“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” – Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO
Fred Wilson wrote a post yesterday about Tesla’s data advantage in this self-driving car arms race that we are currently living through. (I found the above quote in the comment section of the post.)
In their Q3 2016 update , Tesla claims to have logged more than 1.3 billion miles on its vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. This is important because the more data it collects – across diverse road and weather conditions – the better the vehicles get at driving without human intervention. As Fred Wilson put it: “more data is better than more software engineers.” So that places Tesla ahead of Google, Uber, GM, et al.
I spent a lot of time driving over the past week, certainly more than usual, and I couldn’t help but think about how much better it would have been to instead sit in the backseat and read a book (or mindlessly scroll through Instagram).
I always try and use cruise control on long drives, but unless the road is fairly empty, I find it doesn’t work very well. Everyone is driving at different speeds and so I usually end up having to reset it / adjust it every so often.
The big question in my mind is still: How does the world look when driving longer distances doesn’t suck so much? What changes when you can get into your / a car (important distinction) at bedtime, fall asleep, and then wake up in a new place?
A lot, I think.
