Ford Level 3 Eyes-Off Driving to launch on $30K Ford EV Truck

[ScooterAsheville]

The thing to understand about AI and about self driving is that progress is not linear but exponential. Programmers, mathemeticians and scientists intuitively understand exponentials. Laymen (even 90+% of college grads) generally don't process exponentials well.

A great example I once saw was a professor illustrating what happened when you drop one bacterium in a jar, and pretend it doubles every second. The gotcha is that the bactera are super happy until one second before they fill the jar and exhaust the available space. Because at one second from the end, the jar is still only half full. And that's just a doubling exponential!

That's exponentials for you. Fat dumb and happy until BLAM!, you're done for. And that's why you can maintain disbelief in AI and self driving right up until the last second. Because everything is groovy until it's not.

Lemme say it a different way. Self driving and AI coming for our jobs will be something most of us will laugh at right up until we don't. And we won't see it coming. Because we're primates with linear and not exponential brains.

 

[Letas]

Absolutely bonkers that any one would believe anything coming from the most recalled brand in 2025, that just took a nearly $20 billion write off on their EV program, and has shown nothing material related to this vehicle besides press releases and one possible exterior image. This was an announcement made at CES, the hype conference to end all hype conferences. It's basically one big stock manipulation conference. Take anything this flailing leadership says with a grain of salt the size of the Dead Sea.

To play contrarian... If you sampled 100 people on their confidence for two companies to deliver on their promises, one is an established auto manufacture with 120+ years of experience, and another is a startup with limited cash runway...

I think we know which would get a majority of the votes.

 

[Sandman614]

To play contrarian... If you sampled 100 people on their confidence for two companies to deliver on their promises, one is an established auto manufacture with 120+ years of experience, and another is a startup with limited cash runway...

I think we know which would get a majority of the votes.

Now tell them one has the promised vehicle on the road driving today, and the other has..... powerpoint presentations?

 

[G19Tony]

I'm interested. Been a Ford guy all of my driving life. I currently have a 25 Maverick, and a 22 before that. Also a 94 F150. As far as FSD... I doubt I would use it. I like the driving experience.

 

[1yeliab_sufur1]

yah I see that I’m also cheering for slate but not because it’s basic per-say but because it allows you the ability for modification and one spec not a XL,XLT,etc so it’s adds some much simplicity when looking for parts I can’t tell you how many times I have cursed at my computer when looking for parts for my f-150 powerboost

 

[ElectricShitbox]

I've developed a new and exciting Software Defined Hammer to sell you.
It costs twice as much.
It doesn't work without an internet connection.
To use the claw side, you need a Hammer+ subscription (ad supported).

Now thank me for pushing progress forward.

 

[Letas]

I've developed a new and exciting Software Defined Hammer to sell you.
It costs twice as much.
It doesn't work without an internet connection.
To use the claw side, you need a Hammer+ subscription (ad supported).

Now thank me for pushing progress forward.

Best part of it is, if you don't want it, you don't have to buy it!

Competition is good for consumers.

 

[ElectricShitbox]

Best part of it is, if you don't want it, you don't have to buy it!

Competition is good for consumers.

Tooling Journalist: "Are Americans ready for Slate's new featureless hammer?"

 

[Driven5]

Clickbait title. Ford has said nothing about Level 3 (Tesla is only Level 2) being included as standard at the purported $30k base price. The only novel information there is that they *may* be planning to introduce the tech availability on a mainstream vehicle first rather than a premium vehicle... Even at that, I'm skeptical, as a $10k+ option is a much harder sell on a $30k vehicle than on a $60k vehicle.

Because at one second from the end, the jar is still only half full.

The jar has also historically proven to be orders of magnitude larger than anybody ever expected, with every exponential advancement that's supposed to 'replace' humans just becoming a new tool to extract more productivity from each human.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

Ford does have their new skunk vehicle on the road for testing purposes. They stated that some time ago.

But the major OEMs usually disguise their test vehicles. For example - next time you pass a Maverick on the road, you might want to check and see if it has a tailpipe. OEMs love hiding their testbeds beneath existing bodywork.

There's a pretty established timeline for big OEMs. Test disguised engineering prototypes two years or more from production. Start testing less disguised (camo wrap) production candidates on the road about a year out. Usually with an OEM, when you see a photo of the final vehicle via a spy shot - that vehicle is about to go on sale. Private tracks. Night testing. Out of country testing. All designed to keep secrets.

Some OEMs are so good at keeping secrets that the car is first seen with the statement "available for sale now". The Japanese excel at that.

 

[ScooterAsheville]

The jar has also historically proven to be orders of magnitude larger than anybody ever expected, with every exponential advancement that's supposed to 'replace' humans just becoming a new tool to extract more productivity from each human.

Yea, the self driving problem has a large distribution tail. It's really easy to underestimate it. But don't confuse the very public fever dreams of a few CEO hucksters and media pundits with the stable, reliable projections coming from the engineers actually doing the work.

I was one of those engineers, with three decades in advanced R&D. Engineers know the problem space. We know the obstacles. We know the realistic timeline. We grimace when some CEO inflates expectations to pump the stock. Then we shake our heads and get back to work.

We ignore the clueless idiots who manage us. We ignore the clueless media who write about us. And we ignore the clueless masses who claim to have a clue what we're doing.

 

[Johnologue]

If they do…. Puts a LOT of pressure on Slate to justify their value.

I think this does justify Slate's value, quite directly.
There's a backlash to AI-centric tech products/services, and Ford is going all-in.

If someone wants to get away from Windows 11 and Copilot, they'd have to learn use Linux*, which is intimidating and brings up worries about compatibility and the like. Despite that, Valve's hardware survey charted a big jump in Linux users around the "Windows 10 End of Life".
It's not "Windows is over" or anything, but that's a sign of a lot of people moving despite those barriers to entry (or rather, barriers to exit Windows).

If someone's car reaches "End of Life", and they want an AI-free car, but their dealership is only offering them "Copilot" Fords...they already know how to drive a Slate.

If people get the same ultimatum they got for Windows 10, there are fewer barriers to exit the next generation of AI-powered Fords, and Slate will be an option people look at, especially since the 30K EV has already been compared against it.

Not saying that "Ford will be over", but it'll probably move enough people to help Slate meet annual sales targets. It was 150K, right? Ford has annual sales in the millions, surely they'll lose some thousands to AI backlash.


* Or Mac, which has most of the same issues but trades some of the "intimidating" for "expensive"...and I guess Chromebooks split the difference.
Beside the point: People left Windows despite that being challenging when given the choice between "AI Windows or leave".

 

[ElectricShitbox]

I think this does justify Slate's value, quite directly.
There's a backlash to AI-centric tech products/services, and Ford is going all-in.

The Framework laptop and Fairphone existing prove that there's a (small but extent) market for goods designed to be repairable, upgradable, and open to other operating systems. Those devices cost more than equivalently specced devices from other manufacturers because those are features valuable to (a subset of) people. Slate is a Framework truck. Ford is Microsoft renaming Office to Copilot.

 

[Johnologue]

The thing to understand about AI and about self driving is that progress is not linear but exponential. Programmers, mathemeticians and scientists intuitively understand exponentials. Laymen (even 90+% of college grads) generally don't process exponentials well.

A great example I once saw was a professor illustrating what happened when you drop one bacterium in a jar, and pretend it doubles every second. The gotcha is that the bactera are super happy until one second before they fill the jar and exhaust the available space. Because at one second from the end, the jar is still only half full. And that's just a doubling exponential!

That's exponentials for you. Fat dumb and happy until BLAM!, you're done for. And that's why you can maintain disbelief in AI and self driving right up until the last second. Because everything is groovy until it's not.

Lemme say it a different way. Self driving and AI coming for our jobs will be something most of us will laugh at right up until we don't. And we won't see it coming. Because we're primates with linear and not exponential brains.

You know our brains are also neural networks, right?

And that your metaphor applies to AI limitations (context windows and exponentially increasing requirements for everything) than AI capabilities (where relatively small/specialized models can be extremely efficient compared to the massive general-purpose ones), right?

 

[Johnologue]

We ignore the clueless idiots who manage us. We ignore the clueless media who write about us. And we ignore the clueless masses who claim to have a clue what we're doing.

The unwillingness or inability to recognize the function and value of social systems with this sort of technocratic mindset is a great example of self-driving limitations.

Driving is a communicative, behavior-predicting activity, not a mechanical process.

It's the same issue as cryptocurrency (to a different degree, of course). People create these elaborate systems with super-math but fail to understand currency, institutional trust, etc., so you just end up making really inefficient deregulated money traded through centralized exchanges anyways.

At the end of the day, "the clueless masses" are the ones who define the world your technology will exist in, they're the ones who should benefit.

Someone who makes hammers shouldn't ignore the thoughts of the workers who use them just because they don't know the finer details of casting, forging, steel alloys, and rubberized grips.