It’s possible that the Tesla Cybercab is exactly the right form factor and technology to skip ahead of Waymo and Cruise to overtake the robotaxi market. A bet against Elon Musk isn’t always one that pays off. If the only two certainties in life are death and taxes, a near-third is probably government regulation. How, exactly, is Musk going to clear that inevitability?
Today’s Morning Dump is all about the gap between expectation and reality. This is where Elon Musk both thrives and, sometimes, falters. The same could be said of anyone trying to do anything hard. This is especially relevant now when the world feels like it’s changing at a rate faster than anyone can track. GM’s solution to this problem? Moving more of its vehicle development to the virtual world to save time on building and testing prototypes.
Chinese automakers are threatening to compete in Europe, though they’ve got a long way to go. Just how long is it? Some of this comes down to how quickly EV sales take off in the continent. We know they’re slow here, and any Stellantis dealer who expected to get a lot of help from the parent company is just going to have to “deal with it.”
The Cybercab Conundrum
There was a lot of fanfare at the “We, Robot” event held by Tesla last week, but there wasn’t a lot of detail about how Tesla was going to start actually putting these vehicles into use.
What we do know is that Musk said the company would start producing the Cybercabs in 2026, though he himself admitted that he can be “a little optimistic” with the timeframes for his projects. He also said the cabs would cost under $30,000 and should require about $ 0.20 per mile to operate. David dug into whether it made sense for the cab to be a two-seater and, sure, that’s weird. This doesn’t bother me as much, as the platform is likely adaptable and I wouldn’t be surprised if a four-person version was eventually added.
An open question I have is: Were these just the Model 2 we ended up not getting? That’s what Tu Le from Sino Automotive Insights thinks, saying that “[t]he vehicle Elon showed off is likely the M2 that they decided not to launch. They just ripped the pedals and steering wheel out.” So the Model 2 would have been a two-seater? Like a new Smart Car? I kinda like that.
Putting all that aside, there’s one big reason why the Cybercab cannot be deployed in massive numbers and that’s simply that the federal government, via the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, won’t allow it.
As NHTSA’s own guidelines point out, there’s a limit of 2,500 cars per year, per manufacturer that qualify for an exemption and can be tested on public roads. The exemption gets cars out of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS, which is what you need for a car with no driver or steering wheel.
Any motor vehicle manufacturer may petition the Agency for exemption in order to facilitate the development or field evaluation of a new motor vehicle safety feature, for up to 2,500 vehicles per year. A manufacturer seeking to use this basis for exemption must provide documentation of the research performed already on the safety feature, how the safety feature is innovative, and how the safety level of the feature at least equals the safety level of the FMVSS for which exemption is sought, as discussed in Section III.C.4.c.
Of course, 2,500 would still be a decent number of Cybercabs. Currently, Waymo reportedly has about 700 driverless taxis and Cruise likely had about 1,200 at its peak. So has Tesla applied for these exemptions? According to NHTSA, via Bloomberg, they have not. Is this a big deal? According to the Bloomberg article, it seems so:
General Motors Co. in early 2022 petitioned NHTSA for an exemption to field a driverless shuttle without a steering wheel and other human-centric features through its Cruise self-driving unit. The automaker ultimately pulled the plug in July after the agency didn’t act on the request for more than two years.
Tesla hasn’t requested an exemption for the Cybercab, NHTSA said Tuesday afternoon. The agency to date has granted only one such application, in 2020, when it allowed startup Nuro to deploy low-speed, autonomous delivery vehicles designed to carry goods rather than people.
I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist here so I will merely point out that former President Trump has said he’d appoint CEO Musk as some sort of anti-government spending/regulation czar if elected, and Musk himself has said it would be bad for him personally if Trump loses. If Trump does fire most civil servants, as has threatened to do, and replaces them, with the help of Musk, is it possible that these issues go away?
GM Is Going Virtual
It’s not often that I get to quote Rubber News, which is a real publication that focuses on the rubber business. Thankfully, Rubber News has an article about General Motors trying to go virtual with its new car development. This includes both the design and the validation stages and could help the carmaker move faster.
“We have been partnering with the supply base to identify the gaps and put together the plans to achieve our 100 percent virtual plans,” Matthew Wieczorek, a GM engineering group manager, told attendees at a recent conference here hosted by Endurica LLC.
“We have to keep pace with the rest of the industry,” Wieczorek said. “Hardware tests are always kind of limited in scope. You go to prototype vehicles. You go out and you test them. One fails and the other doesn’t, what do you do? Do you react to it? Do you not react to it? What caused the one to fail and not the other?”
GM will not make hardware and vehicles available for development and testing once it moves to a full virtual process, he said.
Welcome to the future.
Chinese Automakers Aren’t Slowing Down Much On Imports
European tariffs are a real concern for Chinese automakers hoping to break into Europe even if those concerns aren’t likely to dissuade most of those companies. Chinese-owned MG, for instance, has seen its sales in Europe double every year for the last four years and even imported more cars to Europe than Tesla did last year (Tesla, of course, has local production for its most popular model, the Model Y).
Many Chinese brands were on display at this week’s Paris Motor Show, including the BYD Sealion 7 and Xpeng P7+ and G6, with Tu Le noting:
I could see the P7+ & G6 doing pretty well in the EU markets with aggressive pricing, especially since [co-founder] He Xiaopeng said he’d maintain pricing despite the tariffs – that means they’ve likely forecasted a cost down glidepath that can maintain profitability despite eating large chunks of the tariff. One way they’re doing this is by having one of the (I think he said THE largest) 16K ton gigapress stamping the chassis.
S&P Global Mobility says the tariffs should be taken seriously even if they aren’t a long-term impediment to China’s automotive expansion:
In response to the punitive tariffs, S&P Global Mobility has made an initial adjustment to its sales forecast for EU27 markets that reflect the impact that these measures will have. Despite facing challenges, the long-term outlook for Chinese brands in Europe remains optimistic. The market share of Chinese brands in the region reached 2.5% in 2023, and projections indicate that this could rise to nearly 10% by 2034, with more than 1.2 million cars sold in the European market.
This is perhaps why President Biden put a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
Carlos Tavares To Dealers Concerned About EV Transition: “Deal With It”
It’s not a great time to be a Stellantis dealer or customer (or supplier), and CEO Carlos Tavares, pictured above, understands this. He sympathizes. Just kidding!
Stellantis NV CEO Carlos Tavares’ message to dealers and suppliers struggling for profitability on the bumpy road to increasing adoption of electric vehicles is: “Deal with it.”
LOL.
Perhaps the full quote will be a little better:
“You insert an additional cost of 40% in a system, which is very constrained, obviously it creates a lot of tension, and obviously it creates anxiety,” he said. “We are all facing the same reality. And my people, they also have anxiety, but we are dealing with it. We are dealing with it, and everybody needs to take a fair share and deal with it.”
He called upon dealers to lobby the government to support demand through EV subsidies “so that they don’t have to push the EVs in the mouth of consumers that may not be so excited about it.”
Yes, “Deal with it” by passing as much of the costs possible onto taxpayers and suppliers.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
If you’re going to make people listen to a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” I’m going to suggest you pick the Jeff Buckley one. Shoutout to Car And Driver Senior Editor Andrew Krok for pointing out the sublime “Life at Sin-é” version.
The Big Question
Who will be the first company to have more than 5,000 robotaxis in use in the United States?
- Tesla
- Waymo
- Cruise
- Zoox
- Other?
Image credit for topshot papers: Kitta/stock.adobe.com
If I had a soul, I might understand the reverence everyone else seems to have for Hallelujah and Jeff Buckley, but I’ve been stuck here to guard the gates of the underworld for a reason.
Isn’t everything muskrat announces a lie or outright scam at this point? Awaiting his arrival at the gates, heads 1 and 3 are going to grab an end of him each and I’ll hold the center. Normally, we’re not allowed to do something like this for arrivals, however, Persephone is a bit of a gambler (it’s more than a bit) and we’ve got some money on whether heads 1 or 3 will pull off the biggest piece kind of like Americans pulling a wishbone apart for Thanksgiving. Hopefully, he’ll arrive in the winter while she’s here as Hades is usually a stickler for the rules and it’s best not to make him angry.
Who may have a fully autonomous fleet first? I’m not sure, but I can see Amazon having a fleet out there for themselves early (ferrying goods, not people).
But I feel like I trust a new entrant from China (like BYD) more than I currently trust some of the American companies at this point.
It does not matter who gets the first 5,000 AI cars. the question is when will they get their own rights, and will the Smart Car make a comeback as a result.
Johnny Cab
Does anyone else think the Robotaxi was originally meant to be a low-cost two-seater and got repurposed? It would explain the seemingly inappropriate form-factor.
It’s a common theory (mentioned above, even) that the CyberCab is based on a Model 2 design.
yes, i made many, many comments to that effect in the original post about the reveal.
I 100% think this was the low-cost car up until about 4-6 months ago. But at some point Elon realized he can’t pump the stock price and keep it as inflated as it is by showing an econo-box EV. So, he has to dress is up as much as possible and pivot to his worn-out claims of a driverless cab.
You sell the sizzle, not the steak. So, now investors can comfort themselves with the idea that in 3 years the company will finally make something that supports its absolutely bonkers market cap (and the price they paid for stock).
I mean, the sizzle ain’t sizzling, stock prices dropped 8 percent after the presentation.
Their market cap is still insane. It’s like a meme stock combined with a dotcom bubble.
The only way anyone can justify it is based on some massive future revenue stream that doesn’t exist yet. That’s what they keep selling, something in the future.
If that revenue never materializes then it all crumbles. It’s just a matter of how long shareholders are willing to wait.
I think the shareholders are getting less and less willing to wait though. Eight percent in one night is a massive drop, and the taxi bet’s not it. Unless Tesla can pivot to something else, they’re going to see more drops.
Still an absurdly overvalued stock though.
It seems like there is a slow erosion, even if it droped to 10% of it’s current price it would still be overvalued by most auto manufacturing metrics.
I am surprised the rear facing Trunk seats from the Tesla S are not a thing here. But yeah, not having a straight up box for vehicles never seeing freeway use is just dumb, and Elon is a fan of flat panels on vehicles from a buildability standard.
My guess is the whole Robotaxi thing isn’t going to work out and we’ll see a Model 2 with a steering wheel for public (not fleet) consumption. They’ll need to start “recouping” (sorry, bad pun) the car’s development cost sooner rather than later, and full autonomous driving is still (and will forever be) five years away.
“Who will be the first company to have more than 5,000 robotaxis in use in the United States?”
Since no one else has answered today’s Big Question yet, I’ll take a crack at it.
I would have actually said Nuro at first, since they are the only AV company holding a legitimate NHTSA approval, but since they were solely focused on last-mile cargo, I’m not sure that counts. Though it should be mentioned they recently switched focus in the hopes of selling their technology to other OEMs, rather than making their own product.
Of the options provided, I’d have said Cruise a year ago were it not for an unfortunate incident that has seemingly set them back quite a bit. So to me it looks like Zoox is the most likely candidate since they already have cars operating in test markets. I’m not aware of the status of their NHTSA approval but given the NHTSA doesn’t seem to be in any big hurry regarding these types of things…
“I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist here”
Then don’t fucking say it then do it. That’s some Jalopnik BS there.
Really?
I don’t mean to be judgmental, BUT I JUDGE YOU TO BE RUDE!!!
lol
Who says you have to launch the robotaxis in the US?
It’s trained on US roads. I’m sure they could try and update it for other infrastructure. But these things have a hard enough time after a decade of training and learning on US streets. I’m not sure how easy it would be to stand them up in another country.
Better yet, make them listen to The Handsome Family’s cover of Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” instead.
The autonomous CyberCrab conundrum. Can Elon deploy his army of robo-crabs before the government stops him?!
My brain refuses to properly read “Cybercab” and as a result, all the news about them is much more entertaining in my mind.
CyBeRcRaPcAb
“I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist here so I will merely point out that former President Trump has said he’d appoint CEO Musk as some sort of anti-government spending/regulation czar if elected”
If it’s one thing that is clear to anyone with half a brain after Crooked Trump’s presidency… having a “businessman” that has had multiple bankruptcies, who is a repeated grifter and who is a proud Pussy Grabber is a BAD PERSON to have as President.
Now the question becomes… why do so many US voters lack even a half a brain?
I’m going to refer this to Carlos ‘pictured above ‘ Tavares so he can ask his customers.
Attacking the public schools. Denying teachers a seat at the table when deciding curriculum. Mandating high stakes testing and tying teacher compensation to test scores. Among other things.
You do understand that all politicians that have achieved the Federal level are crooks and disingenuous, right?
You do also understand that while he’s a blowhard, that woman is a complete idiot. And, If she gets elected, we are all fucked, right? Full-on fucked. Nobody is gonna take her whining and “oopsies” seriously. Not anyone that has access to our finances or safety, anyway.
You do understand this, correct?
Nah, we’ll be fine either way. At least as fine as we are now I guess.
Not to extrapolate this out too far, but saying we are fine now, is a pretty low bar. Definitely not the goal, or satisfactory.
Neither is all the doom-and-gloom, sky is always falling nonsense.
From all sides in your defense.
Thanks for defending me (kinda, ha)!
The reality is that we need a boss. Every business needs a boss. We haven’t had one in 4 years. This particular woman is a secretary, at best.
That’s what I am concerned about. I can go to a shrink to talk, and go to a strip mall to get aroma therapy. I can go to my city counsel to talk about water pressure or dock rights, or maybe a temporary grievance with the HOA dues. That stuff is all on me.
I need someone in charge of the Big Desk that doesn’t laugh with some ladies from The View or dick around with saying they own a Glock to appeal to gang members that won’t vote anyway. Give me the candidate that has never done drugs (or at least hasn’t flip-flopped on sentencing people who have). I have been friends with drugs as a younger me, but I’m an adult now, and don’t like them being used solely as a voting directive with college kids for a trivial “fuck yeah, pot.”
I need someone that rolls like a boss, not tiptoes excuses why they aren’t. This isn’t The Price Is Right, where the Cliffhanger falls off the top and everyone says “see ya in a few for a chance to win a Kia”.
I graduated. It’s time everyone else does as well and realizes that our boss may be a jerk (hint: he is), but I’m not playing around with some campaign that thinks twerking wins the day. Or my life.
We need a boss, huh? Germany felt the same way back in the 1930’s. How’d that turn out for them? And the rest of the world for that matter?
Can’t say I’m a huge fan of the current state of things, but I completely understand that things can and will get worse if Big Orange gets the keys to the kingdom again.
Somehow half of America fails to see that, and honestly I have no idea why. But hey, we’re Americans, and we frequently act against our own self interests.
Let me go pick up a Dodge Hornet. They’ve got great incentives, so it must be a good idea. If that doesn’t work out, I can get something else in four years. At least I hope I’ll have a different option in four years…
Oh boy, not the Hitler thing, lol. Does a hundred years ever get old?
I get what you are saying, though. I don’t agree (particularly with leasing a Dodge), but I see it. Although, there are no “keys”, that’s not how it works if it’s done right. I don’t know how that idea got traction, lol. It’s inaccurate. I think everyone knows that, if they are honest with themselves.
Geez, talk about not being honest with one’s self.
There are keys. To the DOJ (so all of the rest of the federal charges get dropped), to the Defense Department (so Ukraine and the rest of Europe are screwed, as is Taiwan), to the IRS, and to the Department of Homeland Security, and on and on. Trump has no intention of “doing it right” – he’s already demonstrated that. Just ask any of his former White House staffers that are openly saying “Do not vote for this guy” to anybody that will listen.
We’ve got reporters that are actively planning how to get out of the country if Trump wins, because they’re afraid they’re going to be rounded up an imprisoned for being “enemies of the state”.
And the Hitler thing is a surprisingly similar analog. He was democratically elected, then systematically removed any and all checks and balances on his power until he made himself supreme leader. Trump himself has stated this is exactly what he wants to do. “Dictator for a day”. “Suspend the Constitution”. The afore mentioned issue of reporters being enemies of the state. HIS OWN WORDS. And that’s just a small sample.
He’s told us who he is and what he wants to do. Somehow people just refuse to believe him.
Don’t blame me when a head of lettuce costs ten bucks because there aren’t any migrants to harvest them, and your next TV costs twice as much because of tariffs, and the unemployment rate skyrockets because discretionary spending drops & the economy tanks. In fact, all that’s going to look like the good old days compared to what follows.
The DOJ? You are (respectfully) aware of what they have been doing lately?
“Reporters”, Umm, they can split. No one needs that Soros reality. Not a single “journalist” in America adds value. Not one of them.They are owned by a handful of companies that have a direct interest in how this plays out, in the worst way because they thrive on chaos.
That last paragraph was a gem. A gem of nonsense, (respectfully).
I genuinely can’t believe, as Americans, people think this way. It’s so batshit. I’ve lost faith that we are supposed to be educated. When will the majority of us wake up clear-eyed?
It doesn’t have to be this way.
BS in Engineering Physics and a Master’s in CompSci. I am educated.
And I have no idea what “Soros reality” is, but I’m betting it comes from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News echo chamber.
If you say so.
I respect your education. Pretty hard work to get that done! That’s pretty sweet.
Your original premise was we are screwed if she wins. The other side says the country is doomed and democracy will fall to satan if he wins.
I’m just saying, you’re both wrong. It will all be fine. I can’t support either one either way. I’ll never vote for either for a variety of reasons. One side will win. The other will lose. We will all be fine. It ultimately barely matters.
It is hilarious to me to watch each side try and tell everyone how awful it will all be if we don’t stop the other, evil side! Nah it will be fine.
It matters on my tax returns, and yours as well. That’s what isn’t fine.
Nah, they barely change from one loser to another. Mine went up under Trump’s last round when he messed with the standard deduction and caps on mortgage interest deductions and business expenses for independent contractors. They pretty much stayed the same under Biden. Went up a bit under Obama after going down a bit under GWB.
At the end of the day it’s all small changes with a bunch of noise. Barely matters at all.
But hey, everybody gets all riled up because they gotta “win the culture war” right?
Wait a sec, SALT deductions don’t matter in NY? Hmm. Also, a shift for us middle class folks from (roughly) 21%-25% up to $29% doesn’t matter to you? It means thousands to me. That’s my jam, my bank account.
Granted, capital gains is still up in the air, but I’m not rolling the dice on the risk of that whackadoo idea on that on top of everything else.
In short, forget that.
Generally, Ottomottopean, I’d agree with you. But not this election.
This isn’t a business. It’s a society. And this society decided in 1776 that we do NOT want a king.
As fine as MLB fans in Pittsburgh.
“You do understand that all politicians that have achieved the Federal level are crooks and disingenuous, right?”
But comparing them to Trump in most cases is a False Equivalence.
You du understand what a False Equivalence is, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
I du.
Nu u dun’t.
lol
It seems that you’re implying she is dumber than him. Have you listened to that lump of shit for even 20 seconds? Dumb doesn’t even come close. The guy’s got the brain of a jellyfish and he’s somehow only getting worse. He’s a rapist and his supporters wave Nazi flags. Even if I thought an ambulatory biped could be dumber than him, I’d still vote for dumb over that weak, depraved, narcissistic creature. I’d condescendingly ask if you understand, but if you think Diapers is smart or somehow a fitting leader, I already know the answer.
https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1846662363531166109
This is Kamala actually defending an inane position why it’s unfair to require ID for voting, because farmers don’t have a Kinko’s nearby. This is real life, here.
From the same people who put $42 Billion (with a capital “B”) of OUR money into a rural internet connection program that hasn’t connected a single home in 4 years. 360,000,000 people divided by that means you dropped $15/a person (including EACH of your kids), so somebody’s brother’s uncle’s sister’s boyfriend could have a nice GMC truck in a yellow vest to do nothing. And, more than likely, get a pension after they finished standing around a broke water main later.
Even if you don’t like Elon and won’t support Starlink (which is pretty silly), you could give most of them a Cell Router for, maybe, $30 million.Which, is 0.0075% of the cost.
To say that we can’t require ID because those thousands (a whole thousands) can’t get to a library or a post office, is bananas. Let’s compromise the whole authentication system because of Uncle Henry on the wheat farm.
I really struggle how you could rationalize national security like this. I’m trying to be nice here. She is dead-ass serious about this. Watch it and tell me I’m wrong.
No doubt we are wasting tons of money on rural internet funding. Realistically there should be *no* market for Starlink in the US because we should have run fiber to every home in the country about 20 years ago. Unfortunately we’ve granted natural monopolies to most broadband companies, allowed these companies to dictate policy to our lawmakers, and further allowed them to own/prioritize high-profit cellular networks over broadband expansion. This is the fault of both parties, but Republicans are fundamentally worse on this than the Democrats.
As for VoterID, at some level I can understand wanting an ID verification for something as important as voting, BUT voter fraud is *extremely rare* — so why bother? Politicians who talk about widespread voter fraud are trying to promote irrational fear because it’s easier to get voters to be Scared than to Think.
Damn why am I ranting about public policy on a car forum…
Also, I still think a Model2 (with steering wheel and no FSD) could make an good hot hatch, but I suspect that with Tesla’s development timelines the Rivian R3 will beat it to market.
“Realistically there should be *no* market for Starlink in the US because we should have run fiber to every home in the country about 20 years ago.”
It’s way cheaper and easier. Also, you can’t run fiber to rural areas because of topography. The land just won’t support it. That’s basic geography. Like running a line to Ace Ventura in the beginning of Ace 2. Slinky no likey.
“BUT voter fraud is *extremely rare* — so why bother?”
Not to cast doubt, but are you drunk right now? Why bother, with anything. Fuck it, I’ll wear jorts all day from now on. Who needs buttons? I’ll button fly the crap out of my comforter as well. lol
“It’s way cheaper and easier. Also, you can’t run fiber to rural areas because of topography. The land just won’t support it.”
If you can run power and/or water lines or even just dirt roads you can run fiber.
For the hermits beyond all those things I dunno.
“Realistically there should be *no* market for Starlink in the US because we should have run fiber to every home in the country about 20 years ago.”
It’s way cheaper and easier. Also, you can’t run fiber to rural areas because of topography and water tables. The land just won’t support it. That’s basic geology. It;d be like running a line up the stairs to Ace Ventura in the beginning of Ace 2. Slinky no likey.
“BUT voter fraud is *extremely rare* — so why bother?”
Not to cast doubt, but are you drunk right now? Why bother, with anything. Fuck it, I’ll wear jorts all day from now on. Who needs zippers? I’ll buttonfly the crap out of my comforter as well, hoping I can unfold it in three months to wash it and not get a split thumbnail.
That’s as batshit as giving out your ATM pin to the guy with the shaky hands standing out front of the Circle-K wearing jorts to begin with.
Anywhere we run electricity, we can run fiber. They can (and often do) share the same poles.
Fun fact – it took a government program to get electricity outside of metropolitan areas. Rural Electrification Act. Look it up.
As for voter fraud, the crux of the matter is the cost of the cure vs the cost of the problem. Is there enough of a fraudulent voting issue to make it worth expending the necessary resources to completely eliminate it? The experts say no. If that changes, then yeah I’m all for it. But as of now, I don’t know of any meaningful case where the outcome was affected by voter fraud.
I am, however, reminded of a story about a state welfare program that spent $10 million to prevent $8 million in fraud.
It’s funny hearing right-wingers bring up ‘voter fraud’ when time and time again it’s always their own people who are the ones doing it.
See Tina Peters, who just got convicted a couple weeks ago:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/county-clerk-who-tried-to-prove-trumps-claims-gets-9-years-for-voting-system-breach/
I’m not a “right-winger”, lol.
I care about my checks, your checks, and everyone else’s here’s checks.
I also care that Dick Cheney (or anyone in that family) stays the shit away from my life.
You vote that way, you will get them and regret it.
It’s not all that complicated.
Kamala is not a boss. Like I said before, she is a secretary at best, an intern most likely. She won’t say no. This is a real problem. It’s a suckers bet on Draftkings.
Why would you go through all that time, labor, maintenance and effort (and environmental waste)?
Give all those people a $200 receiver and hook up wirelessly.
Well, you’ve gone from “can’t” to “why bother”, because you pretty soundly lost the “can’t” argument.
Now you’re focusing on the receiving end, completely ignoring the infrastructure needed for the sending end, and its susceptibility to solar flares, EMP and ever increasing problems with space debris. I’d rather have a hard line, as it’s more reliable and offers better performance, and the maintenance costs would be trivial on top of the power line maintenance.
And you must not be a right winger if you’re advocating giving all those people a $200 piece of equipment. Or did you mean “let them buy”?
Hmm. I didn’t “lose” anything, as the “last mile” connection is still very much an issue. You still can’t connect everyone. I mean, I guess you could for a Trillion dollars, but that’s just not wise.
You want to make things so complicated for no reason. If there was that much of an issue with satellite connectivity, it wouldn’t be the superior offering on multiple airlines hauling ass across the sky, among a bunch of other useful applications across the planet in use every second we breathe.
But, if you think having 25 Mbps “broadband” that Jethro has to climb a pole to plug in is the answer, then have at you. It’s wasteful and pointless. That’s the whole point. $42 billion down the drain.
Last thing here, to assume I am some “right-winger” (thanks for the label, I guess!), is not accurate. Nah, not even close.
“Also, you can’t run fiber to rural areas because of topography and water tables. The land just won’t support it”
Two words – telephone poles.
Or power towers, take your choice.
If you can run an electrical wire, you can run a fiber. The government never ran old school POTS or electricity to a completely off-the-grid cabin.
No idea what what you’re saying about your clothing and bedding and whatever, but good job keeping it entertaining.
“From the same people who put $42 Billion (with a capital “B”) of OUR money into a rural internet connection program that hasn’t connected a single home in 4 years.”
Not according to this:
Success Story: Scott County, Kentucky
Scott County is located in central Kentucky in the Lexington metro area. While other counties in the area are relatively well-connected, Scott County has historically lagged behind. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a county-wide survey showed that many addresses in the county were unserved by any Internet service provider.
…
Scott County Fiscal Court is making rapid progress towards their goal to connect approximately 5,351 unserved homes. As of July 2024, they have served 4,572 unserved households in their project area.
https://www.internetforall.gov/blog/leading-connectivity-two-years-broadband-infrastructure-program-bip
I’m not clicking on an X link, but there is literally no rebuttal where trump is a valid alternative for anyone who values human rights, the economy, the United States, democracy as a whole, or even their own sanity with having to listen to him. But, I’ll humor what seems on the surface to be an oddly cherry-picked example of “both sides” that’s essentially equating getting a hang nail to losing all one’s limbs. I work for a telecom and, while I sometimes can’t understand how they operate for the internal dysfunction, there’s legitimately a shit load of planning involved in running infrastructure to low-populated (no profit) areas—there’s designing, planning, getting the material and people in order, establishing land rights and access, maybe having to fight things in court, etc. Do you know they don’t even own the poles? They have to lease that space. The cost for even local urban projects is staggering—stuff where the infrastructure exists. Four years is nothing for such a project to see results. Not only that, there’s little incentive for the telecom to rush it when they can put their resources toward upgrading actually profitable population centers. This isn’t the first time we blue states have subsidized the welfare red states’ infrastructure, either, and it’s a similar story every time. Starlink? They can get that themselves.
Voter fraud is a non-issue that IDs will do nothing to solve, anyway, but it has been used to suppress the vote of poorer minorities—hence ID requirements being outlawed following the Voting Rights Act and the interest in trying to make this seem like a major issue by certain people—though I suspect you believe something outside of established facts on the matter of voter fraud. What I find laughable is that you bring this up as a matter of national security when you are implicitly supporting a traitor who has rejected the results of an election (and has admitted to lying about winning, but will then go and repeat the lie to the next person depending on who’s in the room or if his handlers have zapped him or not) routinely states that he will (try to) engage the National Guard (or military, though that’s illegal, but with enough sycophant traitors installed in office, maybe that won’t matter) to suppress his political opponents, and on and on with his own generals calling him a fascist to his core as if the rhetoric and white nationalist support weren’t enough to make that obvious.
You work in Telecom and you won’t go on Twitter to even see the stammering? It’s like your whole industry to pay attention, lol.
Also, suppressing poor people how? Dude, if anyone has an ID on them at all times, it’s a poor person. If anyone has their state ID number memorized, it’s a poor person.
You know who doesn’t have ID? People who have no business voting. If you are saying that you are cool with people that can’t even legally attain any form of ID deciding your future…that’s pretty fucked up. If that is true, I don’t want anyone I care about within shouting distance of you.
Not to shit on you, but if you actually believe what you just wrote is true? Cool. Good to know. It’s not sane to write what you wrote, fyi.
You should know that everyone who is in the US with a visa, or a resident (green card) has an ID, even though they aren’t allowed to vote (or do jury duty), because they cannot get registered to vote. This is nothing new, it’s been like this for decades, yet somehow all these immigrants with IDs don’t go to vote illegally, since it would be a felony resulting in revocation of status and deportation if they even attempt it, and again, they cannot be registered to vote, so they can’t vote.
So this whole ‘you need an ID to vote because anyone with an ID can vote and anyone without it cannot’ is absolute BS, since you can only be registered to vote if you’re a citizen, the ID has nothing to do with anything other than being another form of voter suppression.
Sure.
Either way, if you aren’t a citizen, you don’t get a voice. You can’t speak for me. If you are a felon (lol) you can’t either.
What you said is quite true, although you are talking about people with paperwork. You did it the hard way.
Hmm.
lol. /s
Do you understand that his platform actually includes, on purpose, mass deportations? Do you realize that would be a massive human rights violation? Do you realize that even if you don’t give a single shit about immigrants this would destroy the US economy?
You do understand this, correct?
Nah, it won’t. Go to any other country on Earth and try to freeload there on the government payroll with no paperwork, just because you showed up. (or were flown there claiming that Des Moines was a danger to your life)
We have plenty of qualified legal aliens and qualified citizens in waiting. We don’t need randoms.
There needs to be standards, not a free-for-all. (5000 people/day before anything is done is still a free-for-all)
Let me guess, you misspelled autocrat or apartheid and ended up on the Autopian?
You should really try detoxing with chlorine injections or shoving a UV lamp up your *$%. Maybe that’ll counteract the Kool-aid.
Nope. And, as someone with close ties to South Africa, you chose a regrettable childish tattletale stance to address my beliefs.
I by no means want to insult anyone here, when we get along it’s really, really nice. But, I’m not gonna sit there while a few of you “groupthink” righteousness across the board with the same tired talking points.
Anyway, let’s talk about Blackwing engines. Those are cool.
So, you imply that anyone who would vote for Harris is a complete idiot by labeling her as such, and then state that “I by no means want to insult anyone here”…….yeaaaahhh.
Kamala is an idiot. She wasn’t selected by anyone and wouldn’t have been chosen if it hadn’t slipped out that Biden is literally brain dead. She’s not much better.
By the way the editors have said we are free to debate politics here ( I asked) so let’s go to it.
“By the way the editors have said we are free to debate politics here ( I asked) so let’s go to it.”
Is this true? Politics having zero to do with automobiles etc such as your own comment or the dozen or so above it? If so I am assuming clicks are down but it’ll just quickly head toward being just like TTAC if this continues. I guess it was enjoyable while it lasted, hopefully this editorial policy gets changed and quickly.
No, I said she is a dolt. Also, since we are at it, she’s the easiest one to manipulate. If you wanna vote for her for any number of reasons, that’s your choice. I may think it’s not wise overall, but screw it, you get to carry that guilt of knowing everyone’s personal well-being and the Democratic Party are incompatible, and World leaders will thrash her, and you did it anyway.
However, for you to imply (again in the same old sigh-inducing trope) that I am somehow endorsing Apartheid, IS indeed insulting. That’s some random-ass shit that shows your depth.
My family did more to end Apartheid than almost anyone on Earth outside the SA government that eventually got the balls to outlaw it, following our, and Mandela’s lead. I COULD write more, but I won’t, because it’s pointless.
Don’t ever associate me or my comments with that policy ever again, other than in the affirmative of ending it, please.
Yeah, because “that woman” has a law degree, was elected Attorney General of the most populous state in the nation, later was elected as a Senator for that state, then was elected as Vice President of the USA. Sure signs of an idiot. (This is sarcasm BTW) There’s an idiot in the race for President, but it’s not Harris.
So, she’s lived her entire adult life in a bubble and never had a real job. Roger that.
Whataboutism isn’t a defense for his clear authoritarianism and desire to be a dictator, and his active destruction of democratic processes. He actively threatened to go after and prosecute anyone, US Citizens, that he decides are his enemy. There is nothing American, nor democratic, about that.
I would laugh at the irony, if it weren’t so scary, that the same patriots who extoll American freedom, and pride themselves in rugged individualism, are the same ones working hard to install America’s first dictator.
Yeah -just imagine what can be if we are unburdened by what has been
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovi_raayD44
Lol. It’d be funnier if it wasn’t legitimate. People actually, eh…ya know what…y’all do what you want.
I just know I don’t want to ruin everyone’s future on purpose by voting for some airhead that gets endorsed by The Goonies cast on some Zoom call as my pat on the back.
Having worked for stunningly disorganized large businesses, I’d argue that the problem is that government is run like one.
Dumb and cowardly, they turn their justified self-loathing outwards to hate everyone else or they’re fellow sociopathic grifters who use him for gain. That’s why they vote for him. Money sociopaths support Dementia Diapers because they want to be in the position to manipulate him.
Good morning Autopians, apropos of nothing here is an amazing car I saw on my way in to work this morning: a cloth-top 80s-era Town Car with a full motorcycle riding on a hitch rack.
https://imgur.com/a/iRz69CH
This is a most excellent addition. Bravo!
Looks like Mickey Haller found a way to bypass heavy traffic on the way to court.
Johnny Cab.
Deal with it.
I need to get my $39,000,000.00 salary.
Seems Musk ‘dealt with’ it rather well pulling almost double Tavares grift. It would appear that being a grifting, lying, bankrupting, misogynistic scumbag is the new standard for executives.
New?
I was off by a couple of orders of magnitude on the compensation. Musk set the new standard for executive grift. The rest are old school.
Don’t worry – if inflation stays high you’ll get it soon enough
GM will not make hardware and vehicles available for development and testing once it moves to a full virtual process, he said.
Buy the rumor… provided what you are actually buying are put options, because holy fuck this is a terrible idea. Like REALLY TERRIBLE. Like, “oh shit, we have to issue a Do Not Drive recall on every vehicle we produced this year”.
Many companies with a lot more computational horesepower than GM occasionally make the mistake of doing full virtual development and testing. It has never, ever, not once, worked. In some more regulated industries like aerospace, it’s actually forbidden by law- you have to test your hardware in the real world, usually extensively.
Like Dr. Professor Wuffles Cookie up there said. This is an old idea, and I guess there has been enough generational turnover for it to come around again. “We can simulate everything!” they said in 1980, and 2000, and now 2020…
You would think, with the industry dealing with a record-high level of recalls for various ‘in theory it should have worked but in practice it didn’t’ reasons, automakers would have increased respect for the ‘unknown unknowns’ that any product R&D organization has to face, but instead they’re doubling down on “we’re so smart we can just simulate everything!”
Insert “how many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man!” meme here.
Trumps hates electric cars. Musk loves electric cars. But they’re on the same side.
Does anyone else think there is some dishonesty going on here?
I am shocked. Shocked! Well not that shocked.
Only in a world with Donald Trump would Hank Scorpio wannabe Elon be regarded with any seriousness.
Elon doesn’t give a flip about electric cars. He cares about the tech. Tesla is branded and marketed as a tech company, not an auto manufacturer.
I assert that Elon is driven more by the power and money than anything as quaint as tech.
I think musk expects he’ll be close enough that he can manipulate trump and he’s probably right—send him some hookers and a big enough check and he’ll sign off on anything. The check just needs to be big enough to beat the other bribes. It’s not like trump cares about EVs either way (or anything buy his id), he’s just saying what works with those who would vote for him.
You have a point there, neither one cares about anyone else but themselves, so for them it’s a marriage made in heaven.
Musk loves money and power. He figured out long ago that riding the leading edge a trend (and pushing it along) is a good way to get there, so he focused on EVs, solar, and space. But they’re a means to an end.
Thank god Matt cleared up that Cybercab issue.
I was beginning to think the reason I wasn’t going to ride in one soon is because they are stupid and I don’t want to.
I’m still wondering how offended Jon Lovitz is going to be when he finds out he’s being compared to Tavares.
I think he would be flattered that his Devil character is being compared to avaricious apex capitalists. Clearly he hit the mark.
Isn’t it both the Devil character AND the lying character?
I picture both of them meeting and assuming the other is some nobody.
“It stinks”.
NHTSA Exemption or no, Musk is probably just going to use the Cybercabs in the Vegas Loop.
That make perfect sense because it is highly visible for marketing, there are no other cars to crash into, and Elon supposedly has a bunch of these vehicles now. More importantly, the Vegas Underground Loop uses pre-programmed routes so it doesn’t need “Full Self Driving” to actually work.
And now he won’t have to pay people to sit in the vehicles and “drive” them the whole time.
I figured that’s what he would use that van thing for.
He may use both, but using only the Robovan would make the whole thing look suspiciously close to a subway/metro system…
Like the freight company, I am going with Yellow.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Yellow went bankrupt and ceased operations.
My point exactly
Tavares is a gigantic asshole and the perfect example of MBA brainrot. If anyone ever tries to tell you there’s a meritocracy point directly to him or Elon, and then enjoy having a laugh at their expense. I legitimately think Stellantis will go under in the next 2-3 years and it won’t be the C suite who’s left with the tab.
Anyway Virtual Insanity! Hell yeah. Jamiroquai is one of those bands that I don’t necessarily seek out but am always happy to come back to. Their discography is kind of hit or miss, particularly when it comes to Kay’s wandering lyrics, but when they hit they hit hard. This is such a fantastic song and video.
I had a brief Jamiroquai phase my senior year of college/first year of grad school and I have a lot of great memories tied to their music. Anyway Jay Kay is also a serious gearhead. He’s raced before, collects hypercars, and set the best lap in the Top Gear reasonably priced car twice. Honestly he’d be a great get for an interview. Maybe have Hollywood Tracy see if he can track him down since he’s so well connected now 😉
The only people who believe in meritocracy are the ones who have authority and want to convince themselves they deserve it.
Didn’t he set it the first time, then Simon Cowell beat him, then everyone hated Simon Cowell so much that they brought Jay Kay back and let him have as many laps as he needed to set a new record?
Yes!
Instead if 5,000 robotaxis, can we just add 5,000 new hybrid busses to the national infrastructure and more light rail/subways?
$ of 5000 robotaxis is probably equivalent to 2000 hybrid busses or 1 mile of subway.
To be fair to Carlos Tavares, which would be a first for both Autopian and me, dealers are a serious bunch of self-centered whiny bitches.
Heartbreaking: the worst person you know has a point
You barely know me!
I am referring to enemy of the site Mr. Carlos Tavares, not you. You’re lovely as far as I can tell.
Just pulling your finger. And yes I am lovely, as far as you know.
You don’t want to pull my finger. I had a big bowl of hot sauce drenched chili for dinner last night.
And they say you can’t smell across the internet.
Where’s that virtual test when you need it.
Am I the world’s biggest Luddite? Because I do not understand how performing solely virtual testing and validation on an automobile makes sense. Any engineers that can explain it?
So now a software bug or data entry error will result in parts failure, safety lapses, and crashes. Progress!
Not an engineer, but it’s possible they have software advanced enough to simulate real world conditions and physics such that they can test a design entirely virtually. I suppose they could also do some virtual reality “Metaverse” type thing where they can interact with the design in the virtual world as if it were a real scale model.
In the Metaverse, you don’t have to worry about crush injuries to the legs.
I am an engineer and yes it is possible to use virtual modeling to simulate every part of a vehicle’s performance over a wide array of conditions. This is done in auto racing because it is the fastest way to do iterative design and actual physical testing is expensive and limited by the rules.
Formula One teams have absolutely the best technology available and they often discover the finished car does not perform as their simulations predict.
Makes sense then that automakers are also interested in it. Thank you for confirming.
I got dragged into a tiger team rescue of a telecom product that the marketroids and management bought without involving engineering in the evaluation (books and suspicious testing guesses) the shit didn’t work and had to redesigned from the ground up. Cost to us… about 30 million and 8 months. The system had been ‘Virtually designed’ in a cad environment with minimal lab testing.
The problem with virtual testing, the world is always a bit weirder than a controlled environment.
Spacecraft, Formula 1 have the advantage of knowing a professional will be operating their end product. Takes some of the uncertainty out of things.
Yes, because that’s why Boeing’s Starliner was such a glowing success!
..oh, wait..
Boeing has also seemed to forget how to build planes after over 100 years, so I’m not sure I’m presenting them as an example of anything other than MBAs ruining a company.
Finite element analysis is a thing, but supercomputer time isn’t cheap. Testing fixtures and assemblies is one thing. Testing a *car” like that is a whole other series of ballgames, sports, and stadia to make happen, and it’ll still only mostly be rightish.
A lot of engineering is already done with virtual testing and validation. There will still always be a need for physical testing too, but this helps significantly reduce costs and time required.
Virtual testing can only predict how something should perform under actual conditions and this prediction is only as accurate as the virtual universe and material modeling designed by software engineers. Can anybody tell me what GM’s record with software is? Of course, their virtual testing models may not be developed in house. It seems to be holding up mostly well for spacecraft designers (looking at you Boeing) and I hope it works great, but what a huge downside if cars validated in virtual testing begin to fail drastically in the real world.
This kind of virtual testing works for spacecraft because 1) it has to, since once they’re launched you’ll (usually) never see them again, 2) it can, because the conditions in which they operate can be very tightly controlled (i.e. if it is a windy day, or a cloudy day, or a cold day, or a hot day, or… they call the launch off), and 3) even the spacecraft folks do as much physical validation testing as they can possibly manage. Vacuum chamber testing, shaker rig testing to simulate forces expected on the spacecraft from the launch vehicle, etc. etc.
New validation testing, powered by Cadillac’s powerful Cue software!
Does that mean we’re all behind the eight-ball?
Better Cue then Clu?
I’m an engineer, and I’d be happy to explain to you that you’re right and virtual-only testing and validation makes no sense whatever.
You’ll have to ask the fast-talking schmoozer of a corporate consultant that managed to sell this tired old idea to the latest crop of c-suite execs at GM *again* how they managed it…
CAD, FEA, and CFD are fantastic design tools and every automaker should be using the best ones available. They just don’t take the place of real world testing.
I’m not an engineer of any variety but I have worked in large corporations and I think I have the answer you’re looking for:
This is only slightly serious. This is something they will legitimately look at and test but probably never use and likely have every expectation this will fail. But this is exactly the type of announcement they can go to shareholders with to prove they’re not stuck in the past and are definitely forward-thinking. They’ll talk about how they are not afraid to fail and that they learn even from failures and the testing that comes with it.
Most likely is that they will revert to true GM form and abandon the project just as the tech proves itself capable.
Large corporations do this all. the. time. Here’s the thing though; maybe 10% (if I’m generous) of these will pay off big in some way. Then they have a leg up on their competition. So there’s a real reason to do it but making the announcement like this is all for the shareholders.
I’m an engineer, and in my field the only kind of virtual testing that’s widely accepted is seismic, mainly because it’s cost-prohibitive to put assemblies above a certain size on a shake table. And even as advanced as computer analysis has become, my company still maintains records of how some assemblies (like diesel generator sets) have fared after experiencing actual earthquakes in the field. Elsewhere in engineering, “digital twins” have been the big, hyped thing (at least according to ASME’s various publications) over the last few years. I guess it makes sense from a cost standpoint, particularly if you’re trying to model a factory or other substantial process.
Super interesting about the seismic testing! Makes sense that you would need to rely on virtual testing instead of like … building an entire skyscraper and then seeing how hard you had to shake it to knock it down. 🙂
Cool, GM, so does this mean you’re still going to try to force talent to move to Detroit to get anything done or are you actually going to try to modernize your talent pool and your approach to it?
EVERYONE IN THE OFFICE………so you can hop on this Teams call.
Even better, you sit in a cubicle so you are now trying to hear the Teams call over your neighbor who is also on a Teams call.
I’ve done this before, except we didn’t have the luxury of cubicles and had a very collaboration-enhancing open office plan. The meeting spaces were constantly triple booked as people made any play they could for quiet and focus.
Even as someone who works from home, those open office plans suck. It’s hard to be on a call with someone working from one because there is so much background noise every time they unmute.
The best is when you have three or more people near each other on the same call and none have the courtesy to mute themselves when not speaking, so each time any of them says anything you get a wonderfully echoey feedback loop.