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OT: Electric vehicles

I think what you are referring to is the restart of a plant idled in 2012 after the Fukushima accident. I thought perhaps you were talking about the opening of a new plant. The reopening is important because it illustrates how rising fuel costs and the desire for decarbonization have turned Japan away from a planned phaseout of nuclear energy. But, of course, reopening an existing plant is a far cry from actually building and operating new capacity. https://apnews.com/article/japan-nu...wa-fukushima-18976a399154dd3e850d963ab506548d

Yes, it is reopening rather than a whole new plant. I don't know the regulations in Japan, but the regulatory hoops in the US certainly make new construction difficult. Still, it is going to operate.
 
Yes, it is reopening rather than a whole new plant. I don't know the regulations in Japan, but the regulatory hoops in the US certainly make new construction difficult. Still, it is going to operate.
I think most of us agree that nuclear is going to be around for a while, to supplement green energy production and cleaner approaches to petrochemical energy production. Government intentions are one thing, but practicality will eventually win out.
 
Yes, it is reopening rather than a whole new plant. I don't know the regulations in Japan, but the regulatory hoops in the US certainly make new construction difficult. Still, it is going to operate.
As the story I linked says, the plant had to go through a *long* process before being allowed to re-open. That isn't much of an indication that Japan is going to allow new plants. After all, Three Mile Island was allowed to re-open here and yet, as you say, building anything new here is difficult.
 
I think most of us agree that nuclear is going to be around for a while, to supplement green energy production and cleaner approaches to petrochemical energy production. Government intentions are one thing, but practicality will eventually win out.
A nuclear plant started operation in Georgia last year, and another started up in Tennessee in 2016. Nothing is under construction in this country. Biden's Inflation Reduction Act contains incentives for construction, but deregulation of wholesale electricity markets makes financing even more difficult than it was.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/usa-nuclear-power.aspx
 
As the story I linked says, the plant had to go through a *long* process before being allowed to re-open. That isn't much of an indication that Japan is going to allow new plants. After all, Three Mile Island was allowed to re-open here and yet, as you say, building anything new here is difficult.
It should be difficult from a regulatory standpoint, IMO. I mean, nuclear energy oops moments aren’t exactly as recoverable as, say, banking industry oops moments that lead to recessions.

Anybody who complains about how hard it is to get a nuke plant up and running is either a total moron or a member of an organization looking to profit from the opening of a nuke plant. This is not a thing that should be easy and unregulated.
 
IDK. I find the Silverado Denali intriguing, but I have generally never had a good experience with GM products, and their tepid entry into the EV space is a little bit of a concern (maybe tepid is the wrong word, bc they have had the Bolt/Volt EVs for a while). But there are a lot of cool features on this truck. Mentioned this to my better half on the commute in today in our F150 Lightning, and she laughed at me. Don't think we will unload our F150 Lightning at a loss to jump into a more expensive EV. We have no plans to sell, as we are still thrilled with the Lightning. But that pickup truck bed with the folding back doors on the Silverado is really cool, and they also have a frunk. Confession, have not used the frunk for anything.

Wow, I use mine all the time, love it. In fact, I don't think I'd buy an EV if it wasn't a thing. I like the cabin being for people, the bed for weather/dirty things and the frunk for well things that would normally go into a trunk.
 
Wow, I use mine all the time, love it. In fact, I don't think I'd buy an EV if it wasn't a thing. I like the cabin being for people, the bed for weather/dirty things and the frunk for well things that would normally go into a trunk.
First time I head of the frunk, I thought it was a stupid, maybe it's the name, but then I thought about it, just as you describe it, and I said, that's actually pretty sweet.
 
I thunks, too many blunts.
4/20 is around the corner, but I don't partake!
Weed 420 Blaze It GIF by MOODMAN
 
Good work by Elon. Stock price plummeting so far this year, lays off 10% of his employees, builds an easily rusting ugly "truck" with unintended acceleration problems, lowers the price of beta testing FSD thereby creating even more danger on already dangerous public roadways.

Hey, I know! Let's give him $55B for his good work! 😂

Yeah, yeah, I know the money was part of a much earlier agreement. But if we can't laugh at arrogant billionaires, or at ourselves, then who's left to laugh at?
 
Good work by Elon. Stock price plummeting so far this year, lays off 10% of his employees, builds an easily rusting ugly "truck" with unintended acceleration problems, lowers the price of beta testing FSD thereby creating even more danger on already dangerous public roadways.

Hey, I know! Let's give him $55B for his good work! 😂

Yeah, yeah, I know the money was part of a much earlier agreement. But if we can't laugh at arrogant billionaires, or at ourselves, then who's left to laugh at?

Can't you just get some Gorilla Glue and glue the pad down on the pedal?

LOL.
 
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Tesla has dropped the price of FSD to $8,000 (from $12,000) in the U.S.
Also got rid of Enhanced Autopilot.
 
Just saw the interview of the CT owner that posted the video about stuck pedal. Thought it was funny that he was at a drag race track with his truck.
 
According to this article, insurers are writing off a lot of Teslas despite them having been in relatively minor accidents. Repair costs are purportedly too high. I guess vehicle values are dropping due to all the price cuts, making it cheaper to just pay out the market value.

 
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According to this article, insurers are writing off a lot of Teslas despite them hating been in relatively minor accidents. Repair costs are purportedly too high. I guess vehicle values are dropping due to all the price cuts, making it cheaper to just pay out the market value.

I read it was a liability issue. Damage battery = fire hazard.
 
Another partially automated driving death.


The argument that humans are often inebriated or distracted is not a valid argument for permitting partially automated systems on public roadways. They are only a valid argument for tech that prevents drunk or inattentive driving.

The fact that humans can also be dangerous on the road cannot make adding even more danger, in the form of inherently flawed partially automated driving systems, a wise thing to do. If humans can't pay attention when driving themselves, what insanity makes anybody think humans will remain attentive when the car is doing the driving?
 
Another partially automated driving death.


The argument that humans are often inebriated or distracted is not a valid argument for permitting partially automated systems on public roadways. They are only a valid argument for tech that prevents drunk or inattentive driving.

The fact that humans can also be dangerous on the road cannot make adding even more danger, in the form of inherently flawed partially automated driving systems, a wise thing to do. If humans can't pay attention when driving themselves, what insanity makes anybody think humans will remain attentive when the car is doing the driving?
it's wishful thinking.
 
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Another partially automated driving death.


The argument that humans are often inebriated or distracted is not a valid argument for permitting partially automated systems on public roadways. They are only a valid argument for tech that prevents drunk or inattentive driving.

The fact that humans can also be dangerous on the road cannot make adding even more danger, in the form of inherently flawed partially automated driving systems, a wise thing to do. If humans can't pay attention when driving themselves, what insanity makes anybody think humans will remain attentive when the car is doing the driving?
The article is a little unclear but it appears to me he was in autopilot, meaning he rear ended someone while in cruise control, the same thing every car has. Nothing to do with automated driving.
 
The article is a little unclear but it appears to me he was in autopilot, meaning he rear ended someone while in cruise control, the same thing every car has. Nothing to do with automated driving.
From Tesla itself:

"Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane."


Regular old cruise control requires the driver to do the braking and steering. What Autopilot is doing is partially automated driving tech (which bores the human to sleep while requiring them to remain attentive). It's not cruise control.

And it should be banned (in all cars by all manufacturers). When we have V2X and fully automated cars that have been proven to work well enough, then that will be fine.

To prove it works well enough, manufactures should have to:

- Have the system operate their cars in a virtual environment on public roads where the system's inputs and results are isolated from the physical car itself, captured and tracked over time. This combination of real world experience with virtualized software inputs has the benefit of giving the manufacturers huge amounts of training data without putting anybody at risk while working out the kinks. They would then present that data to the NHTSA who can examine it for problems.

- Pass intensive road course testing (not on public roads) where the NHTSA puts the car through a series of extreme automated driving tests under all weather, road, driving and traffic conditions, including gaps in V2I which is always possible. All without any humans in the car. All without putting the public at risk.

It still won't be perfect, of course. But it will be a hell of a lot safer than the corporate wishful thinking taking place today with partially automated driving (aka death on wheels).
 
From Tesla itself:

"Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane."


Regular old cruise control requires the driver to do the braking and steering. What Autopilot is doing is partially automated driving tech (which bores the human to sleep while requiring them to remain attentive). It's not cruise control.

And it should be banned (in all cars by all manufacturers). When we have V2X and fully automated cars that have been proven to work well enough, then that will be fine.

To prove it works well enough, manufactures should have to:

- Have the system operate their cars in a virtual environment on public roads where the system's inputs and results are isolated from the physical car itself, captured and tracked over time. This combination of real world experience with virtualized software inputs has the benefit of giving the manufacturers huge amounts of training data without putting anybody at risk while working out the kinks. They would then present that data to the NHTSA who can examine it for problems.

- Pass intensive road course testing (not on public roads) where the NHTSA puts the car through a series of extreme automated driving tests under all weather, road, driving and traffic conditions, including gaps in V2I which is always possible. All without any humans in the car. All without putting the public at risk.

It still won't be perfect, of course. But it will be a hell of a lot safer than the corporate wishful thinking taking place today with partially automated driving (aka death on wheels).
I guess I’m just used to the big alert that comes up in autopilot telling you it’s not responsible for braking. It’s pretty idiot proof, but evidently not 100%
 
I guess I’m just used to the big alert that comes up in autopilot telling you it’s not responsible for braking. It’s pretty idiot proof, but evidently not 100%
So you figure the big alert wasn’t displayed for the driver who just allowed his car to kill a motorcyclist? And the lack of alert message is why he didn’t pay proper attention?

Or do you think maybe an alert message was just proven not to be good enough?

Do you have a number in mind where you’ll be less comfortable with sacrificing people to the imperfections of partially automated driving systems? Should we consider the dead motorcyclist as acceptable collateral damage along the path to higher share prices?

I kinda always knew that the adoption of the automated rear lift gate was an early sign of the impending apocalypse. The beginning of humanity’s decline into amorphous blobs of lazy uselessness.

But I hoped we’d have more time. 🙂
 
So you figure the big alert wasn’t displayed for the driver who just allowed his car to kill a motorcyclist? And the lack of alert message is why he didn’t pay proper attention?

Or do you think maybe an alert message was just proven not to be good enough?

Do you have a number in mind where you’ll be less comfortable with sacrificing people to the imperfections of partially automated driving systems? Should we consider the dead motorcyclist as acceptable collateral damage along the path to higher share prices?

I kinda always knew that the adoption of the automated rear lift gate was an early sign of the impending apocalypse. The beginning of humanity’s decline into amorphous blobs of lazy uselessness.

But I hoped we’d have more time. 🙂
I blame the driver, not the technology or car. If you rear end someone while in cruise control, it’s your fault.
 
I blame the driver, not the technology or car. If you rear end someone while in cruise control, it’s your fault.
I blame the driver too. But blame won't bring the motorcyclist back.

And by putting that type of badly conceived tech into cars, manufacturers are basically setting up drivers to fail.

manufacturer: hey driver, here's something that makes the car drive itself
manufacturer: we spent a hundred trillion hours making it perfect for you
manufacturer: why do we keep lowering the price if it's so perfect... uh... altruism
manufacturer: it's not good enough not to fail often so remain alert at all times

driver: cool, and uh, what?

manufacturer: don't sweat it, look at this glossy advertisement instead

driver: oh hey, cool

<time passes>

driver: this car just drives itself, this is great, i'll just stay alert though in case, like all software, it has bugs

<more time passes>

driver: been a while and haven't experienced a problem, must mean it's safe to ignore the warnings
driver: i'm getting a text msg from my GF, the car's fine, let me focus on the text
driver: oh no, she's breaking up with me

motorcyclist: i'm totally innocent in all this

driver: so should i type this or that to my GF to get her back?

motorcyclist: i really wish that guy behind me would slow down for the traffic ahead, as I'm doing

car software: the sun is in my eyes, the latest update tells me keep going to avoid customer complaints

motorcyclist: oh fu...

<crash>

driver: wtf did I just hit?

cop: you hit a motorcyclist who's dead under your car, are the handcuffs comfy enough?

manufacturer: not my problem and look at those share prices climb

teslerati: the moral of the story is the motorcyclist should've been in a tesla
teslerati: the driver probably was using the car wrong, teslas are infallible, jalopnik sucks
 
I blame the driver too. But blame won't bring the motorcyclist back.

And by putting that type of badly conceived tech into cars, manufacturers are basically setting up drivers to fail.

manufacturer: hey driver, here's something that makes the car drive itself
manufacturer: we spent a hundred trillion hours making it perfect for you
manufacturer: why do we keep lowering the price if it's so perfect... uh... altruism
manufacturer: it's not good enough not to fail often so remain alert at all times

driver: cool, and uh, what?

manufacturer: don't sweat it, look at this glossy advertisement instead

driver: oh hey, cool

<time passes>

driver: this car just drives itself, this is great, i'll just stay alert though in case, like all software, it has bugs

<more time passes>

driver: been a while and haven't experienced a problem, must mean it's safe to ignore the warnings
driver: i'm getting a text msg from my GF, the car's fine, let me focus on the text
driver: oh no, she's breaking up with me

motorcyclist: i'm totally innocent in all this

driver: so should i type this or that to my GF to get her back?

motorcyclist: i really wish that guy behind me would slow down for the traffic ahead, as I'm doing

car software: the sun is in my eyes, the latest update tells me keep going to avoid customer complaints

motorcyclist: oh fu...

<crash>

driver: wtf did I just hit?

cop: you hit a motorcyclist who's dead under your car, are the handcuffs comfy enough?

manufacturer: not my problem and look at those share prices climb

teslerati: the moral of the story is the motorcyclist should've been in a tesla
teslerati: the driver probably was using the car wrong, teslas are infallible, jalopnik sucks
You realize the same argument can be made for various features of a car, right? Why do cars go over 90 mph when speed is a top cause of accidents? You could list half a dozen things like this and apply it the same way.
 
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