Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

1961Nick

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-likely-to-achieve-level-4-autonomy-in-2022-says-elon-musk

1961Nick

Lex Fridman podcast #252 on YouTube.

JKenH

Disengagement reports 

https://twitter.com/taylorogan/status/1458169941128097800

1961Nick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbfKlQM7TII

1961Nick

I can't find any technical information about Autopilot 'disengagements' so I'll take Musk's word that these are decreasing month on month.

From my own experience, I've had 1 disengagement & that was for a blinded nearside camera. I'd guess my autopilot mileage at around 500. 

shinytop

1961Nick said:

JKenH said:

As I said, I think FSD is amazing but the improvements Tesla keeps making are not taking it any nearer robo-taxi status which was used by so many Tesla fans to justify the high stock market valuations. Meanwhile other manufacturers are closer to having a functioning (albeit geographically restricted) robo-taxi service.

https://electrek.co/2021/06/07/waymo-and-cruise-hope-to-charge-for-autonomous-rides-in-california/

Waymo & Cruise are closer to the robots running around an Amazon warehouse than they are to Tesla's FSD.

Tesla are now very close to achieving level 4 autonomy & may do so this year but without regulatory approval. The data from FSD beta (level 4) is showing that the rate of disengagement is dropping rapidly with every update. Level 5 is achieved once the rate of disengagement is zero. 

Very clever but a classic case of a solution looking for a problem.  IMO.  

JKenH

FSD is brilliant at what it does. It is just unfortunate that Elon Musk on October 21, 2019 said 

"Next year for sure, we will have over a million robotaxis on the road. The fleet wakes up with an over-the-air update. That's all it takes."

https://www.thedrive.com/news/38129/elon-musk-promised-1-million-tesla-robotaxis-by-the-end-of-2020-where-are-they

In July 2019 he also said 

“If we make all cars with FSD package self-driving, as planned, any such Tesla should be worth $100k to $200k, as utility increases from ~12 hours/week to ~60 hours/week”

There has been a lot of hype over Tesla robotaxis for several years but as yet they have as yet to appear. 

Tesla has now dropped LiDAR which may make its robotaxi rollout even more difficult to achieve. 

Yes, Tesla still have the best ADAS on the planet but that is not the same as a robotaxi. Other manufacturers particularly in China are making huge strides towards robotaxis and engaging in testing with licensing authorities.

Tesla seems to have shunned this approach believing it could ignore the regulatory niceties and one day just switch on a robotaxi fleet with a software update. 

It’s almost as though Tesla are rowing back on the possibility of robotaxis at any time in the near future. In July last year Musk said: "Generalized self-driving is a hard problem, as it requires solving a large part of real-world AI. Didn't expect it to be so hard, but the difficulty is obvious in retrospect."

1961Nick

Tesla have clearly chosen the most difficult path possible to FSD by not using geofencing & mapping. It seems that Musk doesn't want to dilute the technical challenge by making Teslas into glorified warehouse robots or driverless trams. Given his track record, I wouldn't bet against him but the timescale is anyone's guess.

My own view... 

The earliest they'll achieve level 4 is late 2023. By that, I mean the point where the driver can remove their hands from the wheel, the software loses it's beta tag, & it's freely available to all subscribers. 

I have my doubts about the current hardware being adequate for the transition to robo-taxis. If Tesla want regulatory approval for robo-taxi use, they may have to go down the geofencing/mapping path & possibly reintroduce lidar.

Martyn1981

Weird article, I think a bit tongue in cheek, so I've copied all of the bit that I thought was interesting and fun:

Electrifying Trains, Planes, & Dirty Big Mining Trucks

The so called “Infinity Train” will be a world-first train set, running on batteries and gravity. A loaded iron ore train will create enough energy on the downhill run to the coast for offloading, to charge up the batteries and power the empty train back to the mine.

Using the battery tech of WAE, Fortescue Metals aims to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2030. Here are some more details:

“The Infinity Train has the capacity to be the world’s most efficient battery-electric locomotive. The regeneration of electricity on the downhill loaded sections will remove the need for the installation of renewable energy generation and recharging infrastructure, making it a capital-efficient solution for eliminating diesel and emissions from our rail operations. …

“Fortescue’s current rail operations consumed 82 million litres of diesel in the 2021 financial year, accounting for 11 per cent of Fortescue’s Scope 1 emissions.”

“There are 54 operating locomotives and 16 train sets in the mining conglomerate’s rail fleet,” InnovationAus writes. “Per train set, 34,404 tonnes of iron ore can be hauled in 244 ore cars.”

Coastalwatch

It could be argued that it's not surprising the Traton Group study has arrived at this conclusion given they are already heading in that direction, but it would appear they are not the only players who have come to this conclusion. Could it be that Elons description of the use of Hydrogen and "fool cells" was not too far adrift!

Fraunhofer study: Hydrogen will not play a major role in road transport

The Traton Group sees an analysis by the Fraunhofer Institute as confirming its strategy with its focus on battery-electric drives. According to the study, electric drives will also dominate the heavy-duty sector, and fuel cells will remain a niche application. On the other hand, Daimler Truck continues to rely consistently on both technologies.

Traton surmises that, in most regions and commercial vehicle applications, the battery-electric drive is superior to the fuel cell. This also applies to heavy long-distance transport. The results of the study are well received by the company. “We are pleased with the clarity of the analysis result, even though it does not surprise us. It once again confirms the Traton Group’s strategy of focusing on battery-electric powertrains for our commercial vehicles,” says Catharina Modahl-Nilsson, Chief Technical Officer at Traton.

A study published last week by Ifeu came to a very similar conclusion as the Fraunhofer analysis. According to this study, battery-electric and trolley trucks will dominate in 2030 due to their cost advantages. Fuel cell trucks will not keep up with their battery electric and overhead catenary counterparts with hydrogen from Germany. “The use of fuel cell trucks, therefore, represents a bet on the future availability of cheap and fully renewable imported hydrogen in the medium term,” the study concludes.

https://www.electrive.com/2022/03/12/fraunhofer-study-hydrogen-will-not-play-a-major-role-in-road-transport/