Tesla or BMW

Tesla supercharge and battery swap stations

Autopilot, not "self driving" Teslas

It's an interesting distinction made her by Elon Musk. From a legal standpoint what if the driver falls asleep while his Tesla is on autopilot from NYC to Miami and has an accident. At the same time what if the autopilot alerts the driver to a situation requiring him to personally handle, but the driver has a terrible accident because he took over and made the wrong decision. Also will "Tesla baiting" become a hobby of rednecks, as they drive their pickups close enough to Teslas to make alarms go off.

Quote: Pacomartin

It's an interesting distinction made her by Elon Musk. From a legal standpoint what if the driver falls asleep while his Tesla is on autopilot from NYC to Miami and has an accident. At the same time what if the autopilot alerts the driver to a situation requiring him to personally handle, but the driver has a terrible accident because he took over and made the wrong decision.

Commercial pilots have been dealing with that for decades.

Quote: Nareed

Commercial pilots have been dealing with that for decades.

True, but commercial pilots have a co-pilot who can nudge them if they are falling asleep.

You know Tesla's could rejuvenate the ferry business. Some of these ferries in San Francisco bay take 25 minutes to make the crossing. If you could charge a Tesla in those 25 minutes, the commuter would gladly take the ferry home since he would be killing two birds in the same 25 minutes.

Third Tesla caught fire... govt. sniffing around.

"Stray" wifi energy now being harnessed to charge batteries. No real need to find a battery swapping station though they may well exist. Ask people with Rvs and electric cars now... they often simply plug in to a motel's exterior outlet for a few hours. By the time anyone notices it, ... they are usually fully topped off anyway.

Coffee shops provide dog biscuits and dog watering bowls in Seattle or they don't survive. Its probably going to be the same way with some businesses there and Tesla Charging Stations. I can just see a grocery store chain getting rich on offering cooking lessons, children's hour, in-store demonstrators and by the way, while all this is going on, your battery is automatically being charged while you drink your latter and read your morning newspaper.

Solar trickle into battery.

At the close of trading Tesla had a market value of $49bn (£38bn), compared with Ford's value of $46bn.


Tesla's sales are growing fast they are still a fraction of Ford's, which sold almost 6.7 million vehicles in 2016. Tesla delivered 76,000 electric cars last year.

Tesla's shares rose on Monday after the company announced record vehicle deliveries in the first three months of the year. Tesla delivered 25,000 vehicles so far in 2017.

What about Volvo?
Volvo just went all electric. Intends to destroy the gasoline engine.

Quote: Fleastiff

What about Volvo?
Volvo just went all electric. Intends to destroy the gasoline engine.

Well, what they actually said was that all new models would be at least hybrids. But they are going to continue to manufacture the pure gasoline models for a while.

Due to government mpg mandates, Auto manufacturers have been slowly adding hybrid and long range electrics to their line ups. As battery prices come down, there should be even more full electric offerings available from all brands.

Note that the Volvo brand is owned by a Chinese car company that probably plans to put Volvo labels on their Chinese produced cars. This would be similar to building a Volkswagen and putting a Porsche badge on it (remember the 914?).

I wonder how much thought has been put into what is going to happen to all of these big batteries when they are worn out? We have enough trouble with all the lead/acid blocks that are already out there, what is going to happen when millions of batteries the size of the front door of your house need to be disposed of?

Quote: Ayecarumba

I wonder how much thought has been put into what is going to happen to all of these big batteries when they are worn out? We have enough trouble with all the lead/acid blocks that are already out there, what is going to happen when millions of batteries the size of the front door of your house need to be disposed of?

No clue.

But I'm assuming, without much in the way of evidence, that 1) lithium ion batteries are less of a pollution problem (lead is toxic), and 2) there should be a mature disposal/recycling industry for lithium ion batteries, given their widespread use in cell phones for the last decade.