Not so great news for Tesla

[Gomev]

This might be an interesting watch maybe in 30 min chapters over the next week or so, quite a detailed exposure of the real Elon Musk ....... The master of fluff, total B/S and the Con game if you believe what is in the You Tube movie length doco

T1 Terry

I think I can guess from the clickybaity title which way that's going to go.

 

[NikLiverpool]

Problem with Tesla at the moment is the lack of variety. Not everybody wants either a saloon or an SUV.
Software they are great. Batteries they are falling behind. While the majority of batteries are from third parties they are not moving quick enough on charging speeds and there is no indication that Tesla is actively looking into solid state ones.
Lastly, the quality of the cars is decent. Just this. Price wise only the new standard versions reflect their real value. The rest are massively overpriced.
Oh, and the change with FSD and removal of autopilot as a free feature will piss a lot of customers off.

As for the robots think of the elderly. We have a massive elderly care issue. I for one would welcome a robot which would help and assist me in my later years.

 

[Gomev]

People wanted better cars and EVs are better cars for most people. The key isn't the EV bit per se, it is what it does for the cost of ownership and the driving experience.

Musk didn't come up with the idea, it was around for decades as we saw with GM's EV1 in the 90s, but the technology wasn't ready. Interestingly, he didn't found Tesla, he bought into it early on.

Now you can say:

- People don't want their cars taken away but they do want the option to be self-driven or not to own a car in a city where self-driving taxis are ubiquitous.

- People don't want a robot in the home but they do want the chores done for them.

We'll see if he is right!

Once again whilst I agree people just wanted better cars but how did we know that EVs were better then? I think that makes the EV part very relevant as the only real change to the car from others available, same as now, is that the drive train is different.
So at that time all cars of whatever power source could get better and have, it was the change to EV that made the difference. There was no charging infrastructure to speak of so making it harder to want or even think this would be the future for the masses and not just a toy for the rich few. At the time I was fascinated and it's only really with hindsight you see this as a scalable development.

 

[tsedge]

As for the robots think of the elderly. We have a massive elderly care issue. I for one would welcome a robot which would help and assist me in my later years.

Would you really rather have a robot than a human? I'd prefer the human every time. Now if the only option is a robot that's different.... but then we should be asking do we really want a society where the caring isn't done by human beings?

The techno-utopians say "yes" or at least "if I don't do it someone else will", but that doesn't mean we should let everything they want to do come to pass.

 

[tsedge]

Once again whilst I agree people just wanted better cars but how did we know that EVs were better then? I think that makes the EV part very relevant as the only real change to the car from others available, same as now, is that the drive train is different.

It was well known before EVs that electric motors were a far better powertrain, the trick was being able to make them sufficiently efficient and able to operate with longevity at high rpm without gears.

So at that time all cars of whatever power source could get better and have, it was the change to EV that made the difference. There was no charging infrastructure to speak of so making it harder to want or even think this would be the future for the masses and not just a toy for the rich few. At the time I was fascinated and it's only really with hindsight you see this as a scalable development.

There was no great mystery about charging infrastructure. We knew it could be built, the question was when would the demand exist to justify the investment. Note that EV charging is actually a much simpler build than ICE refuelling stations.

EVs were predicted for 50 years or more. They were not a surprise, the only question was "when"?

 

[NikLiverpool]

Would you really rather have a robot than a human? I'd prefer the human every time. Now if the only option is a robot that's different.... but then we should be asking do we really want a society where the caring isn't done by human beings?

The techno-utopians say "yes" or at least "if I don't do it someone else will", but that doesn't mean we should let everything they want to do come to pass.

I would actually prefer a robot to a human for taking care of me.
A robot will not get tired, will not be angry or yell at me if I piss my pants, will not be carrying his own problems and worries and it will be there for me 24h, 7 days every week of the year.

 

[tsedge]

You are assuming you get a nice robot!

But at the same time, you will not have real human company, someone you can talk to who knows what it is to be human and can give you genuine empathy and conversation, not a fake facsimile.

I am strongly of the view that even when true AI appears (we which certainly don't have today), people will not want to interact with it or value its contributions anything like as much as a real person.

 

[salty]

Would probably be like talking to the complaints dept of MG UK. Same thing repeated on loop. It's a CH-AR-AC-TE-RI-ST-IC

 

[Martinonline]

@NikLiverpool, you have never met 'Marvin the Paranoid Android'.

 

[tsedge]

@NikLiverpool, you have never met 'Marvin the Paranoid Android'.

Oh no, now you've made me think about the MG Marvin R, cheap but hard to persuade it to do anything without a lot of grumbling!