Well let me add to that Straightshooter, just an hour ago my wife picked me up at the hospital after a procedure, and lo and behold, sitting at a stop light the car behind rear ended my 3 month old Equinox... Little damage, the tailgate will need replaced and whatever under the sensor in the bumper as it's nicked.

The Driver, a 101 year old little lady in a Lincoln MKC. She has insurance, but that's not the point, at 101 shouldn't be on the road, or if she'd had a Tesla with FSD it wouldn't have happened.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

sitting at a stop light the car behind rear ended my 3 month old Equinox

Tesla ‘Robotaxi’ adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month — 4x worse than humans

https://electrek.co/2026/02/17...x-worse-than-humans/


https://gizmodo.com/tesla-robo...an-humans-2000722989

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Well let me add to that Straightshooter, just an hour ago my wife picked me up at the hospital after a procedure, and lo and behold, sitting at a stop light the car behind rear ended my 3 month old Equinox... Little damage, the tailgate will need replaced and whatever under the sensor in the bumper as it's nicked.

The Driver, a 101 year old little lady in a Lincoln MKC. She has insurance, but that's not the point, at 101 shouldn't be on the road, or if she'd had a Tesla with FSD it wouldn't have happened.

Yep, I do not really care for autonomous cars, but FSD has som great uses. I know people who are not quite as old as the lady that hit you, but could still find FSD very helpful in giving them the freedom they want. But, mot people that age are technology averse.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:

I fight for old age, every day and every week. I’m in my 50’s, and I work out a lot and eat like a nutritionist. Gave up alcohol, willingly, and last month I didn’t eat outside my kitchen once. I don’t even care about dining out anymore. For me only, a waste of my money. I may get a medical at some point but until then I’m in the gym every week lifting. I do cardio at home on a bike. I will fight that old man, inside, until I’m in a wheel chair or in the ground. I get blood work done several times a year too. I made the decision that time is more valuable than money. Time on this rock = working out, eating correctly, and being as fit as I can push myself to be. And piloting my 4 wheelers, 2 wheelers, and watercraft is at the top of my totem pole below God. I’ll fight AI until the end or I have absolutely no choice.

Well said. You and I are in pretty much complete agreement on that one. I get enjoyment from doing stuff for myself, and the satisfaction of seeing it done. A world where AI dictates my life, makes all my decisions, does all my work, and chauffeur's my lazy ass around? No thanks. I might as well be dead for all the good I'm doing at that point. Also, skillsets atrophe if not practiced, so the longer you allow something to be done for you the more incapable you become of doing it yourself. I'm surprised how many here are ready to just hand over their freedom (and maybe their life) to a computer algorithm, whether it's statistically safer or not.

And the horse rider had to hand over freedom to the oil company and the sailer to the coal miner, etc etc etc.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for regulations, I think we’d be as interested in drones as we are in shooting.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
And the horse rider had to hand over freedom to the oil company and the sailer to the coal miner, etc etc etc.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for regulations, I think we’d be as interested in drones as we are in shooting.

I don’t agree with your analogies. You can still ride the equivalent of a horse. It’s called a motorcycle. It’s faster too, with more horsepower

The sailing, sailing away..analogy doesn’t make sense either. We aren’t talking about a major propulsion change. It’s literally Hal9000 taking over. Not really the same thing. Horse to motorcycle, the rider is still in charge, unless the horse wasn’t broke in. The Captain was still in charge of the boat. He or she may use cruise control but the ship isn’t Hal9000 controlled.

Follow this out and humans will be that cartoon movie, or Idiocracy, sitting in a chair that is a toilet, with tubes to drink/eat, and never move. Watching AI created content vs. real humans being actors. Listening to music made by AI instead of humans. Playing video games created by AI bots. Human psychology, passion, etc is a thing. Human creativity is a thing. Losing that, as he said above, then what is the point to life then?

And see above in Austin where self piloted vehicles are crashing at a higher rate than humans. And that’s really telling seeing that every time I drive locally 50% or more are staring at phones while they “attempt” to drive. Instead of AI, I’d rather our PD’s, arrest these people. Charge them with DUI. Would create huge revenue streams that could go into our school systems and fix our infrastructure. Then see how got damn fast this shit behavior changes. Phone and internet addicts need to be dealt with, not coded away with even more code. Everyone that is so in favor of this, cool, you pay for it. It’s going to be awfully expensive. You pay for the shit, and give the rest of the waiver to sign and we get to save thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
Tesla ‘Robotaxi’ adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month — 4x worse than humans

https://electrek.co/2026/02/17...x-worse-than-humans/


https://gizmodo.com/tesla-robo...an-humans-2000722989

Yeah it is a very complex system and is not perfect but the devil is in the details. Here are the "crashes" in detail

The new crashes include a collision with a fixed object at 17 mph while the vehicle was driving straight, a crash with a bus while the Tesla was stationary, a collision with a heavy truck at 4 mph, and two separate incidents where the Tesla backed into objects, one into a pole or tree at 1 mph and another into a fixed object at 2 mph.

notice one crash was while the Tesla was stationary (so it is obvious that all incidents regarding the Teslas are reported as crashes regardless of who was at fault , one at 1mph one at 2 mph one at 4mph and the 5th was concerning hitting a fixed object at 17mph, but it would be interesting to have the details on that one. So one of the incidents was obviously not Teslas fault, two of them may or may not have been Teslas fault and the two that obviously were Teslas fault were at 1mph and 2mph respectively. And both of these were while backing up very possibly out of a tight garage or parking space.

***OLD THREAD WARNING***

Man constructs a Looney Tunes-style painted brick wall to see if his Tesla's autopilot can detect it when driving at speed

^^

I'm sure there are many human drivers who would go right through that "wall."

Make no mistake, whether you are for it or against it, autonomous vehicles are coming. I would not be too surprised if, in a few years, they are the only kind you could buy new. Not that you could buy them, they will all be owned by commercial ride provisioning services in a transport-on-demand model. Some manufacturers will enter this market, there will be some startups, and existing on-demand services will simply dispense with their human staff. Eventually, I suspect human driving will come to be seen as a hobbyist/recreational endeavor and will be tightly regulated, at least in some areas such as urban cores. Not unlike how gun ownership and recreational activities are regarded by many today.

The economics mandate it, and money always wins.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
I'm sure there are many human drivers who would go right through that "wall."

Make no mistake, whether you are for it or against it, autonomous vehicles are coming. I would not be too surprised if, in a few years, they are the only kind you could buy new. Not that you could buy them, they will all be owned by commercial ride provisioning services in a transport-on-demand model. Some manufacturers will enter this market, there will be some startups, and existing on-demand services will simply dispense with their human staff. Eventually, I suspect human driving will come to be seen as a hobbyist/recreational endeavor and will be tightly regulated, at least in some areas such as urban cores. Not unlike how gun ownership and recreational activities are regarded by many today.

The economics mandate it, and money always wins.

Pretty soon it won't even be people riding in those autonomous vehicles, it will be robots. Robots riding in robots. In fact, why should those robots even take on human form at all, but simply be the autonomous vehicles themselves. We can call them Gobots.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
I'm sure there are many human drivers who would go right through that "wall."

Make no mistake, whether you are for it or against it, autonomous vehicles are coming. I would not be too surprised if, in a few years, they are the only kind you could buy new. Not that you could buy them, they will all be owned by commercial ride provisioning services in a transport-on-demand model. Some manufacturers will enter this market, there will be some startups, and existing on-demand services will simply dispense with their human staff. Eventually, I suspect human driving will come to be seen as a hobbyist/recreational endeavor and will be tightly regulated, at least in some areas such as urban cores. Not unlike how gun ownership and recreational activities are regarded by many today.

The economics mandate it, and money always wins.

Just hail a Johnny Cab and go for a ride!

So I went to California about a month ago for a one night stay. We went back for the Fourth of July weekend a couple weeks later.
When I got off of SR260 and onto I-17 I fired up FSD. It drove the entire way to Santa Monica (30th and Pico), through rush hour traffic, etc. While we were there we made many outings, and I just let the car drive. It worked incredibly well. It drove us home also. It make the drive far more enjoyable and far less stressful. Put it in Mad Max mode when we got into the LA metroplex and it drove like a Californian on the freeway.
On I-10 I set it to Hurry Mode as Mad Max would get me criminal speeding tickets. Mad Max has no issues breaking the speed limit by 30 mph if the freeway is clear.

(I don’t use it in SR260 because it’s too cautious in the roundabouts and goes too slow for my preference.)

I'm in the Black Hills of South Dakota right now, working my way west on vacation. The roads here are amazing...so much fun. I'm super jealous of every motorcycle I pass, but even in a Suburban pulling a trailer there's joy to be had from navigating these things. Look through the curve, pick your speed, find the apex, and power through it. It's just a joy to drive.

Until you encounter grandpa from Minnesota going 25mph with a line of 17 cars stuck behind him trying to cook everybody's brakes on the downgrades (even in 1st gear my rig doesn't want to go that slow). Maybe we should force that guy to get an autonomously driven vehicle...

AARP will never allow that.

So how can they handle getting stopped and surrounded by rioting or violent flash mob ? Will they pull your roscoe if they can't navigate or drive though the attacking mobs?

quote:

Originally posted by wrightd:
So how can they handle getting stopped and surrounded by rioting or violent flash mob ? Will they pull your roscoe if they can't navigate or drive though the attacking mobs?

You would tap the brake, FSD would disengage, and you would drive over the mentally ill.

Simple.

People look at FSD like it’s so crazy. Think of what people thought of cruise control when it first came out. It’s no different, just the world and technology has evolved.

^^^^^^
Beancooker, did it come with ten thick operating manuals that you have to read?

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
^^^^^^
Beancooker, did it come with ten thick operating manuals that you have to read?

No sir. It’s pretty straightforward. Tap the button on the screen and the car starts driving. Then select Sloth, Slow, Normal, Hurry, or Mad Max.
All in all, if you use a smartphone, then the entire Tesla interface will be familiar feeling and pretty easy to navigate. Essentially you’re driving a very powerful computer around town.

That’s about all there is to it. The camera at the rear view mirror spies on you to make sure you’re not texting. If you are it’ll warn you, and if you don’t put it down, you’ll get a strike.
After a strike FSD won’t be available until you pull over, put the car in park.
Three strikes in a week, and you lose FSD for a week. Basically a $25 penalty and you have to drive.