Tesla Stock

[BIGUN 1,307]

14 hours ago, kallend said:

My 1946 MG has some cast aluminum parts.

And maybe not so much concern for global warming. 

[SethInMI 174]

As I think others said, the "cast aluminum" that Tesla is innovating is not their use of it, but the large castings, the largest used on passenger vehicles as I understand it, creating an entire body out of far fewer parts than conventional car construction.

and yes, that's a pretty MG. threads can always drift in that direction for me!

[kallend 2,026]

16 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

That is soooooo... hot!

It was my first car.  I bought it in 1967.  Could never bring myself to sell it.

[SethInMI 174]

I got my Tesla FullSelfDriving(Supervised) trial software installed a few days ago, so I have 30 days to experience it see if it is worth the 5k or 8k whatever the going rate is.

After a few drives I am very impressed.  Having worked in robotics for a long time, I know how good software makes difficult things seem easy. "Of course it worked that way, why would it not" and only when facing buggy / developing code do people realize how hard something can be.

And that's how the car feels when driving. Very intuitive. It stops when it should (at lights, or stop signs, or yields, and then goes when it should. Waits for the light to change or the traffic to clear before turning left or right, etc.  The visualization is impressive too, all the cars and pedestrians in the vicinity are plotted seemingly exactly where they are in reality.  Is it perfect, no, I had to guide it out of a lane that became right turn only when we wanted to go straight, and it takes turns a bit tighter than I'd like but the path to the "robotaxi" future seems far more possible than not-possible, which is not something I would have thought a year or two ago.  Maybe with more time I will  be come more skeptical.  

I will take it to NYC next weekend, so will get a bunch of time on and off highway.

The fact that Tesla is doing this with cameras only (so maybe 2k? hardware, I really don't know how much 7 cameras and a processor cost) is the game-changer.   

[wmw999 2,444]

22 minutes ago, SethInMI said:

the path to the "robotaxi" future seems far more possible than not-possible, which is not something I would have thought a year or two ago.  Maybe with more time I will  be come more skeptical.

Personally I’d say that the more controlled the environment, the more likely I’ll be to trust it. Middle lane on a long-distance freeway with mins and maxes (even if they’re not followed) much more than the middle of a city. Or, even worse, an urban section of highway with lots of exits and entrances that people realize at the last moment they need. Because the more variables there are to keep up with, the less comfortable I am that they’ll all be reinitialized when necessary, or otherwise dealt with  

Wendy P. 

[JoeWeber 2,720]

1 hour ago, wmw999 said:

Personally I’d say that the more controlled the environment, the more likely I’ll be to trust it.

So on a future jump when you see R2D2 in the pilot seat you aren't boarding? Well, me too.

[wmw999 2,444]

Oh, an airplane is much easier! Remember it’s aviation software I’m familiar with. 

Wendy P. 

[ryoder 1,590]

3 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

So on a future jump when you see R2D2 in the pilot seat you aren't boarding? Well, me too.

What if it is the Otto pilot?

[JoeWeber 2,720]

2 hours ago, ryoder said:

What if it is the Otto pilot?

Excellent point, but that's what circuit breakers are for. At one point I had Two 300 series Twin Otters and 5 or 6 Caravans of different flavors and engine packages running around the country. I was always amazed how some operators and their pilots flew loads on auto. First it's super inefficient (so more costly by the hour) and second it's like zero fun. All of my best pilots, including the best I've ever had who flys for me now, fly the airplane. The best ones are like Tiger Woods, they just get better and better on the same course. 

Edited May 19, 2024 by JoeWeber

[lippy 918]

2 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

The best ones are like Tiger Woods, they just get better and better on the same course. 

I know that when I think about safe driving, Tiger Woods is the first name that comes to mind...

[JoeWeber 2,720]

2 minutes ago, lippy said:

I know that when I think about safe driving, Tiger Woods is the first name that comes to mind...

Yep, thats exactly what I was getting at. 

Lippy, you are cool and funny but i'm thinking that this forum is becoming too trivial for me. 

Edited May 19, 2024 by JoeWeber

[lippy 918]

10 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

Yep, thats exactly what I was getting at. 

Lippy, you are cool and funny but i'm thinking that this forum is becoming too trivial for me. 

I appreciate the compliment and back at ya man....

I almost didn't post that as I was worried it'd come across as taking a shot at you; that wasn't the intent, it was just an opportunity to make a cheap Tiger Woods driving joke.  

The triviality of this place waxes and wanes.  Your presence helps steer it in the right direction, IMHO.

[SethInMI 174]

21 hours ago, wmw999 said:

Because the more variables there are to keep up with, the less comfortable I am that they’ll all be reinitialized when necessary, or otherwise dealt with  

that's true of all these robo-taxi implementations (Tesla, Waymo, Cruise, etc).  I think eventually they will become ubiquitous, but the only way really to validate them is in simulation, and no matter how much you do, you can't cover every case.   The only trust I place is because they work; the bet that past performance IS a guarantee of future performance. 

What about that corner case? Well you hope that the odds of you being the one to find it are very low.  I know I could be on a plane that has the poorly attached door, or the turbine blade that is about to fail, but the odds are low enough that I don't give it a thought. 

Edited May 19, 2024 by SethInMI
grammar

[CygnusX-1 43]

On 5/19/2024 at 10:40 AM, SethInMI said:

What about that corner case? 

And you are just seeing FSD (supervised). This is a big step up in performance for those of us who have had FSD for years. I've had it since they just added automatic lane changes on interstates. But that is why I got it so early. I like to see the development of the system and how it gets better - and in some cases worse - with each iteration.

Speaking about corner cases. I was using FSD the other day and in my neighborhood, there was the flatbed truck parked in my lane. The driver was out in a forklift and removing a pallet of sod. The forklift was in the oncoming traffic lane (2-lane road). I thought this would be a good test for FSD so I didn't do anything but of course was ready to take over if it screwed up. My car pulled up behind the flatbed and came to a stop about 2 car lengths back. It sat there and waited for about 2 minutes without doing anything while the forklift driver unloaded the pallet. Pretty much as soon as the forklift cleared the road, the car put on the turn signal and proceeded around the parked flatbed. No inputs from me. Needless to say, I was impressed. It behaved exactly as I would have in that situation (except for the fact that I would not have put on the turn signal as there were no other vehicles around).

Edited May 20, 2024 by CygnusX-1

[Stumpy 284]

2 hours ago, CygnusX-1 said:

Speaking about corner cases......

That's pretty cool. It's amazing to think that we are still realistically in very early betas of all this tech. I look forward to seeing how good it will all get in the next couple decades.

 

[wmw999 2,444]

That is really impressive

Wendy P. 

[SethInMI 174]

Re: the discussion about flying on autopilot and Joe's comment about real pilots wanting to fly.

My wife likes to drive. She likes the control, she likes the challenge.  I, on the other hand, the vast majority of the time just want to get to my destination.  I don't mind driving, but I am more than happy to be the passenger, so the idea of a self-driving car I don't see as a threat. 

The world will be much safer when the only human drivers are those who really want to drive, they are the ones paying attention.  Sure there are the hot-rodders, the street racers, the assholes who want to drive but shouldn't but that's the minority of the problem.  It's mostly just idiots not paying attention or not understanding how driving works.

[normiss 798]

1 hour ago, SethInMI said:

Re: the discussion about flying on autopilot and Joe's comment about real pilots wanting to fly.

My wife likes to drive. She likes the control, she likes the challenge.  I, on the other hand, the vast majority of the time just want to get to my destination.  I don't mind driving, but I am more than happy to be the passenger, so the idea of a self-driving car I don't see as a threat. 

The world will be much safer when the only human drivers are those who really want to drive, they are the ones paying attention.  Sure there are the hot-rodders, the street racers, the assholes who want to drive but shouldn't but that's the minority of the problem.  It's mostly just idiots not paying attention or not understanding how driving works.

Wait till they perfect auto flying airplanes...

[SethInMI 174]

1 hour ago, normiss said:

Wait till they perfect auto flying airplanes

I just learned about the Garmin Autoland a few weeks ago. Pilot dies on you, no worries, just push the big red button and the plane starts squawking emergency on the radio, picks out the closest airport, and lands on the runway.

[jakee 1,489]

On 5/19/2024 at 1:59 AM, JoeWeber said:

Excellent point, but that's what circuit breakers are for. At one point I had Two 300 series Twin Otters and 5 or 6 Caravans of different flavors and engine packages running around the country. I was always amazed how some operators and their pilots flew loads on auto. First it's super inefficient (so more costly by the hour) and second it's like zero fun. All of my best pilots, including the best I've ever had who flys for me now, fly the airplane. The best ones are like Tiger Woods, they just get better and better on the same course. 

As far as the economics go is that not just a case of the software not being designed for that fairly unique use case?

As far as the financials go the airlines would prefer their planes to run on full auto everything all the time because it's more efficient.

[winsor 236]

On 5/17/2024 at 2:18 PM, kallend said:

It was my first car.  I bought it in 1967.  Could never bring myself to sell it.

Mine was an MG Magnette, Morris Garage's Saloon offering.  It succumbed to Chicago winters, the undercarriage dissolved by salt.

[wmw999 2,444]

Mine on the other hand was a Ford Falcon with slashed seats, rust holes in the floor and roof covered with duct tape, and paint so bad it ran in the rain. Didn't last long, but I only paid $150 for it

Wendy P. 

[billvon 2,991]

13 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Mine on the other hand was a Ford Falcon with slashed seats, rust holes in the floor and roof covered with duct tape, and paint so bad it ran in the rain. Didn't last long, but I only paid $150 for it

Mine was a Datsun 610 (station wagon) 4 speed, with the same rust holes in the back seat footwells and a long list of things that no longer worked.  I got it when it had 250,000 miles on it, and ran it to over 300,000.  And back then the odometer only went to 99,999 miles so no one really believed me - but the engine and drivetrain never gave me any serious trouble.

It had automatic nothing.  It had a progressive carburetor with a broken linkage, so I ran a string into the transmission hump that I could pull on and get the second carburetor throat to open.  It gave me 12 second 0-60 times instead of 20 seconds.

[airdvr 210]

My son-in-law is a player at Aurora Innovations.  Self driving trucks.  2 areas they continue to struggle with are snow covered roads and glare off the road surface.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

2 hours ago, airdvr said:

My son-in-law is a player at Aurora Innovations.  Self driving trucks.  2 areas they continue to struggle with are snow covered roads and glare off the road surface.

Well, human drivers struggle with those too.