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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

#161

Post by greglindahl »

jandrese wrote: post #149
andersen1488 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Model S is already at 0.24 (most efficient car in production)

I'm guessing Tesla gets to cheat a bit since they don't use heat engines and don't have to run a bunch of air over a giant mesh screen to keep the engine from burning up. Also, that giant pane of smooth glass over the top probably helps.

The battery has a front air intake. It's smaller than one for an ICE, which might be why many HN commenters seem to have not noticed it.

(Same thing for S and X.)

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#162

Post by Someone »

madaxe_again wrote: post #93
grecy wrote: 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…

"Feels like a spaceship" sounds weird to me. piloting a spacecraft isn't all that easy. In fact, when we're criticising UX we say it's like the controls in the space shuttle.

Is it really hard to pilot a spaceship? You maneuver it out of the solar system (should not be _that_ difficult, certainly not if your destination is in a direction outside of the ecliptic), point it in the right direction, move to full throttle, and let it do its thing for a few centuries while you sleep or watch history on earth go by.

Yes, there's a risk you may hit something and be killed, but per passenger mile, I expect it to be even safer than the space shuttle.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#163

Post by njharman »

partiallypro wrote: post #117
whatever_dude wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by the assertion. Do you mean that a lot of people that reserved are not serious? They had to pay $1,000 for the reservation, so that looks unlikely to me. Or do you mean the company has inflated the number of actual reservations?

The $1000 is 100% refundable. A person that can afford a Tesla can afford to put down $1000 with no risk. Heck, even a normal middle class person could probably foot $1000 at no risk. Reservations are not sales. They are just something to tout to shareholders. If they wanted real numbers they'd make it non-refundable and up the down payment. The stock trades at an absolutely insane valuation (it's actually valued not…

> Reservations are not sales

Straw man. No one has said that. What they've said is Tesla just got a couple hundred million in free financing.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#165

Post by Symmetry »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #67
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think that low speed driving and parking in very narrow streets is much easier for an autonomous system than for a person. All those obstacles are made of stone so nice juicy returns for the sensor systems. Carrying out a turn with a centimetre of clearance from a hard surface is much easier for a computer than maintaining lane discipline on a road with faded markings at high speed.

There is a 500 m long street in front of my house where it is customary that people cross it everywhere and cars are just expected to stop for the people. There are no traffic lights or pedestrian crossing or any special rules, its just that people started doing this decades ago and now it is just tradition to do this. So now you have a long street where tons of people are crossing every 10 meters during the day beca…

The "every direction" bit is actually something autonomous cars handle far better than humans since they can have eyes pointing in every direction. The hard part is noticing that someone waiting at a crosswalk wants you to stop so they can cross.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#166

Post by grecy »

mantas wrote: post #86
Laaw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What specifically is hard about narrow streets? That actually sounds like the kind of thing a self driving car could excel at. The bigger problem, is imagine, would be weather. I dunno how completely they've solved that problem yet.

I recently drove in freezing storm. Whole frontend was covered in icy-slushy mixture. Parking sensors were freaking out and working totally randomly in such conditions. If I ever get an autonomous car, manual driving is a must-have feature :|

I once had a car that didn't work at all when it was below about 32 or above about 70.

Keeping my horse was a must for those situations.

I once rode in a plane that could only go a few hundred miles before refueling.

Keeping my car was a must for those situations.

I once rode in a train that could only go ~60 mph.

Keep my car was a must for those situations.

(hint, I'm talking about early stuff)

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#167

Post by grecy »

forgetsusername wrote: post #91
grecy wrote: 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…

> And there are no gauges directly in front of the driver at all, which has been confirmed to be like that for production Is that how you read it? Because I read it as Tesla feeling the pressure to get something tangible out there for people to see, so they demonstrated a car that wasn't finished (just like the battery swap tech, or "off the hook" Powerwall demand). It got huge hype, now it'll be two more years of "w…

In some of the ride-along vidoes the people driving (all heads of design) confirm the lack of gauges is going into production, as-is the landscape screen.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#168

Post by kerryfalk »

jameshart wrote: post #48
macintux wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That surprises me, given my extensive experience pushing shopping carts vs pulling them.

Since you don't push your shopping cart by turning the wheels, those intuitions are probably not that helpful. The force you exert on the handle of a shopping cart is not automatically aligned with the direction the cart is facing, meaning it's unstable - any deviation from a direct push generates a turning torque. But the rear wheels of a car are fixed so they will always generate a forward force aligned with the ca…

Not true. I've always driven RWD and have competed in National Amateur racing events with the SCCA (and taught high performance driving techniques at my local club).

I setup my cars with a heafty amount of rear toe-in (1/4"). When the weight transfers left/right or one of the rear wheels hits a bump/hole it will push the car in one direction similar to torquing one side of a shopping cart with your hand.

A RWD setup allows the car to be more efficient with its tires (using one set for turning and one for power vs. one for both). FWD is just seen as safer because most people panic when a car oversteers. As the saying goes among driving enthusiasts: "Oversteer scares passengers, Understeer scares drivers"

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#169

Post by dangrossman »

fweespee_ch wrote: post #102
djloche wrote: post #95

I wonder, when Tesla unveils something that doesn't fit within the parameters that those people think of as a 'car', how many will drop their reservation? Since we don't know the details yet, we don't know how much of a departure it will be.

> I wonder, when Tesla unveils something that doesn't fit within the parameters that those people think of as a 'car', how many will drop their reservation? Tbh, I don't think Tesla cares. They have a ~$276 million dollar interest free loan with which to build the first wave of Model 3s. They just need to make enough on those sales to finance the next round until they get through everyone who wants one. The goal is p…

> They have a ~$276 million dollar interest free loan with which to build the first wave of Model 3s

This is a company that, while producing just 33K cars a year, has operating expenses of $114M per week. That $276M won't be around long enough to build a single Model 3. They're going to need a lot more money.

Re: Tesla Intrigue Deepens with Musk's Twitter Barrage

#170

Post by gknoy »

analyst74 wrote: post #128
SkyMarshal wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except a hatchback actually has a functional purpose, the Model 3's grill-less grill not so much.

I've noticed the trend in recent years of more prominent grill on many brands, especially the low end luxury lines. I can't be the only one who hates those, I mean, Trypophobia is one of the most common phobias.

FYI for anyone tempted to google search for it: there are some pretty gross image-search results that I wish I could un-see, helpfully inserted by Google before most of the results.

From wikipedia:

> Trypophobia is a proposed phobia (pathological fear) of small holes, particularly irregular patterns or clusters of small holes. The term was coined in 2005 from the Greek τρύπα (trýpa) "hole" and φόβος (phóbos) "fear". Thousands of people say they have the condition. It is not a recognized diagnosis or condition in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or other scientific literature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia

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