I think it's fair to put the burden of proof here on Tesla. They should convince people that their Robotaxis are safe. If they redact the details about all incidents so that you cannot figure out who's at fault, that's on Tesla alone.
While I think Tesla should be transparent, this article doesn't really make sure it is comparing apples to apples either.
I think its weird to characterize it as legitimate and the say "Go Tesla convince me ohterwise" as if the same audience would ever be reached by Tesla or people would care to do their due diligence.
It’s not weird. They have a history of over promising to the point that one could say they just straight up lie on a regular basis. The bar is higher for them because they have abused the public’s trust and it has to be earned again.
The results have to speak for Tesla very loudly and very clearly. And so far they don’t.
But this is more your feelings than actually factual.
I mean sure you can say that the timelines did slip a lot but that doesn’t really have anything to with the rest that is insinuated here.
I would argue a timeline slipping doesn’t mean you go about killing people and lie about it next. I would even go so far as to say that the timelines did slip to exactly avoid that.
Tesla continues to overpromise, about safety, about timelines that slip due to safety.
We should be a bit more hard nosed and data based when dealing with these things rather than dismissing the core question due to "feelings" and due to Tesla not releasing the sort of data tha allows fair analysis b
> But this is more your feelings than actually factual
Seems to be the other way, though I find that kind of rude to assert as opposed to asking me what informs my opinion. Other comments have answered that very well
You're generous with your words to the point they sound like apologism. Musk has been promising fully autonomous driving "within 1-3 years" since 2013. And he's been charging customers money for that promise for just as long. Timelines keep slipping for more than half of the company's existence now, that's not a slipup anymore.
Tesla has never been transparent with the data on which they base their claims of safety and performance of the system. They tout some nice looking numbers but when anyone like the NHTSA requests the real data they refuse to provide it.
When NHTSA shows you numbers, they're lying. If I tell you I have evidence Tesla is lying you'll tell me to show it or STFU. When Tesla does the same after so many people died, you go all soft and claim everyone else is lying. That's very one sided behavior, more about feelings than facts.
> But this is more your feelings than actually factual.
The article is about "NHTSA crash data, combined with Tesla’s new disclosure of robotaxi mileage". Sounds factual enough. If Tesla is sitting on a trove of data that proves otherwise but refuse to publish it that's on them. If anyone is about the feels and not the facts here, it's you.
> I mean sure you can say that the timelines did slip a lot but that doesn’t really have anything to with the rest that is insinuated here.
No. Not at all. This isn't "timelines slip". This is Musk saying, and I quote, "Self driving is a solved problem. We are just tuning the details." in 2016, and in 2021, "Right now our highest priority is working on solving the problem."
Somewhere along the line, it apparently got "unsolved".
"Timelines slipped" is far too generous for someone who, whenever Tesla is facing bad press, will imply that a new FSD release coming in 6 months, 3 months, a month, will solve all the issues plaguing it so far. Repeatedly. Those aren't real timelines.
Hell, even Tesla has had to add comments to investor and securities documents saying that "Musk's statements are aspirational and do not always reflect engineering realities."
I don’t see how this is connected to the point at hand here.
I think taking time to make sure the system works is the right call. Delaying it is the right call.
Not publishing something because you had a different impression previously, just because, is the right call.
I think it integrity to delay a product even when your investors might get angry.
Is it a winning strategy at wallstreet? No, probably not.
But what is the argument here „Musk bad“ because he delays a product because it’s not ready?
I think doing the due diligence is required here. Musk argument „it’s solved“ could even be argued by „look at Waymo“ they are doing it, aren’t they?
Tesla is aiming for more than that though.
And as it is in product development sometimes, sometimes your don’t know what you don‘t know.
Because why do you want to focus on chains guarding parkingspots, your cameras aren’t able to see, when your car can’t even drive through the city.
This is such a big thing to solve and 100% is impossible given some definitions.
Back to the article, I think delaying for safety is the right call, and that is also what the article says. It’s just that the article is in bad faith, as most of the arguments here are.
You probably would turn around and slam Musk for a System that obviously problematic as the alternative and until then it’s saying that he delays.
And if it were obviously problematic I think it would be much louder than just an article from a website that is know for having a biased view at things.
Tesla (Elon Musk really) has a long history of distorting the stats or outright lying about their self driving capabilities and safety. The fact that folks would be skeptical of any evidence Tesla provided in this case is a self-inflicted problem and well-deserved.
He did promise his electric trucks to be more cost-effective than trains (still nothing in 2026...). And "world's fastest supercar". And full self-driving by "next year" in 2015. None of these are offered in 2026.
There have never been truthful statements from his companies, only hype & fluff for monetary gains.
There used to be [EDIT: still is] a website[1] that listed all of Musk's promises and predictions about his businesses and showed you how long it's been since he said the promise would materialize. It's full of mostly old statements, probably because it's impossible to keep up with the amount of content being generated monthly.
This has nothing to do with burden of proof, it has to do with journalistic accuracy, and this is obviously a hit piece. HN prides itself on being skeptical and then eats up "skeptic slop."
>I think it's fair to put the burden of proof here on Tesla.
That just sounds like a cope. The OP's claim is that the article rests on shaky evidence, and you haven't really refuted that. Instead, you just retreated from the bailey of "Tesla's Robotaxi data confirms crash rate 3x worse ..." to the motte of "the burden of proof here on Tesla".
More broadly I think the internet is going to be a better place if comments/articles with bad reasoning are rebuked from both sides, rather than getting a pass from one side because it's directionally correct, eg. "the evidence WMDs in Iraq is flimsy but that doesn't matter because Hussein was still a bad dictator".
The point is this: the article writer did what research they could do given the available public data. It's true that their title would be much more accurate if it said something like "Tesla's Robotaxi data suggests crash rate may be up to 3x worse than human drivers". It's then 100% up to Tesla to come up with cleaner data to help dispel this.
But so far, if all the data we have points in this direction, even if the certainty is low, it's fair to point this out.
It's not a Motte and Bailey fallacy at all; it's a statement of a belief about what should be expected if something is to be allowed as a matter of public health and safety implications.
They're saying that Tesla should be held to a very high standard of transparency if they are to be trusted. I can't speak to OP, but I'd argue this should apply to any company with aspirations toward autonomous driving vehicles.
The title might be misleading if you don't read the article, but the article itself at some level is about how Tesla is not being as transparent as other companies. The "shaky evidence" is due to Tesla's own lack of transparency, which is the point of stating that the burden of proof should be on Tesla. The article is about how, even with lack of transparency, the data doesn't look good, raising the question of what else they might not be disclosing.
From the article: "Perhaps more troubling than the crash rate is Tesla’s complete lack of transparency about what happened... If Tesla wants to be taken seriously as a robotaxi operator, it needs to do two things: dramatically improve its safety record, and start being honest about what’s happening..."
I'd argue the central thesis of the article isn't one of statistical estimation; it's a statement about evidentiary burden.
You don't have to agree with the position that Tesla should be held a high transparency standard. But the article is taking the position that you should, and that if you do agree with that position, that you might say that even by Tesla's unacceptable standards they are failing. They're essentially (if implicitly) challenging Tesla to provide more data to refute the conclusions, saying "prove us wrong", knowing that if they do, then at least Tesla would be improving transparency.
I don’t think it’s a motte and Bailey fallacy because the motte is not well established. Tesla clearly does not believe that the burden of proof is on them, and by extension regulators, legislators.
a) Teslas are unsafe. The sparse data they're legally obligated to provide shows this clearly.
b) Elon Musk is sitting on a treasure trove of safety data showing that FSD finally works safely + with superhuman crash avoidance, but is deciding not to share it.
You're honestly going with (b)? We're talking about the braggart that purchased Twitter so he could post there with impunity. To put it politely, it would be out of character for him to underpromise + overdeliver.
