Musk endeavours

[odysseus2000]

BobbyD
VW has always sold cars to it's employees at a decent rate, it's a perk of the job.

Any more rumours, vagaries or innuendo you'd like dispelled (again)?

So VW uses sales to employees to give the impression that there BEV are selling well to the general public, without issuing a correction, and does so at low margins.

What a way to run a business.

Regards,

You think VW should give its staff a staff discount on ICE but not on BEV? That would be a strange way to run a business. I wonder what line you'd be peddling then...

Tesla, as far as i understand it, give no discounts at all on new cars. If you want one you have to pay the full price, employee or non employee alike.

That is how to run a business.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Tesla, as far as i understand it, give no discounts at all on new cars. If you want one you have to pay the full price, employee or non employee alike.

That is how to run a business.

Regards,

Remember that next time you go off on one about how Musk is the next Henry Ford...

Not that most of them could afford a Tesla even if they were discounted. The difference between the Model S and the Model T is somewhat wider than one might assume at first glance. Your much beloved Model T was a genuine people's car, I bet the Germans have a snappy portmanteau to describe the concept.

[odysseus2000]

Tesla with autopilot engaged now approaching 10x safer than average vehicle:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/138 ... 36674?s=20

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Tesla, as far as i understand it, give no discounts at all on new cars. If you want one you have to pay the full price, employee or non employee alike.

That is how to run a business.

Regards,

Remember that next time you go off on one about how Musk is the next Henry Ford...

Not that most of them could afford a Tesla even if they were discounted. The difference between the Model S and the Model T is somewhat wider than one might assume at first glance. Your much beloved Model T was a genuine people's car, I bet the Germans have a snappy portmanteau to describe the concept.

Yes, for now Tesla are not as cheap as model T where after a big production run, but the direction is for lower prices with suggestions that a $25k car is coming.

Regards,

[Howard]

So VW uses sales to employees to give the impression that there BEV are selling well to the general public, without issuing a correction, and does so at low margins.

What a way to run a business.

Regards,

You think VW should give its staff a staff discount on ICE but not on BEV? That would be a strange way to run a business. I wonder what line you'd be peddling then...

Tesla, as far as i understand it, give no discounts at all on new cars. If you want one you have to pay the full price, employee or non employee alike.

That is how to run a business.

Regards,

Another unsubstantiated claim. To be added to the many on this thread.

They appear to have given some hefty discounts to leasing companies in the Netherlands and in the UK. And, if you read Tesla owner posts a lot of buyers have been tempted by offers which are the equivalent of discounts.

regards

Howard

[odysseus2000]

You think VW should give its staff a staff discount on ICE but not on BEV? That would be a strange way to run a business. I wonder what line you'd be peddling then...

Tesla, as far as i understand it, give no discounts at all on new cars. If you want one you have to pay the full price, employee or non employee alike.

That is how to run a business.

Regards,

Another unsubstantiated claim. To be added to the many on this thread.

They appear to have given some hefty discounts to leasing companies in the Netherlands and in the UK. And, if you read Tesla owner posts a lot of buyers have been tempted by offers which are the equivalent of discounts.

regards

Howard

I was specifically discussing discounts to employees on Tesla cars and Tesla policy is to give no discounts:

https://youtu.be/5RppTraO1I4

Sure there is nothing to stop a Tesla employee waiting for an offer to general punters and buying under the offer, but that is different to having a staff discount on cars which is something apparently VW offer.

Regards,

[ReformedCharacter]

As I understand it the mandate is to return to the moon in a sustainable manner. Of the 3 contestants only spaceX looks to offer a system that is capable of creating this kind of long term lunar base. The other two contestants look more like short term, more like Apollo, small number of visits with out the payload capability to create a long term sustainable lunar base. Starship has been designed from the beginning as a colonising tool.

I have not studied either competitor in depth so please correct me if I have this wrong.

Regards,

It seems that funding was the issue. NASA originally asked for $3 Billion for lunar landing development and the contestants were working on that assumption. However, apparently Congress only made $1 Billion available so NASA discussed spreading the funding over a longer time frame with the contestants. SpaceX was the only company that accepted the longer funding schedule. Nicely discussed here by Scott Manley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuSM_-Aw5HM

RC

[Howard]

Tesla, as far as i understand it, give no discounts at all on new cars. If you want one you have to pay the full price, employee or non employee alike.

That is how to run a business.

Regards,

Another unsubstantiated claim. To be added to the many on this thread.

They appear to have given some hefty discounts to leasing companies in the Netherlands and in the UK. And, if you read Tesla owner posts a lot of buyers have been tempted by offers which are the equivalent of discounts.

regards

Howard

I was specifically discussing discounts to employees on Tesla cars and Tesla policy is to give no discounts:

https://youtu.be/5RppTraO1I4

Sure there is nothing to stop a Tesla employee waiting for an offer to general punters and buying under the offer, but that is different to having a staff discount on cars which is something apparently VW offer.

Regards,

VW Group seem to have the knack of setting up BEV production lines quickly.

I believe that they are now producing their eighth model. This video shows the latest car being made. The new Audi Q4 e-tron.

Will they soon run out of employees to sell them to? Maybe they'll have to recruit more? Or start selling them to all the robots in the plant.

regards

Howard

PS The panel gaps look pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pClUNUXHNHM

[odysseus2000]

VW Group seem to have the knack of setting up BEV production lines quickly.

I believe that they are now producing their eighth model. This video shows the latest car being made. The new Audi Q4 e-tron.

Will they soon run out of employees to sell them to? Maybe they'll have to recruit more? Or start selling them to all the robots in the plant.

regards

Howard

PS The panel gaps look pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pClUNUXHNHM

Well they certainly like the 20th century and one can tell by the focus on cleaning the front badge at the end, that this is a PR production.

Earlier one sees that they are using drum brakes on this presumed high end car and the front and rear assemblies show classic 20th century many component construction.

All in all this does nothing for VW's reputation.

Regards,

[BobbyD]

Earlier one sees that they are using drum brakes on this presumed high end car and the front and rear assemblies show classic 20th century many component construction.

All in all this does nothing for VW's reputation.

The rear drum is a feature of MEB, it will appear on all MEB vehicles, for reasons outlined at length many times before.

Two die in Tesla car crash in Texas with ‘no one’ in driver’s seat, police say

Two men died after a Tesla vehicle, which was believed to be operating without anyone in the driver’s seat, crashed into a tree north of Houston, authorities said.

“There was no one in the driver’s seat,” Sgt Cinthya Umanzor of the Harris County Constable Precinct 4 said of the crash on Saturday night.

The 2019 Tesla Model S was traveling at high speed when it failed to negotiate a curve and went off the roadway, crashing to a tree and bursting into flames, local television station KHOU-TV said.

After the fire was extinguished, authorities located two passengers, with one in the front passenger seat while the other was in the back seat of the Tesla, the report said, citing Harris County Precinct 4 police officer Mark Herman.

- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... eat-police

[BobbyD]

I am building a house in, NY. On March 9, 2021, I signed a contract with TESLA for a solar roof. My Tesla representative is Miguel Martinez. On March 23, 2021, I received an email from Tesla stating the price for my project will be increased by $17,253.48. After reaching out to Miguel, he said the management team confirmed that my price would not increase and that it was an automated email that was sent to me in error. I spoke with supervisor Amanda Henderson on a recorded line, who assured me that I would be charged the price I signed the contract for, $40,998.20. I received a second email on Saturday, April 10, 2021 stating they are no longer able to keep the price that is stated on the contract.

...I am building a modular home and I opted out of the roof system because I got confirmation to use the TESLA roof. At this point, my house is being shipped from the manufacturing plant without a roof and this is not acceptable. We have paid a non-refundable deposit on the home, and no changes can be made at this point.

- https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads ... 29/page-22

That's going to sting. What a way to run a business!

It seems many of Tesla's customers have hit upon a third option, refuse to cancel or sign the new contract leaving the ball on Tesla's roof.

[onthemove]

Tesla with autopilot engaged now approaching 10x safer than average vehicle:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/138 ... 36674?s=20

Regards,

Really?

"Two men killed in Tesla car crash 'without driver' in seat" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56799749

Perhaps that tweet rather was tempting fate - or perhaps even seen by some as a challenge / something to test?

Though I strongly suspect Musk's "10x" was talking about auto "pilot + driver" ... presumably largely data taken from enthusiasts who will have been paying more attention themselves than the average driver.

My own view is that Tesla drivers using autopilot will likely largely be enthusiasts wanting to tinker and test the technology - like those making youtube videos - so will probably be paying more attention than an average driver, which could skew the statistics somewhat... much of the "10x safer" could be coming from the driver's extra attention while they evaluate their expensive, fancy new toy, not the autopilot itself per se.

I have to admit, watching the Telsa owner's videos on youtube, I really couldn't see Tesla's getting very far without the assistance of a driver. Waymo they certainly ain't!

Telsa's don't seem to be able to select an appropriate speed for the conditions (both speed up and slow down) ... it's funny (if a little concerning) watching the videos and seeing how the drivers frequently 'dial in' a different speed, but don't consider it an intervention.

And other times, the Tesla just keeps waiting and needs the driver to tap the accelerator to tell the car to move away at a junction. And again, the drivers don't see this as being an 'intervention'

So when I read that a Tesla has lost control on a corner with seemingly no-one in the driver seat, I know what my guess would be as to what's gone on.

I note the article I linked above also says...

"But last month, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened investigations into 27 crashes involving Tesla vehicles."

[BobbyD]

Tesla with autopilot engaged now approaching 10x safer than average vehicle:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/138 ... 36674?s=20

Regards,

Really?

No of course not, but some people expend a lot of energy maintaining that belief.

[BobbyD]

Audi unveils A6 e-tron:

Based on PPE like the electric Porsche Macan

800V/270kW charging, 5%-80% in 25 minutes in ideal conditions, 10 min charge adds 186 miles

100kWh battery

435 miles WLTP

Available 2022.

https://insideevs.com/news/501745/audi- ... m-concept/

[NotSure]

Really?

No of course not, but some people expend a lot of energy maintaining that belief.

As a 'part time' data scientist (it's an element of my job), while I do not pretend to know anything about exactly how Tesla and others tackle self-driving using machine learning (so-called AI), I can see a lot of fundamental problems.

ML is basically a way to train non-sentient hardware to carry out tasks that used to require a brain. This is carried out by exposing the ML algorithm to vast amounts of input data that is linked to a desirable output. It's basically regression, but of very high dimension and not requiring any real knowledge of the underlying physics.

So to travel down a highway, this is 'easy' - reams of training data can easily be obtained and applied. Regression will interpolate this data and carry out the correct action, even on a piece of highway that wasn't in the training data. But regression fails, usually catastrophically, when expect to extrapolate rather than interpolate. This is where I see the difficulty - obtaining remotely enough data for situations where the ML is most needed, that is, unforeseen circumstances. The data on those crashed vehicles will be incredibly useful to Tesla - next time, they will be interpolating, not extrapolating. But not an ethical way to obtain training data, and still not nearly enough of it (in addition to training data, ML needs lots of unused testing data to validate the training).

I'm sure Tesla et al use many clever techniques to generate synthetic training data to try to plug the gap. But I suspect it may be a while until there is no such things as 'unforeseen circumstances'.

[odysseus2000]

Tesla with autopilot engaged now approaching 10x safer than average vehicle:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/138 ... 36674?s=20

Regards,

Really?

"Two men killed in Tesla car crash 'without driver' in seat" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56799749

Perhaps that tweet rather was tempting fate - or perhaps even seen by some as a challenge / something to test?

Though I strongly suspect Musk's "10x" was talking about auto "pilot + driver" ... presumably largely data taken from enthusiasts who will have been paying more attention themselves than the average driver.

My own view is that Tesla drivers using autopilot will likely largely be enthusiasts wanting to tinker and test the technology - like those making youtube videos - so will probably be paying more attention than an average driver, which could skew the statistics somewhat... much of the "10x safer" could be coming from the driver's extra attention while they evaluate their expensive, fancy new toy, not the autopilot itself per se.

I have to admit, watching the Telsa owner's videos on youtube, I really couldn't see Tesla's getting very far without the assistance of a driver. Waymo they certainly ain't!

Telsa's don't seem to be able to select an appropriate speed for the conditions (both speed up and slow down) ... it's funny (if a little concerning) watching the videos and seeing how the drivers frequently 'dial in' a different speed, but don't consider it an intervention.

And other times, the Tesla just keeps waiting and needs the driver to tap the accelerator to tell the car to move away at a junction. And again, the drivers don't see this as being an 'intervention'

So when I read that a Tesla has lost control on a corner with seemingly no-one in the driver seat, I know what my guess would be as to what's gone on.

I note the article I linked above also says...

"But last month, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened investigations into 27 crashes involving Tesla vehicles."

According to Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_veh ... S._by_year

there were in 2019 36,120 deaths on US roads = 36120/365 = 98 deaths per day. Yet a Tesla accident where apparently the driver was not in control of the vehicle, in violation of Tesla recommendations, becomes from page news, the other on average 97 deaths do not.

The measurements from Tesla show an accident rate with human combined with autopilot of approximately 10x less accidents based on distance between accidents. If we equate accidents to deaths then if the entire US fleet was driving with autopilot the death rate could be reduced to about 10 per day. This would be a very significant reduction in human misery and economic costs.

Whether complete auto pilot (no human driver) happens we still have a technology that has been demonstrated to be better than human alone driving by close to one order of magnitude.

The neural net technology used by Tesla came into existence about 10 years ago and there is no data/theory that I am aware of which limits this technology. Unless some currently unknown limit to the technology emerges, we can expect the software to continually improve, especially as the labelling of images is now being done automatically.

It is easy to argue that the technology will never reach a mass market and be allowed by regulators based on previous experiences and prejudice, but that is not a scientific way to think about new technologies.

Regards,

[murraypaul]

The measurements from Tesla show an accident rate with human combined with autopilot of approximately 10x less accidents based on distance between accidents.

I may be missing something obvious, but wouldn't a very large part of this that people turn autopilot on when driving for a reasonable distance in a straight line on the same road, which is a relatively safe form of driving anyway, and which is faster, so you will be travelling more distance?
No one is using autopilot in the middle of a city centre? Or in a parking lot, where ~20% of US vehicle accidents occur.

If we equate accidents to deaths then if the entire US fleet was driving with autopilot the death rate could be reduced to about 10 per day.

Far too many leaps in that conclusion.

[odysseus2000]

murraypaul
I may be missing something obvious, but wouldn't a very large part of this that people turn autopilot on when driving for a reasonable distance in a straight line on the same road, which is a relatively safe form of driving anyway, and which is faster, so you will be travelling more distance?
No one is using autopilot in the middle of a city centre? Or in a parking lot, where ~20% of US vehicle accidents occur.

The figure quoted of 10x safer than human was for highway driving. The system is currently not as good in town, but higher speeds likely produce more serious crashes, suggesting that the death and serious injury rate may be substantially reduced with autopilot.

For anyone coming at these data sets with no pre-history, the one salient fact is that humans are bad at driving and anything that reduces the accidents caused by human error will likely have a substantial effect on the overall death and serious injury rates.

Regards,

[NotSure]

The neural net technology used by Tesla came into existence about 10 years ago and there is no data/theory that I am aware of which limits this technology.

The deficiencies and limitations of neural networks (which is far too vague a term to mean very much these days) are very well known in the data science community and beyond.

GIYF - here's a start: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_vis=1&q=limitations+of+neural+networks&btnG=

[odysseus2000]

The neural net technology used by Tesla came into existence about 10 years ago and there is no data/theory that I am aware of which limits this technology.

The deficiencies and limitations of neural networks (which is far too vague a term to mean very much these days) are very well known in the data science community and beyond.

GIYF - here's a start: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_vis=1&q=limitations+of+neural+networks&btnG=

Yes, but without a real world AI problem what the real limitations and deficiencies are will never be known.

As things are no one knows if Ai will be capable of driving cars or not.

I can recall being told by a senior Don in Oxford physics who had spend his career in computers and electronics for various space missions, that computers would never beat humans at chess.

Nowadays a computer can simultaneously beat several grand masters.

Then I was informed by similar educated experts that AlphaGo could never beat Lee Sedol, but it did.

I see many erudite arguments about why AI will never drive cars, but I remain open minded.

Can you provide (a) reason(s) why AI will never be able to drive as well as humans?

Regards,