How Elon Musk knocked Tesla's 'Full Self-Driving' off course

[Zorro]

Tesla’s campaign to deliver a fully autonomous vehicle has suffered amid mounting safety concerns — and the boss’s Twitter distraction

SAN FRANCISCO — Long before he became “Chief Twit” of Twitter, Elon Musk had a different obsession: making Teslas drive themselves. The technology was expensive and, two years ago when the supply chain was falling apart, Musk became determined to bring down the cost.

He zeroed in on a target: the car radar sensors, which are designed to detect hazards at long ranges and prevent the vehicles from barreling into other cars in traffic. The sleek bodies of the cars already bristled with eight cameras designed to view the road and spot hazards in each direction. That, Musk argued, should be enough.

Some Tesla engineers were aghast, said former employees with knowledge of his reaction, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. They contacted a trusted former executive for advice on how to talk Musk out of it, in previously unreported pushback. Without radar, Teslas would be susceptible to basic perception errors if the cameras were obscured by raindrops or even bright sunlight, problems that could lead to crashes.

Musk was unconvinced and overruled his engineers. In May 2021 Tesla announced it was eliminating radar on new cars. Soon after, the company began disabling radar in cars already on the road. The result, according to interviews with nearly a dozen former employees and test drivers, safety officials and other experts, was an uptick in crashes, near misses and other embarrassing mistakes by Tesla vehicles suddenly deprived of a critical sensor.

https://wapo.st/3ZQygRb

[PJMcK]

1. Cars need to be driven by alert humans!

Anything else is asking for trouble.

Frankly, AI falls in the same category, in my opinion.

[friend of a friend]

3. And there are far too few of them.

[tanyev]

2. Elon needs to be sued. Maybe even prosecuted.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Heckuva job Eloon

[niyad]

5. egoloon muskrat is a dangerous waste of resources.

[3Hotdogs]

6. Even with the radar .... When I drive in sleet, the radar on the collision avoidance gets

encrusted with ice and the system is disabled.

How did Tesla plan to overcome this? Some, or all, of the cameras would also become encrusted and useless.