The BIG AI Idea. The Tesla FSD Report

How will the World Change on 08/08?

Hi, AI Futurists!

Tesla has been working on full self-driving (FSD) since 2014 now, and Elon Musk has been promising since 2019 that they will launch the level 5 FSD by the end of each year.

Just this past week, something different happened. Elon Musk gave an actual date to launch Robotaxis, a car with FSD and without a steering wheel.

This may also mean that Tesla will make an overnight update over the air, and suddenly there will be 3 million cars driving themselves.

By tweeting the launch date, Tesla has given all the other car brands and FSD startups a fair warning to prepare their solutions in the next 4 months.

FSD Hell

Remember the production hell of the Model 3 in 2018, striving to produce 5,000 Model 3s a week? This is that moment for autopilot, the FSD hell. Tesla now has to deliver the level 5 autopilot, which they still have much work to do, even after the big leap they had with the launch of FSD V12.3.

Let’s dive into Tesla’s commitment to delivering FSD on August 8th and how it will affect the world starting this year.

• FSD in Numbers. The Key Numbers that Highlights the Importance of Level 5 Auto-Pilot System
• How Tesla FSD Works. A Different Approach from All Others Using the First Principles Method
• The Leading FSD Players. The Comparison of Strengths and Weaknesses
• FSD in 2024 and Beyond. Less Cars, Less Fatalities, Less Emissions, and More.

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Tesla, as an engineering and technology company, is run on numbers. Therefore, it is useful to consider the key figures explaining why reaching autonomous driving is crucial and how Tesla has approached it over the past decade.

Why Building FSD is a No-Brainer

Cars stay parked most of the time, resulting in an excess of vehicles and significant carbon emissions.

• Car Use. According to a US Department of Transportation study, cars are in use for only 5% of the time.
• Car Ownership. With a US population of 333 million and over 290 million cars, there is nearly one car for every person, despite cars having the capacity to transport four people ideally.
• Fatalities. Car accident fatalities total 1.35 million people each year globally.
• Carbon Emissions. Car use-related global CO2 emissions amount to 3 billion metric tons.

Tesla’s FSD Approach and Work

• AI Neural Network Replacing Code. The FSD Beta 12 update upgrades the city-streets driving stack to a single end-to-end AI neural network trained on millions of videos. This neural network replaces over 300,000 lines of code.
• The Duration and Business. Tesla forecasted that robo-taxis would last 11 years, drive 1 million miles, and make $30,000 gross profit per car annually using the Tesla Network app.
• The Power of Real-Life Data. The system has been beta-tested on public roads, with over 482 million kilometers driven using FSD.
• FSD Cost. Currently, Full Self-Driving capability can be purchased with a new Tesla Model 3 for an additional $12,000 added to the car’s roughly $40,000 purchase price. Alternatively, it can be purchased on a subscription basis for up to $199 a month.
• 3 Million Car Network. As Tesla launches Level 5 autonomy, 3 million Teslas will be updated overnight and start driving with no outside assistance.

Tesla has been working on full self-driving for over a decade now using a vision-based (cameras) system unlike all its competitors, which use LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging).

According to Elon Musk, humans drive well using only vision. He believes that cars can also drive autonomously 10 times better than humans by combining data from all Tesla drivers using their cars in real life, sensors, and radar to add extra safety.

Elon Musk stated that companies using LIDAR are doomed due to the technology’s high cost.

• The Tesla FSD Hardware. Tesla uses eight surround cameras around its vehicles complemented by 12 ultrasonic sensors and a front-facing radar, and that the company has been using this suit of sensors since the introduction of Autopilot 2.0. Tesla is now looking to update the radar with a new 4D sensor technology from an Israeli startup called Arbe.
• The Big Data. Big Data was how the AI era started thanks to the vast big data that the internet offered for LLMs (Large Language Models). The same goes for FSD. And no company can beat Tesla at that. Tesla has 3 million FSD-equipped cars driving on the roads. So far, FSD-powered Teslas have been driven for over 482 million km or 300 million miles collecting data and making the system smarter day by day.
• Computation. The Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) system is capable of processing up to 2300 frames per second, which is a 21× improvement over Tesla’s previous hardware and at a lower cost. The FSD computer is equipped with two neural network arrays, each capable of 36 trillion floating-point operations per second (teraflops).
• The Team. Tesla is one of the biggest AI companies (if not the biggest and most experienced) companies in the world. The company had over 100 hardware engineers, 200 software engineers, and 500 engineers working on FSD as of late 2020. This number should have increased significantly by now.
• The Neural Network Approach. The Tesla FSD took a big leap with FSD V12 thanks to replacing 300,000 lines of code with neural network. The Tesla FSD v12 has made a significant leap due to the introduction of neural network-based decision-making, which allows the system to process raw camera footage and vehicle dynamics directly into driving maneuvers.

The Difference Tesla FSD V12.3 Made

The AI technological advancement with Version 12 has resulted in a level of decision-making and responsiveness similar to human drivers, as evidenced by rave reviews from both industry experts and everyday users.

The system’s ability to learn from good examples of driving has enabled a 100X reduction in human interventions compared to version 11, according to AI expert James Douma. The new version has also eliminated hard-coded rules in favor of pure neural net AI.

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The light at the end of the tunnel is finally visible after a decade of development.

Three million Teslas will receive an overnight over-the-air update, marking the beginning of a true revolution and major disruption in how we perceive cars.

Just like what happened with iPhone and the start of the smartphone era, there will be a good number of other players launching their autonomous driving software systems starting with Waymo and Cruise.

Let’s look into the comparison of the key criteria of Waymo, Tesla FSD, and Cruise.

Here is an objective real-life comparison between the 3 leading FSD companies, which was filmed about 10 months ago (before Tesla FSD V12 was released.).

There are many other car brands (including Mercedes, Audi, Hyundai, and BYD) and auto-pilot system companies (including Zoox, Pony AI, and May Mobility) as well as startups with unique approaches such as Comma AI, which aims to be the universal auto-pilot by being the Android of auto-pilot systems by only using one’s phone and a small kit.

After a decade of global development, autonomous driving will most probably become an inseparable part of our lives, redefining our approach to cars.

This is all thanks to the vision Elon Musk brought to the table and his persistence in achieving it. His vision made all other car companies, as well as autopilot startups, believe in the future of autonomous driving technology.

The Pivotal Moment for Full Self-Driving

Elon Musk’s faith in AI has also been a major driving force for the advancement of artificial intelligence. His idea of launching an open-source non-profit AGI development company, to compete with Google’s closed-source AI company DeepMind, played a significant role. The efforts of OpenAI, with initiatives like ChatGPT, helped make AI mainstream, energizing the industry.

What is Bound to Change in the FSD Future

• Fatalities. The majority of the 1.3 million annual fatalities from car accidents will be prevented.
• Fewer Cars. There will be less need for cars since people can hail Teslas or other auto-pilot systems affordably.
• Infotainment. Spending time in the car will no longer be solely about going from point A to B. It will be an experience. Entertainment, games, and learning will become integral parts of the experience, with apps designed specifically for cars.
• The Disruption of the Taxi Industry. There will gradually be no job as a taxi or Uber driver. Instead, owners of FSD-powered cars, especially the early adopters, will be generating income.
• Drinking and Driving. Drinking and driving will no longer be fatal. People will be able to use their cars at night to go to a bar and drink alcohol without risking their safety.

When we finally reach the point of Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology (seemingly in 2024), we will probably look back and wonder how we ever managed without it.

As Tesla issued a fair warning to all car brands and FSD startups that they will launch autonomous driving as of August 8th, other companies surely see it as a deadline to reach the Level 5 auto-pilot system first to survive, and then to thrive. We will see other top companies unveiling their FSD systems in 2024.

The tough race is on.

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That’s it for today. Hope we are expanding your AI Horizons a little every day.

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