[HN Gopher] Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to Germa... ___________________________________________________________________ Whistleblower drops 100 GB of Tesla secrets to German news site Author : VagueMag Score : 319 points Date : 2023-05-25 20:38 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (jalopnik.com) (TXT) w3m dump (jalopnik.com) | Pxtl wrote: | Can somebody please explain why this ridiculous company has a | market cap more than the next 5 car companies put together? | belltaco wrote: | Because it sells the world's best selling car at a high margin? | And is double the price of the Toyota Corolla it dethroned. | | https://electrek.co/2023/05/25/tesla-model-y-is-now-the-worl... | | If one gets news about Tesla only from HN then it does seem | Tesla is ridiculous, because only negative stories tend to get | upvoted and positive ones buried. | koyote wrote: | It's got the number 1 spot by a small margin and Toyota has | spot 2, 3, 4 and 5 (https://www.motor1.com/news/669135/tesla- | model-y-worlds-best...). | toomuchtodo wrote: | They are also backlogged 18-24 months for their utility scale | storage. There is substantial demand for every unit | manufactured. | rcxdude wrote: | Still doesn't justify its valuation. Tesla is very far from | worthless but nowhere near worth its stock price. | diebeforei485 wrote: | > Tesla is very far from worthless but nowhere near worth | its stock price. | | Stock price is based on future expectations, not past | value. Tesla is still growing very fast. | pseg134 wrote: | Do you know there is a much better place to express this | opinion than a message board? | andybak wrote: | The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay | solvent. | sidibe wrote: | No other company/CEO can make as grandiose announcements. Their | future product pipeline is worth trillions and every year | there's something else they will deliver very soon that will | revolutionize the world. If you've read about it in a scifi | book, Tesla will announce they are working on it first. | methodical wrote: | [flagged] | detaro wrote: | _woosh_ , as the kids say. Fairly sure parent is sarcastic. | methodical wrote: | Yikes, yeah- on second thought it does seem sarcastic. | | It's just so difficult to tell with Tesla because it | certainly does have a certain portion of the population | that would have posted the original comment entirely | unironically. | tylersmith wrote: | I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic. | asdff wrote: | Its a meme stock with a lot of volatility for scalping plays. | valine wrote: | Probably because the world is transitioning to EVs and they | have a 5ish year head start over most other automakers. | | There's a long list of technologies Tesla has already shipped | that other car makers are just beginning to explore. | | - Structural batteries | | - The "Octovalve" heat pump | | - Mega casted car frames | | - Their custom ML SOC | | The TSLA market cap is debatable, but their lead is real. | londons_explore wrote: | The fact they seem to be custom manufacturing silicon carbide | FET's.... While everyone else is using off the shelf | components. | | Those custom FET's haven't yet publically been torn down. But | I'd guess they enable more efficient motor inverters. More | efficiency means smaller battery, and less cooling. Less | cooling means the whole heatpump system can be downsized, | reducing weight. Reduced weight means smaller battery. | Smaller battery means less weight... Which means an even | smaller battery... And a smaller battery in a lighter car | means more profit margins. | | Because of the recursive nature of this, even small | efficiency gains on the FET's have a pretty massive impact on | profit margins. | withinboredom wrote: | Do you really want 'untested' technology hurtling you down | a road at nearly 100 mph? | londons_explore wrote: | Fets are pretty low risk... Worst case, you lose a motor. | They have the explosive fuse to prevent a bunch of | shorted fets causing massive braking, and I've never | heard of that fuse being activated. | asdff wrote: | Is this even a lead? Seems like Tesla is just bearing the R&D | that any other auto manufacturer can decide to implement if | it makes sense for margins. There's no secret sauce when a | competitor can get a hold of your product and see how it | works. Its why in past wars doing things like scuttling | vehicles was important to prevent competition. | threeseed wrote: | Other car companies e.g. Lucid, BMW have better technology in | other areas. | | And why would anyone bother with custom ML SOC when you can | just partner with Nvidia like Rivian, Mercedes etc. | valine wrote: | Vertical integration has many benefits. It's the same | reason Apple started making their own chips and ditched | intel. The SOCs will be cheaper and better optimized for | Tesla's use case. | | Every Nvidia GPU I'm aware of ships with both CUDA cores | and Tensor cores. For a pure ML application those CUDA | cores are almost useless. Tesla would be paying Nvidia's | premium for transistors that aren't optimized for ML | inference. | | A Tesla designed chip can be 100% dedicated to tensor | multiplication. You're paying less per transistor and every | transistor is utilized to the fullest extent. | threeseed wrote: | Nvidia isn't using PC GPUs in cars. They have a dedicated | SOC for self driving: | | https://www.reuters.com/technology/chipmaker-nvidia- | launches... | wsgeorge wrote: | Because maybe there's some advantage to be had by reducing | dependencies when you can afford to? And maybe they value | SOC expertise, since they do other tech besides cars? | bcrosby95 wrote: | And when they outsource it people will say they're just | focusing on core competencies. The great thing is | businesses can use a magic 8-ball to make business | decisions and someone will laud it as brilliant. | eertami wrote: | Even with that 5 year lead, I would rather buy an EV from any | other "mainstream" automaker. The build quality even on a | 2023 manufactured Tesla is just insulting. If I buy a BMW I'm | also being ripped off but at least the door panel won't fall | off if I slam the door, and BMW will repair faults within | days and not months. | simple10 wrote: | Part hype, part perceived future value. Tesla's market cap is | not as a car company but as a robot manufacturing company. | Investors believe Tesla has a lot of room to grow beyond just | selling EVs. | HPsquared wrote: | They apparently make a lot of profit per car - literally like | 5-10x more than competitors. | nordsieck wrote: | Along with what everyone else has said about Teslas being good | electric cars with a high profit margin, Tesla (the company) | continues to enjoy a high growth rate in terms of units | delivered per year. | | https://www.statista.com/chart/8547/teslas-vehicle-deliverie... | | Also, Tesla seems to have mostly successfully shrugged off the | dealer model and avoided pension based compensation. | | If they can maintain a reasonable level of satisfaction when | offering service, they get to scoop up the 20% margins the | dealerships take, as well as avoid the sentiment hit every | other dealer has to take by forcing people to buy new cars | through that truly awful process. | javchz wrote: | Debt in they other companies it's a huge factor. Now, that | doesn't mean a potencial huge value correction it's not out of | they table. | jillesvangurp wrote: | Very simple, the market valuation is based on two things: | | - Tesla's track record of rapid growth and their | credible/plausible plan for growing volumes by about at least | 10x And that's just cars. They have a few other rapidly growing | business that are already billion dollar businesses. Some of | which could outgrow their car market. Even when you consider | the expected growth. It's only inflated if you don't believe | they can do all of this. The reason the valuation is so high is | that lots of investors seem to not agree with that. | | - The underwhelming performance of essentially all their | competitors; i.e. the next 5 manufacturers that you refer to. | With the exception perhaps of Asian companies like BYD that | have similar proven track records as Tesla to ship decent EV | products in large volumes profitably. These new manufacturers | other manufacturers are short term going to cause a lot of | headaches for the (former, let's just call that out) top 5. The | prospect of millions of dirt cheap good quality Chinese EVs | undercutting cheap ICE cars has a high risk of decimating the | market shares of the likes of Toyota, GM, etc. that are very | dependent on sales of cheap, unremarkable ICE cars. They make | most of their money selling products that are rapidly becoming | a combination of obsolete, expensive, and undesirable. | | Most of the former incumbents like GM, Ford, VW, Toyota, etc. | of course have EV strategies of their own but they will need | many years more before they match current production volumes | and cost levels of their new competitors. | | In short, they'll be struggling to catch up for years to come | even under the most optimistic scenarios. The more pessimistic | scenario is actually that a few of these companies might not | survive the transition at all and that the remaining ones might | find themselves vastly reduced in size. Tesla and several other | new manufacturers certainly seem well positioned to continue to | make life miserable for these companies for years to come. | Whatever they do, Tesla et al. will be able to do it faster, | better, cheaper, and in larger volumes for some time to come. | lt_snuffles wrote: | They also have lot of early adopter advantages | nxm wrote: | Profit margin per electric vehicle | schainks wrote: | They keep pushing cost of manufacturing down while maintaining | great profit margins. Reliability is good enough people are | buying Teslas instead of Toyotas. Service techs can come to | your home to fix most problems. | | If consumers save measurable time and effort by owning an | electric vehicle, whoever makes it the cheapest vehicle to own | time-wise wins. | [deleted] | RomanPushkin wrote: | That's why I use Lyft instead of Uber. In SFBay it's often Tesla | because of their business relationship, and I don't like it. | vxNsr wrote: | And this the real risk of alienating a group, they'll retaliate | when they no longer feel aligned with you. Even if they'll work | for you, they won't have the same allegiance/loyalty they had | before. | belter wrote: | "Is your data also in the Tesla files?" (German ) - | https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/leseraufr... | buildbot wrote: | I avoid driving anywhere near Tesla's, especially tailing them. | Phantom braking is not okay. | misiti3780 wrote: | phantom breaking isnt a thing in 2023. it used to be a problem, | it's not anymore if you have HW3 | McSwag wrote: | Spoken by someone who clearly doesn't own or drive a Tesla. | Phantom braking is very much STILL an unsolved problem. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Yeah, you're right. I haven't had a phantom brake in quite a | while, and even the ones I used to have were not so | aggressive as to be unsafe. Unfortunately, I suspect | downvoters are conflating 'observing phantom braking has been | fixed' with 'complete endorsement of everything Musk does'. | Black and white thinking and whatnot. | uturingmachine wrote: | This is not true, I purchased a Model 3 brand new in 2021; it | has HW3 and it absolutely does phantom braking regularly on | road trips. This is on US interstates. | jacquesm wrote: | Why do you keep driving it? I had a car that did this to me | twice and got rid of it, the first time could have been a | glitch but twice is simply broken and dangerous. The dealer | said the car was fine. | MortimerDukePhD wrote: | [dead] | cypress66 wrote: | All car brands ADAS are imperfect. If it phantom brakes | you just push the accelerator, or simply don't use the | ADAS. | | You can drive the car normally, you aren't forced to use | ADAS if you don't like it. | olyjohn wrote: | Yeah just gotta turn it off every single time you get in | the car. | izzydata wrote: | Agreed. With human drivers you can, in most cases, see their | intent with the way they move. With tesla or other self driving | systems it is a black box that is way less predictable. | bottlepalm wrote: | You shouldn't tail any car in general. There's a lot more | 'real' braking out there than 'phantom' braking. | pacetherace wrote: | in most commutes, if your tailing distance is too much, | someone will else will come in front of you. | orpheansodality wrote: | if you think about the speeds involved, a single additional | car in front of you on the freeway (or even any additional | cars) adds pretty miniscule time to the total commute. | | Let's compare a few situations. In the baseline you're | tailing the car in front of you with a focus on not letting | anyone cheat and get in front of you, let's say 50 feet | away. Your commute is 30 miles, and in this frictionless | sphere of traffic you're going 60mph the whole time. You | get to work in 30 minutes flat. | | In the second scenario you're following the 3-second | rule[0]. This would put you ~285 feet behind the car in | front of you. Let's say over the course of your commute 20 | cars move in front of you. If the average car length is 15 | feet, and they all are 50 feet away from each other, when | all 20 cars are in place you're a net -(20 * 65) feet away | from the original car, or 1300 feet total. At 60 mph that | adds ~15 seconds to your total commute time. | | Well worth having an easier time avoiding a potential crash | IMO! Also has the benefit of helping prevent traffic to | begin with[1] | | 0: https://driversed.com/trending/what-safe-following- | distance. | | 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE | lamontcg wrote: | Tell me you're a bad driver without telling me you're a bad | driver. | | You need to not care about that, and you're actually | supposed to let people change lanes into your lane. You're | getting into a mental competition with other drivers and | sacrificing the safety of yourself and everyone around you. | | And if anyone believes that longer following distance | causes more traffic, that is also false and the reverse is | actually true. It is the poor reaction times of tailgaters | that cause traffic slowdowns. | lagniappe wrote: | > Tell me you're a bad driver without telling me you're a | bad driver. | | > You need to not care about that, and you're actually | supposed to let people change lanes into your lane. | You're getting into a mental competition with other | drivers and sacrificing the safety of yourself and | everyone around you. | | > And if anyone believes that longer following distance | causes more traffic, that is also false and the reverse | is actually true. It is the poor reaction times of | tailgaters that cause traffic slowdowns. | | I think that what they're saying is the flow of cars in | front of them keeps that distance between them and the | 'next car' to a shorter undesirable distance as more cars | fill that gap during traffic. | tbrownaw wrote: | ... And then you end up just going slower than the rest | of the traffic, and people behind you change to the | faster lanes to pass you, and some of the people passing | you change lanes back to in front of you. And so trying | to keep a longer following distance than the rest of | traffic allows just means thtey lots of people are doing | things other than just staying safely in one lane. | Ingon wrote: | As others pointed out - let them. On average all lanes move | the same, they might even move away once the lane stops | moving. You'll have much worse time rearing a car then | letting all those cars in. | | I also keep additional distance in traffic to minimize | slowdowns/stops, which ultimately actually improves/fixes | the flow. | sushid wrote: | That's fine. You lose like .5 seconds of your life when | another car comes in front of you. | andybak wrote: | So? Drop back again. | olyjohn wrote: | So what. | s3p wrote: | That's not what OP was implying. | buildbot wrote: | Sure, but an unexpected full ABS lock when you can see | nothing in front of the tesla is going to be yard for most to | react quickly too even at a decent distance. 10 second follow | distances are only possible in most metros during very light | traffic. | robertlagrant wrote: | You only need 2 seconds to be safe. It's longer than you | think. | andybak wrote: | 3 is the guidance in the UK at least | robertlagrant wrote: | > You should ... allow at least a two-second gap between | you and the vehicle in front on high-speed roads and in | tunnels where visibility is reduced. The gap should be at | least doubled on wet roads and up to ten times greater on | icy roads | | Highway code rule 126[0] says 2? | | [0] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/general- | rules-t... | crazygringo wrote: | Then you're driving unsafely, although 10 seconds as a | general rule is a straw man. | | At any time, a child could run out from a hidden spot and | the car in front of you could have to slam on the brakes as | hard as possible. Or any of a hundred other realistic | scenarios. | | These things aren't common, but statistically they _will_ | happen to you multiple times during a lifetime of driving, | and it 's _your_ responsibility to always be at a safe | distance behind in order to react as well. | | The common rule of thumb is generally 2-3 seconds in | perfect conditions, and 4-6 seconds in rain or other normal | bad weather. 10 seconds is only in cases of ice/snow where | most people wouldn't be driving in the first place (you | know, when you're going just 15 mph but it _still_ takes 5 | seconds to come to a full stop on the slippery ice). The | heaviness /lightness of traffic is irrelevant. | jjulius wrote: | >10 second follow distances are only possible in most | metros during very light traffic. | | I've usually heard that it's three seconds. Even still, | _you_ control your follow distance. Even in heavy traffic, | _you_ can give yourself more space between you and the car | in front of you than other people do. It 's easy to do, and | I've been able to do just that even in metro areas with | heavy traffic. | k8sToGo wrote: | Phantom braking is not a full ABS lock type of braking. | It's more like a brake check. | watwut wrote: | Real braking happens for a reason, to avert accidents. Sane | drivers don't do it just randomly in perfectly safe | situations. Random braking is major risk for everyone around | and if you are source of it, you are in fact danger foe | others. | vosper wrote: | > Sane drivers don't do it just randomly in perfectly safe | situations | | You can't always assume that you will be able to tell when | a situation has turned from safe to unsafe. You just can't | exactly see what the driver in front of you (or the driver | in front of _them_) is seeing. | | And you can't assume that the driver in front of you is | sane! | | You have to _always_ follow at a safe distance. | threeseed wrote: | Humans in traffic are relatively easy to predict. | | They don't just randomly brake for no reason. | metalliqaz wrote: | ...usually | throwaway894345 wrote: | I hear people talk about people brake checking all the time | (whether they're the brake checkers or the person tailing). | A buddy of mine was tailing a (non-Tesla) car a little too | closely on his motorcycle and the driver deliberately | brake-checked him and he wrecked. And that's just people | deliberately driving erratically, never mind the people who | are responding to debris, animals, people, etc darting into | the road. | ertian wrote: | But sometimes there are legitimate reasons for a car to | brake hard, which you'd never know from your position one | car-length behind them. | George83728 wrote: | I treat them like semi-trucks on the highway. Pass them or let | them pass you, but don't loiter alongside, behind or in front | of one. | bboygravity wrote: | I treat them like the safest cars to be around. Because | statistically, they are? | olyjohn wrote: | That's not a great idea. The driver is still in control of | the car and is no better than anybody else, and maybe even | not paying attentnion because some think autopilot is self | driving. You should treat all other traffic with the same | defense. | viraptor wrote: | That's not proven as far as I know, unless you've got | stats? (And not the stats from their website - those are | not comparable) | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: | > And not the stats from their website | | There is a reason it is said, "There are lies, damned | lies, and statistics." Statistically, there's a ~7% | chance I won't die because ~7% of all humans who have | ever lived haven't died. | adversaryIdiot wrote: | if you are on the inside at least... But yeah i think they | tend to have better track records than human drivers. | ethbr0 wrote: | There's a difference between safety and consistency. | yumraj wrote: | Citation needed, Musk's tweet doesn't qualify. | belorn wrote: | According to statistics that Tesla publish. | | I would like to see mercedes publish their own statistics | on their FSD. Given the tight constraints where they allow | self driving, they could easily claim 100% safety record | and thus infinitive more safe than any other manufacturer. | It would be misleading, but statistically it would be the | truth (any accidents could be said to be outside the | constraint and thus will not count). | | Personally I would only really trust such statistics if | insurance companies would reflect that in the premium. | Somehow I doubt they would be willing to cut the fee based | on what Tesla claims. | kwhitefoot wrote: | Can someone present evidence that Teslas are more | expensive to insured than other comparable vehicles? | Along with evidence that the difference is because of | safety rather than cost of repairs? | olyjohn wrote: | Tesla has their own insurance because people were | complaining about high rates. Why else would they come up | with their own insurance? | valine wrote: | Why are you loitering beside other cars? This is a good | safety practice regardless of the car's make and model. | George83728 wrote: | In light traffic, I wouldn't. In medium traffic there often | isn't that much choice, but in those situations I prefer | the company of other cars my size, and preferably ones with | attentive drivers (so I discriminate against Tesla | drivers.) | pc86 wrote: | It's a shame this is getting downvoted because it's true. | In any level of traffic except stop-and-go--and even then | to a large extent--you should be doing everything within | your power to either pass the cars on your right, and/or | move over to let cars pass you on the left. It is a | vanishingly small number of scenarios where you are keeping | pace with a car next to you and you're _not_ in the wrong. | This isn 't just at high speed or on highways, any two-land | road operates (or is designed to operate) this way. | George83728 wrote: | > _It is a vanishingly small number of scenarios where | you are keeping pace with a car next to you and you 're | not in the wrong._ | | I think it really depends on where/when you're driving. I | find this to be a common scenario on interstates during | rush hour: | | I'm in the right lane, doing approximately the speed | limit. There is a safe distance between me and the cars | in front and back of me, but only just. If many more cars | enter the road, traffic would need to slow down to | maintain safe distances. In the left lane is the same | situation, except they're averaging about 1 or 2 mph | faster. In this situation, there are cars in the left | lane passing very slowly, spending a lot of time | alongside me. I could slow down below the speed limit | every time a car passed on the left, to reduce reduce | that loiter time. But this would make my driving less | predictable to the drivers behind me (and waste a lot of | mileage too...) | | So normally, when the other cars are my size, I maintain | my present course and speed, driving as predictably as | possible to help the other drivers anticipate my course. | Changing position in traffic is inherently risky, so I | avoid making changes unless doing so is necessary to | avoid something I judge to be more dangerous than the | average. If a truck passes me on the left, I'll slow down | to make the passing faster even if that means a car | behind me has to brake. But if in that moment I judge the | guy behind me to be even more dangerous, then maybe I | won't. It's the kind of decision that needs to be made on | the spot in a case-by-case basis. On interstates that are | flowing fast near capacity, you need to be constantly | evaluating the relative threat of the traffic around you. | jacquesm wrote: | That's not the same everywhere in the world though, and | even in places where it is strictly passing on the left | (or on the right in the UK, Japan and a few other places) | 'keep your lane' tends to be the rule if the right hand | lane is also moving at the speed limit (so you can't | legally pass). | | That way the carrying capacity of the road is higher. But | when traffic is less dense 'station keeping' should be | avoided at all times and if someone moves into my 'dead | zone' or just to the left of me I'll gradually slow down | to force them to finish their overtake. | withinboredom wrote: | > 'keep your lane' tends to be the rule if the right hand | lane is also moving at the speed limit (so you can't | legally pass). | | Why are you in the lefter lane if you can't pass? | | I've been in rush hour (where keep-to-the-right-unless- | passing is very strictly enforced) in bumper-to-bumper | traffic and the left two (out of 6) are completely empty | and everyone is doing 'around' the speed limit. Some are | in the right lane doing a few below the limit, some are | in the left-most lane doing a few above. | | Occasionally, someone who is late to work, emergency | services, or whatever goes flying by in one of the left- | most lanes. | dmbche wrote: | Where is this? In eastern canada that's impossible to | imagine - although most highways are 2-3 lanes, not 6, I | couldn't imagine having a free lane on the side while | having bumper to bumper everywhere else. | | Or are these protected lanes for carpooling? | | I find this very impressive! | George83728 wrote: | > _I 've been in rush hour (where keep-to-the-right- | unless-passing is very strictly enforced) in bumper-to- | bumper traffic and the left two (out of 6) are completely | empty and everyone is doing 'around' the speed limit._ | | I've been on interstates in every continental US state | and I've never seen this, but I think something has been | lost in translation because "bumper-to-bumper" and | "everybody doing the speed limit" are mutually exclusive | as I understand the terms. If everybody on the road can | fit into the right lane with enough space in-between to | do the speed limit, that is done but I wouldn't call that | traffic "bumper-to-bumper". I would call that light | traffic. Bumper-to-bumper is when the space between cars | really starts to contract, because everybody is going | substantially below the limit, or because people aren't | maintaining a safe distance. | | Once the road has too many cars to fit them all into the | right lane at the speed limit, then in every state I've | driven, cars start using the left lane for travel, not | just passing. If the right lane is so full that it can | only sustain 5 below the limit, then people start driving | in the left lane and stay there for as long as the right | lane won't support speed-limit traffic. In this kind of | traffic you'll start to have cars moving fast alongside | each other with low relative velocity. | watwut wrote: | It is totally normal to just go behind one car without | constantly overtaking or being overtaken. It is even | actually safer then being constantly in and out of lanes. | dylan604 wrote: | Most people are pretty much unaware of anything outside of | their car other than for the couple of seconds they look up | from their phone to look at the car in front of them. Look | to the sides? That's too much time away from the screen in | their hand! /s (only partially) | | Since my time of learning to drive, the requirement to have | formal driving training has ping ponged in being a | requirement or not. The number of hours as an observer is | just as important as the hours being behind the wheel. One | of the things repeatedly mentioned by the instructor was to | not drive side by side any car unless absolutely necessary. | It was also a recurring theme in my repeated defensive | driving classes. I also have an uncle that drove trucks for | a long time, and he would tell stories of things he saw on | the road. A relevant story was when one of the wheels of a | tractor-trailor doing 70mph down the highway lost the | outside wheel of the trailer and seeing the damage it cause | the car driving along side. All of that added together | makes me never like to have a car on my sides and I will | speed up or slow down (which ever has more space available) | to avoid it. For those that did not have to take a driving | course, this is just information they may never have been | provided. | asdff wrote: | I avoid them too. Erratic drivers too. I'm not sure if its them | coming out of autopilot back into control or just that's what | happens when you have a lead foot and a car that goes to 60mph | in 3 seconds entirely silently. | xenospn wrote: | sadly this is virtually impossible in Los Angeles. | asdff wrote: | The Tesla drivers in LA are like an upper echelon of terrible | Tesla drivers: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd0IpJFSZ10 | 99_00 wrote: | >found a disturbing trend of brushing off customers complaining | about dangerous Autopilot glitches while covering the company's | ass. | | The article doesn't present any evidence or argument to support | it's own thesis. | | Everything in it sounds like my experience dealing with any | corperation. | arbitrage wrote: | > Customers that Handelsblatt spoke to have the impression that | Tesla employees avoid written communication. "They never sent | emails, everything was always verbal," says the doctor from | California, whose Tesla said it accelerated on its own in the | fall of 2021 and crashed into two concrete pillars. | | I mean, that's pretty suspicious right there. | morkalork wrote: | Never write in an email what you can say on the phone, never | say on the phone what you can say in person. | TheAlchemist wrote: | * if you have something to hide | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | There's a wry joke that the e in email stands for | indictment. | | That said, I don't think we should excuse or normalize | sociopathic and customer hostile behavior from businesses. | watwut wrote: | Yeah, but that is mostly hinting on how normalized fraud | became in business. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | I agree. It's disappointing and it's one of the big | picture trends I've seen continuously as I age. | mistrial9 wrote: | .. never say it when you can wink; never wink when you can | nod.. | | --professional politicians at the State Capital building | bboygravity wrote: | You're confirming the point of the commenter that you're | replying to? | 99_00 wrote: | >that's pretty suspicious right there. | | It seems suspicious to you because you assume it's not | standard industry practice. But that assumption is not in | evidence. | | They have the internal communications and this is the most | incriminating thing they could come up with? | nvrmnd wrote: | I have heard from former Twitter employees that this was very | much the policy after the Musk takeover there. Nothing is | ever put in writing if it can possibly be avoided. | chaxor wrote: | I didn't see the actual data or a link or anything to how to get | it, but why on earth would it be 100GB? That seems fairly large | if it's just tallying accidents and such. | londons_explore wrote: | If just a few of the accident reports have attached photos or | videos, you'll quickly get to 100GB. | bj-rn wrote: | "The 'Tesla Files' comprise more than 23,000 files. Some | documents apparently show salaries and home addresses of more | than 100,000 current and former employees. Others list | presumably private mail addresses and phone numbers of | customers." | | [...] | | "Due to the sheer volume and structure of the data sets, the | editorial team had to make a selection of which of the more | than thousand Excel tables could be taken into account in the | query tool. " | | https://app.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/leseraufr... | zizee wrote: | How different is this from any other similar sized companies | behaviour? | | This site doesn't seem that impartial/unbiased. From a linked | article on Tesla: | | > It's also worth noting that the above email was sent after 2 | a.m. Pacific, which isn't specifically relevant to the faked | video. But it does make it look like Musk is a loser with no | friends or anything else to do other than work. Loser. | dmbche wrote: | Is what you raise relevant? Is it fine if everybody does it? Is | the leak not real because you found a link to it on an | unimpartial site? | | Edit:spelling | Eisenstein wrote: | I think you meant 'biased' and not 'impartial'. I am not | being pedantic; I don't want your sentence to have the wrong | meaning so I am bringing it to your attention if that is the | case. | dmbche wrote: | Oh no thanks! it was a typo, added un at the begining. | dylan604 wrote: | If you can find the same information to corroborate then no, | but if it's the only source... | | But it is one of those trends that I personally do not like | either where these posts are made like it's a personal | conversation between two girlfriends or whatever. There's | opinion pieces and then there's this kind of I don't even | know what it's called I'm so un-hip | meowkit wrote: | The leak can be real, but the narrative around the leak is | important. | | My read from this link to a story about a story: | | ~1000 crashes related to autopilot reported for the 2.6 | million autopilot enabled vehicles shipped in the reported | time frame. | | .04% total failures. How many of these were user created and | not the fault of the car? How many of the failures from the | car were specific to that cars hardware vs the software? Was | it a Tesla hardware failure or an OEM device failure? | | I'm not gonna do a full analysis, but whenever I re | contextualize myself on car crash statistics I am reminded | that Tesla failures represent an insignificant fraction of | all failures. | zizee wrote: | The report being on a site with a bias does make me want to | read with a more critical eye, as everything is being spun to | look as bad as possible. | | The behaviour described (not wanting anything written) might | very well be standard operating procedure with any company | with decent legal counsel. If it is common behaviour, it is | not some sort of Muskism, part of his evil scheming as is | implied in the article, instead it is a reflection of the | world we live in. | jjulius wrote: | What's stopping you from clicking through to the German source | and reading the English version of their piece? | sandofsky wrote: | When a Toyota hid an "unintended acceleration" bug, it was a | scandal that resulted in a $1.2B fine. | | https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-pay-12b-hiding-deadly-... | iknowstuff wrote: | Every customer complaint about unintended acceleration of | Teslas was proven in court to be the fault of the customer | confusing the pedals. The accelerator pedal has two | independent sensors measuring input - they both have to | agree, and no input on the brake pedal must be detected for | the vehicle to accelerate. | | They go a step further. They use their cameras to detect the | environment and significantly slow down acceleration if they | think it might be a mistake. | dmbche wrote: | Would you have a link to that? I'd be interested to look. | | As a side note, I've never heard of confusing the pedals as | an issue for ANY car, so if Telsa's get people to confuse | them enough to bring them to court, it's probably bad | design. | | Edit: The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration | estimates 16,000 accidents per year in the United States | occur when drivers intend to apply the brake but mistakenly | apply the accelerator.[3] from wikipedia on Sudden | unintended acceleration | | Hard to imagine how you fail to design pedals! | labcomputer wrote: | It was famously a problem for Audi in the 1980's and | almost destroyed the brand. I thought everyone had heard | of that. | | But it is one of the most common if not the most common | cause of unintended acceleration in any car. | | I've even had it happen to me one time. The typical | scenario is that you're traveling at low ("creep") speed | with your foot on (but not pressing) the gas pedal. You | think your foot is on the brake, so you push to slow | down... whoops you're starting to accelerate. | | The probable reason that it happens more often with | Teslas is that they have less lag between pressing the | accelerator and getting juice. So by the time you realize | you messed up, you're already going fast. | | In most gas cars, firmly pressing the accelerator results | in milquetoast acceleration and a lot of noise for a | second while the transmission downshifts and the engine | revs up. In an EV, you just... go. | throwaway894345 wrote: | > As a side note, I've never heard of confusing the | pedals as an issue for ANY car, so if Telsa's get people | to confuse them enough to bring them to court, it's | probably bad design. | | I think this is media bias. The media picks up accidents | involving Teslas far more often than they do other | manufacturers. The national news will even cover Tesla | recalls when it's just an over-the-air software patch | with zero known real-world impact), and similarly despite | that there are ~25K vehicle fires per year, you only see | them in the media when a Tesla is involved. In | particular, confusing pedals is pretty common, | particularly among very old drivers. | 1970-01-01 wrote: | >confusing the pedals as an issue for ANY car, | | I remember NASA thought so. So I just posted it, thanks | for the post idea! | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077149 | keneda7 wrote: | I googled driver confuses pedals and got a ton of | results. Surprisingly it happens pretty often. Makes me a | little nervous. | olyjohn wrote: | It happens all the time. People panic and mash their foot | to the floor. Some old guy crashed into 6 cars down the | street from my work through a parking lot, and jumped his | car across the alley and though the wall of my office | into our break room. He just panicked and thought he was | mashing the brakes. Luckily nobody was in the break room. | bsder wrote: | > As a side note, I've never heard of confusing the | pedals as an issue for ANY car | | Then you haven't been paying attention around the Toyota | acceleration scandal. | | Pedal confusion is remarkably common when you buy a new | car/use a rental (your feet rely on muscle memory), and | it's not uncommon in the elderly. | | Most of the Toyota unintended acceleration fits the | statistical profile of pedal confusion in the elderly. | | However, what Toyota really got whacked for is that when | people pulled their software for audit, the software was | a _disaster_ and didn 't even adhere to basic standards. | At that point, it was cheaper for Toyota to just admit | fault than go through with a whole lot of court cases | that they were likely to lose once a jury got involved. | dmbche wrote: | Oh wow! Thanks for the heads up. | | When skimming about Toyota, I'm getting unsafe floor mats | and sticky pedals as the cause of acceleration, but maybe | I'm not looking hard enough. The other commenter also | brought up that it's a common issue. | | Guess I'm feeling less safe on the road then ever - and | I'll get a manual to boot | jjoonathan wrote: | I've definitely had a few instances (over a few decades | of driving) when I lost confidence in my knowledge of | which pedal was which. Rote knowledge is tricky that way. | Fortunately, I was always able to safely test. I was | never confidently incorrect, but I can see it from here. | It's a scary thought. | servercobra wrote: | I think it's more that if someone does it in a Tesla, it | makes for good headlines and generates clicks, so we hear | about it. Someone in my hometown confused the pedals in | an ICE car a few years ago, made a small blurb in our | tiny newspaper, nowhere else. Same with cars catching on | fire. Happens all the time, but when it happens to a | Tesla, you see it in the national news. | olyjohn wrote: | It was the same with Toyota too. Car and Driver did an | article and summarized the unintended acceleration cases | and it turned out most people were intoxicated. Same thing | with Audi back in the early 90s. People were pressing the | wrong pedals and blaming the car. Audi still lost and | Toyota still lost. | sushid wrote: | Teslas have a problem with phantom braking (e.g. when | there's a dark shadow it fails to detect that it's a shadow | before going from ~70mph to ~55mph). Myself and countless | friends I know have experienced it but that problem has yet | to be solved. | ak217 wrote: | No such thing was proven in court. | | Instead, what was shown in court was that Toyota had a | culture of firmware engineering that produced code | impossible to consistently QC, debug, test or verify. And | as a result, they quietly fired the directors of that | department, rebuilt it from scratch, and replaced every TCU | from that era with a re-engineered unit in a series of | about a dozen recalls spanning a decade and millions of | vehicles. | m463 wrote: | I think you confused toyota with tesla | ak217 wrote: | you're right, thanks for pointing that out... got | confused by another reply in this thread, and whenever I | see "unintended acceleration" I think "toyota" and the | names kinda look alike. Too late to edit my comment. | iknowstuff wrote: | Jalopnik is absolutely garbage "journalism", they have a long | long history of hating on Tesla. | advael wrote: | Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss | | The official policy to deprive customers and victims of | information as much as possible is shocking from the standpoint | of being flagrantly, cynically customer-hostile to the point of | probable illegality, but it's right out of both Musk's normal | playbook and that of his erstwhile colleagues at e.g. Paypal | | For me, cars cross a very key danger threshold, which I express | like this: "I am trusting my life to this device by using it. I | must trust that it will not malfunction". We are in an era where | cars have computer overrides, so that standard needs to be | applied to the security and reliability of the computer inside. | We are also in an era where computers sold by corporate robber- | barons (IE most major corporations) will routinely not merely | malfunction, but explicitly, intentionally betray the interests | of their end-users for increasingly marginal gains for the | company | | Even if you trust the company that sold your car's computer, do | you trust their security? All their employees? When we are | putting computers in devices, like cars, where them operating as | expected is life-or-death, those computers need to be auditable | by independent experts and controllable by the end-user. To be | clear, that unambiguously refers to the person or persons | trusting - with their lives - that car operating safely and | responding to their commands. We need to mandate open-source, | user-owned computers in devices this dangerous, period. | adamwong246 wrote: | "FOSS self-driving cars" is a dream so bold I dare not dream | it. In some other timeline, we have had an "internet of roads" | built on cooperative standards. Instead we have trendy death- | traps that make fart noises sold as status symbols. | canadianfella wrote: | [dead] | [deleted] | 99_00 wrote: | What information is Tesla withholding that they should release | to these customers and do other automakers release this | information to customers? | nickff wrote: | > _" The official policy to deprive customers and victims of | information as much as possible is shocking from the standpoint | of being flagrantly, cynically customer-hostile to the point of | probable illegality, but it's right out of both Musk's normal | playbook and that of his erstwhile colleagues at e.g. Paypal"_ | | It seems like you're holding Tesla to a higher standard than | any other automaker. Which other automakers reveal similar | information willingly? Many (or likely most) other automakers | have made deceptive and/or dangerous products, in just about | every manner imaginable. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_... | | https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/22/12007862/fca-jeep-grand-c... | 99_00 wrote: | It's not even clear to me what information is being withheld. | reaperducer wrote: | _It 's not even clear to me what information is being | withheld._ | | You read the whole 100GB already? I'm impressed with your | speed-reading skills! | mschuster91 wrote: | > It seems like you're holding Tesla to a higher standard | than any other automaker. | | Other automakers don't go and scream around in their | advertising (or in the antics of their founder) to the degree | Tesla does. | astrange wrote: | Tesla doesn't do any advertising. I mean, they have a | website, but you have to go look at it. | nirav72 wrote: | They're about to start an ad campaign. There is a video | of the first TV ad floating around. So remains to be seen | if it changes anything. | robertlagrant wrote: | Therefore they scream in their advertising? It doesn't | remain to be seen if claims about their existing | advertising are nonsense. They are. | JumpinJack_Cash wrote: | They spend all their ad budget for personal Musk | propaganda, which is even more effective considering how | the U.S. is very sensitive to the myth of the 'self made | man who pulled up his own bootstraps' . | robertlagrant wrote: | Therefore they scream in their advertising? | clouddrover wrote: | Here's a Tesla ad: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfMtONBK8dY | threeseed wrote: | We should treat Tesla the same as VW during the emissions | scandal. | | Look forward to a criminal fraud investigation, billions in | fines, Musk resigning etc. | nickff wrote: | Did you look at the diesel emission scandal Wiki page? | Everyone was 'cheating'; VW was a mid-level 'cheater' which | took the brunt of the heat for it. | matthewfcarlson wrote: | > Since 2016, 38 out of 40 diesel cars tested by ADAC | failed a NOx-test.[6] | | Agreed that it seems like everyone at least looked | suspicious. | bb88 wrote: | So you're blaming the regulators here for making an | example of VW? Perhaps that may be valid, but if VW made | the conscious decision to not follow government | regulations, than that's on VW, not the regulators. | | Example making can be rather distasteful, but it can also | be an effective deterrent preventing similar things | happening again. | babypuncher wrote: | VW was made an example of because they were far and away | the biggest diesel passenger vehicle seller in the US. So | even if their cheats weren't as egregious as other | automakers, said cheats had far wider impact on consumers | and the environment. | reaperducer wrote: | _Everyone was 'cheating'; VW was a mid-level 'cheater'_ | | "But, mom! Everyone is doing it!" cried the 12-year-old. | | Two wrongs don't make a right. | robertlagrant wrote: | Being a mid-level cheater but taking all the blame is not | "two wrongs don't make a right" material, unless you are | duty bound to force your ethics choices through the | nearest aphorism. | batman-farts wrote: | I say this as someone still driving a pre-emissions- | control diesel VW: Volkswagen had long been positioning | themselves as the market leader for diesel passenger cars | in the US. Nobody else was doing as much to offer diesels | across their lineup, or push them as the | "green"/economical option. And they have been the biggest | manufacturer in Europe for a long time, so it makes sense | that the EU came down on them like a ton of bricks too. | | There was a period in the early-mid 2000s where their | diesels, along with Mercedes, got pushed out of | California and CARB-compliant states. The opinion among | diesel enthusiasts was that this was intentional on the | part of CARB not just over NOx concerns, but also to help | the market for hybrids grow. Otherwise, given the TDI's | at-the-time superior highway mileage and the then- | prevailing diesel prices, the VW diesel would have | presented as the superior option to the Prius for a lot | of people. | | During this period, there was still a lot of pent-up | demand for the VW and Mercedes diesels in California. Any | car coming from out of state with at least 8,500 miles on | the odometer was considered a "used car" and could be | registered no matter the powerplant, so there was quite a | cottage industry of putting that much mileage on brand- | new out-of-state diesels and then turning them around on | LA or SF Craigslist. The market here was primed to buy | VW, but VW cheated to get in a position to sell new | "CARB-compliant" diesels again. I'm not surprised that | the prosecutors went after them disproportionately. | naikrovek wrote: | are you deciding that this is acceptable based on an | assumption that it is commonplace? | | because it sure reads like this is exactly what your view. | | it doesn't matter if there's a double standard, it's bad | behavior no matter what the rules are for everyone else. and | _if_ there is a double standard then that is something else | that needs addressing. a double standard does not diminish | the severity of these documents. | ilyt wrote: | > Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss | | "girlboss" ? Care to elaborate ? I don't exactly know what you | mean here | tudorw wrote: | I prefer the bus or a walk anyway, who wants to spend time on | silly smelly cars anyway? it's so 1990's | garbagecoder wrote: | [flagged] | geraldwhen wrote: | [flagged] | [deleted] | devindotcom wrote: | >Gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss | | girlboss...? | theodric wrote: | It's...a thing. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gaslight- | gatekeep-girlboss | orpheansodality wrote: | why is it being applied to a tesla whistleblower post | though | birdyrooster wrote: | Because Tesla is femme and they are respecting its | gender. | input_sh wrote: | It's being applied to Tesla's behaviour, not | whistleblower's. | | As in Tesla's official policy is to gaslight you and | gatekeep the information. | [deleted] | eterevsky wrote: | When a manufacturer is selling millions of cars, I think it's | better to judge their safety using statistics rather than some | qualitative reasoning. | | Are Teslas measurably less safe than other cars? I.e. is the | accident probability per km driven on a Tesla higher than on | another car? I haven't seen any data suggesting that, but I'm | happy to be corrected. | forty wrote: | The number of accident might be lower (no idea) but still, If | I'm responsible of killing/injuring someone with my car, I'll | pay the consequences. If Tesla is responsible of | killing/injuring someone with their car (when they drive | through the autopilot), they must also pay the price | (probably damages or jail depending of the situation). | tomp wrote: | That is not how the real world works. | | If a car kills someone (e.g. it explodes, or burns down, or | brakes fail) but the manufacturer took all legally required | precautions & followed all the rules & regulations, then | they're not legally on the hook. It was "an accident". | rafale wrote: | Queue in the Ford Pinto controversy: | https://youtu.be/jltnBOrCB7I | ajross wrote: | How is that any different from any other product from any | other manufacturer, though? Tort law has a thousand year | history in our culture. Is there something specific about | Tesla that needs something new? | | I mean, what you say is sorta specious. Of course that's | true, it's always true. The interesting question is "are | the cars dangerous?". And the answer seems to be a pretty | emphatic no, at this point. So instead everyone wants to | argue about abstractions ("they're still liable") or | absolutisms ("no failure is acceptable"). | | And that seems increasingly counterproductive, and frankly | to have more to do with the somewhat questionable mental | stability of the CEO than to the behavior of the actual | products. | Spooky23 wrote: | * * * | ilyt wrote: | Well, it is a bit different. FSD theoretically can get | driver into bad situation, then beep at them "I can't | handle that", and as long as beeping was early enough | that's no fault of Tesla even if the start of the event | chain was caused by it. | | Also Full Self Driving is extremely deceptive name for | feature that does not do that | hammock wrote: | >When a manufacturer is selling millions of cars, I think | it's better to judge their safety using statistics rather | than some qualitative reasoning. | | Why do you think that? If we used statistics to guide | criminal justice policy we'd be in big trouble | Spooky23 wrote: | * * * | ajross wrote: | > If we used statistics to guide criminal justice policy | we'd be in big trouble | | Uh... we do use statistics to guide criminal justice | policy? Not sure I understand what you're saying. How do | you think they decide where to police and what to | prosecute? How they decide on legislative penalties? It's | true that this process isn't necessarily 100% data based, | and in a bunch of ways ends up very unfair, but it's | absolutely driven by a mostly-sincere attempt to get the | most social good out of our limited enforcement and | regulatory budgets. | avereveard wrote: | Tela insurance is way more expensive than other cars. | browningstreet wrote: | I paid $129/mo for insurance ($500 deductible) on a Toyota | Highlander. It went up to $179/mo for a Tesla Model Y with | the same insurer, and when I switched to Tesla for | insurance it went down to $124-144/mo (dynamic pricing, | $1000 deductible). | ericd wrote: | This hasn't been my experience. | Prickle wrote: | To my understanding, that is because Tesla car replacement | parts are hideously expensive. Not because they are unsafe. | panarky wrote: | If they don't cause many collisions, the cost of | replacement parts isn't significant. | ou8_1_2 wrote: | Tell that to all the Hyundai/Kia owners whose cars are | just spontaneously getting damaged while sitting parked. | ;) | HeWhoLurksLate wrote: | But they are _when they get involved_ - the odds of | getting into a crash with a Tesla goes up _significantly_ | when you happen to be inside of it all the time. | | Insurance covers risk. More cost exposure, more cost gets | passed on to the customer | ohgodplsno wrote: | Since Tesla works really hard to hide who is responsible in | case of an Autopilot crash, witholds and deletes information | as well as deny any responsibility anyways, being just as | good as a human driver isn't nearly enough. | | Additionally, there's no data because Tesla releases nothing | except heavily doctored numbers meant to make them look good. | (To Tesla, a crash means airbag deployed. Sorry, random | person that got ran over and killed, but you're out of | Tesla's statistics) | | You can count on Tesla for one thing, and that is to lie. | hammock wrote: | [flagged] | liendolucas wrote: | I'll go a bit further... Do we really need computers on four | wheels? Can't we just have simple electric vehicles without all | the high-tech? No distracting screens, no computer for other | than just governing the electric engine, no fancy car locks, | and so on. | | I don't understand why we need to put so much technology in a | vehicle. Honestly, it seems to me that is absolutely | unnecessary tech, ridiculous. | | I'd like to have a vehicle like the ones 15 or 20 years ago but | electric: analog indicators, physical buttons, etc. And a car | that you can actually REPAIR by yourself without having to be | an electronic engineer or something alike. | | There was a post about someone that owned a Tesla car and | managed to repair it (if I recall it correctly) for under 500 | bucks when Tesla was trying to charge above 10000 USD. | | All this high-tech also means that we're doomed and at the | mercy of car companies for any kind of maintenance. It seems | that we're heading to the same dead end as with mobile phone | industry: zero control over them. | | If that's the bright future that awaits us, I'll take public | transport as much as I can. | the_pwner224 wrote: | > Can't we just have simple electric vehicles without all the | high-tech? | | No, because ~nobody would buy them. | | > I don't understand why we need to put so much technology in | a vehicle. | | Because 99% of people want it. Not everyone wants everything, | buy each group of people wants some features and the end | result is that you have to stuff your car full of tech to be | competitive in the modern car market. | | And this isn't an EV thing. The tech is going into all the | ICE vehicles too. Tesla is the exception, they put huge | screens into cars well before everyone else and they happen | to be an EV company. But normal manufacturers are mostly | putting similar tech in their ICEs and EVs. | micromacrofoot wrote: | I'll do one further: most of us shouldn't have to drive cars | at all every day, we're just enabling dependency on the | robber-barrons that create them - our entire country has been | built to be reliant on the auto industry, it's practically a | hostage situation and most of us have stockholm syndrome | ilyt wrote: | In cities for sure but even if you make cities be | pedestrian friendly anyone outside of them still needs them | carstenhag wrote: | Yes, it is necessary. People want it. I want to be able to | connect my phone to the car. To be able to use a navigation | app. I'm not going back to reading maps (also, I never | started). | ilyt wrote: | > I'll go a bit further... Do we really need computers on | four wheels? Can't we just have simple electric vehicles | without all the high-tech? No distracting screens, no | computer for other than just governing the electric engine, | no fancy car locks, and so on. | | I'd love to, the problem is it would get some pitifully low | NCAP rating (because lack of active securities would bring | the score down and I remember it is && deal, so car can have | excellent crash safety yet still get low stars coz of lack of | the electronic toys), and manufacturers want to sell as much | gadgets as possible, because every few bucks of extra | electronics is every few dozen bucks they can charge customer | for. | | The other problem I think is that the "fancy annoying | electronics" are probably not that big part of the price of | the car. Add chassis, battery, heating/cooling system for the | car and all the mechanics and you already arrived at most of | the car's production price. | | Like, even if you add $500 of the compute (amounting to mid- | high range GPU) and $500 on ruggedizing it for car work... | extra $1000 worth in electronics isn't all that much of car | price. | | I for one am keeping my 8th gen Civic Type-R for as long as | possible, got ABS, airbags, even some traction control but | none of the annoyances of modern cars. All I want from new | car is android auto... | vinyl7 wrote: | Its not good enough to just sell a product. You have to sell | a life style, an ecosystem, subscriptions and upgrades. | Selling a simple product was a pre-WEF phenomenon | api wrote: | I have a Nissan Leaf and it strikes a nice balance. The | adaptive lane following cruise is the most high tech thing it | has but it works very well and disengages when it's out of | its parameters. The rest of the car is a standard car that is | just reliable. | | Take that car and update the battery and fast charge system | and add some more range and it'd be perfect. | | There's a few newer EVs that look light on the cloud | connected computer shit they are also worth checking out. | inconceivable wrote: | you could buy a used car and convert it to EV. | | that 1. removes an ICE off the road 2. saves on new mfr costs | and 3. is a worthy hacker endeavour and/or 4. supports a | local business | | of course if you simply hate cars and want everyone to ride | the train or bikes you'll find a million reasons to not do | this. good luck with that. | carstenhag wrote: | Not really. It's a very manual task. Can only be scaled if | you ship thousand units of the same model to a single | factory. Compatibility has to be evaluated per model. | Structural integrity has to be preserved, batteries are | usually located at different spots than motors are. | | Of course you can say "here are 4 pros - if you say | anything bad you want the world to suffer from cars" but | you know that this is not how we can get to a solution. | Spooky23 wrote: | Environmental action is based on who's paying the bills. It | often doesn't make sense. | | Case in point: | | At a time where Manhattan commercial real estate is about | to implode and traffic is at a nadir, there's a major push | to kill driving in NYC to pay for overpriced mass transit. | Instead of investing in electric vehicle infrastructure, | we're investing in destruction of lots of businesses (like | nationally prominent hospitals). | throwaway2214 wrote: | [flagged] | Finnucane wrote: | We don't trust the drum on the washing machine. That's why | organizations like Underwriters Laboratory exist. | stonogo wrote: | The drum on my washing machine is approved by Underwriters | Laboratory and regulated by ADA requirements. The bridge I | walk on was designed by a licensed professional engineer. | Software is just about the only profession left with | absolutely no accountability to anyone. | advael wrote: | Bullshit, full stop. | | We live in a society with deep dependency chains on | technology we can't possibly understand as individuals, that | much is true | | But all of those technologies are subject to independent | auditing and regulation to make up for that lack of | verifiability on an individual level. It is technologically | feasible to apply that kind of standard to computer | technologies, and in fact I would argue that it's much easier | than it is for a lot of other kinds of technology we rely on. | That our willingness at a political level to do so is lacking | is a corruption issue, not a feasibility one. | throwaway2214 wrote: | why do you think if we can not understand the dependency | chain, the regulators and the auditors can? | vikramkr wrote: | Because we don't have the time needed to do the audit nor | necessarily the access, while auditors and regulators | have both because of legal backing and the fact that it's | their full time job | advael wrote: | The entire point of an independent audit is to throw an | expert at the technologies in question at the point of | the supply chain they are tasked with auditing in order | to better understand it than a layperson could and make | an assessment that provides the public with the benefit | of their expertise. Not everyone can be an expert on | everything, but experts can check each other's work and | report on it publicly. | jacquesm wrote: | The bigger problem is that I am trusting my life to _you_ using | it. This goes way beyond defective product and normal risk, the | fact that these things happen endangers everybody on the road, | not just those that decided to throw in their lot with Tesla. | jjoonathan wrote: | Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver. There | are loads of bad human drivers on the road. Someone has to be | liable, but I don't really care if it falls to Musk or a Musk | simp. I _do_ care if we kick yet another key technology out | of the US only to have to rent it back years later when | someone else picks up the torch. Let 's not do that. | harles wrote: | > Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver. | | Genuine question: what evidence is there of this? | birdyrooster wrote: | I think Elon has a jump cut video of it somewhere | [deleted] | ilyt wrote: | I mean I'd imagine the evidence being pretty simple, put | someone that can't drive behind the wheel, boom, worse | than tesla | stilist wrote: | _Is_ it actually better than a bad human driver? (And | what's your metric for 'bad' -- tired, drunk, distracted, a | teenager who just got their license but didn't actually | practice enough?) Because I've watched enough videos of | people having to quickly override Full Self-Driving in | ordinary situations that I'm really skeptical that it's | better than most drivers. I'd be willing to say that in | practice FSD usage is small enough to not be a serious | threat to public safety, but I haven't seen evidence that | it's better than a human. | jjoonathan wrote: | Every time one of these threads come around I search | youtube for a FSD video and qualitatively evaluate what | comes up. | | If you google FSD fail compilation, you'll get a FSD fail | compilation. You can do the same for humans. | runarberg wrote: | I think your parent's question is completely justified by | having anecdotes. They aren't stating a fact, they are | raising doubts of a claim. One does not need scientific | evidence to raise doubts about a claim which it self has | limited--and sometimes no--evidence behind it. Repeated | real world examples are sufficient for such doubts. | | Now if FSD proponents want to stop people from having | doubts, they need to run several experiments in very | diverse settings (as diverse as real world driving). In | the absence of sufficient evidence, a skeptic is | completely justified. | fathyb wrote: | > Tesla self-driving is better than a bad human driver. | | I have big doubts regarding this claim. I could not find | any source that is not Tesla. | | Given that TFA is about Tesla deceiving and hiding | information from customers, do you have any source that | isn't Tesla or Musk? | squarefoot wrote: | Can you be absolutely certain that self driving can deal | safely with every possible road irregularities, obstacles, | bad, incomplete, damaged or tampered road signs, and other | unpredictable events? Self driving on public roads done | right is damn hard; probably harder than sending a manned | but completely automated spaceship to Mars and back. | jjoonathan wrote: | Yeah, it's a hard problem, but researchers are smart | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRdUjrOnKdw | | and human drivers do not set an infinitely high bar. | vgt wrote: | I am not sure I agree with your assessment. Last time I was | in a FSD Tesla, it repeatedly tried to run red lights and | didn't know how to merge lanes on a freeway... | rickyc091 wrote: | Tesla has four modes of "self driving"--Autopilot, | Enhanced Autopilot, FSD, FSD Beta. | | AP/EAP will run red lights and can't merge lanes on a | freeway. FSD will stop for lights/stop signs, but that's | about it. FSD Beta is what Tesla is typically known for | and what many YouTube videos are showing. FSD Beta will | stop at red lights and merge into freeways. Most people | use FSD interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. | jjoonathan wrote: | I don't own one, but I watch a video on youtube every | time one of these threads comes around and it seems to be | pretty good these days. | | Your examples are bad. People do both of those things all | the time. | plagiarist wrote: | This is delusional. "It's fine because I watched some | videos and some irresponsible people often drive | recklessly anyway." | jjoonathan wrote: | What's more delusional? An extremely high-dimensional | analysis of a ground truth source that I can trust to be | unbiased, if rather noisy? Or an ideologically driven | shitfight between two camps hell-bent on lying with | statistics? I'll leave NHTSA to sort out the latter, and | that fight is definitely the one we want to drive | legislation, but in the mean time the former is all I | have. | | What I _don 't_ do is assume an outcome and then go find | supporting evidence to validate it. It's really easy to | lie to yourself that way, and I've been trying to do it | less. | Spooky23 wrote: | NHSTA is infected by the woke virus. Elon knows what you | need. If your car crashes into a wall or whatever, it's | probably your fault anyway. | birdyrooster wrote: | No, people do not do either of these all of the time... | and neither does the Tesla. They exist in a continuum | between murder-suicide and a lovely cruise along the | coast. The idea here is that we have insufficient data to | see just how flagrant of assholes Tesla FSD users are. | itsoktocry wrote: | > _I watch a video on youtube every time..._ | | survivorship_bias_airplane.jpg | | Access to most of the latest versions of FSD were doled | out on the basis of privilege. What do you think happened | to people who post negative "reviews"? | jjoonathan wrote: | It has been open to the public for 6 months. | | https://electrek.co/2022/11/24/tesla-full-self-driving- | beta-... | panarky wrote: | If I refuse to use a product because I think it's too | dangerous, but I die anyway because of _your_ use of the | dangerous product, does my estate sue you personally for | gross negligence, or must my estate sue the maker of the | product? | | Naturally if my estate sues you personally, your defense | would be that you didn't know the product was dangerous. | Perhaps if the whistleblower's leak is widely publicized, | that would weaken your defense. | | Certainly the leak should weaken the maker's ability to claim | they didn't know. | otterley wrote: | In the U.S., product-liability law allows you to sue the | product's manufacturer (and everyone else in its supply | chain including retailer); you don't have to sue the driver | under some sort of "negligent ownership" theory. | | (IAAL, but this is greatly simplified -- consult a licensed | attorney.) | mattigames wrote: | Except guns of course, because... America. | advael wrote: | Also a very good point, which makes an even stronger case for | throwing the regulatory kitchen sink at this bullshit | abirch wrote: | Unfortunate thing for Tesla is we have the Affective Fallacy | where if we like Tesla we overweight its benefits and underweight | its errors. | IceHegel wrote: | Why precisely makes that a fallacy? | contravariant wrote: | You're presupposing the conclusion. | | If you didn't overemphasize the good parts and downplay the | bad parts you might find out that maybe you shouldn't really | like what Tesla is doing at all, or you'd have a legitimate | reason to like Tesla. | | What you _shouldn 't_ do is overemphasize the good parts so | you can feel better about your decision to like Tesla. Then | your conclusion has been fixed from the start and you're | adjusting the facts to fit to avoid cognitive dissonance. | 1970-01-01 wrote: | What's the name for that fallacy where we do not know what went | right, and we pessimize to assume the worst? I.E. How many | times did Tesla prevent a crash? Assume none? | dmbche wrote: | Don't know that it's a fallacy, it's more that the question | you ask is impossible to answer - it's impossible to have a | number for how many crashes were prevented. But we do have a | number for crashes caused by. So we work off of that - if | Telsa want's to argue they are safer, I'd love for them to | devise some way to prove it, but I can't see that happening. | 1970-01-01 wrote: | Forbes did this with stats. They concluded autopilot was | not causing accidents. | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2020/10/28/new- | te... | sidibe wrote: | It seems like comparing AP to anything but regular cruise | control miles is not very fair. It's pretty bad if it's | not even better at general "highway miles" because people | are least likely to use it at the times that dangerous | like merging onto and off the freeway. | ertian wrote: | You can figure out statistically if Teslas are | systematically avoiding some types of accidents. | m463 wrote: | I think you can still try to be objective. | | For example, I like tesla autopilot 1 (mobileye based) and | found its behavior to be reasonable. I also know its | limitations - it has only one camera - so I don't use it in | edge-case scenarios. | | I think model S display is good for turning settings on and | off, but is bad for controlling any aspect of the car | especially critical ones like headlights, climate control, door | locks and more. | | I think the newer model S/X cars are bad, replacing stalks with | touch controls for the headlights, turn signals, horn and | wipers. They get in the way of good driving. | diebeforei485 wrote: | Can someone link to the source article? It is paywalled | RoyGBivCap wrote: | so? | | They Musk open sourced tesla patents 9 years ago: | https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-y... | throw-4e451c8 wrote: | [flagged] | jacquesm wrote: | But what did you think of the article? | throw-4e451c8 wrote: | I first focused on adding relevant context. Also; not your | monkey. | pc86 wrote: | How is this relevant context? | throw-4e451c8 wrote: | It's a German newspaper that has relatively recently been | caught publishing nonsense about foreign competitors to | German companies. | | See also: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handelsblatt#Anti- | Vaccine_cont... | jyscao wrote: | IMO Tesla would be better if they focused solely on making good | EVs, rather than also trying to become the leader in self- | driving. | | I get that they're trying to create a wider moat against their | competitors, but if their self-driving software are found to have | systematic failure modes in them as these internal docs seem to | suggest, then that could very well do more harm to their | reputation in the long run. | metalliqaz wrote: | It's not just the software. They are trying to make due without | the kind of sensors that are required to properly sense the | immediate environment (LIDAR) | throwaway894345 wrote: | This may surprise, but LIDAR is a very recent innovation and | virtually zero percent of cars (particularly historically) | are LIDAR equipped. Binocular vision has a pretty impressive | track record. | wavefunction wrote: | They decided to forgo LIDAR specifically though, it's not | that it hasn't been out very long and they haven't adopted | it yet. Other car makers have been using it for a while, | just as long as Tesla could have if they truly want to be | cutting edge. | blendo wrote: | I didn't think Tesla used binocular (stereoscope) cameras. | | These comments seem to confirm: | https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/does-tesla-have- | bino... | jonathankoren wrote: | It might also come as a surprise that the the lack of a | LiDAR, and famously disabling the radar directly relates to | Tesla's poor self driving performance compared to the | actual leaders in the area like Waymo and Cruise. | fragmede wrote: | Not with electrical brains, unfortunately. | sushid wrote: | Binocular vision as in human vision? Powered by the human | brain? That's vastly different than binocular vision | powered by Tesla's rudimentary "AI" | threeseed wrote: | Also our binocular vision is movable unlike cars. | | Which is how we determine depth when there is occlusion | ie. we move our head. | asdff wrote: | How expensive is LIDAR even? My xiaomi vacuum has LIDAR. | sidibe wrote: | They were considerably more expensive the first year Tesla | FSD was due to be ready by the end of the year. After that | I guess it was deemed easier to do magic with some low | quality cameras than get certain people to admit they're | wrong and change course. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Eh, Tesla has already shown the world how to make commercially | viable EVs. That's a torch the risk averse legacy auto | manufacturers can take up, now that Tesla has done the | derisking. Now someone needs to prove out self-driving, even at | the risk of some short-term reputational harm. I don't think | people realize the life-saving potential in solving this | problem. | krupan wrote: | You are absolutely right, but Tesla is doing more harm than | good towards making self driving commercially viable. | Repeatedly making bold claims and then failing spectacularly | to back them up is hurting everyone's perceptions big time. | Cruise and Waymo are doing a far better job. | arguoinhio3 wrote: | [dead] | LelouBil wrote: | > I don't think people realize the life-saving potential in | solving this problem. | | They shouldn't be harming lives to pursue this. | [deleted] | virtualritz wrote: | Fair enough. | | But if you think this line of reasoning through, cars | should have never been admitted on the road in the first | place. | | The issue I see is lack of transparency. If the % of | accidents that can be avoided is provably much higher than | those caused by Tesla's self-driving tech, an informed | argument could be made in favor or against. | | But with Tesla withholding the information in the leak | there is just FUD around the whole issue instead of facts. | katbyte wrote: | no, no they shouldn't have. At least not without tesla | taking full accountability and liability for every | accident on autopilot. | | other manufacturers are slowly rolling out more self | driving like tech, AND taking on liability. | TheCaptain4815 wrote: | Elons point on cars being worth 5x as much with self driving | shouldn't be dismissed. If a car that costs $25,000 to | manufacture all of a sudden can be driven 40-50 hours a week | automatically, how much is that car now worth? | | So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors given | teslas enormous valuation. | Finnucane wrote: | Is there a big market for $125,000 cars? Who needs a car 40 | hours a week? | HDThoreaun wrote: | Uber | capableweb wrote: | How many cars does Uber own? I thought they offloaded all | of that pesky "ownership" stuff to their custome.. I mean | drivers / coworkers / employees / collaborating business | owners / freelancers. | manquer wrote: | * * * | contravariant wrote: | 5 people. | rurp wrote: | Elon doesn't actually believe that Tesla cars are about to | quintuple in value now, any more than he did 7+ years ago | when he first started saying it; that's just marketing BS. | | > So I totally disagree on that end, as do most investors | given teslas enormous valuation. | | Yes, and most Gamestop investors think the company is going | to be the next Amazon. Buying a popular meme stock doesn't | make their predictions right. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-05-25 23:00 UTC)