Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
-
OFSO
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 18724
- Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:39 pm
- Location: Teddington UK and Roses Catalunia
- Gender:
- Age: 80
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
As a child my parents would take me on holiday to the Scottish islands. There was a diesel electric paddle steamer. Diesels generated power for a huge motor set centrally, behind viewing windows, which drove a shaft with paddle wheels on each end. Different to the others, such as the Waverly, that had triple expansion horizontal steam engines.
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Gas-turbine engines for road vehicle were not a success when tried in the late 1960s.
Ford and Leyland installed GTs in trucks,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyland_2 ... as_turbine
but gas turbine engines operate most efficiently at constant output speed (i.e., constant rpm), they have not performed well as power units in automobiles and other devices requiring variable-speed shaft output.
A hybrid solution (as above) should work.
Ford and Leyland installed GTs in trucks,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyland_2 ... as_turbine
but gas turbine engines operate most efficiently at constant output speed (i.e., constant rpm), they have not performed well as power units in automobiles and other devices requiring variable-speed shaft output.
A hybrid solution (as above) should work.
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Ram electric pickup truck can go 500 miles on a charge, says Stellantis
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/business ... index.html
New York
CNN
—
Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares has said in the past that the company’s electric Ram pickup truck, while being later to the market than trucks from major competitors, would surpass them in range and capability. On Wednesday, the company put some specific numbers behind the CEO’s claims.
While final figures have yet to be announced, Stellantis expects the fully electric Ram 1500 REV pickup will be able to drive 500 miles on a single charge, much farther than either the Ford F-150 Lightning or General Motors’ Chevrolet Silverado 1500 EV and GMC Sierra EV. GM expects to get 400 miles of range from its electric trucks. Long-range versions of Ford’s Lightning can go up to 320 miles on a charge, according to EPA estimates. Tesla claims its Cybertruck will also have a maximum 500 miles of range, however.
The Ram REV will also be able to tow as much 14,000 pounds, according to Stellantis, a figure that matches Tesla’s claim for the Cybertruck. GM’s trucks will be able to pull a 10,000-pound trailer and Ford’s truck can pull a similar amount. GM has said that versions capable of towing 20,000 pounds will be available later on, though.
Electric motors have a lot of pulling power, which is good for towing heavy loads, but doing so can greatly diminish driving range. That’s one reason why having a lot of range can be an especially good thing in an electric truck. A (presumably less expensive) version of the Ram REV will also be offed with a range of up to 350 miles, according to Stellantis.
The pickup truck battle of numbers isn’t just limited to power and pulling, however. Even the “frunk,” or front trunk, will hold more than GM’s and Ford’s truck according to Stellantis. The Ram REV will have 15 cubic feet of storage space under its large hood, while Ford claims 14 cubic feet of frunk space in the Lightning and GM claims only nine cubic feet in the Chevrolet EV truck.
While acceleration is not ordinarily considered a key selling point for a pickup, Stellantis said the Ram REV will be able to go from zero to 60 miles an hour in about 4.4 seconds. That’s similar to what GM claims for its trucks. Car and Driver tested a high-end version of the Ford F-150 Lightning and found it can get to 60 miles an hour in a little under four seconds. Tesla claims its Cybertruck will be able go from zero to 60 miles an hour in under three seconds.
The Ram REV will be powered by two 250 kilowatt — or 335 horsepower — electric motors: one powering the front wheels, the other in the back. The truck’s total maximum power output will be 654 horsepower which, compared to even high-performance gas-powered trucks, is a lot. Even the Ram TRX, a pickup designed for high-speed desert driving, has a 702-horsepower V8 engine, only slightly more power than the Ram REV.
The Ram 1500 REV will go on sale late next year, by which time the Chevrolet, GM and Tesla trucks should already be on the market.
Tavares has previously said that another version of the truck will also be offered later with a gasoline engine that can be used to recharge the truck’s batteries as it drives. Essentially a plug-in hybrid, that truck will be for customers who aren’t ready to trust a fully electric truck.
While Tavares has, repeatedly, expressed skepticism that fully electric vehicles are the best way to address the global climate crisis — arguing that more affordable hybrid vehicles would be better — he has also said that Stellantis will compete in electric propulsion since that is what current regulations in major markets demand.
“I love racing. I love competition,” said Tavares, who is an amateur racing driver, at a recent event. “So if you define the frame of the competition with that kind of regulatory framework, I’m fine with competing.”
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/business ... index.html
New York
CNN
—
Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares has said in the past that the company’s electric Ram pickup truck, while being later to the market than trucks from major competitors, would surpass them in range and capability. On Wednesday, the company put some specific numbers behind the CEO’s claims.
While final figures have yet to be announced, Stellantis expects the fully electric Ram 1500 REV pickup will be able to drive 500 miles on a single charge, much farther than either the Ford F-150 Lightning or General Motors’ Chevrolet Silverado 1500 EV and GMC Sierra EV. GM expects to get 400 miles of range from its electric trucks. Long-range versions of Ford’s Lightning can go up to 320 miles on a charge, according to EPA estimates. Tesla claims its Cybertruck will also have a maximum 500 miles of range, however.
The Ram REV will also be able to tow as much 14,000 pounds, according to Stellantis, a figure that matches Tesla’s claim for the Cybertruck. GM’s trucks will be able to pull a 10,000-pound trailer and Ford’s truck can pull a similar amount. GM has said that versions capable of towing 20,000 pounds will be available later on, though.
Electric motors have a lot of pulling power, which is good for towing heavy loads, but doing so can greatly diminish driving range. That’s one reason why having a lot of range can be an especially good thing in an electric truck. A (presumably less expensive) version of the Ram REV will also be offed with a range of up to 350 miles, according to Stellantis.
The pickup truck battle of numbers isn’t just limited to power and pulling, however. Even the “frunk,” or front trunk, will hold more than GM’s and Ford’s truck according to Stellantis. The Ram REV will have 15 cubic feet of storage space under its large hood, while Ford claims 14 cubic feet of frunk space in the Lightning and GM claims only nine cubic feet in the Chevrolet EV truck.
While acceleration is not ordinarily considered a key selling point for a pickup, Stellantis said the Ram REV will be able to go from zero to 60 miles an hour in about 4.4 seconds. That’s similar to what GM claims for its trucks. Car and Driver tested a high-end version of the Ford F-150 Lightning and found it can get to 60 miles an hour in a little under four seconds. Tesla claims its Cybertruck will be able go from zero to 60 miles an hour in under three seconds.
The Ram REV will be powered by two 250 kilowatt — or 335 horsepower — electric motors: one powering the front wheels, the other in the back. The truck’s total maximum power output will be 654 horsepower which, compared to even high-performance gas-powered trucks, is a lot. Even the Ram TRX, a pickup designed for high-speed desert driving, has a 702-horsepower V8 engine, only slightly more power than the Ram REV.
The Ram 1500 REV will go on sale late next year, by which time the Chevrolet, GM and Tesla trucks should already be on the market.
Tavares has previously said that another version of the truck will also be offered later with a gasoline engine that can be used to recharge the truck’s batteries as it drives. Essentially a plug-in hybrid, that truck will be for customers who aren’t ready to trust a fully electric truck.
While Tavares has, repeatedly, expressed skepticism that fully electric vehicles are the best way to address the global climate crisis — arguing that more affordable hybrid vehicles would be better — he has also said that Stellantis will compete in electric propulsion since that is what current regulations in major markets demand.
“I love racing. I love competition,” said Tavares, who is an amateur racing driver, at a recent event. “So if you define the frame of the competition with that kind of regulatory framework, I’m fine with competing.”
PP
-
Fox3WheresMyBanana
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 13252
- Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
- Location: Great White North
- Gender:
- Age: 61
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
All of the electric truck range claims have been shown to be completely bogus in any kind of practical scenario, especially with real loads, towing, or cooler temperatures. EPA = Electric Promotion Agency
Examples posted by me earlier.
If you are driving an empty truck to work at Apple HQ in SoCal, they work. Otherwise, forget it.
Examples posted by me earlier.
If you are driving an empty truck to work at Apple HQ in SoCal, they work. Otherwise, forget it.
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
If my memory is correct, that was the system used on some Euclid mining trucks. I'm thinking of a 210 tonne one that ran amok while in test in Bougainville when I was there.llondel wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 3:18 pmI worked for a company that was developing electric traction for trucks. Wheels were driven by electric motors with a battery pack and a turbine generator to charge the battery as needed. That's probably the best way to integrate a turbine into a car, lets you benefit from the energy-recovery with the electric motors on braking, but also doesn't need a huge battery. Also very few moving parts compared to a piston engine so should be way more reliable.barkingmad wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 6:17 pmNice idea having a turbine engine for road vehicles, they might even run on peanut oil with a bit of development...
-
Fox3WheresMyBanana
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 13252
- Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
- Location: Great White North
- Gender:
- Age: 61
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Freezing rain leaves 1 million households in Quebec without power.
Now, imagine what happens if all the repair guys drive electric cars....
If all the essentials services personnel drive electric cars...
If all the public transport was electric....
Now, imagine what happens if all the repair guys drive electric cars....
If all the essentials services personnel drive electric cars...
If all the public transport was electric....
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars
Some of the camera footage showed "intimate" moments, images of Tesla owners' children or property — some of which was shared internally, Reuters reported.
Part 1
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... -rcna78502
Tesla assures its millions of electric car owners that their privacy “is and will always be enormously important to us.” The cameras it builds into vehicles to assist driving, it notes on its website, are “designed from the ground up to protect your privacy.”
But between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras, according to interviews by Reuters with nine former employees.
Some of the recordings caught Tesla customers in embarrassing situations. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked.
Also shared: crashes and road-rage incidents. One crash video in 2021 showed a Tesla driving at high speed in a residential area hitting a child riding a bike, according to another ex-employee. The child flew in one direction, the bike in another. The video spread around a Tesla office in San Mateo, California, via private one-on-one chats, “like wildfire,” the ex-employee said.
Other images were more mundane, such as pictures of dogs and funny road signs that employees made into memes by embellishing them with amusing captions or commentary, before posting them in private group chats. While some postings were only shared between two employees, others could be seen by scores of them, according to several ex-employees.
Tesla states in its online “Customer Privacy Notice” that its “camera recordings remain anonymous and are not linked to you or your vehicle.” But seven former employees told Reuters the computer program they used at work could show the location of recordings — which potentially could reveal where a Tesla owner lived.
One ex-employee also said that some recordings appeared to have been made when cars were parked and turned off. Several years ago, Tesla would receive video recordings from its vehicles even when they were off, if owners gave consent. It has since stopped doing so.
“We could see inside people’s garages and their private properties,” said another former employee. “Let’s say that a Tesla customer had something in their garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post those kinds of things.”
Tesla didn’t respond to detailed questions sent to the company for this report.
About three years ago, some employees stumbled upon and shared a video of a unique submersible vehicle parked inside a garage, according to two people who viewed it. Nicknamed “Wet Nellie,” the white Lotus Esprit sub had been featured in the 1977 James Bond film, “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
The vehicle’s owner: Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, who had bought it for about $968,000 at an auction in 2013. It is not clear whether Musk was aware of the video or that it had been shared.
Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment.
To report this story, Reuters contacted more than 300 former Tesla employees who had worked at the company over the past nine years and were involved in developing its self-driving system. More than a dozen agreed to answer questions, all speaking on condition of anonymity.
Reuters wasn’t able to obtain any of the shared videos or images, which ex-employees said they hadn’t kept. The news agency also wasn’t able to determine if the practice of sharing recordings, which occurred within some parts of Tesla as recently as last year, continues today or how widespread it was. Some former employees contacted said the only sharing they observed was for legitimate work purposes, such as seeking assistance from colleagues or supervisors.
Labeling pedestrians and street signs
The sharing of sensitive videos illustrates one of the less-noted features of artificial intelligence systems: They often require armies of human beings to help train machines to learn automated tasks such as driving.
Since about 2016, Tesla has employed hundreds of people in Africa and later the United States to label images to help its cars learn how to recognize pedestrians, street signs, construction vehicles, garage doors and other objects encountered on the road or at customers’ houses. To accomplish that, data labelers were given access to thousands of videos or images recorded by car cameras that they would view and identify objects.
Tesla increasingly has been automating the process, and shut down a data-labeling hub last year in San Mateo, California. But it continues to employ hundreds of data labelers in Buffalo, New York. In February, Tesla said the staff there had grown 54% over the previous six months to 675.
Two ex-employees said they weren’t bothered by the sharing of images, saying that customers had given their consent or that people long ago had given up any reasonable expectation of keeping personal data private. Three others, however, said they were troubled by it.
“It was a breach of privacy, to be honest. And I always joked that I would never buy a Tesla after seeing how they treated some of these people,” said one former employee.
Another said: “I’m bothered by it because the people who buy the car, I don’t think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected … We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids.”
One former employee saw nothing wrong with sharing images, but described a function that allowed data labelers to view the location of recordings on Google Maps as a “massive invasion of privacy.”
David Choffnes, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, called sharing of sensitive videos and images by Tesla employees “morally reprehensible.”
“Any normal human being would be appalled by this,” he said. He noted that circulating sensitive and personal content could be construed as a violation of Tesla’s own privacy policy — potentially resulting in intervention by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which enforces federal laws relating to consumers’ privacy.
A spokesperson for the FTC said it doesn’t comment on individual companies or their conduct.
To develop self-driving car technology, Tesla collects a vast trove of data from its global fleet of several million vehicles. The company requires car owners to grant permission on the cars’ touchscreens before Tesla collects their vehicles’ data. “Your Data Belongs to You,” states Tesla’s website.
In its Customer Privacy Notice, Tesla explains that if a customer agrees to share data, “your vehicle may collect the data and make it available to Tesla for analysis. This analysis helps Tesla improve its products, features, and diagnose problems quicker.” It also states that the data may include “short video clips or images,” but isn’t linked to a customer’s account or vehicle identification number, “and does not identify you personally.”
Carlo Piltz, a data privacy lawyer in Germany, told Reuters it would be difficult to find a legal justification under Europe’s data protection and privacy law for vehicle recordings to be circulated internally when it has “nothing to do with the provision of a safe or secure car or the functionality” of Tesla’s self-driving system.
In recent years, Tesla’s car-camera system has drawn controversy. In China, some government compounds and residential neighborhoods have banned Teslas because of concerns about its cameras. In response, Musk said in a virtual talk at a Chinese forum in 2021: “If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.”
Elsewhere, regulators have scrutinized the Tesla system over potential privacy violations. But the privacy cases have tended to focus not on the rights of Tesla owners but of passers-by unaware that they might be being recorded by parked Tesla vehicles.
In February, the Dutch Data Protection Authority, or DPA, said it had concluded an investigation of Tesla over possible privacy violations regarding “Sentry Mode,” a feature designed to record any suspicious activity when a car is parked and alert the owner.
“People who walked by these vehicles were filmed without knowing it. And the owners of the Teslas could go back and look at these images,” said DPA board member Katja Mur in a statement. “If a person parked one of these vehicles in front of someone’s window, they could spy inside and see everything the other person was doing. That is a serious violation of privacy.”
The watchdog determined it wasn’t Tesla, but the vehicles’ owners, who were legally responsible for their cars’ recordings. It said it decided not to fine the company after Tesla said it had made several changes to Sentry Mode, including having a vehicle’s headlights pulse to inform passers-by that they may be being recorded.
A DPA spokesperson declined to comment on Reuters findings, but said in an email: “Personal data must be used for a specific purpose, and sensitive personal data must be protected.”
PP
Some of the camera footage showed "intimate" moments, images of Tesla owners' children or property — some of which was shared internally, Reuters reported.
Part 1
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... -rcna78502
Tesla assures its millions of electric car owners that their privacy “is and will always be enormously important to us.” The cameras it builds into vehicles to assist driving, it notes on its website, are “designed from the ground up to protect your privacy.”
But between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras, according to interviews by Reuters with nine former employees.
Some of the recordings caught Tesla customers in embarrassing situations. One ex-employee described a video of a man approaching a vehicle completely naked.
Also shared: crashes and road-rage incidents. One crash video in 2021 showed a Tesla driving at high speed in a residential area hitting a child riding a bike, according to another ex-employee. The child flew in one direction, the bike in another. The video spread around a Tesla office in San Mateo, California, via private one-on-one chats, “like wildfire,” the ex-employee said.
Other images were more mundane, such as pictures of dogs and funny road signs that employees made into memes by embellishing them with amusing captions or commentary, before posting them in private group chats. While some postings were only shared between two employees, others could be seen by scores of them, according to several ex-employees.
Tesla states in its online “Customer Privacy Notice” that its “camera recordings remain anonymous and are not linked to you or your vehicle.” But seven former employees told Reuters the computer program they used at work could show the location of recordings — which potentially could reveal where a Tesla owner lived.
One ex-employee also said that some recordings appeared to have been made when cars were parked and turned off. Several years ago, Tesla would receive video recordings from its vehicles even when they were off, if owners gave consent. It has since stopped doing so.
“We could see inside people’s garages and their private properties,” said another former employee. “Let’s say that a Tesla customer had something in their garage that was distinctive, you know, people would post those kinds of things.”
Tesla didn’t respond to detailed questions sent to the company for this report.
About three years ago, some employees stumbled upon and shared a video of a unique submersible vehicle parked inside a garage, according to two people who viewed it. Nicknamed “Wet Nellie,” the white Lotus Esprit sub had been featured in the 1977 James Bond film, “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
The vehicle’s owner: Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, who had bought it for about $968,000 at an auction in 2013. It is not clear whether Musk was aware of the video or that it had been shared.
Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment.
To report this story, Reuters contacted more than 300 former Tesla employees who had worked at the company over the past nine years and were involved in developing its self-driving system. More than a dozen agreed to answer questions, all speaking on condition of anonymity.
Reuters wasn’t able to obtain any of the shared videos or images, which ex-employees said they hadn’t kept. The news agency also wasn’t able to determine if the practice of sharing recordings, which occurred within some parts of Tesla as recently as last year, continues today or how widespread it was. Some former employees contacted said the only sharing they observed was for legitimate work purposes, such as seeking assistance from colleagues or supervisors.
Labeling pedestrians and street signs
The sharing of sensitive videos illustrates one of the less-noted features of artificial intelligence systems: They often require armies of human beings to help train machines to learn automated tasks such as driving.
Since about 2016, Tesla has employed hundreds of people in Africa and later the United States to label images to help its cars learn how to recognize pedestrians, street signs, construction vehicles, garage doors and other objects encountered on the road or at customers’ houses. To accomplish that, data labelers were given access to thousands of videos or images recorded by car cameras that they would view and identify objects.
Tesla increasingly has been automating the process, and shut down a data-labeling hub last year in San Mateo, California. But it continues to employ hundreds of data labelers in Buffalo, New York. In February, Tesla said the staff there had grown 54% over the previous six months to 675.
Two ex-employees said they weren’t bothered by the sharing of images, saying that customers had given their consent or that people long ago had given up any reasonable expectation of keeping personal data private. Three others, however, said they were troubled by it.
“It was a breach of privacy, to be honest. And I always joked that I would never buy a Tesla after seeing how they treated some of these people,” said one former employee.
Another said: “I’m bothered by it because the people who buy the car, I don’t think they know that their privacy is, like, not respected … We could see them doing laundry and really intimate things. We could see their kids.”
One former employee saw nothing wrong with sharing images, but described a function that allowed data labelers to view the location of recordings on Google Maps as a “massive invasion of privacy.”
David Choffnes, executive director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute at Northeastern University in Boston, called sharing of sensitive videos and images by Tesla employees “morally reprehensible.”
“Any normal human being would be appalled by this,” he said. He noted that circulating sensitive and personal content could be construed as a violation of Tesla’s own privacy policy — potentially resulting in intervention by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which enforces federal laws relating to consumers’ privacy.
A spokesperson for the FTC said it doesn’t comment on individual companies or their conduct.
To develop self-driving car technology, Tesla collects a vast trove of data from its global fleet of several million vehicles. The company requires car owners to grant permission on the cars’ touchscreens before Tesla collects their vehicles’ data. “Your Data Belongs to You,” states Tesla’s website.
In its Customer Privacy Notice, Tesla explains that if a customer agrees to share data, “your vehicle may collect the data and make it available to Tesla for analysis. This analysis helps Tesla improve its products, features, and diagnose problems quicker.” It also states that the data may include “short video clips or images,” but isn’t linked to a customer’s account or vehicle identification number, “and does not identify you personally.”
Carlo Piltz, a data privacy lawyer in Germany, told Reuters it would be difficult to find a legal justification under Europe’s data protection and privacy law for vehicle recordings to be circulated internally when it has “nothing to do with the provision of a safe or secure car or the functionality” of Tesla’s self-driving system.
In recent years, Tesla’s car-camera system has drawn controversy. In China, some government compounds and residential neighborhoods have banned Teslas because of concerns about its cameras. In response, Musk said in a virtual talk at a Chinese forum in 2021: “If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down.”
Elsewhere, regulators have scrutinized the Tesla system over potential privacy violations. But the privacy cases have tended to focus not on the rights of Tesla owners but of passers-by unaware that they might be being recorded by parked Tesla vehicles.
In February, the Dutch Data Protection Authority, or DPA, said it had concluded an investigation of Tesla over possible privacy violations regarding “Sentry Mode,” a feature designed to record any suspicious activity when a car is parked and alert the owner.
“People who walked by these vehicles were filmed without knowing it. And the owners of the Teslas could go back and look at these images,” said DPA board member Katja Mur in a statement. “If a person parked one of these vehicles in front of someone’s window, they could spy inside and see everything the other person was doing. That is a serious violation of privacy.”
The watchdog determined it wasn’t Tesla, but the vehicles’ owners, who were legally responsible for their cars’ recordings. It said it decided not to fine the company after Tesla said it had made several changes to Sentry Mode, including having a vehicle’s headlights pulse to inform passers-by that they may be being recorded.
A DPA spokesperson declined to comment on Reuters findings, but said in an email: “Personal data must be used for a specific purpose, and sensitive personal data must be protected.”
PP
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars
Some of the camera footage showed "intimate" moments, images of Tesla owners' children or property — some of which was shared internally, Reuters reported.
Part 2
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... -rcna78502
Replacing human drivers
Tesla calls its automated driving system Autopilot. Introduced in 2015, the system included such advanced features as allowing drivers to change lanes by tapping a turn signal and parallel parking on command. To make the system work, Tesla initially installed sonar sensors, radar and a single front-facing camera at the top of the windshield. A subsequent version, introduced in 2016, included eight cameras all around the car to collect more data and offer more capabilities.
Musk’s future vision is eventually to offer a “Full Self-Driving” mode that would replace a human driver. Tesla began rolling out an experimental version of that mode in October 2020. Although it requires drivers to keep their hands on the wheel, it currently offers such features as the ability to slow a car down automatically when it approaches stop signs or traffic lights.
In February, Tesla recalled more than 362,000 U.S. vehicles to update their Full Self-Driving software after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it could allow vehicles to exceed speed limits and potentially cause crashes at intersections.
As with many artificial-intelligence projects, to develop Autopilot, Tesla hired data labelers to identify objects in images and videos to teach the system how to respond when the vehicle was on the road or parked.
Tesla initially outsourced data labeling to a San Francisco-based non-profit then known as Samasource, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The organization had an office in Nairobi, Kenya, and specialized in offering training and employment opportunities to disadvantaged women and youth.
In 2016, Samasource was providing about 400 workers there for Tesla, up from about an initial 20, according to a person familiar with the matter.
By 2019, however, Tesla was no longer satisfied with the work of Samasource’s data labelers. At an event called Tesla AI Day in 2021, Andrej Karpathy, then senior director of AI at Tesla, said: “Unfortunately, we found very quickly that working with a third party to get data sets for something this critical was just not going to cut it … Honestly the quality was not amazing.”
A former Tesla employee said of the Samasource labelers: “They would highlight fire hydrants as pedestrians … They would miss objects all the time. Their skill level to draw boxes was very low.”
Samasource, now called Sama, declined to comment on its work for Tesla.
Tesla decided to bring data labeling in-house. “Over time, we’ve grown to more than a 1,000-person data labeling (organization) that is full of professional labelers who are working very closely with the engineers,” Karpathy said in his August 2021 presentation.
Karpathy didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tesla’s own data labelers initially worked in the San Francisco Bay area, including the office in San Mateo. Groups of data labelers were assigned a variety of different tasks, including labeling street lane lines or emergency vehicles, ex-employees said.
At one point, Teslas on Autopilot were having difficulty backing out of garages and would get confused when encountering shadows or objects such as garden hoses. So some data labelers were asked to identify objects in videos recorded inside garages. The problem eventually was solved.
In interviews, two former employees said in their normal work duties they were sometimes asked to view images of customers in and around their homes, including inside garages.
“I sometimes wondered if these people know that we’re seeing that,” said one.
“I saw some scandalous stuff sometimes, you know, like I did see scenes of intimacy but not nudity,” said another. “And there was just definitely a lot of stuff that like, I wouldn’t want anybody to see about my life.”
As an example, this person recalled seeing “embarrassing objects,” such as “certain pieces of laundry, certain sexual wellness items … and just private scenes of life that we really were privy to because the car was charging.”
Memes in the San Mateo office
Tesla staffed its San Mateo office with mostly young workers, in their 20s and early 30s, who brought with them a culture that prized entertaining memes and viral online content. Former staffers described a free-wheeling atmosphere in chat rooms with workers exchanging jokes about images they viewed while labeling.
According to several ex-employees, some labelers shared screenshots, sometimes marked up using Adobe Photoshop, in private group chats on Mattermost, Tesla’s internal messaging system. There they would attract responses from other workers and managers. Participants would also add their own marked-up images, jokes or emojis to keep the conversation going. Some of the emojis were custom-created to reference office inside jokes, several ex-employees said.
One former labeler described sharing images as a way to “break the monotony.” Another described how the sharing won admiration from peers.
“If you saw something cool that would get a reaction, you post it, right, and then later, on break, people would come up to you and say, ‘Oh, I saw what you posted. That was funny,’” said this former labeler. “People who got promoted to lead positions shared a lot of these funny items and gained notoriety for being funny.”
Some of the shared content resembled memes on the internet. There were dogs, interesting cars, and clips of people recorded by Tesla cameras tripping and falling. There was also disturbing content, such as someone being dragged into a car seemingly against their will, said one ex-employee.
Video clips of crashes involving Teslas were also sometimes shared in private chats on Mattermost, several former employees said. Those included examples of people driving badly or collisions involving people struck while riding bikes — such as the one with the child — or a motorcycle. Some data labelers would rewind such clips and play them in slow motion.
At times, Tesla managers would crack down on inappropriate sharing of images on public Mattermost channels since they claimed the practice violated company policy. Still, screenshots and memes based on them continued to circulate through private chats on the platform, several ex-employees said. Workers shared them one-on-one or in small groups as recently as the middle of last year.
One of the perks of working for Tesla as a data labeler in San Mateo was the chance to win a prize — use of a company car for a day or two, according to two former employees.
But some of the lucky winners became paranoid when driving the electric cars.
“Knowing how much data those vehicles are capable of collecting definitely made folks nervous,” one ex-employee said.
PP
Some of the camera footage showed "intimate" moments, images of Tesla owners' children or property — some of which was shared internally, Reuters reported.
Part 2
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... -rcna78502
Replacing human drivers
Tesla calls its automated driving system Autopilot. Introduced in 2015, the system included such advanced features as allowing drivers to change lanes by tapping a turn signal and parallel parking on command. To make the system work, Tesla initially installed sonar sensors, radar and a single front-facing camera at the top of the windshield. A subsequent version, introduced in 2016, included eight cameras all around the car to collect more data and offer more capabilities.
Musk’s future vision is eventually to offer a “Full Self-Driving” mode that would replace a human driver. Tesla began rolling out an experimental version of that mode in October 2020. Although it requires drivers to keep their hands on the wheel, it currently offers such features as the ability to slow a car down automatically when it approaches stop signs or traffic lights.
In February, Tesla recalled more than 362,000 U.S. vehicles to update their Full Self-Driving software after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it could allow vehicles to exceed speed limits and potentially cause crashes at intersections.
As with many artificial-intelligence projects, to develop Autopilot, Tesla hired data labelers to identify objects in images and videos to teach the system how to respond when the vehicle was on the road or parked.
Tesla initially outsourced data labeling to a San Francisco-based non-profit then known as Samasource, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The organization had an office in Nairobi, Kenya, and specialized in offering training and employment opportunities to disadvantaged women and youth.
In 2016, Samasource was providing about 400 workers there for Tesla, up from about an initial 20, according to a person familiar with the matter.
By 2019, however, Tesla was no longer satisfied with the work of Samasource’s data labelers. At an event called Tesla AI Day in 2021, Andrej Karpathy, then senior director of AI at Tesla, said: “Unfortunately, we found very quickly that working with a third party to get data sets for something this critical was just not going to cut it … Honestly the quality was not amazing.”
A former Tesla employee said of the Samasource labelers: “They would highlight fire hydrants as pedestrians … They would miss objects all the time. Their skill level to draw boxes was very low.”
Samasource, now called Sama, declined to comment on its work for Tesla.
Tesla decided to bring data labeling in-house. “Over time, we’ve grown to more than a 1,000-person data labeling (organization) that is full of professional labelers who are working very closely with the engineers,” Karpathy said in his August 2021 presentation.
Karpathy didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tesla’s own data labelers initially worked in the San Francisco Bay area, including the office in San Mateo. Groups of data labelers were assigned a variety of different tasks, including labeling street lane lines or emergency vehicles, ex-employees said.
At one point, Teslas on Autopilot were having difficulty backing out of garages and would get confused when encountering shadows or objects such as garden hoses. So some data labelers were asked to identify objects in videos recorded inside garages. The problem eventually was solved.
In interviews, two former employees said in their normal work duties they were sometimes asked to view images of customers in and around their homes, including inside garages.
“I sometimes wondered if these people know that we’re seeing that,” said one.
“I saw some scandalous stuff sometimes, you know, like I did see scenes of intimacy but not nudity,” said another. “And there was just definitely a lot of stuff that like, I wouldn’t want anybody to see about my life.”
As an example, this person recalled seeing “embarrassing objects,” such as “certain pieces of laundry, certain sexual wellness items … and just private scenes of life that we really were privy to because the car was charging.”
Memes in the San Mateo office
Tesla staffed its San Mateo office with mostly young workers, in their 20s and early 30s, who brought with them a culture that prized entertaining memes and viral online content. Former staffers described a free-wheeling atmosphere in chat rooms with workers exchanging jokes about images they viewed while labeling.
According to several ex-employees, some labelers shared screenshots, sometimes marked up using Adobe Photoshop, in private group chats on Mattermost, Tesla’s internal messaging system. There they would attract responses from other workers and managers. Participants would also add their own marked-up images, jokes or emojis to keep the conversation going. Some of the emojis were custom-created to reference office inside jokes, several ex-employees said.
One former labeler described sharing images as a way to “break the monotony.” Another described how the sharing won admiration from peers.
“If you saw something cool that would get a reaction, you post it, right, and then later, on break, people would come up to you and say, ‘Oh, I saw what you posted. That was funny,’” said this former labeler. “People who got promoted to lead positions shared a lot of these funny items and gained notoriety for being funny.”
Some of the shared content resembled memes on the internet. There were dogs, interesting cars, and clips of people recorded by Tesla cameras tripping and falling. There was also disturbing content, such as someone being dragged into a car seemingly against their will, said one ex-employee.
Video clips of crashes involving Teslas were also sometimes shared in private chats on Mattermost, several former employees said. Those included examples of people driving badly or collisions involving people struck while riding bikes — such as the one with the child — or a motorcycle. Some data labelers would rewind such clips and play them in slow motion.
At times, Tesla managers would crack down on inappropriate sharing of images on public Mattermost channels since they claimed the practice violated company policy. Still, screenshots and memes based on them continued to circulate through private chats on the platform, several ex-employees said. Workers shared them one-on-one or in small groups as recently as the middle of last year.
One of the perks of working for Tesla as a data labeler in San Mateo was the chance to win a prize — use of a company car for a day or two, according to two former employees.
But some of the lucky winners became paranoid when driving the electric cars.
“Knowing how much data those vehicles are capable of collecting definitely made folks nervous,” one ex-employee said.
PP
-
barkingmad
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 5497
- Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2015 9:13 pm
- Location: Another Planet
- Gender:
- Age: 75
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Fairy huff Ilondel, but I await the reaction of the urban residents who have to endure the sounds of multiple miniature APUs shrieking away and vomiting peanut or chip fat fumes into the leafy streets of Islington and Chelsea.
Sooner, but alas probably later, Homo ‘sapiens’ is going to wake up to this massive con, but not before taxpayers’ dosh has been squandered on the net-zero and EVs fictional script.
Sooner, but alas probably later, Homo ‘sapiens’ is going to wake up to this massive con, but not before taxpayers’ dosh has been squandered on the net-zero and EVs fictional script.
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
I generally approve of much of what we've had so far - solar panels got cheap enough that my electric bill went down by over 90% once I had some installed. They'll have paid for themselves in another year or so. Encouraging cars and appliances to be more efficient means I save money on running costs, also a good thing. I'd like an electric vehicle for driving around town - if I get stuck in a traffic jam it's not wasting fuel while the engine is running. However, I'd still keep a petrol car for driving long distances beyond the range of an EV. I think that's where we'll see the split eventually, EVs to be encouraged for driving in cities so the air pollution is moved off to power stations where it's easier to deal with, and ICE vehicles for longer distance.barkingmad wrote: ↑Fri Apr 07, 2023 7:58 amFairy huff Ilondel, but I await the reaction of the urban residents who have to endure the sounds of multiple miniature APUs shrieking away and vomiting peanut or chip fat fumes into the leafy streets of Islington and Chelsea.
Sooner, but alas probably later, Homo ‘sapiens’ is going to wake up to this massive con, but not before taxpayers’ dosh has been squandered on the net-zero and EVs fictional script.
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
I think that the serial/plug-in hybrid concept is the way to go. Similar to how ships are now powered. The engines simply run generators which provide electrical power for propulsion and shipboard use.
The addition of batteries for everyday commuter driving need not have the capacity for long range, just around town ~50-60 miles.
PP
The addition of batteries for everyday commuter driving need not have the capacity for long range, just around town ~50-60 miles.
PP
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Wonder if Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault are using battery powered auxiliary generators to keep their houses, in Quebec, warm while waiting for Hydro Quebec to restore power.Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 3:33 pmFreezing rain leaves 1 million households in Quebec without power.
Now, imagine what happens if all the repair guys drive electric cars....
If all the essentials services personnel drive electric cars...
If all the public transport was electric....
Because they stand on the wall and say "nothing's gonna hurt you tonight, not on my watch".
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Yes, I like the serial hybrid too, has all sorts of benefits compared to other solutions - if you've got a fuel-burning engine in there somewhere then it can be set to run at its most efficient, you can recover energy on braking into the battery for re-use, if idle you're not wasting fuel. If your engine breaks down then you've still got some miles in the battery to get you somewhere.PHXPhlyer wrote: ↑Fri Apr 07, 2023 6:19 pmI think that the serial/plug-in hybrid concept is the way to go. Similar to how ships are now powered. The engines simply run generators which provide electrical power for propulsion and shipboard use.
The addition of batteries for everyday commuter driving need not have the capacity for long range, just around town ~50-60 miles.
-
Fox3WheresMyBanana
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 13252
- Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
- Location: Great White North
- Gender:
- Age: 61
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Whilst in ideal situations I agree with you, the fact is you are carting around 2 power systems, both of which can fail, and in different ways, and both of which need maintenance.
That's not to say that certain hybrid systems can't be optimal in certain situations, but equally it would be wrong, statistically as well as mechanically, to assume that more systems are better.
One huge factor is that problem resolution (including repairs) is typically massively underestimated by all the fanboys. Try getting your Tesla repaired around here right now, and I can assure you it won't happen for months, and will cost the Earth when it does.
I drive the same vehicle my local one-shed mechanic does, down to year and model. So do half the other guys around here. Heck, more than half of them are even the same color. My maintenance is almost instant and costs peanuts. It's that simple.
That's not to say that certain hybrid systems can't be optimal in certain situations, but equally it would be wrong, statistically as well as mechanically, to assume that more systems are better.
One huge factor is that problem resolution (including repairs) is typically massively underestimated by all the fanboys. Try getting your Tesla repaired around here right now, and I can assure you it won't happen for months, and will cost the Earth when it does.
I drive the same vehicle my local one-shed mechanic does, down to year and model. So do half the other guys around here. Heck, more than half of them are even the same color. My maintenance is almost instant and costs peanuts. It's that simple.
-
OFSO
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 18724
- Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:39 pm
- Location: Teddington UK and Roses Catalunia
- Gender:
- Age: 80
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Much the same here with Ford. On the rare occasions (one per car lifetime) I need a spare part, and the rarer occasions the main agent hasn't got it in, its 24hrs up from the factory in Valencia.
-
OFSO
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 18724
- Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:39 pm
- Location: Teddington UK and Roses Catalunia
- Gender:
- Age: 80
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Choose My Car ranked EVs by comparing their prices as new in 2020 against their value now, based on the average price of cars listed by private sellers or car dealers.
The used car buying service, which works with more than 2,500 dealerships, also compared popular car-buying websites to look at a buy now price.
It said EVs had depreciated ‘at a staggering rate’ that has seen them lose more than half their value in just three years on average.
The study showed that on average EVs will lose 51 per cent of their purchase value from 2020 to 2023 versus 37 per cent for petrol vehicles.
This equates to a massive £15,220 loss for EV owners, while petrol vehicles lose £9,901.
And it found the higher the original purchase, the bigger the loss, with the Tesla Model S losing an enormous £25,000 in value in just three years.
Choose My Car founder Nick Zapolski, said: ‘Our research shows yet another blow for EV owners, on top of many other issues that have come to light recently.
‘Not only are the EVs themselves not holding value, the price of electricity itself has zoomed up, meaning running the cars is not as economical as it once was.
‘Home chargepoints are expensive to install – if you even have the necessary driveway to allow that – and there has been an uproar about the availability and reliability of public chargepoints.
‘On top of that, recent decisions made by the government mean that some of the initial incentives to encourage EV ownership are being discontinued, such as lower tax and free entry into Ulez zones.
‘The government really needs to take action if it wants to continue to push the idea of EVs on to the consumer, as currently the cons of EV ownership threaten to outweigh the pros.’
The used car buying service, which works with more than 2,500 dealerships, also compared popular car-buying websites to look at a buy now price.
It said EVs had depreciated ‘at a staggering rate’ that has seen them lose more than half their value in just three years on average.
The study showed that on average EVs will lose 51 per cent of their purchase value from 2020 to 2023 versus 37 per cent for petrol vehicles.
This equates to a massive £15,220 loss for EV owners, while petrol vehicles lose £9,901.
And it found the higher the original purchase, the bigger the loss, with the Tesla Model S losing an enormous £25,000 in value in just three years.
Choose My Car founder Nick Zapolski, said: ‘Our research shows yet another blow for EV owners, on top of many other issues that have come to light recently.
‘Not only are the EVs themselves not holding value, the price of electricity itself has zoomed up, meaning running the cars is not as economical as it once was.
‘Home chargepoints are expensive to install – if you even have the necessary driveway to allow that – and there has been an uproar about the availability and reliability of public chargepoints.
‘On top of that, recent decisions made by the government mean that some of the initial incentives to encourage EV ownership are being discontinued, such as lower tax and free entry into Ulez zones.
‘The government really needs to take action if it wants to continue to push the idea of EVs on to the consumer, as currently the cons of EV ownership threaten to outweigh the pros.’
-
Fox3WheresMyBanana
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 13252
- Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
- Location: Great White North
- Gender:
- Age: 61
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Who is going to buy one now there is enough info on the difficulty and cost of maintenance, insurance, and depreciation to regard such info as mainstream?
A lot fewer people than is needed to keep the conversion going.
Now, it's one per 36.
And that's something wholly under government control that doesn't need incentives to the public.
I haven't heard of a single scheme to provide, or even permit, on-street charging for those residents with no off-street parking.
Nevermind the likelihood of the cables being nicked for the copper within hours.
I think the EV paradigm change is a dead man walking, frankly.
A lot fewer people than is needed to keep the conversion going.
Two years ago in the UK, there was one public charging point per 31 EVs.and there has been an uproar about the availability and reliability of public chargepoints.
Now, it's one per 36.
And that's something wholly under government control that doesn't need incentives to the public.
I haven't heard of a single scheme to provide, or even permit, on-street charging for those residents with no off-street parking.
Nevermind the likelihood of the cables being nicked for the copper within hours.
I think the EV paradigm change is a dead man walking, frankly.
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
Just wait until everyone has an electric helicopter in their garage!
Been in data comm since we formed the bits individually with a Morse key.
-
Fox3WheresMyBanana
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 13252
- Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2015 9:51 pm
- Location: Great White North
- Gender:
- Age: 61
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
That has been included in the New Year's Future Prediction for The Next Decade since about 1955.
A bit like Nuclear Fusion - the date when we all have it is always 10 years longer than it was 10 years ago
A bit like Nuclear Fusion - the date when we all have it is always 10 years longer than it was 10 years ago
Re: Electric Cars II - Not Silly!
You can make your Mercedes EV go faster for $60 a month
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/business ... index.html
CNN
—
Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle owners in North America who want a little more power and speed can now buy 60 horsepower for just $60 a month or, on other models, 80 horsepower for $90 a month.
They won’t have to visit a Mercedes dealer to get the upgrade either, or even leave their own driveway. The added power, which will provide a nearly one second decrease in zero-to-60 acceleration, will be available through an over-the-air software patch.
Buyers can bypass the monthly subscription completely however, and opt for an annual subscription payment or simply pay a one-time flat fee. For instance, a buyer could take an all-wheel-drive Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 sedan from its standard 288 horsepower to 348 permanently for $1,950.
These upgrades are a booming business for car companies. Mercedes is not alone in offering upgrades, or even new features, through over-the-air updates, similar the way software and capabilities can be added on phones. Tesla has offered additional driving assistance features and even added range through software downloads. In some markets, BMW has offered heated seats as a downloable add-on.
Various automakers have touted the potential for recurring revenue from subscription features like this. General Motors chief executive Mary Barra has said she hopes for GM to bring in as much as $20 billion to $25 billion annually from subscriptions by 2030. Stellantis has also said it plans to generate billions of dollars from subscriptions. Mercedes executives have said in the past they expect the German luxury automaker to make more than $1 billion annually from software subscriptions.
The power-unleashing software upgrades are available through the Mercedes Me online store in the vehicles. The power upgrade subscription is offered only in the US currently – laws in other countries forbid changes to the vehicle’s powertrain after it’s been purchased. The upgrades do not change how far the vehicles can drive on a charge, according to Mercedes, assuming normal driving.
Subscription upgrades like this would never allow owners of entry- or mid-level models to approach the power levels of more expensive upper-level models, said Markus Rossmann, manager for connected car and digital sales at Mercedes-Benz USA. The owner of a 516-horsepower Mercedes EQS 580 needn’t worry that a neighbor’s EQS 450 might go faster
Features that are already available on a subscription basis from the automaker include navigation, remote start, theft and damage notification, and “valet model” that temporarily reduces peak horsepower and locks out private data screens. These feature are included in a separate single package that can be purchased on an annual or monthly basis.
The availability of downloadable upgrades and features allows Mercedes customers to continuously customize their vehicles to fit changing needs and preferences, Mercedes said in an announcement.
In this case, for instance, someone might decide to just try out the extra 60 horsepower for a month or two to see if there’s any notable difference. They could drop it if they decide reaching highway speeds in six seconds, instead of 5.1 seconds, was good enough.
But automakers need to be careful not to turn off customers by charging extra for capabilities that the vehicles, physically, had to begin with, like powerful motors. Customers might see that as “a bit of a cheat,” said Alistair Weaver, editor-in-chief at Edmunds.com.
“I bought the vehicle and it’s capable of ‘X’ but in order to realize it, I’ve got to pay extra for it,” he said.
Mercedes draws the line at features for which there are physical buttons inside the car, like heated seats, said Rossmann. Mercedes never wants customers to press a button and get an annoying “Subscribe for use” pop-up on the center screen.
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/27/business ... index.html
CNN
—
Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle owners in North America who want a little more power and speed can now buy 60 horsepower for just $60 a month or, on other models, 80 horsepower for $90 a month.
They won’t have to visit a Mercedes dealer to get the upgrade either, or even leave their own driveway. The added power, which will provide a nearly one second decrease in zero-to-60 acceleration, will be available through an over-the-air software patch.
Buyers can bypass the monthly subscription completely however, and opt for an annual subscription payment or simply pay a one-time flat fee. For instance, a buyer could take an all-wheel-drive Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 sedan from its standard 288 horsepower to 348 permanently for $1,950.
These upgrades are a booming business for car companies. Mercedes is not alone in offering upgrades, or even new features, through over-the-air updates, similar the way software and capabilities can be added on phones. Tesla has offered additional driving assistance features and even added range through software downloads. In some markets, BMW has offered heated seats as a downloable add-on.
Various automakers have touted the potential for recurring revenue from subscription features like this. General Motors chief executive Mary Barra has said she hopes for GM to bring in as much as $20 billion to $25 billion annually from subscriptions by 2030. Stellantis has also said it plans to generate billions of dollars from subscriptions. Mercedes executives have said in the past they expect the German luxury automaker to make more than $1 billion annually from software subscriptions.
The power-unleashing software upgrades are available through the Mercedes Me online store in the vehicles. The power upgrade subscription is offered only in the US currently – laws in other countries forbid changes to the vehicle’s powertrain after it’s been purchased. The upgrades do not change how far the vehicles can drive on a charge, according to Mercedes, assuming normal driving.
Subscription upgrades like this would never allow owners of entry- or mid-level models to approach the power levels of more expensive upper-level models, said Markus Rossmann, manager for connected car and digital sales at Mercedes-Benz USA. The owner of a 516-horsepower Mercedes EQS 580 needn’t worry that a neighbor’s EQS 450 might go faster
Features that are already available on a subscription basis from the automaker include navigation, remote start, theft and damage notification, and “valet model” that temporarily reduces peak horsepower and locks out private data screens. These feature are included in a separate single package that can be purchased on an annual or monthly basis.
The availability of downloadable upgrades and features allows Mercedes customers to continuously customize their vehicles to fit changing needs and preferences, Mercedes said in an announcement.
In this case, for instance, someone might decide to just try out the extra 60 horsepower for a month or two to see if there’s any notable difference. They could drop it if they decide reaching highway speeds in six seconds, instead of 5.1 seconds, was good enough.
But automakers need to be careful not to turn off customers by charging extra for capabilities that the vehicles, physically, had to begin with, like powerful motors. Customers might see that as “a bit of a cheat,” said Alistair Weaver, editor-in-chief at Edmunds.com.
“I bought the vehicle and it’s capable of ‘X’ but in order to realize it, I’ve got to pay extra for it,” he said.
Mercedes draws the line at features for which there are physical buttons inside the car, like heated seats, said Rossmann. Mercedes never wants customers to press a button and get an annoying “Subscribe for use” pop-up on the center screen.
PP