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Originally Posted by wdb
This deserves its own thread; something about the future of automobile technology being at a critical juncture.
The images of that Model X crash are downright frightening, and prompted me to ask how often do ICE cars catch fire in accidents, vs. how often Tesla/electrics catch fire? Tesla's stock/bond valuations have been in freefall since the accident, and the news isn't getting better -- it's getting worse.
And the Uber pedestrian death seems to be pointing towards a foolish race to be first to market with autonomous driving technology. Turning off the very software that controls autonomous crash avoidance? Who in their right mind does that?
I think the next few weeks and months are going to be critical for the futures of Tesla (although not electric cars in general) and autonomous vehicles.
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I haven't researched the fires per miles driven and compared, but my worthless anecdotal evidence is I have seen zero EV fires in my lifetime and many ICE fires. The most horrific was a couple summers ago on I-5 where I was among the first to arrive at the crash, and the driver was killed. It stopped traffic for over 3hrs on a 100 degree day.
http://youtu.be/69qNnUTh7Fk
I've also contained a fire caused by an engulfed Durango on a forest road. It was spreading to the vegetation and trees while fire crews took over an hour to make it to the site.
Was the autopilot disabled in the Uber crash?
Quote:
Originally Posted by aerostealth
Some of this bad press for Tesla and Uber is Koch brothers and traditional auto maker driven. Parts of it is literally fake news.
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I believe the Koch brothers mean well for the citizens of the US, but they are old (more rigid thinking) and have some bad ideas. I can get behind eliminating subsidies, but won't resort to misrepresenting a technology in pursuit of it. It's unclear if they really believe EVs are worse than ICE vehicles for the environment, or if they are intentionally being deceptive.
To that end, I would draw a distinction between fake news and false news. There are plenty who would knowingly supply bad information to push an agenda, and there are those who are biased against something and do not properly vett the information they cite to support their claim.
All that said, I tend to believe Tesla is in a precarious place as they have failed to meet volume targets and have the $7,500 tax credit expiration looming.