I don’t get why Tesla added the self driving stuff at all. Just seems like a lot of wasted investment that keeps the price of the car high. They could have released a much cheaper model 3 without it, and likely deal with less bad press from their cars killing their owners.
Tesla, software and disruption
61–70 of 127 posts
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#62Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The newest Zero electric motorcycles will go around 100 miles at real highway speeds, which isn't bad compared to most small-tank gas motorcycles (although obviously lack of refueling options is an issue). I do think they're a good illustration of the cost issue, though, as they're astronomically expensive.
F Zero motorcycles, supported them buying one of the first production bikes and now it sits with a dead battery and zero no longer sells replacments shafting all it's first gen bike owners.
Wow, now that I am looking this up the pre-2012 Zero bikes used Molicell LiMn2O4 batteries instead of more common LiFePO4s (see A123) or ubiquitous LiCoO2 batteries. This gives them a deeper voltage range and makes them require some form of reengineering to replace with more modern battery technology, which really does suck.
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially since Tesla doesn't make cells. They buy from Panasonic. Panasonic competes directly with Tesla in home and bulk energy storage.[1] [1] https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-storage...
So gigafactory is not making cells?
Gigafactory is Panasonic as much as Tesla.
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#65Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.
It is a little premature. I think it will make much more sense in two or three decades (?) *when we can get self driving mostly working.
This may be unpopular but control knobs are silly. How often do you reach for that climate control knob? Why can't the car just do the right thing? Why does the knob need to exist?
My opinion is that doing away with knobs we don't need to be persistent is a good thing. Now, in a car today with no real self driving, we want the brakes to be accessible by a persistent control and it is in all cars. I just think tweaking climate control isn't that high in the list of priorities.
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#66Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.
It is a little premature. I think it will make much more sense in two or three decades (?) *when we can get self driving mostly working. This may be unpopular but control knobs are silly. How often do you reach for that climate control knob? Why can't the car just do the right thing? Why does the knob need to exist? My opinion is that doing away with knobs we don't need to be persistent is a good thing. Now, in a car…
I feel like I reach for climate control all the time. Cars have tiny enclosed cabins and they go from cold to hot quickly depending on sun/shade etc. And how would it do the right thing? The right temperature is pretty subjective.
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#67"That is, it’s entirely possible that Waymo, or someone else, gets autonomy to work in 202x with a $1000 or $2000 LIDAR and vision sensor suite and Tesla still doesn’t have it working with vision alone."
In this scenario there still may be an upside for Tesla. For Waymo to cover the world in LIDAR-equipped cars will take decades. Tesla already sells cars all over the world. The Tesla car sharing network may scale extremely quickly as a result. Even if Waymo takes some markets first, once Tesla has autonomy working, they can be in most markets at the flip of a switch.
Since the cars participating in the sharing network would be from Tesla purchasers, people may purchase the cars as an investment, meaning there would be no capital cost to Tesla in scaling their network. They just need to be able to produce enough Model 3s and get autonomy working. Then they can take profits from both the sale of the car and the clip of the car sharing network.
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
So gigafactory is not making cells?
Gigafactory is Panasonic as much as Tesla. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1#Operations
"Tesla owns the land and building, and leases part of the building to Panasonic, which owns some of the cell production equipment" In what world this translates to "as much"?
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#69Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.
It is a little premature. I think it will make much more sense in two or three decades (?) *when we can get self driving mostly working. This may be unpopular but control knobs are silly. How often do you reach for that climate control knob? Why can't the car just do the right thing? Why does the knob need to exist? My opinion is that doing away with knobs we don't need to be persistent is a good thing. Now, in a car…
Well, OK, but what makes a touchscreen an improvement? Why is it good to take knobs away? The number of 10 year old devices with knobs that still function is way higher than the number of 10 year old devices with touchscreens that still function, for many reasons.
Also, the volume and radio controls are high on the list of "things I like to control without taking my eyes off the road"
Re: Tesla, software and disruption
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a little premature. I think it will make much more sense in two or three decades (?) *when we can get self driving mostly working. This may be unpopular but control knobs are silly. How often do you reach for that climate control knob? Why can't the car just do the right thing? Why does the knob need to exist? My opinion is that doing away with knobs we don't need to be persistent is a good thing. Now, in a car…
I feel like I reach for climate control all the time. Cars have tiny enclosed cabins and they go from cold to hot quickly depending on sun/shade etc. And how would it do the right thing? The right temperature is pretty subjective.
You set the temperature you like once. It can use that as the default. That will cover most climate control cases, and then there's an override value for when you have passengers. Since there would be someone in the passenger seat then, they can do it whilst the driver drives. The override gets reset every 6 hours.
Theoretical way it could work; unsure how much of that applies to Tesla.