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Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

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Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#181
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>auto-braking, lane keep assist, automatic cruise control, and similar I bought a mazda cx recently with all of these feature. I must say I don't find any of these really useful, but again I don't text while driving. I think these features breed a false sense of security and encourage users to text while driving. Features like these should be introduced only when they can protect users from all cases of distracted dr…

To be fair, auto-braking isn't useful until you need it, and by that point you're about a half second away from smashing into another car so you don't have much time to think about it. That feature alone could reduce total crashes by 10% [1] [1] http://www.autonews.com/article/20160128/OEM06/160129871/aut...

Or just, you know, keep your distance.

Although it is sometimes quite hard, my father was once going on a German Autobahn 180kmh and he didn't realize that in the front people completely stopped. My mom realized and shouted and he hit the breaks and stopped in-between cars (if there weren't enough space inbetween, he would have mildly hit the cars). But I don't think this system would have helped in this situation

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#182

I'm hoping we'll indeed see some tweaks to the nose -- it looks like a blank waiting for a cut-out to fit a grill and will leave the car feeling nearly-finished if it stays that way for production. Only bit that wasn't really a home run for me (for a pre-production, anyways). But otherwise... shooting for autonomous-first at launch will be interesting indeed. How would that effect the opinions of the folks now on the…

That mask started to grow on me: it makes the car look like a spaceship, and even more importantly, it sets it apart from all other cars out there. It's like the hatchback-shape of the Prius. I don't think anyone does actually find that attractive, but it's a great design to tell everyone from a distance that you're a better person than them.

I don't own one, but the Prius is actually just an excellent car. Aside from its fuel efficiency, it has lots of interior space, has an outstanding service life measured in hundreds of thousands of miles with no major services, and is priced very competitively. There's a reason tons of taxi cabs are Priuses. The stereotype that the Prius is bought by snooty people is completely undeserved. If you're just shopping for a simple commuter car, it's really hard to beat the Prius.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#183
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want to be inside the car when it does that? It is not going to be much fun unless you are paying attention and bracing yourself, in which case I'm not sure I see the advantage of letting the computer do it for you.

You are probably overestimating the jerk from that. 5mph has (1/12)^2 = 1/144th the energy of 60mph. Passengers often don't pay attention to what's going on and breaking force is generally not enough to really mess with people. That said, the default is not going to be stopping within 1-2 inches of pedestrians, rather it's going to gradually slow down to deal with pedestrians while trying to maintain forward progress…

You're right of course. It's hard to imagine any useful vehicle spending much of its time moving at only 5 mph, though, so I suppose I'm really imagining what such a stop would be like from a more normal travel speed like 20-25 mph.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to define a car company in a single adjective like "[self driving] car company" or "[electric] car company"? Both are clearly the future. So what's wrong with doing both? You say "pivot" as though these are incompatible goals, when in fact they're perfectly complementary paths to a future ideal of ground transportation. To me, your point is like asking "Is Google a search company, or an advertising co…

Everything about Tesla has been around helping/saving the environment by accelerating the adoption of battery driven cars vs ICE. Nothing about self driving cars says they have to be electric. In fact, if the first fully self driving car was gasoline that would probably impede Tesla's growth. So it impacts where your limited R&D, manufacturing and sales and marketing $$"s go. I don't think a company as small as Tesla…

Nothing about making computers says you have to make phones (Apple). As the GP mentioned, nothing about search says you have to sell advertising (Google). And none of the above say you have to make a self driving car (as both are reported to be attempting).

I think you're drawing some arbitrary distinctions here. Making big bets in several areas is no small part of why Apple, Google and Tesla are magnets for the best engineers and programmers. There's nothing unfocused about marrying great software and hardware, which is ultimately what Tesla is doing.

A lot of Musk's bet in AV is founded on the understanding that the existing automakers are/were quite capable of making a good electric car - they just have too much incentive to drag their feet. Autonomous driving will actually be the major differentiator in an industry that didn't have the software expertise to create a decent infotainment system.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#186
post #115
post #3

Unveil part 2 is "super next-level". And the "steering controls and system feels like a spaceship" And Musk tweeted a little while ago about getting a special team of Software Engineers reporting directly to him for self-driving that was "top priority" within the company. And there are no gauges directly in front of the driver at all, which has been confirmed to be like that for production. At this point, can it be a…

Musk said on Twitter that Autopilot convenience features would not be included in the base model, "same as S and X." So it doesn't seem like they would be basing the interior design on an optional feature.

He says in the reveal presentation that Autopilot hardware will come standard on the 3.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#187
post #181
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, auto-braking isn't useful until you need it, and by that point you're about a half second away from smashing into another car so you don't have much time to think about it. That feature alone could reduce total crashes by 10% [1] [1] http://www.autonews.com/article/20160128/OEM06/160129871/aut...

Or just, you know, keep your distance. Although it is sometimes quite hard, my father was once going on a German Autobahn 180kmh and he didn't realize that in the front people completely stopped. My mom realized and shouted and he hit the breaks and stopped in-between cars (if there weren't enough space inbetween, he would have mildly hit the cars). But I don't think this system would have helped in this situation

Just keeping good distance isn't guaranteed to save you from other drivers. See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X-5fKzmy38

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#189
post #49

So I watched the Model 3 unveil. I found it to be pretty awful. I had seen Musk unveil the battery swap, and felt that he looked way more polished than he did in the Model 3 unveil. The reveal kind of stressed me out the way he was stammering over the words. It seemed as though he had either not practiced the script, not written one, or had a bout of stage fright. He really didnt "sell" the car. Just said yes its goi…

He's going through a massive divorce that could cost him billions.

Which divorce? He must have had an ironclad pre-nup with Riley.
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