My favorite quote: "Starting a car company is idiotic and an electric car company is idiocy squared."
Well honestly, the entire plan can be read as either the work of a highly ambitious genious or a raving madman.
Master Plan, Part Deux
141–150 of 705 posts
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#142My points of skepticism: 1. Semis . A typical long haul semi gets well under 10MPG. In some cases not much more than half that. They are heavy and need a lot of energy to move. A Tesla Model S weighs 4650 lbs and has a range of a couple of hundred miles. A semi truck can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. That is a lot of weight to get rolling and a lot to pull up a grade. Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highw…
> Legal liability is one reason. As owner of the car, I am liable for damage it causes. So legal liability laws will have to change.
This, at least in most of the United States, is not a correct statement of the law. Absent something like Negligent Entrustment[1] or Vicarious Liability[2], one's ownership of a vehicle does not determine if one is liable if damage is caused while another is operating the vehicle. Some might be under this impression because we tend to purchase insurance "for a vehicle", however liability is placed upon a negligent driver (not owner). Somewhat of a discussion of this is found here: http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2014/06/05/249762...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligent_entrustment [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#143> "When used correctly, [partially autonomous driving] is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves" If you're an American, you're twice as likely to die with a steering wheel in your hands as you are to die at the hands of a murderer. Human-driven vehicle deaths cause grave second-order suffering for families and friends - and hurt the economy. A shift to technologies safer than human-driven ca…
> Besides direct costs for the car, fuel, and maintenance, the main disincentive to driving is how damn boring it is. What happens when we turn fully-autonomous vehicles into luxury entertainment centers? I suspect that, if we're not smart about this shift, we could see wild sprawl on a scale that would dwarf the mid-20th century sprawl we saw in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
I was just thinking about this today (and have been for a while now), but with regards to vehicle comfort.
I drive a small sedan, but have ridden in pickup trucks and SUVs. They are far more comfortable than the sedans the way they sit taller, have far more room, and feel like a small bubble protecting one from the rest of the world.
This is a danger on two fronts: safety, and comfort leading to more driving. If we continue to make cars more comfortable, we continue to abstract the idea that we are zipping around in 3,000 pound death machines, thus leading to more reckless or risky behavior.
As autonomous vehicles roll out to the public, no doubt people will expect computers, internet, and television to be front and center. Others may take naps during commutes. But with this, rather than curing the disease that is longer and longer commutes due to policy that encourages sprawl, entertainment will just treat the symptoms.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#144My points of skepticism: 1. Semis . A typical long haul semi gets well under 10MPG. In some cases not much more than half that. They are heavy and need a lot of energy to move. A Tesla Model S weighs 4650 lbs and has a range of a couple of hundred miles. A semi truck can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. That is a lot of weight to get rolling and a lot to pull up a grade. Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highw…
> Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highway speeds where air resistance is at a maximum. Why would a self-driving cargo vehicle drive at highway speeds? A human truck driver can only drive 11 hours/day, an autonomous vehicle can be on the move 24/7 and so could travel at slower, more efficient speeds while completing trips on similar time scales. > To achieve useful performance an electric semi will n…
A semi travelling a very slow speeds would need his own lane or it would significantly increase the risk of accidents (unless every car on the road is autonomous).
Solar on the roof is most likely rather insignificant and will also just add weight.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#145My points of skepticism: 1. Semis . A typical long haul semi gets well under 10MPG. In some cases not much more than half that. They are heavy and need a lot of energy to move. A Tesla Model S weighs 4650 lbs and has a range of a couple of hundred miles. A semi truck can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. That is a lot of weight to get rolling and a lot to pull up a grade. Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highw…
> Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highway speeds where air resistance is at a maximum. Why would a self-driving cargo vehicle drive at highway speeds? A human truck driver can only drive 11 hours/day, an autonomous vehicle can be on the move 24/7 and so could travel at slower, more efficient speeds while completing trips on similar time scales. > To achieve useful performance an electric semi will n…
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Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#146My points of skepticism: 1. Semis . A typical long haul semi gets well under 10MPG. In some cases not much more than half that. They are heavy and need a lot of energy to move. A Tesla Model S weighs 4650 lbs and has a range of a couple of hundred miles. A semi truck can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. That is a lot of weight to get rolling and a lot to pull up a grade. Semis spend a large part of their time driving at highw…
>Legal liability is one reason. As owner of the car, I am liable for damage it causes.
Ummm... Where the hell do you live where this is the case?
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#147The most interesting bit, to me, was: "Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it"
Things are gonna get real interesting in the auto world in the next few years, aren't they?
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#148I'm wondering what the effect of this plan will be on Uber.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't figured it out, but my intuition is that the increased energy requirements of a tractor trailer mean that there isn't enough area there either. Back of napkin, it looks like you get ~3*15 meters of roof which seems to translate to 10 kW of output under good conditions and then you need something like 150 kW to rumble up the highway.
Well trucks still have a lot of low hanging fruit for becoming more aerodynamic. Plus you could use the sides of the trailer for some power too. Finally even if 10kw can't power the truck. It could extend its range by some amount. Plus that's still a significant amount of power you don't need to buy. 2-3 rooftops worth?
I have thought the same thing -- that trucks could be more aerodynamic. So why aren't they? The economics of freight are such that any measurable improvement in fuel economy is worth a lot. Why do we not see super streamlined semis? Maybe there's some non-obvious reason? I don't know.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla's other advantage is a global fleet that is actively logging millions of real-world miles a day. I don't think that can be understated at this stage.
Google may have a lot fewer miles, but they're much higher quality miles. The sensor suite on their car is much superior, so they're getting much better data. Even if the eventual Google car uses cheaper sensors, the data they get from the superior sensors helps a lot training the algorithms.
I don't see how this will work though. Unless you plan to equip all those future cars with the same high quality sensors as those on the Google ones (which I've heard are prohibitively expensive).
If those sensors eventually do become really cheap, then Tesla could use them too and negate any advantages Google might have had.