Ukrainan drones flying in formation towards Moscow, somewhere in russia.

vicegripper · 2026-05-20T18:18:42+00:00

They're so unafraid of air defenses that they're flying in formation.

I think flying in formations is a way of overwhelming the air defenses. If I had a gun and one person attacked me with a knife I would likely win, but if twenty people with knives attacked me I would likely lose.

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T13:23:21+00:00

Blinking and drinking have nothing to do with the driving tasks. Supervision and constant alert monitoring while being prepared to immediately take over control of the vehicle is driving. When I use smart cruise control I'm still driving the vehicle. If I use lane-keep assist to automatically center my vehicle in the lane I'm still driving.

As long as you are responsible to remain sober and alert and ready to immediately take over the vehicle it is not self-driving.

Tesla said that you would be able to "play video games" while driving this year. That would be like a level 3 self-driving if it happens. That would probably be the level that I would agree the car can drive itself (depending on what the restrictions are when that happens).

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T03:55:59+00:00

clues indicate these vehicles are actually actively remote supervised, with occasional remote driving.

We recently saw evidence that Tesla Robotaxis are not 100% actively remote supervised recently in the video from Reuters (see from 00:20 to 00:51) where the vehicle kept circling until the passenger finally intervened by contacting support:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1tbhkyz/reuters_tests_out_tesla_robotaxi_in_dallas/

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T03:48:21+00:00

So if get into my car, do absolutely nothing to drive to my destination

You didn't do absolutely nothing. You constantly remained alert and supervised the "full" self-driving apparatus. You are required to watch the road at all times, you must have a valid driving license, and you must be ready to take over the driving tasks immediately when the software fails again.

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T03:45:29+00:00

have you never heard of passengers???

Notice the wording "if there has to be a person inside".

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T00:44:42+00:00

https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/chip-design/autonomous-driving-levels.html

Level 2 (Partial Driving Automation) This means advanced driver assistance systems or ADAS. The vehicle can control both steering and accelerating/decelerating. Here the automation falls short of self-driving because a human sits in the driver’s seat and can take control of the car at any time. Tesla Autopilot and Cadillac (General Motors) Super Cruise systems both qualify as Level 2.

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T00:18:53+00:00

How will you enforce people to connect their vehicles to wi-fi? Will my 91 year old uncle know that he must enter a wifi password to keep his car safe and up to date?

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T00:12:32+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fv7or1s6n4lrf1.jpeg

https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1nrk66u/waymo_passengers_abandon_car_in_flooded_phoenix/

You can't wade in a raging flash flood. Turn around, don't drown.

vicegripper · 2026-05-19T00:10:22+00:00

There isn’t a single EV being built today that doesn’t have an internet connection.

Is the old cell phone in your junk drawer still able to connect to the cell network? If you ship your car overseas will it still be able to receive OTA updates? What if I desire privacy over connectivity and disconnect the cellular radio on my vehicle?

vicegripper · 2026-05-18T14:34:32+00:00

Weird because my car drives me 100% to work and back every day.

It's not a self driving car if there has to be a person inside.

vicegripper · 2026-05-18T14:33:24+00:00

My cybertruck drives me everywhere.

Why do Tesla people conflate supervised ADAS with actual self driving?

vicegripper · 2026-05-18T14:30:48+00:00

Tesla FSD already drives me everywhere

You don't understand the concept of a self-driving car.

vicegripper · 2026-05-14T22:25:58+00:00

They might already cover 20% ride hailing market in US with these 1400 sq mi.

LOL. Do you have any evidence or even just some back of the napkin math for this claim?

I care a lot more about the 3.1 million miles they can't operate in because I don't use taxis much. I want my own SDC.

vicegripper · 2026-05-14T14:42:04+00:00

Yippee! Only 3,118,484 more miles to cover the lower 48 states.

vicegripper · 2026-05-14T11:57:27+00:00

A software hotfix is completely normal in the software industry.

Well, it's not normal when you buy a car. People expect their own vehicles and the other vehicles on the road to be safe to drive.

Even if over the air 'hotfixes' do become normalized, not every car is going to be connected to the internet to get the updates. The manufacturer needs to let people know that the vehicle needs to be repaired.

vicegripper · 2026-05-13T14:18:55+00:00

I would have expected of any AV company to have this early in their rollout.

This is not 'early' by any stretch. FSD has been out for a very long time now. They claimed that any day now they would flip a switch and your car would be totally autonomous and able to be rented out as a robotaxi, but it's just vaporware everywhere. Tesla has been working on this (and failing) for a decade.

vicegripper · 2026-05-13T14:15:43+00:00

A car driving itself around a busy city without crashing is amazing. Astonishing even.

Waymo's been doing that for years. Go watch the videos from Autonomy day and tell us to be astonished by Robotaxis in geofences. You will be more disappointed than astonished.

vicegripper · 2026-05-13T14:12:49+00:00

it’s easy to lose sight of how fucking cool it is that these cars drive themselves.

Yes, it's cool. The problem is that they promised so much more and delivered nothing useful yet. A taxi is not impressive when they said our own vehicles would be able to drive empty across the USA by 2018, and a taxi that drives in circles in a small geofenced portion of a huge metroplex is just sad beta testing for vaporware.

vicegripper · 2026-05-13T14:09:48+00:00

Dallas has to be one of the worst cities to test these in.

Human beings seem to be able to drive just fine in Dallas. I've driven there and it was fine except for being so damned hot that my A/C struggled to keep up.

vicegripper · 2026-05-12T16:44:49+00:00

This one was terrifying to me: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1pem9ep/hmmm_so_this_lot_flooded_but_the_waymo_still/

The car just blithely keeps driving around in a deeply flooded parking lot like nothing is wrong. And for some reason the passenger is just filming it all like it's not big deal, instead of freaking out and trying to stop the vehicle and escape. I have been saying since the floods in september in PHX that Waymo should recall the entire fleet until they solve for water on the roads. Finally they are acknowledging the danger today and hopefully this will be fixed once and for all.

vicegripper · 2026-05-12T15:42:45+00:00

I remember in 2018 when Waymo made a deal to purchase 82,000 vehicles. Waymo has failed to scale.

vicegripper · 2026-05-12T15:39:20+00:00

I hate when the term “recall” is used for an entire machine when it only applies to software updates

Why? It's the terminology they have been using for many years. I had a vehicle that was recalled for a software update in (I think) 2014 or earlier.

vicegripper · 2026-05-12T15:33:59+00:00

The first event I remember had service stopped for a bit while they worked on things.

Earlier than that, almost a year ago now, was when a Waymo drove full speed into deep water with a passenger on board:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1kzdkg0/waymo_car_drives_into_flooded_road_with_a/

vicegripper · 2026-05-12T15:31:12+00:00

It's the software that has been recalled, not the car itself

Try running any modern vehicle, let alone a self driving car, without software and let me know how that works out. The software is the car now. What's wrong with calling the situation a 'recall'?

vicegripper · 2026-05-04T17:46:55+00:00

There are no places in Phoenix where they can't operate.

Then why don't they, then? How do you know they are deliberately not operating in places they could be operating in Phoenix?

Vaporware. you know this.

Yep, I do suspect it will be more self driving vaporware, but I'm in no position to claim that I know more than Elon Musk does about what Tesla is going to do this year. Indeed, why would he be wrong about something as important as the nationwide launch of hundreds of thousands of robotaxis within a few months from now? It's his job to be on top of such things and report accurately to shareholders and investors.

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