Thoughts on TESLA

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Also, for the people who keep talking about the other products that Tesla has, it seems that they are on the back burner... now the deal where he bought SolarCity seems like a bail out of his cousins... and a waste of billions of dollars...





Tesla Inc’s sudden decision to shutter the bulk of its stores around the world raises a red flag over the future of its solar branch, a declining business it paid $2.6 billion for in a controversial 2016 deal.
​





https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...+/+Top+News)&utm_content=Yahoo+Search+Results
 
oneill225 said:
Side note: lithium battery fires are hard to extinguish.
Click to expand...

Understatement of the year. ---- Hyperbola intended:D
And so much for the environment staying clean.


BTW a 1995 Jaguar XJ6 I had, in any crash the battery is automatically disconnected by an inertia switch.


The first disconnect for the tesla battery is in trunk----- ahem Frunk---the trunk is front of the vehicle sort of like the old beetle's, which usually gets smashed first.

https://jalopnik.com/watch-volunteer-firefighters-in-austria-extinguish-a-fi-1819665352

"Tesla publishes emergency response guides for all of its vehicles to help fire departments properly handle accidents involving the high-voltage cars. In the firefighting section of the Model S guide, the company mentions that—because burning lithium-ion batteries release “toxic vapors” including “sulfuric acid, oxides of carbon, nickel, lithium, copper and cobalt”—responders need to wear self contained breathing apparatuses. The section also mentions that, to extinguish a burning battery, responders have to “use large amounts of water to cool the battery.”"


"The fire fighting - which could only be carried out under severe respiratory protection - was difficult because the vehicle was repeatedly on fire. It was only after cutting the power supply from the high-performance batteries that it was possible to finally fight the fire. Since lithium batteries are used, the manufacturer recommends that the vehicle be parked under “quarantine” for 48 hours, so that no new fire can
break out. "


I added bolding.
 
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Chuckanut said:
For those interested:

https://electrek.co/2019/03/02/tesla-slashes-prices-autopilot-full-self-driving-upgrades/#more-85973
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Table-v6-dear-god-563x1024.png
 
As for the emergency response guides, while the car is nice ball of fire, the first responder (usually the next fearless chap or woman in the next car) is to identify year, model and type of car and consult the guide (where is it?) for the disconnect location.
 
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The possible autopilot (mal)function news keep on coming.
https://electrek.co/2019/03/01/tesla-driver-crash-truck-trailer-autopilot/
"
Earlier today, a Tesla Model 3 owner died in a tragic accident with a semi truck. The Model 3 went under the truck’s trailer resulting “in the roof being sheared off as it passed underneath,” which is known as a “side underride” accident.
The circumstances are extremely similar to the famous 2016 fatal Autopilot crash. The accident is still under investigation and Autopilot hasn’t been ruled out."


It is bit dificult to beleive that an alert driver would drive into the side of tractor trailer.
 
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ls99 said:
The possible autopilot (mal)function news keep on coming.
https://electrek.co/2019/03/01/tesla-driver-crash-truck-trailer-autopilot/
"
Earlier today, a Tesla Model 3 owner died in a tragic accident with a semi truck. The Model 3 went under the truck’s trailer resulting “in the roof being sheared off as it passed underneath,” which is known as a “side underride” accident.
The circumstances are extremely similar to the famous 2016 fatal Autopilot crash. The accident is still under investigation and Autopilot hasn’t been ruled out."

It is bit dificult to beleive that an alert driver would drive into the side of tractor trailer.
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We talked about this earlier, starting with post #2681.

This is an exact duplicate of the 2016 accident when a Tesla Model S went under a semi-trailer, shearing off the roof, and careening down the road for some distance. Eerily, the 2016 accident also happened on a Florida highway, and in clear weather and daylight.

And now, the same thing happened with a Model 3 which is supposed to have better hardware, better software for the autopilot.

Yep. Musk just said it will get a lot better soon, with full self-driving in city streets. More features. Car self-driving in parking lots, the work.

Why don't they keep testing the system against semi-trailers and red fire trucks on highways to make sure it works before moving on to harder tasks of avoiding pedestrians, bicyclists, kids, etc... ?
 
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NW-Bound said:
We talked about this earlier, starting with post #2681.

This is an exact duplicate of the 2016 accident when a Tesla Model S went under a semi-trailer, shearing off the roof, and careening down the road for some distance. Eerily, the 2016 accident also happened on a Florida highway, and in clear weather and daylight.

And now, the same thing happened with a Model 3 which is supposed to have better hardware, better software for the autopilot.

Yep. Musk just said it will get a lot better soon, with full self-driving in city streets. More features. Car self-driving in parking lots, the work.

Why don't they keep testing the system against semi-trailers and red fire trucks on highways to make sure it works before moving on to harder tasks of avoiding pedestrians, bicyclists, kids, etc... ?
Click to expand...

Allow me to play Devil's Advocate, from the Tesla side of things, since I do try to be an equal-opportunity skeptic.

What I'd be be curious to know (and there probably is no data available on this), is how many accidents like this occur in general? Drivers do get distracted, and run into things that were obvious to avoid had they paid attention.

So for me, assuming that Autopilot was engaged, the real question is :

A) Was this 'just' a case of distracted driving that Autopilot failed to alert the driver to? In that case, he would have died with or w/o Autopilot.

or...

B) Was he relying on Autopilot enough to allow himself to be distracted? In this case, Autopilot contributed to the death, though of course the driver should not have relied on it. But if that is happening in reality (and I assume it is to some extent), then that is bad for Tesla.

I do think Musk is way out of line, to the point of gross negligence, with his talking up of the capabilities and future capabilities of Autopilot, and for even naming it "Autopilot". I will be shocked and stunned if he delivers on his promise by end year, and if the regulators haven't approved it yet, I'll accept a reasonable demonstration on a closed area of a city, but with all the real challenges that an SDC could face, in less than ideal conditions.

-ERD50
 
ERD50 said:
Allow me to play Devil's Advocate, from the Tesla side of things, since I do try to be an equal-opportunity skeptic.

What I'd be be curious to know (and there probably is no data available on this), is how many accidents like this occur in general? Drivers do get distracted, and run into things that were obvious to avoid had they paid attention.

So for me, assuming that Autopilot was engaged, the real question is :

A) Was this 'just' a case of distracted driving that Autopilot failed to alert the driver to? In that case, he would have died with or w/o Autopilot.

or...

B) Was he relying on Autopilot enough to allow himself to be distracted? In this case, Autopilot contributed to the death, though of course the driver should not have relied on it. But if that is happening in reality (and I assume it is to some extent), then that is bad for Tesla.

I do think Musk is way out of line, to the point of gross negligence, with his talking up of the capabilities and future capabilities of Autopilot, and for even naming it "Autopilot". I will be shocked and stunned if he delivers on his promise by end year, and if the regulators haven't approved it yet, I'll accept a reasonable demonstration on a closed area of a city, but with all the real challenges that an SDC could face, in less than ideal conditions.

-ERD50
Click to expand...



Until regulators put their foot down, Musk will keep on releasing new features, because of the caveat that is displayed every time the feature is first turned on. That is, no matter what happens, the driver is fully responsible.

If you run down a kid, or a bicyclist, or run into a fire truck, a highway barrier, under a trailer, it's your own fault. That's Tesla's position.

Musk needs this oversold autopilot as a differentiator to distinguish his cars against the competition. Look on the Web, and you will see that the gullible public thinks that Tesla is so advanced because they have already released these features. They are too ignorant to know that the traditional car makers are very conservative, and do not want to release half-baked ideas though they can easily provide the same toy.

Waymo's technology is head-and-shoulder above Tesla's, but it is too expensive to be sold right now. And they test, and test... Of course they have money and resources that Tesla does not have.
 
If people do not believe that other car makers can easily do the same as Tesla's autopilot, consider the following.

The Model S autopilot was done with technology by an outside vendor called MobilEye. MobilEye would sell the system to any car maker. MobilEye was an Israeli company. It has been bought out by Intel.

After the 2016 under-trailer accident, Tesla and MobilEye had a fallout, and Tesla started to build its own autopilot for the Model 3.

From the Web, I read that people who own both the Model S and Model 3 say that it took a while before the Model 3 autopilot got up to the same level as the Model S. And surprisingly, both systems cannot see a trailer on the road!

PS. For more info on MobilEye, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobileye.
 
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ERD50 said:
Yes, we have been over this. Have you been paying attention? How about you provide some comparable data, as was asked at that time?

This is kinda old 2003-2007, but it shows 73% of car fires are due to mechanical/electrical failure or malfunction, another 8% to intentional(!), 3% to collision/overturn, and 5% to exposure to other fire. I guess 12% undetermined?

The point is, this is across all cars on the road. The average age of the car fleet is ~ 12 years, so some significant number are older than that (not exactly half, unless even distribution). . What it the average age of the Tesla fleet? Maybe one year?

Clearly, old cars are going to be more subject to fire, and/or poor maintenance. And the 8% intentional - likely older cars to collect insurance?

So can you find data on fires in cars that are on the road for the same as the Tesla average fleet, let's compare that, shall we?

And perhaps EVs have an advantage over time (but I want to see the data). If those reported mechanical/electrical failures are due to gas leaks, or electrical faults igniting gas in aging cars, then maybe EVs won't exhibit the same rate of aging in their systems. Or maybe they will? I don't think we can say at this point.

https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/...ports/Fact-sheets/vehiclefactsheet.ashx?la=en
Click to expand...

Yes, failures in the fuel lines under the hood are the major source of gasoline/diesel vehicle fires, whether the cause is mechanical or electrical.

And as you note as they age the risk of a failed fuel line only increases for conventional fossil-fuel vehicles.

Some Tesla fires have been from battery packs compromised by road debris...and in those cases the vehicle itself warned the driver of a problem with the battery pack at least several minutes in advance of the fire, unlike under-hood gasoline/diesel fires where the occupants often only have seconds to escape.

There have certainly been Tesla fires from collisions at speeds that compromised the structural integrity of the battery pack, but at such speeds any gasoline/diesel tank would also fail.

But currently the Tesla is a far safer vehicle if you're worried about fires than any gasoline/diesel-fueled vehicle.

Is your argument that 12 years down the road a Tesla (because of the aging of the battery pack) has the same chance of catching on fire?

If so, like you said, we'll just have to wait and see.
 
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ncbill said:
Originally Posted by ERD50 How about you provide some comparable data, as was asked at that time?
Click to expand...
...

But currently the Tesla is a far safer vehicle if you're worried about fires than any gasoline/diesel-fueled vehicle. ...
Click to expand...

And where is your comparable data? Is this mic on? :LOL:


ncbill said:
... Is your argument that 12 years down the road a Tesla (because of the aging of the battery pack) has the same chance of catching on fire?

If so, like you said, we'll just have to wait and see.
Click to expand...

It's possible. Insulation breakdown? Some kind of breakdown within the cells? All impacted by years of mechanical and thermal stress? I dunno.

I agree with you on this one, we will need to wait and see.

-ERD50
 
ERD50 said:
Allow me to play Devil's Advocate, from the Tesla side of things, since I do try to be an equal-opportunity skeptic.

What I'd be be curious to know (and there probably is no data available on this), is how many accidents like this occur in general? Drivers do get distracted, and run into things that were obvious to avoid had they paid attention.

So for me, assuming that Autopilot was engaged, the real question is :

A) Was this 'just' a case of distracted driving that Autopilot failed to alert the driver to? In that case, he would have died with or w/o Autopilot.

or...

B) Was he relying on Autopilot enough to allow himself to be distracted? In this case, Autopilot contributed to the death, though of course the driver should not have relied on it. But if that is happening in reality (and I assume it is to some extent), then that is bad for Tesla.

I do think Musk is way out of line, to the point of gross negligence, with his talking up of the capabilities and future capabilities of Autopilot, and for even naming it "Autopilot". I will be shocked and stunned if he delivers on his promise by end year, and if the regulators haven't approved it yet, I'll accept a reasonable demonstration on a closed area of a city, but with all the real challenges that an SDC could face, in less than ideal conditions.

-ERD50
Click to expand...




It was years ago but I do remember on the news someone who was killed running into the back of a stopped 18 wheeler on the highway... this was way before self driving of any kind... they said he was distracted because he was reading a book at the time he hit the trailer... now, it was not one that went under, but still....


Also, many trailers now have a side guards of some kind on them... did a quick search and found this one... if it were not a problem they would not be doing this...



https://airflowdeflector.com/airflow-2/




Edit to add.... quickly found a number....


According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, approximately 4,000 people have been killed in collisions involving underride between 1994 and 2014. Of that number, around 1,530 were related to side underride crashes.


https://www.trucks.com/2017/05/10/iihs-truck-underride-guards-save-lives/
 
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I'm named for an uncle killed shortly before I was born in a rear under-ride accident pre-1950 when trailers didn't even have the rear low bar extension. A newspaper photo I have of the car post-accident makes clear why his forehead was smashed.
 
gerntz said:
I'm named for an uncle killed shortly before I was born in a rear under-ride accident pre-1950 when trailers didn't even have the rear low bar extension. A newspaper photo I have of the car post-accident makes clear why his forehead was smashed.
Click to expand...



Jane Mansfield was killed in such an accident many years ago.
 
oneill225 said:
Details on the Model Y to be laid-out mid-March:
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-y-unveiling-set-for-march-14/
Looks like it will cost about 10% more than the Model 3 (and it will be about 10% larger).
A Tesla pick-up truck should be unveiled later this year, as well. A lot happening for this company over the next two years.
Click to expand...

Via: https://model3ownersclub.com/threads/model-y-pull-quotes-from-q4-q-a.11099/
Reminder on what was stated already on the Y: "transcript from the Tesla Q4 Q&A and pulled out all the relevant Model Y portions."

Elon Musk on New Products:

“In terms of the new products, with Model Y, we've completed ensuring of end design of Model Y, and the parts are - the tooling is going out for production Model Y. Three quarters [75%] of the Model Y is common with the Model 3, so it's a much lower CapEx per vehicle than Model 3. And the risk is also quite low.
...
I would expect Model Y will probably be - the demand for Model Y will be maybe 50% higher than Model 3, could be even double. The - as I understand it, the midsized SUV segment is the - worldwide is the most popular type of vehicle. So we'll probably see a higher volume of Y than 3.”
...
Elon Musk on where Model Y will be produced:

"As I mentioned earlier, the Model Y, we think, most likely will be produced at Gigafactory, but that's - unless we encounter some obstacle - that's the default plan that we're proceeding towards. And it's fast, low risk and also low CapEx. In terms of the - I mean, probably there's like initial production of Model Y, very low volume, probably next year.

But then it always takes time to ramp up any production system, and that's difficult to predict the shape of that S-curve. So we feel confident in saying there will be production volume of Model Y by the end of next year, but in between beginning of next year with low volume, it always starts with very low growth exponentially - from beginning of last year to end of next year, it's difficult to break that ramp. So that's our expectation for Y."

Manufacturing Efficiency:

Deepak Ahuja, "The other aspect of this, Elon, which we've been doing extremely well, is capital efficiency. We have dramatically cut back on capital expense, and we are spending it in a very efficient manner. We talked about it in the letter on Model 3 and Gigafactory Shanghai. We talked about it for Model Y. There are just so many learnings that we are incorporating, and we just want to beat what we did with Model 3 and the kind of spending we had for the returns we got."

Elon Musk, "Absolutely. I mean, we're confident that our CapEx per unit of production for Shanghai factory and for Model Y will be less than half of what we did for Model 3. Internally, we think it might be a quarter but that's probably too good to believe, but it's definitely less than half."
Click to expand...
 
ERD50 said:
And where is your comparable data? Is this mic on? :LOL:
-ERD50
Click to expand...

As you yourself point out, there's no 12 year old Tesla data available...yet.

But there remains far more potential sources of fire in a fossil-fuel vehicle vs. a Tesla or any EV...e.g. aging fuel lines rupturing on their own, being compromised by mechanical damage from road debris (few ICE vehicle have skid plates), or via an electrical fire in another component under the hood.

And once they're compromised you have fuel at several thousand psi being sprayed all over the engine compartment, something you'd never see with an EV.
 
ncbill said:
As you yourself point out, there's no 12 year old Tesla data available...yet. ...
Click to expand...

I'll say this a bit tongue-in-cheek, but is this the sort of critical thinking we can expect from someone who invests in Tesla? :facepalm:

How about (do I actually have to spell this out? I guess so), comparable date from the fleet gas cars that are the same age as the fleet of Teslas? Then compare based on fires/miles driven of these two comparably aged fleets.


ncbill said:
...

But there remains far more potential sources of fire in a fossil-fuel vehicle vs. a Tesla or any EV...e.g. aging fuel lines rupturing on their own, being compromised by mechanical damage from road debris (few ICE vehicle have skid plates), or via an electrical fire in another component under the hood.

And once they're compromised you have fuel at several thousand psi being sprayed all over the engine compartment, something you'd never see with an EV.
Click to expand...

And a Tesla has far more surface area exposed. The only way to know how these potential problems play out in real life is to obtain real data on comparably aged vehicles.

As I've said, I'm not making a claim on this one way or the other, because I don't have the data. It's only on observation on my part, that with all that battery pack area that close to the ground, that I don't consider it a slam-dunk that a Tesla will experience fewer fires than a gas car. But I also don't rule it out. If you want to claim Teslas will experience fewer fires, you need to present the data to be taken seriously.

-ERD50
 
eroscott said:
Via: https://model3ownersclub.com/threads/model-y-pull-quotes-from-q4-q-a.11099/
Reminder on what was stated already on the Y: "transcript from the Tesla Q4 Q&A and pulled out all the relevant Model Y portions."
Click to expand...

So Musk is predicting Model Y volume by EOY 2020?

“This year we will start tooling for Model Y to achieve volume production by the end of 2020, most likely at Gigafactory 1.”​

Ramp up should be far less challenging, but has Musk ever met any prediction (10,000 Model 3s a week?)? So we are likely into 2021 for full production volumes of M-Y.

And this is to sell so much better (even though it is more expensive than M-3?), because people really want SUV/Crossovers?

I find it interesting that Musk is seen as such a visionary, but then why didn't they produce a SUV/Crossover before the M-3? That matches Musk's plan to move down the price point as batteries and their manufacturing costs become more affordable. Why wasn't the M-Y out 3 years earlier? Build that supposedly higher demand, and higher price point vehicle, with higher margins until you can do the promised $35,000 EV.

Did Musk (gasp!) make a huge mistake?

-ERD50
 
Market Shift Happening

The shift to EV has begun in earnest, thanks to Tesla. Internal combustion engines just cannot compete.

https://insideevs.com/automotive-industry-paradigm-shift-evs/

From the article:

"According to Wall Street Journal’s automotive columnist Dan Neil, electric vehicles 'are such better machines than the machines they’re replacing,' that consumers could elect to retire their gas guzzlers long before the end of the vehicles’ useful lives. 'Just like plasma TVs… A lot of plasma TVs didn’t see the useful end of their lives before they were replaced by much cheaper, but also much better, LCD screens'."
 
oneill225 said:
The shift to EV has begun in earnest, thanks to Tesla. Internal combustion engines just cannot compete.

https://insideevs.com/automotive-industry-paradigm-shift-evs/

From the article:

"According to Wall Street Journal’s automotive columnist Dan Neil, electric vehicles 'are such better machines than the machines they’re replacing,' that consumers could elect to retire their gas guzzlers long before the end of the vehicles’ useful lives. 'Just like plasma TVs… A lot of plasma TVs didn’t see the useful end of their lives before they were replaced by much cheaper, but also much better, LCD screens'."
Click to expand...

" Dan Neil" comments, posted by forum member "oneill225"? Coincidence? :LOL:

Hey, you "forgot" to post other quotes in that same article!

From the SAME article:

"Bill Visnic, editorial director at the Society of Automotive Engineers is less optimistic. He predicts gas and diesel-powered “combustion engines really aren’t going anywhere for quite some time.”

Mary Nichols, who heads the California Air Resources Board, agrees that internal combustion engines aren’t going away anytime soon. "

-ERD50
 
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