Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby kdh » Mon Apr 23, 2018 7:26 am

BeauV wrote:Now, it's going nuts. I think we linear thinking humans may be in the process of being confronted with an exponential learning curve. It makes it damned hard to predict when something is going to happen.

I've never been clear on what "linear thinking" means. There are many well understood biases associated with our "instincts," or our "fast thinking," to use Kahneman's term, but the inability to recognize change at a faster-than-linear pace is not one of them.

Indeed, to the contrary, those who argue for neural nets say they represent the way humans think and they are "non-linear." True, in that it's easy to show that even simply structured (not "deep learning") nets can represent the entire class of practically useful functions, linear or otherwise. Unfortunately, this doesn't make them easy to train.

"Linear thinking" has come to mean "naive thinking" for some, as far as I can tell. Similar with assuming "normal," or Gaussian, distributions. I agree whole-heartedly with the latter--this is the basis for all the "thick tail" phenomena people describe.

The lesson we learned about AI in the 80s was that it is absolutely not the case that because it's easy for us to do it, drive, for example, it's easy to teach a machine to do it. Dreamers like Musk at the time were way wrong on this. I think it's also important to understand that all (not-rule-based) AI is based on learning by example, with interpolation between the examples. Think of characterizing driving by all sufficiently representative situations likely to be encountered.

By the way, there is this absolutely crazy to me argument going around: because "human error" is the cause of car accidents all we have to do is remove the humans. Preposterous.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby SemiSalt » Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:43 am

I think "inside the box" is a better metaphor than "linear". To me, "non-linear thinking" is more about abandoning constraints than anything else, even when the constraints are culturally-based and not really constraints at all.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby TheOffice » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:32 am

I was speaking to a neighbor who owns a national moving company.

He has 300 drivers and 80 vacancies he can't fill. I jokingly said he needed some Tesla semis. He said he has 3 on order. No ETA on delivery.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Orestes Munn » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:47 am

SemiSalt wrote:I think "inside the box" is a better metaphor than "linear". To me, "non-linear thinking" is more about abandoning constraints than anything else, even when the constraints are culturally-based and not really constraints at all.

99% of creative thinking in my field is just wide reading, pattern recognition, and applying a concept or paradigm from a different area, often some branch of engineering. It's very seldom that someone comes up with a whole "thing" de novo.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:20 pm

Let me be more specific about what I meant by "linear thinking":

When most humans are presented with five or six data points that basically describe a straight line on a standard Cartesian graph, and are asked to predict where the next data point will be, they generally will place their estimate someplace along that line. If there are 6,000 data points, they will take that as evidence that there is an even stronger case for the next data point being approximately on that line. A similar effect is present at the beginning of an exponential curve with humans believing that because there have been relatively small changes in the past the next period will also have relatively small changes. As a result, when dealing with something that changes exponentially many humans seem to overestimate the rate of change initially and vastly underestimate it over the long term.

This effect is exhibited all sorts of places. In our domain, ask a sailor how much energy is in the wind at different wind speeds. You'll find that most will provide you with a linear estimate, not the square function which is actually the case. Ask a person how much energy has to be dissipated by the brakes in a automobile to reduce the speed from 100 MPH to 90 MPH vs 20 MPH to 10 MPH. Again, because they either don't know the E=1/2(MV^2) formula or don't know how to apply it. Humans most often think linearly. This is not a statement about linear vs non-linear equations, it's about a common error in the way folks think. It's also why Moore's Law (which Gordon Moore never called a "law" only an "observation") is so hard for many people. Gordon's observation was correct, that the advancements of the semiconductor technology were acting on a surface and thus would have an effect which was the square over some time period. His educated guess, based upon a few iterations which he had personally observed, was that the time period would be 18 month.

My point is that this sort error in thinking is endemic in humans, and that it is currently influencing many people's thinking about stuff like self-driving cars, the ability to control rockets and have them land upon re-entry, and numerous other sorts of technologies. I completely agree that there are activities which are NOT influenced by the underlying devices and their relatively relentless march along Moore's Law. (BTW, Moore's Law may have run its course) But, then we banging into Metcalfe's Law (Metcalfe did call it a law in presentations I saw) which basically says that the utility of a network goes up as approximately the square of the number of nodes. There are a number of assumptions that Bob Metcalfe made which are dubious, but there is something approximating Bob's observation going on.

Having found this cognitive error in numerous technically competent folks, I look for it often. While it's probably NOT the case that all of whatever one defines as "AI" is going to go through some massive discontinuous change, it is certainly true that numerous pieces of the field have already done so.

Of course, to someone who uses "AI" daily, or builds semiconductor parts, or builds networking equipment, these points are painfully obvious and therefore dismissed as trivial. Gordon, and less so Bob, thought that folks made far "too much fuss" (to quote Gordon) about all this. "It's obvious to anyone who knows how our industry works." That is true. But what's going on is not that practitioners don't think clearly about what they are working on, it's that the rest of the human race doesn't think in this way. Thus, the continuous surprise amongst the general population at the perceived astounding advancements of semiconductor, disk drives, networks, etc..... and the software which runs on them.

Keith, I don't think that removing humans from driving a car will get rid of car accidents. I do think it will greatly reduce them. Even as crude as the Tesla autopilot is, it's better than a drunk in many (if not most) cases. Which is the reason I cited the drunk driving fatalities in addition to the overall fatalities. Of course, our opinions on this won't matter. We'll know the answer within our lifetime. The benefits are so obvious and the commercial opportunity so large, that if this problem can be solved it will be within a decade or maybe two. We can circle back over a drink and discuss what happened.

Meantime, we can watch robot controlled rocket ships delivering supplies to the space station and ponder why we would ever send a human to Mars if we could just send better robots to figure out what we want to know.

(The above statement is made with the pre-existing caveat that I usually know "what" is going to happen and rarely know "when" it will happen.)
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby kdh » Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:02 pm

Moore's observation was that chip density (chips per unit area, units distance squared) doubled every year or two. This describes exponential growth, not a square law or any other power law.

To my thinking sending humans to Mars is silly.

As for self driving vehicles, as I wrote earlier I think we'll get there by altering the infrastructure to insure they're safe using simple rule-based systems. This could be as easy as making sure road lines are reliably placed and visible by a radar or other sensor at night and during bad weather, installing machine-perceptible signaling beacons at intersections, etc. It won't take much. Automated behavior will have to be easily predictable by pedestrians and other users of the road (everyone knows where a train is going and how to avoid it, for example). Our reliance on AI to replicate human thought while driving, though it's sexy and futuristic, won't get the job done, and will be shown to be a huge waste of time. Just my prediction.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Orestes Munn » Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:22 pm

kdh wrote:Our reliance on AI to replicate human thought while driving, though it's sexy and futuristic, won't get the job done, and will be shown to be a huge waste of time. Just my prediction.

I agree with this. What we need is not emulation of a human driver--God forbid, in fact--but an automated transportation system which accommodates individually routed vehicles. Safe implementation of fully autonomous vehicles will involve providing them with a highly predictable and unambiguous environment and segregating them from human road users so they can't kill them.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:43 pm

Orestes Munn wrote:
kdh wrote:Our reliance on AI to replicate human thought while driving, though it's sexy and futuristic, won't get the job done, and will be shown to be a huge waste of time. Just my prediction.

I agree with this. What we need is not emulation of a human driver--God forbid, in fact--but an automated transportation system which accommodates individually routed vehicles. Safe implementation of fully autonomous vehicles will involve providing them with a highly predictable and unambiguous environment and segregating them from human road users so they can't kill them.


Eric,

Cars today don't emulate human drivers. They follow some pretty simple rules, like following the lines and keeping a preset distance between the themselves and the car in front of them which is determined (in part) by the driver's choice and also by the speed. Google has published that they are also considering road surface conditions, knowing that sand and water make things more slippery. There isn't some magical copy of a human mind in any of this, and I don't think I said that there would be. What does happen is that all the cars driving round trying to find the lines (and other things) are gathering data that gets used to make the software better.

There is a truly MASSIVE data gathering exercise going on over at Tesla. They are using the information their cars record to actually go take a look at the roads which folks drive on. They then use that data to help the autopilot know when the road turns, how many lanes it has, etc.... You can actually see this in action when the road crew moves the lines, especially when they don't do a good job of erasing the old lines but just add newer fresher lines, or worse yet simply paint black over the old white line while adding a new orange line. The autopilot which is following those lines knows where it is and it knows what the lines used to look like, it then tries to guess/resolve/computer (or whatever you'd like to call a guess) which set of lines to follow. If it can't, it raises holy hell with the driver and the drivers (who is supposed to have their hands on the wheel and be paying attention just like those who use autopilots in boats and airplanes) will take over. In the instruction manual and the release notes on autopilot it also says that if the lines on both sides of the road disappear for a short period of time, and there is a car within accurate range of the LIDAR on the front of the car, the autopilot will follow the car ahead. It will only do so if the car ahead is traveling at approximately the same speed as your car and even then will only do it briefly. When it starts to do this, the dashboard displays that the lines on the sides of the road have disappeared, it changes the car ahead from gray to bright blue, and if the lines don't re-appear shortly it bleeps and tells the drive to take over.

That is hardly AI of the sort that 2001 HAL had AI.

Lots of folks talk about AI and various forms of machine learning or heuristic programming, but I've found very very very few examples where the software genuinely works that way in the real world. As Keith said, rule-based systems (like the old PROLOG programs) and most software that is in use are not AI in his opinion or mine. They are a derivative of normal declarative programming. I don't think you need to worry about a car that things like a person. We have plenty of people who think like people, they are not in serious short supply. What we need is an autopilot for a car that thinks like a computer, doesn't drink, doesn't break the traffic laws, and stops moving if it gets confused or stoned. Those are characteristics which computers can be reliably and consistently programmed to have, we've tried to train people to do those things with very little success.

As to a separation of computer driven cars and human driven cars, I agree. But probably for a slightly different reason. We need to keep the erratic human driven cars the hell away from the well behaved rule following computer driven cars so that the passengers in the computer driven cars are safe from drunks, assholes, and other very human characteristics.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Orestes Munn » Mon Apr 23, 2018 5:45 pm

Right and I am guilty of not reading the entire thread. However, if we agree that self-driving systems are going to be rule-based, then it makes as much sense, and maybe a lot more, to work and rely on signaling and safety in the environment than on making the car smart, even if that involves placing reflectors on things and burying an invisible doggy fence.

As to the segregation scheme, have it your way. I’m worried about my ass on the bike and the terrible politics of placing even more responsibility for not getting smooshed on the potential victim.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby kdh » Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:51 pm

Beau, what you describe is credible and sensible. Essentially a more advanced cruise control.

But it's not at all consistent with the hype:

During the Q&A, Musk also added that he thinks Autopilot 2.0 will be “2 to 3 times” safer than human drivers.

Musk has often put forward this timeline of self-driving being just “two years” away since back in 2015 when Tesla was just starting to work on Autopilot.

Last year, Musk said that Tesla was aiming for level 5 autonomy, the highest level, which allows the “driver” to sleep in the car. His timeline for this was, at that time, two years out.


Alert human drivers do a lot more than follow lines and the car in front of them, along with a few lane-passing tricks.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:26 am

kdh wrote:Beau, what you describe is credible and sensible. Essentially a more advanced cruise control.

But it's not at all consistent with the hype:

During the Q&A, Musk also added that he thinks Autopilot 2.0 will be “2 to 3 times” safer than human drivers.

Musk has often put forward this timeline of self-driving being just “two years” away since back in 2015 when Tesla was just starting to work on Autopilot.

Last year, Musk said that Tesla was aiming for level 5 autonomy, the highest level, which allows the “driver” to sleep in the car. His timeline for this was, at that time, two years out.


Alert human drivers do a lot more than follow lines and the car in front of them, along with a few lane-passing tricks.


I completely agree, that what Tesla's autopilot actually does and how it does it aren't in-line with Elon's rhetoric, nor is it ever in-line with his forecasts of when it will be "GREAT". In that way, he reminded me a great deal of our ill-informed and proudly ignorant President; but he isn't nearly as bad.

There are numerous other things that autopilot does, beyond fancy lane following, but I've no evidence that they are anything more than the combination of a truly gigantic database of detailed information about the roads which have been surveyed to an amazing level of detail by all the Teslas driving them for millions of miles and an extremely good use of the sensors on the car. I believe that there is a tremendous amount of improvement still available using these techniques and enough fast computing. The addition of a fast and reliable network to signal crashes even further ahead (think around blind corners) and continued increases in sensor quality will yield a lot. Today, the LIDAR actually looks under and around the car ahead seeking brake lights. It will cause the autopilot to apply the brakes far sooner than most humans to a lock-up on the freeway.

BTW, I think that being able to sleep in the car is not far off at all. One just has to be driving along a recently surveyed road which is rather simple. Having done tens of thousands of miles now under autopilot, I can tell you that on the interstate the autopilot is as close to perfect as you could ask for and much better than most drivers. It's difficulties surround recent accidents and un-surveyed road construction or degradation. The darn thing even knows were pot holes are and eases around them. On a typical trip from Santa Cruz to LA the autopilot drives about 90% of the time.

Where it comes unglued is on complex city street, which is where I understand the Google guys are a long way ahead. It also has no idea how to get across the parking lot at a supercharger station and do the social negotiation of who gets to queue up where and who goes first when a slot opens up. BTW, the software should just tell each car when it's their turn. The cars all know where they are and who got there first.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby kdh » Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:52 am

The messy practical reality is the best system to navigate a car is a combination of rule-based, AI or example-based, together with knowledge of sensor technology and models. And helped by a human's abilities.

A problem I'd love to work on, actually. But not in an environment where someone like Musk is telling me he's the visionary and knows more than I do and why isn't it done yet?

Also, the legal issues are a morass. Is the human liable for insufficient oversight of the driving, regardless of the level of automated aid? If so even on a marked highway no one is going to be sleeping.

The usual barreling ahead approach of you Silicon Valley types à la Uber is somewhat irresponsible, in my view (nothing personal :angel: ). We should be thinking through the liability issues and how we can adapt the infrastructure to optimize performance and keep everyone safe.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Tue Apr 24, 2018 12:20 pm

Keith,

In Germany they discovered a significant (meaning double digit percentage) reduction in accidents and fatalities when they standardized the signage, the way that all intersections were laid out, the way that construction projects were called out, etc.... Of course, that's what Eric meant by building the infrastructure to help with this project.

The other key feature that the Germans did was to train the drivers. Not only are there pretty tough training classes, but the driving laws are enforced. (Imagine that!) A great example, one of the most dangerous things one can do is over-taking on the right at relatively high speeds. This will get you a ticket in Germany faster than anything else I know. They even monitor for it with cameras. The fine is enormous. But, and critically important, they enforce the law about only using the left lane for passing. The fines for squatting in the left lane are also enormous, and delivered to your mail box with a photo of you in the left lane and a line of cars behind you trying to get by. A key point: You don't get to stay in the left lane just because you're already traveling at the speed limit. You are required to move over and let the scofflaw roar by. Vigilanteism is alive and well in the US with folks planting themselves in the left lane and forcing everyone to go around on the right. Interstate 5 in California is a veritable feast of right side passers and left lane squatters.

In this case, not only did the Germans modify the roads they modified the drivers. Of course, an automated car could move to the right when appropriate and could (shock of shocks) refuse to exceed the speed limit.

This brings me to my final comment on the Germans. Having driven a LOT in Germany, I know what's expected of me. My German friends are horrified by the way Americans drive on the freeways. I will never forget a friend asking: "How do you know when it is OK to break the law and when it is not??" He correctly observed that we Americans have simply decided that some laws don't matter. To a German (who really believes in the broken window theory of law enforcement) this is anathema. So, how DO WE know which laws are OK TO BREAK and which ones aren't. I can tell you that the Tesla autopilot and Ford cruise control will let you set whatever speed you wish - despite both cars knowing the precise speed limit of that road. I can also tell you that a large majority of Americans would scream bloody murder if they actually had to drive at the speed limit, including me.

The point being, if we build a automated car which ignores the law because the owners want it to, how can we tell that car which laws to break and which to obey? I can't think of any reasonable way to write the software which decides when it's OK to break the law and when it isn't.

Finally, Elon is like many promoters of new ideas. He exaggerates the benefits and the timing. Having worked in the medical field just a little, I can assure you that folks who introduce new technologies (drugs, instruments, machines, etc...) exaggerate the benefit and the timing there too; and that has nothing to do with Silicon Valley. :D

It is human nature to exaggerate the benefit and timing. It may be wishful thinking, it may be that you want your own team to stretch hard to reach what is clearly an absurd goal, or it may be pure pollyanna irrational optimism. But, it exists in car sales, pharmaceuticals, politics, air planes, etc.... So, I don't think you can hang that on SiValley.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Tue Apr 24, 2018 12:24 pm

FWIW: I would describe what should be going on with self-driving cars as "augmentation".

We really don't need a car that truly drives itself in all circumstances, which is why I think that the Google car with no steering wheel is absurd in every circumstance beyond driving itself around a bus route at Disney land (and maybe even there).

We do need to augment the drivers capabilities. To a large extent, we're well on our way to doing that:
- Maps which talk and guide drivers
- Voice activated communications
- Automated speed control (even if it is idiotically allowed to exceed the speed limit by 30 MPH)
- Automated emergency braking
etc....

We will, at some point, find that we've actually built a self driving car. It's the logical conclusion. But, it is impossible for this incremental approach to motivate risk capital. Thus, the absurdity of trying to go from something as primitive as a car that can't even change its own gears to one that doesn't have a steering wheel in one step.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby SemiSalt » Tue Apr 24, 2018 12:56 pm

BeauV wrote:Keith,

The other key feature that the Germans did was to train the drivers. Not only are there pretty tough training classes, but the driving laws are enforced. (Imagine that!) A great example, one of the most dangerous things one can do is over-taking on the right at relatively high speeds. This will get you a ticket in Germany faster than anything else I know. They even monitor for it with cameras. The fine is enormous. But, and critically important, they enforce the law about only using the left lane for passing. The fines for squatting in the left lane are also enormous, and delivered to your mail box with a photo of you in the left lane and a line of cars behind you trying to get by. A key point: You don't get to stay in the left lane just because you're already traveling at the speed limit. You are required to move over and let the scofflaw roar by. Vigilanteism is alive and well in the US with folks planting themselves in the left lane and forcing everyone to go around on the right. Interstate 5 in California is a veritable feast of right side passers and left lane squatters.


When I was taught to drive (in NJ), all the adults made it clear that while passing on the right was a no-no in NJ, it was legal in NY. When it gets to crunch time for auto-driving cars, there is going have to be a move toward having the same traffic laws in all states.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Wed Apr 25, 2018 6:24 pm

Wandering back to Tesla Model 3 production. This week they topped 2,000 units. At a local intersection the Admiral and I saw two heading one way, a model S heading 90° and a model X behind us in line waiting. They're getting as common as belly buttons around here - obviously, not a typical demographic.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Ajax » Thu Apr 26, 2018 12:55 pm

BeauV wrote:Wandering back to Tesla Model 3 production. This week they topped 2,000 units. At a local intersection the Admiral and I saw two heading one way, a model S heading 90° and a model X behind us in line waiting. They're getting as common as belly buttons around here - obviously, not a typical demographic.


Teslas are fairly common in the Annapolis area, but there is money here so I don't consider this area to be a valid sample.
Even a "base" Model 3 is really pushing it for me. I think I'm going to end up with a Nissan Leaf once the Outback has run its course. I won't buy a GM product again, so that rules out the Bolt.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby JoeP » Thu Apr 26, 2018 2:04 pm

Not particularly pertinent to the EV discussion but this announcement that ford will stop making sedans except for the Mustang and Focus Active is interesting. They will "focus on pickups, SUVs and crossovers".

http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/ford-will-stop-selling-sedans-north-america-entirely-face-unstoppable-crossover
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby TheOffice » Thu Apr 26, 2018 3:45 pm

The shift to SUVs explains the pending Model Y on the Tesla drawing board.

The model S WAY outsells all other large sedans. There is one Model 3 in the neighborhood, but they already have an S.

The Model 3 $35,000 version is a fiction. No one wants a luxury car without leather, sunroof and all the bells and whistles. The Admiral is about to cancel her order for a 3 AWD.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby kdh » Thu Apr 26, 2018 3:55 pm

I like the new Aston Martin Vantage, where they've dropped for something controversial the trademark front grille that Ford ripped off.

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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Orestes Munn » Thu Apr 26, 2018 4:11 pm

Ajax wrote:
BeauV wrote:Wandering back to Tesla Model 3 production. This week they topped 2,000 units. At a local intersection the Admiral and I saw two heading one way, a model S heading 90° and a model X behind us in line waiting. They're getting as common as belly buttons around here - obviously, not a typical demographic.


Teslas are fairly common in the Annapolis area, but there is money here so I don't consider this area to be a valid sample.
Even a "base" Model 3 is really pushing it for me. I think I'm going to end up with a Nissan Leaf once the Outback has run its course. I won't buy a GM product again, so that rules out the Bolt.

Yeah, they’re common here too and moving rapidly up my “attempts to kill me” list. Cars are all rolling junk, way I see it.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Thu Apr 26, 2018 5:48 pm

Keith, when we were buying our Model S for My Admiral's birthday present, it was all I could do to keep her from buying that 4 door Aston. She LOVED it! Still does. But, a friend up the road bought one and has had endless trouble with it. That makes me look good for pushing My Admiral into the Tesla. :)

I do NOT like the "new" grill. I had read someplace that the designer at Ford who ripped off the signature Aston grill was the brother of the Aston designer who originated it. Am I mis-remembering?
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Tucky » Thu Apr 26, 2018 6:57 pm

Unless that Ford designer was really old, I'd be surprised. The Aston grill shape goes back to almost the first car, certainly to the DB2. I always assumed the theft occurred while Ford owned Aston, so no trademark or look and feel lawsuit would be brought.

If someone wants to save a bit of cash, there is a 2006 Vantage on Bringatrailer. Probably will sell in the $40,000 range. Mighty beautiful.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2006- ... vantage-6/

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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby SemiSalt » Thu Apr 26, 2018 7:17 pm

I can't remember ever identifying a Tesla in the wild, but then, I'm not interested enough in cars to check out every one that goes by. Another factor might be that their sales model is illegal here in CT where the legislature is apparently in thrall to the car dealers.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Ajax » Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:16 am

Fuel prices are about to take off and this unprecedented period of cheap gasoline is about to end. I understand why Ford is killing their cars, they are building what customers are asking for, but I suspect that as pump-pain reasserts itself, customers may shift back to cars for fuel efficiency and Ford and GM will have to adjust.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Orestes Munn » Fri Apr 27, 2018 8:22 am

Ajax wrote:Fuel prices are about to take off and this unprecedented period of cheap gasoline is about to end.

From your mouth to God's ear.

Ford says all of its vehicles will have electric or hybrid options by 2025 or something. Stock had a nice bump yesterday, at any rate.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby BeauV » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:26 am

The reason that the Crown Victoria (which we all know and love as a Town Car and Police Special) was killed years back because Ford wanted the large frame manufacturing line to build more trucks. Chevy has converted the full size Impala line to building more Suburbans and Tahoes.

What I find hysterical is that folks who "wouldn't be caught dead in a station wagon or a minivan" are now buying.... wait for it.... Crossovers. Which are slightly taller version of a station wagon with oversized wheels. Consumers are really nuts! I'd love to have a good old full-size Ford station wagon. Ah me, such a vehicle doesn't exist so we have an SUV which has the same mission but is MUCH harder to get in and out of, park, and rides like a freaking truck!

As to gasoline prices, we're still in a glut of crude as I understand it. (Others here would know better than I.) What we have going on is artificial production constraints through limited refining and restrictions by some producers. I seriously doubt that we're actually short of oil.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby TheOffice » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:37 am

The CAFE requirements also lead to the demise of the big old ladder frame cars like the Crown Vic and helped push hybrids, electrics, fuel cells etc.

It is no much less unpleasant driving behind an electric bus in the city than a smoking old diesel.

I agree there is no oil shortage, and as we shift to other fuels, the oil companies are going to be looking to squeeze more profit from fewer sales. Fuel prices are about 25 cents a gallon, but still only $2.70 or so at home for regular. They are supposed to peak next month.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Orestes Munn » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:49 am

The big oils are now "energy" companies, anyway, and sometimes seem semi-serious about hedging with non-fossil and renewable sources. That's been my half-assed excuse for buying them again after many years.
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Re: Electric Car Prediction - Whatdayathing???

Postby Ajax » Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:05 am

I agree with Beau about crossovers. My Outback is as close to an old style station wagon as you can get these days, and it has the added benefit of being extremely fuel efficient for a non-hybrid gasoline engine coupled with Japanese reliability.

No, I don't think we're running out of anything. This supply re-balancing is due to production cuts at OPEC and Russia. US oil production is the new-ish variable in an old equation. What OPEC does, will have less effect as long as domestic production obeys market fundamentals.

Saudi Arabia tried to kill our domestic oil industry by saturating the market, but failed. Now, if OPEC drastically cuts production, US companies can fill the gap and make even more money, and add some stability to the market. If US oil companies get cute and try to game the market...well...I have no prediction for that.
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