcycle in the 1980's described as "the triumph of development over design." Of course sometimes that's grand. BMW motorcycles and Porsche cars are monuments to engineering. The audio cassette started out as one of the worst possible ways to get music on tape, but ended up one of the best. But sometimes I think engineers do too much to perfect things that shouldn't be there at all. If we see the proliferation of private cars and their traffic and highways as a problem, then making them better will, despite being admirable and clever, and despite its solving some local problems such as safety and efficiency, be a net step in the wrong direction.
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Why are you blaming the engineers for this? They perform work for hire. Who is hiring them? Who is giving them the specifications?

We're not in the situation we're in because of engineers. We're in this situation because you and I want to pick and choose our conveniences, and lay off the moral weight of our choices on those we hire to fulfill our dreams. If engineers are perfecting a car that shouldn't be there at all, then what should we make of everyone who possesses a car, and vituperates the engineers for improving on it at our behest?
 
theprestige said:
I think Adams is being too hard on engineers here. The examples of engineering I've ever looked at suggests that engineers by and large prefer to have exactly the features to meet the spec;
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I respect engineers a lot. They are responsible for making scientific discoveries and inventions practical and affordable. They don't just design finished products they design the equipment that can mass produce those products and make them affordable.
 
theprestige said:
Why are you blaming the engineers for this? They perform work for hire. Who is hiring them? Who is giving them the specifications?

We're not in the situation we're in because of engineers. We're in this situation because you and I want to pick and choose our conveniences, and lay off the moral weight of our choices on those we hire to fulfill our dreams. If engineers are perfecting a car that shouldn't be there at all, then what should we make of everyone who possesses a car, and vituperates the engineers for improving on it at our behest?
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There's plenty of blame to go around. You and I might want to pick and choose, but our choices are limited to what engineers have made available to us. In many case they were not just following orders working for hire, but developed innovations without being told to and even self-promoted them. Management will often go with it simply because the novelty may attract customers looking for something different, or because they respect the engineer's vision. OTOH management may have ideas of their own that don't come to fruition because the engineers don't like it. You may say that's the fault of management for not hiring the 'right' engineers, but when the industry is full of Luddite engineers what choice do they have?

Real engineers aren't just machines that just take in a specification and spit out a design, they are people just like you and me.Their own desires often factor bigly in what they come up with, and then we are stuck with those choices. Of course our decisions have impact too, but they are constrained by what is made available to us.

As in politics, it often comes down to the lesser of two evils. In the 1890's New York city had a big problem - horse manure. What ultimately solved it was the motor car, a far cleaner mode of personal transport. Electric cars were initially very popular in the city because they were quiet, low maintenance, easy to use (particularly for women who didn't want to risk breaking an arm or worse trying to start them) and didn't need an exotic fuel.

But then the electric starter motor was invented by Charles F. Kettering an American engineer who founded Delco and was head of R&D at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Kettering didn't have to do that. He could have worked on making electric vehicles better instead. But he was a petrol-head. Kettering's lack of concern about the environment led (pun intended) to him identifying tetraethyllead as an anti-knocking compound, precipitating one of the largest environmental disasters iin the history of mankind. How many of us used leaded petrol in our cars, blissfully unaware of the damage it was causing? An engineer was responsible for that.
 
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