To support its claim that consumers CAN'T test-drive enough to demonstrate vehicle safety, the report you linked says this:
To demonstrate that fully autonomous vehicles have
a fatality rate of 1.09 fatalities per 100 million miles
(R=99.9999989%) with a C=95% confidence level, the
vehicles would have to be driven 275 million failure-free miles.
With a fleet of 100 autonomous vehicles being test-driven
24 hours a day, 365 days a year at an average speed of 25 miles
per hour, this would take about 12.5 years.
Except, Tesla doesn't have a fleet of only 100 vehicles. It has around 1000 times that, who pump out about 50,000 miles of Autonomous driving every two months (May report was 100 million miles driven on Autopilot, and July report was 150 million miles driven on Autopilot see: https://electrek.co/2016/07/11...). Given those rates, and considering that they've already amassed 150 million miles on Autopilot as of July, they'll get to 275 million miles next month. And that's without even factoring new car owners joining the fleet and adding in their own Autopilot miles.
This is hardly something that'll take 12.5 years. And if they're this far off on their estimates for how long it would take to do enough test driving, they're definitely way off on their assessment that it's too many miles to demonstrate parity in vehicle safety.
As far as I can tell (Yes, I am a forensic accountant) they sold a lot of now-obsolete cars at a big discount and did some other tricks to prop up sales and push Q4 revenue into Q3, Q3 expenses into Q4, etc.
The automaker disclosed that it expects to also be profitable next quarter
If Tesla's right about Q4, and your theory on changing their accounting methods is correct, then they would have had to pull next year's Q1 revenue back to Q3+Q4 and/or push Q3+Q4's expenses to next year. Your theory is appearing unlikely. Or perhaps you're wrong and they're actually just making money.
If you RTFS, you would have seen this link [slashdot.org] where CR revoked their recommendation of the model S because of poor reliability.
Perhaps you should have RTFS more carefully. Your linked article is from 2015 when CR revoked their recommendation, however they recently reinstated it as is pointed out in the summary where it states:
"As for the Model S, Consumer Reports says "Tesla's Model S has improved to average reliability, which now makes the electric car one of our recommended models."
You seem to think the phrase means you ARE an autopilot, and thus are not paying attention
Whether it's meant metaphorically or not, if you're "on autopilot" you, or your unconscious mind, IS the autopilot. Therefore, YOU in fact ARE an autopilot and are also not paying attention.
But that's besides the point because, typically, this phrase is used to state that you should have been paying attention, because obviously, an autopilot system isn't as good as a fully aware human. Not to state that you don't have to be paying attention because you're on autopilot. For example, Instead of driving to school my brain was on autopilot, and I started driving to work!
Doesn't sound like a synonym for an 'autonomous system' to me.
This is NOT an "auto-pilot" in the way that nearly everyone would think it is
This definition that everyone uses for auto-pilot gave rise to the phase "on autopilot", as in "I'm running on autopilot". Which means to do a task without paying full attention. That's a far cry from fully autonomous. I'd be scared if someone was driving "on autopilot", so why should I expect an autopilot car to be any better?
I don't think "nearly everyone" feels the same way about the definition of "autopilot" as you do.
You've never been allowed to do anything you want with your body. The limitation is on whether it affects others. Are you allowed to take illicit drugs? No, because it contributes to the drug trade that the government has decided is bad for everyone. Are you allowed to decide how much alcohol you can drink? Sure, until you decide to do it in a place you're not allowed to be publicly drunk.
This control over what we can do with our own bodies is not a new thing. It's just that until now, you haven't seen it as a problem.
I don't think vaccines cause autism, I simply have the right to decide what I put into my body, regardless of what you think about it.
This only makes sense if what you are or aren't putting in your body has no impact on other people. But whether or not you vaccinate DOES have an impact on the people around you.
It's like, you have the right to do what you want in your own home, right? Not true if what you want to do disturbs your neighbours (ex. really loud music late at night).
Additionally it would be stupid for Tesla not to incorporate any stores in the states they are in because foreign corporations are at an disadvantage legally, it would be trivial for Tesla to draw up the legal agreements Michigan requires for franchised dealer, but Tesla doesn't want to be a franchised dealer, they only want to sell cars and the two aren't the same thing.
They tried this, and got denied. Now they're suing.
But then I saw a lot of companies arrive that were very successful at eliminating middlemen, but their products didn't get cheaper they just kept more of the profit. Not only that but they treat their 'workers' even worse then the middlemen did.
I fail to see how middlemen could prevent a company from increasing their profits or prevent a company from treating their workers badly.
...blocked them from competing with the local dealerships. That stinks
And what really stinks is that because the local dealerships don't sell Teslas, the competition they are blocking is really brand vs. brand, not manufacturer vs. dealer.
I'd like to open a dealership and sell brand new houses, but builders refuse to let others sell their products.
Having a company refuse to sell their products to dealers isn't unheard of if you look at other industries.
Personally, I'd like the Apple system. You can buy direct from Tesla OR from a dealer, just like how you can buy Apple products directly from Apple or from a "dealer" (ex. Best Buy). But thanks to the current laws, if Tesla started letting dealers sell their cars, then they'd never be allowed to sell directly to customers in certain states. The whole reason that they are allowed to is because they currently don't have any dealers there selling Teslas.
These laws are silly. Just like how it would be silly to make laws to stop Apple from selling products directly to customers and only go through stores like Best Buy.
Those panels pictured aren't a Tesla/Solar City invention. Those are solar shingles created by another company. Their image is used as speculation on what Tesla's solar roof might look like. Electric does this kind of thing a lot.
It does not mean that Tesla's solar roof will look anything like this.
It doesn't say that it won't use "solar panels", it says that it won't use "standard" solar panels.
We're not sure what he means by this, but he's referred to an upcoming product that was going to be a "solar roof not solar panels on a roof". I imagine this is what they're referring to.
This case is an 18 year old. She is legally old enough to have had two kids by now, do service in the military and kill people on behalf of her govt; she can drink in pubs, and drive all by HGVs on the public roads. And yet you say they have no say. I wonder why. What do you get out of it?
Perhaps you're trolling, but whatever. I'm taking the bait.
I never said that the girl actually has no say in the matter (because I don't know this to be true), I was asking whether or not she has any say in the matter hoping that someone with more knowledge than I could answer. And what I get out of it is that I find law interesting, so the answer to this question intrigues me.
Also, yes, she's 18. But this case covers years of photos being posted, so I'm really only talking about the ones where she was not yet 18. Does she have a legal right to say "no" to the people who are making her legal decisions? Morally, the parents should respect her wishes, but I'm not talking about morals, I'm talking about law - again because I find it interesting.
I realized this and felt I was making a point absolutely related to the article. Since, there's a span of years that the photos were taken and posted most of them would have been prior to the girl's 18th birthday. So, wouldn't they have had the legal right to give consent for the girl?
Side question, when you turn 18 and have the rights to decide things for yourself, can you revoke previous decisions made on behalf of yourself? I presume, yes, but IANAL.
Do parents need consent if they are already granted the rights to make legal decisions for their under 18-year-old children? Can't they just decide for the kid as is their obligation and right?
As a parent teaching a child, if they are still new then yeah you can be very attentive because you are basically driving as surrogate through them and they are doing all kinds wrong
Which is my point about how we should view the Tesla autopilot, and even you agree that you are capable of that level of attention.
...but once they've pretty much mastered it...
Once I feel that the Tesla autopilot has "mastered it" through software updates and the like, then yes, I'll pay much less attention. But just like with a kid learning to drive, that won't happen until it's been proven to have mastered it.
I imagine that the sporadic attentiveness that you speak of is a direct result of knowing or assuming that the driver has everything under control. But, that's just it, no where has anyone said that the Tesla Autopilot has everything under control 100% of the time.
Well, if it violates the theory of relativity, anything could happen, I guess.
The guy ("scientist"?), Roger Shawyer, who invented it claims that it's actually due to the theory of relativity that it works. Here's a quote from the article:
based on the theory of special relativity, electricity converted into microwaves and fired within a closed cone-shaped cavity causes the microwave particles to exert more force on the flat surface at the large end of the cone (i.e. there is less combined particle momentum at the narrow end due to a reduction in group particle velocity), thereby generating thrust.
I'm not a physicist, so I can't speak to whether his explanation makes sense.
People cannot sit there at the ready for hours on end.
I completely disagree. The amount of attention required, which is basically just keeping an eye on the road and what's going on around you, is exactly what is required when teaching someone to drive. It's what I do when I'm a passenger in the front seat of the car, for hours on end. It's exactly what my spouse does when she's the passenger and I'm driving, for hours on end.
It's a good thing too, having two eyes on the road has saved us from some accidents. This is exactly the advantage that autopilot gives the driver.
Slashdot Mirror
To demonstrate that fully autonomous vehicles have a fatality rate of 1.09 fatalities per 100 million miles (R=99.9999989%) with a C=95% confidence level, the vehicles would have to be driven 275 million failure-free miles. With a fleet of 100 autonomous vehicles being test-driven 24 hours a day, 365 days a year at an average speed of 25 miles per hour, this would take about 12.5 years.
Except, Tesla doesn't have a fleet of only 100 vehicles. It has around 1000 times that, who pump out about 50,000 miles of Autonomous driving every two months (May report was 100 million miles driven on Autopilot, and July report was 150 million miles driven on Autopilot see: https://electrek.co/2016/07/11...). Given those rates, and considering that they've already amassed 150 million miles on Autopilot as of July, they'll get to 275 million miles next month. And that's without even factoring new car owners joining the fleet and adding in their own Autopilot miles.
This is hardly something that'll take 12.5 years. And if they're this far off on their estimates for how long it would take to do enough test driving, they're definitely way off on their assessment that it's too many miles to demonstrate parity in vehicle safety.
As far as I can tell (Yes, I am a forensic accountant) they sold a lot of now-obsolete cars at a big discount and did some other tricks to prop up sales and push Q4 revenue into Q3, Q3 expenses into Q4, etc.
From electrek reporting on the Q3 Statement:
The automaker disclosed that it expects to also be profitable next quarter
If Tesla's right about Q4, and your theory on changing their accounting methods is correct, then they would have had to pull next year's Q1 revenue back to Q3+Q4 and/or push Q3+Q4's expenses to next year. Your theory is appearing unlikely. Or perhaps you're wrong and they're actually just making money.
If you RTFS, you would have seen this link [slashdot.org] where CR revoked their recommendation of the model S because of poor reliability.
Perhaps you should have RTFS more carefully. Your linked article is from 2015 when CR revoked their recommendation, however they recently reinstated it as is pointed out in the summary where it states:
"As for the Model S, Consumer Reports says "Tesla's Model S has improved to average reliability, which now makes the electric car one of our recommended models."
Humans rely on training too.
You seem to think the phrase means you ARE an autopilot, and thus are not paying attention
Whether it's meant metaphorically or not, if you're "on autopilot" you, or your unconscious mind, IS the autopilot. Therefore, YOU in fact ARE an autopilot and are also not paying attention.
But that's besides the point because, typically, this phrase is used to state that you should have been paying attention, because obviously, an autopilot system isn't as good as a fully aware human. Not to state that you don't have to be paying attention because you're on autopilot. For example, Instead of driving to school my brain was on autopilot, and I started driving to work!
Doesn't sound like a synonym for an 'autonomous system' to me.
This is NOT an "auto-pilot" in the way that nearly everyone would think it is
This definition that everyone uses for auto-pilot gave rise to the phase "on autopilot", as in "I'm running on autopilot". Which means to do a task without paying full attention. That's a far cry from fully autonomous. I'd be scared if someone was driving "on autopilot", so why should I expect an autopilot car to be any better?
I don't think "nearly everyone" feels the same way about the definition of "autopilot" as you do.
Wow, you're angry.
You've never been allowed to do anything you want with your body. The limitation is on whether it affects others. Are you allowed to take illicit drugs? No, because it contributes to the drug trade that the government has decided is bad for everyone. Are you allowed to decide how much alcohol you can drink? Sure, until you decide to do it in a place you're not allowed to be publicly drunk.
This control over what we can do with our own bodies is not a new thing. It's just that until now, you haven't seen it as a problem.
I don't think vaccines cause autism, I simply have the right to decide what I put into my body, regardless of what you think about it.
This only makes sense if what you are or aren't putting in your body has no impact on other people. But whether or not you vaccinate DOES have an impact on the people around you.
It's like, you have the right to do what you want in your own home, right? Not true if what you want to do disturbs your neighbours (ex. really loud music late at night).
The same can be done with a Tesla. But what you lack is the ability to sell it as a "new" car/house, since it officially had a previous owner.
Additionally it would be stupid for Tesla not to incorporate any stores in the states they are in because foreign corporations are at an disadvantage legally, it would be trivial for Tesla to draw up the legal agreements Michigan requires for franchised dealer, but Tesla doesn't want to be a franchised dealer, they only want to sell cars and the two aren't the same thing.
They tried this, and got denied. Now they're suing.
But then I saw a lot of companies arrive that were very successful at eliminating middlemen, but their products didn't get cheaper they just kept more of the profit. Not only that but they treat their 'workers' even worse then the middlemen did.
I fail to see how middlemen could prevent a company from increasing their profits or prevent a company from treating their workers badly.
That's actually they were attempting to do, but their application for a dealership licence was denied.
...blocked them from competing with the local dealerships. That stinks
And what really stinks is that because the local dealerships don't sell Teslas, the competition they are blocking is really brand vs. brand, not manufacturer vs. dealer.
I'd like to open a dealership and sell brand new houses, but builders refuse to let others sell their products.
Having a company refuse to sell their products to dealers isn't unheard of if you look at other industries.
Personally, I'd like the Apple system. You can buy direct from Tesla OR from a dealer, just like how you can buy Apple products directly from Apple or from a "dealer" (ex. Best Buy). But thanks to the current laws, if Tesla started letting dealers sell their cars, then they'd never be allowed to sell directly to customers in certain states. The whole reason that they are allowed to is because they currently don't have any dealers there selling Teslas.
These laws are silly. Just like how it would be silly to make laws to stop Apple from selling products directly to customers and only go through stores like Best Buy.
*Electrek
Those panels pictured aren't a Tesla/Solar City invention. Those are solar shingles created by another company. Their image is used as speculation on what Tesla's solar roof might look like. Electric does this kind of thing a lot.
It does not mean that Tesla's solar roof will look anything like this.
It doesn't say that it won't use "solar panels", it says that it won't use "standard" solar panels.
We're not sure what he means by this, but he's referred to an upcoming product that was going to be a "solar roof not solar panels on a roof". I imagine this is what they're referring to.
This case is an 18 year old. She is legally old enough to have had two kids by now, do service in the military and kill people on behalf of her govt; she can drink in pubs, and drive all by HGVs on the public roads. And yet you say they have no say. I wonder why. What do you get out of it?
Perhaps you're trolling, but whatever. I'm taking the bait.
I never said that the girl actually has no say in the matter (because I don't know this to be true), I was asking whether or not she has any say in the matter hoping that someone with more knowledge than I could answer. And what I get out of it is that I find law interesting, so the answer to this question intrigues me.
Also, yes, she's 18. But this case covers years of photos being posted, so I'm really only talking about the ones where she was not yet 18. Does she have a legal right to say "no" to the people who are making her legal decisions? Morally, the parents should respect her wishes, but I'm not talking about morals, I'm talking about law - again because I find it interesting.
I realized this and felt I was making a point absolutely related to the article. Since, there's a span of years that the photos were taken and posted most of them would have been prior to the girl's 18th birthday. So, wouldn't they have had the legal right to give consent for the girl?
Side question, when you turn 18 and have the rights to decide things for yourself, can you revoke previous decisions made on behalf of yourself? I presume, yes, but IANAL.
Do parents need consent if they are already granted the rights to make legal decisions for their under 18-year-old children? Can't they just decide for the kid as is their obligation and right?
As a parent teaching a child, if they are still new then yeah you can be very attentive because you are basically driving as surrogate through them and they are doing all kinds wrong
Which is my point about how we should view the Tesla autopilot, and even you agree that you are capable of that level of attention.
...but once they've pretty much mastered it...
Once I feel that the Tesla autopilot has "mastered it" through software updates and the like, then yes, I'll pay much less attention. But just like with a kid learning to drive, that won't happen until it's been proven to have mastered it.
I imagine that the sporadic attentiveness that you speak of is a direct result of knowing or assuming that the driver has everything under control. But, that's just it, no where has anyone said that the Tesla Autopilot has everything under control 100% of the time.
Well, if it violates the theory of relativity, anything could happen, I guess.
The guy ("scientist"?), Roger Shawyer, who invented it claims that it's actually due to the theory of relativity that it works. Here's a quote from the article:
based on the theory of special relativity, electricity converted into microwaves and fired within a closed cone-shaped cavity causes the microwave particles to exert more force on the flat surface at the large end of the cone (i.e. there is less combined particle momentum at the narrow end due to a reduction in group particle velocity), thereby generating thrust.
I'm not a physicist, so I can't speak to whether his explanation makes sense.
two eyes
By this I mean, "to sets of eyes", of course.
People cannot sit there at the ready for hours on end.
I completely disagree. The amount of attention required, which is basically just keeping an eye on the road and what's going on around you, is exactly what is required when teaching someone to drive. It's what I do when I'm a passenger in the front seat of the car, for hours on end. It's exactly what my spouse does when she's the passenger and I'm driving, for hours on end.
It's a good thing too, having two eyes on the road has saved us from some accidents. This is exactly the advantage that autopilot gives the driver.
If it can't pass a driving test it should be treated like a driver with only a learner's permit and constantly monitored.
FTFY
Oh wait, that's exactly what Tesla recommends.