381–390 of 705 posts
[I'd still like to own a fully autonomous mobile home that drives me to work while I am eating breakfast in my bath robe or taking a shower and then moves me to a beach while I'm sleeping on Friday nights. Well, one can hope, right?]
If I am on a self-driving car and it meets with an accident, there might be a case to be made against Tesla if I consider myself a very safe driver. Even though on an average self-driving might cause less casualties but that figure might not hold good compared to what my personal accident rate is. And this should be good enough for law enforcement to nail Tesla. I think, like everyone else, that Musk is probably the…
My 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…
I'm sure there are some exceptions e.g. if your vehicle is stolen, or in cases of a clear contract such as a vehicle lease or rental.
Subject to the foregoing, it seems entirely reasonable that if I allow a random stranger to use my car while I'm at work, that is my decision and my responsibility. And I would not do it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dense urban areas create anxiety for me, while suburbs give the nice quiet retreat with plenty of open space, and no random annoyances. I bet I'm not alone in this. Don't assume that your subjective personal experiences translate to everyone. Here's a question for you. If suburbs are "the least optimal configuration", then why did urban sprawl occur in the first place? Why did so many people leave the cities and soug…
Tragedy of the commons.
One other point I wanted to address. One negative side of sprawl is how it affects natural environments - but, again, does it really have to, or do we do it just because it's the easiest and cheapest way to implement it? It feels like living less densely could actually be beneficial for the environment if done right, compared to the cities. Consider: a metropolis will always carve a chunk out of nature and replace it with a dense grid of roads around high rises, completely ruining the ecological system in the affected area - heck, our cities even have their own microclimates now, because of how much heat we pump out at once in a single place.
On the other hand, a single residence does not have a significant impact; and if you space them out sufficiently, you can preserve the original environment in that space between. Infrastructure is trickier and more invasive, but we've seen some trends towards more localization recently (e.g. with residential solar, composting etc).
Who knows, perhaps we can actually make this description from "The Diamond Age" a reality?
"The prevailing architecture here, among those who had not adopted neo-Victorian precepts, was distinctly subterranean; as if these people were somehow ashamed of their own humanity and could not bear to fell even a handful of the immense Douglas firs that marched monotonously up the tumbling slopes toward the frozen, sodden ridge of the Cascades. Even when it was half buried, a house wasn't even a proper house; it was an association of modules, scattered about here and there and connected by breezeways or tunnels."
"A first principles physics analysis of automotive production suggests that somewhere between a 5 to 10 fold improvement is achievable by version 3 on a roughly 2 year iteration cycle. The first Model 3 factory machine should be thought of as version 0.5, with version 1.0 probably in 2018." What that really means: Tesla is going to lose a ton of money per car on the Model 3, or raise the price, until at least 2022. T…
How about the employees at all of the subcontractors each of the incumbent manufacturers uses for completed components? Number of employees per car output is one metric meant to be a proxy for something else. Use it in a TED Talk or a newspaper editorial to make some larger point, since it is a compelling takeaway, but it's actually pretty meaningless on its own. Being boring, and looking at sustainable production co…
It's a very important metric. The number of man-hours per item is a good stand-in for production costs. It isn't perfect, materials are outside the math here, but it works.
I'm interested to hear of how much staff time is put to new production/development and how much is dedicated to maintaining the current fleet. I have to believe that Toyota walks away in that area too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Say what you will about their "antiquated" business practices, but Ford consistently does one thing that Tesla never does: it turns a profit
Ford is subsidised by 100 million year-old bottled, well, barreled, sunlight. (Tesla's subsidised by lithium salt concentrations in Bolivia, but that's a rather smaller overall subsidy.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When ford came on the market, it only had to be better than a horse. A tesla has to be better than a masarati on the high end, a jaguar on the "medium" end, and a subaru on the "low" end.
That's not true. Other automakers existed before Ford; he had automotive competition. In what world is a Jaguar a "medium" end car? The high end Jaguars extend into Maserati territory. If Tesla wants to be better than a Maserati or Jaguar, they need to observe how much nicer the interiors of those cars are. Consumer Reports doesn't care about that above a certain level of basic competence, but a Maserati or Jaguar bu…
Indeed. I was shocked when I first hitched a ride in a Model S – the interior is more spartan and cramped than that of a 90s Japanese keicar (an impressive feat, in a sense) apart from the entertainment system, which had an uglier, clunkier UI than what any web developer could have drawn you up in a week.
The sales rep's "oh don't worry about battery replacement cycles, nobody keeps a car for longer than five years anyway" statement was only the final nail in the coffin.
My 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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?
Where do you live that this is not the case? I know some states have (or had) a "no-fault" approach to automobile liability claims but I thought it was a minority and perhaps had been mostly abandonded? Who else would be responsible, if not the owner?