LeX2K

Even if the car drove like an arcade game I'm okay with that but it has to at least have the basics that make up a car like a proper instrument cluster. Maybe Elon Musk hates cars and only selling them as a means to an end. Also won't that screen break off and bounce around in a crash roughing you up in the process?

Off topic but is anyone at least slightly concerned that the same person (Musk) warning of artificial intelligence is pushing AI into the market?

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

When Musk sold his first company, PayPal, he went out and bought a McLaren F1. He was maybe 26 or so at the time. Apparently he tried to test the completely manual (as in ZERO traction control or stability control systems) supercar's capabilities and... lost it at one point. Luckily he was not hurt and I believe the F1 was also not seriously damaged either. But my theory has been that it spooked him on some level. But then many people aren't really skilled enough to master a powerful, extremely fast car golden era supercar like the F1.

And then again, any highly tuned fully manual car with no electronic traction aids and a lot of direct power to the drive wheels, let alone a McLaren F1, can throw someone off who isn't prepared for an abrupt loss of traction.

http://www.driven.co.nz/news/lifesty...-a-mclaren-f1/

Perhaps he realized he loved the straight line acceleration but wanted a more Lexus sedan like vehicle when it came to designing his own EV. He hasn't struck me as a "car guy" really but apparently he did drive the F1 as a daily car for a year or two before his wreck.

I could care less about how well he can drive a car with his own two hands. He's a very impressive man as a brilliant engineer, visionary and businessman beyond just Tesla. My only gripe is with how he's not too keen on designing electric cars that are really about *driving*. And the original Roadster and Model S do some nice things on high speed tracks as they are but with the Model 3 and presumably the Model Y crossover there will be even less emphasis on what the Model S and Roadster still hold onto.

On the other hand, he's barely had the Tesla company around long enough to do any niche cars in an affordable price range. A low production $100k++ performance EV (Roadster) is much, much easier to do than any version of a $35k-$50k performance EV. Still, the product philosophy on sale at Tesla speaks for itself. They're his style and ethos as far as human driving and by extension traditional instrument clusters above the steering wheel are concerned.

He just mentioned some details about the replacement for the expensive Tesla Roadster the other day. It would be hard to imagine a two seater performance model like that being given a dash treatment similar to the one from the Model 3.

That said, if the Model 3 is predominantly about de-emphasizing the driver from the equation then I can personally think of other current EV's or potential EV's that hold much more appeal. It's a shame because when you look into the DIY EV conversion world the motors, controllers and especially batteries from Tesla Model S's are sough after used and offer a lot of quality and potential power for the money that came from an OEM that spent millions in R&D and durability testing.


I can see the argument that gives you concern but unlike many other tech companies Musk is one of the few (along with physics professor Stephen Hawking) who is taking a cautionary approach to A.I. rather than diving in head first without a flashlight or map.

He's gone on record as noting that A.I. in terms of automobiles (at least his own) is not the leap into Skynet level sophistication that we might think it is. Much as I complain about not wishing to use an autonomous car I do not fear the low level A.I. behind them. It's difficult to get the systems right and there is a lot of trail and error, machine learning and a lot of mapping and sensors but it's not exactly the same thing (so far) as the kind of A.I. research being done at universities, at Google, at Microsoft and through DARPA funding where the machine intelligence can have a much wider range of interpretive logic, learned decision making and subjective understanding.

Musk is investing in his own A.I. research outside of Tesla in order to stay in the game of just how it is advanced and perhaps have some say (or sway) in that. If everyone else is playing with new toys that have many pros but also some potentially serious cons then it's better to get in on the ground level in the early stages if your moral compass is to have any meaningful impact on trends related to its use... and in shaping exactly how A.I.'s think and interpret things. A wise move, I think.

A.I. in vehicles that can drive some or all of the time or mitigate potential disasters (technically the modern stability control systems would qualify on a very, very basic level too) has very narrow purposes.

^^ It's topics like these that make me consider what Musk is involved with in the larger picture (rocketry also) beyond just one downmarket but pricey semi-self driving appliance sedan he's selling that, so far, doesn't appeal to my own personal tastes or ideals.

LeX2K

But that's how it begins. A computer that has even a rudimentary ability to adapt is the first step. Combine that with the computer systems having access to massive amounts of data and I see the road map (sorry) for self aware software. Don't get me wrong it is way way off, many decades. Cars in a few years are not going to be turning into Christine.