The MPGe idea was dumb, but I think its because the consumer is dumb.

If you had capacitors which could hold 40% of the charge that batteries could you’d just use them to power the car rather than go through batteries an intermediary.

4th Gear: Rolls should be a prime use of EVs. They always have charging access with garages, weight is not a concern, flat floors give more passenger room, the driving characteristics are very smooth, very quiet. Plus they are already giant so they should be able to get range from huge batteries. For a daily chauffer…

Yes! Bring on the microwatts!

“As automakers shift from horsepower to kilowatts to comply with stricter environmental regulations...”

As automakers shift from horsepower to kilowatts to comply with stricter environmental regulations,

Also, this is a pretty even-keeled explanation of the semi and where the technology is at:

Ok, so I agree with a good bit of what you’re saying Erik. I do have one thing to contest thought, the Tesla Semi. Tbf it is not in production but I think that’s because they literally do not have any factories to produce it at that aren’t in the process of being built. The Semi itself has apparently been doing quite…

That launch was a smashing success, as Tesla broke into a new market. Their presentation wasn’t bulletproof, but gave us a window into their product. I’m confident they will crack their sales targets.

Test tracks are great for certain limited purposes, but the vast majority of automotive testing is done on public roads. There is simply no way to thoroughly test something that complex in the predictable setting of a closed environment.

Counterpoint. Take vaccine trials for COVID. Yes, we’ve done testing, but 30,000 people will be taking the Phase 3 vaccine. There’s a very good chance that some will have adverse reactions to it. That’s the only way to test it in the real world, and the potential good outweighs the potential downsides.

I think what you’re saying hits on an interesting point, though. I think that the reason why “self-driving car kills pedestrian” makes bigger headlines than “driver was texting when he killed pedestrian” is because we, as humans, like to think we have control and can assign blame in a way that might fix the problem.

Yesterday at 9 pm, someone ran a redlight at speed on a well light road and ran over a pedestrian in my town. They are looking for the driver, who was likely drunk. This didn’t make the 10 pm news, but a blog.

Rockets blow up, we should stop going to space as well.

3rd gear:

The level 4/5 autonomy necessary to save Uber’s business model may not materialize in time to save the company, but Uber’s self driving tech didn’t kill anybody. The negligent engineer who was watching reality TV instead of doing their job of monitoring the system is what caused that crash. It isn’t level 4/5 autonomy…

I don’t even like Uber or self-driving cars, but that take is fucking lunacy.

For real

Wow. For the first time ever, I might star one of the anti-liberal comments.

Those ‘Idiot investors’ in your headline are the ones who correctly realize that Uber has zero future if they don’t have autonomous tech either first or very soon after someone else develops it. Uber’s entire business model falls apart once autonomous (or even level 4 limited autonomous) vehicles exist. If I were…