[HN Gopher] Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to Germa...
___________________________________________________________________
Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site
Author : VagueMag
Score : 319 points
Date : 2023-05-25 20:38 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jalopnik.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jalopnik.com)
| Pxtl wrote:
| Can somebody please explain why this ridiculous company has a
| market cap more than the next 5 car companies put together?
| belltaco wrote:
| Because it sells the world's best selling car at a high margin?
| And is double the price of the Toyota Corolla it dethroned.
|
| https://electrek.co/2023/05/25/tesla-model-y-is-now-the-worl...
|
| If one gets news about Tesla only from HN then it does seem
| Tesla is ridiculous, because only negative stories tend to get
| upvoted and positive ones buried.
| koyote wrote:
| It's got the number 1 spot by a small margin and Toyota has
| spot 2, 3, 4 and 5 (https://www.motor1.com/news/669135/tesla-
| model-y-worlds-best...).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| They are also backlogged 18-24 months for their utility scale
| storage. There is substantial demand for every unit
| manufactured.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Still doesn't justify its valuation. Tesla is very far from
| worthless but nowhere near worth its stock price.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| > Tesla is very far from worthless but nowhere near worth
| its stock price.
|
| Stock price is based on future expectations, not past
| value. Tesla is still growing very fast.
| pseg134 wrote:
| Do you know there is a much better place to express this
| opinion than a message board?
| andybak wrote:
| The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay
| solvent.
| sidibe wrote:
| No other company/CEO can make as grandiose announcements. Their
| future product pipeline is worth trillions and every year
| there's something else they will deliver very soon that will
| revolutionize the world. If you've read about it in a scifi
| book, Tesla will announce they are working on it first.
| methodical wrote:
| [flagged]
| detaro wrote:
| _woosh_ , as the kids say. Fairly sure parent is sarcastic.
| methodical wrote:
| Yikes, yeah- on second thought it does seem sarcastic.
|
| It's just so difficult to tell with Tesla because it
| certainly does have a certain portion of the population
| that would have posted the original comment entirely
| unironically.
| tylersmith wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic.
| asdff wrote:
| Its a meme stock with a lot of volatility for scalping plays.
| valine wrote:
| Probably because the world is transitioning to EVs and they
| have a 5ish year head start over most other automakers.
|
| There's a long list of technologies Tesla has already shipped
| that other car makers are just beginning to explore.
|
| - Structural batteries
|
| - The "Octovalve" heat pump
|
| - Mega casted car frames
|
| - Their custom ML SOC
|
| The TSLA market cap is debatable, but their lead is real.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The fact they seem to be custom manufacturing silicon carbide
| FET's.... While everyone else is using off the shelf
| components.
|
| Those custom FET's haven't yet publically been torn down. But
| I'd guess they enable more efficient motor inverters. More
| efficiency means smaller battery, and less cooling. Less
| cooling means the whole heatpump system can be downsized,
| reducing weight. Reduced weight means smaller battery.
| Smaller battery means less weight... Which means an even
| smaller battery... And a smaller battery in a lighter car
| means more profit margins.
|
| Because of the recursive nature of this, even small
| efficiency gains on the FET's have a pretty massive impact on
| profit margins.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Do you really want 'untested' technology hurtling you down
| a road at nearly 100 mph?
| londons_explore wrote:
| Fets are pretty low risk... Worst case, you lose a motor.
| They have the explosive fuse to prevent a bunch of
| shorted fets causing massive braking, and I've never
| heard of that fuse being activated.
| asdff wrote:
| Is this even a lead? Seems like Tesla is just bearing the R&D
| that any other auto manufacturer can decide to implement if
| it makes sense for margins. There's no secret sauce when a
| competitor can get a hold of your product and see how it
| works. Its why in past wars doing things like scuttling
| vehicles was important to prevent competition.
| threeseed wrote:
| Other car companies e.g. Lucid, BMW have better technology in
| other areas.
|
| And why would anyone bother with custom ML SOC when you can
| just partner with Nvidia like Rivian, Mercedes etc.
| valine wrote:
| Vertical integration has many benefits. It's the same
| reason Apple started making their own chips and ditched
| intel. The SOCs will be cheaper and better optimized for
| Tesla's use case.
|
| Every Nvidia GPU I'm aware of ships with both CUDA cores
| and Tensor cores. For a pure ML application those CUDA
| cores are almost useless. Tesla would be paying Nvidia's
| premium for transistors that aren't optimized for ML
| inference.
|
| A Tesla designed chip can be 100% dedicated to tensor
| multiplication. You're paying less per transistor and every
| transistor is utilized to the fullest extent.
| threeseed wrote:
| Nvidia isn't using PC GPUs in cars. They have a dedicated
| SOC for self driving:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/chipmaker-nvidia-
| launches...
| wsgeorge wrote:
| Because maybe there's some advantage to be had by reducing
| dependencies when you can afford to? And maybe they value
| SOC expertise, since they do other tech besides cars?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| And when they outsource it people will say they're just
| focusing on core competencies. The great thing is
| businesses can use a magic 8-ball to make business
| decisions and someone will laud it as brilliant.
| eertami wrote:
| Even with that 5 year lead, I would rather buy an EV from any
| other "mainstream" automaker. The build quality even on a
| 2023 manufactured Tesla is just insulting. If I buy a BMW I'm
| also being ripped off but at least the door panel won't fall
| off if I slam the door, and BMW will repair faults within
| days and not months.
| simple10 wrote:
| Part hype, part perceived future value. Tesla's market cap is
| not as a car company but as a robot manufacturing company.
| Investors believe Tesla has a lot of room to grow beyond just
| selling EVs.
| HPsquared wrote:
| They apparently make a lot of profit per car - literally like
| 5-10x more than competitors.
| nordsieck wrote:
| Along with what everyone else has said about Teslas being good
| electric cars with a high profit margin, Tesla (the company)
| continues to enjoy a high growth rate in terms of units
| delivered per year.
|
| https://www.statista.com/chart/8547/teslas-vehicle-deliverie...
|
| Also, Tesla seems to have mostly successfully shrugged off the
| dealer model and avoided pension based compensation.
|
| If they can maintain a reasonable level of satisfaction when
| offering service, they get to scoop up the 20% margins the
| dealerships take, as well as avoid the sentiment hit every
| other dealer has to take by forcing people to buy new cars
| through that truly awful process.
| javchz wrote:
| Debt in they other companies it's a huge factor. Now, that
| doesn't mean a potencial huge value correction it's not out of
| they table.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Very simple, the market valuation is based on two things:
|
| - Tesla's track record of rapid growth and their
| credible/plausible plan for growing volumes by about at least
| 10x And that's just cars. They have a few other rapidly growing
| business that are already billion dollar businesses. Some of
| which could outgrow their car market. Even when you consider
| the expected growth. It's only inflated if you don't believe
| they can do all of this. The reason the valuation is so high is
| that lots of investors seem to not agree with that.
|
| - The underwhelming performance of essentially all their
| competitors; i.e. the next 5 manufacturers that you refer to.
| With the exception perhaps of Asian companies like BYD that
| have similar proven track records as Tesla to ship decent EV
| products in large volumes profitably. These new manufacturers
| other manufacturers are short term going to cause a lot of
| headaches for the (former, let's just call that out) top 5. The
| prospect of millions of dirt cheap good quality Chinese EVs
| undercutting cheap ICE cars has a high risk of decimating the
| market shares of the likes of Toyota, GM, etc. that are very
| dependent on sales of cheap, unremarkable ICE cars. They make
| most of their money selling products that are rapidly becoming
| a combination of obsolete, expensive, and undesirable.
|
| Most of the former incumbents like GM, Ford, VW, Toyota, etc.
| of course have EV strategies of their own but they will need
| many years more before they match current production volumes
| and cost levels of their new competitors.
|
| In short, they'll be struggling to catch up for years to come
| even under the most optimistic scenarios. The more pessimistic
| scenario is actually that a few of these companies might not
| survive the transition at all and that the remaining ones might
| find themselves vastly reduced in size. Tesla and several other
| new manufacturers certainly seem well positioned to continue to
| make life miserable for these companies for years to come.
| Whatever they do, Tesla et al. will be able to do it faster,
| better, cheaper, and in larger volumes for some time to come.
| lt_snuffles wrote:
| They also have lot of early adopter advantages
| nxm wrote:
| Profit margin per electric vehicle
| schainks wrote:
| They keep pushing cost of manufacturing down while maintaining
| great profit margins. Reliability is good enough people are
| buying Teslas instead of Toyotas. Service techs can come to
| your home to fix most problems.
|
| If consumers save measurable time and effort by owning an
| electric vehicle, whoever makes it the cheapest vehicle to own
| time-wise wins.
| [deleted]
| RomanPushkin wrote:
| That's why I use Lyft instead of Uber. In SFBay it's often Tesla
| because of their business relationship, and I don't like it.
| vxNsr wrote:
| And this the real risk of alienating a group, they'll retaliate
| when they no longer feel aligned with you. Even if they'll work
| for you, they won't have the same allegiance/loyalty they had
| before.
| belter wrote:
| "Is your data also in the Tesla files?" (German ) -
| https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/leseraufr...
| buildbot wrote:
| I avoid driving anywhere near Tesla's, especially tailing them.
| Phantom braking is not okay.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| phantom breaking isnt a thing in 2023. it used to be a problem,
| it's not anymore if you have HW3
| McSwag wrote:
| Spoken by someone who clearly doesn't own or drive a Tesla.
| Phantom braking is very much STILL an unsolved problem.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Yeah, you're right. I haven't had a phantom brake in quite a
| while, and even the ones I used to have were not so
| aggressive as to be unsafe. Unfortunately, I suspect
| downvoters are conflating 'observing phantom braking has been
| fixed' with 'complete endorsement of everything Musk does'.
| Black and white thinking and whatnot.
| uturingmachine wrote:
| This is not true, I purchased a Model 3 brand new in 2021; it
| has HW3 and it absolutely does phantom braking regularly on
| road trips. This is on US interstates.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Why do you keep driving it? I had a car that did this to me
| twice and got rid of it, the first time could have been a
| glitch but twice is simply broken and dangerous. The dealer
| said the car was fine.
| MortimerDukePhD wrote:
| [dead]
| cypress66 wrote:
| All car brands ADAS are imperfect. If it phantom brakes
| you just push the accelerator, or simply don't use the
| ADAS.
|
| You can drive the car normally, you aren't forced to use
| ADAS if you don't like it.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Yeah just gotta turn it off every single time you get in
| the car.
| izzydata wrote:
| Agreed. With human drivers you can, in most cases, see their
| intent with the way they move. With tesla or other self driving
| systems it is a black box that is way less predictable.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| You shouldn't tail any car in general. There's a lot more
| 'real' braking out there than 'phantom' braking.
| pacetherace wrote:
| in most commutes, if your tailing distance is too much,
| someone will else will come in front of you.
| orpheansodality wrote:
| if you think about the speeds involved, a single additional
| car in front of you on the freeway (or even any additional
| cars) adds pretty miniscule time to the total commute.
|
| Let's compare a few situations. In the baseline you're
| tailing the car in front of you with a focus on not letting
| anyone cheat and get in front of you, let's say 50 feet
| away. Your commute is 30 miles, and in this frictionless
| sphere of traffic you're going 60mph the whole time. You
| get to work in 30 minutes flat.
|
| In the second scenario you're following the 3-second
| rule[0]. This would put you ~285 feet behind the car in
| front of you. Let's say over the course of your commute 20
| cars move in front of you. If the average car length is 15
| feet, and they all are 50 feet away from each other, when
| all 20 cars are in place you're a net -(20 * 65) feet away
| from the original car, or 1300 feet total. At 60 mph that
| adds ~15 seconds to your total commute time.
|
| Well worth having an easier time avoiding a potential crash
| IMO! Also has the benefit of helping prevent traffic to
| begin with[1]
|
| 0: https://driversed.com/trending/what-safe-following-
| distance.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE
| lamontcg wrote:
| Tell me you're a bad driver without telling me you're a bad
| driver.
|
| You need to not care about that, and you're actually
| supposed to let people change lanes into your lane. You're
| getting into a mental competition with other drivers and
| sacrificing the safety of yourself and everyone around you.
|
| And if anyone believes that longer following distance
| causes more traffic, that is also false and the reverse is
| actually true. It is the poor reaction times of tailgaters
| that cause traffic slowdowns.
| lagniappe wrote:
| > Tell me you're a bad driver without telling me you're a
| bad driver.
|
| > You need to not care about that, and you're actually
| supposed to let people change lanes into your lane.
| You're getting into a mental competition with other
| drivers and sacrificing the safety of yourself and
| everyone around you.
|
| > And if anyone believes that longer following distance
| causes more traffic, that is also false and the reverse
| is actually true. It is the poor reaction times of
| tailgaters that cause traffic slowdowns.
|
| I think that what they're saying is the flow of cars in
| front of them keeps that distance between them and the
| 'next car' to a shorter undesirable distance as more cars
| fill that gap during traffic.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| ... And then you end up just going slower than the rest
| of the traffic, and people behind you change to the
| faster lanes to pass you, and some of the people passing
| you change lanes back to in front of you. And so trying
| to keep a longer following distance than the rest of
| traffic allows just means thtey lots of people are doing
| things other than just staying safely in one lane.
| Ingon wrote:
| As others pointed out - let them. On average all lanes move
| the same, they might even move away once the lane stops
| moving. You'll have much worse time rearing a car then
| letting all those cars in.
|
| I also keep additional distance in traffic to minimize
| slowdowns/stops, which ultimately actually improves/fixes
| the flow.
| sushid wrote:
| That's fine. You lose like .5 seconds of your life when
| another car comes in front of you.
| andybak wrote:
| So? Drop back again.
| olyjohn wrote:
| So what.
| s3p wrote:
| That's not what OP was implying.
| buildbot wrote:
| Sure, but an unexpected full ABS lock when you can see
| nothing in front of the tesla is going to be yard for most to
| react quickly too even at a decent distance. 10 second follow
| distances are only possible in most metros during very light
| traffic.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| You only need 2 seconds to be safe. It's longer than you
| think.
| andybak wrote:
| 3 is the guidance in the UK at least
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > You should ... allow at least a two-second gap between
| you and the vehicle in front on high-speed roads and in
| tunnels where visibility is reduced. The gap should be at
| least doubled on wet roads and up to ten times greater on
| icy roads
|
| Highway code rule 126[0] says 2?
|
| [0] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/general-
| rules-t...
| crazygringo wrote:
| Then you're driving unsafely, although 10 seconds as a
| general rule is a straw man.
|
| At any time, a child could run out from a hidden spot and
| the car in front of you could have to slam on the brakes as
| hard as possible. Or any of a hundred other realistic
| scenarios.
|
| These things aren't common, but statistically they _will_
| happen to you multiple times during a lifetime of driving,
| and it 's _your_ responsibility to always be at a safe
| distance behind in order to react as well.
|
| The common rule of thumb is generally 2-3 seconds in
| perfect conditions, and 4-6 seconds in rain or other normal
| bad weather. 10 seconds is only in cases of ice/snow where
| most people wouldn't be driving in the first place (you
| know, when you're going just 15 mph but it _still_ takes 5
| seconds to come to a full stop on the slippery ice). The
| heaviness /lightness of traffic is irrelevant.
| jjulius wrote:
| >10 second follow distances are only possible in most
| metros during very light traffic.
|
| I've usually heard that it's three seconds. Even still,
| _you_ control your follow distance. Even in heavy traffic,
| _you_ can give yourself more space between you and the car
| in front of you than other people do. It 's easy to do, and
| I've been able to do just that even in metro areas with
| heavy traffic.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Phantom braking is not a full ABS lock type of braking.
| It's more like a brake check.
| watwut wrote:
| Real braking happens for a reason, to avert accidents. Sane
| drivers don't do it just randomly in perfectly safe
| situations. Random braking is major risk for everyone around
| and if you are source of it, you are in fact danger foe
| others.
| vosper wrote:
| > Sane drivers don't do it just randomly in perfectly safe
| situations
|
| You can't always assume that you will be able to tell when
| a situation has turned from safe to unsafe. You just can't
| exactly see what the driver in front of you (or the driver
| in front of _them_) is seeing.
|
| And you can't assume that the driver in front of you is
| sane!
|
| You have to _always_ follow at a safe distance.
| threeseed wrote:
| Humans in traffic are relatively easy to predict.
|
| They don't just randomly brake for no reason.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| ...usually
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I hear people talk about people brake checking all the time
| (whether they're the brake checkers or the person tailing).
| A buddy of mine was tailing a (non-Tesla) car a little too
| closely on his motorcycle and the driver deliberately
| brake-checked him and he wrecked. And that's just people
| deliberately driving erratically, never mind the people who
| are responding to debris, animals, people, etc darting into
| the road.
| ertian wrote:
| But sometimes there are legitimate reasons for a car to
| brake hard, which you'd never know from your position one
| car-length behind them.
| George83728 wrote:
| I treat them like semi-trucks on the highway. Pass them or let
| them pass you, but don't loiter alongside, behind or in front
| of one.
| bboygravity wrote:
| I treat them like the safest cars to be around. Because
| statistically, they are?
| olyjohn wrote:
| That's not a great idea. The driver is still in control of
| the car and is no better than anybody else, and maybe even
| not paying attentnion because some think autopilot is self
| driving. You should treat all other traffic with the same
| defense.
| viraptor wrote:
| That's not proven as far as I know, unless you've got
| stats? (And not the stats from their website - those are
| not comparable)
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > And not the stats from their website
|
| There is a reason it is said, "There are lies, damned
| lies, and statistics." Statistically, there's a ~7%
| chance I won't die because ~7% of all humans who have
| ever lived haven't died.
| adversaryIdiot wrote:
| if you are on the inside at least... But yeah i think they
| tend to have better track records than human drivers.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| There's a difference between safety and consistency.
| yumraj wrote:
| Citation needed, Musk's tweet doesn't qualify.
| belorn wrote:
| According to statistics that Tesla publish.
|
| I would like to see mercedes publish their own statistics
| on their FSD. Given the tight constraints where they allow
| self driving, they could easily claim 100% safety record
| and thus infinitive more safe than any other manufacturer.
| It would be misleading, but statistically it would be the
| truth (any accidents could be said to be outside the
| constraint and thus will not count).
|
| Personally I would only really trust such statistics if
| insurance companies would reflect that in the premium.
| Somehow I doubt they would be willing to cut the fee based
| on what Tesla claims.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Can someone present evidence that Teslas are more
| expensive to insured than other comparable vehicles?
| Along with evidence that the difference is because of
| safety rather than cost of repairs?
| olyjohn wrote:
| Tesla has their own insurance because people were
| complaining about high rates. Why else would they come up
| with their own insurance?
| valine wrote:
| Why are you loitering beside other cars? This is a good
| safety practice regardless of the car's make and model.
| George83728 wrote:
| In light traffic, I wouldn't. In medium traffic there often
| isn't that much choice, but in those situations I prefer
| the company of other cars my size, and preferably ones with
| attentive drivers (so I discriminate against Tesla
| drivers.)
| pc86 wrote:
| It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's true.
| In any level of traffic except stop-and-go--and even then
| to a large extent--you should be doing everything within
| your power to either pass the cars on your right, and/or
| move over to let cars pass you on the left. It is a
| vanishingly small number of scenarios where you are keeping
| pace with a car next to you and you're _not_ in the wrong.
| This isn 't just at high speed or on highways, any two-land
| road operates (or is designed to operate) this way.
| George83728 wrote:
| > _It is a vanishingly small number of scenarios where
| you are keeping pace with a car next to you and you 're
| not in the wrong._
|
| I think it really depends on where/when you're driving. I
| find this to be a common scenario on interstates during
| rush hour:
|
| I'm in the right lane, doing approximately the speed
| limit. There is a safe distance between me and the cars
| in front and back of me, but only just. If many more cars
| enter the road, traffic would need to slow down to
| maintain safe distances. In the left lane is the same
| situation, except they're averaging about 1 or 2 mph
| faster. In this situation, there are cars in the left
| lane passing very slowly, spending a lot of time
| alongside me. I could slow down below the speed limit
| every time a car passed on the left, to reduce reduce
| that loiter time. But this would make my driving less
| predictable to the drivers behind me (and waste a lot of
| mileage too...)
|
| So normally, when the other cars are my size, I maintain
| my present course and speed, driving as predictably as
| possible to help the other drivers anticipate my course.
| Changing position in traffic is inherently risky, so I
| avoid making changes unless doing so is necessary to
| avoid something I judge to be more dangerous than the
| average. If a truck passes me on the left, I'll slow down
| to make the passing faster even if that means a car
| behind me has to brake. But if in that moment I judge the
| guy behind me to be even more dangerous, then maybe I
| won't. It's the kind of decision that needs to be made on
| the spot in a case-by-case basis. On interstates that are
| flowing fast near capacity, you need to be constantly
| evaluating the relative threat of the traffic around you.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's not the same everywhere in the world though, and
| even in places where it is strictly passing on the left
| (or on the right in the UK, Japan and a few other places)
| 'keep your lane' tends to be the rule if the right hand
| lane is also moving at the speed limit (so you can't
| legally pass).
|
| That way the carrying capacity of the road is higher. But
| when traffic is less dense 'station keeping' should be
| avoided at all times and if someone moves into my 'dead
| zone' or just to the left of me I'll gradually slow down
| to force them to finish their overtake.
| withinboredom wrote:
| > 'keep your lane' tends to be the rule if the right hand
| lane is also moving at the speed limit (so you can't
| legally pass).
|
| Why are you in the lefter lane if you can't pass?
|
| I've been in rush hour (where keep-to-the-right-unless-
| passing is very strictly enforced) in bumper-to-bumper
| traffic and the left two (out of 6) are completely empty
| and everyone is doing 'around' the speed limit. Some are
| in the right lane doing a few below the limit, some are
| in the left-most lane doing a few above.
|
| Occasionally, someone who is late to work, emergency
| services, or whatever goes flying by in one of the left-
| most lanes.
| dmbche wrote:
| Where is this? In eastern canada that's impossible to
| imagine - although most highways are 2-3 lanes, not 6, I
| couldn't imagine having a free lane on the side while
| having bumper to bumper everywhere else.
|
| Or are these protected lanes for carpooling?
|
| I find this very impressive!
| George83728 wrote:
| > _I 've been in rush hour (where keep-to-the-right-
| unless-passing is very strictly enforced) in bumper-to-
| bumper traffic and the left two (out of 6) are completely
| empty and everyone is doing 'around' the speed limit._
|
| I've been on interstates in every continental US state
| and I've never seen this, but I think something has been
| lost in translation because "bumper-to-bumper" and
| "everybody doing the speed limit" are mutually exclusive
| as I understand the terms. If everybody on the road can
| fit into the right lane with enough space in-between to
| do the speed limit, that is done but I wouldn't call that
| traffic "bumper-to-bumper". I would call that light
| traffic. Bumper-to-bumper is when the space between cars
| really starts to contract, because everybody is going
| substantially below the limit, or because people aren't
| maintaining a safe distance.
|
| Once the road has too many cars to fit them all into the
| right lane at the speed limit, then in every state I've
| driven, cars start using the left lane for travel, not
| just passing. If the right lane is so full that it can
| only sustain 5 below the limit, then people start driving
| in the left lane and stay there for as long as the right
| lane won't support speed-limit traffic. In this kind of
| traffic you'll start to have cars moving fast alongside
| each other with low relative velocity.
| watwut wrote:
| It is totally normal to just go behind one car without
| constantly overtaking or being overtaken. It is even
| actually safer then being constantly in and out of lanes.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Most people are pretty much unaware of anything outside of
| their car other than for the couple of seconds they look up
| from their phone to look at the car in front of them. Look
| to the sides? That's too much time away from the screen in
| their hand! /s (only partially)
|
| Since my time of learning to drive, the requirement to have
| formal driving training has ping ponged in being a
| requirement or not. The number of hours as an observer is
| just as important as the hours being behind the wheel. One
| of the things repeatedly mentioned by the instructor was to
| not drive side by side any car unless absolutely necessary.
| It was also a recurring theme in my repeated defensive
| driving classes. I also have an uncle that drove trucks for
| a long time, and he would tell stories of things he saw on
| the road. A relevant story was when one of the wheels of a
| tractor-trailor doing 70mph down the highway lost the
| outside wheel of the trailer and seeing the damage it cause
| the car driving along side. All of that added together
| makes me never like to have a car on my sides and I will
| speed up or slow down (which ever has more space available)
| to avoid it. For those that did not have to take a driving
| course, this is just information they may never have been
| provided.
| asdff wrote:
| I avoid them too. Erratic drivers too. I'm not sure if its them
| coming out of autopilot back into control or just that's what
| happens when you have a lead foot and a car that goes to 60mph
| in 3 seconds entirely silently.
| xenospn wrote:
| sadly this is virtually impossible in Los Angeles.
| asdff wrote:
| The Tesla drivers in LA are like an upper echelon of terrible
| Tesla drivers:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd0IpJFSZ10
| 99_00 wrote:
| >found a disturbing trend of brushing off customers complaining
| about dangerous Autopilot glitches while covering the company's
| ass.
|
| The article doesn't present any evidence or argument to support
| it's own thesis.
|
| Everything in it sounds like my experience dealing with any
| corperation.
| arbitrage wrote:
| > Customers that Handelsblatt spoke to have the impression that
| Tesla employees avoid written communication. "They never sent
| emails, everything was always verbal," says the doctor from
| California, whose Tesla said it accelerated on its own in the
| fall of 2021 and crashed into two concrete pillars.
|
| I mean, that's pretty suspicious right there.
| morkalork wrote:
| Never write in an email what you can say on the phone, never
| say on the phone what you can say in person.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| * if you have something to hide
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| There's a wry joke that the e in email stands for
| indictment.
|
| That said, I don't think we should excuse or normalize
| sociopathic and customer hostile behavior from businesses.
| watwut wrote:
| Yeah, but that is mostly hinting on how normalized fraud
| became in business.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I agree. It's disappointing and it's one of the big
| picture trends I've seen continuously as I age.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| .. never say it when you can wink; never wink when you can
| nod..
|
| --professional politicians at the State Capital building
| bboygravity wrote:
| You're confirming the point of the commenter that you're
| replying to?
| 99_00 wrote:
| >that's pretty suspicious right there.
|
| It seems suspicious to you because you assume it's not
| standard industry practice. But that assumption is not in
| evidence.
|
| They have the internal communications and this is the most
| incriminating thing they could come up with?
| nvrmnd wrote:
| I have heard from former Twitter employees that this was very
| much the policy after the Musk takeover there. Nothing is
| ever put in writing if it can possibly be avoided.
| chaxor wrote:
| I didn't see the actual data or a link or anything to how to get
| it, but why on earth would it be 100GB? That seems fairly large
| if it's just tallying accidents and such.
| londons_explore wrote:
| If just a few of the accident reports have attached photos or
| videos, you'll quickly get to 100GB.
| bj-rn wrote:
| "The 'Tesla Files' comprise more than 23,000 files. Some
| documents apparently show salaries and home addresses of more
| than 100,000 current and former employees. Others list
| presumably private mail addresses and phone numbers of
| customers."
|
| [...]
|
| "Due to the sheer volume and structure of the data sets, the
| editorial team had to make a selection of which of the more
| than thousand Excel tables could be taken into account in the
| query tool. "
|
| https://app.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/leseraufr...
| zizee wrote:
| How different is this from any other similar sized companies
| behaviour?
|
| This site doesn't seem that impartial/unbiased. From a linked
| article on Tesla:
|
| > It's also worth noting that the above email was sent after 2
| a.m. Pacific, which isn't specifically relevant to the faked
| video. But it does make it look like Musk is a loser with no
| friends or anything else to do other than work. Loser.
| dmbche wrote:
| Is what you raise relevant? Is it fine if everybody does it? Is
| the leak not real because you found a link to it on an
| unimpartial site?
|
| Edit:spelling
| Eisenstein wrote:
| I think you meant 'biased' and not 'impartial'. I am not
| being pedantic; I don't want your sentence to have the wrong
| meaning so I am bringing it to your attention if that is the
| case.
| dmbche wrote:
| Oh no thanks! it was a typo, added un at the begining.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If you can find the same information to corroborate then no,
| but if it's the only source...
|
| But it is one of those trends that I personally do not like
| either where these posts are made like it's a personal
| conversation between two girlfriends or whatever. There's
| opinion pieces and then there's this kind of I don't even
| know what it's called I'm so un-hip
| meowkit wrote:
| The leak can be real, but the narrative around the leak is
| important.
|
| My read from this link to a story about a story:
|
| ~1000 crashes related to autopilot reported for the 2.6
| million autopilot enabled vehicles shipped in the reported
| time frame.
|
| .04% total failures. How many of these were user created and
| not the fault of the car? How many of the failures from the
| car were specific to that cars hardware vs the software? Was
| it a Tesla hardware failure or an OEM device failure?
|
| I'm not gonna do a full analysis, but whenever I re
| contextualize myself on car crash statistics I am reminded
| that Tesla failures represent an insignificant fraction of
| all failures.
| zizee wrote:
| The report being on a site with a bias does make me want to
| read with a more critical eye, as everything is being spun to
| look as bad as possible.
|
| The behaviour described (not wanting anything written) might
| very well be standard operating procedure with any company
| with decent legal counsel. If it is common behaviour, it is
| not some sort of Muskism, part of his evil scheming as is
| implied in the article, instead it is a reflection of the
| world we live in.
| jjulius wrote:
| What's stopping you from clicking through to the German source
| and reading the English version of their piece?
| sandofsky wrote:
| When a Toyota hid an "unintended acceleration" bug, it was a
| scandal that resulted in a $1.2B fine.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-pay-12b-hiding-deadly-...
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Every customer complaint about unintended acceleration of
| Teslas was proven in court to be the fault of the customer
| confusing the pedals. The accelerator pedal has two
| independent sensors measuring input - they both have to
| agree, and no input on the brake pedal must be detected for
| the vehicle to accelerate.
|
| They go a step further. They use their cameras to detect the
| environment and significantly slow down acceleration if they
| think it might be a mistake.
| dmbche wrote:
| Would you have a link to that? I'd be interested to look.
|
| As a side note, I've never heard of confusing the pedals as
| an issue for ANY car, so if Telsa's get people to confuse
| them enough to bring them to court, it's probably bad
| design.
|
| Edit: The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
| estimates 16,000 accidents per year in the United States
| occur when drivers intend to apply the brake but mistakenly
| apply the accelerator.[3] from wikipedia on Sudden
| unintended acceleration
|
| Hard to imagine how you fail to design pedals!
| labcomputer wrote:
| It was famously a problem for Audi in the 1980's and
| almost destroyed the brand. I thought everyone had heard
| of that.
|
| But it is one of the most common if not the most common
| cause of unintended acceleration in any car.
|
| I've even had it happen to me one time. The typical
| scenario is that you're traveling at low ("creep") speed
| with your foot on (but not pressing) the gas pedal. You
| think your foot is on the brake, so you push to slow
| down... whoops you're starting to accelerate.
|
| The probable reason that it happens more often with
| Teslas is that they have less lag between pressing the
| accelerator and getting juice. So by the time you realize
| you messed up, you're already going fast.
|
| In most gas cars, firmly pressing the accelerator results
| in milquetoast acceleration and a lot of noise for a
| second while the transmission downshifts and the engine
| revs up. In an EV, you just... go.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > As a side note, I've never heard of confusing the
| pedals as an issue for ANY car, so if Telsa's get people
| to confuse them enough to bring them to court, it's
| probably bad design.
|
| I think this is media bias. The media picks up accidents
| involving Teslas far more often than they do other
| manufacturers. The national news will even cover Tesla
| recalls when it's just an over-the-air software patch
| with zero known real-world impact), and similarly despite
| that there are ~25K vehicle fires per year, you only see
| them in the media when a Tesla is involved. In
| particular, confusing pedals is pretty common,
| particularly among very old drivers.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >confusing the pedals as an issue for ANY car,
|
| I remember NASA thought so. So I just posted it, thanks
| for the post idea!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077149
| keneda7 wrote:
| I googled driver confuses pedals and got a ton of
| results. Surprisingly it happens pretty often. Makes me a
| little nervous.
| olyjohn wrote:
| It happens all the time. People panic and mash their foot
| to the floor. Some old guy crashed into 6 cars down the
| street from my work through a parking lot, and jumped his
| car across the alley and though the wall of my office
| into our break room. He just panicked and thought he was
| mashing the brakes. Luckily nobody was in the break room.
| bsder wrote:
| > As a side note, I've never heard of confusing the
| pedals as an issue for ANY car
|
| Then you haven't been paying attention around the Toyota
| acceleration scandal.
|
| Pedal confusion is remarkably common when you buy a new
| car/use a rental (your feet rely on muscle memory), and
| it's not uncommon in the elderly.
|
| Most of the Toyota unintended acceleration fits the
| statistical profile of pedal confusion in the elderly.
|
| However, what Toyota really got whacked for is that when
| people pulled their software for audit, the software was
| a _disaster_ and didn 't even adhere to basic standards.
| At that point, it was cheaper for Toyota to just admit
| fault than go through with a whole lot of court cases
| that they were likely to lose once a jury got involved.
| dmbche wrote:
| Oh wow! Thanks for the heads up.
|
| When skimming about Toyota, I'm getting unsafe floor mats
| and sticky pedals as the cause of acceleration, but maybe
| I'm not looking hard enough. The other commenter also
| brought up that it's a common issue.
|
| Guess I'm feeling less safe on the road then ever - and
| I'll get a manual to boot
| jjoonathan wrote:
| I've definitely had a few instances (over a few decades
| of driving) when I lost confidence in my knowledge of
| which pedal was which. Rote knowledge is tricky that way.
| Fortunately, I was always able to safely test. I was
| never confidently incorrect, but I can see it from here.
| It's a scary thought.
| servercobra wrote:
| I think it's more that if someone does it in a Tesla, it
| makes for good headlines and generates clicks, so we hear
| about it. Someone in my hometown confused the pedals in
| an ICE car a few years ago, made a small blurb in our
| tiny newspaper, nowhere else. Same with cars catching on
| fire. Happens all the time, but when it happens to a
| Tesla, you see it in the national news.
| olyjohn wrote:
| It was the same with Toyota too. Car and Driver did an
| article and summarized the unintended acceleration cases
| and it turned out most people were intoxicated. Same thing
| with Audi back in the early 90s. People were pressing the
| wrong pedals and blaming the car. Audi still lost and
| Toyota still lost.
| sushid wrote:
| Teslas have a problem with phantom braking (e.g. when
| there's a dark shadow it fails to detect that it's a shadow
| before going from ~70mph to ~55mph). Myself and countless
| friends I know have experienced it but that problem has yet
| to be solved.
| ak217 wrote:
| No such thing was proven in court.
|
| Instead, what was shown in court was that Toyota had a
| culture of firmware engineering that produced code
| impossible to consistently QC, debug, test or verify. And
| as a result, they quietly fired the directors of that
| department, rebuilt it from scratch, and replaced every TCU
| from that era with a re-engineered unit in a series of
| about a dozen recalls spanning a decade and millions of
| vehicles.
| m463 wrote:
| I think you confused toyota with tesla
| ak217 wrote:
| you're right, thanks for pointing that out... got
| confused by another reply in this thread, and whenever I
| see "unintended acceleration" I think "toyota" and the
| names kinda look alike. Too late to edit my comment.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Jalopnik is absolutely garbage "journalism", they have a long
| long history of hating on Tesla.
| advael wrote:
| Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss
|
| The official policy to deprive customers and victims of
| information as much as possible is shocking from the standpoint
| of being flagrantly, cynically customer-hostile to the point of
| probable illegality, but it's right out of both Musk's normal
| playbook and that of his erstwhile colleagues at e.g. Paypal
|
| For me, cars cross a very key danger threshold, which I express
| like this: "I am trusting my life to this device by using it. I
| must trust that it will not malfunction". We are in an era where
| cars have computer overrides, so that standard needs to be
| applied to the security and reliability of the computer inside.
| We are also in an era where computers sold by corporate robber-
| barons (IE most major corporations) will routinely not merely
| malfunction, but explicitly, intentionally betray the interests
| of their end-users for increasingly marginal gains for the
| company
|
| Even if you trust the company that sold your car's computer, do
| you trust their security? All their employees? When we are
| putting computers in devices, like cars, where them operating as
| expected is life-or-death, those computers need to be auditable
| by independent experts and controllable by the end-user. To be
| clear, that unambiguously refers to the person or persons
| trusting - with their lives - that car operating safely and
| responding to their commands. We need to mandate open-source,
| user-owned computers in devices this dangerous, period.
| adamwong246 wrote:
| "FOSS self-driving cars" is a dream so bold I dare not dream
| it. In some other timeline, we have had an "internet of roads"
| built on cooperative standards. Instead we have trendy death-
| traps that make fart noises sold as status symbols.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| 99_00 wrote:
| What information is Tesla withholding that they should release
| to these customers and do other automakers release this
| information to customers?
| nickff wrote:
| > _" The official policy to deprive customers and victims of
| information as much as possible is shocking from the standpoint
| of being flagrantly, cynically customer-hostile to the point of
| probable illegality, but it's right out of both Musk's normal
| playbook and that of his erstwhile colleagues at e.g. Paypal"_
|
| It seems like you're holding Tesla to a higher standard than
| any other automaker. Which other automakers reveal similar
| information willingly? Many (or likely most) other automakers
| have made deceptive and/or dangerous products, in just about
| every manner imaginable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_...
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/22/12007862/fca-jeep-grand-c...
| 99_00 wrote:
| It's not even clear to me what information is being withheld.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It 's not even clear to me what information is being
| withheld._
|
| You read the whole 100GB already? I'm impressed with your
| speed-reading skills!
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It seems like you're holding Tesla to a higher standard
| than any other automaker.
|
| Other automakers don't go and scream around in their
| advertising (or in the antics of their founder) to the degree
| Tesla does.
| astrange wrote:
| Tesla doesn't do any advertising. I mean, they have a
| website, but you have to go look at it.
| nirav72 wrote:
| They're about to start an ad campaign. There is a video
| of the first TV ad floating around. So remains to be seen
| if it changes anything.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Therefore they scream in their advertising? It doesn't
| remain to be seen if claims about their existing
| advertising are nonsense. They are.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| They spend all their ad budget for personal Musk
| propaganda, which is even more effective considering how
| the U.S. is very sensitive to the myth of the 'self made
| man who pulled up his own bootstraps' .
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Therefore they scream in their advertising?
| clouddrover wrote:
| Here's a Tesla ad:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfMtONBK8dY
| threeseed wrote:
| We should treat Tesla the same as VW during the emissions
| scandal.
|
| Look forward to a criminal fraud investigation, billions in
| fines, Musk resigning etc.
| nickff wrote:
| Did you look at the diesel emission scandal Wiki page?
| Everyone was 'cheating'; VW was a mid-level 'cheater' which
| took the brunt of the heat for it.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| > Since 2016, 38 out of 40 diesel cars tested by ADAC
| failed a NOx-test.[6]
|
| Agreed that it seems like everyone at least looked
| suspicious.
| bb88 wrote:
| So you're blaming the regulators here for making an
| example of VW? Perhaps that may be valid, but if VW made
| the conscious decision to not follow government
| regulations, than that's on VW, not the regulators.
|
| Example making can be rather distasteful, but it can also
| be an effective deterrent preventing similar things
| happening again.
| babypuncher wrote:
| VW was made an example of because they were far and away
| the biggest diesel passenger vehicle seller in the US. So
| even if their cheats weren't as egregious as other
| automakers, said cheats had far wider impact on consumers
| and the environment.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Everyone was 'cheating'; VW was a mid-level 'cheater'_
|
| "But, mom! Everyone is doing it!" cried the 12-year-old.
|
| Two wrongs don't make a right.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Being a mid-level cheater but taking all the blame is not
| "two wrongs don't make a right" material, unless you are
| duty bound to force your ethics choices through the
| nearest aphorism.
| batman-farts wrote:
| I say this as someone still driving a pre-emissions-
| control diesel VW: Volkswagen had long been positioning
| themselves as the market leader for diesel passenger cars
| in the US. Nobody else was doing as much to offer diesels
| across their lineup, or push them as the
| "green"/economical option. And they have been the biggest
| manufacturer in Europe for a long time, so it makes sense
| that the EU came down on them like a ton of bricks too.
|
| There was a period in the early-mid 2000s where their
| diesels, along with Mercedes, got pushed out of
| California and CARB-compliant states. The opinion among
| diesel enthusiasts was that this was intentional on the
| part of CARB not just over NOx concerns, but also to help
| the market for hybrids grow. Otherwise, given the TDI's
| at-the-time superior highway mileage and the then-
| prevailing diesel prices, the VW diesel would have
| presented as the superior option to the Prius for a lot
| of people.
|
| During this period, there was still a lot of pent-up
| demand for the VW and Mercedes diesels in California. Any
| car coming from out of state with at least 8,500 miles on
| the odometer was considered a "used car" and could be
| registered no matter the powerplant, so there was quite a
| cottage industry of putting that much mileage on brand-
| new out-of-state diesels and then turning them around on
| LA or SF Craigslist. The market here was primed to buy
| VW, but VW cheated to get in a position to sell new
| "CARB-compliant" diesels again. I'm not surprised that
| the prosecutors went after them disproportionately.
| naikrovek wrote:
| are you deciding that this is acceptable based on an
| assumption that it is commonplace?
|
| because it sure reads like this is exactly what your view.
|
| it doesn't matter if there's a double standard, it's bad
| behavior no matter what the rules are for everyone else. and
| _if_ there is a double standard then that is something else
| that needs addressing. a double standard does not diminish
| the severity of these documents.
| ilyt wrote:
| > Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss
|
| "girlboss" ? Care to elaborate ? I don't exactly know what you
| mean here
| tudorw wrote:
| I prefer the bus or a walk anyway, who wants to spend time on
| silly smelly cars anyway? it's so 1990's
| garbagecoder wrote:
| [flagged]
| geraldwhen wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| devindotcom wrote:
| >Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss
|
| girlboss...?
| theodric wrote:
| It's...a thing. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gaslight-
| gatekeep-girlboss
| orpheansodality wrote:
| why is it being applied to a tesla whistleblower post
| though
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Because Tesla is femme and they are respecting its
| gender.
| input_sh wrote:
| It's being applied to Tesla's behaviour, not
| whistleblower's.
|
| As in Tesla's official policy is to gaslight you and
| gatekeep the information.
| [deleted]
| eterevsky wrote:
| When a manufacturer is selling millions of cars, I think it's
| better to judge their safety using statistics rather than some
| qualitative reasoning.
|
| Are Teslas measurably less safe than other cars? I.e. is the
| accident probability per km driven on a Tesla higher than on
| another car? I haven't seen any data suggesting that, but I'm
| happy to be corrected.
| forty wrote:
| The number of accident might be lower (no idea) but still, If
| I'm responsible of killing/injuring someone with my car, I'll
| pay the consequences. If Tesla is responsible of
| killing/injuring someone with their car (when they drive
| through the autopilot), they must also pay the price
| (probably damages or jail depending of the situation).
| tomp wrote:
| That is not how the real world works.
|
| If a car kills someone (e.g. it explodes, or burns down, or
| brakes fail) but the manufacturer took all legally required
| precautions & followed all the rules & regulations, then
| they're not legally on the hook. It was "an accident".
| rafale wrote:
| Queue in the Ford Pinto controversy:
| https://youtu.be/jltnBOrCB7I
| ajross wrote:
| How is that any different from any other product from any
| other manufacturer, though? Tort law has a thousand year
| history in our culture. Is there something specific about
| Tesla that needs something new?
|
| I mean, what you say is sorta specious. Of course that's
| true, it's always true. The interesting question is "are
| the cars dangerous?". And the answer seems to be a pretty
| emphatic no, at this point. So instead everyone wants to
| argue about abstractions ("they're still liable") or
| absolutisms ("no failure is acceptable").
|
| And that seems increasingly counterproductive, and frankly
| to have more to do with the somewhat questionable mental
| stability of the CEO than to the behavior of the actual
| products.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| * * *
| ilyt wrote:
| Well, it is a bit different. FSD theoretically can get
| driver into bad situation, then beep at them "I can't
| handle that", and as long as beeping was early enough
| that's no fault of Tesla even if the start of the event
| chain was caused by it.
|
| Also Full Self Driving is extremely deceptive name for
| feature that does not do that
| hammock wrote:
| >When a manufacturer is selling millions of cars, I think
| it's better to judge their safety using statistics rather
| than some qualitative reasoning.
|
| Why do you think that? If we used statistics to guide
| criminal justice policy we'd be in big trouble
| Spooky23 wrote:
| * * *
| ajross wrote:
| > If we used statistics to guide criminal justice policy
| we'd be in big trouble
|
| Uh... we do use statistics to guide criminal justice
| policy? Not sure I understand what you're saying. How do
| you think they decide where to police and what to
| prosecute? How they decide on legislative penalties? It's
| true that this process isn't necessarily 100% data based,
| and in a bunch of ways ends up very unfair, but it's
| absolutely driven by a mostly-sincere attempt to get the
| most social good out of our limited enforcement and
| regulatory budgets.
| avereveard wrote:
| Tela insurance is way more expensive than other cars.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I paid $129/mo for insurance ($500 deductible) on a Toyota
| Highlander. It went up to $179/mo for a Tesla Model Y with
| the same insurer, and when I switched to Tesla for
| insurance it went down to $124-144/mo (dynamic pricing,
| $1000 deductible).
| ericd wrote:
| This hasn't been my experience.
| Prickle wrote:
| To my understanding, that is because Tesla car replacement
| parts are hideously expensive. Not because they are unsafe.
| panarky wrote:
| If they don't cause many collisions, the cost of
| replacement parts isn't significant.
| ou8_1_2 wrote:
| Tell that to all the Hyundai/Kia owners whose cars are
| just spontaneously getting damaged while sitting parked.
| ;)
| HeWhoLurksLate wrote:
| But they are _when they get involved_ - the odds of
| getting into a crash with a Tesla goes up _significantly_
| when you happen to be inside of it all the time.
|
| Insurance covers risk. More cost exposure, more cost gets
| passed on to the customer
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Since Tesla works really hard to hide who is responsible in
| case of an Autopilot crash, witholds and deletes information
| as well as deny any responsibility anyways, being just as
| good as a human driver isn't nearly enough.
|
| Additionally, there's no data because Tesla releases nothing
| except heavily doctored numbers meant to make them look good.
| (To Tesla, a crash means airbag deployed. Sorry, random
| person that got ran over and killed, but you're out of
| Tesla's statistics)
|
| You can count on Tesla for one thing, and that is to lie.
| hammock wrote:
| [flagged]
| liendolucas wrote:
| I'll go a bit further... Do we really need computers on four
| wheels? Can't we just have simple electric vehicles without all
| the high-tech? No distracting screens, no computer for other
| than just governing the electric engine, no fancy car locks,
| and so on.
|
| I don't understand why we need to put so much technology in a
| vehicle. Honestly, it seems to me that is absolutely
| unnecessary tech, ridiculous.
|
| I'd like to have a vehicle like the ones 15 or 20 years ago but
| electric: analog indicators, physical buttons, etc. And a car
| that you can actually REPAIR by yourself without having to be
| an electronic engineer or something alike.
|
| There was a post about someone that owned a Tesla car and
| managed to repair it (if I recall it correctly) for under 500
| bucks when Tesla was trying to charge above 10000 USD.
|
| All this high-tech also means that we're doomed and at the
| mercy of car companies for any kind of maintenance. It seems
| that we're heading to the same dead end as with mobile phone
| industry: zero control over them.
|
| If that's the bright future that awaits us, I'll take public
| transport as much as I can.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| > Can't we just have simple electric vehicles without all the
| high-tech?
|
| No, because ~nobody would buy them.
|
| > I don't understand why we need to put so much technology in
| a vehicle.
|
| Because 99% of people want it. Not everyone wants everything,
| buy each group of people wants some features and the end
| result is that you have to stuff your car full of tech to be
| competitive in the modern car market.
|
| And this isn't an EV thing. The tech is going into all the
| ICE vehicles too. Tesla is the exception, they put huge
| screens into cars well before everyone else and they happen
| to be an EV company. But normal manufacturers are mostly
| putting similar tech in their ICEs and EVs.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I'll do one further: most of us shouldn't have to drive cars
| at all every day, we're just enabling dependency on the
| robber-barrons that create them - our entire country has been
| built to be reliant on the auto industry, it's practically a
| hostage situation and most of us have stockholm syndrome
| ilyt wrote:
| In cities for sure but even if you make cities be
| pedestrian friendly anyone outside of them still needs them
| carstenhag wrote:
| Yes, it is necessary. People want it. I want to be able to
| connect my phone to the car. To be able to use a navigation
| app. I'm not going back to reading maps (also, I never
| started).
| ilyt wrote:
| > I'll go a bit further... Do we really need computers on
| four wheels? Can't we just have simple electric vehicles
| without all the high-tech? No distracting screens, no
| computer for other than just governing the electric engine,
| no fancy car locks, and so on.
|
| I'd love to, the problem is it would get some pitifully low
| NCAP rating (because lack of active securities would bring
| the score down and I remember it is && deal, so car can have
| excellent crash safety yet still get low stars coz of lack of
| the electronic toys), and manufacturers want to sell as much
| gadgets as possible, because every few bucks of extra
| electronics is every few dozen bucks they can charge customer
| for.
|
| The other problem I think is that the "fancy annoying
| electronics" are probably not that big part of the price of
| the car. Add chassis, battery, heating/cooling system for the
| car and all the mechanics and you already arrived at most of
| the car's production price.
|
| Like, even if you add $500 of the compute (amounting to mid-
| high range GPU) and $500 on ruggedizing it for car work...
| extra $1000 worth in electronics isn't all that much of car
| price.
|
| I for one am keeping my 8th gen Civic Type-R for as long as
| possible, got ABS, airbags, even some traction control but
| none of the annoyances of modern cars. All I want from new
| car is android auto...
| vinyl7 wrote:
| Its not good enough to just sell a product. You have to sell
| a life style, an ecosystem, subscriptions and upgrades.
| Selling a simple product was a pre-WEF phenomenon
| api wrote:
| I have a Nissan Leaf and it strikes a nice balance. The
| adaptive lane following cruise is the most high tech thing it
| has but it works very well and disengages when it's out of
| its parameters. The rest of the car is a standard car that is
| just reliable.
|
| Take that car and update the battery and fast charge system
| and add some more range and it'd be perfect.
|
| There's a few newer EVs that look light on the cloud
| connected computer shit they are also worth checking out.
| inconceivable wrote:
| you could buy a used car and convert it to EV.
|
| that 1. removes an ICE off the road 2. saves on new mfr costs
| and 3. is a worthy hacker endeavour and/or 4. supports a
| local business
|
| of course if you simply hate cars and want everyone to ride
| the train or bikes you'll find a million reasons to not do
| this. good luck with that.
| carstenhag wrote:
| Not really. It's a very manual task. Can only be scaled if
| you ship thousand units of the same model to a single
| factory. Compatibility has to be evaluated per model.
| Structural integrity has to be preserved, batteries are
| usually located at different spots than motors are.
|
| Of course you can say "here are 4 pros - if you say
| anything bad you want the world to suffer from cars" but
| you know that this is not how we can get to a solution.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Environmental action is based on who's paying the bills. It
| often doesn't make sense.
|
| Case in point:
|
| At a time where Manhattan commercial real estate is about
| to implode and traffic is at a nadir, there's a major push
| to kill driving in NYC to pay for overpriced mass transit.
| Instead of investing in electric vehicle infrastructure,
| we're investing in destruction of lots of businesses (like
| nationally prominent hospitals).
| throwaway2214 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Finnucane wrote:
| We don't trust the drum on the washing machine. That's why
| organizations like Underwriters Laboratory exist.
| stonogo wrote:
| The drum on my washing machine is approved by Underwriters
| Laboratory and regulated by ADA requirements. The bridge I
| walk on was designed by a licensed professional engineer.
| Software is just about the only profession left with
| absolutely no accountability to anyone.
| advael wrote:
| Bullshit, full stop.
|
| We live in a society with deep dependency chains on
| technology we can't possibly understand as individuals, that
| much is true
|
| But all of those technologies are subject to independent
| auditing and regulation to make up for that lack of
| verifiability on an individual level. It is technologically
| feasible to apply that kind of standard to computer
| technologies, and in fact I would argue that it's much easier
| than it is for a lot of other kinds of technology we rely on.
| That our willingness at a political level to do so is lacking
| is a corruption issue, not a feasibility one.
| throwaway2214 wrote:
| why do you think if we can not understand the dependency
| chain, the regulators and the auditors can?
| vikramkr wrote:
| Because we don't have the time needed to do the audit nor
| necessarily the access, while auditors and regulators
| have both because of legal backing and the fact that it's
| their full time job
| advael wrote:
| The entire point of an independent audit is to throw an
| expert at the technologies in question at the point of
| the supply chain they are tasked with auditing in order
| to better understand it than a layperson could and make
| an assessment that provides the public with the benefit
| of their expertise. Not everyone can be an expert on
| everything, but experts can check each other's work and
| report on it publicly.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The bigger problem is that I am trusting my life to _you_ using
| it. This goes way beyond defective product and normal risk, the
| fact that these things happen endangers everybody on the road,
| not just those that decided to throw in their lot with Tesla.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver. There
| are loads of bad human drivers on the road. Someone has to be
| liable, but I don't really care if it falls to Musk or a Musk
| simp. I _do_ care if we kick yet another key technology out
| of the US only to have to rent it back years later when
| someone else picks up the torch. Let 's not do that.
| harles wrote:
| > Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver.
|
| Genuine question: what evidence is there of this?
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I think Elon has a jump cut video of it somewhere
| [deleted]
| ilyt wrote:
| I mean I'd imagine the evidence being pretty simple, put
| someone that can't drive behind the wheel, boom, worse
| than tesla
| stilist wrote:
| _Is_ it actually better than a bad human driver? (And
| what's your metric for 'bad' -- tired, drunk, distracted, a
| teenager who just got their license but didn't actually
| practice enough?) Because I've watched enough videos of
| people having to quickly override Full Self-Driving in
| ordinary situations that I'm really skeptical that it's
| better than most drivers. I'd be willing to say that in
| practice FSD usage is small enough to not be a serious
| threat to public safety, but I haven't seen evidence that
| it's better than a human.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Every time one of these threads come around I search
| youtube for a FSD video and qualitatively evaluate what
| comes up.
|
| If you google FSD fail compilation, you'll get a FSD fail
| compilation. You can do the same for humans.
| runarberg wrote:
| I think your parent's question is completely justified by
| having anecdotes. They aren't stating a fact, they are
| raising doubts of a claim. One does not need scientific
| evidence to raise doubts about a claim which it self has
| limited--and sometimes no--evidence behind it. Repeated
| real world examples are sufficient for such doubts.
|
| Now if FSD proponents want to stop people from having
| doubts, they need to run several experiments in very
| diverse settings (as diverse as real world driving). In
| the absence of sufficient evidence, a skeptic is
| completely justified.
| fathyb wrote:
| > Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver.
|
| I have big doubts regarding this claim. I could not find
| any source that is not Tesla.
|
| Given that TFA is about Tesla deceiving and hiding
| information from customers, do you have any source that
| isn't Tesla or Musk?
| squarefoot wrote:
| Can you be absolutely certain that self driving can deal
| safely with every possible road irregularities, obstacles,
| bad, incomplete, damaged or tampered road signs, and other
| unpredictable events? Self driving on public roads done
| right is damn hard; probably harder than sending a manned
| but completely automated spaceship to Mars and back.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yeah, it's a hard problem, but researchers are smart
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRdUjrOnKdw
|
| and human drivers do not set an infinitely high bar.
| vgt wrote:
| I am not sure I agree with your assessment. Last time I was
| in a FSD Tesla, it repeatedly tried to run red lights and
| didn't know how to merge lanes on a freeway...
| rickyc091 wrote:
| Tesla has four modes of "self driving"--Autopilot,
| Enhanced Autopilot, FSD, FSD Beta.
|
| AP/EAP will run red lights and can't merge lanes on a
| freeway. FSD will stop for lights/stop signs, but that's
| about it. FSD Beta is what Tesla is typically known for
| and what many YouTube videos are showing. FSD Beta will
| stop at red lights and merge into freeways. Most people
| use FSD interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| I don't own one, but I watch a video on youtube every
| time one of these threads comes around and it seems to be
| pretty good these days.
|
| Your examples are bad. People do both of those things all
| the time.
| plagiarist wrote:
| This is delusional. "It's fine because I watched some
| videos and some irresponsible people often drive
| recklessly anyway."
| jjoonathan wrote:
| What's more delusional? An extremely high-dimensional
| analysis of a ground truth source that I can trust to be
| unbiased, if rather noisy? Or an ideologically driven
| shitfight between two camps hell-bent on lying with
| statistics? I'll leave NHTSA to sort out the latter, and
| that fight is definitely the one we want to drive
| legislation, but in the mean time the former is all I
| have.
|
| What I _don 't_ do is assume an outcome and then go find
| supporting evidence to validate it. It's really easy to
| lie to yourself that way, and I've been trying to do it
| less.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| NHSTA is infected by the woke virus. Elon knows what you
| need. If your car crashes into a wall or whatever, it's
| probably your fault anyway.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| No, people do not do either of these all of the time...
| and neither does the Tesla. They exist in a continuum
| between murder-suicide and a lovely cruise along the
| coast. The idea here is that we have insufficient data to
| see just how flagrant of assholes Tesla FSD users are.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _I watch a video on youtube every time..._
|
| survivorship_bias_airplane.jpg
|
| Access to most of the latest versions of FSD were doled
| out on the basis of privilege. What do you think happened
| to people who post negative "reviews"?
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It has been open to the public for 6 months.
|
| https://electrek.co/2022/11/24/tesla-full-self-driving-
| beta-...
| panarky wrote:
| If I refuse to use a product because I think it's too
| dangerous, but I die anyway because of _your_ use of the
| dangerous product, does my estate sue you personally for
| gross negligence, or must my estate sue the maker of the
| product?
|
| Naturally if my estate sues you personally, your defense
| would be that you didn't know the product was dangerous.
| Perhaps if the whistleblower's leak is widely publicized,
| that would weaken your defense.
|
| Certainly the leak should weaken the maker's ability to claim
| they didn't know.
| otterley wrote:
| In the U.S., product-liability law allows you to sue the
| product's manufacturer (and everyone else in its supply
| chain including retailer); you don't have to sue the driver
| under some sort of "negligent ownership" theory.
|
| (IAAL, but this is greatly simplified -- consult a licensed
| attorney.)
| mattigames wrote:
| Except guns of course, because... America.
| advael wrote:
| Also a very good point, which makes an even stronger case for
| throwing the regulatory kitchen sink at this bullshit
| abirch wrote:
| Unfortunate thing for Tesla is we have the Affective Fallacy
| where if we like Tesla we overweight its benefits and underweight
| its errors.
| IceHegel wrote:
| Why precisely makes that a fallacy?
| contravariant wrote:
| You're presupposing the conclusion.
|
| If you didn't overemphasize the good parts and downplay the
| bad parts you might find out that maybe you shouldn't really
| like what Tesla is doing at all, or you'd have a legitimate
| reason to like Tesla.
|
| What you _shouldn 't_ do is overemphasize the good parts so
| you can feel better about your decision to like Tesla. Then
| your conclusion has been fixed from the start and you're
| adjusting the facts to fit to avoid cognitive dissonance.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| What's the name for that fallacy where we do not know what went
| right, and we pessimize to assume the worst? I.E. How many
| times did Tesla prevent a crash? Assume none?
| dmbche wrote:
| Don't know that it's a fallacy, it's more that the question
| you ask is impossible to answer - it's impossible to have a
| number for how many crashes were prevented. But we do have a
| number for crashes caused by. So we work off of that - if
| Telsa want's to argue they are safer, I'd love for them to
| devise some way to prove it, but I can't see that happening.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Forbes did this with stats. They concluded autopilot was
| not causing accidents.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new-
| te...
| sidibe wrote:
| It seems like comparing AP to anything but regular cruise
| control miles is not very fair. It's pretty bad if it's
| not even better at general "highway miles" because people
| are least likely to use it at the times that dangerous
| like merging onto and off the freeway.
| ertian wrote:
| You can figure out statistically if Teslas are
| systematically avoiding some types of accidents.
| m463 wrote:
| I think you can still try to be objective.
|
| For example, I like tesla autopilot 1 (mobileye based) and
| found its behavior to be reasonable. I also know its
| limitations - it has only one camera - so I don't use it in
| edge-case scenarios.
|
| I think model S display is good for turning settings on and
| off, but is bad for controlling any aspect of the car
| especially critical ones like headlights, climate control, door
| locks and more.
|
| I think the newer model S/X cars are bad, replacing stalks with
| touch controls for the headlights, turn signals, horn and
| wipers. They get in the way of good driving.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Can someone link to the source article? It is paywalled
| RoyGBivCap wrote:
| so?
|
| They Musk open sourced tesla patents 9 years ago:
| https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-y...
| throw-4e451c8 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jacquesm wrote:
| But what did you think of the article?
| throw-4e451c8 wrote:
| I first focused on adding relevant context. Also; not your
| monkey.
| pc86 wrote:
| How is this relevant context?
| throw-4e451c8 wrote:
| It's a German newspaper that has relatively recently been
| caught publishing nonsense about foreign competitors to
| German companies.
|
| See also:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handelsblatt#Anti-
| Vaccine_cont...
| jyscao wrote:
| IMO Tesla would be better if they focused solely on making good
| EVs, rather than also trying to become the leader in self-
| driving.
|
| I get that they're trying to create a wider moat against their
| competitors, but if their self-driving software are found to have
| systematic failure modes in them as these internal docs seem to
| suggest, then that could very well do more harm to their
| reputation in the long run.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| It's not just the software. They are trying to make due without
| the kind of sensors that are required to properly sense the
| immediate environment (LIDAR)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| This may surprise, but LIDAR is a very recent innovation and
| virtually zero percent of cars (particularly historically)
| are LIDAR equipped. Binocular vision has a pretty impressive
| track record.
| wavefunction wrote:
| They decided to forgo LIDAR specifically though, it's not
| that it hasn't been out very long and they haven't adopted
| it yet. Other car makers have been using it for a while,
| just as long as Tesla could have if they truly want to be
| cutting edge.
| blendo wrote:
| I didn't think Tesla used binocular (stereoscope) cameras.
|
| These comments seem to confirm:
| https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/does-tesla-have-
| bino...
| jonathankoren wrote:
| It might also come as a surprise that the the lack of a
| LiDAR, and famously disabling the radar directly relates to
| Tesla's poor self driving performance compared to the
| actual leaders in the area like Waymo and Cruise.
| fragmede wrote:
| Not with electrical brains, unfortunately.
| sushid wrote:
| Binocular vision as in human vision? Powered by the human
| brain? That's vastly different than binocular vision
| powered by Tesla's rudimentary "AI"
| threeseed wrote:
| Also our binocular vision is movable unlike cars.
|
| Which is how we determine depth when there is occlusion
| ie. we move our head.
| asdff wrote:
| How expensive is LIDAR even? My xiaomi vacuum has LIDAR.
| sidibe wrote:
| They were considerably more expensive the first year Tesla
| FSD was due to be ready by the end of the year. After that
| I guess it was deemed easier to do magic with some low
| quality cameras than get certain people to admit they're
| wrong and change course.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Eh, Tesla has already shown the world how to make commercially
| viable EVs. That's a torch the risk averse legacy auto
| manufacturers can take up, now that Tesla has done the
| derisking. Now someone needs to prove out self-driving, even at
| the risk of some short-term reputational harm. I don't think
| people realize the life-saving potential in solving this
| problem.
| krupan wrote:
| You are absolutely right, but Tesla is doing more harm than
| good towards making self driving commercially viable.
| Repeatedly making bold claims and then failing spectacularly
| to back them up is hurting everyone's perceptions big time.
| Cruise and Waymo are doing a far better job.
| arguoinhio3 wrote:
| [dead]
| LelouBil wrote:
| > I don't think people realize the life-saving potential in
| solving this problem.
|
| They shouldn't be harming lives to pursue this.
| [deleted]
| virtualritz wrote:
| Fair enough.
|
| But if you think this line of reasoning through, cars
| should have never been admitted on the road in the first
| place.
|
| The issue I see is lack of transparency. If the % of
| accidents that can be avoided is provably much higher than
| those caused by Tesla's self-driving tech, an informed
| argument could be made in favor or against.
|
| But with Tesla withholding the information in the leak
| there is just FUD around the whole issue instead of facts.
| katbyte wrote:
| no, no they shouldn't have. At least not without tesla
| taking full accountability and liability for every
| accident on autopilot.
|
| other manufacturers are slowly rolling out more self
| driving like tech, AND taking on liability.
| TheCaptain4815 wrote:
| Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much with self driving
| shouldn't be dismissed. If a car that costs $25,000 to
| manufacture all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week
| automatically, how much is that car now worth?
|
| So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors given
| teslas enormous valuation.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Is there a big market for $125,000 cars? Who needs a car 40
| hours a week?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Uber
| capableweb wrote:
| How many cars does Uber own? I thought they offloaded all
| of that pesky "ownership" stuff to their custome.. I mean
| drivers / coworkers / employees / collaborating business
| owners / freelancers.
| manquer wrote:
| * * *
| contravariant wrote:
| 5 people.
| rurp wrote:
| Elon doesn't actually believe that Tesla cars are about to
| quintuple in value now, any more than he did 7+ years ago
| when he first started saying it; that's just marketing BS.
|
| > So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors
| given teslas enormous valuation.
|
| Yes, and most Gamestop investors think the company is going
| to be the next Amazon. Buying a popular meme stock doesn't
| make their predictions right.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-25 23:00 UTC)