Elon Musk's Starman - Is this shitty future real wtf

[chenGOD]

On 5/20/2022 at 9:14 PM, trying to be less rude said:

i can't help but know that, usually, when a story like that is about to break, the subject of the story has advanced notice because the journalists reach out for comment. so, when he accused the dems of dirty tricks to come, one day before this story broke... did he know that this story was about to break? i can't help but think that it looks likely.

The journalist who wrote the article already confirmed that was in fact the case, and surprisingly, Muskrat had no comment. 

[chenGOD]

4 hours ago, ignatius said:

teslas are nice cars. my neighbors have one and it's pretty awesome.

They are pretty overpriced, had the opportunity to drive several Model S and compared to a well-engineered car in that price range the Tesla drives like garbage. Because they’re a technology company first, but they’ll get there eventually. Also I wonder if the vapourware they’ve promised will ever get produced. 
 

Anyways I suppose good they’ve popularized EVs. There is a much broader range of EVs coming to market now. 

[ignatius]

1 minute ago, chenGOD said:

They are pretty overpriced,

yeah.. it's easy to spend $90k on one when adding options. my neighbors love theirs though. one of my nephews bought one a few years ago and he apparently loves it. but i've read all kinds of things about bugs and weird behavior. people posting "tesla help" on twitter when their car decides to stop working. 

but i think overall, especially the new ones, seem to get lot's of raves but i suspect some of that dovetails w/fanboy-ism.  i see an awful lot of them in portland. but also see many Nissan all electric Leafs.

i've not heard many comments about how they drive really. they're super heavy because all the batteries.. but that'll change once tech figures out the graphene thing where the graphene dust holds a charge and they weave it into carbon fiber or whatever. .then the car itself will be a battery. but that's something some tech company + university research dept are working on or something. sounds fascinating. 

i think tesla stock is overvalued as a tech company. it's got that mentality in the stock market. i mean.. there's way more toyota camries on the road than teslas. 

[EdamAnchorman]

I've been driving full EVs for the past five years and have stayed away from Tesla primarily because of this asshole.  From what I've heard, the cars are built ok, fun to drive, and miles ahead of everyone on tech, but I have a HUGE problem with autopilot and how they implemented it.  Like skimping on the driver monitoring systems that everyone else uses (no eye monitoring, just bullshit tug on the steering wheel every so often) so they can save cost while having these poor people be unwilling beta testers for his camera-based full self driving (FSD).

And they have been charging people thousands of dollars for the FSD option, which means a car that is "FSD ready", with absolutely no timetable on when FSD will be ready.  Some automation experts say you can never get level 5 autonomy from just cameras. I mean there are tons of scary videos out there of FSD messing up big time.

But hey, if these fanboys are willing to pay for total vaporware, that's on them I guess.

[ignatius]

[Nebraska]

 

[cichlisuite]

On 5/22/2022 at 11:40 PM, chenGOD said:

They are pretty overpriced, had the opportunity to drive several Model S and compared to a well-engineered car in that price range the Tesla drives like garbage. Because they’re a technology company first, but they’ll get there eventually. Also I wonder if the vapourware they’ve promised will ever get produced. 
 

Anyways I suppose good they’ve popularized EVs. There is a much broader range of EVs coming to market now. 

I gave Tesla a spin around the block once, and the biggest thing I could not get used to was the central screen, and how information is displayed. Maybe I'm too used to conventional design, but I think glancing to the right all the time and having touchscreen UI for all functions is just retarded. Things need to be tactile for me, and able to be muscle-memorized, idk.

[ignatius]

18 minutes ago, cichlisuite said:

I gave Tesla a spin around the block once, and the biggest thing I could not get used to was the central screen, and how information is displayed. Maybe I'm too used to conventional design, but I think glancing to the right all the time and having touchscreen UI for all functions is just retarded. Things need to be tactile for me, and able to be muscle-memorized, idk.

i have a hard time enduring a touch screen on anything other than my phone. i can get by on the ipad but it's taken a long time to get used to it. i can't imagine dealing w/that in a car.  it seems intrusive to have that large of a screen in a car. maybe when cars are reliably self driving it'll make more sense. it just seems obnoxious. 

perhaps it is just prepping people to be driven by the car when the time comes. 

[EdamAnchorman]

9 hours ago, ignatius said:

perhaps it is just prepping people to be driven by the car when the time comes. 

No.  It's all because of cost.  Having everything displayed on this one screen greatly reduces the cost to design and manufacture the cars.

Sure, the S and X have regular info consoles, but Elon wanted to get to lower price points with the 3 and Y.  Oh, he'll tell you that they did it this way because of data and the future and all kinds of bullshit but the bottom line is that this is the best they could do for a base $60,000 car.

Fanboys say that you'll get used to it and even prefer the center screen after a while (of course they would say that), but I would refuse to pay that much money for a car where you have to go to the center control screen just to open the glove box.

Regarding cost, early on in the manufacture of the Y, Tesla was badly in need of meeting quarterly numbers and they needed to get cars out the door and into customers' hands (to prop up the stock price).  There was a shortage of certain parts, so instead of waiting for the appropriate parts they used fucking faux wood trim probably from Home Depot on a condenser part.  No way in hell I'm flying down the road in a 4,500 lb tank made by a company who would do that.

Edited May 24, 2022 by randomsummer

[may be rude]

just gotta hurry up and finish the brain interface and the god ai

[ignatius]

9 hours ago, randomsummer said:

you have to go to the center control screen just to open the glove box.

wow. that's so crazy. had no idea it was stupid like that.

also, 

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by ignatius

[cichlisuite]

9 hours ago, randomsummer said:

No.  It's all because of cost.  Having everything displayed on this one screen greatly reduces the cost to design and manufacture the cars.

Sure, the S and X have regular info consoles, but Elon wanted to get to lower price points with the 3 and Y.  Oh, he'll tell you that they did it this way because of data and the future and all kinds of bullshit but the bottom line is that this is the best they could do for a base $60,000 car.

no doubt. even Mercedes with their newest high-end S model, introduced the same bullshit touchscreen controls via the central console. granted, they have the crucial info still projected on heads-up (windshield), and the usual up-front, but setting the AC, radio, navigation, etc, is now done by touch on the central console. i don't know whether they followed the tesla trend here, either way, it's super retarded. especially with a manufacturer with such a long legacy and with a high-end model like this, where usually they make an effort to make stuff crazy expensive and dandy.

Edited May 24, 2022 by cichlisuite

[luke viia]

drove to work behind a blue Model S with the license plate "TO MARS" the other day. brb, off to collect corner moulding for my rocket parts

Edited May 24, 2022 by luke viia

[Zephyr_Nova]

Could someone here start an Ellen Musk meme where Musk's image is merged with Ellen's?

Thanks.

[prdctvsm]

4 hours ago, Zephyr_Nova said:

Could someone here start an Ellen Musk meme where Musk's image is merged with Ellen's?

Thanks.

[prdctvsm]

((;;

[Zephyr_Nova]

omg thank you so much.

[ignatius]

 

[zazen]

I generally think musk is a net positive but I enjoyed the time when a postdoc called him "Space Karen"

[zazen]

re: Tesla cars and criticism (center console, rushed manufacturing, autopilot, fires etc)

There are definitely valid criticisms of Tesla cars, some of the design choices, quality control, spare part problems etc. But sometimes people talk about them like they're still a startup, or an esoteric choice of car to buy. Thats not where we are anymore; there are about 2 million Tesla cars on the road now, its not a niche thing anymore.

If a serious proportion of those 2 million cars had their wheels falling off or they were driving themselves into walls or bursting into flames that would become obvious very quickly.

Because its Tesla everything gets magnified. And fine, keep up the scrutiny. But have "2 million on the road" in your head next time you see a headline about a fire.

Also - customer satisfaction ratings with Tesla is still well above their competitors - so there's still a lot of satisfied customers out there. Or you could say they are brainwashed or whatever. But basically brainwashing is what every brand aspires to do, so those are still the numbers.

Personally I drive a Kia EV, but my Kia EV (and the Volvo EV and the Renault Zoe and the VW ID4 and on and on) would not exist if Tesla hadn't come along and given the auto industry a massive kick up the arse. Without Tesla all the traditional manufactuers would still be putting out things like the 2015 Leaf with 100 mile range on the basis that 'market research shows people just want evs for a second car to run around town'. Someone needed to do the work to get the ball rolling and get R+D and economies of scale to kick in, and thats what Tesla have done. The first Model S rolled out of the factory just under 10 years ago in June 2012 -the way Tesla have scaled up since then in absolutely insane.

So yeah panel gaps and center console and so on but remember - 2 million on the road, and the auto industry completely transformed.

Edited June 1, 2022 by zazen

[Alcofribas]

lol no, musk is scum

 

[EdamAnchorman]

Agree that Tesla has been a huge positive for the EV world and with the model 3 they are definitely getting great at making cars, but I wouldn't trust their consumer satisfaction ratings any more than I'd trust a musk tweet. Their fanbase is so loyal and willing to forgive things that most other car owners aren't. Not saying Tesla makes bad cars, just don't trust those scores.

I have had a Chevy bolt EV for 5 years now and I love it. Chevy definitely wouldn't have made the bolt if they weren't trying to beat Tesla to the market with a "budget", entry-level EV, while simultaneously building knowledge, supply chains, general EV know-how, and "beta testing" their EV program.

I could've bought a model 3 but my main gripe is how everything is designed to minimize cost, which is totally fine, maybe even for a $60,000 car, but not to the point where they omit driver monitoring systems for autopilot (which every single other manufacturer uses), and are now ditching radar in favor of an all-camera system just to cut cost. IMO, they're putting lives in danger just to save money so that TSLA will continue to rise and Musk can troll the TSLA shorts.

[usagi]

also, while Tesla (as a market force, not so much as a personification of Musk) deserves some credit for shaking things up and making EVs more viable, the market itself still has a long way to go. I don't think it's completely transformed. it won't be until we see true mass adoption and widespread support infrastructure (charging stations, service centres, etc), and not just for cars but other modes of transport as well (motorcycles, freight, etc).

[President Squidward]

for me, it's the polestar 2. such a badass vehicle.

lucid air is nice too. i got a hot wheel of it since i can't drive or afford one.

[EdamAnchorman]

8 hours ago, usagi said:

the market itself still has a long way to go. I don't think it's completely transformed. it won't be until we see true mass adoption and widespread support infrastructure (charging stations, service centres, etc), and not just for cars but other modes of transport as well (motorcycles, freight, etc).

The travel infrastructure definitely isn't there, at least for non-Teslas.  For the past 5 years I've been taking my Bolt on a yearly trip from NJ to NC, a 400 mile trip which requires me to do 2 fast charges.  There are a bunch of fast chargers on my route, but they've ALL reached the point where they're breaking and not being repaired because the money that the owners get from them is nowhere near what it costs to operate them.  They were only installed so that the owners could get a one-time tax break.  It's a chicken and egg scenario, and will probably need some subsidy to get started.

I think the future will likely be EVs with 350 - 400 mile ranges which would allow for virtually all charging to be done at home.  There will still need to be charging stations along highways, but most cars coming out now can do a 10 - 80% fast charge in under 15 minutes which would allow you to drive for 4 hours, stop for 15 minutes, and repeat.  That is pretty close to parity with regular cars, at least the way that I like to travel.  The big problem with mass EV adoption will be stress on the electrical grid.  If you and your two neighbors who are all on the same power transformer are all each pulling 11 kW extra for 8 hours on top of your normal house loads, that transformer is gonna be glowing red-hot.  The grid will have to be upgraded and, if the utility companies are smart, they'll pay EV owners to keep their cars plugged in at all times so that they can essentially have a huge battery storage system to pull from and balance shifts in loads (vehicle-to-load, V2L, tech is almost there as of now).

There are lots of other barriers, one big one being having reliable home charging for people who live in apartments and other shared spaces.