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Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

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Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#171

Post by twoodfin »

jonknee wrote: post #167
twoodfin wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least a sizable chunk of which is going into the pockets of wealthy Google engineers, if what's to be read in this thread is true. Well, I guess they're paying the taxes in the first place...

If it successfully brings electric cars into the main stream it will be the most efficient use of $7,500 the government ever paid.

How can you be sure? A bunch of rich Valley workers getting $10,000 rebates on luxury cars is the "most" efficient use of tax money? (barney54 was right: There's another $2,500 free from California.)

I know you're exaggerating for effect, but when has such a scheme ever worked to bring a new technology mainstream? The government didn't need to give you a tax credit to buy a PC.

I suspect it would be much more efficient to slowly, predictably ramp up gasoline or carbon taxes, offset with, say, lower payroll taxes. Effectively no cost to the government, and it lets the market decide how best to reduce emissions.

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#172

Post by Already__Taken »

alan_cx wrote: post #108
jlgreco wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of the actual customers are as disturbed by this as you.

They should be. What is the point of supporting and paying a premium for green, if you are going to carry dead weight around in the car? Given that we are told that carrying a spare wheel around is significant, unused battery capacity must also be a problem. I also assume tesla went to some trouble to reduce the weight of the car too. With makes unused battery capacity even more nuts. If you are going green, you do n…

It's not 'unused'. It's extra capacity to extend the functioning life of the 40kw operating window.

It's exactly like how solid state hard drives are labeled 256GB but are actually 240GB if you account for the space reserved for wear leveling.

If anything Telsa is in fact more honest than the SSD market.

The extra capacity would help spreading out the thermal loads with charging / discharging so it should also beable to charge in a shorter amount of time.

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#173

Post by seanmcdirmid »

quux wrote: post #170
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it was worse than that: the 486SXs themselves were actually 486DXs with a disabled FPU. So not only were you buying a 486DX to "upgrade" your CPU, it was basically the same CPU!

IIRC the SX's were DX's with a manufacturing defect in the FPU. To increase overall yield of 486 family processors, intel would disable the inoperative FPU by cutting traces with a laser and sell the otherwise perfectly fine chip as an SX. I think, even if you had some kind of super powers that let you reconnect those traces, you still wouldn't have a fully functional DX, unless you also used those super powers to fi…

This was never really verified. I'm sure after the 486s were fabbed for a while, intel's defect rate got low enough that they started turning good ones into SX's.

By the time the P5 came along, they stopped playing these games all together and started rating by clock speed alone.

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#174

Post by ryana »

jotux wrote: post #90
relix wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think there's a legal case for not having root on a car. It could mean you can disable safety measures - especially with regards to the battery, i.e. overcharging, temperature, ... - that might endanger you or others on the road. Edit: downvoted for stating a valid point in a neutral tone? Stay classy HN...

>It could mean you can disable safety measures How is this any different from being able to open the hood on a conventional car? Or having a screw driver and socket wrench that fit the nuts/bots/screws on a conventional car?

It's not any different from being able to do that to hardware. That's why cars have to meet certain standards in order to be legal for driving on public roads.

It seems likely to me that making certain changes to a Tesla through rooting would just mean the car would end up not being street legal.

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#175

Post by greedo »

jacquesm wrote: post #155
relix wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're modifying the software, such that in certain edge cases your battery overheats and explodes, or the brakes stop working, does it still make sense to rely on road approval to deem a car road-worthy, and get appropriate insurance? Since all software has bugs, I feel this is an interesting discussion point even if you don't modify it. Basically, should road approval include a check on the software? (which woul…

Sigh. Look, I understand that you're not comfortable with people modifying stuff, but please understand that people designed it in the first place and that some of us are perfectly comfortable with entrusting our lives to our own creations / modifications. In fact, I feel rather more comfortable driving cars that I've worked on compared to those that I haven't worked on because I know those cars on a much more intima…

"If the brakes stop working then you're in trouble (and so is everybody within striking distance), but brakes failing due to a software bug that you induced is a thing that I've yet to come across. Most brake systems have mechanical back-up, and if all that fails you can still reach for the 'oh-shit' lever, aka the emergency brake. Anybody that has ever had a master cylinder fail on them knows what I mean."

My Volkswagen has one of the electronic parking brake systems, so I don't have an ohshitlever. I have an electrically powered button that is probably useless if there's no power. I could always downshift, since I got the manual transmission.

In the future, I doubt most cars will have the old style mechanically controlled parking brakes.

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#176

Post by scragg »

alan_cx wrote: post #108
jlgreco wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of the actual customers are as disturbed by this as you.

They should be. What is the point of supporting and paying a premium for green, if you are going to carry dead weight around in the car? Given that we are told that carrying a spare wheel around is significant, unused battery capacity must also be a problem. I also assume tesla went to some trouble to reduce the weight of the car too. With makes unused battery capacity even more nuts. If you are going green, you do n…

Model S is a nice car, comparable to a BMW 5 series. I think this is why people are buying it added with the fact it's an EV with one moving part. If green and unused weight was a customers primary concern then they would get a motorcycle or Nissan Leaf and not a sedan that can go do 0-60 in 4.4 seconds. My point is, I don't think they will be upset based on that reasoning. Maybe someone that already got a 60kwh might be upset and would have opted for the gimped range if it saved him $10k. As a 40kwh reserve holder, I am thrilled to be getting a 60kwh, I'm not concerned about the extra weight.

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#177

Post by jacquesm »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #165
brk wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? The traces were buried inside the ceramic chipset. And even at the scale of technology in that era the soldering was usually done with vibration, not heat. I find this statement rather implausible. It would take far too much time and equipment to make it worthwhile vs. just upgrading your CPU "over the counter".

You guys are young! To the downvoter, this was a very common claim as far as computer folklore goes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AIntel_80486SX > The joke about the drill through the precisely correct location is likely a joke made by someone who knew what they were talking about. It was likely not meant to be taken literally, but sort of a tease without explanation. The floating point unit was in fact never r…

Neat!

I made some money in the 80's by drilling holes in a very specific spot on a package moulded around the chips in Philips 27 MC rigs. They were originally intended for the US market and had 40 channels, the modifications reduced that to 22 channels. But the switch still had 40 positions, which was a giveaway that this was a mod rather than a redesign. I figured out where to drill in the plastic package that was moulded around the original chip (and to what depth!), and charged 50 guilders for the mod (which took about 5 minutes with an appropriately designed jig).

Fun days, all I was after was to destroy that extra circuit so accuracy wasn't too important.

As far as the SX is concerned the wp article you linked states fairly explicitly:

"If testing showed that the central processing unit was working but the FPU was defective, the FPU's power and bus connections were destroyed with a laser and the chip was sold cheaper as an SX; if the FPU worked it was sold as a DX."

If they needed more SXs and used their laser on the die then I guess that was a pretty hard to reverse operation :)

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#179

Post by brk »

jacquesm wrote: post #150
brk wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? The traces were buried inside the ceramic chipset. And even at the scale of technology in that era the soldering was usually done with vibration, not heat. I find this statement rather implausible. It would take far too much time and equipment to make it worthwhile vs. just upgrading your CPU "over the counter".

I think that was a joke and I think it went over your head :) I do know a guy that can solder scary small stuff (SMT, angel hair and other incredible feats of steady handedness) but I think that re-bonding zapped chips is even beyond his soldering capabilities. If only because you first have to get access. I did once re-solder a pin on a 386 which had broken off and I was pretty proud of that but for the most part on…

"I think that was a joke and I think it went over your head :)"

As had I. My first computer was a PCjr., with a hand-soldered memory expansion card. I repaired broken pins on processors multiple times (maybe like 5 or 6), since in that era I was also building "custom" machines for people.

But in regards to this being a "joke", it just seemed like really bad folklore to me. Having lived through that era, I just really didn't see even any remote humor in the comment.

Re: Tesla Model S Sales Exceed Target

#180

Post by relix »

jacquesm wrote: post #155
relix wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're modifying the software, such that in certain edge cases your battery overheats and explodes, or the brakes stop working, does it still make sense to rely on road approval to deem a car road-worthy, and get appropriate insurance? Since all software has bugs, I feel this is an interesting discussion point even if you don't modify it. Basically, should road approval include a check on the software? (which woul…

Sigh. Look, I understand that you're not comfortable with people modifying stuff, but please understand that people designed it in the first place and that some of us are perfectly comfortable with entrusting our lives to our own creations / modifications. In fact, I feel rather more comfortable driving cars that I've worked on compared to those that I haven't worked on because I know those cars on a much more intima…

No need to be patronizing, I wasn't asking from a negative standpoint, I was merely curious how current non-digital modding insurance claims work.
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