I would, but the effect is diluted by all the non EVs they produce.
So this is about a 15% reduction in range, which gets worse in slower traffic. So the is a big need to optimize sensor chips for power consumption. I suspect the more sensors you have the more processing power is needed to integrate them. So reducing the size of the sensors suite could have more than a linear impact on power consumption. Big need to find a minimal configuration sufficient for safety.
That would be true if traveling at highway speeds. But for city driving 20 mph average, it's more like 9 kW for propulsion. Moreover, it is in the more complex city street driving that you need an abundance of sensors. Add to this AC/heating, and city driving becomes pretty inefficient compared to highway.
Absolutely. I'm very excited about the development. I'm just trying to think through where the challenges are as systems get perfected. So we know that you can throw a lot of sensors and processors at this problem and get stable, confident driving. The more clearly the vehicle perceives everything on the road, the more stable its response can be. For example, Tesla's AP can exhort some really jittery driving because it is constantly changing its view of where the road is. It's perception is weak and unstable, so it makes unnecessary course corrections based on a faulty apprehension of where the car is in reference to the lane. So this problem can be solved by throwing more sensor hardware at it, but that has multiple costs associated with it. So the next iteration is to minimize those costs without compromising perceptual stability. No doubt this optimization problem can and will be solved. The companies that move quickly to a balanced and optimized system will be most competitive.
I bought Nissan when they came out with the LEAF, thinking they would quickly add other, better models. Should have put that money in TSLA instead. Actually should have put all my money in TSLA
I agree! Isn't hindsight wonderful!I bought Nissan when they came out with the LEAF, thinking they would quickly add other, better models. Should have put that money in TSLA instead. Actually should have put all my money in TSLA
One clue that it was a specific route is that the "driver" noted that they had only logged 1000 miles on the platform and yet the car was extremely well behaved. Like the promotional videos Tesla did when the AP2 hardware was announced.
