Future Cars: Electric and Autonomous Vehicles

[DanPatchToget]

Well Elon Musk does have the mind of a 14-year old.

To me the Cybertruck looks like something out of a cyberpunk dystopia, and I sincerely hope the design doesn't catch on to other vehicles. Not that I think most vehicles today look much better than it.

[Korh]

I might put $10 on it being this generation hummer both in who buys it and how it's used

[BoredAgain]

It's the eco-conscious choice for the "Mad Max" doomsday prepper.

[mattaudio]

Doomsday preppers want old trucks before computer-controlled engines (EMP hardened) running on diesel (easier to bulk store for long term without degradation). And not just one bug-out truck, but a menu of vehicle options to survive different scenarios.
Or so I've heard...

[BikesOnFilm]

I really don't think any serious prepper is driving a vehicle so dependent on the grid, let alone one that doesn't even have buttons on the console.

It seems more like the vehicle for the tech bro, "how do I take this public service and turn it into a company that pays me instead" set.

[Tyler]

They probably don't look at it like this but electric is a million times better for doomsday crowd. You can charge it with a simple solar panel setup. Fuel goes bad, and runs out.

[daveybabymsp]

Waymo coming to Minneapolis:

https://www.startribune.com/driverless- ... /601527735

[twincitizen]

The cars are already here, someone posted a pic on social media of them being unloaded from shipping containers. Human drivers are required until the law is changed in MN to allow full driverless operation.

https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities ... ut-testing

[mplsjaromir]

It’s cool that guys in India are going to driving cars in Minneapolis.

[Nick]

Spotted a Waymo in the wild this morning after the snow. I think I have pretty good Luddite credentials overall and dislike many of the various things that are happening, but if you guys aren't going to stop looking at your phones when driving, I'll take the robot cars.

[COLSLAW5]

They have 9 of them in the Hennepin county parking ramp at Target Field Station

[Korh]

I think the technology is interesting but I don't think it will "solve" transportation like some people where claiming 10 years ago although most people seemed to have abandoned that native and pivoted to something along the lines of being an infinite money glitch.
Although one thing waymo expanding does is it undermines Tesla, which depending where you stand is either a good or bad thing. For a few years now Tesla has been marketing itself as the leader in autonomous driving and once it gets it's robotaxi network running it will see exponential growth, except current there stuck in Austin and still haven't passed regulation to run without someone in the driver seat ready to take over if something goes wrong, while Waymo has already cleared said regulation and for better or worse is getting around 400,000 to 450,000 weekly rides.

[amiller92]

Perhaps someone has and I don't know because I'm not watching closely enough, but it would be nice if there were standards - perhaps even regulations - that could be put in place for autonomous vehicle makers to meet to demonstrate urban street worthiness. There is such a chasm between "better than a drunk texting and driving" and "safer than a diligence driver in a chaotic environment" and we should probably be coming to a consensus about what we find acceptable before widespread deployment.

But it's America and regulating things went out of style around 1980.

[Korh]

The closest we have to regulations is SAE levels of autonomous driving where anything between level 0-2 has no restrictions (2 being stuff like adaptive cruse control and lane centering), levels 3-5 has some regulations depending on the state (MN actually doesn't have any)
Aside from that the only other thing is NHTSA which although they don't have anything related to autonomous vehicle still can judge there overall safety features and force a recall if they suspect any autonomous vehicle is being involved in more crashed above the national standard

[Mdcastle]

Still hoping the technology gets there withing 25 years or so, about the time I figure I have left "manually" driving cars.
=

[Nick]

Perhaps someone has and I don't know because I'm not watching closely enough, but it would be nice if there were standards - perhaps even regulations - that could be put in place for autonomous vehicle makers to meet to demonstrate urban street worthiness. There is such a chasm between "better than a drunk texting and driving" and "safer than a diligence driver in a chaotic environment" and we should probably be coming to a consensus about what we find acceptable before widespread deployment.

But it's America and regulating things went out of style around 1980.

It did seem insane to me at the onset that we basically let the companies do their beta testing on public roads. But these things have been running in real cities (and San Francisco is a much more complicated driving environment than Phoenix) for years now and they are pretty clearly a lot safer than human drivers. The snow and ice does seem like a new variable, though.

[COLSLAW5]

Didn't get a photo of it but saw one of those gold Tesla Robo Taxis in south Minneapolis yesterday. It had Florida plates, I am wondering if its just a random person with one or if they are trying to do what waymo is doing.

[BikesOnFilm]

Without a photo it’s hard to say definitively what you saw, but considering Tesla is barely operating their robotaxi service in the Texas cities where they are in operation and the gold CyberCab isn’t yet for sale, I think there’s a chance you saw a Musk fanboy’s Model 3 with a gold wrap.

[COLSLAW5]

no it 100% was a 2 door, with the gold wheel covers. They do have some sort of announcement tomorrow regarding them

[twincitizen]

Cybercab launches in Austin TX this week apparently, following Tesla's livestream event later today. I've been seeing that term "Cybercab" for a few years but never actually looked up what it is. Basically a lower-cost two-seater autonomous EV with no steering wheel or pedals. This Reuters article mentions that there are test models with steering wheels and pedals being tested in various states: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 026-09-03/

I suppose Tesla could have people driving them around to boost interest in the announcement today.