If you want a 300 mile battery pack, yes.
A 100 mile battery pack for a car with the same level of streamlining would be $6,5k.
Is that an option? I've already done my sums and 160km (100miles) is more than enough for my daily usage. Is it possible to get a Tesla with only 1/3 of the batteries? Not only cheaper but a lot lighter, thus a lot quicker too:)
I ride a motorbike with a range of 200kms. This range has never bothered me in 30 years of riding, so while 200km looks worse than 400km on paper I don't care. I ride 40km/day if I'm lucky so overnight "refueling" would serve me just fine. And when I go on holiday I fly.
I'm sure I'm not the only person like this, so EVs have a market. If only they made a decent commuter bike I'd buy one today.
Wrong. You pay sales tax based on your residence, not the location of your purchase, for things like cars.
I don't live in the US, but have a shipping forwarder address in California for buying stuff online. I always get stung for California Sales tax even though I don't live there.
JUST automating the highway portion is going to give huge benefits
Who to? I drive about 15000km a year, I'd be lucky if 5% of that was outside the city. I'm assuming the robot option is not free, so how many people will be willing to pay a premium for something hardly used by most people?
It may not be obvious to those who aren't paying close attention to the advancement of self-driving technology, but driving hundreds of miles on a highway is actually fairly easy for today's AI
I always see lots of claims about technology this, and technology that, but never any discussion and the actual hard parts, politics, insurance, safety, public acceptance etc. Even if I had a car that could do this, how comfortable would you be taking your hands off the wheel and trusting your life to some developer you've never met? And when the first accident happens (regardless of cause) what impact does that have to public adoption? It also doesn't address the fact that a lot of people actually enjoy driving, especially people who spends lots of money on cars.
I find it hard to see how these will ever be standardised. Just because something is technically possible doesn't mean it will ever see the light of day.
In 20-30 years maybe we'll have learnt that cars we're a terrible idea to begin with and go back to pedestrian/cycle friendly urban hubs connected by mass transit. I mean if we're dreaming of a transport utopia, I struggle to see why you'd bother with a car at all.
You seem to vastly underestimate the attitude of most drivers in traffic. If I knew the car next to me was computer controlled, I'd emergency brake it into the gutter just for laughs. I'm not sure if you've ever driven a car in any major town or city anywhere, but it's war out there. Once other drivers realise those fancy pants in the new robot car next them can be manipulated, they'd never see their destination. There are just far too many non-functional complexities that seem to be overlooked by the robot car crowd.
This whole "who prevents cargo from being stolen" argument is moot in my opinion. If a someone wants to steal cargo, they can threaten driver with a gun.
Armed robbery, possibly murder if the driver puts up a fight could see you in jail for life or even the death penalty. Blocking a driver-less vehicle onto the road in the middle of nowhere and helping yourself to free stuff is the equivalent of a misdemeanor in most places.
To think the two are the same thing is pretty misguided.
And the opposite of Leftism must be Rightism? And Rightism is responsible for Fascism and GFC and such shit...
I'm not sure what is "Individualism" is supposed to be, but having experienced no government, I can assure it is much much worse than you can ever imagine. From reading posts like yours, you lot seem to think "no government" means everyone has a party and lives happily ever after. The reality is though, in that scenario the guys with the most power kills and tortures everyone else. So yeah, the likes of Obama and Bush aren't on my Christmas card list, but I'll gladly pick this way over whatever the hell law of the jungle, winner kills all world you think you want to live in.
But the only people that care are other losers also on Twitter. Being angry makes people feel good, but since the only people that care are other idiots, it's all rather pointless.
No we aren't. If anything privacy is a relatively new invention since technology allowed us to not be so reliant on each other for survival. If you've ever spent much time camping or playing team sports you'll understand that privacy pretty much goes out the door, and the longer you partake the more you team/camp mates learn all your secrets, and you equally learn theirs.
For most of human evolution there was not much privacy within the tribe. The difference in today's age of surveillance is the previously the lack of privacy was shared among the group. Now it's all one way which is not a natural state.
It's the monkeysphere in action. The right will complain about the "evil" government, while the left make the same complaints about "evil" big business. Whether govt or big business, they'll all just groups of people like us. And as you say the bigger they are, the harder they are to manage, and therefore require more internal processes to maintain order, the side effect of which is roadblocks to efficiency.
It's not a cop out, it only sounds like one to people who haven't weighed up the options thoroughly enough. As much as it wind and solar makes us feel all warm and fuzzy they cannot solve the issue of base load requirements. There's only two viable solutions today, Coal and Nuclear. So given the choice of coal and tens of thousands of deaths per year from air pollution, or Nuclear with it's known risks, I still think Nuclear is a less worse option.
It also massively increases the severity of accidents (remember, a 40mph crash has 4 times more energy involved than a 30mph crash).
Yeah we've all heard the bullshit line "every km/h over is a killer". The problem with that logic is that if 50 is safer than 60, then 40 is also safer than 50, and therefore 30 is then safer than 20, and so on until 0 is the only "safe" speed there is.
At some point there is risk, and the risk of a modern vehicle at 100km/h is still a lot less than an old clunker doing 60km/h when the current speed limits were decided.
Nah, I thought I was on to something, but I got nothin.
As much as it sounds like a cop out, leaving it to future generation who will no doubt have better technology isn't such a bad idea. As a poor example, we didn't have the capability to combat microbiology 200 years ago, now it's trivial (well in some cases at least). Who knows, when space travel becomes cheap we could shoot it all into the sun, or maybe someone will invent a genetically engineered Kaiju that eats Plutonium and shits out crude oil. As long as the costs of long term storage and maintenance are taken into account, I have no problem with this approach.
You mean, like how we effectively nuked Saddam's army and occupied Iraq?
Everyone keeps using this as a counter argument, but Iraq was never an occupation. Occupation is when we instill our own government, law, values, language, education and religion, and stay there for generations until the locals are assimilated. You know just like the British did in the US. It's why the US is no longer just a bunch of rabid tribes like the Middle East is. Sometimes progress needs to forced onto a country to improve it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you want a 300 mile battery pack, yes. A 100 mile battery pack for a car with the same level of streamlining would be $6,5k.
Is that an option? I've already done my sums and 160km (100miles) is more than enough for my daily usage. Is it possible to get a Tesla with only 1/3 of the batteries? Not only cheaper but a lot lighter, thus a lot quicker too :)
I ride a motorbike with a range of 200kms. This range has never bothered me in 30 years of riding, so while 200km looks worse than 400km on paper I don't care. I ride 40km/day if I'm lucky so overnight "refueling" would serve me just fine. And when I go on holiday I fly.
I'm sure I'm not the only person like this, so EVs have a market. If only they made a decent commuter bike I'd buy one today.
replacing the drive train is not normal maintenance, as would be replacing the battery in an EV.
Putting fossil fuel into your mode of transport wasn't normal 100 years ago either. Welcome to progress.
I have never replaced the drivetrain on any vehicle I have owned nor do I expect to have to.
That's because you're old. Young people will grow up with this as normal and you'll spend the rest of your days telling them to get off your lawn.
Wrong. You pay sales tax based on your residence, not the location of your purchase, for things like cars.
I don't live in the US, but have a shipping forwarder address in California for buying stuff online. I always get stung for California Sales tax even though I don't live there.
In my opinion, anyone that honestly believes there's big man who lives in the sky and made everything, is stupid and shouldn't be trusted.
JUST automating the highway portion is going to give huge benefits
Who to? I drive about 15000km a year, I'd be lucky if 5% of that was outside the city. I'm assuming the robot option is not free, so how many people will be willing to pay a premium for something hardly used by most people?
It may not be obvious to those who aren't paying close attention to the advancement of self-driving technology, but driving hundreds of miles on a highway is actually fairly easy for today's AI
I always see lots of claims about technology this, and technology that, but never any discussion and the actual hard parts, politics, insurance, safety, public acceptance etc. Even if I had a car that could do this, how comfortable would you be taking your hands off the wheel and trusting your life to some developer you've never met? And when the first accident happens (regardless of cause) what impact does that have to public adoption? It also doesn't address the fact that a lot of people actually enjoy driving, especially people who spends lots of money on cars.
I find it hard to see how these will ever be standardised. Just because something is technically possible doesn't mean it will ever see the light of day. In 20-30 years maybe we'll have learnt that cars we're a terrible idea to begin with and go back to pedestrian/cycle friendly urban hubs connected by mass transit. I mean if we're dreaming of a transport utopia, I struggle to see why you'd bother with a car at all.
You seem to vastly underestimate the attitude of most drivers in traffic. If I knew the car next to me was computer controlled, I'd emergency brake it into the gutter just for laughs. I'm not sure if you've ever driven a car in any major town or city anywhere, but it's war out there. Once other drivers realise those fancy pants in the new robot car next them can be manipulated, they'd never see their destination. There are just far too many non-functional complexities that seem to be overlooked by the robot car crowd.
What about in the other 99% of countries in the world that have trucks but not Teamsters?
This whole "who prevents cargo from being stolen" argument is moot in my opinion. If a someone wants to steal cargo, they can threaten driver with a gun.
Armed robbery, possibly murder if the driver puts up a fight could see you in jail for life or even the death penalty. Blocking a driver-less vehicle onto the road in the middle of nowhere and helping yourself to free stuff is the equivalent of a misdemeanor in most places. To think the two are the same thing is pretty misguided.
But, the real answer to your question is what governments do with ANYTHING new--tax it.
And they keep your taxes in a gingerbread house in the woods and they eat little children. Fucking taxes...
And the opposite of Leftism must be Rightism? And Rightism is responsible for Fascism and GFC and such shit...
I'm not sure what is "Individualism" is supposed to be, but having experienced no government, I can assure it is much much worse than you can ever imagine. From reading posts like yours, you lot seem to think "no government" means everyone has a party and lives happily ever after. The reality is though, in that scenario the guys with the most power kills and tortures everyone else. So yeah, the likes of Obama and Bush aren't on my Christmas card list, but I'll gladly pick this way over whatever the hell law of the jungle, winner kills all world you think you want to live in.
But the only people that care are other losers also on Twitter. Being angry makes people feel good, but since the only people that care are other idiots, it's all rather pointless.
pychologically were a private species.
No we aren't. If anything privacy is a relatively new invention since technology allowed us to not be so reliant on each other for survival. If you've ever spent much time camping or playing team sports you'll understand that privacy pretty much goes out the door, and the longer you partake the more you team/camp mates learn all your secrets, and you equally learn theirs.
For most of human evolution there was not much privacy within the tribe. The difference in today's age of surveillance is the previously the lack of privacy was shared among the group. Now it's all one way which is not a natural state.
everything stored in the cloud
As a parent you are supposed to be protecting your children, not selling their souls to the most convenient advertising agency.
When did a government department of any kind ever get anything right? Especially when it concerns computers. Triply when it concerns security.
You obviously haven't heard of the NSA...
It's the monkeysphere in action. The right will complain about the "evil" government, while the left make the same complaints about "evil" big business. Whether govt or big business, they'll all just groups of people like us. And as you say the bigger they are, the harder they are to manage, and therefore require more internal processes to maintain order, the side effect of which is roadblocks to efficiency.
It's not a cop out, it only sounds like one to people who haven't weighed up the options thoroughly enough. As much as it wind and solar makes us feel all warm and fuzzy they cannot solve the issue of base load requirements. There's only two viable solutions today, Coal and Nuclear. So given the choice of coal and tens of thousands of deaths per year from air pollution, or Nuclear with it's known risks, I still think Nuclear is a less worse option.
It also massively increases the severity of accidents (remember, a 40mph crash has 4 times more energy involved than a 30mph crash).
Yeah we've all heard the bullshit line "every km/h over is a killer". The problem with that logic is that if 50 is safer than 60, then 40 is also safer than 50, and therefore 30 is then safer than 20, and so on until 0 is the only "safe" speed there is.
At some point there is risk, and the risk of a modern vehicle at 100km/h is still a lot less than an old clunker doing 60km/h when the current speed limits were decided.
Depends how motivated you are. WW2 serves as a great example of how quickly you can deliver when the motivation is sufficient.
Nah, I thought I was on to something, but I got nothin.
As much as it sounds like a cop out, leaving it to future generation who will no doubt have better technology isn't such a bad idea. As a poor example, we didn't have the capability to combat microbiology 200 years ago, now it's trivial (well in some cases at least). Who knows, when space travel becomes cheap we could shoot it all into the sun, or maybe someone will invent a genetically engineered Kaiju that eats Plutonium and shits out crude oil. As long as the costs of long term storage and maintenance are taken into account, I have no problem with this approach.
You mean, like how we effectively nuked Saddam's army and occupied Iraq?
Everyone keeps using this as a counter argument, but Iraq was never an occupation. Occupation is when we instill our own government, law, values, language, education and religion, and stay there for generations until the locals are assimilated. You know just like the British did in the US. It's why the US is no longer just a bunch of rabid tribes like the Middle East is. Sometimes progress needs to forced onto a country to improve it.
Says the person who thinks Siri is an example of "highly integrated AI".
You for thinking that that counts for anything in a real court of law.