Elon Musk needs to be stopped.

[pepo-pepo]

Originally Posted by mental

Cars on tracks, disneyland solved the self driving car problem decades ago and didn't even know it .

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R you saying there was a genius before pepo?




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[ViceLikeEye]

Originally Posted by pepo-pepo

SOLUTION: Governments spend billions upon billions of dollars and lay down millions upon millions of miles of track in every street & then consumers can buy their own personal trollies with anti-collision devices.

Once again, pepo saves the world!

Yes, personal trains. That's what we need...

Instead, how about we repair the crumbling infrastructure as opposed to giving Musk billions in government grants for a hot swappable battery project that Musk/Tesla scrapped after building one prototype. In case you missed my earlier post about this, Musk kept the billions...

Originally Posted by SynchroDub

I would NEVER consider a Tesla car, even if they might make improvements along the way, tbh.
Long-time car makers like Mercedes, Jaguar, Suzuki, Toyota, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini are sure to make Musk worshippers drool very badly.

I honestly think these Tesla fanatics have horse blinders on. Once again, they drank the Kool-aid and they can't see anything beyond Tesla/Musk as THE ONLY ANSWER. Tesla is a cult.

However, I agree, there are some tasty electric offerings from these other manufacturers.

Originally Posted by mental

Cars on tracks, disneyland solved the self driving car problem decades ago and didn't even know it .

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Don't we feel "Goofy"?

[JustKelli]

Originally Posted by SynchroDub

Take off and landings are still done, manually, by commercial pilots (at least that's what I saw with some Qantas pilots). You don't hear or see a commercial Pilot just sitting on the cockpit clicking a bunch of buttons and let the plane do its own thing.
They're the most crucial phases of a flight. Anything can happen during takeoff and landing.

On take offs, pilots only activate the TO/GA (thrust control) and LNAV/VNAV buttons, and they fly and control the climb rate as well the airspeed and flaps.
This up until they reach 10,000ft.
Once above 10,000ft, the autopilot gets activated and the flight continues as scheduled.

On landing, if a runway is equipped with ILS antennas, they wait until the plane gets aligned with the runway and the autopilot has caught the glidescope, before disconnecting it at 2000ft. Then they take control right until touchdown and arrival at the gate.
If a runway does not have any, or it is very tricky to get the plane aligned automatically (like the old Hong Kong Kai Tak airport), the pilots get instructed by ATC until the pilots have the runway in sight.

BUT......in case of an emergency, they always do all the work.

How do I know? Lots of study, practice on Flight Sims and real-life experiences, talking with pilots.

The computer still monitors even takeoffs and landings on all flights whether they're done manually or remotely, without the computer the plane would never get off the ground. Just like with our drones that are operated remotely any jet could be done the same way and a pilot is a redundancy

I have a pretty swank Flight Simulator that our Pilots stay current on instead of taking our plane up to practice evasive manoeuvres in emergency situations and it's actually very interesting but to be perfectly honest with you they could teach a monkey how to fly a jet these days in probably less than a day and a bunch of bananas. It becomes a lot easier when there's not construction cones and traffic in their way LOL

That said some of the old school Pilots still in the air these days their expertise is invaluable when trouble arises but on the average eventless flight it's a piece of cake because of computers. There are redundancies in place that will actually take the yolk out of the hands of a pilot when it senses emergency situations

By the way our cockpit door is not locked during flights so I get to experience along with the pilots what they're doing on a regular basis

[mental]

Auto pilots can add safety but only if they are working right and the pilot knows how to use them, A auto pilot that takes over control of the plane if it thinks the pilot is doing something wrong may save the plane but not when it's the auto pilot that is wrong and it wont let the pilot control the plane.

A faulty sensor, a greedy company that charges extra for a light bulb and a airline company to cheap to pay for it equals hundreds dead.

I'm sure everyone remembers this, The pilots fought the automated system but it crashed the planes anyway. Elon Musk is not the only one that builds a auto pilot that does not work right.

http://theverge.com/2019/3/15/18267365/boeing-737-max-8-crash-autopilot-automation

[alexora]

Originally Posted by mental

cars have all kinds of safety features, can't shift out of park unless your foot is on the brake pedal, can't shift out of park if no one is sitting in the drivers seat or if your not wearing your seat belt, looks like they now need to put a safety on the cars so you can't shift out of park if the doors are open.

You Tube

You Tube

[JustKelli]

Originally Posted by mental

cars have all kinds of safety features, can't shift out of park unless your foot is on the brake pedal, can't shift out of park if no one is sitting in the drivers seat or if your not wearing your seat belt, looks like they now need to put a safety on the cars so you can't shift out of park if the doors are open.

The problem with idiot proofing cars is that technology has it limits but stupidity knows no bounds.

The newest feature that we have here recently is that automatic stop/start system that shuts the engine off when a car comes to a complete stop, it automatically restarts once you take your foot off the brake or engage first gear in a standard. By the time of car is ready for the junk pile it's gone through five starters already, a couple flywheels, a number of transmission modulator valves or shift kits if not the transmission itself and who knows what else all in the name of "going green"!!! Not to mention that the beefed-up batteries get tired a lot quicker. I recently stopped at a car dealership and as I was driving into the parking lot I noticed in the junk pile there was about 50 Transmissions all bitched.

If you aren't familiar with cars changing a starter can hit you for about five hundred bucks a pop and changing a flywheel can hit you for about 3 grand a pop and changing a transmission could hit you for five to seven thousand and Murphy's Law dictates that none of this s*** will break down until the warranty expires LOL

I'm still not sold that there really are any emission savings. My Navigator has a defeat switch but some vehicles don't. If your vehicle isn't impeccably maintained the starter can engage for a matter of time before it actually fires while you're stuck at an intersection with every asshole behind you honking.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by JustKelli

The newest feature that we have here recently is that automatic stop/start system that shuts the engine off when a car comes to a complete stop, it automatically restarts once you take your foot off the brake or engage first gear in a standard.

I see this as a very good feature: no pointless burning gas while sitting idle in traffic/congestion.

[mental]

If your going to be idling for a while stopping & restarting the engine does save gas, which is i guess what they made those systems for, but unless your going to be stopped for a good amount of time it puts out more pollution.

Newer cars designed with those system can handle the extra wear on the starter, battery & engine because they have better, stronger designed parts just for that, but older cars not so much, damage will be greatly increased to older car drastically shorting their lives.

[ViceLikeEye]

I don't know what start-stop technology has to do with Musk being a lying shitbag, but here's what I've heard. For auto manufacturers, stop-start tech is basically marketing nonsense to fool the consumer and to make themselves look like heroes, etc.

You Tube

You Tube

If the human race really wanted to make a difference, we'd buy vehicles that actually fit our needs. Example: Unless you haul tools and other materials to a jobsite or farm, you don't need a truck. If you're a single person or even a family of five, you don't need a giant SUV. In the US, Ford has pretty much stopped making cars to focus on trucks and SUV's. No one wants to drive cars anymore. Ford is only catering to our unrealistic, impractical desires, not our needs and they aren't alone. More on that later.

We could also buy slightly older used (preowned) vehicles that are still efficient. The resources saved by doing this far outweighs anything done by Tesla or any vehicle claiming to be super efficient. I could go into more detail on this point, but I fear I'll tread into forbidden waters.

By buying cars that fit our needs and buying older efficient cars, we would send a message to the auto manufacturers - stop making shit we don't need or want; In fact we could do that with most products, not just vehicles. However, humans love buying and hording shiny trinkets we don't need and probably won't use; At least not to the product's full potential. Example: An extremely high percentage of SUV and trucks never get used off-road. Why would luxury/high performance brands like Lamborghini, Porsche, Mercedes, Jaguar, Alpha Romeo, Aston Martin, and Ferrari have SUV's in there lineup? These vehicles are nothing more than posing pavement queens for people with more money than sense.

Originally Posted by CarandDriver.com

We never thought we'd see the day where a Ferrari SUV became a reality, but in the wake of successful high-dollar, high-performance sport-utes, the stage is set for the 2022 Ferrari Purosangue. This news comes despite the company's past messaging that an SUV has no place in the lineup. Expect to need a hedge-fund manager's salary to afford such a ride, of course; prices could start as high as $350,000. A high-performance SUV with Ferrari's prancing horse badge on the grille won't ruin the brand, though. After all, successful iterations of the concept have served sports-car brands such as Porsche and Lamborghini quite well.

To get the thread slightly back on track... If the Tesla truck ever sees the light of day, it too will be a posing pavement queen.

[Gwynd]

Originally Posted by JustKelli

By the time of car is ready for the junk pile it's gone through five starters already, a couple flywheels, a number of transmission modulator valves or shift kits if not the transmission itself and who knows what else all in the name of "going green"!!! Not to mention that the beefed-up batteries get tired a lot quicker. I recently stopped at a car dealership and as I was driving into the parking lot I noticed in the junk pile there was about 50 Transmissions all bitched.

Well, I can only comment for my experience, I had a stop-start equipped van for 5 years, during those 5 years, I never needed any of those components replacing. I only found 2 issues with it:

1: It really messed up going onto one local roundabout, because by the time the starter had re-engaged, I'd lose my opening.

2: The stop-start stopped working if the battery got below 50% charge, which if you do a lot of driving that activates the stop-start (and I do) happens every few days.

It did improve my average fuel consumption somewhat, but I can't say whether it was actually worth the extra complexity, I'd had previous vehicles which were within 5mpg of it's figures without stop-start.

My current van doesn't have stop-start, but it's omission was not my choice, it just wasn't offered with it.

'Stop-Start' isn't even 'new' technology, I remember it being available on a number of 'Energy Saving' models available after the 70s oil-price shock.