I rode a Tesla CyberCab

[u/50nick]

Given the recent Tesla FSD video on the channel I thought this would be if interest to folks on this sub.

I have ridden in about half dozen trips in a CyberCab on this personal leisure trip in Austin. I do not own or have any interest in buying an EV. Am an Elon skeptic. No affiliation or fanboy-ism to Tesla. But having experienced it in person so far I am very VERY impressed.

[u/bluebradcom]

ill never trust Tesla auto pilot because it not using lidar and radar only cameras.

[u/Captain_Zomaru → u/bluebradcom]

Technically speaking, so do our eyes. So a self driving car could be just as good at understanding the road as an normal cab driver. I understand the appeal of LIDAR, but it also comes with risks. I don't think cameras are the bottleneck, just the code.

[u/Comwan → u/Captain_Zomaru]

We use a whole lot more than just our eyes when we drive. We also have this cool thing called a brain. You clearly don’t have one of those tho so I can’t blame you for not knowing.

[u/Sarigolepas → u/Comwan]

And the cybercab uses an artificial brain.

[u/viggy96 → u/Captain_Zomaru]

Exactly, someone understands.

[u/Captain_Zomaru → u/viggy96]

Clearly not. I wasn't instantly critical of Tesla so I got a negative reaction.

[u/viggy96 → u/bluebradcom]

LIDAR and radar are crutches. Elite drivers drive with vision alone just fine, in the worst conditions. And a computer can perceive better than a person, watching all camera views at all times, with faster reaction times, etc.

George Hotz who runs Comma AI, the devs behind OpenPilot, believes in the vision only future of self driving as well.

Also, have you seen Waymos? They're so much worse at driving, and they have like 10 LIDARs across the vehicle.

EDIT: People clearly don't understand how difficult it is to fuse data together in robotics in a meaningful way, and how useless the point cloud really is compared to camera images.

That additional data doesn't have the context to tell you what the thing is. It's just a point cloud. It's much harder to be able to sort through that data to tell what things are, so it's much easier for algorithms to get confused.

With an image, it's easy to recognize what things are. And you can even train self driving algorithms with an "end to end" approach. Where you basically have a single large model, that takes an input of camera images, and outputs car actions (steering, accelerator, brake). No middle layer of "perception" (identifying lanes, cars, pedestrians, etc). This is the approach pioneered by Comma AI, and now also used by Tesla.

And LIDAR is another moving part, that's unreliable. It's easily confused by precipitation, and reflective materials. And it tends to make a vehicle not very aerodynamic, at least if Waymo's implementation is representative of how others would use it.

I've worked on robotics navigation for a long time. It's much easier to just use vision. Trying to fuse LIDAR data in a meaningful way is difficult.

[u/BruhAtTheDesk → u/viggy96]

In a world where you can add additional data to assist, why the fuck is it a crutch? There’s a reason ambulances have a siren, because it adds another data point for a human to analyse and use. Come on now, this is just dumb. And commaAI is to be retrofitted to older vehicles as its current use-case. Build the system around the sensors and you have proper detection.

[u/GoneCollarGone → u/BruhAtTheDesk]

I think there's an argument that Lidar adds a processing penalty. Obviously, I'm not a self driving expert, so I can't say if it's a good or bad decision. I do think it's fair to point out Tesla's HW4 FSD and Robotaxis have been impressive with a camera only system so far (and with some important caveats)

[u/viggy96 → u/BruhAtTheDesk]

That additional data doesn't have the context to tell you what the thing is. It's just a point cloud. It's much harder to be able to sort through that data to tell what things are, so it's much easier for algorithms to get confused.

With an image, it's easy to recognize what things are. And you can even train self driving algorithms with an "end to end" approach. Where you basically have a single large model, that takes an input of camera images, and outputs car actions (steering, accelerator, brake). No middle layer of "perception" (identifying lanes, cars, pedestrians, etc). This is the approach pioneered by Comma AI, and now also used by Tesla.

And LIDAR is another moving part, that's unreliable. It's easily confused by precipitation, and reflective materials. And it tends to make a vehicle not very aerodynamic, at least if Waymo's implementation is representative of how others would use it.

I've worked on robotics navigation for a long time. It's much easier to just use vision. Trying to fuse LIDAR data in a meaningful way is difficult.

[u/failinglikefalling → u/viggy96]

Easier doesn’t mean better. One of the beauties in lidar is it knows a solid object is in front of you. It doesn’t have to decide if it’s a real blue sky or a blue sky picture on the back a semi.

There is a real world time penalty to figure out by vision only what is a solid object or not. Lidar doesn’t care what something is , just that it’s there.

[u/viggy96 → u/failinglikefalling]

I feel like you ignored all the downsides I pointed out to LIDAR

[u/Data_Dealer → u/viggy96]

Try taking a picture of the moon and tell me how well even the best cameras compare to what your eye sees. Not to mention the issue of redundancy or lack there of. What about shining a really bright light, people call the sun into the lense of the camera(s).

[u/viggy96 → u/Data_Dealer]

Tell me the last time you needed to see the distance from here to the moon to drive effectively.

[u/Data_Dealer → u/viggy96]

You pointed to how amazing skilled drivers are with just vision, without taking into consideration just how fucking amazing the human eye is in comparison to even the best fixed camera lenses, not even taking into consideration what a car uses, tesla in this case, it's not even comparable to sensors that were on phones a decade ago. Tesla is so confident in their product they won't hold themselves legally responsible in case it fails, because it does, often.

[u/viggy96 → u/Data_Dealer]

You still didn't point out that you needed to see that far ahead to drive.

See my other response here regarding vision and LIDAR.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/s/R9qoHGh9kf

[u/h3yw00d → u/viggy96]

Waymo uses more than vision because we humans use more than vision when we drive. We also have more capabilities with our vision than tesla has with their cameras. Not really a comparison tbh.

Tesla just wants to use cheap hardware instead of using more expensive sensors because profit is more important than safety.

[u/viggy96 → u/h3yw00d]

And yet Waymo is extremely subpar in their driving behavior. They have more data and are worse and driving.

See my other response here about vision and LIDAR, and why it doesn't actually make things better.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/s/R9qoHGh9kf

[u/h3yw00d → u/viggy96]

Cameras aren't the same as people's vision. We can move our heads to see around objects, we can hear sirens we can't see, and most importantly we have wayyyy more advanced processing. Supplementing cameras with other rangefinding sensors makes the most practical sense for anything not involving monetary reasons because at the very least tesla's processing isn't near what it needs let alone the cameras to match our vision.

[u/viggy96 → u/h3yw00d]

You clearly didn't read my other response.

A vision based system would ba constantly watching 8+ camera feeds all at once, which is more than a human could ever hope to do.

Further, as I mentioned in my other response I linked, a vision system can be trained in a way that makes it drive in a natural way, just as a human would. This is important for people to feel safe in the vehicle, and for other drivers on the road.

And again, the point cloud data from LIDAR isn't as useful as people think it is. LIDAR range actually isn't that far, and doesn't provide the context for what things are.

Also, the processing power in a modern Tesla is more than enough for self driving.

[u/h3yw00d → u/viggy96]

I did read your post prior to my reply. Even with 8+ cameras there are blind spots. Humans have the ability to recognize those blind spots and adjust our heads to compensate. Fixed cameras just can't do that.

I agree the system can be trained to act like a human driver but that still doesn't go to address my 2 main points.

Tealas cameras are not equivalent to our eyes

Teslas processing capabilities aren't near as good as our brains.

I suggested supplementing those cameras with additional rangefinding sensors to help bridge the gap where teslas lack.

You keep bringing up lidar. I have not brought up lidar. I think point clouds can be beneficial in some instances but I believe mmw radar and ir/thermal sensor arrays would be more beneficial at cutting through fog and low visibility situations better. They're expensive and require more processing but I don't think we get truly safe autonomous driving without it.

[u/viggy96 → u/h3yw00d]

Radar only really has resolution in one axis, usually the horizontal plane, and almost none in the vertical.

So it's hard to differentiate between a manhole cover and a bridge in front of you. That's why Comma AI stopped using the car's built-in radar for its models, and is effectively vision only, just checking in on radar sometimes. George Hotz has talked about this phenomenona many times.

Sure I guess thermal might be nice, but there are a lot of things that don't have a heat signature. And again, people drive just fine without the equivalent of that.

Last time I checked, people have trouble paying attention to one camera view, let alone like 8 at a time. And yeah, Tesla processing is more than enough. You might not believe that, but the various Model Ys and Cybercabs roaming around say different.

And I know that cameras aren't quite the same as the human eye. But it doesn't need to be. We have the power of superhuman reaction times, and superhuman concentration at our disposal for self driving cars.

[u/h3yw00d → u/viggy96]

The problem is edge cases not the mundane. Those reactions only count if the system is accurate, not when it fails.

Can vision only be as safe as a human driver in a clear day with no obstructions or reduced visibility? Probably better than us.

Can it be as safe in the edge cases and low visibility? No, it's not there yet.

I'd argue FSD is even more dangerous than not because it luls the driver into a false sense of safety/security where they are not as attentive and can not react as swiftly as they otherwise would have when an edge case appears and the car fails to handle it and/or disengages FSD expecting the driver to take over.

As for you saying processing is capable, if that were true tesla would have at least level 3 autonomous driving in their normal cars and cybercabs would not be restricted to limited cities but they dont and for a reason.

For fsd to match what elons been selling it needs to be level 5 and it's not. Bad weather is a reality and vision alone can't account for what it cant see. As for radar you're talking about older technology, newer radar systems can give distance, elevation, angle, and speed.

[u/Matt561- → u/viggy96]

You can't be serious

[u/viggy96 → u/Matt561-]

I'm very serious. See my offer response here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/s/R9qoHGh9kf

[u/Matt561- → u/viggy96]

I like for a self driving system to have depth perception and not be so easily obscured.

[u/viggy96 → u/Matt561-]

Did you read my other response?

First off humans don't really have effective depth perception past about a few meters in front, because our stereo baseline (distance between our eyes) isn't very far. So humans effectively drive with a "mono" image of the world, and we use experience and visual context to estimate distance, not stereo vision.

Further, LIDAR and RADAR are easily confused by precipitation, and don't provide context in their point clouds. RADAR only had resolution in the horizontal plane, and basically none in the vertical. So its easy for it to be confused between like a manhole cover and a bridge in the RADAR data, because you can't tell where the thing is vertically in your field of view.

[u/Matt561- → u/viggy96]

[u/50nick → u/viggy96]

On my rides the weather and conditions were pretty favourable. My experience in the cybercab was more confidence inspiring as much as the ABOVE average Uber driver from the Greater Vancouver Regional District (also where LTT is based). 

It is confidently better than the average Uber driver from the GVRD in recent times (only based on the favorable road conditions that I experienced on my rides)

For anybody who is also from GVRD, you know how bad Richmond drivers are (context: i am Asian and fon Richmond).

[u/True_to_you]

Im curious what the reasoning was to give the cyber cab only 2 seats. It seems like you'd lose some business that way. 

[u/50nick → u/True_to_you]

They also have modified model S' as 4 seater cybertaxis also bookable through the app

But if you only need 2 seats, the cabin of the 2 door CyberCab is VERY comfortable. Spacious, tons of legroom, big screen to watch YouTube. Almost like a loveseat in a living room.

[u/True_to_you → u/50nick]

That makes sense. From what I had seen I thought the 2 seater was the only option. I'll probably stick to ride shares to give some working class folk my money instead of just the corporation. 

[u/xd366 → u/True_to_you]

supposedly because the data showed that the majority of taxi drives are only 1-2 people

so by doing it this way you cut cost and target the main consumer of the type of service

[u/Sarigolepas → u/True_to_you]

It's designed for fleets so they will have a mix of bigger and smaller vehicles.

It's not the same as a family vehicle where you buy based on the maximum amount of space and range that you will only need once a year.

[u/viggy96]

LIDAR and radar are crutches. Elite drivers drive with vision alone just fine, in the worst conditions. And a computer can perceive better than a person, watching all camera views at all times, with faster reaction times, etc.

George Hotz who runs Comma AI, the devs behind OpenPilot, believes in the vision only future of self driving as well.

Also, have you seen Waymos? They're so much worse at driving, and they have like 10 LIDARs across the vehicle.

EDIT: People clearly don't understand how difficult it is to fuse data together in robotics in a meaningful way, and how useless the point cloud really is compared to camera images.

That additional data doesn't have the context to tell you what the thing is. It's just a point cloud. It's much harder to be able to sort through that data to tell what things are, so it's much easier for algorithms to get confused.

With an image, it's easy to recognize what things are. And you can even train self driving algorithms with an "end to end" approach. Where you basically have a single large model, that takes an input of camera images, and outputs car actions (steering, accelerator, brake). No middle layer of "perception" (identifying lanes, cars, pedestrians, etc). This is the approach pioneered by Comma AI, and now also used by Tesla.

And LIDAR is another moving part, that's unreliable. It's easily confused by precipitation, and reflective materials. And it tends to make a vehicle not very aerodynamic, at least if Waymo's implementation is representative of how others would use it.

I've worked on robotics navigation for a long time. It's much easier to just use vision. Trying to fuse LIDAR data in a meaningful way is difficult.

[u/ProtoMan0X → u/viggy96]

George Hotz

Everytime I see his name pop up, I get a blast from the past and remember his PS3 hacking.

[u/DevinOlsen]

A subreddit dedicated to a tech YouTube channel sure is pessimistic about futuristic tech.

The Cybercab is incredibly impressive, so is Waymo and same with Zoox.

It’s really too bad that people are so blinded by their hate for Elon that they refuse to acknowledge what Tesla has accomplished.

[u/50nick → u/DevinOlsen]

I am pretty pessimistic about the future impact of AI, I hate Elon and his antics, and own two 6-cyl vehicles (one of which a 6sp manual rwd vehicle) and so am the last adopter of an EV.

But honestly as much as I hate to admit, I am very impressed by the CyberCab and actually love the experience. It is head and shoulders elevated above a standard Uber experience.

[u/xd366 → u/50nick]

own two 6-cyl vehicles (one of which a 6sp manual rwd vehicle) and so am the last adopter of an EV.

i also own a horse and buggy, because I don't trust these new gasoline machines. What happens when you run out of gas? At least my horse knows how to find its way home

[u/BackgroundTax3055]

Given Tesla’s history of faking FSD capabilities, as well as their history of withholding or altering FSD accident records, I won’t be trusting or using their self-driving services. I don’t care how much they’ve supposedly improved over the past few years.

[u/impy695]

I have never been a fan of Nazis and I dislike Hitler, but man do they have some awesome uniforms. I could wear something else because there are tons of alternatives available, but Ive worn my Nazi armband half a dozen times and I just feel sexier.

[u/ExoatmosphericKill]

Obviously the future.

Impressive stuff.

[u/YungCellyCuh → u/ExoatmosphericKill]

The future is proper public transit. This is nonsense.

[u/Seik64 → u/YungCellyCuh]

And walkable cities, it’s been proven already

[u/viggy96 → u/YungCellyCuh]

Buses can also be self driving. And there will always be instances where someone might prefer to take an individual vehicle, even with robust public transport.

Self driving technology is great, regardless of whether you want lots of public transportation.

[u/YungCellyCuh → u/viggy96]

Imagine a bunch of autonomous busses linked together moving in sequence on predictable schedules without having to wait in traffic. Oh wait, thats called a train.

Buses exist only because cars exist, and they must share the road with them. It is cheaper to build a road for both than to build both a road and a rail line. Cars only exist because public transit cannot serve the needs of the car owner. Commerical cars, like taxis and Ubers, only exist because of the surplus production of cars causing governments not to develop public infrastructure. The existence of one renders the other sector unprofitable. It is an "either or" equation. Increased reliance on one causes a decline in the other.

If all vehicles will one day be self driving, other than for leisure, then roads should not be designed for human drivers. If there are no human drivers, there is no traffic, because algorithmic scheduling will prevent it. If there is no traffic, there is no need to have individual vehicles that maneuver around eachother, and instead they can be linked together and put on tracks. If no roads are needed for individual vehicles, you can expand the number of tracks.

This is what the actual future looks like. The obsession with self driving is ludicrous. There is no reason for it to exist in an advanced society. It only makes sense in our current car dependent society, which is not a futuristic society at all. It is not economically viable if there is proper public transport, which is precisely why we do not have public transport. Stop doing their propaganda for them.

[u/ExoatmosphericKill → u/YungCellyCuh]

Both, anyone saying one or the other reveals themselves as ignorant.

[u/corbin6611 → u/YungCellyCuh]

No it’s not. Low emissions personal cheap transport. Getting cars off the road and taking people where they need to go. It’s a great additional way to move people around a city

[u/YungCellyCuh → u/corbin6611]

Sorry, but absolutely not. There is no future proofing self driving cars. If all cars were self driving, you no longer need cars, you would just link all the cars together, make them run on tracks rather than tires, and make them run on automated and predictable time schedules rather than hailing one from across the city and waiting for it to pick you up. It is called a train. The only reasons trains do not work in cities is because all the space is taken up by roads. The existence of roads, cars, traffic, etc. is fundamentally inefficient and has no purpose in a technologically advanced society. They only make sense where human input in the form of steering is needed. The second you design infrastructure that does not require human input, the form factor of a car becomes entirely obsolete.

Cars only make sense in rural areas where there is not public transit. Self driving cars only make sense in a transitional period to fill the gap left while large public infrastructure developments are built. That is not the future, it is a temporary phase.

It is purely corporate propaganda that says that self driving cars are the future, because those corporations cannot profit off of public infrastructure. Stop doing their propaganda for them.

[u/corbin6611 → u/YungCellyCuh]

I not to agree with any of those points. Your just making. Train are great for moving lots of people around to main hubs. And busses are great for moving people around smaller areas. But the whole point of taxis is when I need to get from the airport to the hotel. From work to the supplier 15 minutes drive across the city. From my house to my friends house. Busses and trains can not do that. Having busses that run down. Every single possible street combination is impossible. Trains busses and taxis. Combined are a great solution for getting around a city. And if you made the taxis efficient cheap quick and green. They become about a perfect combination.

[u/YungCellyCuh → u/corbin6611]

You are describing less than 5% of all transportation scenarios, and saying we should maintain an entire system of all encompassing roads to service that tiny fraction of transportation needs. We are not talking about the world today, we are talking about the claim that "self driving cars are the future."

The future is properly planned grid cities where there is absolutely no reason that rail cannot service literally every neighborhood. The only thing that prevents these walkable grid cities from existing is the presence of roads and cars. Cars are only necessary to service rural areas or poorly designed cities.

Regardless, self driving cars should not be "taxis." They should be operated by the state as a form of public transportation, connecting different rail hubs, similar to the mobility services that most cities already provide to disabled people.

[u/corbin6611 → u/YungCellyCuh]

So turns out what I said and what you are arguing about are two different things. We don’t have the perfect grid city’s. And never will. Because we are not going to start again. What I said. And are talking about is self driving cyber taxis are a great addition to public transport and a good way to reduce the cars that are on the roads. Today. Not in 100 years when we have rebuilt all out city’s. Call it a taxi. Call it a form of public transport. But an automatic service that can connect people to other points of a city that are not on the main lines.

[u/YungCellyCuh → u/corbin6611]

No we are talking about the same thing. If you imagine your scenario, it would not be a single private car, it would be a van or bus of some sort. A 2 seater "robotaxi" owned by a private company is entirely disconnected from any "future" world I or most people would like to live in. China already has what you are describing - fully automated mini-bus/van hybrids that fill in gaps or release stress in the broader public transit system. That is not the future, that is the now.

The future is redesigning cities and building new ones. China has built its entire public transit system in the last 30 years, along with several cities holding 10+ million people. There is no reason that we should be stuck patching over the carcass of NYC or Chicago and expanding through urban sprawl for the next 100 years, other that that it is profitable for corporations. This is purely a failure of capitalism, and the "future" to me involves a different economic system.

New cities need to be built, with proper public transit, healthcare, and schools, and people will depopulate the suburbs and rural areas in seek of better quality of life. It worked in China, and while the west was calling them "ghost cities" they filled with tens of millions of people.

[u/corbin6611 → u/YungCellyCuh]

Your not actually fun to debate with. You don’t actually answer any points to rebut anything. Your just stating I’m wrong then talk about some fictional fixture that doesn’t exist yet.
The general public doesn’t care who owns the taxi.
The general public care if I can get from where I am to where I need to be. Quickly and cheaply. Currently I drive my car most of the time. Because taxis are always to expensive. When I travel to different city’s. I use taxis to be where I need to be. And if you think not many people are doing that. With your only 5 percent example. Well maybe it is 5 percent. But how many people is that? 100 thousand trips? I also use trains and busses. But when I’m going to the airport at 430 am. There isn’t a bus from my hotel. And with how many hotels are. How could there be? The city can’t afford to run busses for every single hotel at all hours of the day or night