Do you drive a Tesla? If so, go fuck yourself.

https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/cybertruck-safety-elon-musk-tesla-danger.html

Lots of threads out there pointing out that this guy is having a fanboigasm over a design "feature" that introduces a single point of failure to ANYTHING connected within the vehicle....

Reducing copper usage is a worthy goal, but cars have separate wiring for different components for a reason.

Isn't that a design necessity when switching from a ICE car that powers itself mainly from the alternator, to a car that powers devices mainle from the battery output? In the case of some car components the power is different from communication. There might be a better safety design where power could continue with the device operating on it's own programming while the main unit reboots.

I am just saying the analysis seems to lack a full understanding of the different purposes wiring for an ICE vehicle would be than with a car that is much more computerized and operating on servos and actual digital communications. That ethernet cable is not powering devices as far as I would guess, and I am guessing. Some of the switches on an ICE car are simple on off powering. They do not require communication instructions across that wire.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/elon-musk-tesla-crash-1234930544/

The Autopilot system raises your risk of being in an accident by 11%.

Non-Tesla EV Marketshare Jumps 800 Percent In Three Years

Tesla Cybertruck Parts List Revealed: Repairs Are Going To Be Expensive

The wholesale price for the tires is $470. Each. Which means you're looking at close to a grand retail, then when you add in mounting, etc., you're absolutely over $1K per tire.

This is one of those rare instances where the insurance industry may be able to step in and actually do some good for society.

U.S. safety regulators may be largely impotent, but if it does turn out that the Cybertruck is a death trap, the insurance industry will hopefully make it prohibitively expensive to own one (or simply outright refuse to insure it).

Remember, though, Tesla has their own auto insurance company.

something tells me that shit needs to be regulated out of business.

https://electrek.co/2023/12/18/tesla-removes-disney-cars-amid-elon-musks-beef-bob-iger/

https://www.reuters.com/technology/an-abused-wife-took-tesla-over-tracking-tech-she-lost-2023-12-19/

Why Elon Musk isn't too happy with Netflix's new apocalypse movie

Starlink denied $900 million subsidy for rural broadband connectivity.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/britne...lion-rural-broadband-subsidy/?sh=666c36d018df

Insuring stuff no one else wants to is not a road to long-term profitability. Short term is one thing, but insurers rely on actuarial spreadsheets for a reason.

Elon Doubles Down On The Whole 'Cybertruck Boat' Thing

‘Gooey Mess’ Tesla Cybertruck Deliveries Held Up By Battery Production Nightmare

https://www.engadget.com/tesla-is-r...door-safety-issue-114540716.html?guccounter=1

https://nypost.com/2023/12/29/business/tesla-cybertruck-involved-in-first-reported-crash/

It Took 36,000 Gallons Of Water To Extinguish A Burning Tesla

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ng-workers-hit-emergency-shutdown-button.html

Not a good start for Cybertruck, if the Corolla driver got away with fewer injuries than the Cybertruck driver, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Cubertruck driver was faking it for a bogus medical lawsuit since the Corolla driver was at fault.

That’s not Tesla-specific though. Fire departments should probably start investing in more specialized equipment as battery-electric vehicles become more common.

True but I can see other automakers adopting battery tech that's easier to extinguish than Tesla, simply because no matter how bad they have Not Invented Here Syndrome, Tesla has it much worse.

I think your estimate of Tesla’s Not Invented Here syndrome is plain wrong, when it comes to batteries. Last I checked, Tesla is using standard high-energy Li-po chemistries (but the chemistry, once lithium is involved, doesn’t affect the flammability much), and most of their cell production is outsourced to Panasonic and LG. While they have the Gigafactories, Tesla largely aren’t the ones actually building the cells; Panasonic works out of the Gigafactories directly! Unless and until they reduce the amount of lithium (there are options which no EV maker is using yet, including sodium-ion (heavier, but could make a nice hybrid (with lithium) car) and silicon cathode (doubling the energy density, halving the amount of lithium needed, but super expensive and the patent holder isn’t selling to car companies yet), they’re in exactly the same boat as every other EV manufacturer. The latest Model 3s (and probably Cybertruck? Haven’t read anything about its pack) use a larger than standard form factor for each cell, which they HAVE been manufacturing themselves, but they’ve also been pushing Panasonic and LG to retool to build that larger cell for them.

The battery packs are Tesla designs even if they're made by others. Something that's not at all uncommon in the automotive industry, regardless of what components you're talking about.

Tesla uses its own unique charging connector (which has been adopted by some of the other automakers, but not all), and they are continuing to push manufacturing techniques in ways that other automakers aren't doing (not because Tesla's ahead of the curve, IMHO). They're looking at making the entire subframe for the cars out of a single casting, as well as casting the battery pack holder out of a single piece. While this potentially can reduce manufacturing costs, it makes repairing and replacing the stuff almost impossible. On a conventionally built vehicle (EV or not), if there's damage to the subframes, one can (depending upon how the car's built and how extensive the damage is) either bolt a replacement on or weld on a replacement, but if the entire subframe's cast metal (as Tesla intends to do), then you're SOL when it comes repairing and replacing it due to damage. I know I've linked to a couple of articles describing these issues in some of the related Tesla threads.

And even setting aside the issues of repairability, there's other problems with the way Tesla's designing their cars when it comes to manufacturing. They have really high setup costs, which means that even though the stuff is cheaper to produce on a per-unit basis, if you have to make a significant change to the design to accommodate improved battery technology, it's more expensive for you to do this. Toyota's said to have a vastly improved battery design that they're getting ready to implement in a couple of years, I'm assuming that they'll be more than happy to license it to other car makers once they're satisfied with the tech and have a year or so's headstart on everyone else. What's Tesla going to do then?

If they need to make any modifications to their designs to accommodate changes necessitated by the new batteries, it will probably be more expensive for them to do so than other automakers, just because of how they tailor their manufacturing methods to their existing designs. What's the size of those next-gen Toyota batteries to current batteries? What's the weight? What are the cooling needs? What's the service life of them?

I mean, I think that we can all agree that if you come up with an electric battery pack that is fairly small, exceedingly cheap (say a few hundred dollars at retail, or no more than $1K at the most), the fact that it doesn't last as long (in terms of operating life) as a conventional LiOn battery pack, that's a huge plus over conventional. I don't know how much work it'd take for the older automakers to adapt their designs to accommodate such a change, but it won't cost them as much as it does Tesla, where for some of the models once the battery pack is dead, you might as well scrap the car because of the labor involved in trying to replace it.

Remember, I've been involved in auto manufacturing at different levels for a couple of decades now, and my mom ran the parts department of a Honda dealership from the late 70s until she retired in the early 00s, I know a little bit about this stuff. Absolutely some of the things that Tesla did were very innovative, but some of the stupid shit that they've done is the kind of crap that nobody who knows anything about manufacturing should ever do. The tie-rod ends on some Tesla models are prone to severe rust. [William Hurt in A History of Violence] How do you fuck that up? [/WHiAHoV] Even if the nature of Teslas require you to use a different design than the kajillion or so generic ones on the market, you ought to know to use a low-rust material in making them.

Automakers have a phrase "the world parts bin" that they apply to the kind of parts that are generic to nearly every car made out there and that aren't tailored to any unique make or model. If you know what you're doing (or have access to the right interchange manuals) and you need a part for your car (like a tie-rod end or brake pads, or a host of other stuff), you don't buy the part that's said to go for your particular make and model, you buy one labeled for some other make and model, because, quite literally, the only thing different about it is the price. If you're really good, you know that (for example) the tie-rod end labeled for XYZ make and model, not only fits perfectly on your car (which isn't that make and model), but offers you benefits that most others that fit your car don't.

I'd ask if you want me to go into the nitty-gritty of this stuff, but I already know you don't, so I'll just leave it there.

Father-son duo craft fully functional wooden Tesla Cybertruck in 100 days

https://bsky.app/profile/niedermeyer.io/post/3ki6whghgyq23

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/5/2...-estimations-model-x-s-y-mileage-exaggeration