Tesla Trolling

Dav8or said:
Basically gambling on an educated guess. In the meanwhile, show off some neat looking prototypes and collect deposit money. This strategy works for Elon only. I don't think any other company in the world could get away with it.
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I literally replied to an article on GM launching 20 models and Ford 13 models based on an educated guess of what the battery prices will be in 2021...
 
denverpilot said:
And this slips out in the news on a “throw out the trash Friday” before a holiday weekend. Not a lot of money overall for them, but still interesting in how it shows not all has truly been rosy with all owners.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...over-dangerous-autopilot-system-idUSKCN1IQ1SH
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Read the article - the proposed "settlement": involves payments of $20.00 to $280.00 to purchasers of vehicles equipped with the autopilot upgrade. That alone tells me that the settlement is (1) a throw-away for Tesla, essentially payment of less than it would cost to try the case; (2) settlement of a dog case for the Plaintiffs' class (the facts were not penciling-out for the Plaintiffs' class and their counsel; and (3) a decent payday for the class counsel and nearly useless for the class members.

A big, ol' yawn.
 
SCCutler said:
Read the article - the proposed "settlement": involves payments of $20.00 to $280.00 to purchasers of vehicles equipped with the autopilot upgrade. That alone tells me that the settlement is (1) a throw-away for Tesla, essentially payment of less than it would cost to try the case; (2) settlement of a dog case for the Plaintiffs' class (the facts were not penciling-out for the Plaintiffs' class and their counsel; and (3) a decent payday for the class counsel and nearly useless for the class members.

A big, ol' yawn.
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Never said it wasn’t. What’s more interesting is various owners of these “perfect” vehicles we keep hearing about were mad enough about what they thought they were promised that they formed the suit.

Because everything is always roses and everyone thinks their Tesla is the “best car they’ve ever owned” and all that rubbish.

Obviously these owners didn’t agree.

The other interesting thing is to look at the comments on the various news articles.

Numerous people saying things like, “Musk doesn’t care about Tesla anymore...” which is fascinating.
 
SCCutler said:
Read the article - the proposed "settlement": involves payments of $20.00 to $280.00 to purchasers of vehicles equipped with the autopilot upgrade. That alone tells me that the settlement is (1) a throw-away for Tesla, essentially payment of less than it would cost to try the case; (2) settlement of a dog case for the Plaintiffs' class (the facts were not penciling-out for the Plaintiffs' class and their counsel; and (3) a decent payday for the class counsel and nearly useless for the class members.

A big, ol' yawn.
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You just described the vast majority of class action lawsuits.
 
denverpilot said:
And this slips out in the news on a “throw out the trash Friday” before a holiday weekend. Not a lot of money overall for them, but still interesting in how it shows not all has truly been rosy with all owners.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...over-dangerous-autopilot-system-idUSKCN1IQ1SH
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Woof, Reuters, clickbait much? I expect better from you. The lawsuit wasn't about safety.

How this lawsuit came about:

a) October 2015: Tesla launches AutoPilot (now called AP1) using technology from MobilEye (now owned by Intel)
b) Earlier in 2015: Tesla started to work on their own technology called Tesla Vision since they wanted more customization than what MobilEye allowed.
c) Early 2016: MobilEye learns of this and tries to force Tesla to discontinue Tesla Vision, and pay more for MobilEye to develop the features Tesla wanted. Tesla refuses.
d) July 2016: MobilEye officially drops Tesla and wouldn't deliver more units or updates.
e) October 2016: Tesla runs out of MobilEye units and launches AP2 based on Tesla Vision instead.
f) AP2 based on Tesla Vision was NOT ready by a long shot for this change, and nowhere near as good as AP1/MobilEye at the time.

That meant that cars built between October 2016 and late 2017 had an Autopilot that was significantly worse from the 2015 and early 2016 cars. Even things like the automatic windshield wipers stopped working for a while. People who bought directly after October 2016 felt that they were mislead since they bought based on AP1 experiences and reviews in demo cars/press/friends etc. and Tesla did not make it clear that AP2 was going to be so much worse. People who bought later knew up front it was worse but Tesla promised that it would be fixed in 3 to 6 months. It took instead about 16 months instead to reach parity with the AP1/MobilEye level functionality. It only truly became better than AP1 in the February 2018 update.

If you had a lease starting in October 2016, you'd be understandably upset that half your lease ran out before you could use the feature.

So the lawsuit was about broken promises, not safety. That's why the settlement is structured progressively - the longer you had your car for, the more of the feature you've been missing, so the more money you get. That's why people who bought cars with AP1 are not eligible for the settlement, nor people who bought AP2 cars after parity with AP1 cars were reached.
 
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denverpilot said:
I never said it was about safety.
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Sorry, I wasn’t ranting at you - I was ranting at Reuters. (The “I expect better from you” was addressed at Reuters but I see now how that could come off instead.)
 
deonb said:
Sorry, I wasn’t ranting at you - I was ranting at Reuters. (The “I expect better from you” was addressed at Reuters but I see now how that could come off instead.)
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LOL. Yeah. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on there, but that makes sense.

Hey, it’s the news media. You get the B-team on a holiday weekend and they’re all wanting to make a name for themselves with a big story. Which the Tesla PR people and lawyers should have known and handled the Reuter’s reporter better ... especially when purposefully doing a trash dump on a Friday before a holiday weekend. :)
 
I actually have a Tesla from the 80s. It drives down the center of every road, and it makes a noise like "wocka-wocka-wocka".

When I drive over a manhole, everything turns freaky colors, and I'm allowed to drive over ghosts (until they start flashing).


I seriously gotta lay off the Peets...
 
X3 Skier said:
Speaking of Reuters (and bad PR for Tesla).

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...shes-into-parked-police-vehicle-idUSKCN1IU2SZ

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The driver of a Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) vehicle crashed into an unoccupied, parked police vehicle in Laguna Beach, California, on Tuesday and the driver told investigators the Tesla was in “Autopilot” mode at the time, a police spokesman said.”

Cheers
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Below is the road where the accident took place. Two things come to mind:

1) What idiot would build a road like this?
a) The solid white line on the right side barrels directly into parking spaces.
b) You can't be in the right-turn lane if a car is parked there and pass it without driving over the center line.

2) What idiot would use an automatic lane-keeping feature on a road like this??

upload_2018-5-30_2-3-32.png
 
Answers:

Government.
A Tesla Driver.

You had some commentary about geofencing the feature to highways and teaching Tesla drivers that their system won’t stop for parked cars, but you edited the post, I think.

(I just happened to load the post at the right time I guess..)

On the geofencing I have no opinion.

But since I’m a “Magic brillance of Musk” dolt, why wouldn’t the thing stop for parked cars?

All of the ones built as safety systems will stop for anything solid that they have a closure rate on. They will have warnings that there are limits to how quickly they can stop, and they’ll likely hit the object, but they don’t flat out say “We’ll hit parked cars...” they say “The system will do its best to stop prior to any collision with another vehicle”.

I think Subaru, as the only example I’m very certain about, gives a “guarantee” that they’ll get stopped with their sensor package from any speed 35 MPH or below, and they don’t say it, but that insinuates they’ll slow at least 35 MPH for any immovable object.

And I believe their system does NOT apply full ABS braking. The driver can react and mash the brake pedal to the floor and make the stop from speeds above 35 MPH to [unknown limits based upon road and tire conditions].

Why in the world would Tesla just flat out say they’ll hit things? Why not take the other wording of a safety system like numerous other manufacturers and just make a best effort at stopping for immovable objects above all other priorities?

I get it that it may have steered itself into trouble with lines painted like that, but that mess isn’t exactly uncommon. Especially in construction zones.

(Which if you’re going for geofencing, should be another place manual driving with full auto-stop safety systems for immovable objects should be the norm. But again, I’m not going to give commentary on geofencing. That would lead to commentary on weather hazards and all sorts of other times the system should be disabled, and the list would get to be massive.)
 
denverpilot said:
Answers:

Government.
A Tesla Driver.

You had some commentary about geofencing the feature to highways and teaching Tesla drivers that their system won’t stop for parked cars, but you edited the post, I think.
(I just happened to load the post at the right time I guess..)
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Yeah, I underestimated your response time at 4 am :). I originally added:

Maybe Tesla should Geofence it by defaults to highways, and then make drivers take a written test where they have to e.g. write out the words: "I know AutoPilot does not stop for parked cars" a 100 times before the feature will be enabled on all roads again.

But the post got too long. :)

denverpilot said:
Answers:
On the geofencing I have no opinion.

But since I’m a “Magic brillance of Musk” dolt, why wouldn’t the thing stop for parked cars?

All of the ones built as safety systems will stop for anything solid that they have a closure rate on. They will have warnings that there are limits to how quickly they can stop, and they’ll likely hit the object, but they don’t flat out say “We’ll hit parked cars...” they say “The system will do its best to stop prior to any collision with another vehicle”.

I think Subaru, as the only example I’m very certain about, gives a “guarantee” that they’ll get stopped with their sensor package from any speed 35 MPH or below, and they don’t say it, but that insinuates they’ll slow at least 35 MPH for any immovable object.
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There is no such guarantee. Here is the Subaru Eyesight disclaimer:

"Never drive the car relying solely on the system explained above. The system has been designed to assist the driver in making decisions on the road, and to reduce the chance of accidents or damage. It was not designed to prevent drivers from failing to focus on the road ahead by driving inattentively or carelessly, nor was it designed to provide driving assistance under poor weather or visibility conditions. It was also not designed to prevent collisions from occurring under any conditions. Drivers are responsible for driving safely and shall comply with all traffic rules and regulations regardless of the fact that the car is equipped with the system. Drivers shall ensure that they are driving safely, maintaining a safe distance behind the car in front, paying attention to their surroundings and driving conditions, and applying the brake or other measures to maintain a safe driving distance. When a warning is activated, drivers should pay attention to what is in front of the car and its surroundings, operating the brake pedal and taking other action as necessary. There are limits to the system recognition and control performance, in addition to the outline provided here."​

"poor weather or visibility" - I get that. But: "it's not designed to prevent collisions from occurring under any conditions". Mmm. What exactly are those conditions? How does that legal statement help me as a consumer? Tesla just makes it more obvious what those conditions are and what I should watch out for. I prefer to know what they are.

Look, the Subaru Eyesight, Tesla Model S and 3 have essentially identical IIHS Front crash prevention rankings, apart from it being optional for the Subaru and standard for the Tesla:
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/tesla/model-3-4-door-sedan/2018
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/subaru/impreza-4-door-sedan

AEB is not even a thing anymore. Most auto manufacturers use the same equipment from Hitachi, Bosch and MobilEye. (Tesla now has developed their own after their public spat with MobilEye, but the vehicle in question in this crash still has the old MobilEye system). Subaru uses Hitachi. But point is - AEB on all vehicles perform approximately the same and have the same limitations.

The sad fact is that Automatic Emergency Braking on any vehicle is not always going to brake, and one of the conditions it isn't going to brake is if a vehicle is parked on the side of the road while you steer towards that lane (with the intention of steering back before you hit it). It can't - your car will brake all the time while you're just changing lanes around town and will essentially be unusable. If a vehicle however slows down and stop close to you, the radar-based systems will indeed stop for vehicles on the side. But that's a very different case than parked vehicles and won't be an unusable nuisance.

(As an aside, on the famous Uber crash, AEB was disabled).

One cool thing that I give Subaru props for - they enabled rear-AEB before Tesla did. Tesla has autopark which will detect vehicles and obstructions and not drive into them. But autopark is crazy slow - pretty much a gimmick. I prefer parking myself and I just want rear-AEB to look out for pillars that want to run into me. Tesla has all the hardware to do this, they just haven't done it yet.

denverpilot said:
And I believe their system does NOT apply full ABS braking. The driver can react and mash the brake pedal to the floor and make the stop from speeds above 35 MPH to [unknown limits based upon road and tire conditions].
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Same with Tesla. It doesn't slam on the brakes at high speed - it reduces speed by 35 MPH - you have to do the rest to get it down to 0 if you're over 35 MPH to start off with. I assume it's similar with Volvo, BMW, Merc, Lexus etc.

denverpilot said:
Which if you’re going for geofencing, should be another place manual driving with full auto-stop safety systems for immovable objects should be the norm. But again, I’m not going to give commentary on geofencing. That would lead to commentary on weather hazards and all sorts of other times the system should be disabled, and the list would get to be massive.)
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I just meant for AutoPilot mode. Auto Emergency Braking is active all the time (AutoPilot or not), but has limits. If you drive past a bunch of parked cars AEB is not going to help you, so my somewhat out-of-frustration suggestion is to disable AutoPilot on non-highway roads with known parked cars, so drivers will be forced to drive themselves and pay attention to the vehicles around them.


When AEB works properly however, it's a thing of beauty. I've had one case where my car engaged a 2-vehicles-ahead stop like the one that's 45 seconds into this video:

Basically I was following a truck and my car just suddenly stopped and beeped, and I couldn't see why. Two seconds later the truck in front of me also stopped, and moved to another lane. Turned out the car just in front of THEM just got into a fender bender and stopped. I didn't see the accident at all until the truck moved out of the way. The radar bounces under the car in front of you so it can track vehicles ahead of them. Now THAT kind of things I think are very cool. Things that humans can never do impress me more than things that try to approximate humans.

I also had a side-swipe avoidance kick in 2 days ago for a car drifting out of his lane on my right. Also cool, but I would have likely been able to do the same. Still, cool to experience.
 
deonb said:
One cool thing that I give Subaru props for - they enabled rear-AEB before Tesla did.
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Subaru calls it RAB, rear automated braking, and I'm humbled to say that option has already paid for itself. I was backing into a space at a hospital, had a lot of things on my mind, was probably in a bit too much of a hurry, and didn't notice that they had a cable guard rail about a foot in front of the concrete wall at the end of the stall. I was backing in like I was pulling up to the concrete when the car beeped and SLAMMED on the brakes. WTF I think. I get out, and my heart sank as I saw that group of cables and expected the back of the car to be shredded. Nope, it stopped me 4" short of the cables. Yup, that option just paid for itself. If RAB/Eyesight ever saves me from anything again, it's gravy.
 
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In our Honda (2018 Odyssey) the lane keeping system (only vibrates the wheel and complains, doesn't steer) can't detect lane marking in the rain worth a hoot. Do other cars do this better? (My wife made me turn the LKAS off. It drives her crazy.) It seems that part time safety is worse than no time safety just from a driver attention perspective.
 
jsstevens said:
In our Honda (2018 Odyssey) the lane keeping system (only vibrates the wheel and complains, doesn't steer) can't detect lane marking in the rain worth a hoot. Do other cars do this better? (My wife made me turn the LKAS off. It drives her crazy.) It seems that part time safety is worse than no time safety just from a driver attention perspective.
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I've driven several late-model GMs (Tahoe/Acadia) with the seat buzzer for lane departure and traffic that seem to work pretty well. First time it buzzed me and flashed a red light across the windshield it scared the crap out of me, lol. I was coming up fast on traffic in the right lane and was preparing to change lanes when it hit and it startled me until I figured out what it was and why it happened.
 
This WSJ article discusses an outcome for Tesla that's been obvious for some time. When the major automakers begin serious EV production, there's little chance Tesla will survive.

US and EU regulations are forcing manufacturers to engage in large scale EV production. The $7,500 tax incentive Tesla has relied on is ending for them, and just beginning for all the other automakers.

I'm used to The Faithful shrugging off any claims that Tesla's future is precarious. This one might be a bit more difficult to ignore.

...Wall Street finds Tesla sales are not adding up as hoped this year. Morgan Stanley is forecasting 344,000, below the low end of Tesla’s last predicted range. An obvious culprit is the dwindling U.S. tax rebate to buyers. The handout, once $7,500, has been cut in half and will soon fall to $1,875. It turns out economics applies after all.

Worse for Tesla, the $7,500 rebate will continue to apply in full to a tidal wave of electric cars about to hit the U.S. market. This onslaught—coming from Mercedes, VW, BMW , Volvo, Porsche, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, you name it—is the fruit of an estimated $300 billion in capital the industry has committed to building money-losing electric cars. This money is spent in response to emissions rules that essentially require building electric cars to offset conventional ones.

A report out last month from McKinsey tells the story: These cars cost an average of $12,000 more to produce than they can fetch in the marketplace.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-a-pileup-tesla-11554851747?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

McKinsey details the cost figures that make EVs economically uncompetitive:

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries...ectric-vehicles-profitable?mod=article_inline
 
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3393RP said:
This WSJ article discusses an outcome for Tesla that's been obvious for some time. When the major automakers begin serious EV production, there's little chance Tesla will survive.
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Maybe.

But I can imagine a similar opinion from about 30 years ago...

“This WSJ article discusses an outcome for Apple that's been obvious for some time. When the major computer makers, starting with IBM, begin serious PC production, there's little chance Apple will survive.”

It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future!
 
FastEddieB said:
Maybe.

But I can imagine a similar opinion from about 30 years ago...

“This WSJ article discusses an outcome for Apple that's been obvious for some time. When the major computer makers, starting with IBM, begin serious PC production, there's little chance Apple will survive.”

It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future!
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Apple has a nice little niche in desktops and laptops, but were it not for the iPhone and its progeny, they’d likely be gone.

More to the point, Apple was self-supporting from the start. I am confident that Tesla will survive in some form, but will never be comfortable with the staggering scale of public money, cash extracted by force of law from the wage-earners who labored hard, granted to them.

I love the cars, though.
 
jsstevens said:
In our Honda (2018 Odyssey) the lane keeping system (only vibrates the wheel and complains, doesn't steer) can't detect lane marking in the rain worth a hoot. Do other cars do this better? (My wife made me turn the LKAS off. It drives her crazy.) It seems that part time safety is worse than no time safety just from a driver attention perspective.
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I think there's an update to LKAS, called MKAS.
 
SCCutler said:
More to the point, Apple was self-supporting from the start. I am confident that Tesla will survive in some form, but will never be comfortable with the staggering scale of public money, cash extracted by force of law from the wage-earners who labored hard, granted to them.

I love the cars, though.
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Me, too, and gradually buying back into the stock (a share a month).

The car is key, obviously. Much in the way the Apple II and Mac were key back then.

But there’s already some diversification at Tesla such as the PowerWall and Gigafactories.
We really don’t know what the company’s priorities will be down the road.

As an aside, did anyone else watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch and booster recovery live yesterday? I swear it’s science fiction made real, and managed to get to me and Karen in a fundamental way. It’s amazing what people can do when they put their minds to it!
 
FastEddieB said:
As an aside, did anyone else watch the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch and booster recovery live yesterday? I swear it’s science fiction made real, and managed to get to me and Karen in a fundamental way. It’s amazing what people can do when they put their minds to it!
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Yes. I had a very similar reaction to yours. Humans can be pretty dang impressive.
 
injb said:
Technology may not be faith based, but economics certainly is, especially with things like this. Just look at Tesla's capitalization and share prices vs their record of profilts if you don't believe me! There's a reason why they call it the dismal science.

Regarding the technology, a lot of people have said that it's just moving the source of pollution, but that's not really the whole story. Firstly, the only way we will ever have to get kinetic energy from fossil fuels is by burning them. But burning fossil fuels isn't by any means the only way to get electricity. It's just the main way that we've always done it, because it's always been cheap (unlike solar panels) and free from political difficulties (unlike nuclear power). But the fact is that we have far more options when it comes to electricity. In fact, any source of sustainable energy you look at is going to end up being consumed as electricity, whether it's wind, solar, geothermal etc. So the simple reality is that in the future we'll be driving electric cars or we won't be driving at all.

But secondly, no one actually knows the full story about the thermal efficiency of IC engines, if you take it from start to finish. We do know that it costs up to 7kwhr of electricity to get one gallon of fuel to the pumps, and also that electrical power plants burn fossil fuels more efficiently than the small engines found in cars. So even as things stand now, electric cars are more efficient.
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Not necessarily. You have conversion losses - from low voltage/high current to high voltage/low current and back. You have copper losses even on the low resistance and low current transmission lines. You have the chemical inefficiency from charging and discharging a battery. There's loss when you charge a battery; you can tell because it warms up, and it has a loss when you discharge it, because it gets warm when you discharge it.

You even have copper losses from the current in the motors' windings. If you add all these losses up, they pretty much negate the increased efficiency of a power station over a car's IC engine.

And, everyone wants to drive an electric vehicle because it pollutes less. Several studies have been done that show the typical electrical vehicle's manufacturing pollution is the equivalent of 80K miles of driving with an IC engine. My hybrid's internal battery was only warrantied for 8 years, 80K miles. Fortunately, it's still going strong after 13 years and about 130K miles.
 
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