EV news. Hybrid News. A Path Forward.

It does.

 

Sounds like America will be churning out ICE trucks for the next two decades.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/b...-epa-to-back-off-emissions-rules/70315355007/

 

TLDR EV charging companies are moving to NACS.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/12/e...ing-to-tesla-standard-as-support-accelerates/

 

Imagine if different gas stations had different gas guns depending on your car lol

 

I have 2 adaptors in my car for road trips, a J1772 to Tesla and a CCS to Tesla. So, it's not like I can't use any charger I want. The reason this is a big deal is the competition it will foster. When Ford, GM and others can use Tesla Superchargers the second rate charging providers will have to step up their game or lose all of their customers. I carry the CCS to Tesla adaptor, but have never actually used it. Just finished a 9,100 mile road trip with 71 charging sessions. I used the J1772 at a couple of hotels but other than that it was all Tesla Superchargers or Destination chargers. I could have gone to CCS stations, but why? Many of them are crap and the Superchargers always work.

 

I just find it so absurd that just how gas pumps are a fancy way of pouring liquid, we have to have 4+ types of ways to stick wires into a socket

 

It's early days for EV's. Competing plug standards were a sign of that. The US could have forced a standard like Europe did with CCS, but things have worked out much better with NACS becoming the de facto standard. It wasn't until the 1920's that cars standardized on the clutch / brake / accelerator pedal arrangement. EV's are growing up fast compared to history.

 

Toyota Testing GR Electric Sports Car With Manual Gearbox
It even has "engine noises" and you can't tell whether it's an EV or ICE.

https://www.motor1.com/news/672171/toyota-gr-electric-sports-car-testing/

The Tacoma looked exactly like it did at this 2021 reveal. This could be Toyota's sports car in 2026

 

Fake engine noises on an EV are like tits on a boar hog. I seriously laugh at vroom vroom noises. All that fuss for so little result. This car is likely to be fast, but Toyota is the poster child for the legacy auto maker that just doesn't get it.

 

Another Tesla crashes into a piece of fire apparatus working an accident scene on I-680. Thankfully this wasn't a fatal crash. I-680 is probably a long strech of road, and I'm sure other vehicles besides Teslas crash into emergency response vehicles often, when people are not expecting them to be there. Why are Tesla drivers crashing, if the FSD isn't activated?

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisc...ngine-blocks-lanes-on-highway-680-in-fremont/

 

Rivian is joining the NACS family.
https://electrek.co/2023/06/20/rivi...l-offer-tesla-supercharger-access-to-drivers/

 

To answer your question, people seem to gravitate towards vehicles parked on the shoulders around here, whether they are broken down cars, police, fire trucks, or construction vehicles.

When a Tesla does it it makes the news because it’s unclear whether or not self driving software was activated and Teslas have a habit of crashing into shit when there are unexpected road conditions.

No matter what the apologists say, everyone of us is a part of Elon’s beta testing these things.

 

Their safety report says different.

https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

 

lol

We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.

 

Sure, but that is easy to say, is there anything to refute it?

 

There’s been an ongoing NHTSA probe since 2021 into Autopilot.

 

The report touches on personal injury due to a crash and structural integrity of the the vehicle it self. Tesla is also comparing their Global Data, to US crash statistics. There could be some discrepancies when using verying statistics. Tesla, or any manufacturer isn't going to publish information that's paints their own company in a bad light.

I'm not sure what information I'm supposed to take away from that report. Could you help me out, and explain what the report is saying?

Vehicles crash into other unexpected vehicles on the highway quite often. I'd think a tiller truck like in last years crash would be difficult to gauge when it is occupying miltiple lanes, even for a human driver. I doubt if that scenario was programmed into the FSD software.

I learned yesterday that this Tesla was rear ended by a semi truck, before striking the engine. I did not see a truck in the video, I saw the damage to the rear of the Tesla, and wondered why the car had so much damage to the rear? I like to see what all the contributing factors are in these crashes.

 

Sure, but the existence probe doesn't prove anything either way, that is the point of a probe, to come to a determination.

I'm not saying its 100% true, but it is there and it should be considered. If there is supporting data of decent quality to show it isn't true then lets discuss.

 

I'm going to jump in here because I'm one of the few here that has actually driven a Tesla with FSD. I just got back from a 9,100 mile road trip in a Tesla Model Y with Full Self Driving (FSD) Beta. I paid the $200/month FSD fee just to see what all the hype is about and 9,100 miles is a long damn trip. (which I had a blast doing BTW). I'm nobody's fan boy or apologist. If I bought something and it sucks you can be damn sure I'm going to trash it. I despise people that think just because they own something it is the best.

TLDR - When FSD Beta is good, it is very, very good. When it is bad the driver has to take control. IMO in time FSD will be required in all cars for safety reasons.

9,100 miles of driving took us through 24 US states and 5 Canadian provinces. I experienced every kind of driving there is, back roads, 2 lane, city, interstate, complex interstate interchanges, emergency vehicles, rush hour, construction, and a tire blow out at freeway speed. (see the post above for that) I was using FDS through all of that and for many of the miles I was trying to figure out how to put my feelings into words. First the good- FSD is a better driver than I am in any kind of interstate, 2 lane, back road, rush hour driving. It doesn't get tired or distracted, wonder which lane to be in, forget to signal, tail gate, go faster or slower than the driver says, or a thousand other sins human drivers commit. I got to the point where I wished the other Tesla drivers had a light that would go on when FSD was engaged. That way I could pay more attention to the dipshit human drivers. Speaking of human drivers you just don't know how fucking bad they are until you have an AI helping. As a human I like handing off the million micro corrections require to keep a car on the road. Complex freeway interchanges were a lot less stressful because the car somehow knew it needed to be in the 8th lane from the right and then get into the 3rd lane from the left to get to the destination.

The meh it is still beta - On big empty stretches of interstate the car on occasion would decide it wanted to run in the left lane. I prefer keep right except to pass. There were settings I could change to stop that behavior, but that disabled things like automatic passing of slower traffic which I really liked. FSD is not a smooth driver. My high school drivers ED teacher always wanted us to drive like a chauffeur, smooth with no sudden braking, lane changes, or acceleration. To this day I will apologize to my passengers if I'm anything but smooth. Right now auto parking and summon are party tricks.

The bad, FSD needs work (in other words I take over)- City driving - it can "do" it, but it's like riding with a driver that just got their learners permit. I tried big Canadian and US cities with the same result. I finally gave up even trying. Big city driving is stressful enough without the car acting a fool too. I don't think it was ever dangerous to other drivers, but it could inspire some WTF are you doing moments in them. Phantom braking is still a thing. It happens when the car is alone on the road and "sees" some phantom jump out in front of it and jams on the brakes in a panic stop. It never seems to happen when there are other cars around, so when it does happen it is a severe annoyance that I'm mostly alone on the road and the car decides we're about to run head on into something. Construction is another problem. The car sees the cones and barrels just fine, but really struggles to the point of I need to take over. (When you sign up for FSD it tells you to take over in construction, but I still let FSD try.)

Is FSD a danger to other drivers? No and yes. If you are attentive, like you must be, I'll gladly be surrounded by FSD cars. Actually I'd rather have the other drivers using FSD. However, if you are inattentive WTF are you doing behind the wheel? FSD and an inattentive driver is an accident waiting to happen. FSD will keep that inattentive driver out of a lot of trouble, but eventually something will happen. Is that the fault of FSD or the dickhead driver. That's something the courts will eventually decide.

So what's my conclusion? IMHO In time FSD will be required in new cars the same way seat belt, air bags, rear cameras, ABS and other safety features are required now. There is a very good chance it will be Tesla's FSD as Elon has said he is willing to license it to other companies. FSD as it stands today is a work in progress. It's already proven to be safer than human drivers alone. It's far from perfect, but after 4 weeks and 9,100 miles I really missed it when the month subscription expired. Before this trip if someone asked is FSD worth $15K I would have said absolutely NOT! After this trip that is a lot harder question to answer. $15K is a lot of money to me, so I will probably not buy it. But I will gladly pay $200 a month to use it on road trips.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/21/am-radio-evs-electric-vehicles-conservative-talk

New electric cars won’t have AM radio. Rightwingers claim political sabotage
Conservatives say liberals want to kill talk radio. But there’s plenty else on the AM dial – much of it essential