Tesla Thread

[DDE]

1 hour ago, PakledHostage said:

it hasn't reached the grass roots level

And that's what we call "moving the goalposts". We were talking about the mythical oil lobby.

It's mythical because a lobbyist does not discriminate

[PakledHostage]

Just now, DDE said:

We were talking about the mythical oil lobby.

I wasn't.  I was talking about grass roots advocates who go onto coment threads about everything they see as a threat to the status quo, and shriek "I'm melting!". Change is happening.  Maybe more slowly than it should be, but it is happening. 

[tater]

A friend should have his cybertruck in a week or so... so I'll get to drive one.

Meanwhile the issue with the other EV companies is the inability to scale, though Q1 24 is an improvement over Q4, 23.

Kinda cool you can buy a >$400k car for closer to $100k I guess.

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, tater said:

A friend should have his cybertruck in a week or so... so I'll get to drive one.

Watch your fingers!  Serious, those edges on the hood, the doors, they are dangerous!  Stay safe, dude!

[tater]

5 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Watch your fingers!  Serious, those edges on the hood, the doors, they are dangerous!  Stay safe, dude!

I had already planned to delicately touch them, they look pointy.

[kerbiloid]

They should call it "Electric Razor".

[Flavio hc16]

On 5/6/2024 at 10:36 PM, tater said:

A friend should have his cybertruck in a week or so... so I'll get to drive one.

Meanwhile the issue with the other EV companies is the inability to scale, though Q1 24 is an improvement over Q4, 23.

Kinda cool you can buy a >$400k car for closer to $100k I guess.

And what's insane to me is that 12 years ago, when Tesla was at the same scale, they had 25-30% gross margins, even though:

- there was no EV infrastructure 

- there was no EV know how 

- there was no EV supply chain

- battery cost was 10/20x ( not percent, 20 TIMES) more expensive.

 

You really get how scrappy Tesla is/was, even today.

They are the only western manufacturer that makes EVs at a net profit, and the only other manufacturer on the planet that does, BYD ( China) we are not really sure it really does because it doesn't separate the numbers between hibrids and EVs.

People really fail to understand how dominant Tesla is in the EV space. And don't get me started on FSD, were probably the only company in the history of mankind that is so dominant on the rest of the planet is.....

....SpaceX.

[tater]

The teleoperation training farm part is interesting. Seem to be doing "hand" tasks as they might FSD on cars. With "nothing but nets" they show Dojo human driving—from the POV of a Tesla—and it learns driving. They seem to be training the bot the same way, but "showing" it a bot being "driven."

[kerbiloid]

"No robot can replace the janitor!", were saying they.

Waiting for a video about the teslabot with a broom, being trained by a biojanitor to be replaced.

Edited May 8 by kerbiloid

[StrandedonEarth]

20 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

"No robot can replace the janitor!", were saying they.

Waiting for a video about the teslabot with a broom, being trained by a biojanitor to be replaced.

A robot doesn’t care what the mess is in the bathroom that needs to be cleaned up. It won’t gag or puke at the sight, or need a gas mask, etc. I think the janitor at my wife’s school would be happy to be replaced by a robot, considering the messes that get deliberately made in the boys room. And no, they’re not smoking in there…

Although the bot itself might need decontaminating after…

Edited May 8 by StrandedonEarth

[kerbiloid]

Next step: garbage sorting, with human-like bots standing at the belt..

[tater]

10 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Next step: garbage sorting, with human-like bots standing at the belt..

To be fair the garbage sorting is to sort people into the bin of marginally employable people they can give money to for the make-work of sorting stuff that gets subsequently put in the landfill anyway.

Maybe once robots do that sort of work they can hire the same people to polish the robots?

 

16 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

A robot doesn’t care what the mess is in the bathroom that needs to be cleaned up. It won’t gag or puke at the sight, or need a gas mask, etc. I think the janitor at my wife’s school would be happy to be replaced by a robot, considering the messes that get deliberately made in the boys room. And no, they’re not smoking in there…

The killer app for distributed humanoid robot adoption will be elder care assuming they are capable of this. Sorting batteries into slots is stuff a robot arm could do—the human form assuming it can lift someone out of bed, and put them into a wheelchair, or move them to and from the toilet, shower, etc—THAT is what they need to demonstrate. 24 hour human caregivers are incredibly expensive—$400-$500/day, so $150k-$180k a year. Even if the bots are not yet super communicative (LLMs are pretty good here already, so they WILL be, just to have conversations with their charges), a single real person could be a caregiver supervisor, with robots staying overnight (better for the human employee, who is not there 24/7), and spending a few hours a day with each patient. Patients get human interaction, but can have the robot bathe and help them with the toilet, perhaps cook, etc. This is a vast market.

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

To be fair the garbage sorting is to sort people into the bin of marginally employable people they can give money to for the make-work of sorting stuff that gets subsequently put in the landfill anyway.

This in turn raises a question.

Spoiler

Are they training humans to live in the world of robots?

 

6 minutes ago, tater said:

This is a vast market.

This is the only job for the meatbags in the shining new roboworld, thus the robots don't need to be trained for that.

[tater]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Are they training humans to live in the world of robots?

It's training for something... answering would probably be a TOS, tbh.

 

[kerbiloid]

On a serious note, as the Why Not Fear AI is locked, but related.

The Teslabot and Fyodor can use human firearms and be soldiers.

But this doesn't frighten.
What's really scary, is that the current events demonstrate that swarms of cheap drones almost have occupied the battlefield, and the beautiful night shows where swarms of networked drones with lamps show various dynamic figures in air could be managed by AI.

All of this gives to the coming AI a ready-to-use army of billions of combat drones under its command, to fight against humans.

And Starlink to manage it.

[AckSed]

Speaking of robot arms, back in the days of the Model S the actual robot arms used to assemble the cars were originally trained by expert welders. So this is the next step up.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, AckSed said:

Speaking of robot arms, back in the days of the Model S the actual robot arms used to assemble the cars were originally trained by expert welders. So this is the next step up.

 

Spoiler

 

[RCgothic]

Maybe a waterproof robot could take a normal shower after dirty tasks.

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 5/5/2024 at 7:34 AM, Terwin said:

In spite of movies, shooting a can of gas will not cause an explosion.

Having a battery-pack land on a sharp rock or bit of metal will likely cause a chemical fire that will destroy the entire battery facility.

Just plugging in a damaged or faulty battery pack could do the same. 

Also, Batteries and tires are the two most wear-sensitive parts on a BEV, and who wants to get an 'old' pack with only 2/3 the range of their brand new pack?

Your information here is incredibly out of date. I can’t speak for other mfrs but a Tesla battery can take a significant amount of damage and not catch fire, as each cell is thermally isolated from the others. Here’s a Model 3 battery that went sideways into a tree, did way more damage than “landing on a sharp rock,” and didn’t catch fire. 

And speaking of landing on a sharp rock, you hear about the Model Y that was deliberately driven off a cliff, and not only did it not catch fire despite all the sharp rocks, everyone walked away?

Also, the battery of any Tesla made today should last the life of the vehicle, and then some. An “old” pack just isn’t going to see that kind of degradation, any more than a gas engine (which also loses efficiency with age). I can post the graph if you want, I bought my first Model X used with 36k miles, sold it 40k miles later. Over that time my degradation was completely flat, I lost no meaningful amount of range. It used to be that EVs would see a sharp drop of around 10% in the first year, leading to this myth, but degradation then tapers off to little to nothing. Even that no longer seems to be the case with newer vehicles with better battery management.

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

On a serious note, as the Why Not Fear AI is locked, but related.

The Teslabot and Fyodor can use human firearms and be soldiers.

But this doesn't frighten.
What's really scary, is that the current events demonstrate that swarms of cheap drones almost have occupied the battlefield, and the beautiful night shows where swarms of networked drones with lamps show various dynamic figures in air could be managed by AI.

All of this gives to the coming AI a ready-to-use army of billions of combat drones under its command, to fight against humans.

And Starlink to manage it.

Things are always more complex in combat.  It's never simple.  Even as the battlefield and the soldiers and the kit they use evolves.

Because troops wear body armour and engagement ranges are commonly greater, militaries are moving to larger more powerful standard rifle rounds.  These will trash robots just as well.  As will the frags from artillery.

Units in the field have ALWAYS had Air Sentries.  (A friend of mine only survived an IED blast that killed everyone else in his vehicle because he was the Air Sentry.)  And a lot of weapons to take down small craft.  Drones are coming onto a battlefield that has a lot of pointy nasty things to break them.

Controlling even a few robots is hard.  Making them as good as a below-average soldier fresh out of their first trade course (infantry, armour, artillery, etc.) is very complex and still decades if not centuries away.  Using communications to control large constellations is having radio transmissions that can be tracked, jammed, or use radiation-homing missiles on.  Trying to replace that with laser beam comms has its own challenges.

AI can do some tasks, but don't believe the hype about it being all-singing, all-dancing.

And Starlink can always be wrecked by appropriate counter-measures.  Some don't even make things move towards the Kessler Syndrome.

On the modern day battlefield, there's still some minor and rare use cases for virtually EVERY weapon and weapon system and tool ever developed.  Even those 1000's of years old.  Shovels are common, because there's always the need to dig.  That shovel is also a melee weapon.  Every soldier has bayonet, a knife, but it's mostly a tool.  That bayonet can go on the end of their rifle, but it's rare to need that spear-replacement.  But when you do....

A big example: there will always be tanks as they provide mobile direct-fire gunnery with sufficient protection to make them difficult to disable.  With the changing threats against tanks, their tactical employment and equipment detail will change.  But as long as there's a need for that direct-fire gunnery, there's going to be a tank of some sort on the battlefield.

Things are always more complex in combat.  It's never simple.  Even as the battlefield and the soldiers and the kit they use evolves.

[Jacke]

39 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Your information here is incredibly out of date [about fire and other threats from battery packs].  ....

This isn't a problem that is best characterised by anecdotes.  This is best characterised by statistics and examining the details and intensity of the failures.

In short, adoption of large battery packs in hybrid and EVs poses some major significant threats that are being barely dealt with.

Currently, the handling of petroleum products in vehicles has had over a century of experience, development, and improving safety standards and firefighter responses.  Near every tool the firefighters have can be used against petroleum fires, even in the worst case water (as a fine mist spray that cools the fire and puts droplets on top of the liquids despite the relative densities).

As many working in chemistry and material handling know, large metal fires are nearly the worst to deal with short of letting them burn and trying to minimize the peripheral damage and inhalation of the toxic smoke.

Even outside of damage induced incidents, large batteries from those in hybrid vehicle and up suffer a significant rate of thermal runaway.  The handling of petroleum products is sufficiently mature and proper equipment and training so near universal that there is no equivalent threat from conventional petroleum powered vehicles.

Thermal runaway of even just hybrid battery packs is a catastrophic event that only recently has firefighters equipped with an appropriate tool: firefighters in full gear smash in a window, then back off and put in a brine flooding wand to cool and discharge the battery.

Despite the lower proportion of large battery equipped vehicles in the overall vehicle population, large battery pack fires are a more significant threat due to the intense nature of the metal fires.

Edited May 8 by Jacke

[kerbiloid]

29 minutes ago, Jacke said:

On the modern day battlefield, there's still some minor and rare use cases for virtually EVERY weapon and weapon system and tool ever developed. 

I'm about the current events to the North from the Black Sea.

Based on what we know about them, both parties use tens thousands of (expendable and reusable) air drones and train tens thousands of their operators, together with tanks and shovels. Also the sea drones are widely used, and the ground drones have been tested.
So, it's almost a whole army of bots flying, swimming, and sometimes crawling around, and they are quickly evolving.

Just now they are controlled by humans.

[Jacke]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

I'm about the current events to the North from the Black Sea.

Based on what we know about them, both parties use tens thousands of (expendable and reusable) air drones and train tens thousands of their operators, together with tanks and shovels. Also the sea drones are widely used, and the ground drones have been tested.
So, it's almost a whole army of bots flying, swimming, and sometimes crawling around, and they are quickly evolving.

Just now they are controlled by humans.

It's a major change, the increase in observation and combat drones.  This has actually been going on over the last few decades.  It's just not been put out in public that much before the Russo-Ukraine War.

There's been similar factors for decades, like overhead satellite and aircraft observation.  Thus the need for Air Sentries and appropriate reaction drills.  Also the need for survivable surveillance radars and a warning system, because without them, if fast air (a threat decades old) attacks, you don't know it until they're leaving, having dropped their ordnance.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

This isn't a problem that is best characterised by anecdotes.  This is best characterised by statistics and examining the details and intensity of the failures.

Respectfully, you say this, and then anecdotes are exactly what you offered. Here’s a statistic: EV fires are ten, eighty, even a hundred times less likely to occur in the first place. Even if they are more likely to be “catastrophic” (however you’re defining that), that catastrophe is still less likely to occur. By your own statement (brine solution, etc) it’s already a solved problem, it just requires different tactics and equipment. Such is the evolution of fire response from the beginning (fighting a massive fuel spill/fire also requires special tactics and equipment).

[tater]

Different EVs might also have different fire risks.