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and your 1980s technology metal cans

Here is an example that shows the difference between modern cars and 1980s tech: http://www.thedrive.com/news/5...

Toyota was in the news with this in 2017. They had the same issue with battery life at the time - otherwise, they were bullish about solid-state batteries. Sounds like nothing has really changed.

Likely to protect the inside source of of the intelligence. The Chinese government isn’t exactly known for exorcising due process and the protection of human and civil rights.

Well, yes, if the Chinese figure out how the US got their information, people will die. http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22952/chinas-dismantling-of-cia-spy-ring-highlights-growing-dystopian-like-surveillance-state, https://www.businessinsider.com/how-china-found-cia-spies-leak-2018-8

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(*"exercising", I think. Although "exorcising due process" is an apt bon mot)

Your link is an article from August. There's been two months worth of sales reporting since then.

Your link is 1H2018, where the GP was referring to just September sales. Not apples-to-apples.

Your link includes trucks, SUVs and light trucks because it's "vehicles." "Passenger vehicles" means sedans in the auto statistics world. Yes, this is dumb because all SUVs are passenger vehicles, but they get classified as light trucks. The claim is the 4th best selling "car" which is taken to mean "passenger vehicle". Yes, that is an in-descriptive word and can be interpreted exactly the way you did. GP poster should be more exact, because words mean things.

When you look at the September sales data, the Model 3 outsold the Toyota Corolla at quite the price premium over the Corolla.

I doubt this one line will cost that much.

That's because you have a retard level IQ and believe everything a conman tells you. fElon musk secured that funding about as well as Tesla secures the bumpers on their shit cars. Here's another satisfied customer.

Look at that downward trend in tesla's stock price continue!

Actually fElon musk was illegally texting/twitting while driving. I should be trying to figure out why his imcompetent factory is producing $80000 cars with miss matched doors. And why the bumpers keep falling off.

Their trend in quality control is getting worse. Can’t wait to see how rei spins this one.

http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/9578/why-are-cars-so-expensive

HTH, HAND.

Waymo autonomous cars drove 352,545 miles in California between December 2016 and November 2017, and disengaged from autonomous mode 63 times

No idea if the car was about to do something dangerous, or was disengaged because the driver got impatient. If the car chose to disengage, that's a small enough number that in areas with good data coverage, a driver in a single call center could take over remotely.

The biggest maintenance problem for the A-10 is that the wings are coming up on their fatigue life and need replacing.

The fact that you're not a year into nuclear winter (Hillary campaigned on shooting down Russian jets in Syria) alone means Trump is the lesser evil.

Wow. Talk about not paying attention. Trump's military has already attacked russians.

This isn't "How To Google" either, but you look like you need a clue:

Uber Disabled Volvo SUV's Safety System Before Fatality

Fatal driverless crash: Radar-maker says Uber disabled safety systems

Uber Reportedly Disabled Key Safety Feature Prior to Deadly Crash

'Screwing up the presidency?' Chortle. "That's like, totally your opinion man."

Cutting taxes

On corportations; screw the average citizen.

slashing regulations

On corportations; screw the average citizen.

renegotiating deals

Because representing something other than yourself and keeping promises is for suckers -- the man never met an agreement that he wouldn't break the moment that it was to his personal advantage.

bringing peace to Korea which every other career politician tried failed

and never met a situation that he wouldn't claim credit for after carefully ensuring that he didn't invest anything until it was a certain win.

President Moon Jae-in is the one bringing peace to Korea.

doubling down on attacks to beat ISIS

Fake news, literally.

lowest unempoyment in 16+ years etc

But the unemployment rate is a fraud -- Trump said so himself. There's "massive unemployment" that's not reflected in the unemployment rate. Obviously he's only continued the fraud... The difference between 4.8% and 3.9% is almost nothing.

and actually prioritising average Americans over illegals or screaming SJWs.

Lip service. See the tax cut.

Because airline autopilots (where the term came from) mean the pilot can just nap off and do everything for the pilot?

Tesla makes abundantly clear , over and over, every time you start the bloody thing, that you're responsible for driving it, and makes you not only touch the wheel, but torque it at regular intervals, to prove you're paying attention - and now appears to be going toward adding eye tracking into the mix as well. They make it literally impossible at checkout for you to think you're getting a self-driving car, because they break AP into two parts, "Enhanced Autopilot" for basic features, and "Full Self Driving", which literally states over and over again that you can order it now but the functionality is not available yet. If you choose EAP-only then you specifically have to choose not to get Full Self Driving. And if you choose the latter, you're repeatedly informed that it's not available yet.

Meanwhile, you have Mercedes advertizing their god-awful Drive Pilot system literally as a self-driving car. But oh no, it's Tesla who should be scolded here...

Waze is causing accidents by ignoring the grade and routing the unwary (generally speeding) http://www.thedrive.com/news/1...

Um, no. Bad drivers are causing accidents. If they're speeding that's the driver's fault, not Waze. If they can't handle a steep grade, they can turn around. Do you do everything Waze tells you to? If so, you should throw away your license.

Waze is causing accidents by ignoring the grade and routing the unwary (generally speeding) http://www.thedrive.com/news/1...

Also, concerning this article: The terms for AP and FSD haven't changed in a year. There is no "news" behind this article. By selling FSD separate from AP, it makes it explicit what you're buying. You cannot choose just AP and think "I'm getting full self driving". Meanwhile, the FSD option is plastered with all sorts of weasel words like "in the future" and "eventually", with no hard dates. You cannot choose FSD and think "I'm getting this immediately, or at least the day after tomorrow!"

Why this article? Why now? Again, literally nothing has changed about the terms or wording in the past year. It's not like there's a lack of news. Just yesterday, we learned that not only was the 2k+/wk Model 3 production rate not a burst rate, not only have they maintained it for three weeks, but that when they're done with the upgrades this week, the line should come back at 3-4k/wk; and Tesla is now targeting not just 5k/wk at the end of this quarter, but 6k/wk (with an expectation that at least one supplier or process won't get it all the way, in order to ensure that they get at least 5k, with the intent to get it up to the full 6k in Q3).

That's actual news. This is concern trolling. And it's full of statements that are just plain wrong, such as that camera-based AP systems "don't work well in low light conditions". Nonsense; AP often works even better in low light conditions than it does in bright conditions. There's no "glare" at night, strong contrast between headlight-illuminated markings and obstacles vs. the road, and the cameras have good low-light sensitivity (better than the human eye). The article also makes it sound like they've not taken any time at all to research how Autopilot works, writing things like "If a sensor fails, Tesla will have to choose between disabling self-driving capability until the customer repairs it or allowing the car to continue operating with a higher risk of a crash." - seriously, virtually any Tesla owner can tell you that if you have a sensor failure, AP is disabled until you get it fixed. Just bloody ask. They then go on to imply that Tesla doesn't have redundant control systems. That's simply not true - go see them with your own eyes. The mechanical systems to control the brakes, steering, etc are all redundant. Concerning the computer, they link to a teardown of a Model S (older model) from last year. Why? Do they think that nothing's changed in the past year? And yes, the computer has on-board redundancy.

What the heck is up with all of these hit pieces of late?

I also could not disagree more with one of their main conclusions - that going straight for "full autonomy" is the safer option. Tesla has had three deaths around a billion miles of AP driving - the exact amount of mileage on AP today is not known, but was 300 million in November 2016, so probably around a billion today. The normal rate of deaths per mile is 1 per 80 million. Meanwhile, Uber had a pedestrian fatality in its first week operating in Arizona. If you try to go straight for full autonomy, you guarantee driver inattentiveness. Vehicles should be locked at no more than Level 2 autonomy (and level 3 should be illegal) until a high degree of safety can be guaranteed without driver involvement in the real world. Tesla and most of their emerging competitors (like the laughably bad Mercedes Drive Pilot - which actually does claim to be self-driving, unlike Autopilot) make you keep your hands on the wheel to try to ensure you're paying attention. With AP, it's not enough to simply touch it - you have to actually apply torque. But honestly,

A german or japanese car with "driver assistance" would have braked, without even activating "autopilot".

Might want to think again.

At the projected rate of delivery, those 500K will receive their vehicles over the next 3 years. I am sure lots of those pre-buyers will be happy to finally receive their vehicle after 5 years; how many will ask for a refund? 63K had asked for one as of last August, and I am sure the number has increased.

As far as that "demand", Ford will sell about 5X that number F series trucks during the time, and Toyota will sell about 1.5X the number of Prius' as the Model 3. Worldwide, there are around 80MM cars sold annually, so those 500K do, in fact, show there is minimal if any consumer demand right now. Consumers prefer light trucks and hybrids by large margins over the Model 3.

As far as profitability, can you point to a quarter where Tesla actually made profit? Looking at the data they did it exactly once in the last 5 years, when they booked all that model 3 pre-revenue. They have never been a profitable company, unless you consider a 20% loss (spend $5 to make $4) a profit?

About the bond ratings? Tesla is a solid B - junk bond rating. Now, Tesla Finance LLC gets the good rating, but that's based upon the credit worthiness of the people using Tesla financing - not Tesla itself. It's YOUR credit rating used for the bond rating, not Tesla. Facts do not support your claims - which is why you posted nothing to support your claims.

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7666/russia-breaks-arms-control-treaty-by-deploying-land-based-cruise-missiles

Since the treaty’s execution, both the US and Russia have concentrated their cruise missile arsenals to sea-based and air launched varieties, with the US throwing away its Pershing II medium-range ballistic missiles and BGM-109G Gryphon cruise missiles based on the Navy’s Tomahawk. Then in 2008 Russia began testing what US intelligence believed was a land-based cruise missile, possibly based on the Kalibr family of cruise missiles used by Russian naval units today. This was a blatant violation of the treaty, and the Obama administration worked to stop Russia’s testing of the missile in an effort to keep the treaty intact. The administration even floated the possibility of reconstituting America's own ground-based cruise missile program in Europe as a reaction to Russia's actions. Obviously these efforts proved futile and the fact that the SSC-8 is now operationally deployed leaves no room for interpretation as to Russia’s intentions.

Seriously, do you even read news?

Renault thought to be cheating at emissions tests for 25 years. (use google translate, German article) https://www.auto-motor-und-spo...

Nissan, too: (use google translate, German article) https://www1.wdr.de/wissen/tec...

Ford accused of cheating: http://www.thedrive.com/sheetm...

Fiat/Chrysler accused of cheating: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

Mercedes emissions cheating: (they already had recalls) https://www.extremetech.com/ex...

BMW emissions cheating: (they already have recalls for affected cars - those had Renault engines due to a cooperation, which makes the Renault claims above more valid) https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

You can find articles like this for pretty much EVERY car manufacturer, if you simply google. Funnily, in recent testing, VW Diesels had among the lowest emissions results. Seems they fixed their stuff on newer models after the scandal.

They poured so much effort into shaving a couple of tenths of a second off the 0-60 time with a petrol engine, only to be trounced by an electric sedan costing 1/15th as much

As long as you don't expect to do a whole lap....

http://www.thedrive.com/news/5...

Sure, you can do a few ludicrous 0-60 runs before you have to recharge. The petrol engine can do them all day long.

It's not just about appearances. It's about cost, drag, and power consumption. Lidar is a pain on all three of those (in addition to looks). You simply can't sell cars with big $10k domes bulging out of the top upping your drag coefficient by 10-20% and consuming a couple kilowatts of power. That would be a disaster to your range, and make your vehicle totally uncompetitive.

"More than one year after launching V2, Autopilot still lacks some of the functionality of the original, and there are many anecdotal reports from owners of unpredictable behavior."

Funny how you don't get anecdotal reports concerning the others, given that most of them don't have owners to make said anecdotal reports. And of most of the competitors' systems, they're comically bad. And they have the gall to actually market the car as currently "self-driving" (unlike Tesla which markets self-driving as an additional package which you can buy but won't be active for years).

Some of my favorite quotes from the test drive comparison:

One never really decides to engage Drive Pilot. You press two buttons on the left side of the dash, one for Distronic Cruise Control, the other for Automatic Steering, then press a button on the left side of the steering wheel, then, — when Drive Pilot decides conditions are suitable — it engages.

Is there an audible sound? None that I heard. Like Autopilot, a green steering wheel icon illuminates on the bottom center of the display, and is duplicated in the Heads-Up Display.

Engagement is made clear by the car’s instant and unsafe wandering in all but perfect conditions, and often in perfect conditions.

Unlike with Autopilot, placing your hands on the wheel and steering doesn’t instantly disengage Drive Pilot. I suppose this is intended as a method of allowing the user to guide Drive Pilot by making course corrections, but instead it resulted in an unwanted and stressful upper arm workout, without which I’d have been killed.

I got the Drive Pilot to “drive” itself for as long as sixty seconds, which is as along as Mercedes-Benz deems it safe. Trust me, you don’t want to take your hands off the wheel that long unless your car’s on fire and you’re reaching for a fire extinguisher, and even then.

Drive Pilot had a nasty habit of disengaging in good conditions before sixty seconds were up, with no obvious warning except the green steering icon going out, and lane drift. After the third time, I actually felt fear.

This is actually a dangerous product. The car will steer itself into oncoming traffic. It oscillates between lane markings like a drunk driver. No setting or speed is sufficient to compensate for the utter failure of this functionality.

Did anyone in Stuttgart drive a Tesla on Autopilot? Even once?

People need to be fired. Think I’m being harsh? Here’s another direct comparison between Drive Pilot and Autopilot, from Norway’s Autofil. Scroll down to the pictures comparing the two cars' lane keeping. Need more convincing? Here's Wired's take. Still don't believe me? Video is coming soon, via Drive on NBC Sports.

The only good thing about Drive Pilot is that your Mercedes will protect you from it. Did I trust it? Only at a crawl. Did I understand it? I don’t understand how Mercedes-Benz could release this to the public. I hated literally everything about it. It drove like a drunk ten year old, fighting for the wheel with a drunk fourteen year old.

They should be concentrating on fixing their defective cars.

http://www.thedrive.com/aerial...

The controversial drone policy introduced by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2015, requiring recreational drone users to registers their UAVs, was constitutionally overturned in May of this year, but it may end up being enforced again next year by being included in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act of 2018.

According to Bloomberg, both the House and Senate agree on slipping the unmanned aerial vehicle registry into the defense bill, as demand for regulation in the drone industry is at an all-time high. Most recently, the White House expanded drone-testing regulations to presumably push toward standardizing nationwide UAV delivery. The current administration may deem a nationwide hobby-drone registration as a necessary first step toward that.

The previous policy was overturned

http://www.thedrive.com/aerial...

In 2015, the FAA officially announced that all owners of drones heavier than 250 grams (which is about as light as a cup of water) must be registered as "drone operators" in a national database. This, of course, startled some, as it seemed this regulation could mark the beginning of the end for freedom of use regarding hobby drones. Others felt it was a fair deal in the right direction, as we reported on last year. However, in a twist of turns, the District of Columbia circuit court of appeals overturned this legislation on Friday, May 19th, as its compatibility with a previous FAA ruling from 2012 is far from symbiotic.

The 2012 "FAA Modernization and Reform Act" rules that the FAA has no right to "promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft", and as Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh sees it, the 2015 ruling clearly interferes with this established law. He adds, "Statutory interpretation does not get much simpler. The Registration Rule is unlawful as applied to model aircraft." Essentially, recreational drone users have been exempted from the aforementioned registry, which according to Popular Science, over 800,000 people have joined since 2015. This is something we at The Drive keep a close eye on, and an issue we regularly report on.

So Congress put a paragraph into the 2018 NDAA to restore registration

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington overturned the FAA drone registration system in May, finding that earlier legislation passed in 2012 didn't give the agency legal authority for it. A one-paragraph addition to the defense bill said that the registration system "shall be restored" as soon as the legislation becomes law.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/...

(d) Restoration Of Rules For Registration And Marking Of Unmanned Aircraft.-The rules adopted by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in the matter of registration and marking requirements for small unmanned aircraft (FAA-2015-7396; published on December 16, 2015) that were vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Taylor v. Huerta (No. 15-1495; decided on May 19, 2017) shall be restored to effect on the date of enactment of this Act.

http://www.thedrive.com/aerial...

The controversial drone policy introduced by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2015, requiring recreational drone users to registers their UAVs, was constitutionally overturned in May of this year, but it may end up being enforced again next year by being included in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act of 2018.

According to Bloomberg, both the House and Senate agree on slipping the unmanned aerial vehicle registry into the defense bill, as demand for regulation in the drone industry is at an all-time high. Most recently, the White House expanded drone-testing regulations to presumably push toward standardizing nationwide UAV delivery. The current administration may deem a nationwide hobby-drone registration as a necessary first step toward that.

The previous policy was overturned

http://www.thedrive.com/aerial...

In 2015, the FAA officially announced that all owners of drones heavier than 250 grams (which is about as light as a cup of water) must be registered as "drone operators" in a national database. This, of course, startled some, as it seemed this regulation could mark the beginning of the end for freedom of use regarding hobby drones. Others felt it was a fair deal in the right direction, as we reported on last year. However, in a twist of turns, the District of Columbia circuit court of appeals overturned this legislation on Friday, May 19th, as its compatibility with a previous FAA ruling from 2012 is far from symbiotic.

The 2012 "FAA Modernization and Reform Act" rules that the FAA has no right to "promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft", and as Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh sees it, the 2015 ruling clearly interferes with this established law. He adds, "Statutory interpretation does not get much simpler. The Registration Rule is unlawful as applied to model aircraft." Essentially, recreational drone users have been exempted from the aforementioned registry, which according to Popular Science, over 800,000 people have joined since 2015. This is something we at The Drive keep a close eye on, and an issue we regularly report on.

So Congress put a paragraph into the 2018 NDAA to restore registration

https://www.bloomberg.com/news...

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington overturned the FAA drone registration system in May, finding that earlier legislation passed in 2012 didn't give the agency legal authority for it. A one-paragraph addition to the defense bill said that the registration system "shall be restored" as soon as the legislation becomes law.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/...

(d) Restoration Of Rules For Registration And Marking Of Unmanned Aircraft.-The rules adopted by the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in the matter of registration and marking requirements for small unmanned aircraft (FAA-2015-7396; published on December 16, 2015) that were vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Taylor v. Huerta (No. 15-1495; decided on May 19, 2017) shall be restored to effect on the date of enactment of this Act.

I am waiting to see who the first person is to buy one and turn it into a massively overpowered SUV/truck thing for drag racing.

If it is like any other Tesla is will be fast for one short spurt. Then it will go into limp mode.

http://www.thedrive.com/news/5...

Maybe they do have better engineers. At least in this particular niche.

They have some real good engineers there alright.

I'll stick with my 335i. Not because it is a status symbol, but because it is consistently fun.

Teslas are indeed fast, for the first minute or so of a fresh charge.........

http://www.thedrive.com/news/5...

Apparently I chose the wrong example from a quick google search. But there has been a lot of talk in the press about how the new LiDAR chips will revolutionize self-driving cars. It's definitely on the way, it's just not here yet.

As for fog, humans can't see through it either. I think the point is to have a broad spectrum of inputs -- LiDAR, radar, ultrasound, cameras -- to get the best possible "picture" in the given weather conditions.

No he meant shit cars.

Two musky stories in a row? Some PR firm must be getting some big dollars.

Not really. Lots of people just really like Musk's products. I mean, he landed a fucking rocket on a boat! He makes the world's fastest production SUV. His autopilot is orders of magnitude better than the competition.

Musk is in some ways similar to Steve Jobs. Early on, trolls would shit over Apple products. Too expensive. Too simple. Then Jobs guided Apple to be the most profitable company in the world. Why? Because people liked Apple products. Musk received nearly 400000 pre-orders for their next car. Why? Because people liked the car when they saw it. It wasn't some tricky marketing campaign. People just like how the Model 3 looks, and how it performs.