Electric Vehicle Thread!

Just saw an ad for Dodge Ram pickup trucks during an American football game broadcast. Not EV pickups.

The tag like says Built for Tailgating.

That’s all you need to know bout how pickups are used in the US.

No need to tow anything, just throw the coolers with beers and a small barbecue grill in the back.
 
Well, Elon Musk personally asked one of his Tesla sales advisors to delay my Model Y order until the back half of October, mostly because he hates me. That, or it's just the usual order delays I suppose.

Anyway I changed the order a while back to the performance version rather than the long range, after discovering it's all the same truck except the performance model comes with way heavier / larger wheels, lower riding suspension and some pretty-bits glued on (spoiler, fancy pedal covers, etc.) I wanted the faster model, and it's also way faster to get delivered, and (at this time) all the performance models for US orders come from the Fremont factory so they get the updated headlight assemblies, updated interior door cards and a high probability of the new integrated cargo cover.

I also bought a set of aftermarket forged 18" wheels that fit over the MYP brakes along with a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 4's, Reverting back to the smaller and much lighter wheel and tire set should give me back (most of) the lost range from the yuuuuuuuge 21" OE performance wheels versus what the long range model can do.
 
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Lowest price Model Y starts at almost $67k.

I think before the pandemic it was under $50k the starting price.
 
wco81 said:
Lowest price Model Y starts at almost $67k.

I think before the pandemic it was under $50k the starting price.
Click to expand...
That’s surprising: starting price in France still is 50k Euros and that includes 20% tax, and Euro is very low against dollar.
www.tesla.com

Configurez votre Model Y | Tesla

Configurez et commandez votre Tesla Model Y, la voiture du futur.
www.tesla.com www.tesla.com

Edit: this seems to include a 2k rebate. But that’s still not as high as you wrote.
 
Maybe a different configuration.

I heard that in the past, you could dig and find something like standard range version of a Model 3 or Y which would cost less than the Long Range or Performance versions they put up front.
 
Paywalled article but the headline is provocative or at least the alert I got was, calling SDC a "big bust."


$100 billion and apparently not enough progress.

Wow, wouldn't have guessed that much money has been spent. Google has been doing it the longest? Presumably most or all of Uber's funding is from the people who pay for the FSD.
 
I click that link and it shows this title and byline.

Even After $100 Billion, Self-Driving Cars Are Going Nowhere​

They were supposed to be the future. But prominent detractors—including Anthony Levandowski, who pioneered the industry—are getting louder as the losses get bigger.
By
Max Chafkin
October 5, 2022, 9:01 PM PDT
Click to expand...
 
I can't read the article either; I think we need a new thread for discussing self-driving cars unrelated to EV things. I have several opinions in this space, however I'm not really sure if this is the thread to have a good lengthy discussion about it. In theory, there's no reason self driving is or should be limited to just EV's.
 
Albuquerque said:
I can't read the article either; I think we need a new thread for discussing self-driving cars unrelated to EV things. I have several opinions in this space, however I'm not really sure if this is the thread to have a good lengthy discussion about it. In theory, there's no reason self driving is or should be limited to just EV's.
Click to expand...
Economics. It just costs way too much to put in an ICE vehicle.

The great challenges you’ll have here outside the simplicity of controlling an electric motor is that you physically have to have actuators to control the throttle, and you need an enormous amount of power to deal with the self driving aspect. EVs already have a ton of battery to support self driving hardware and cameras but ICE vehicles do not.

So to support it; in additional to building the power sources that need charging thus increasing weight and more space. you’ll need to create the computer controlled hardware yo manipulate the throttle thus more hardware and space and more things that can break, and you’ve got to build an all new machine learning model for it.

Tldr; just not economically feasible.
 
I believe Waymo is still using a lot of ICE cars for their fleet.

It's only been in the last couple of years that EVs other than Teslas have become more readily available.

As a test bed, they just mount the suite of sensors on a regular car to collect data as much as anything else.

But the economics of the car industry are all moving towards EV so manufacturers may not want to tie their SDC platform to an ICE platform which may have a relatively short life.
 
iroboto said:
Economics. It just costs way too much to put in an ICE vehicle.

The great challenges you’ll have here outside the simplicity of controlling an electric motor is that you physically have to have actuators to control the throttle, and you need an enormous amount of power to deal with the self driving aspect. EVs already have a ton of battery to support self driving hardware and cameras but ICE vehicles do not.

So to support it; in additional to building the power sources that need charging thus increasing weight and more space. you’ll need to create the computer controlled hardware yo manipulate the throttle thus more hardware and space and more things that can break, and you’ve got to build an all new machine learning model for it.

Tldr; just not economically feasible.
Click to expand...
Many new ICE cars have tons of cameras and sensors and many self driving aspects (self parking, lane departure, ped collision). I don't think there's a significant technological barrier.
 
iroboto said:
Economics. It just costs way too much to put in an ICE vehicle.

The great challenges you’ll have here outside the simplicity of controlling an electric motor is that you physically have to have actuators to control the throttle, and you need an enormous amount of power to deal with the self driving aspect. EVs already have a ton of battery to support self driving hardware and cameras but ICE vehicles do not.

So to support it; in additional to building the power sources that need charging thus increasing weight and more space. you’ll need to create the computer controlled hardware yo manipulate the throttle thus more hardware and space and more things that can break, and you’ve got to build an all new machine learning model for it.

Tldr; just not economically feasible.
Click to expand...

Much of that already exists for ICE vehicles. Cruise control can not only control the throttle but the gear shifts in a vehicle as well. While they aren't designed to get a vehicle moving from a dead stop, there's no reason they couldn't have that capability as well with relatively small changes to the code governing that behavior in modern vehicles.

For example, self parking systems are basically getting the car going from a stop to a low speed.

Braking is similar as there already exists systems to actuate the vehicles brakes not only prevent the vehicle from running into a barrier or obstacle (self parking systems use it) but also for vehicles with a system to keep your vehicle a certain distance from a vehicle in front.

Some even have lane recognition software that can warn you if you are about to leave a lane.

Even self steering systems are in place in vehicles with automated parking systems.

Obviously the software that drives all of this isn't as robust or extensive as a self driving car, but the mechanical pieces do exist for it. You don't even need extensive batteries as the alternator can provide more than enough electricity to power the necessary computer for it. We regularly run a laptop which can draw in excess of 50 watts off an inverter plugged into the cigarette lighter ... er car power port. I still think of those as receptacles for cigarette lighters. :p

Regards,
SB
 
AlphaWolf said:
Many new ICE cars have tons of cameras and sensors and many self driving aspects (self parking, lane departure, ped collision). I don't think there's a significant technological barrier.
Click to expand...
I think it's very different running a nvidia GPU full time on end, then just running it for a couple simpler items.

You can bolt on self driving, that doesn't mean it's a good fit economically for it to be widespread among ICE vehicles. Trucks, sure. Lots of room there to support that type of thing. A mini cooper, Corolla, or Civic? These things get harder to do.
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Obviously the software that drives all of this isn't as robust or extensive as a self driving car, but the mechanical pieces do exist for it. You don't even need extensive batteries as the alternator can provide more than enough electricity to power the necessary computer for it. We regularly run a laptop which can draw in excess of 50 watts off an inverter plugged into the cigarette lighter ... er car power port. I still think of those as receptacles for cigarette lighters. :p
Click to expand...
I would disagree, because the alternator would not provide enough consistent power regulation compared to a battery. We're talking about running a nvidia gpu right? https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2022/09/20/drive-thor they are going to be up to 2000 TFlops of self driving power in 2025. This isn't running some 20W card. If we use the alternator, your alternator has to be able to provide consistent power from stand still to highway speeds while still powering your auto, audio and air conditioning systems for up to hours at a time. Full self driving matters most when you have to do road driving and stopping for lights and avoid pedestrians. Limiting it to highway lane control is barely scratching the surface of what full self driving would require. I don't think the technology is there honestly. By 2025 we're going to be closer. But I think ICE vehicles will have challenges with the power component.

I totally think there would be self driving cars on ICE, the fact that there hasn't been, and we've only seen it on EVs and Hybrids sorta of shows that it's probably not economically feasible (there are exceptions in the luxury market). There isn't some agenda here to keep self driving on EV cars only. It's just simpler and therefore cheaper for EVs to run self driving systems. Otherwise we would see it everywhere. Nvidia has been doing this a long time.

Self driving alone is already an expensive feature. it's not cheap for the hardware. It is very much at this point in time a luxury feature, bolting it onto ICE will cost more than bolting it onto EV. That's my TLDR.
 
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