Tesla test drive

[Undertoad]

My boss took delivery of a Tesla Model X over the weekend and today he let us take it out.

0-60 in 3.2 MPH fuck yeah, and fuck yeah the boss let us put our foot in it. It's like... shot out of a rail gun. It's cray. And there's no throttle delay, it just takes the fuck off. It's a wild feeling and causes you to say fuck a lot.

Automatic driving - on the highway, take your hands off the wheel and your foot off the pedals. It knows. It's got this. Want to switch lanes, hit the lane switch stalk. A really wild introduction to self-driving cars. I couldn't handle it, I grabbed the wheel and took back over. That's fine too, it lets you do that.

Regenerative braking - take your foot off the gas and you feel the car saving the energy.

Double-hinged falcon wing back doors... a center screen bigger than an iPad and ready to roll Google Maps... you don't have to close the door when you leave it, it takes care of that...

It was like visiting the future. I can't wait for the 2027 Ford Focus to offer this shit!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Regenerative braking - take your foot off the gas and you feel the car saving the energy.

Do you mean when you put your foot on the brake, or does it brake automatically when you lift your foot off the gas(electric)?

Acceleration will always be good because electric motors have full torque at zero rpm.

[Undertoad]

B - you take your foot off the pedal and immediately you feel a change, as if you're braking; Tesla says

Due to the simplicity of the AC induction motor’s single moving part, the Tesla Roadster does not experience the engine compression braking of a traditional internal combustion engine (ICE). Instead, the advanced algorithms in the motor controller give it complete control of the motor torque for both driving and regenerative braking. A torque command is derived from the position of the throttle pedal. The motor controller converts this torque command into the appropriate 3-phase voltage and current waveforms to produce the commanded torque in the motor in the most efficient way. The torque command can be positive or negative. When the torque serves to slow the vehicle then energy is returned to the battery and presto - we have regenerative braking!

The thing also has regular brakes but you hardly have to use them. You can slow down just with the "gas" pedal (now the "torque command" pedal I guess) and throw all that energy back into the battery!

[xoxoxoBruce]

OK, they've eliminated freewheeling in favor of regeneration.
I hope these bells and whistles like lane changing, and hands free, improve faster than the other things create more inattention.

[Griff]

I love these things but my gut says be nervous about ubiquitous hackable electronics.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Griff

I love these things but my gut says be nervous about ubiquitous hackable electronics.

Me too. Almost word for word.

I'm almost 50 and according to the rules, it's almost time for me to start fearing change and new technologies. And those teenagers over there.

Tesla is not Detroit. Tesla has smart people working there, so if anyone can pull this stuff off, it's them. But still. I'd like to be able to take control of my car if it starts behaving strangely.

We've discussed this when there were those sudden uncontrollable vehicle accelerations in the news a few years ago. Turns out the gas pedal and gear shift are no longer manually connected to the car. They are just switches and are only massive to make it feel like they are connected to something. But they are switches that connect to the computer. That Jeep that was hacked a couple years ago and shut down on the highway shows that Detroit doesn't really understand electronics and software. My cousin's fucking Ford won't start because the car doesn't recognise the chip in the key. A key that will open the doors and will turn in the ignition. (I still need to get that fixed.)

But Elon Musk is different. I'm hoping he is our savior. I know he values intelligence and innovation, and he's perfecting so many different new things. I hope Tesla can pull this off.

[Undertoad]

We've discussed this when there were those sudden uncontrollable vehicle accelerations in the news a few years ago

Did we? Because IMO every time it's investigated it turns out to be pedal misapplication, like the original Audi story

and that turns out to be fixed by taking the decision-making process out of the hands of humans.

About 35000 dead every year from accidents, mostly human error... the only question is can the cars do better...

Because the thing is, the car was driving better than I was, when I took it over... I increased the chances of an incident by insisting on driving... I am more susceptible to mistakes than the Tesla, which so far hasn't made any...

[glatt]

My recollection was that the majority of the time it was blamed on mixing up the brake and gas pedal, but that there were a few troubling cases that still didn't fit that explanation.

We discussed it in this thread and there was never a link to a final official report, but Flint said he heard on the radio that 74 of 75 Toyota cases were blamed on driver error.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

About 35000 dead every year from accidents, mostly human error... the only question is can the cars do better...

I think the answer is YES. Cars can do better. Absolutely.

For a time, anyway. What happens when the car ages and the systems fail?

Ford Motor Company is recalling 746,842 ... vehicles ....

The coating on portions of the Restraint Control Module (RCM) may crack, and when exposed to humidity, circuits on the printed circuit board may short. The short circuits could cause the frontal air bags, side curtain air bags and the seat belt pretensioners to malfunction when needed, increasing the risk of occupant injury in the event of a crash.

Once the cars drive themselves, the Autonomous Drive Control Module circuit board may also suffer from a cracked coating and moisture infiltration after a few years of use may cause shorts. What if the first sign of such a problem is the car suddenly swerving off the road?

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by glatt

What if the first sign of such a problem is the car suddenly swerving off the road?

Or the Collision Avoidance System slams on the brakes at 80 mph in interstate traffic?

I don't like automatic stuff. Not on my computer. Not on my car. And not on my car's computer.

[Undertoad]

Those are problems you thought of off the top of your head, so those are the first things the engineers considered, ten years ago, and already have a strategy for!

The actual problems will be things we couldn't imagine. Unique failures that were unpredictable.

I don't like automatic stuff. Not on my computer.

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services

(Do not change all those "Automatic" things to "Manual". It will break your system.)

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Those are problems you thought of off the top of your head, so those are the first things the engineers considered, ten years ago, and already have a strategy for!

So, what are those strategies to keep those electronic doodads from shorting out and surprisebuttsecksing us to death on the freeway? I haven't heard anything about safeguards on any of this automatic stuff. Like you, I'm sure they're there, but, I just haven't heard about them.

I'll bet that one of those strategies is to charge multiples of what a car is actually worth so they have money to pay off the lawsuits, when this automated shit hits the fan later.

[glatt]

I see in my Facebook feed that Google has applied for a patent to squirt sticky foam out upon impact with a pedestrian to glue the pedestrian to the car so they won't ricochet around the place.

So I'll accept UT's statement that the engineers are thinking about all sorts of different solutions to stuff I haven't even considered.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes.

[glatt]

Not just applied, it seems, but issued a patent. That sucker was granted.