The latest auto survey from Consumer Reports shows several newer electric cars to be beset with problems, contradicting the conventional wisdom that EVs with their simpler powertrains should have fewer issues than gasoline- or diesel-powered cars. The CR reader survey harvested data on some 329,000 vehicles and specifically calls out the Audi E-Tron, the Kia Niro EV, and the Tesla Model Y.
The E-Tron is dinged for “drive-system electrical failures along with other power-equipment issues.” The Niro EV’s problems reportedly included electric-motor bearing failure. The Tesla suffers a panoply of build-quality issues include misaligned body panels and poor paint quality. Both Audi and Kia claimed to be aware of the issues. For now, though, CR has removed the E-Tron and the Niro EV from its Recommended list (which is based on vehicle test results as well as reliability). The Model Y was not on the Recommended list.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
In this photo provided by the Corvallis Police Department, emergency personnel pick up batteries at the scene where a man crashed a Tesla while going about 100 mph, destroying the vehicle, a power pole and starting a fire when some of the hundreds of batteries from the vehicle broke windows and landed in residences in Corvallis, Ore., on Tuesday
h/t Greg
Margin Of Soros
Merely a coincidence: Dominion Voting shares office with far-left George Soros linked group
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords
Humans are simply not good at passing off 80-plus percent of a task and then staying alert to monitor what’s going on, which is what Autopilot demands. Since Level 2 systems offer no failover capability and need a human to be ready to take over at any moment, if you’re not paying constant attention, the wreck we see here is precisely the kind of worst-case nightmare that can happen.
It’s not just me saying this; experts have long known about how shitty people are at “vigilance tasks” like these for decades. Imagine having a chauffeur that had been driving you for hours, and then sees something on the road he doesn’t feel like dealing with, so, he jumps into the back seat and tells you it’s your job to handle it now.
You’d fire that chauffeur. And yet that’s exactly what Autopilot is doing here.
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords
A Tesla test drive in drunk mode.
Shut Up And Turn Over That Plastic Straw Before Somebody Gets Hurt
Just had several unmistakable Starlinks come straight thru the middle of 10 minutes of exposure ruining every single one. pic.twitter.com/xB26lreMzO
— Doug Ellison (@doug_ellison) July 22, 2020
Subsidy Fraud KABOOM
Witness the 3rd consecutive unintentional failure of an article intended for flight in @elonmusk's "Starship" program, which originated amidst embezzlement for Tunnels in 2018.
All calculated before hand here, because of physics.#tsla #spacex 📽️ @bocachicagal pic.twitter.com/hJJxjd6n7o
— EVent Horizon (@evdefender) April 3, 2020
Full thread here.
And another: The thing that absolutely blows my mind: Any engineer in college should be able to figure this out. And any rigorous industry would do root-cause analysis and determine a reason for all these continued failures is low quality (both in worksmanship and material selection).
Related: He promised life-saving ventilators. He delivered sleep apnea machines.