I'll never understand why people eat all this nonsense up. Self driving, even when done right, is so so far from being the future, still. Further Tesla is not even close to competitive there,...
I'll never understand why people eat all this nonsense up.
Self driving, even when done right, is so so far from being the future, still. Further Tesla is not even close to competitive there, although I wouldn't be shocked if they're no longer competitive in the electric market either.
More "con man says con things" that he'll probably get away with thanks to his following and political connections.
I can certainly imagine self-driving replacing a lot of truly boring highway commutes in the next few years. At this point, a lot of cars are very close to fully automating the (divided, limited...
I can certainly imagine self-driving replacing a lot of truly boring highway commutes in the next few years. At this point, a lot of cars are very close to fully automating the (divided, limited access) highway experience. Which of course makes sense; you basically just have to drive in a straight line with minor adjustments for massive-radius turns, handle onramps, and not smash into other cars during traffic.
But it's fucking asinine and borderline sociopathic behaviour to get rid of the steering wheel in a consumer car. Self-driving tech, without a human backstop, is simply not at that level yet. Full-stop. We can't control so many factors in the average driving environment, from inclement weather to obstacles to pedestrians to cyclists to emergency vehicles to dirt and gravel roads... and given what we've seen of Tesla's tech, I can't imagine they feel it's actually prepared. Maybe Elon is banking on the federal government blocking a rollout so he can blame them instead of fessing up to his tech not working?
Even this I think isn't nearly as close as people think. Weather and construction are still MASSIVE caveats to this that self driving still doesn't handle well enough. Sure the 90% use case is...
I can certainly imagine self-driving replacing a lot of truly boring highway commutes in the next few years. At this point, a lot of cars are very close to fully automating the (divided, limited access) highway experience. Which of course makes sense; you basically just have to drive in a straight line with minor adjustments for massive-radius turns, handle onramps, and not smash into other cars during traffic.
Even this I think isn't nearly as close as people think.
Weather and construction are still MASSIVE caveats to this that self driving still doesn't handle well enough. Sure the 90% use case is trivial, but the consequences of a screwing up are much higher.
This almost always comes back to "if one lane of the freeway was some kind of rail, it'd be better", but that's another non starter for 1000 other reasons.
There's so many examples too. Hell even Elon isn't above that. His hyperloop was basically just a railsystem but with inefficient four seater cars instead.
There's so many examples too. Hell even Elon isn't above that. His hyperloop was basically just a railsystem but with inefficient four seater cars instead.
I was confused driving through an unfamiliar construction zone at night yesterday. I can't imagine a self-driving car being able to navigate it without accidentally turning into the construction...
construction
I was confused driving through an unfamiliar construction zone at night yesterday. I can't imagine a self-driving car being able to navigate it without accidentally turning into the construction zone. Maybe, in the far future, they could put up a QR code on an orange sign right after the "road work ahead" sign that contains instructions for self-driving cars. I agree that the technology just isn't there yet for truly autonomous vehicles to deal with those 5% of worst-case scenarios.
That's going to be really, really easy to abuse by carjackers. "Yo Teslas, turn left into this dirt road".
Maybe, in the far future, they could put up a QR code on an orange sign right after the "road work ahead" sign that contains instructions for self-driving cars.
That's going to be really, really easy to abuse by carjackers. "Yo Teslas, turn left into this dirt road".
Yeah, good point. Maybe it could be verified by a hash stored on a database that all cars access over the ... nah, there's no good way to make it work.
Yeah, good point. Maybe it could be verified by a hash stored on a database that all cars access over the ... nah, there's no good way to make it work.
Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately once Google and Tesla and the other giant companies feel the need to make money off of this tech, we're probably going to get saddled with it whether we like...
Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately once Google and Tesla and the other giant companies feel the need to make money off of this tech, we're probably going to get saddled with it whether we like it or not. I just hope we can limit it to environments where, as a pedestrian or cyclist, I'm less likely to pay the Iron Price for a tech companies shoddy QA and profiteering.
It's such a shame too because Tesla actually has done a lot for the EV market by producing (relatively) affordable EVs in the US. No one else was doing that or even really capable of trying to do...
It's such a shame too because Tesla actually has done a lot for the EV market by producing (relatively) affordable EVs in the US. No one else was doing that or even really capable of trying to do that before Tesla finally got us off our asses and worked on it. Now understand I'm not giving credit to solely to Elon, and please don't respond to this comment with 1000 "Tesla was actually just bought out by Elon, they were already a company before him blah blah blah" because while that's technically true, its not like they actually were doing any real production. And yes I know that the electric car as a concept has actually existed for over 100 years and yes there have been dozens of startup companies that have attempted making production EVs in the US and EU over the last 50 years, but the reality is that no one had an attractive, affordable electric vehicle until Tesla came out with the Model S, and they absolutely changed the game with the Model 3.
They gave the market the incentive to actually start pouring billions of dollars into developing cost competitive EVs and more importantly started the race to install EV chargers across the country which will drastically ease the transition from ICE cars to EVs. This also was perfectly timed to coincide with the start of mass transition over to renewable energy, which gave electrification another good kick in the pants to get started.
That's what makes his whole public descent into madness all the more depressing. I was never an Elon-stan or even an Elon-fan (even back when it was "cool" to be one), but I respected what his companies were doing to advance technology in the spaces that I had a lot of interest in. Both Tesla and SpaceX have made incredible contributions to their respective fields, and even though Tesla's now get their ass handed to them by most other consumer EVs in terms of build quality and sometimes even price, I think its important to remember the times that were only a few years ago when we didn't have any choices and there really wasn't much hope that you could buy a real electric vehicle from a dealership and plug it into your wall at home and it wasn't going to be a strange thing.
Now anything Elon touches is stained by his idiotic and psychopathic political views and his relentless lying about what his companies will be able to deliver on any realistic timescale. Of course he's been lying about self driving cars for a decade now, but it can't be said that Tesla hasn't at least tried to make it a reality. Their engineers have been working their asses off for years to make that dream a reality. Unfortunately there's been a lot of hiccups (and downright stupid decisions which resulted in the deaths of innocent people due to the dangerous lies from Elon about the capabilities of their self driving packages.) Full self driving is still a far off goal and may never be achievable on the level that we were promised over a decade ago by dozens of silicon valley entrepreneurs; but we have reached the level where cars can automatically brake or swerve to avoid crashes, park themselves automatically, drive on the highway for long distances safely, and execute most simple driving by themselves. This isn't nothing, and it will surely continue to improve over the coming years, whether that's through Tesla or any of its competitors in the space.
I agree that Tesla seems to have fallen way behind, but isn't Waymo doing pretty well and much better than most people expected based on the Tesla experience, so far? There is some speculation...
Self driving, even when done right, is so so far from being the future, still
I agree that Tesla seems to have fallen way behind, but isn't Waymo doing pretty well and much better than most people expected based on the Tesla experience, so far? There is some speculation that technologies like Waymo and Cruise are being rolled out very slowly on purpose to avoid public backlash and minimize the number of accidents before some public trust is built, because even if they manage to squeeze the per mile number of accidents much lower than with real drivers, every one of them is going to be disproportionately more scrutinized.
Funny, I was just suggested this video earlier where specifically the first half is relevant to this article. Given the history of Elons claims about self driving this falls right there in place....
I know there are some proponents of self-driving cars/taxis here on Tildes but for the most part I honestly don't see Tesla actually making headway in this area. It also seems to be outright self-destructive for the company to not invest in a human driven smaller and affordable EV. Unless, of course, the underlying reason is simply that Tesla is not able to make such a vehicle that can compete with other EVs in this price range. Which would make this just another round of Elon deflection or possibly some desperate bit to remain relevant and profitable through the taxi business.
If anyone can make a $25000 EV it is probably Tesla because they will abuse their non-union employees to do it. I think there are two problems here. Making affordable cars is a good goal, but I...
If anyone can make a $25000 EV it is probably Tesla because they will abuse their non-union employees to do it.
I think there are two problems here.
Making affordable cars is a good goal, but I think the target of $25000 may no longer be reasonable.
Pre Nazi Dark Maga Elon talked about the importance of working towards $25000. When Tesla's goal was to accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation, this car was vital. That mission statement has been removed and is no longer Tesla's goal. Now Tesla burns money to fuel Elon's ketamine filled lies. No one should be surprised that the $25000 car is dead as it no longer aligns with Elon's goals.
Don't discount Chinese companies doing the same thing and being subsidized in the process. Though a case can be made for Tesla for the latter as well. Given inflation and material costs I tend to...
If anyone can make a $25000 EV it is probably Tesla because they will abuse their non-union employees to do it.
Don't discount Chinese companies doing the same thing and being subsidized in the process. Though a case can be made for Tesla for the latter as well.
Making affordable cars is a good goal, but I think the target of $25000 may no longer be reasonable.
Given inflation and material costs I tend to agree, the logical question for a sane CEO would then be what is a reasonable price point, and can we actually compete based on that?
I do agree that this is all wishful thinking and not going to happen given that any semblance of sanity by Musk has been thrown out of the window for a while now.
That's a fair point I didn't consider due to the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Yeah I don't know what the right price would be. I do think your point about being competitive is huge. To make an...
Don't discount Chinese companies doing the same thing and being subsidized in the process. Though a case can be made for Tesla for the latter as well.
That's a fair point I didn't consider due to the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
Yeah I don't know what the right price would be. I do think your point about being competitive is huge. To make an affordable car, it probably needs to be a sedan but North America has been brain washed to believe they need an SUV. Maybe we should be focused on making a more affordable EV SUV.
The rest of the world largely also largely moved away from sedans since the 90s ;) Most cars in the affordable class these days are hatchbacks. They offer more practical space in the same...
needs to be a sedan but North America has been brain washed to believe they need an SUV.
The rest of the world largely also largely moved away from sedans since the 90s ;) Most cars in the affordable class these days are hatchbacks. They offer more practical space in the same footprint.
Maybe we should be focused on making a more affordable EV SUV.
To me, that sounds like the lesser of various evils but you might be right. The bigger EVs get, the worse the calculation becomes for environmental impact. Not only does the bill of materials (including rare metals for batteries) increase substantially, they also wear down roads more and due to their weight tires also wear down a lot faster. So while they might not put exhaust gasses in the air, they do release more microparticles from the tires compared to even their ICE SUV counterparts.
Man I would love a good EV hatchback. And I do think to get people who aren't early adopters to convert you have to meet their expectations. Can a $35k - $40k EV SUV be made? I don't know but it...
Man I would love a good EV hatchback. And I do think to get people who aren't early adopters to convert you have to meet their expectations. Can a $35k - $40k EV SUV be made? I don't know but it would probably be easier to accomplish than rebuilding public transit and redesigning our cities to be less car centric.
Both of the EVs I have owned - a Nissan Leaf and a Chevy Bolt - have been hatchbacks. Though to be fair hatchbacks aren't really a size category. I think both of them are considered to be...
Both of the EVs I have owned - a Nissan Leaf and a Chevy Bolt - have been hatchbacks. Though to be fair hatchbacks aren't really a size category. I think both of them are considered to be "crossovers" a term which I'm pretty sure also doesn't mean anything but implies that they're somewhere between a sedan and an SUV.
(In any case, I'm getting incresingly sure that the solution to car inflation is to try to make owning and riding motorcycles the thing to do.)
Yeah the Tesla Model S is also technically a hatchback. I would like an EV hatchback that is close to the Leafs price but better than a Leaf. Or at least more interesting.
Yeah the Tesla Model S is also technically a hatchback. I would like an EV hatchback that is close to the Leafs price but better than a Leaf. Or at least more interesting.
Chevy has the Equinox EV starting at $35k. Got one a few weeks ago and it's been great. Replacing tires is going to be the biggest expense I'm foreseeing (I got the one with 21's)
Chevy has the Equinox EV starting at $35k. Got one a few weeks ago and it's been great. Replacing tires is going to be the biggest expense I'm foreseeing (I got the one with 21's)
Like most things, the government can help expensive but necessary good become reasonable through variety of factors. But that aside, what we're seeing here is the result of the US car industry...
Making affordable cars is a good goal, but I think the target of $25000 may no longer be reasonable.
Like most things, the government can help expensive but necessary good become reasonable through variety of factors.
But that aside, what we're seeing here is the result of the US car industry actively holding back progress for over a decade and only now deciding to play catchup when they realize other countries (especially China) have completely outpaced them. A decade+ of not setting up infrastructure for such an assembly line that could have been long optimized by now. And with the current economy they will drag their feet even further.
It's probably not reasonable, but it's all their fault and consumers are paying the price.
Just paid $27,000 for a 3-year old ID.4 with 30k miles. The new market might not hit that price, but the used market is dropping those prices as fast as gas cars did. You can get a 2016 Leaf for <...
Just paid $27,000 for a 3-year old ID.4 with 30k miles. The new market might not hit that price, but the used market is dropping those prices as fast as gas cars did.
Used cars have always been the way to get an actual affordable vehicle. But people are justifiably spooked about the used EV market though because its not widely known what kind of effect years of...
Used cars have always been the way to get an actual affordable vehicle. But people are justifiably spooked about the used EV market though because its not widely known what kind of effect years of usage and thousands of miles has on EVs from a reliability standpoint. This is further complicated by the fact that most mechanics, especially in less urban areas, don't have the knowledge or tools to work on EVs, meaning any maintenance that you need done will likely cost significantly more than the equivalent repair on a used Honda or Toyota. No one wants to buy a lemon, but especially no one wants to buy a 10k lemon that would cost 20k to fix. It's a vicious cycle because it will take a long time for mechanics everywhere to become familiar with EVs and because there are no standards across manufacturers, its basically impossible for anyone who isn't backed by a dealership to go in and fix even basic problems. Your 55 year old guy down the road who works out of a 1500sf shop will never be able to fix your Tesla's wheel alignment issue or battery controller short out. He'll be lucky if he can fix your Nisan Leaf's failing 12 volt system without having to order 15 special parts from a marketplace with insane markups.
EVs have been mass market for over a decade now. The Nissan Leaf has been produced since 2010, and Tesla has been making the Model S since 2012. There are tons of EVs out there with over 100K...
EVs have been mass market for over a decade now. The Nissan Leaf has been produced since 2010, and Tesla has been making the Model S since 2012. There are tons of EVs out there with over 100K miles on them. So we do know what a used EV that has gone through years of use and hundreds of miles looks like. Right now the biggest problem with repairability is with proprietary parts - a problem that is affecting even ICE cars to a different extent. The most common repairs for EVs are things that are common to ICE cars, too: brakes, tires, fluids, etc. The problem is when it comes to electronic parts, but, once again, that is something that EVs share with ICE vehicles. But when I was having problems with the axle boot on my Leaf, I got the work done at a third-party shop, and they had no problems getting parts and fixing it like new.
I do understand why people are extra wary about used EVs though. Battery reconditioning isn't a thing that people are used to. When Tesla popularized EVs they also popularized the "smart car" concept, and while the rest of the car industry is following on that trail, there are still some somewhat basic cars available on the new market, so I've been told.
"Mass market" is a pretty generous statement considering that even today, ICE cars still make up 90%+ of the cars on the road, and back in 2012 or even 2016 that number was closer to 99%. Sure...
"Mass market" is a pretty generous statement considering that even today, ICE cars still make up 90%+ of the cars on the road, and back in 2012 or even 2016 that number was closer to 99%. Sure some people may know what happens to EVs after 100k miles, but the vast majority of mechanics and consumers in the US have very little experience with them and won't be able to fix any EV specific issues anytime soon. This is still a problem going into the future as Tesla retains 50%+ of the new EV market in the US (though these numbers are dropping year after year), and their cars are notoriously hard to work on.
Nissan cars or any other manufacturer may be simpler to work on, but when they only make up 2.0%~ of the market share of new vehicle sales, sourcing parts from junkyards becomes virtually impossible. This limits you to only ordering replacement parts from the manufacturer or trying to find a reputable third party dealer; both of which are likely to be marked up heavily. Most of the small local mechanics in my area won't even look at an EV of any type unless its a issue with something simple like the brakes.
I don't say this out of hatred for EVs, I want my next car to be an EV. I just know that its going to be an uphill battle to get the public to trust in used EVs for a variety of reasons, not least of which is what you mentioned in your comment about battery degradation.
It seems like producing cheap EVs in the US or even in the EU is fairly unattainable until we have some massive breakthroughs in assembly technology and battery technology. China is still able to...
It seems like producing cheap EVs in the US or even in the EU is fairly unattainable until we have some massive breakthroughs in assembly technology and battery technology. China is still able to produce cheap EVs, but for political (and maybe safety?) reasons its unlikely we'll be able to get access to them in the US any time soon. We have a lot of things that make cars more expensive here in the US compared to China, not the least of which is our stringent crash safety standards which I don't believe China has an comparable equivalent. But we also have draconian, government-backed dealership monopolies which drive up the price on every new vehicle at least 10%-20%. We also stuff a lot of technology into cars these days some of which might not be fully necessary, but consumers have come to expect it.
I would really hope we can either import Chinese EVs like BYD or bridge the gap with better technologies that will reduce the price of the most expensive parts of an EV (the battery has potential to be reduced in price massively if we can break into things like solid state or non-lithium based battery chemistry at a commercial scale.) but it seems like public sentiment on EVs has slowed in the last few years, no doubt in no small part due to Elon's insane antics; but also because new cars in general have gotten unaffordable for most people who aren't wealthy.
@Advanced, please don't submit articles from "alternative frontends" to news sites, like neuters.de is for reuters.com articles. Canada has some rather strict copyright laws, but especially when...
@Advanced, please don't submit articles from "alternative frontends" to news sites, like neuters.de is for reuters.com articles. Canada has some rather strict copyright laws, but especially when it comes to social media, online news, and circumventing paywalls, so please just post original news sources only. If you want to provide an alternative in the comments that's fine though.
I think we will need to ask @Deimos for his ruling on that (and similar situations going forwards)... because that is just a rehosted version of the exact same Reuters article but with the...
I think we will need to ask @Deimos for his ruling on that (and similar situations going forwards)... because that is just a rehosted version of the exact same Reuters article but with the journalist/author attribution stripped from it. And based on my understanding of the "original sources" rule, my instinct if I had seen that Economic Times version submitted would have been to replace it with the original Reuters article too.
News agencies sell articles for other newspapers to run. This was common in the old days - a local newspaper would report local news itself and take articles from a wire service like AP or Reuters...
News agencies sell articles for other newspapers to run. This was common in the old days - a local newspaper would report local news itself and take articles from a wire service like AP or Reuters for world and national news.
So long as it’s a legit news site, this should be okay from a copyright perspective. (For example, Bloomberg articles often show up on Yahoo.)
Yeah, I am aware of how news wire licensing works. But the rule here has still always been to post original sources, AFAIK. There have been a few exceptions allowed, like when news sites...
Yeah, I am aware of how news wire licensing works. But the rule here has still always been to post original sources, AFAIK. There have been a few exceptions allowed, like when news sites themselves submit unpaywalled versions of their own articles to other aggregator or partner sites like MSN, Yahoo, BNNBloomberg, Etc. But I am not entirely sure how to handle this particular situation, which is why I would rather just ask @Deimos what he thinks is the best thing to do.
A number of people at my company still drive and evangelize Teslas, which on its own doesn't necessarily mean they're Musk fans, but at least one has a "Legal Immigrants for Trump" sticker on...
A number of people at my company still drive and evangelize Teslas, which on its own doesn't necessarily mean they're Musk fans, but at least one has a "Legal Immigrants for Trump" sticker on their car so...
I'll never understand why people eat all this nonsense up.
Self driving, even when done right, is so so far from being the future, still. Further Tesla is not even close to competitive there, although I wouldn't be shocked if they're no longer competitive in the electric market either.
More "con man says con things" that he'll probably get away with thanks to his following and political connections.
I can certainly imagine self-driving replacing a lot of truly boring highway commutes in the next few years. At this point, a lot of cars are very close to fully automating the (divided, limited access) highway experience. Which of course makes sense; you basically just have to drive in a straight line with minor adjustments for massive-radius turns, handle onramps, and not smash into other cars during traffic.
But it's fucking asinine and borderline sociopathic behaviour to get rid of the steering wheel in a consumer car. Self-driving tech, without a human backstop, is simply not at that level yet. Full-stop. We can't control so many factors in the average driving environment, from inclement weather to obstacles to pedestrians to cyclists to emergency vehicles to dirt and gravel roads... and given what we've seen of Tesla's tech, I can't imagine they feel it's actually prepared. Maybe Elon is banking on the federal government blocking a rollout so he can blame them instead of fessing up to his tech not working?
Even this I think isn't nearly as close as people think.
Weather and construction are still MASSIVE caveats to this that self driving still doesn't handle well enough. Sure the 90% use case is trivial, but the consequences of a screwing up are much higher.
This almost always comes back to "if one lane of the freeway was some kind of rail, it'd be better", but that's another non starter for 1000 other reasons.
The rate at which techbros keep accidentally inventing trains but worse has been a source of amusement to me for a while now.
There's so many examples too. Hell even Elon isn't above that. His hyperloop was basically just a railsystem but with inefficient four seater cars instead.
I was confused driving through an unfamiliar construction zone at night yesterday. I can't imagine a self-driving car being able to navigate it without accidentally turning into the construction zone. Maybe, in the far future, they could put up a QR code on an orange sign right after the "road work ahead" sign that contains instructions for self-driving cars. I agree that the technology just isn't there yet for truly autonomous vehicles to deal with those 5% of worst-case scenarios.
That's going to be really, really easy to abuse by carjackers. "Yo Teslas, turn left into this dirt road".
Yeah, good point. Maybe it could be verified by a hash stored on a database that all cars access over the ... nah, there's no good way to make it work.
Oh I completely agree. Unfortunately once Google and Tesla and the other giant companies feel the need to make money off of this tech, we're probably going to get saddled with it whether we like it or not. I just hope we can limit it to environments where, as a pedestrian or cyclist, I'm less likely to pay the Iron Price for a tech companies shoddy QA and profiteering.
It's such a shame too because Tesla actually has done a lot for the EV market by producing (relatively) affordable EVs in the US. No one else was doing that or even really capable of trying to do that before Tesla finally got us off our asses and worked on it. Now understand I'm not giving credit to solely to Elon, and please don't respond to this comment with 1000 "Tesla was actually just bought out by Elon, they were already a company before him blah blah blah" because while that's technically true, its not like they actually were doing any real production. And yes I know that the electric car as a concept has actually existed for over 100 years and yes there have been dozens of startup companies that have attempted making production EVs in the US and EU over the last 50 years, but the reality is that no one had an attractive, affordable electric vehicle until Tesla came out with the Model S, and they absolutely changed the game with the Model 3.
They gave the market the incentive to actually start pouring billions of dollars into developing cost competitive EVs and more importantly started the race to install EV chargers across the country which will drastically ease the transition from ICE cars to EVs. This also was perfectly timed to coincide with the start of mass transition over to renewable energy, which gave electrification another good kick in the pants to get started.
That's what makes his whole public descent into madness all the more depressing. I was never an Elon-stan or even an Elon-fan (even back when it was "cool" to be one), but I respected what his companies were doing to advance technology in the spaces that I had a lot of interest in. Both Tesla and SpaceX have made incredible contributions to their respective fields, and even though Tesla's now get their ass handed to them by most other consumer EVs in terms of build quality and sometimes even price, I think its important to remember the times that were only a few years ago when we didn't have any choices and there really wasn't much hope that you could buy a real electric vehicle from a dealership and plug it into your wall at home and it wasn't going to be a strange thing.
Now anything Elon touches is stained by his idiotic and psychopathic political views and his relentless lying about what his companies will be able to deliver on any realistic timescale. Of course he's been lying about self driving cars for a decade now, but it can't be said that Tesla hasn't at least tried to make it a reality. Their engineers have been working their asses off for years to make that dream a reality. Unfortunately there's been a lot of hiccups (and downright stupid decisions which resulted in the deaths of innocent people due to the dangerous lies from Elon about the capabilities of their self driving packages.) Full self driving is still a far off goal and may never be achievable on the level that we were promised over a decade ago by dozens of silicon valley entrepreneurs; but we have reached the level where cars can automatically brake or swerve to avoid crashes, park themselves automatically, drive on the highway for long distances safely, and execute most simple driving by themselves. This isn't nothing, and it will surely continue to improve over the coming years, whether that's through Tesla or any of its competitors in the space.
I agree that Tesla seems to have fallen way behind, but isn't Waymo doing pretty well and much better than most people expected based on the Tesla experience, so far? There is some speculation that technologies like Waymo and Cruise are being rolled out very slowly on purpose to avoid public backlash and minimize the number of accidents before some public trust is built, because even if they manage to squeeze the per mile number of accidents much lower than with real drivers, every one of them is going to be disproportionately more scrutinized.
Funny, I was just suggested this video earlier where specifically the first half is relevant to this article. Given the history of Elons claims about self driving this falls right there in place.
I know there are some proponents of self-driving cars/taxis here on Tildes but for the most part I honestly don't see Tesla actually making headway in this area. It also seems to be outright self-destructive for the company to not invest in a human driven smaller and affordable EV. Unless, of course, the underlying reason is simply that Tesla is not able to make such a vehicle that can compete with other EVs in this price range. Which would make this just another round of Elon deflection or possibly some desperate bit to remain relevant and profitable through the taxi business.
If anyone can make a $25000 EV it is probably Tesla because they will abuse their non-union employees to do it.
I think there are two problems here.
Making affordable cars is a good goal, but I think the target of $25000 may no longer be reasonable.
Pre Nazi Dark Maga Elon talked about the importance of working towards $25000. When Tesla's goal was to accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation, this car was vital. That mission statement has been removed and is no longer Tesla's goal. Now Tesla burns money to fuel Elon's ketamine filled lies. No one should be surprised that the $25000 car is dead as it no longer aligns with Elon's goals.
Don't discount Chinese companies doing the same thing and being subsidized in the process. Though a case can be made for Tesla for the latter as well.
Given inflation and material costs I tend to agree, the logical question for a sane CEO would then be what is a reasonable price point, and can we actually compete based on that?
I do agree that this is all wishful thinking and not going to happen given that any semblance of sanity by Musk has been thrown out of the window for a while now.
That's a fair point I didn't consider due to the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
Yeah I don't know what the right price would be. I do think your point about being competitive is huge. To make an affordable car, it probably needs to be a sedan but North America has been brain washed to believe they need an SUV. Maybe we should be focused on making a more affordable EV SUV.
The rest of the world largely also largely moved away from sedans since the 90s ;) Most cars in the affordable class these days are hatchbacks. They offer more practical space in the same footprint.
To me, that sounds like the lesser of various evils but you might be right. The bigger EVs get, the worse the calculation becomes for environmental impact. Not only does the bill of materials (including rare metals for batteries) increase substantially, they also wear down roads more and due to their weight tires also wear down a lot faster. So while they might not put exhaust gasses in the air, they do release more microparticles from the tires compared to even their ICE SUV counterparts.
Man I would love a good EV hatchback. And I do think to get people who aren't early adopters to convert you have to meet their expectations. Can a $35k - $40k EV SUV be made? I don't know but it would probably be easier to accomplish than rebuilding public transit and redesigning our cities to be less car centric.
Both of the EVs I have owned - a Nissan Leaf and a Chevy Bolt - have been hatchbacks. Though to be fair hatchbacks aren't really a size category. I think both of them are considered to be "crossovers" a term which I'm pretty sure also doesn't mean anything but implies that they're somewhere between a sedan and an SUV.
(In any case, I'm getting incresingly sure that the solution to car inflation is to try to make owning and riding motorcycles the thing to do.)
Yeah the Tesla Model S is also technically a hatchback. I would like an EV hatchback that is close to the Leafs price but better than a Leaf. Or at least more interesting.
Chevy has the Equinox EV starting at $35k. Got one a few weeks ago and it's been great. Replacing tires is going to be the biggest expense I'm foreseeing (I got the one with 21's)
So it is. I guess maybe we need to go better or cheaper. Or maybe it doesn't matter.
Like most things, the government can help expensive but necessary good become reasonable through variety of factors.
But that aside, what we're seeing here is the result of the US car industry actively holding back progress for over a decade and only now deciding to play catchup when they realize other countries (especially China) have completely outpaced them. A decade+ of not setting up infrastructure for such an assembly line that could have been long optimized by now. And with the current economy they will drag their feet even further.
It's probably not reasonable, but it's all their fault and consumers are paying the price.
Completely agree. Sadly, some legacy automakers won't make it and a lot of people will lose good union jobs.
Just paid $27,000 for a 3-year old ID.4 with 30k miles. The new market might not hit that price, but the used market is dropping those prices as fast as gas cars did.
You can get a 2016 Leaf for < $10k now.
Used cars have always been the way to get an actual affordable vehicle. But people are justifiably spooked about the used EV market though because its not widely known what kind of effect years of usage and thousands of miles has on EVs from a reliability standpoint. This is further complicated by the fact that most mechanics, especially in less urban areas, don't have the knowledge or tools to work on EVs, meaning any maintenance that you need done will likely cost significantly more than the equivalent repair on a used Honda or Toyota. No one wants to buy a lemon, but especially no one wants to buy a 10k lemon that would cost 20k to fix. It's a vicious cycle because it will take a long time for mechanics everywhere to become familiar with EVs and because there are no standards across manufacturers, its basically impossible for anyone who isn't backed by a dealership to go in and fix even basic problems. Your 55 year old guy down the road who works out of a 1500sf shop will never be able to fix your Tesla's wheel alignment issue or battery controller short out. He'll be lucky if he can fix your Nisan Leaf's failing 12 volt system without having to order 15 special parts from a marketplace with insane markups.
EVs have been mass market for over a decade now. The Nissan Leaf has been produced since 2010, and Tesla has been making the Model S since 2012. There are tons of EVs out there with over 100K miles on them. So we do know what a used EV that has gone through years of use and hundreds of miles looks like. Right now the biggest problem with repairability is with proprietary parts - a problem that is affecting even ICE cars to a different extent. The most common repairs for EVs are things that are common to ICE cars, too: brakes, tires, fluids, etc. The problem is when it comes to electronic parts, but, once again, that is something that EVs share with ICE vehicles. But when I was having problems with the axle boot on my Leaf, I got the work done at a third-party shop, and they had no problems getting parts and fixing it like new.
I do understand why people are extra wary about used EVs though. Battery reconditioning isn't a thing that people are used to. When Tesla popularized EVs they also popularized the "smart car" concept, and while the rest of the car industry is following on that trail, there are still some somewhat basic cars available on the new market, so I've been told.
"Mass market" is a pretty generous statement considering that even today, ICE cars still make up 90%+ of the cars on the road, and back in 2012 or even 2016 that number was closer to 99%. Sure some people may know what happens to EVs after 100k miles, but the vast majority of mechanics and consumers in the US have very little experience with them and won't be able to fix any EV specific issues anytime soon. This is still a problem going into the future as Tesla retains 50%+ of the new EV market in the US (though these numbers are dropping year after year), and their cars are notoriously hard to work on.
Nissan cars or any other manufacturer may be simpler to work on, but when they only make up 2.0%~ of the market share of new vehicle sales, sourcing parts from junkyards becomes virtually impossible. This limits you to only ordering replacement parts from the manufacturer or trying to find a reputable third party dealer; both of which are likely to be marked up heavily. Most of the small local mechanics in my area won't even look at an EV of any type unless its a issue with something simple like the brakes.
I don't say this out of hatred for EVs, I want my next car to be an EV. I just know that its going to be an uphill battle to get the public to trust in used EVs for a variety of reasons, not least of which is what you mentioned in your comment about battery degradation.
It seems like producing cheap EVs in the US or even in the EU is fairly unattainable until we have some massive breakthroughs in assembly technology and battery technology. China is still able to produce cheap EVs, but for political (and maybe safety?) reasons its unlikely we'll be able to get access to them in the US any time soon. We have a lot of things that make cars more expensive here in the US compared to China, not the least of which is our stringent crash safety standards which I don't believe China has an comparable equivalent. But we also have draconian, government-backed dealership monopolies which drive up the price on every new vehicle at least 10%-20%. We also stuff a lot of technology into cars these days some of which might not be fully necessary, but consumers have come to expect it.
I would really hope we can either import Chinese EVs like BYD or bridge the gap with better technologies that will reduce the price of the most expensive parts of an EV (the battery has potential to be reduced in price massively if we can break into things like solid state or non-lithium based battery chemistry at a commercial scale.) but it seems like public sentiment on EVs has slowed in the last few years, no doubt in no small part due to Elon's insane antics; but also because new cars in general have gotten unaffordable for most people who aren't wealthy.
@Advanced, please don't submit articles from "alternative frontends" to news sites, like neuters.de is for reuters.com articles. Canada has some rather strict copyright laws, but especially when it comes to social media, online news, and circumventing paywalls, so please just post original news sources only. If you want to provide an alternative in the comments that's fine though.
/offtopic
I think we will need to ask @Deimos for his ruling on that (and similar situations going forwards)... because that is just a rehosted version of the exact same Reuters article but with the journalist/author attribution stripped from it. And based on my understanding of the "original sources" rule, my instinct if I had seen that Economic Times version submitted would have been to replace it with the original Reuters article too.
News agencies sell articles for other newspapers to run. This was common in the old days - a local newspaper would report local news itself and take articles from a wire service like AP or Reuters for world and national news.
So long as it’s a legit news site, this should be okay from a copyright perspective. (For example, Bloomberg articles often show up on Yahoo.)
Yeah, I am aware of how news wire licensing works. But the rule here has still always been to post original sources, AFAIK. There have been a few exceptions allowed, like when news sites themselves submit unpaywalled versions of their own articles to other aggregator or partner sites like MSN, Yahoo, BNNBloomberg, Etc. But I am not entirely sure how to handle this particular situation, which is why I would rather just ask @Deimos what he thinks is the best thing to do.
Is there something about Reuters itself that you view as problematic?
Thanks, this actually inspired me to subscribe when they add the paywall in the US.
Does Musk still have any fans left among the rank and file in the tech sector?
Sadly, you would apparently be surprised.
Maybe not. RMS still has loyal-to-the-death fans.
A number of people at my company still drive and evangelize Teslas, which on its own doesn't necessarily mean they're Musk fans, but at least one has a "Legal Immigrants for Trump" sticker on their car so...
Yuck! lol
Translation: he can't do it.