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Elon Musk Pledges To End "Range Anxiety" For Tesla Model S
An anonymous reader writes: Elon Musk has used his Twitter account to announce a press conference on Thursday which he claims will end "range anxiety" for Tesla's Model S sedan. Whatever change they're making will be implemented through an over-the-air software update to the cars, affecting the entire fleet. Range anxiety is the term for a fear that your vehicle won't have enough fuel/charge to reach its destination. It's a common reason for people to avoid buying electric cars, given the much smaller infrastructure build-out compared to gas stations. If Tesla is improving the Model S's range through a software update, then it likely involves optimizations to the battery and to the ways in which power is used. Tesla has also talked about developing a feature called "torque sleep," which puts one of the drive units to sleep while not needed. They say it can wake up and begin delivering torque again "so fast that the driver can't perceive it."
.. range. For example, more charging stations and/or a better locator (perhaps with a partnership with a nationwide chain of stores or two), better range calculation, a service to have charging trucks come out to you to you should you run out of charge (maybe even heading to the point where you would run out of charge before it even happens so that there's no wait), or all sorts of other possibilities. There's no guarantee that it actually means more range.
Of course, it could mean that.
"TAMS shouldn't be destroyed. They should just tag us before releasing us into the wild." -- Maeglin
It's called a horse.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Calculating range is a lot trickier than you might think, as so many factors come into play. I once started a company that worked on such range calculation software, we had to use very detailed vehicle models, use weather forecasts, historical weather data (to estimate road conditions - for example, snow, ice, water etc on the road), reasonably high resolution altitude models, real-time traffic data, traffic estimation, accessory power consumption (including factoring in weather data for climate control systems), driver behavior modelling, etc, and of course the fact that there's not straight roads going out to any given point in any given direction. And everything plays off everything else. The ambient temperature might affect your battery pack temperature which might affect its voltage which might affect the efficiency of the drive system and so forth. We discovered a lot of unexpected behavior, like how in order to get accurate wind resistance calculations we had to estimate realistic wind gusting patterns because the average wind speed (and direction) doesn't give the same results as a wind varied around an average. And there were a lot of things that we just didn't have and couldn't get data on, such as components of the car that weren't performing at the level that they should when new (though we had some ideas on how to estimate that), decisions that the driver might make later (such as to turn on/off accessories, change their driving speed, make unexpected stops, etc), and so forth.
The standard approach of just drawing a circle around a person might work sometimes but be way, way off at other times. The actual range of an electric vehicle is a sort of pointy polygon warped along terrain contour lines and extending out the furthest on straight moderate-speed country roads with few stop signs / lights.
Interestingly enough, while we had varying levels of interest from most major manufacturers, there was one manufacturer who made it clear right out that they do all of their software stack devel on such aspects in-house and have no interest in working with an outside entity. That manufacturer was Tesla.
"TAMS shouldn't be destroyed. They should just tag us before releasing us into the wild." -- Maeglin
an over-the-air software update [...] affecting the entire fleet
Yeah. That worked really well for the twelve colonies in Battlestar Galactica.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
That says nothing about extending range. It talks about ending range anxiety. Which could be, for isntance, adjusting the sat nav so it calculates how much further you can drive before you go out of range of the nearest charging station.
First of all, "Range Anxiety" is a registered trademark of General Motors. I hope Elon doesn't get in trouble for using it without GM's permission!
Most people who actually own electric cars experience very little range anxiety. Far more common is "range anxiety anxiety": the fear that if you got an electric car, you might experience range anxiety.
Also prevalent among car makers is "range anxiety anxiety anxiety": the fear that, if you made an electric car, range anxiety anxiety might prevent people from buying it.
Remember folks, we have nothing to fear but. . . fear itself!
Isn't "torque sleep" a manoeuvre for stealing the covers?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Perhaps Tesla will now offer discounted scrips for Xanax, to help combat that range anxiety.
Sure, you might still get stranded, but at least you won't be overly stressed about it.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yeah, but Elon Musk doesn't make big claims like this, and intentionally generate hype, without having something genuinely interesting up his sleeve.
I got burned out and was out of money. We had a pilot project with GM, they really liked the software, but I just couldn't keep going. :(
It's by the way part of the reason I really hate the patent system, it games everything against small players. Not that patents were ever used against me - but because I had to *get* patents, everyone wants to know what's in your patent portfolio before they even consider investment or contracting with you. I had to spend a whole programmer's salary of my own money paying for patent attorneys just to get a most minimal amount of coverage. Which meant that all of the programming work fell on me. And everything about the auto industry is such a colossal money pit... hiring marketing people to get you in the door, having these ridiculously expensive dinners with execs, and on and on. I lost so much money on that thing.
This was in the days before kickstarter and the like took off, it might have been easier to raise enough money to stand a chance these days. But I just couldn't keep doing it. I was overworked and broke and totally out of my comfort zone managing a company. I never should have listened after all the people who beta'ed what I planned to be a free tool told me "oh my god you have to commercialize this!" :
"TAMS shouldn't be destroyed. They should just tag us before releasing us into the wild." -- Maeglin
Base load coal plants, even including all the losses, are still more efficient than burning gasoline in a car. And obviously, electricity has many sources, so with very little impact to the overall energy infrastructure, you can replace a coal plant by nuclear or wind.