Electric cars?

[sptrawler]

People used to say the same about lifts controlled by machines.

That's true, the next generation who grow up with this technology, wont think twice about it.

Being older, overcoming learned responses, gained from the school of hard knocks, it isn't so easy.

https://www.therichest.com/shocking/15-horrific-elevator-accidents-thatll-make-us-all-avoid-them/ ?

I have worked on elevators in my career.

 

[Value Collector]

That's true, the next generation who grow up with this technology, wont think twice about it.

Being older, overcoming learned responses, gained from the school of hard knocks, it isn't so easy.

One thing I have noticed, if I have passengers (particularly older ones) and I tell them we are on autopilot they seem on edge and question every little brake or lane change etc.

But If I don’t tell them and they think I am driving, people don’t seem to worry. If a car slows down in front of us and they think I am in control and applying the brake they are relaxed, but as soon as they know that it’s in auto pilot the are very jumpy and say things like “hey they car in front slowing down, tell it to slow down” hahaha.

It takes them a while to relax and just trust the system, at first I have to continually point out things like “see that green bar up here, that shows the car is already regen braking, it knows the cars in front are slowing and it’s already braking”

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My Dad has a Tesla, he is 70 his learning curve and acceptance of autopilot has been very slow, he is getting better but at first he was constantly jumping in and cutting off the autopilot in situations where it was fine.

You really need to be a relaxed person to enjoy autopilot I think, if you are the type of person hat stresses over trucks and other cars etc or are an aggressive driver it’s going to take a while to get used to it.

But if you are more chill and can just relax and be driven and let it do it’s thing without stressing over every move it’s great

 

[Trader X]

The EV 'social equity' dilemma that may put apartment residents off electric cars​

The carpark in my previous apartment building had one changing station. Totally inadequate for more than a small number of EVs let alone the entire carpark. Social equity extends beyond charging of course as the affordability of EVs in general is likely to be an equity issue far beyond any date mandates to halt the sale or production of ICE vehicles.

 

[Value Collector]

The EV 'social equity' dilemma that may put apartment residents off electric cars​

The carpark in my previous apartment building had one changing station. Totally inadequate for more than a small number of EVs let alone the entire carpark. Social equity extends beyond charging of course as the affordability of EVs in general is likely to be an equity issue far beyond any date mandates to halt the sale or production of ICE vehicles.

Installing more power points in parking garages isn’t hard, it’s more about politics than anything else, as a bare minimum putting a power point at each car park should be very easy.

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I think that Ev’s are actually more affordable for than other cars.

I know people will point out the higher sales price of EV’s as Evidence that they are going to harder for people to buy, but I don’t think that is going to work out being true for the following reason.

You see most people buy their cars using loans, so they aren’t paying the full price up front, so the their cost of vehicle ownership is actually a monthly expense rather than a lump sum.

So the the monthly cost of owning a petrol car is say

$600 car loan payment + $300 fuel + $70 servicing + some other costs.

With the EV the monthly loan payment will rising, but the cost of fuel and servicing will drop.

So if the loan payment rises buy $200/month because the EV was more expensive, that will be largely offset by lower fuel and servicing costs, meaning the monthly cost of ownership of the EV is less.

Of course once the loan is repaid, the debt free monthly cost of an EV drops significantly compared to the petrol option.

 

[SirRumpole]

One thing I have noticed, if I have passengers (particularly older ones) and I tell them we are on autopilot they seem on edge and question every little brake or lane change etc.

But If I don’t tell them and they think I am driving, people don’t seem to worry. If a car slows down in front of us and they think I am in control and applying the brake they are relaxed, but as soon as they know that it’s in auto pilot the are very jumpy and say things like “hey they car in front slowing down, tell it to slow down” hahaha.

It takes them a while to relax and just trust the system, at first I have to continually point out things like “see that green bar up here, that shows the car is already regen braking, it knows the cars in front are slowing and it’s already braking”

———————

My Dad has a Tesla, he is 70 his learning curve and acceptance of autopilot has been very slow, he is getting better but at first he was constantly jumping in and cutting off the autopilot in situations where it was fine.

You really need to be a relaxed person to enjoy autopilot I think, if you are the type of person hat stresses over trucks and other cars etc or are an aggressive driver it’s going to take a while to get used to it.

But if you are more chill and can just relax and be driven and let it do it’s thing without stressing over every move it’s great

Yes, just try not to think about sensor failure, hacking, software problems etc.

 

[Value Collector]

Yes, just try not to think about sensor failure, hacking, software problems etc.

Or cardiac arrest, stroke, epileptic fit, moment of distraction, micro sleep or any of the other human glitches that frequently cause accidents.

A vehicle with autopilot engaged and a driver in the seat is far less likely to crash than a car with just a human driver.

 

[Knobby22]

Or cardiac arrest, stroke, epileptic fit, moment of distraction, micro sleep or any of the other human glitches that frequently cause accidents.

A vehicle with autopilot engaged and a driver in the seat is far less likely to crash than a car with just a human driver.

2 years ago my Mum fainted driving her car, she was quite sick and didn't realise it.
Luckily her foot went off the accelerator and she ran into a pole at the side of the road at a slow speed (maybe 15km/hr). Though she was on a major road the other drivers got our of her way.

Woke up in hospital and took a couple of weeks to fully recover from the sickness which I won't go into but wasn't injured from the car accident.
If she had autonomous driving she probably wouldn't have even damaged the car.

She is back on the road doing fine. She is now in her early 80s.

 

[Value Collector]

2 years ago my Mum fainted driving her car, she was quite sick and didn't realise it.
Luckily her foot went off the accelerator and she ran into a pole at the side of the road at a slow speed (maybe 15km/hr). Though she was on a major road the other drivers got our of her way.

Woke up in hospital and took a couple of weeks to fully recover from the sickness which I won't go into but wasn't injured from the car accident.
If she had autonomous driving she probably wouldn't have even damaged the car.

She is back on the road doing fine. She is now in her early 80s.

Whoah, I am glad she is ok ??.

I witnessed a guy black out, unfortunately didn’t take his foot of the accelerator and drove down the foot path knocking over man, and then into the intersection where he T-boned another car.

Two heads are definitely better than one.

 

[Trader X]

If she had autonomous driving she probably wouldn't have even damaged the car.

This assumes your mum would have been inclined to spend $65k plus another $10k on top for FSD on a new M3. Unlikely perhaps? Fully autonomous operation will save lives in the future no doubt, for now it's totally unaffordable for the vast majority of car owners.

 

[Value Collector]

This assumes your mum would have been inclined to spend $65k plus another $10k on top for FSD on a new M3. Unlikely perhaps? Fully autonomous operation will save lives in the future no doubt, for now it's totally unaffordable for the vast majority of car owners.

Most advance safety features start out in the more expensive cars and work their way down.

There was a time when airbags were a feature in only the top end cars.

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But as I explained above, over their life EV’s have a lower cost of ownership, so maybe these advanced features aren’t as expensive as they seem.

Not to mention who can put a price on reducing fatal accidents, the stats show autopilot enhanced vehicles kill and maim less people.

 

[Knobby22]

This assumes your mum would have been inclined to spend $65k plus another $10k on top for FSD on a new M3. Unlikely perhaps? Fully autonomous operation will save lives in the future no doubt, for now it's totally unaffordable for the vast majority of car owners.

The new Nissan Qashsqai (or Cashcow as the dealers call it) comes with automonous features and isn't that expensive 45K.

ProPILOT* is a revolutionary autonomous drive technology designed for highway use in single-lane traffic. Nissan is the first Japanese automaker to introduce a combination of steering, accelerator and braking that can be operated in full automatic mode, easing driver workload in heavy highway traffic and long commutes.

Employing advanced image-processing technology, the car's ProPILOT system understands road and traffic situations and executes precise steering enabling the vehicle to perform naturally. ProPILOT technology is extremely user-friendly, thanks to a switch on the steering wheel that allows the driver to easily activate and deactivate the system. ProPILOT's easy-to-understand and fit-to-drive interface includes a personal display showing the operating status.

 

[Trader X]

Not to mention who can put a price on reducing fatal accidents, the stats show autopilot enhanced vehicles kill and maim less people.

Safety regulators set the standards, car manufactures put a price on safety features and you pay for it. The cost of FSD is not comparable to the cost of other safety features such as airbags. FSD is very expensive tech, that's why Tesla options it and charges subscription fees instead of it being included as standard equipment.

It's highly unlikely FSD will be a mandated safety feature on EVs or work it's way down the product line in the near future as standard equipment. The cost savings of operating an EV instead of ICEV is highly variable and can only be profiled for a given use case. With so many now taking advantage of flexible working arrangements and working from home, the cost savings of EV operation are diminished in that case.

EVs will remain unaffordable and impractical to all but those living in highly developed, high wage economies. Even then only to a minority of the populace.

 

[Trader X]

The new Nissan Qashsqai (or Cashcow as the dealers call it) comes with automonous features and isn't that expensive 45K.

No doubt autonomous driving features will get less expensive over time as competition in that space intensifies. If ProPILOT is standard equipment that will be one incentive to chose Nissan over a Tesla.

 

[Value Collector]

Safety regulators set the standards, car manufactures put a price on safety features and you pay for it. The cost of FSD is not comparable to the cost of other safety features such as airbags. FSD is very expensive tech, that's why Tesla options it and charges subscription fees instead of it being included as standard equipment.

It's highly unlikely FSD will be a mandated safety feature on EVs or work it's way down the product line in the near future as standard equipment. The cost savings of operating an EV instead of ICEV is highly variable and can only be profiled for a given use case. With so many now taking advantage of flexible working arrangements and working from home, the cost savings of EV operation are diminished in that case.

EVs will remain unaffordable and impractical to all but those living in highly developed, high wage economies. Even then only to a minority of the populace.

Base level autopilot is free, with Teslas. Only the advanced full self driving costs extra.

So all teslas will do autopilot and drive along in their lane.

The full self driving feature is what costs the extra money, which allows the car to navigate of auto pilot, over take slower cars, change lanes, merge off freeway etc etc.

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You keep saying Evs are unaffordable, even though cheaper models are coming onto the market, and the basic economics of fossil fuels means the more we burn the more expensive they get, where as the more renewable electricity we use the cheaper it gets.

I am sorry if you haven’t picked up on the trends yet, but the trend is against fossil fuels, long term, the will continue their trend of being increasingly scarce and increasingly expensive, where as renewables will continue their trend of becoming cheaper.

 

[SirRumpole]

The full self driving feature is what costs the extra money, which allows the car to navigate of auto pilot, over take slower cars, change lanes, merge off freeway etc etc.

So how much is the full package may I ask ?

 

[Value Collector]

So how much is the full package may I ask ?

I am not sure how much it costs now, as more features are unlocked the price is going up, but I think I paid about $7000 for it back in 2019.

But once you buy it you own it for the life of the car, and you get all the new updates.

When I first got it in 2019 it didn’t really do much more than what the base model does, but now it does a fair bit more, and there are a lot of updates on the way.

Tesla plan is for it to eventually be fully autonomous and capable of basically being a driverless taxi that you can put to work to earn income, once they are at that level I imagine full “Robo Taxi mode” will probably cost quite a bit of money.

 

[Trader X]

Base level autopilot is free, with Teslas. Only the advanced full self driving costs extra.

And the FSD features are what you're touting as life saving.

You keep saying Evs are unaffordable, even though cheaper models are coming onto the market, and the basic economics of fossil fuels means the more we burn the more expensive they get, where as the more renewable electricity we use the cheaper it gets.

What I said was, "EVs will remain unaffordable and impractical to all but those living in highly developed, high wage economies." This will be true for many years to come. The cost of renewable electricity will get cheaper in those economies that can afford the considerable infrastructure costs to properly support mass EV adoption. Electricity grids are not designed to charge millions of cars overnight (that requires after dark baseload power) and battery storage in conjunction with solar panels is still a significant cost.

I am sorry if you haven’t picked up on the trends yet, but the trend is against fossil fuels, long term, the will continue their trend of being increasingly scarce and increasingly expensive, where as renewables will continue their trend of becoming cheaper.

LOL, I am well aware of this trend to move away from fossil fuels and support this initiative. However, it's naïve to assume EV adoption in developed, high wage economies will have a significant impact on climate change or reduce the dependency of densely populated countries like India and China on coal fired baseload power generation (a massive greenhouse gas emission source). It's far more likely that breakthrough advances in nuclear energy will be required to power the hundreds of millions of EVs futurists imagine on the planet's roads rather than solar panels on every rooftop or wind turbines scattered about the landscape.

 

[Value Collector]

1. And the FSD features are what you're touting as life saving.


2. What I said was, "EVs will remain unaffordable and impractical to all but those living in highly developed, high wage economies." This will be true for many years to come. The cost of renewable electricity will get cheaper in those economies that can afford the considerable infrastructure costs to properly support mass EV adoption. Electricity grids are not designed to charge millions of cars overnight (that requires after dark baseload power) and battery storage in conjunction with solar panels is still a significant cost.


3. LOL, I am well aware of this trend to move away from fossil fuels and support this initiative. However, it's naïve to assume EV adoption in developed, high wage economies will have a significant impact on climate change or reduce the dependency of densely populated countries like India and China on coal fired baseload power generation (a massive greenhouse gas emission source). It's far more likely that breakthrough advances in nuclear energy will be required to power the hundreds of millions of EVs futurists imagine on the planet's roads rather than solar panels on every rooftop or wind turbines scattered about the landscape.

1. No, regular old free autopilot is what I am touting as life saving.

2. That same statement was true for cars in general once, and in some places it’s still true.

3, even if we source some of our electricity though fossil fuels, it’s still more efficient to use those fossil fuels to generate electricity for Ev’s that it is to turn them into petrol for petrol cars.

For example, you can burn crude oil in a power plant and charge Ev’s and you will get more km’s of driving than you would by refining that crude oil down to petrol and burning it in a petrol motor.

Not to mention that the simple fact that very few electrical grids are going to be 100% fossil fuel where as petrol cars are almost 100% fossil fuel.

In fact I can tell you that the ability to charge my car off my own solar panels is a great perk of EV ownership, it’s much simpler than trying to refine my own crude oil.

 

[SirRumpole]

I am not sure how much it costs now, as more features are unlocked the price is going up, but I think I paid about $7000 for it back in 2019.

But once you buy it you own it for the life of the car, and you get all the new updates.

When I first got it in 2019 it didn’t really do much more than what the base model does, but now it does a fair bit more, and there are a lot of updates on the way.

Tesla plan is for it to eventually be fully autonomous and capable of basically being a driverless taxi that you can put to work to earn income, once they are at that level I imagine full “Robo Taxi mode” will probably cost quite a bit of money.

Yeah, I was thinking that in a few years a lot of Ubers will likely be driverless.

Can't get covid from robots.

 

[JohnDe]

I agree, I can't see myself adjusting to autonomous driving cars, I can't sleep when the wife is driving, so there is no chance if a computer is doing it. I worked long enough with process controls, to know when it goes wrong, it ends badly.?

I could easily adjust to it ? but we are still a way off from that day.

The Tesla system is good but it still has quirks & glitches, meaning that the driver still has to be aware & in control.

I’m currently driving 180km city to country and back every fortnight, the Tesla’s Autopilot helps and I’m more relaxed & refreshed after the drive. Yesterday I drove a car without it, and missed not having the extra assistance.