Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Self-Driving Cars Using Crazy Amounts of Power is Becoming a Problem

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
All the data needs to be combined, sorted, and turned into a robot-friendly picture of the world, with instructions on how to move through it. That takes huge computing power, which means huge electricity demands. Prototypes use around 2,500 watts, enough to light 40 incandescent light bulbs... that draw translates to reduced range, because power from the battery goes to the computers instead of the motors... Maybe you’re old enough to have dealt with a parent who turned off the car's AC to save gas. Now imagine having to turn off the self-driving abilities just to make it to your destination without running out of electrons.

Self-Driving Cars Use Crazy Amounts of Power, and It's Becoming a Problem
 
I find that 2.5kw number, well, IDK but there's no way a car burns 2.5kw for auto mode. I'd agree that a prototype that needs to store all of this data for future review would use more, but there's no way a car that dumps data as it goes cares about the amount coming in. At full burn I can run through that on 8 computer systems running full tilt 24/7
 
I've never heard anyone complain AP reduces their range. Many of the author's stories seem to revolve around Tesla failing or electric vehicles are bad... I suspect Jack Stewart has other motivations for the story other than power consumption of self-driving cars.
 
I've never heard anyone complain AP reduces their range. Many of the author's stories seem to revolve around Tesla failing or electric vehicles are bad... I suspect Jack Stewart has other motivations for the story other than power consumption of self-driving cars.


Tesla also isn't fully autonomous, these vehicles being described are. Perhaps that's a question that needs to be posed to the auto manufactures is how much power their self driving, production rigs are using up; not their full blown R&D mules.
 
Tesla also isn't fully autonomous, these vehicles being described are. Perhaps that's a question that needs to be posed to the auto manufactures is how much power their self driving, production rigs are using up; not their full blown R&D mules.

Tesla is being tested internally for full autonomy. And that would be using the Drive PX2, which, again, maxes out at 250W. 250W isn't the current amount used by Autopilot in consumer cars, it's the maximum amount of power that hardware can use.