The Electric Car • Hacker News Board

Re: The Electric Car

#301

Post by hvidgaard » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 12:28 PM UTC

prawn wrote: post #272

hvidgaard wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're still worth mentioning though. A good human driver can anticipate those situations and minimize the risk. Eg. I will not hard break for a yellow if the driver behind me is tailgating me, I'm super aware of drivers coming out from side roads because some of them just assume that there isn't coming any cars because there usually isn't. Not that an AI cannot learn that, but they're not good in unknown situations…

I'm willing to bet that those would be considered very basic and obvious problems to the people developing these cars. They work on this stuff every hour of every day. The AI will know (and share with other cars) tendencies for individual intersections and eventually share broader traffic knowledge. There will come a time where we just cannot compete with that. They will know every intersection's peculiarities and we…

Of course it's obvious to the researchers developing the cars. That doesn't make it simple or easy to solve, something as basic and simple as the halting problem cannot be solved. Data does not help you much in those 0.001% of situations where there is no data or too small a dataset to conclude anything.

An AI can only act according to it's training. If we for a moment assume that it comes from the collective experience of all self driving cars, it's only as good as it's sensors allow it to be. They are simply not there yet. Could an modern AI provide autonoumous commute on the highway today - sure. Can it be trusted to navigate from A to B in urban areas and countryside, most of the time. But "most of the time" simply isn't good enough.

Re: The Electric Car

#302

Post by usrusr » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 12:45 PM UTC

lvs wrote: post #21

I can't imagine what the iPhone has to do with an electric car. The post just refers to a software interface (which all cars now have), a network conncetion, and automatic updates. None of these relies on the powertrain of the car.

Both are desperately waiting for the messiah battery to happen.

People like the original author seem to face immense difficulty at wrapping their head around the fact that battery technology does not follow Moore's Law (while even chips have mostly stopped to do so). State of the art battery technology has not improved much this side of the millennium, it has just seen a really big price drop from specialist niche technology to commodity. This makes the battery of a Tesla S a lot more affordable today than it would have been back when Musk started the project (and when he correctly predicted a price drop, and just a price drop, instead of waiting for the miracle battery to happen), but the range would not have been much worse if you built a Tesla around a battery made of crazy expensive y2k cells.

Re: The Electric Car

#303

Post by segmondy » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 12:49 PM UTC

reedlaw wrote: post #156

I can't believe he's comparing a $70,000 electric car to a huge bucket labeled "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Of course the $70,000 car is better in almost every way. I've driven a lot of electric cars in the $5,000 to $10,000 range and I assure you they are not better than "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Our last gas-powered car was a used Lexus that cost us $8,000. It's an extremely comfortable luxury car that seats…

Your argument doesn't hold. I make a few road trips a year. Only a weekly basis I make at least 20 trips varying in the range of 5-40 miles. That's the pay off for an electric car. If I can save money on gas, and maintainance cost. I'll gladly rent an old-fashioned gasoline car for those 3-5 200+ miles road trips I make in a year.

Re: The Electric Car

#304

Post by lmm » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 12:50 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #285

rfrey wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think electric cars win on every metric except range and refill/recharge time. They have better torque, better efficiency, lower emissions, lower noise, simpler drivetrains, and more reliable motors.

> I think electric cars win on every metric except range and refill/recharge time. And price. Maybe everyone on here is a millionaire or about to become one, but $70,000 is a lot of money. Hell, even $20,000 is a lot of money for me (I live in Eastern Europe), even though for most of the people in here it looks like small change. And if it matters I am currently living a sort of middle class life in these parts of th…

To be fair the iPhone was a ridiculously expensive proposition when first introduced - something like 3x the normal cost for top-of-the-range phones at the time.

Re: The Electric Car

#305

Post by brc » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 12:51 PM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #214

brc wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one-pedal responsive operation is a win in the same way multi-touch is a win. It doesn't sound like a big deal,but once you get used to it, everything else seems dated. Operating multiple pedals to operate a vehicle is a leftover from crude technology. Sure, some people like it that way (a set that includes me). But for most people, once they get used to push pedal a bit to go slow, a lot to go fast, let go to stop -…

You must be joking mate. All movies since 90s tell me that most Americans can't even drive manual transmission. Modern automatic transmission is totally invisible. Some cars even have variator transmission. I get it, the car is more dynamic. So what? It's an incremental change. By the way, if you do not like pedals, there is even better technology, called cruise control.

Not joking at all.

By multiple pedal I'm talking about accelerator and brake, not accelerator brake and clutch.

The i3 has single pedal operation in city mode. This means it uses regen braking to intelligently slow the car down if you lift your foot off. Brake pedal is for emergency or highway stops only.

It's one of those things that, once you get used to, feel a lot more natural.

Re: The Electric Car

#306

Post by lmm » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

powera wrote: post #88

erikpukinskis wrote: post #24

I don't think people full comprehend the price drop that is imminent. The total cost of ownership per mile for a car in the U.S. right now is about $0.60. I was watching a panel the other day where someone calculated the cost per mile of a fleet of self-driving on-demand electric cars at $0.08. That an 86% reduction. People might have their misgivings about any of this stuff... electric, self-driving, carshare, and o…

If a Tesla Model S costs $70000, even if electricity and maintenance are free (and there's no premium for self-driving) you would have to drive it 875000 miles for it to cost $0.08/mile. This seems like the type of thing that is literally unbelievable without more evidence than "I heard somebody on a panel say this".

That's not an at all implausible distance for cars that are used all the time - compare it to a taxi or a delivery vehicle, not a personal car.

Re: The Electric Car

#307

Post by brc » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 1:02 PM UTC

monk_e_boy wrote: post #82

curiousjorge wrote: post #31

I think the article is overly optimistic and derives some sort of future prediction based on a simplified past performance of a totally different market. Tesla is a luxury , many of us can't afford it and if we could we would most likely opt for BMW or Benz. The reason these other car makers aren't moving yet is they are learning from Tesla. You don't want to be a first mover in this industry, you want to move so sli…

I think people in the 2nd hand car market (like me) will quickly switch to electric. They are simpler to fix and cheaper to fix. Nearly all my cars die with head gasket issues, or oil leaks or timing belt issues. does quick count so that's 4 of my cars and 2 of my partners. Electric engines won't die like that. And when they do, just grab a used one from a junked car and off you go. With 'in wheel' electric motors, t…

You need to look after the maintenance on your cars better.

Your failure rate for service items like timing belts is statistically off the charts if that is true. You're either ignoring the needs or you are buying pieces of unmaintained junk.

I'm yet to experience a failure like this in all my vehicle history, and I've owned some beaters in my time.

Re: The Electric Car

#308

Post by VLM » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 1:20 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #279

reedlaw wrote: post #156

I can't believe he's comparing a $70,000 electric car to a huge bucket labeled "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Of course the $70,000 car is better in almost every way. I've driven a lot of electric cars in the $5,000 to $10,000 range and I assure you they are not better than "old-fashioned gasoline cars". Our last gas-powered car was a used Lexus that cost us $8,000. It's an extremely comfortable luxury car that seats…

Here is the kicker they so conveniently ignore. America's love of the automobile, if not true for other parts of the world I would be amazed, is the freedom it offers. Go anywhere, anytime. Electric cars limit owners ability to do so. You are on your car's schedule and the current limitations are still extreme. More than one magazine has staged a long drive of an electric car like certain manufactures and enthusiast…

"America's love of the automobile"

The smartphone analogy would be the stereotypical hollywood/tv view of teenage girls spending hours talking on legacy landline corded telephones means that demographic will be totally uninterested in texting and social media on smartphones.

Re: The Electric Car

#309

Post by VLM » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

msandford wrote: post #142

greglindahl wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of places don't have super-expensive real estate, unlike the Bay Area and Manhattan. More and more places over time will require apartment garages to have chargers -- already a law for new construction here in Palo Alto. Personally, I charge at the city parking garage a block away.

So let me get this straight. In the "flyover country" where you DON'T get big city salaries, you're going to buy a $100k-$150k house because you don't make six figures. And then with all the leftover money that you don't have because you're not earning SF engineer salary, you're going to buy a car that costs anywhere from 25%-50% of your house?

"In the "flyover country" where you DON'T get big city salaries"

Sure you do. I could expect at absolute most a 25% pay raise if I moved to CA. Its not worth it. The ratio in cost of living might be 10:1 but the ratio in income is more like 5:4 or so.

Re: The Electric Car

#310

Post by prawn » Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 1:27 PM UTC

hvidgaard wrote: post #301

prawn wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to bet that those would be considered very basic and obvious problems to the people developing these cars. They work on this stuff every hour of every day. The AI will know (and share with other cars) tendencies for individual intersections and eventually share broader traffic knowledge. There will come a time where we just cannot compete with that. They will know every intersection's peculiarities and we…

Of course it's obvious to the researchers developing the cars. That doesn't make it simple or easy to solve, something as basic and simple as the halting problem cannot be solved. Data does not help you much in those 0.001% of situations where there is no data or too small a dataset to conclude anything. An AI can only act according to it's training. If we for a moment assume that it comes from the collective experie…

What's hard about detecting the signal ahead as well as the driver behind? The car might just elect to push through the orange rather than stopping abruptly. It could check and make that decision faster than any of us.

Or, if paused in traffic with a car approaching too quickly from behind, it could eat up some of the space in front of it to escape/minimise collision. It could balance this decision with the risk of starting a chain reaction by taking that course of action.

No one's pretending that these vehicles are ready for prime time now, but that they're ahead of what many would expect as the schedule, and could quickly handle what you've listed as a human advantage.