While Elon Musk continues to perform his magic as the “Wizard of Ahhs,” Toto has pulled back the curtain to show that the Red Tesla 3 doesn’t have a heart (or engine), AutoPilot doesn’t have a full brain (according to engineers), while Elon Musk has a lot of nerve, and the gigafactory has a home.
Engineers Predicted Deaths Scared for Kitties
CNN Money reports that Tesla Motor engineers were concerned about the safety of Autopilot during the development phase. They were aware that any shortcoming or unforeseen flaw could lead to injury or death.
When Musk was told that the sensors used for Tesla’s parking summons might not recognize small objects such as a kitten. Musk is said to have responded that given how slow the car moves in this parking mode, it would only be dangerous to “a comatose cat.”
We at AUTO Connected Car News have been questioning what happens with small animals such as a squirrel, Yorkie, kitten, endangered turtle, skunk or opossum since we first saw the height of the sensors. There is a lower area blind spot and advanced autonomous features are usually calibrated at around 8″ high because that is curb height. When we asked an auto supplier who determines the height of auto-stop, we were told it is the automakers.
Unfortunately 8″ high could also be the height of crawling human baby in the street. A car that is calibrated to automatically stop wouldn’t detect a crawling human baby or a little kitten. Our office mascot, a Yorkie-Poo, hind quarters are just under 8″ inches….That’s why we think little pets should be outfitted with V2P DSRC collars that would notify the vehicle that the living creature is not a rock or curb.
Telsa 3 Numbers Off
According to the New York Times preorders for the Tesla 3 are 315,000 down from reports as high as 373,000.
Gigafactory Open
There were tours of the gigafactory in Sparks Nevada ending with a party on Friday evening. New construction permits details several construction projects on the site worth around $63 million more than since.
Tesla Minibus
Elon Musk announced that Tesla will make a self-driving minibus built on the Model X chasis.
Tesla Eyes Other Camera Maker
Telsa Motors will no long use Mobileye cameras on its vehicles.
Empty Tesla 3
A new photo of red Tesla 3 surfaced last week. It was not a full car but just a beautiful shell of a car.
The Master Plan
Elon Musk announced his new “Master Plan, Part Deux” for Tesla Motors that include:
- Clean energy – a beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works.
- More models – Model 3, a future compact SUV, a new kind of pickup truck, heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport.
- All Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability.
- Summoning and sharing of Tesla cars through apps to help pay for the cost of the car.
- Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning.
- Tesla fleet of on-demand rentals.