SmartDrivingCar.com/11.34-FSDv12 -08/31/23
34th edition of the 11th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter
Tesla FSD v12: Breakthrough We’ve Been Waiting For?
Rob Mauer, Aug. 28, “➤ Elon Musk livestreams Tesla’s FSD Beta v12 ➤ Tesla compute capacity updates ➤ Hardware 4 information ➤ Highland / Cybertruck updates ➤ Tesla lithium refinery progress ➤ Megapack price reduction ➤ Piper Sandler issues note on TSLA ➤ Calendar.” Read more Hmmmm… Very perceptive perspective on FSDv12. Is FSDv12 close to passing Kornhauser’s “Turing Proof-of-concept” for driverless mobility? Alain
Elon Musk Livestream of his FSD v12 drive
Brighter w/Herbert, Aug. 25, “”Elon Musk just livestreamed his Full Self Driving of V12 around Palo Alto Ashok Elluswamy Director of AI was with him”. Read more Hmmmm… Interesting commentary on Elon’s LiveStream of FSDv12.. Alain
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SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 333 / PodCast 333 The Dispatcher w/Michael Sena & Tampa-Moves Simulation w/Bryce Rasmussen’25
F. Fishkin, Aug. 30, “The Need for Driverless Vehicle Standards is the lead as The Dispatcher publisher Michael Sena joins us from Sweden for the latest Smart Driving Cars. More highlights from episode 333.. NHTSA, E-Fuels, China, Elon Musk demos the latest FSD and Bryce Rasmussen, Princeton ’25, shows the results demo of the Interactive Person Trip Visualization tool from Princeton. Join Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin…and subscribe!
0:00 open
1:17 The Dispatcher..Standards for Driverless Vehicles
10:39 Recommendations for Standards
21:50 The Dispatcher.. Rudderless at NHTSA
28:45 The Dispatcher… Electrofuels or E-Fuels
32:00 The Dispatcher.. China and Coal
36:08 Elon Musk live streams latest FSD Beta
46:15 Bryce Rasmussen, Princeton ’25, demos animation of Interactive person trip visualization
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M. Sena, Aug. 28, IN THIS ISSUE
Feature: Standardization and Regulation………… 2
We really do need driverless vehicle standards.. 2
Dispatch Central………………………………………… 15
Rudderless at NHTSA……………………………………15
Electrofuels (E-Fuels)………………………………….. 18
China and coal: The 50%+ strategy ………………. 21
The real origin of the Cybertruck …………………. 22
Nvidia’s market cap approaches stratosphere .. 23
Crew Comments………………………………………… 26
Views on June’s V2V lead article………………….. 26
Musings of a Dispatcher……………………………… 30
American cities are losing their hearts………….. 30″
Read more Hmmmm… Welcome back, Michael. A very informative, powerful and well- written issue. Alain
It’s a Weird Time for Driverless Cars
SpaceX, Aug. 29, “e robotaxi is recording me sitting in the backseat, and I am recording it. Someone in the neighboring car is recording us both.
It’s an unusually hot day in San Francisco, and I am in a self-driving car named Charcuterie, operated by Cruise. Next to me is William Riggs, a professor at the
University of San Francisco who studies self-driving cars…
When I notice the stranger filming, we are stopped at a red light. Riggs rolls down his window to chat…
“It’s weird!” the woman in the car says, assessing our futuristic setup from behind her phone.
“It’s totally normal and forgettable!” Riggs replies. … “Read more Hmmmm… That is the point. If Cruise and Waymo could only see that an “elevator-like” service model, with its affordable operational characteristics, is the way to completely disrupt the mobility market in such a way that both could have some hope of becoming sufficiently profitable to survive and deliver at least some RoI. The purpose of mobility is largely, if not entirely, to get to someplace better that where one happens to find themselves. Getting someplace so that it is “totally normal and forgettable” is disruptive. The mobility service provided by elevators does that “in spades”, especially going up, but also going down in tall buildings. It is market dominant in even not so tall buildings, when the desire is to go up and even down.
Cruise & Waymo could do the same horizontally in communities… make it easy, cheap and useable by everyone all the time. No need for an app, or phone. Just go to a convenient location, after at most a short wait, hop on, hop off, conveniently go you where your life will be improved and fuhgeddaboudit. Everyone would like that. Why are they chasing only those who are so entitled that they need to be picked up right here and dropped off right there and are rich enough (or don’t care about spending someone else’s money) so they can just forget about the cost that is required to have a person earn a living wage while waiting around to serve them, get to precisely where they need to be picked up, and finally drive them right where that person wants to go? Luckily, I think, there are only a few of such folks and infinitely more who would welcome walking or wheeling a short distance, easily getting on and off and being charged what they can readily afford and fuhgeddaboudit. Alain
Starship Super Heavy Static Fire It’s a Weird Time for Driverless Cars
C. Nyce, Aug. 26, “Live views of Starship Super Heavy Booster 9’s second static fire. Stream will begin a few minutes before ignition”. Read more Hmmmm… Impressive. Alain
SpaceX ignites Monster Booster! Are we ready for the second Starship Flight?
SpaceX, Aug. 26, “Super Heavy Booster 9 conducts another static fire! Is Ship 25 ready for a rollout? Crew 7 launches after a delay! Do you know where Starlink hardware is made? And Rocket Lab reuses its first engine!”. Read more Hmmmm… Can’t wait for next launch. Alain
Elon Musk’s FSD v12 demo includes a near miss at a red light and doxxing Mark Zuckerberg
Andrew Hawkins, Aug. 28, “… At around the 19-minute mark, Musk is forced to take the steering wheel as the vehicle tries to accelerate through a red light in Palo Alto. It seemed as if the vehicle misread the traffic signal and tried to proceed through the intersection at the wrong time. Musk posted the grainy video on X, formerly known as Twitter, last Friday. .”:…”Read more Hmmmm… OK. There was one disengagement. It is not perfect.
I do wonder if Tesla did the same thing as what I believe Waymo appropriately does with each of its disengagements encountered when an attendant is behind the wheel… It replays in its simulators the disengagement scenario up to, through and beyond the disengagement to determine estimate the seriousness of the situation. It would be interesting to know, if in this situation, what would have happened if the Elon wasn’t in the driver’s seat.
I know, I’ve been in that situation, more than once. I’ve come off the brake, hit the gas and luckily, each time I realized my mistake hit the brake and nothing bad nor close to bad happened. Alain
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IATR 2023 36th Annual Conference
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Conference
San Jose, CA
Nov. 30 -> Dec. 1, 2023
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