There is no Beta Model 3 - confirmed today by Elon

[McRat]

Which makes me wonder if the "driving experience" focus of BMW and Porsche will hurt Germany makers in the push to autonomous vehicles. Something I've wondered about for a while. Two states are competing here to facilitate autonomous driving, is it possible to have a truly autonomous car drive in Germany yet? The news yesterday on California allowing cars with no pedals or steering wheels is pretty significant.

LOTS of places for cupholders

Perhaps you could program an Ultimate Driving Experience mode into autonomous cars?

• The car weaves back and forth in heavy traffic without turn signals, but doesn't actually get anywhere.
• The front radar setting is set at 5' following distance.
• The car's exterior speakers will emit a sound like an injured UPS truck, or an inline six with a cheap sounding exhaust system.

This way you could derive maximum pleasure from driving without having to actually be a bad driver.

 

[houdini]

I forget. What's this thread about??

Something about eating and drinking seomthing called Beta in your car or something.

 

[McRat]

Bettas fight if you put them in the same tank anyway. They probably should not make fighting cars.

 

[Red Sage]

Not true -- we had a terrible winter in SoCal this year and I had to bring a heavy windbreaker to work... plus an umbrella (from the Tesla goody bag!). That nonsense lasted for something like 3-weeks.

Heh. Any clothing that would not prevent the onset of hypothermia within 5 minutes of stepping outside in Chicago during January doesn't count! Though, yeah... I am of the measured opinion that anything under 75° Fahrenheit does tend to feel a little chilly in Los Angeles.

 

[Red Sage]

Which makes me wonder if the "driving experience" focus of BMW and Porsche will hurt Germany makers in the push to autonomous vehicles. Something I've wondered about for a while. Two states are competing here to facilitate autonomous driving, is it possible to have a truly autonomous car drive in Germany yet? The news yesterday on California allowing cars with no pedals or steering wheels is pretty significant.

LOTS of places for cupholders

In late 2014 there were some AUDI commercials I thought may have had a veiled insult for Tesla Autopilot. Where the notion was that all the other cars on the road were digitally controlled drones. But only the AUDI was engaging to the driver.

BMW had a series of 'Why Wait?' commercials featuring their new 330e plugin. I think at least one of those ended with the jibe, 'At BMW, The Future of Driving Will Always Include... Drivers.'

Despite all that, BMW seemed happy to tout the 'self driving' capabilities of their own 7-Series...

 

[Topher]

You have to remember that the earlier a bug or any glitch is discover, the less expensive the full process of fixing and validating the problem will be.

The trouble with the software analogy is that it leads to misunderstandings like this one. There is no difference between *producing* a piece of beta software and a production version. Just compile the thing. For cars, it would seem, the beta cars are generally produced by hand, out of production parts; while production cars are of course produced on the production line. Skipping the hand made portion of the program (if you can) makes it possible to find and fix bugs in the production line sooner.

Thank you kindly.

 

[LBusDoor90]

This constant insistence (from folks that appear to primarily be shorting TSLA over at SA) that the 3 has to go through the same tedious production steps as their ICE cars confuses me. This high school physics teacher may be about to reveal his ignorance and naïveté when it comes to theory vs. engineering but:

• Doesn't 15-20 moving parts (vs. hundreds in an ICE) that largely don't come in contact with each other, thanks to flowing/dancing electrons that create magnetic fields that act over distances, mean exponentially less complexity so that potential problems could easily have been anticipated and dealt with during the alpha stage (or even over the history of the S since scaling down maintains the same simplicity)? Musk always preaches about "physics first" and when you have removed the rubbing and grinding of surfaces and corners that must be drenched in oil, you remove the necessary time passage element of testing since there is no change in shape of hundreds of parts due to wear and build up of petrocrud.
• Speaking of "physics first," with expansion and contraction due to temperature changes of parts that mostly aren't in contact not as big a deal, isn't the lengthy hot/cold climate testing for ICEs also potentially much shorter for EVs? No doubt the more crucial batteries' durability and chemistry under varying temps can be tested with great confidence long before they even get placed in a 3.

Again, I may have no idea what I'm talking about. I simply believe the anti-Tesla crowd just doesn't understand that a technology disrupter never does it the way it has always been done and it is always done faster as facilitated by the new, better technology.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

I simply believe the anti-Tesla crowd just doesn't understand that a technology disrupter never does it the way it has always been done and it is always done faster as facilitated by the new, better technology.

You are seeking a rational thought process from an inherently irrational crowd. This will not happen.

 

[Red Sage]

"It has never been done before, therefor it will never be done."​

Such is the eternal axiom of the stupid.

 

[macpacheco]

Me too, and this time I do not think he's talking 'Elon time'.
One huge bit of evidence that the've figured out how to handle volume production is seem with the storage business that has had several substantial short order deliveries already. if the GigaFactory is already functioning well while it is still being built I think we've good grounds for optimism.

Making storage products is likely far less complex and requires far less outsourcing than making a car.

The one fundamental Musk learned is to aim for two suppliers for every part with a contract for each to supply half the demand and an option for double that if the other supplier fails to meet schedule/specs.

Its Tesla's fourth vehicle design being brought to production, its not like they haven't done this before.

I think one should say they know what they're doing, but there are still several hundreds of variables outside of Tesla's control.

 

[dsvick]

The trouble with the software analogy is that it leads to misunderstandings like this one. There is no difference between *producing* a piece of beta software and a production version. Just compile the thing. For cars, it would seem, the beta cars are generally produced by hand, out of production parts; while production cars are of course produced on the production line. Skipping the hand made portion of the program (if you can) makes it possible to find and fix bugs in the production line sooner.

Thank you kindly.

The other reason not to compare it to software is that, in general, a piece of software becomes more complex the longer it exists, so yes, a bug found early is much easier to fix. As opposed to car which is not getting more complex, pieces are not being added on, new functions are not suddenly required.

 

[SageBrush]

Heh. Any clothing that would not prevent the onset of hypothermia within 5 minutes of stepping outside in Chicago during January doesn't count! Though, yeah... I am of the measured opinion that anything under 75° Fahrenheit does tend to feel a little chilly in Los Angeles.

I grew up in San Diego, also known for temperate weather. But since I didn't own any 'winter' clothing and I would warm up after a while on my bicycle route delivering newspapers at 4am, I became fairly comfortable shirtless in 40F. Later I spent a lot of time in the Pacific ocean and became even more cold tolerant.

Nowadays, I am always amused at how little cold tolerance people in winter climates have. They heat up their homes into the 70s if not 80s, and wear coats below 60F.

 

[brianman]

As opposed to car which is not getting more complex, pieces are not being added on, new functions are not suddenly required.

Huh? Perhaps you missed the addition of parking sensors, AP1, AP2, etc.

 

[Red Sage]

Huh? Perhaps you missed the addition of parking sensors, AP1, AP2, etc.

But not to the same car.

 

[PatrickCH4313]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the official stance from Tesla and Elon that July is their start of production target date/supplier readiness date and deliveries are still slated for "late 2017"?

Based on information in the "Auto Journal" (French automobile revue), Model 3 will not be available in France (and Europe ?) before 2019 with a starting price of 40'000 €!

 

[dsvick]

Huh? Perhaps you missed the addition of parking sensors, AP1, AP2, etc.

Yes, but they are only added during the development phase. It's not like software where things get added throughout the entire process. They didn't design the model 3, build release candidates, then decide to start adding entirely new things.

 

[brianman]

Yes, but they are only added during the development phase. It's not like software where things get added throughout the entire process. They didn't design the model 3, build release candidates, then decide to start adding entirely new things.

"Development phase"? Part of Tesla's "problem" with some customers (especially the low quantity but high anger posters on TMC) is that they seem to have never left "Development phase" for Model S in 4+ years. They are constantly changing hardware on a regular basis on the production line. You seem to have the impression the parts list for even a single specification ("S75" for example) has been "stable" over time. That is most definitely not the case.

It reminds me a lot of Sony VAIO where seemingly "same spec" machines have different model #s from one week to the next -- because the parts and overall composition are constantly in flux, even though the "spec sheet" didn't appear to move much.

 

[tomas]

Yes, but they are only added during the development phase. It's not like software where things get added throughout the entire process. They didn't design the model 3, build release candidates, then decide to start adding entirely new things.

I know this is OT, but if you use any kind of decent software processes, you are not adding features after design freeze.

 

[brianman]

I know this is OT, but if you use any kind of decent software processes, you are not adding features after design freeze.

You mean like features delivered via OTA updates? /confused

 

[internalaudit]

Tesla will likely produce at a faster rate what will end up in its employees' hands then slow down production while they await continuous feedback from these testers. It doesn't have a lot to lose when insiders provide constructive feedback and it might as well get as many guinea pigs asap and fix all issues iteratively.

Between production numbers and quality of cars released to the public (excluding employees), I'm sure Tesla will lean towards quality. They will not get penalized too much for slower delivery because apart from the Bolt, Ioniq and another Hyundai/Kia model, there really aren't any competitors in 2018/19 that will sway most of us to switching over to another brand. I sure won't go for the Bolt because I don't like the exterior styling and because it doesn't have AWD.

I will probably cause more cancellations if cars that come off the line are of poor quality. I sure would not push through with an order if the quality is crap just because they want to show they can meet their initial production numbers. My position is 72k something so I'm sure I won't get a M3 until early 2018 at the earliest but I don't mind waiting while Tesla improves on the succeeding batches.

Never had experience with Korean cars but I heard quality is getting pretty good. Honda is out of the race with the 80 mile Clarity and Toyota not until 2020 at the earliest. Our RAV4 Hybrid isn't sporty but it's been rock solid.