Tesla progress

[begreen]

Tesla recently discussed where they are currently at with autonomous vehicle production. The surprise is that they are much further along than the press anticipated and are getting ready to roll out a fleet of autonomous taxis - this year. They are able to do this because their system is faster and less expensive than competing Lidar technologies and they have an astounding dataset already accrued from the millions of miles that existing Teslas have been feeding into their databanks. This could be a game-changer. This article goes over the high points pretty well and there are a couple videos at the end that are worth watching. One thing not covered is whether the public will be reluctant to use an autonomous taxi during the pandemic.

 

[woodgeek]

Well, they better get on the stick, bc the cheap LIDARs are coming for them....

Velodyne releases $100 lidar sensor

Velodyne’s latest sensor was engineered to be an optimal automotive-grade lidar solution for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles, and is priced at only $100. Many carma

www.spar3d.com

The Tesla achievement is cool, and an advancement for Transportation as a Service (TaaS) and the economics of EVs, assuming the rollout goes well.

Basically, you can (now or soon) make a luxe <$50,000 EV that can run for a million miles, and thus work in normal residential service for 80-100 years (while the batteries have a 'shelf life' of 10-15 years), and have a low operating cost per mile (<5 cents/mile for the vehicle, add another 5-10 for electricity and tires, 10-15 cents total).

How do you optimally recoup your investment in commercial use based on that tech? You need to run it 200,000 miles per year for 5 years (this is 18 hours per day in service).

And then the cost of the driver is $15/hr at an average of 30 mph is $0.50/mile.

So that is the simple math of autonomous TaaS, drop uber/lyft costs from over $1/mile now to closer to $0.20/mile (both allowing for profit). But buying the same EV for private use is still a lot more expensive (bc you can't amortize the million mile vehicle, and the batteries still need to be replaced every 10-15 years in the used market).

I DO believe that TaaS and autonomy will EAT taxi and uber services. And take a huge chunk out of the private ownership of cars. And propel the electrification and cheapening of EVs to the next level. And destroy the market for used ICE cars.

I still am concerned that this transformation will result in MORE single person road traffic (by cutting into existing bus and train commuting) and the issue of uneven demand due to commuting. But that will just translate into idle time for the cars, surge pricing, etc, and keep the price from dropping all the way to $0.20.

Lots of things can happen with a system as complex as this. I think Tesla's LIDAR-free system is probably much safer that human drivers (at least in the markets where they will launch), but that will still run into Tesla taxis running over toddlers sometimes. LIDAR takes a LOT more computation than cameras, and it will take time to catch up (and eventually pass) Tesla. By then, the edge cases that the Tesla systems fails at will be well documented.

Maybe Tesla with be VHS to LIDARs Betamax. Or maybe it will be VHS to LIDAR's DVD. Only time will tell.

 

[begreen]

Tesla's big advantage is that they can apply proprietary space technology to their cars. If they can navigate a booster landing from space to an ocean going barge then it gets interesting when applied to cars (or aerial cars)?

 

[woodgeek]

Color me skeptical of the Elon tech on that one. Most $100 drones now can stick a landing to a GPS point in a cross-wind. The secret sauce as SpaceX is hypersonic retro-propulsion, which no one else had ever even tried! But not so applicable to the cars I have seen.

Flying with GPS is a MUCH easier control problem than determining the soccer mom with the screaming kids at the stop sign over there is gonna cut you off or not.

 

[begreen]

The full body width castings on the model Y appear to be from the material science developed by the space program.

 

[SpaceBus]

The full body width castings on the model Y appear to be from the material science developed by the space program.

Wow, that's a huge casting. I think previously the largest single cast piece of a car was in the latest Dodge Viper and it was a single piece cast magnesium alloy firewall.

 

[CaptSpiff]

Hearing "magnesium" and "firewall" in the same sentence made me think "is that really a good idea?"

Then again, I have full confidence we'll engineer our way out of this climate changing inconvenience.

 

[begreen]

Wow, that's a huge casting. I think previously the largest single cast piece of a car was in the latest Dodge Viper and it was a single piece cast magnesium alloy firewall.

According to Sandy Munro they are using a form of aluminum that is new and unidentified.

 

[ABMax24]

What I don't get is why the American big 3 aren't following Tesla's lead on any of these new technological advances. The way I see it Tesla is already a decade ahead on the electric powertrain, and a decade ahead with enhanced driver assistance and complete driving automation, soon it will be many years ahead on the design and manufacturing of automobiles as well.

Tesla is growing rapidly while companies like GM are selling off/closing overseas assets to cut costs. Between foreign automakers and Tesla The Big 3 are soon to be The Forgotten 3.

 

[SpaceBus]

What I don't get is why the American big 3 aren't following Tesla's lead on any of these new technological advances. The way I see it Tesla is already a decade ahead on the electric powertrain, and a decade ahead with enhanced driver assistance and complete driving automation, soon it will be many years ahead on the design and manufacturing of automobiles as well.

Tesla is growing rapidly while companies like GM are selling off/closing overseas assets to cut costs. Between foreign automakers and Tesla The Big 3 are soon to be The Forgotten 3.

It's a shame because the Big 3 are finally coming out with good cars again, we only had to wait 50 years and a economic collapse! As always with GM, Ford, and Chrysler (Fiat is probably guilty of this as well being the Italian Chrysler long before the merger) just did too little too late.

 

[begreen]

It's a shame because the Big 3 are finally coming out with good cars again, we only had to wait 50 years and a economic collapse! As always with GM, Ford, and Chrysler (Fiat is probably guilty of this as well being the Italian Chrysler long before the merger) just did too little too late.

We love our Volt. We're now in a Gen2 model. It's a great car. Solid, quiet, fun to drive, and great mileage. I like that GM listened to Gen1 owners and made many good changes.

 

[SpaceBus]

We love our Volt. We're now in a Gen2 model. It's a great car. Solid, quiet, fun to drive, and great mileage.

Sometimes GM hits it out of the park like with the Volt and Corvette, and then other times we get the Equinox and Cruze.