Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

[TheOffice]

Audi announced it will stop making ICE powered cars as current models are phased out.

Will gas stations be the shopping malls of the 2030s?

[BeauV]

There's nothing wrong with thread drift. No need for another thread unless you want to.

I'd have to look it up, but I believe you can disengage the Tesla autopilot by pushing the autopilot/cruise-control lever forward once firmly. That's just muscle memory talking, I'm not sure. You might give it a try.

Avramd,

It took a while for me to get comfortable with the autopilot, and most of my "comfort" is gained by NOT using the thing in circumstances where your criticism apply. I drive myself. [...]

Your complaint about the driver always putting torque on the wheel is echoed across many Tesla owners. Some have simply hung a lead weight on the wheel to fool the system. I just rest the weight of one arm on the wheel.

The BEST way to turn off the autopilot is to tap the brakes, just as I turn off cruise control. I think torquing the wheel is dangerous in a difficult situation because of the chance of over-shoot as the car releases. Tapping the brakes is almost always safer.

Thanks Beau, this was helpful. I just drove back from Camden, ME to Newport. Once I got onto the three-lane section of I-95 in southern ME, which also just has wider lanes - the auto-pilot was pretty much fine. I was technically using "navigate on auto-pilot," but I didn't actually let it handle any junctions for me. The benefit of this over just auto-steer is that it prompts me to give it the ok to pass slower cars.

I agree that the best way to shut it off seems to be the brakes. Half the time it's what I would have done anyway. The other half it's still an unnecessary extra step, but not an unnatural one. I feel like there should be "Press the gear selector stalk up lightly to disengage auto-steering." Pressing it up firmly disengages both auto-steer and cruise control.

I'm going to start a separate thread on using & owning EV's since I feel like I've severely coopted this thread to basically get your advice on Tesla ownership. In case anybody in this thread wants to get back to just talking about the future of EV's...

[H B]

Don't start a new thread...then I have to pay attention to more than one. +1 on thread drift being fine!!

[TheOffice]

Thoughts on the new Model S and X?

GM plans to be all electric by 2035. Seems like a slow transition by about 5 years.

[BeauV]

Thoughts on the new Model S and X?

GM plans to be all electric by 2035. Seems like a slow transition by about 5 years.

GM has been slow by at least a decade on almost everything. EG: Putting the engine where it belongs in the Corvette.

[TheOffice]

Thoughts on the new Model S and X?

GM plans to be all electric by 2035. Seems like a slow transition by about 5 years.

GM has been slow by at least a decade on almost everything. EG: Putting the engine where it belongs in the Corvette.

Beau,

Back in the 80s I represented a GMC dealer. They pleaded for years for GM to make a 4 door Blazer/Jimmy to compete with Jeep. The bankruptcy allowed GM to make 15 years worth of changes in 6 months, dumping Olds and Saturn. Now they have regressed. Sad to see that things have not changed.

Joel

[BeauV]

Thoughts on the new Model S and X?

GM plans to be all electric by 2035. Seems like a slow transition by about 5 years.

GM has been slow by at least a decade on almost everything. EG: Putting the engine where it belongs in the Corvette.

Beau,

Back in the 80s I represented a GMC dealer. They pleaded for years for GM to make a 4 door Blazer/Jimmy to compete with Jeep. The bankruptcy allowed GM to make 15 years worth of changes in 6 months, dumping Olds and Saturn. Now they have regressed. Sad to see that things have not changed.

Joel

I didn't realized you'd worked around the car business, I would have loved to but never had the chance. I drove #1 Son-In-Law nuts with questions when he worked on cars.

Prior to retiring, most of what I did was "restructuring", the polite term for fixing broken down companies or applying the paddles to the still heart of what was once a fine company. This was always in the tech space, but it always require changing a gigantic part of the business model before the company could be revived. Sure, there was the easy part: renegotiate the debt - using the Sheriff of Blazing Saddles technique, reducing the part of the staff which was actually the problem and not the solution, and setting some simple goals that everyone could understand and either get behind or get fired. But, that would only cause a temporary improvement. To genuinely fix the company for the long term always required a serious alteration of the structure of the company and/or the supply chain, and/or market it participated in.

Anything less was only going to be temporary, great for me getting my bonus and moving on, but not great for the sticking around or new shareholders and the employees. You could think of it like giving a liver transplant to a drug addict. He'll live a little longer, but if you don't cure the addition, that second liver will fail too.

[TheOffice]

Beau,

I've represented dealers and captive finance companies my whole career. Perfect clients- everyone hates car dealers and lenders.
I've got an acquaintance who did turn arounds for older industries, such as a mall developer, nursing home chain. He told of similar challenges. His first move was always to change the CFO, as the one he inherited never had the critical data.
Like you, he came, he saw, he conquered and he moved on. Most of the time the businesses did well after he left. Until Covid ...

[BeauV]

I wish I could claim the "he conquered" mantle. In many cases, just getting the left over bits sold to another company where they could fit-in was as close to conquest as we could get. In the tech sector one of the key strategic issues is when folks start a company based on a "product idea" as opposed to a "market idea". When they find that they have built their one good product idea, but haven't gained market traction beyond that one-hit, things start to go sideways fast. The solution is often to find a well managed company that needs the "product" and already has all the other infrastructure in the areas of G&A, Marketing/Sales, etc... Those acquisitions are never what the founders mistakenly believed was their future, but it's often the only way out other than total failure. If I hear "Hey, go big or go home." from an investor I may puke. This sort of thinking has killed so many perfectly good small companies, who don't fit the profile of a successful VC investment.

A few thoughts:

- If you don't know what your multi-year product family roadmap will be, but feel you have a "killer product", you're probably making a mistake starting a company.
- If you have a potential investor who is always quoting the metrics of a 1:1,000 hit as "what we're looking for", you're probably making a mistake.
- If you haven't got a plan that lets you spend about 55% of all the money you raise on building a marketing and sales channel, you're.....

In so many cases, folks never differentiate between building a product and a company. I know I didn't the first time around.

[TheOffice]

Beau,

All true!

I want that 1:100 investor to sponsor me in the next offshore race. I've got lots of advertising space on my main. No takers yet!

[avramd]

Ok, as requested, bringing the EV use conversation back here

So, Beau, I have a couple questions for you. But also this is also a thinly veiled gripe at Tesla for issues I'm pretty sure have no good answers...

• Do either of your Tesla's navigation systems have "Perspective view?" i.e. they show you the upcoming turn fairly similarly to how the actual turn is going to look to you as the driver? I can not wrap my head around how a modern GPS nav system could be made without this, and even more perplexed that Apple basically removed it from iOS. This was the single best advancement in GPS technology since its inception, and it's been around for well over a decade.
• Does the GPS really not have multi-destination trip planning? Short picking the worst possible supercharger for a trip that leaves me at my destination with 6% battery left, I can find zero evidence of multi-stop routing.
• Does the GPS really not have an alternate route selection feature? I have to manually put in a fake destination to force it to go around a city that I know will be in rush-hour by the time I get close to it?

In other news, the studs are on. I'm quite happy with how the look of the smaller wheels came out. They just barely cleared the calipers, by a bit less than a pinky width.

However, comma, between the low speed rating (T), taller sidewall (+.8cm over 11.5cm orig), and just plain being snow tires instead of high performance tires, the turn-in at highway speeds was bordering on terrifying when I left the shop. I added 4psi of pressure, and now it's just disconcerting. Around town it's a non-issue, but at 75 mph it takes 0.5-0.75 secs from a sharp steering input until the car's reaction has stabilized if the input is both stable and feathered. If not, it can yo-yo for a little while.

I may have made a rather expensive mistake, not sure yet. It's only a day and a half since I've had them on. I think if I could do it again, I'd stick with OEM-matching 19" wheels and just do what it took to find tires in the requisite size. When I did the same 1" wheel downsizing on the Outback, the difference in turn-in was almost imperceptible. While I wouldn't expect 0.8cm to make that much difference, it is squirmy enough that even a small difference would be welcome.

My hope is that I'll adapt, and that it's really not that different from the Outback - and that the insanely tight handling of the car on the OEM wheels & tires has given me an unrealistic frame of reference.

IMG_7192 sm.JPG

[BeauV]

Ok, as requested, bringing the EV use conversation back here

So, Beau, I have a couple questions for you. But also this is also a thinly veiled gripe at Tesla for issues I'm pretty sure have no good answers...

• Do either of your Tesla's navigation systems have "Perspective view?" i.e. they show you the upcoming turn fairly similarly to how the actual turn is going to look to you as the driver? I can not wrap my head around how a modern GPS nav system could be made without this, and even more perplexed that Apple basically removed it from iOS. This was the single best advancement in GPS technology since its inception, and it's been around for well over a decade.
• Does the GPS really not have multi-destination trip planning? Short picking the worst possible supercharger for a trip that leaves me at my destination with 6% battery left, I can find zero evidence of multi-stop routing.
• Does the GPS really not have an alternate route selection feature? I have to manually put in a fake destination to force it to go around a city that I know will be in rush-hour by the time I get close to it?

I believe that the iPhone using Apple Maps does what you're calling Perspective View, but only when you're zoomed way it. Not useful when driving but fun when using their maps to look around someplace. I don't know of any car that does it. Do keep in mind that regulators have been after the industry to NOT make it too attractive to use the nav. system as an alternative to looking out the front window. Way back when Stan started ETAK we noticed that people had a tendency to just look at the nav. system and try to drive like that - weird!

I most certainly started glancing at the nav. system when on a new-to-me road to get an idea if a blind turn is decreasing radius etc... But, I have to insure it is JUST a glance. It's way to tempting to let my eyes linger as I try to workout the line though multiple linked corners, and unlike a video game there are lots of things on the road that are not on the nav. system. EG: stalled truck. Then there's the simple fact that to do 3D perspective view (if I understand you correctly) take a heap of computing and burns up battery life.

No idea about multi-stop, never seen it in any nav. system. I don't like the auto-pick Supercharger either. I look at the current number of empty spots at all the superchargers along the route and pick one I believe has a high probability of being empty when I get there.

As to routing around a town based on "experience", this is precisely why I use Waze and not the Tesla nav. system. I have decided I was smarter than Waze many times, and I probably beat the software only one in 50 tries. I've almost entirely given up. They seem to have not only good real-time data but extraordinarily good skill at estimating future clogs. So.... I don't use the Tesla nav. system at all. I also don't use the Ford nav. system and didn't ever use the Porsche nav. system (which I found particularly clunky and always out of date).

As always, the technology of a software company (or division like Waze) is so far out in front of what even a good car company can do, that the car company system just generally sucks by comparison. I'd strongly suggest just ignoring the car's system expect that the UI for finding Superchargers that aren't crowded is better. Just use Waze and call it a day.

As to alternate routes, see the paragraphs immediately above - all the same things apply. Car companies are pitifully bad at software, and aren't catching up. Tesla is one of the best, but even they are stuck in the ditch compared to Waze.

[BeauV]

Ok, as requested, bringing the EV use conversation back here

However, comma, between the low speed rating (T), taller sidewall (+.8cm over 11.5cm orig), and just plain being snow tires instead of high performance tires, the turn-in at highway speeds was bordering on terrifying when I left the shop. I added 4psi of pressure, and now it's just disconcerting. Around town it's a non-issue, but at 75 mph it takes 0.5-0.75 secs from a sharp steering input until the car's reaction has stabilized if the input is both stable and feathered. If not, it can yo-yo for a little while.

I may have made a rather expensive mistake, not sure yet. It's only a day and a half since I've had them on. I think if I could do it again, I'd stick with OEM-matching 19" wheels and just do what it took to find tires in the requisite size. When I did the same 1" wheel downsizing on the Outback, the difference in turn-in was almost imperceptible. While I wouldn't expect 0.8cm to make that much difference, it is squirmy enough that even a small difference would be welcome.

My hope is that I'll adapt, and that it's really not that different from the Outback - and that the insanely tight handling of the car on the OEM wheels & tires has given me an unrealistic frame of reference.

I had a similar experience with my Mini when I changed tire brands. I think the modern suspension design is so finely tuned to the specs of the OEM tires that changing things can get ugly. EG: the toe-in on the rear tiers of the Mini seems to make soft sidewall tires especially squirmy. I went back to the OEM spec tires and all was well. I'm guessing either Jamie or Larry will have more info than I on this.

[LarryHoward]

Let’s see. First “OEM spec” tires common for the Germans comprise a tire company submitting their specific tread, construction, etc. tire to testing that qualifies the tire to be submitted for consideration as a factory installed tire. Basically, you get assurance that the tire will behave well on the car and the car manufacturer can supply those tires with confidence. An expensive process and something as simple as a minor change in tread pattern only requires retesting to maintain the “spec”. Many excellent tires don’t go through the process, particularly specialty tires as they would never be supplied as “stock.” When you deviate, you do so at your own risk but mostly it’s a low risk. Street legal but very high performance tires are designed tuned for a range of suspension dynamics and each new entrant brings a flurry of early adopters who will share sets of tires and test the heck out of them as top traction isn’t everything. Response, driveability and predictability can vary by size and car. In this area, we have a number of very competitive drivers that will head for the south this time of year and run multiple sets across multiple cars before picking their season’s choice.

Keeping in mind that driving dynamics are a combination of mass, suspension and tire/wheel dynamics and adjustment (generally tire pressure, caster, camber and toe in) that have been carefully refined by the manufacturer for handling and tire life. For its size, the Tesla is heavy with a very low COG so it puts higher side loads into the suspension than a similarly sized ICE sedan would. Add in the significant impact on range from the wheel/tire combination (funny how small things count a lot).

In very general terms, a taller tire sidewall will experience more hysteresis (flex) and introduce more variability into the steering response than a lower profile tire. Alternatively, taking a old school American “boat” of a sedan and styling it with 30 series tires and 22” wheels may make it sensitive and harsh.

It’s common practice to downsize the wheel and upsize the sidewall for snow tires. As Jaime indicated, winter driving really likes a higher footprint given by a smaller tread patch. It can get your tire to the pavement when wide low profile tires sit on top. I think you are on the right path bumping the pressure. What are you running? Alignment adjustments can help with very specific issues but are very hard to quantify without extensive testing. It sounds like you have introduced significant sidewall flex to the detriment of stability maybe from both tire profile and actual sidewall stiffness. What does your tire shop have to say?

Interestingly, Tesla released a “winter tire and wheel package” for the Y back in November. 19” wheels. 45 series, low profile tires. Wonder what they know? Not sure those tires can take studs if you are set on those.

I run high performance summer tires and similarly sized winter sport tires on my car but we don’t get a lot of snow and if we do, I’m happy to stay home by the fire.

Jaime has done a lot of winter driving so I’d listen to him.

[Jamie]

What Larry said. He knows 10x what I do.

Changing tires can completely change the personality of the car. Changing rims and unsprung weight, even more. Also keep in mind that OE tires are made to a price-point, even for some very expensive cars.

Subaru's are generally tuned for understeer - they're worried about grandma's going opposite lock on entrance/exit ramps - so I generally put some mild toe-in, 0.2 or 0.3*, with Summer Extreme Performance tires and then take it back to stock when I put the snowies on. I could easily get away with not doing that.

Higher pressure will firm up the sidewall a bit and narrow the contact patch, so it will feel a bit less squirmy. But in any case on dry pavement, snow tires will feel more squirmy and require more corrections. If you've gone to a narrower tire, you'll have a lot less grip - more 4 wheel drifto and longer stopping distances - which means more conservative driving.

My personal feeling is studs tend to have poor traction in normal or wet conditions and many states have restrictions on when you can use them. Stud-less tires have also improved to the point where as long as you are not driving on solid ice, there's little to no difference.

[avramd]

What Larry said. He knows 10x what I do.

Changing tires can completely change the personality of the car. Changing rims and unsprung weight, even more. Also keep in mind that OE tires are made to a price-point, even for some very expensive cars.

Changing camber or toe-in did not occur to me. I wouldn't know where to start.

As far as what my tire shop said to me, it was marginally more constructive to "don't let the door hit you on the way out." I jest, but the point is I chose them on price-point and availability of Nokian Hakka 9's in a size that worked for me. I wasn't expecting them to have suspension tuning expertise.

The Tesla winter wheel/tire pkg for the Model Y has identical tire size to the all seasons that came with my car, 255 45 R19's. I'm somewhat skeptical of the suggestion that studless ice tires are indistinguishable from high performance all seasons in the dry. Maybe that's not what you said. My bottom line is that I don't believe in studless ice tires - I'm open to being proven wrong, but until that happens, I enjoy the freedom of knowing what I can expect from studs.

The extra PSI reduced the sponginess/delay by (seat of my pants) 50%. It got it into a range of predictability that I can work with. Under 45mph I don't notice anything. On the highway, the delay between steering input and final traction is probably comparable to any normal car. I don't particularly care to drive all that hard on the highway, and I do like to be able to drive at lose to dry speeds around town when there is accumulation.

At this point I'm pretty content with the decision I made, after the PSI change. I don't drive hard on the highway, so I'm fine being careful and toning it down for 3 months in the dry there. The suspension tuning idea is compelling, but I'm somewhat suspicious that it's going to make a noticeable difference in squirm - not enough to be worth risking putting the care out of spec the other 9 months.

While I'd agree that the studded tires have much weaker performance than the OEM all seasons' on the dry, being unstoppable in the snow is worth much more to me than being able to safely be a felon on the highway I dial it down anyway, so my only requirement is that I don't feel like I'm putting people in danger in the dry by driving like normal human being

[Tigger]

Part of my interest in tires ... my snowies are on their last few kms. I drove the way normally do when they were put on in the fall, and started to drift around a city corner in damp conditions--and I was not speeding. Yikes!

Anyway, 2003 Honda Civic sedan with 250,000 km. It's been a great little car, but at that age with that many kms, new snow tires next winter may officially mark the 'good money after bad' point. We may just go down to one car (2012 Prius V, aka the 'harpmobile'). We don't need two, but I do miss a standard transmission ...

[BeauV]

Tigger, a lot of our friends are reducing the number of cars they have. Many of them are working for companies who have recognized the obvious, that working from home is just fine for a lot of folks, and with them no longer required to commute to work, they're cutting out a car. An awful lot of them are keeping their crew-cab F-150, so it's not going to have the massive environmental saving that you'll accomplish by reducing to the Harp Mobile. But, it's pretty clear that for a while Americans are quite literally reducing the number of cars on the road.

I was discussing this with two friends on a zoom last night. Their plan is to simply use Uber/Lift for the occasions where they really do have to go someplace. I was also shocked to learn that their spouses aren't planning on going back to "recreational shopping" anytime soon. (These are guys in their 40s, so this is a big deal.) The lock-down has forced folks to learn to buy on-line and get things delivered. Free returns via UPS etc... has resulted in folks trusting the vendor. Shopping malls and department stores were on their way out anyway, but the lock-down has massively accelerated the adoption of on-line shopping. We concluded it is going to stick for at least another year or two, maybe forever.

Like the Great Depression, the combination of losing 450,000 people in our country alone and the massive impact it has had on many people's income has altered a generation's buying patterns.

[Jamie]

What Larry said. He knows 10x what I do.

Changing tires can completely change the personality of the car. Changing rims and unsprung weight, even more. Also keep in mind that OE tires are made to a price-point, even for some very expensive cars.

Changing camber or toe-in did not occur to me. I wouldn't know where to start.

As far as what my tire shop said to me, it was marginally more constructive to "don't let the door hit you on the way out." I jest, but the point is I chose them on price-point and availability of Nokian Hakka 9's in a size that worked for me. I wasn't expecting them to have suspension tuning expertise.

The Tesla winter wheel/tire pkg for the Model Y has identical tire size to the all seasons that came with my car, 255 45 R19's. I'm somewhat skeptical of the suggestion that studless ice tires are indistinguishable from high performance all seasons in the dry. Maybe that's not what you said. My bottom line is that I don't believe in studless ice tires - I'm open to being proven wrong, but until that happens, I enjoy the freedom of knowing what I can expect from studs.

The extra PSI reduced the sponginess/delay by (seat of my pants) 50%. It got it into a range of predictability that I can work with. Under 45mph I don't notice anything. On the highway, the delay between steering input and final traction is probably comparable to any normal car. I don't particularly care to drive all that hard on the highway, and I do like to be able to drive at lose to dry speeds around town when there is accumulation.

At this point I'm pretty content with the decision I made, after the PSI change. I don't drive hard on the highway, so I'm fine being careful and toning it down for 3 months in the dry there. The suspension tuning idea is compelling, but I'm somewhat suspicious that it's going to make a noticeable difference in squirm - not enough to be worth risking putting the care out of spec the other 9 months.

While I'd agree that the studded tires have much weaker performance than the OEM all seasons' on the dry, being unstoppable in the snow is worth much more to me than being able to safely be a felon on the highway I dial it down anyway, so my only requirement is that I don't feel like I'm putting people in danger in the dry by driving like normal human being

I'm not talking about OE all-seasons. I'm talking about "snowflake" rated snow tires - like a Blizzak WS90 or Michelin X-ICE XI3. Few have studs anymore. I would never say that studless snowflake rates tires behave the same as Summer tires in the dry. The performance gap has closed, but is still far inferior. I'd also say try not to run your snowies in the dry because the special sipes that allow them to work in the snow are much more sensitive to tread depth than other classes of tires and running them on the dry just burns them out.

It's not really suspension tuning - just a small alignment change that any tire shop can do.

Anyway, a cheep snowflake rated General Altimax in an alternate size has served me well in Maine, cross country in January and in the mountains of Eastern Oregon and Washington state. Hakka 9s are quite expensive and top of the line tires. You should get great performance. I don't know what the signal to noise ratio on the Tesla forums are, but I got good guidance from the Maine Subaru group - these folks need to get their cars to work every Monday come hell or highwater at a reasonable cost.

Like the Great Depression, the combination of losing 450,000 people in our country alone and the massive impact it has had on many people's income has altered a generation's buying patterns.

This seems to be one of those 10 years of change have happened in 10 months. Will we see a repeat of the 1920's when electrification and the Spanish flue changed the world?

[Jamie]

Ooops!

[avramd]

Beau,

I keep meaning to ask you about the smart summon feature. I finally got my garage cleaned out from the "move," and officially parked the Y in it for the first time yesterday. After moving some shelving, it fits, but it is quite tight.

I do not understand how to tell the car to put itself in the garage. The relevant features I'm aware of are "auto-park", "summon," and "smart summon." Regular summon and auto-park don't seem to cover my situation, and "smart summon" has a UX with insufficient precision for telling it what I want it to do.

Regular summon seems to only move the car in a straight line, no way to tell it to jog to its left once it gets around a protrusion (the frame to my garage door opening). I need it to hug that wall as much as possible.

Smart Summon appears to use GPS and a satellite view; it gives me a picture of my roof, and a pin to place that is not shaped like my car. So I can't see where the walls are or where the edges of the car would be if it does what I ask.

Regarding auto-park, according to the manual, the car indicates when it detects an auto-park opportunity by showing a (P) on the display as I approach/pass parking spaces at low speed. It does not recognize my driveway at all as a parking space, much less the garage. I suspect this is b/c due to the sidewalk, even the driveway is too far away from the car to be considered as I approach.

Any tips? For reference, here's my car in my garage:

IMG_7196 copy.JPG

IMG_7195 copy.JPG

[TheOffice]

Looks like the snow tires are going to get tested! In Annapolis we have 2 inches of slush. Sue had a miserable drive home from Hopkins last night. Her QX50 has a manual mode, but the computer over-rides if you upshift too soon and returns the gearbox to first if you stop. Guess its a semi-manual?

[BeauV]

Avramd,

I have to admit not having ever used the Summons feature on the Tesla, even though both the S and the X have it. We don't park a Tesla in the garage, it's used for the Morgan and piles of sails like Gollywobber and Advance Staysail.

That said, I was curious so I looked it up. Here are some links that describe "how to" use it.

Teslarati, a pretty good forum site, on Summons


Here is a video on how to use the Perpendicular Parking feature. We do use this one and the Parallel Parking feature all the time. I don't think we've manually parked either the S or X since they were about two weeks old. Frankly, the car does a much better job than either my wife or I do, and we are both veterans of small parking spaces in San Francisco. The Tesla is really good. This web site doesn't specifically mention the Model 3 or Y, but I think that's because the website is old.

Teslarati, perpendicular parking

[avramd]

That said, I was curious so I looked it up. Here are some links that describe "how to" use it.

[...]

Here is a video on how to use the Perpendicular Parking feature. We do use this one and the Parallel Parking feature all the time. Teslarati, perpendicular parking

For perpendicular and parallel parking, I have to admit that my challenge is simply remembering that the feature exists and to actually try it. It turns out, not surprisingly, that when I'm getting ready to park, that is a time I'm least likely to look at the display, so I never notice it showing those [P] symbols. I have curbed two of my rims already (very mildly), so it couldn't be more obvious that I need to get used to this feature and use it.

As for my garage, I think I need to dig in more on one of those forums to see if anybody else has covered my specific situation. The example you found was indeed one where they already had lined the car up perfectly, which she acknowledged in the video. Perhaps I'll post a video there of me doing manually what I want it to do.

[avramd]

Update: I've officially used the self-park feature once It seems there is a "knack" to getting it to recognize a parking space. It seems to involve driving just the right speed, and going just the right distance past the parking space. In this case it was parallel. It was pretty freaking cool - I'm impressed at how close to the curb it got - closer than I would have dared. Closer than I was even trying to get both times I hit the curb and scratched my wheels.

It failed to recognize two perfectly valid spaces before recognizing the third. Snow cover on the ground may have had a lot to do with the failures.

[avramd]

Another update: I posted my situation regarding quasi-parallel parking into a tight garage. The consensus there is that this is beyond the capabilities of the current software.

Somebody did share an interesting point - that he doesn't trust the software to get his car into his garage safely, but he uses it to get out all the time. I agree that that is the lesser challenge, but still no small feet. So I tried it, and my car refuses to come out of my garage on its own. It pulls forward straight (after straightening the wheel if it wasn't already) until it is about 8" from the garage door track, and then it stops. This is with basic Summon.

I also tried Smart Summon in both "Come to me" mode and target mode, with me/the target at the end of the driveway. It refused to move even an inch. It did *turn* the wheels, but then the app said "Waiting for path to clear."

It seems to me that both the hardware and software are capable of doing what I want, but the s/w does lack the ability for me to tell it what I want. However, I can now add that the tolerances in the software also don't allow for my literal situation, so it probably wouldn't do it even if I could tell it exactly what I wanted.

[avramd]

Quick update:

I've officially tried using both basic and smart summon to get my car *out* of the garage, and it didn't work. With basic, it straightens the wheels (wrong), and goes forward a foot until it's 8" from hitting the corner of the garage door frame, and then stops. With smart summon, it just says "waiting for path to clear." I assume it is waiting for the door frame to move.

In related news, I've been more careful about giving the car a chance to identify parking spaces in parking lots, and so far it never has. It seems to require that the painted lines be very fresh/crisp. I've only seen the (P) once. Somebody mentioned on one of the forums that in multiple years, they've never once seen the "elusive P" appear.

[TheOffice]

Jaguar is going all electric by 2025. (Insert joke here)

Ford Europe will be hybrid or electric by 2026, all electric by 2030.

GM cut the Price of the Bolt by 5k.

Supposedly, an electric Corvette is in the works.

Cool stuff!

[Panope]

Jaguar is going all electric by 2025. (Insert joke here)

Ford Europe will be hybrid or electric by 2026, all electric by 2030.

GM cut the Price of the Bolt by 5k.

Supposedly, an electric Corvette is in the works.

Cool stuff!

Yes it is.

I've had the LEAF for about 4 months now. It's great. I like the electric drive train a lot.

However, my ideal daily driver would be a cheapo EV mini truck (like my former RANGER).

Steve

[TheOffice]

There are some Chinese mini trucks. Would not want to be in an accident in one of them.

It will be interesting to see how well the e pickups sell once Ford and Chevy release theirs. I don't consider Tesla, Rivian or Hummer to be indicative of the broader market.

Joel