I would like more details. There are definitely situations where neither a car nor a human could respond quickly enough to a situation on the road.
for example, I recently hit a deer. The dashcam shows that I had less than 100 feet from when the deer became visible due to terrain to impact while driving at 60 mph. Keeping in mind that stopping a car in 100 feet at 60 mph is impossible. Most vehicles need more than triple that without accounting for human reaction time.
This is called "overdriving your vision", and it's so common that it boggles my mind. (This opinion might have something to do with the deer I hit when I first started driving...)
We will inevitably see "AVs are too cautious! Let me go faster!" complaints as AVs drive in more places. But, really humans just suck at risk assessment. And at driving. Driving like a human is comforting in some contexts, but that should not be a goal when it trades away too much safety.
There is a difference between driving too fast around a corner to stop for something stationary on the road and driving through countryside where something might jump out.
I live in a country with deer but the number of incidences of them interacting with road users is so low that it does not factor in to my risk tolerance.
The risks vary with speed. At 30mph a deer will be injured and damage your car, and you might have to call animal control to find the deer if it was able to get away. At 45mph there is a good chance the deer will impact your windshield. If it breaks through, that's how people die in animal collisions. They get kicked to death by a frantic, panicked, injured animal.
On many roads if a deer jumps across the road at the wrong time there’s literally nothing you can do. You can’t always drive at 30mph on back country roads just because a deer might hop out at you.
World of difference between, 30, 40, 50 and 60. Feels like something I have noticed between west and east coast drivers. Latter really send it on country turns and just trust the road. West coast, particularly montana, when vision is reduced, speed slows down. Just too many animals or road obstacles (eg: rocks, planks of wood) to just trust the road.
Yeah, I was a bit glib. My impression is more specifically of the greater northwest vs rest. Perhaps just "the west" vs "the east".
Indiana drivers for example really do send it (in my experience). Which is not east coast of course.
There is a good bit of nuance... I would perhaps say more simply east of Mississippi vs west, but Texas varies by region and so-Cal drivers vary a lot as well, particularly compared to nor-Cal and central+eastern california. (I don't have an impression for nevada and new mexico drivers - I dont have any experience on country roads in those states)
You are responding in a thread about a person saying they were driving at 60 when the deer only became visible "due to terrain" at 100 feet away, and therefore hitting it is no reflection on their skill or choices as a driver.
I suppose we're meant to interpret charitably here, but it really seems to me like there is a big difference between the scenario described and the one you're talking about, where the deer really does fling itself out in front of you.
I've had a person, high on drugs, walk out from between bushes that were along the road. I screeched to a halt in front of them, but 1 second later and physics would have made it impossible, regardless of reaction time (or non-negligible speed).
The article explains the investigation is based upon visibility issues... what is your point? I don't think any reasonable person doubts there are circumstances where nothing could adequately respond in order to prevent a crash. It seems a rather odd assumption to reach that these crashes would be in one of those scenarios such that we should be explained to otherwise, no less so when the report facially explains this to not be the case.
we took a road trip last summer about 4000 miles in our model Y Long range. You end up supercharging approximately every three hours for about 15 minutes. it actually worked out very well because our first stop of the day was almost always lunch. we picked hotels that had chargers on site so we started each day with enough charge to make the next supercharger.
There's 3 Tesla superchargers between Vegas to Reno, in Beatty, Tonopah and Hawthorne, which is roughly 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 of the way through. So definitely doable but definitely less convenient than an ICE car that can make that drive in one shot without refueling.
So stop in Tonopah NV,which is half way inbetween. Most EVs have the range to make it that far. I just picked that town by looking at a map - I'm sure there are a couple other choices even tough it is a desolate area.
I don't know if there is a charger there today, but it is an obvious place where one is likely to be added sometime.
This argument is non sequitor. If wealth inequality was the problem, couples would be forced by economics to work together to bring in more together than they could separately and to share resources like housing to reduce costs.
> many women don't marry the father of their child not because they reject the concept of marriage, but because they do not see him as a reliable source of economic security or stability.
If you think of marriage as purely a business partnership, would you go into business with someone who is unreliable?
It's better to be a sole proprietorship than have your entire business brought down by a bad partner, where both partners are liable for the bad partner's actions and decisions.
Because women have a limited window to have children and have to work with the options available. A woman can’t put off kids indefinitely waiting for partners to stabilize financially, emotionally etc.
that window is at least 20 years wide. if it's not possible to find a reliable partner in that time then the world is in a very sorry state.
i accept that it can be difficult, and that people can be blinded by love but if i already know that a person is unreliable enough that i don't want to marry them, then why have a child from them?
The 3 is basically the same except you have real F keys and can upload settings to it via USB. Both are great keyboards. I’ve used them for well over a decade.
I went from 1's and 2's w/ custom controllers to a 360pro. It's largely the same board in terms of geometry. There are a few more keys, which are welcome, it's ZMK programmable (pro only). The writ wrests, extra, are better and don't seem to deform/wear out like the old ones. It's much less 'hollow', feels much more solid. The tenting is pretty awesome, the split is welcome. I would buy the pbt keys for extra $, the keys they ship are shit. I also pulled the DSA homerow from one of my advantages and used it here, they moved away from those special home row caps for cost reasons.
As a Tesla owner, I think the source of the confusion is the EPA range displayed in the HUD on the Tesla. We toggled ours to show the battery percentage, which is much more useful to us.
We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.
Wind resistance increases EXPONENTIALLY with speed. Drive a little over the speeds the EPA used to determine range, and the observed range will drop significantly as a percentage when compared to the EPA range for any vehicle.
If you do have a Tesla, you'll quickly find out that the trip computer is very accurate. The worst I've seen is a cold January day in Wisconsin (-10F) while on a road trip with a head wind. In that scenario, the trip computer was off by 7% mostly due to the head wind. In the summer, it is spot on usually within 1 - 2%.
FWIW Our Audis (Q5, A6 allroad) have significantly better MPGs than the advertised ones
The Q5 advertises 28mlg on the highway but i consistently hit 30+ here
And the wagon hits 35mpg on the highway very often even though it only advertises 26. It actually turns off 2 of the 6 cylinders when it senses that it can.
Both cars I've owned have had better efficiency and thus range than advertised (a Honda and a Subaru). I'm often shocked at how I can get 38-40mpg + on a car that is supposed to be getting 29mpg.
Same here. I've come to the conclusion that most drivers (or most drivers that complain about EPA mileage ratings anyway) have insane driving habits. Every car I have ever owned (And I've run the gamut from sedans to light pickups of both American an Japanese make) has met or exceeded the EPA rated mileage.
The only oddity that I have observed is in my current car, a Lexus hybrid crossover just barely meets its city rating in town while easily beating the city rating (which is higher since it's a hybrid) on the highway. Not that I'm complaining, but it's not what I expected from my first hybrid vehicle.
> We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.
Because gas stations are still far more common than fast chargers. We'll get there with EV charging, but right now range does matter, especially if you routinely see half of what was advertised.
I had a similar thought before we purchased our Tesla. Our actual experience has been much better than expected. Here's why:
1) Everyday Driving / Commuting: Much like an ICE vehicle where one thinks about 1/2 tank, 1/4 tank, etc... we think about percentages. For us, a round-trip to the in-laws is 50% in the summer and 60% in the winter, for example. Commuting round trip is ~15% in the winter, and ~12% in the summer. This combined with the fact that the car starts every morning charged to 80% means that we really don't ever worry about super charging in our day-to-day life.
2) Road Trips: The navigation software on the tesla automatically add charging stops where needed, and critically, it is very accurate when predicting range as a percentage when it knows your destination. We typically charge until it say we'll reach our destination/charging stops with 10%. That reserve has always been more than enough even on 1000 - 2000 mile road trips.
My general advice to anyone with a Tesla who has range anxiety:
1) Put the round trip into the trip computer. (e.g. Home => Place I Want To Go To => Home)
2) Always make sure you'll get to your next charging stop with 10 - 15% left according to the trip computer.
3) Relax and enjoy the auto-pilot :)
I agree generally, I've never really had a range anxiety problem on either of my Teslas. And 100% agree on the daily charging, too.
But I do think we're not to the point where we can just nonchalantly hit the road without really thinking about charging. It is part of the planning in more detail than I'd usually spend with a gas car. Totally manageable, but still.
Right now it varies a lot where in the world you are. I don’t have exact numbers but I have a feeling there’s more fast charging locations around me than gas stations. (There may be more gas pumps but it doesn’t matter because most EV owners here don’t use fast charging as their main method of charging)
I guess this is only true in like 2-3 countries in the world right now. But it’s changing very rapidly.
> We've never owned a gas vehicle that met it's EPA range and the Tesla is no different. No one takes EPA MPG * GALLONS of gas and expects it to be a real life estimate of range.
Why is this exactly? It's been true - MPG is lower than estimated - of every vehicle I've owned too except for my most recent, a '23 MX-5 (i.e. a sports car, which I tend to drive at higher RPMs and in lower gears.) I'm getting spot-on or a little above the EPA estimated on the car I'd least expect it.
Consider yourself lucky. Off the top of my head both Ford and Subaru were subject to lawsuits about vehicles not meeting EPA range expectations. When I had an outback I was very lucky to get 17MPG and the EPA range on the window sticker was 27 which felt really deceptive.
FWIW, one of my vehicles which _does not_ get the EPA estimated is a 2017 Ford Fusion 2.0L AWD. EPA estimate is 20/29/23 (city/highway/combined.)
I normally get 21mpg combined, which is really not so far off. Lots of highway driving usually gets the average up to 23.5mpg. With that worst-case number, across a full tank of gas (16.5 gallons x 2 mpg), I'm shorted about 33 miles, or 8%.
Is that pretty comparable to what Tesla users see? The article claims it's much higher:
> Tesla was fined earlier this year by South Korean regulators who found the cars delivered as little as half their advertised range in cold weather. Another recent study found that three Tesla models averaged 26% below their advertised ranges.
I’m surprised you’re getting such good economy. I was getting 13mpg in my 2013 in stop and go traffic. Which is all I drove in at the time, and a contributing factor in selling it.
My 2021 Honda CR-V doesn’t get close to EPA MPG but the range calculator is still accurate to within maybe 15%. I’ve tested it a few times driving from Oakland to LA which is right around the full range of the car and it gets pretty close- even with a whole mountain range to drive over north of LA. It doesn’t appear to use EPA MPG for its estimates and it makes for a better experience.
I think this is a problem because a lot of what people use to shop an EV is the headline range number, which you are declaring is not accurate. This is false advertising.
If the EPA rating is consistent in it's overestimation, it would still be a perfectly functional system to comparison shop range. Putting that KNOWN overestimating number as the headline "range" estimation is wrong. My ICE car does not use the EPA combined estimate for my range because that would be inaccurate and make the number useless. The knowledge on how to build a useful "Range" value in a car has been constant since at least 2000, and yet Tesla, and ONLY tesla, seems to have it wrong. Meanwhile, as others tell, the navigation display shows a very accurate estimation, so why the disconnect? There's no requirement for a battery display showing the EPA range, they CHOSE to do that.
My EPA highway mile rating is lower than I see in actual driving in my ICE. City is about accurate unless I’ve been in a lot of traffic’s with its look back range for live mpg estimates. Lots of owners of other EV brands and the article itself said they’re much better than Tesla’s estimate as well. It’s difficult to see how the issue is anything but specific to Tesla and its method of presenting info to consumers. They were even force to lower their previously stated range, per the linked article.
Neither v^2 nor v^3 is exponential. They are polynomial functions. Exponential would be if wind resistance or power or fuel consumption were c^x for some constant c.
It seems to have become fashionable to say "exponentially" or even "EXPONENTIALLY" when you mean it's a rapidly increasing function, but to the technically-minded, whom I would hope to find on HN, there is still a clear-cut difference between exponential and polynomial.
I think the fact that polynomials contain an exponent forgives that particular degradation of precision in the vernacular. I corrected the OP by adding context so onlookers could know just how fast the power requirements grow without poo-pooing their choice of words. In a programming context, extacting language precision is beneficial. Shooting the shit in an Internet forum I think we can tolerate imprecision in others without causing a dust up. Now tell me how do you feel when someone says “it’s pretty unique”
I drove a Tesla for over a month and it was a relief to go back to my Honda Civic. The range (both miles and %) was wildly inaccurate. If I had to drive anywhere that wasn’t a few miles within the city, I was under constant anxiety. No thank you.
It’s a wonder to me that anyone would ever trust anything Elon Musk ever says about anything. He’s a proven liar and creates an openly hostile, negative culture wherever he goes. I feel sorry for people who are caught up in his lies, either customers or employees or people who work closely with him and have to suffer his tantrums. There was a point I admired him, but that is long past.
I can’t credit myself with the observation, it was someone else on HN, but it ran something like this:
For years Tesla made cars that were disproportionately appealing to people with concerns about the environment, a population that skews liberal/progressive. Those on the other side of the political world view might like the cars too- especially technophiles— but there certainly a large contingent that are skeptical to anything with a primary appeal of being “environmentally friendly”. Then comes the current culture-war driven political ecosystem, and all musk has to do is tweet some controversial things that might resonate with some contingents on the political right and all of a sudden those individuals may feel more comfortable buying cars from a guy who speaks their language.
I certainly don’t know if that was Musk’s deliberate strategy though, but it wouldn’t shock me if his actions in that way are partly “him” and partly him leaning into a role of social prominence that resonates with a consumer population previously less likely to buy his cars.
It would be interesting if I could fine surveys of automobile brand customer bases broken down by political affiliation, and if it’s shifted Tesla’s at all in recent years.
You can see his conversations leaked by court docs and understand his politics clearly. No need to contort yourself into seeing him in some other light than the one that’s readily apparent
The article says that Tesla knowingly overestimated their numbers. Tesla even switches the range algorithm to be more accurate when mileage gets to 50%.
I think the difference is that a gas-powered car will keep driving when the gas indicator hits zero. You can still get a couple dozen miles at that points, and those are so important. Tesla is really doing you a disservice by not considering that.
My Tesla has been great. It saw a pedestrian in all black at night in a cross walk that I didn’t see. The car stopped, and I think it saved a life. Auto pilot is super nice on the Highway and in stop and go traffic. FSD drives like an 8 year old stole the car and is driving for the first time :)
TLDR we’re going on a road trip next month and taking the Tesla. When taking the jeep was mentioned, no one wanted to drive, lol!
I enjoyed the complaining about q codes :) as a ham radio operator who does a lot of Morse code, I can tell you that they are far far from dead. QRL, QRZ, QSL and more are heard or sent over the air tens of thousands of times a day.
Also the radio call signs of hams primarily start with either k, n, w, a in the USA. Airplanes have radios, so that’s why they treat those letters in a similar way along with fm/am radio stations
I made the switch a few months ago and feel your pain. For me editing is the most different. Realizing that I could press and hold the space bar was life changing. It works “almost” like android does… except you can also move the cursor up and down
for example, I recently hit a deer. The dashcam shows that I had less than 100 feet from when the deer became visible due to terrain to impact while driving at 60 mph. Keeping in mind that stopping a car in 100 feet at 60 mph is impossible. Most vehicles need more than triple that without accounting for human reaction time.
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