Electric Cars Not Yet Viable

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 04:42, bitrex wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex  wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
   the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a
reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine.  I have talked about this with folks
from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp
outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more
hassle... at least I guess so.  They talk about totally different wiring
methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current
240 volt outlets aren't so easy.  On the other hand, they tend to drive
shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much.  The 3 kW
available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3...
assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US.  Can someone
confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries
and higher mileage.  I don't know the names, but they seem to work well
according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling or per
apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as compared to the
US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a neighborhood

Correct.

My house has four wires (three phases plus neutral) on poles
going down the street. Each house has two wires from those
poles, and neighbouring houses have different phases. Protective
mains earth is literally that.

More recent properties (mine was built in 1930, just before
mains equipment standardised) have underground supplies.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 03:05, bitrex wrote:

On 6/26/19 9:57 PM, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex  wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
   the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a
reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

kw


They still got naked chicks in news magazines there? Just selling porn in
newspapers on the rack sitting next to Time? weird. that's supposed to be behind
the counter you have to wear a trench coat and sunglasses to buy it here.

That was introduced by Rupert Murdoch (of Fox News infamy) on
"page 3" in the Sun newspaper. He made a *lot* of money by doing
it.

Recently the nipples have been covered up.

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 3:12:22 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 27/06/19 02:30, Rick C wrote:
The only time you care about range is on trips.

It is good that few people use cars for "trips", and
that "trip" can always be preplanned.


This all sounds about right. The "dedicated high-capacity outlet" is 240
volts, amps between 30 and 90. Expense is pretty minimal.

Really?

Give us an example price for the UK. We are all ears.

Note that in other threads you have somewhat belatedly
and quietly acknowledged that there are significant
differences between the UK and US w.r.t. charging.


I'd love to see one of these "ads". They don't exist.

I'm sure you are well aware of how the advertising
industry is *very* adept about not saying something
but leaving people with the impression that they have
claimed it.

Besides, there are enough journalists and shills to make
such claims for them!


Since those are excerpts, it would be better to read the entire review -
but you'll have to pay for that.

Nonetheless the autopilot's performance and legality are of concern, as is
the desirability of rewiring your house.

Lol! Adding a 240 volt outlet is such a trivial thing to complain about.
It's like a dryer or a range. How petty can you be? If a gas supply at home
could be added so easily virtually everyone would have it. But instead you
have to visit a gas station, where it is and when it is open rather than just
hook up at home.

Virtually everyone in cities /does/ have a gas
supply at home.

Since you are making the claims about cost, please
back them up with example quotations in GBP.


There is no question about the "legality" of the auto-pilot. You are
thinking of the full-self-driving which while available to buy, is not
presently functional.

The mind boggles.


It won't be available until the issues are ironed out
and the software if fully operable. Paying for full-self-driving gives you
what they call Navigate-on-autopilot which simply allows the car to take
exits off the highway if you enable it to.

The auto-pilot and full-self-driving are not part of the car, they are
options. If you don't like them, don't order them.

If they are sold, people will buy them, and expect them
to work.

If there is a collision due to a Tesla suddenly in front
suddenly braking to comply with a speed limit on a
*different* road, who gets sued. The driver, manufacturer,
engineer?

If you provide an answer to that, then you demonstrate you
don't know what you are talking about.

You misunderstood about 90% of my post. It is too much work to get you to discuss this rationally. This last paragraph alone is pretty amazing.

--

Rick C.

----- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
----- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 10:14, Rick C wrote:

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 3:12:22 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 27/06/19 02:30, Rick C wrote:
The only time you care about range is on trips.

It is good that few people use cars for "trips", and
that "trip" can always be preplanned.


This all sounds about right. The "dedicated high-capacity outlet" is 240
volts, amps between 30 and 90. Expense is pretty minimal.

Really?

Give us an example price for the UK. We are all ears.

Note that in other threads you have somewhat belatedly
and quietly acknowledged that there are significant
differences between the UK and US w.r.t. charging.


I'd love to see one of these "ads". They don't exist.

I'm sure you are well aware of how the advertising
industry is *very* adept about not saying something
but leaving people with the impression that they have
claimed it.

Besides, there are enough journalists and shills to make
such claims for them!


Since those are excerpts, it would be better to read the entire review -
but you'll have to pay for that.

Nonetheless the autopilot's performance and legality are of concern, as is
the desirability of rewiring your house.

Lol! Adding a 240 volt outlet is such a trivial thing to complain about.
It's like a dryer or a range. How petty can you be? If a gas supply at home
could be added so easily virtually everyone would have it. But instead you
have to visit a gas station, where it is and when it is open rather than just
hook up at home.

Virtually everyone in cities /does/ have a gas
supply at home.

Since you are making the claims about cost, please
back them up with example quotations in GBP.


There is no question about the "legality" of the auto-pilot. You are
thinking of the full-self-driving which while available to buy, is not
presently functional.

The mind boggles.


It won't be available until the issues are ironed out
and the software if fully operable. Paying for full-self-driving gives you
what they call Navigate-on-autopilot which simply allows the car to take
exits off the highway if you enable it to.

The auto-pilot and full-self-driving are not part of the car, they are
options. If you don't like them, don't order them.

If they are sold, people will buy them, and expect them
to work.

If there is a collision due to a Tesla suddenly in front
suddenly braking to comply with a speed limit on a
*different* road, who gets sued. The driver, manufacturer,
engineer?

If you provide an answer to that, then you demonstrate you
don't know what you are talking about.

You misunderstood about 90% of my post. It is too much work to get you to discuss this rationally. This last paragraph alone is pretty amazing.

Go on then. Which bit of the simple statement
"This all sounds about right. The dedicated high-capacity
outlet is 240 volts, amps between 30 and 90.
Expense is pretty minimal."
did I misunderstand?

The best way you could demonstrate my misunderstanding
is by providing a quote or estimate for that to be
done in the UK.

The last paragraph is amazing. In the UK the answer is
the subject of research programmes, so the answer isn't
well understood.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 9:12:34 AM UTC+2, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 27/06/19 02:42, Rick C wrote:
This sounds a lot like the Consumer Reports review which showed a lack of
understanding of some aspects of the car.

I suspect the Consumer Reports is the US equivalent of
Which?, but I can't be certain.

I certainly wouldn't trust anything Which? said without
due consideration, and wouldn't buy anything solely on
their recommendation. However, they do indicate the
important questions that need consideration before a
purchase.

"Which" seems to be staffed by journalists rather than engineers.
What they say is usually useful, but tends to be superficial rather than insightful. What they used to write about audio equipment was somewhat under-informed (but close enough to right for most practical purposes).

They are also commercially disinterested and do an
effective job of representing consumer interests as
opposed to commercial or government interests. Hence
they are one of the few organisations allowed to bring
"super complaints" to the authorities for investigation.

Seems sensible. This must have happened since 1993, which is when I stopped subscribing to "Which".

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 10:59, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 9:12:34 AM UTC+2, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 27/06/19 02:42, Rick C wrote:
This sounds a lot like the Consumer Reports review which showed a lack
of understanding of some aspects of the car.

I suspect the Consumer Reports is the US equivalent of Which?, but I can't
be certain.

I certainly wouldn't trust anything Which? said without due consideration,
and wouldn't buy anything solely on their recommendation. However, they do
indicate the important questions that need consideration before a
purchase.

"Which" seems to be staffed by journalists rather than engineers. What they
say is usually useful, but tends to be superficial rather than insightful.
What they used to write about audio equipment was somewhat under-informed
(but close enough to right for most practical purposes).

Yes, that's about it, although they do have access to
some testing technicians in in common with similar
European organisations.

They are a reasonable /starting/ point for making
decisions in areas where you are either not competent
or don't want to spend too much time considering
alternatives.

Certainly they are better than most of the technical
websites which do little more than regurgitate yesterday's
press releases.

They are also commercially disinterested and do an effective job of
representing consumer interests as opposed to commercial or government
interests. Hence they are one of the few organisations allowed to bring
"super complaints" to the authorities for investigation.

Seems sensible. This must have happened since 1993, which is when I stopped
subscribing to "Which".

I'm not sure when it started, but it would have been since then.

They've also allowed their logo to be used on goods and in
adverts, which causes me concern about their long-term
independence.

 

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 01:22:02 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

Curiously a "Which?" review of the Tesla 3 has fallen
into my inbox. A few extracts...

<clip>

"However, the Autopilot system performed poorly in our tests.
It didn't detect variable speed limits, and when travelling
on motorways that cross over other roads it often picked up
the wrong speed limit and strongly reduced speed. Autopilot
also often failed to assess traffic situations correctly,
resulting in jerky deceleration and acceleration."

An interesting question how these automated systems (from any
manufacturer) perform when snow is falling, especially if the size of
a snowflake is several millimeters

 

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 15:31, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

I repeat my statement.

You can find them leading to farms, but they are not
domestic properties.

When did you last come to the UK, and where did you
see them?

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

Quite possibly, but it doesn't conflict with my statement.

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 10:31:23 AM UTC-4, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

Maybe I'm confused. What lower voltage? UK and much of the world supply 240 to the home. The US supplies 240 to the home.

--

Rick C.

---+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
---+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 7:23:02 AM UTC-4, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 01:22:02 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

Curiously a "Which?" review of the Tesla 3 has fallen
into my inbox. A few extracts...


clip

"However, the Autopilot system performed poorly in our tests.
It didn't detect variable speed limits, and when travelling
on motorways that cross over other roads it often picked up
the wrong speed limit and strongly reduced speed. Autopilot
also often failed to assess traffic situations correctly,
resulting in jerky deceleration and acceleration."

An interesting question how these automated systems (from any
manufacturer) perform when snow is falling, especially if the size of
a snowflake is several millimeters

All of these systems are BETA. They are not indicated to perform correctly at all times. That is why you must keep your hands on the wheel at all times and be prepared to take over from the auto pilot. But of course no one really wants to give that consideration. It's much more fun to point out the parts an autonomous system will have a hard time with.

Autonomous systems may be decades before they will operate in all conditions and all roads. That doesn't mean they don't have utility.

--

Rick C.

----+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
----+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[keith wright]

On Thursday, 27 June 2019 00:12:22 UTC-7, Tom Gardner wrote:
....

If there is a collision due to a Tesla suddenly in front
suddenly braking to comply with a speed limit on a
*different* road, who gets sued. The driver, manufacturer,
engineer?

I think they misinterpreted what was happening. It was not due to the speed limit from a different road.

I've never seen my Tesla suddenly change speed due to a speed limit change, however it has on a few occasions become timid at going under a bridge, overpass etc. and slowed down before resuming.

I believe the main reason for that is the limitations in the current crop of automotive radars:

None of the existing ones support any elevation discrimination - as a result they can't tell the difference between an overpass and a car in the same lane on the road.

The majority of the adaptive cruise control systems that use radar as the primary sensing mechanism deal with this by ignoring any return that has zero velocity relative to the ground. This includes stationary cars!

I believe there are some conditions where the return is large enough that it is not ignored so if the other car is close enough then action will be taken.

In Tesla's case they have input from the optical sensors as well as crowd-sourced information from other cars that have driven that way to enable improved algorithms.

Of the 7 or 8 cars that I have driven with adaptive cruise control Tesla is the only one that doesn't suffer from a problem where it will happily run into the rear of a stopped car.

A typical scenario is that if cruise control is active and there are traffic jam ahead the car will keep cruising and not brake until too late to avoid a collision.

Another scenario in urban traffic is when the car is following another car that turns off into a lane to goes to the left or right (depending upon country) but there is a line of cars stopped at a red light that was previously obscured by the car directly in front, the cruising car will not see them (as they have zero velocity) and keep going. I've always chickened out and applied the brakes manually.

I've seen this behavior on BMW, Infiniti, Audi and Toyota cars.

The Audi and Infiniti were even worse in that they did not support full authority on the throttle down to zero speed and would quietly disengage when the speed of the lead car went below to 10-15 mph. It would leave you coasting into a stationary car and would require that you intervene.

The Tesla seems much better than those others and when using adaptive cruise control (they call it TACC) it has never cause such a problem.

kw

If you provide an answer to that, then you demonstrate you
don't know what you are talking about.

 

[keith wright]

On Thursday, 27 June 2019 04:23:02 UTC-7, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
....

An interesting question how these automated systems (from any
manufacturer) perform when snow is falling, especially if the size of
a snowflake is several millimeters

I haven't seen it in snow (not common the SF Bay Area!) but I have seen a warning under heavy rain that the system should not be used and it will reduce speed.

kw

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 1:14:02 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:

On Thursday, 27 June 2019 00:12:22 UTC-7, Tom Gardner wrote:
...

If there is a collision due to a Tesla suddenly in front
suddenly braking to comply with a speed limit on a
*different* road, who gets sued. The driver, manufacturer,
engineer?

I think they misinterpreted what was happening. It was not due to the speed limit from a different road.

I've never seen my Tesla suddenly change speed due to a speed limit change, however it has on a few occasions become timid at going under a bridge, overpass etc. and slowed down before resuming.

I absolutely have seen this. There is one spot where it is very reproducible but not severe. The road goes from two lanes to four with a median. Earlier the cruise was set to 60 in a 55 zone. At the point where the road widens, the car thinks the speed limit drops to 45 and the car won't go more than 5 over on this type of road so drops to 50. A few hundred feet down the road the car realizes the road is one where it doesn't restrict the speed to 5 over the limit and the cruise is set to 60 again. Not really a problem, but other drivers mush think I'm nuts.

On the highway it can screw up the speed limit and drop from 70 to 35. Of course the car doesn't slam on the brakes, but the regen does kick in. I have to hit the pedal to keep it from dropping speed. Then a few hundred feet and it recovers. Very odd.

This is all "Navigate on Autopilot" which is what you get with the full self driving package. As I've said, beta software and you are warned to keep control of the vehicle at all times.

I believe the main reason for that is the limitations in the current crop of automotive radars:

None of the existing ones support any elevation discrimination - as a result they can't tell the difference between an overpass and a car in the same lane on the road.

It must have some way of telling or it would brake for every overpass. It doesn't. Only certain times.

The majority of the adaptive cruise control systems that use radar as the primary sensing mechanism deal with this by ignoring any return that has zero velocity relative to the ground. This includes stationary cars!

I believe there are some conditions where the return is large enough that it is not ignored so if the other car is close enough then action will be taken.

In Tesla's case they have input from the optical sensors as well as crowd-sourced information from other cars that have driven that way to enable improved algorithms.

That would be scary. If someone else's car is providing incorrect info because of a sensor malfunction and it causes my car to malfunction... see the problem?


> Of the 7 or 8 cars that I have driven with adaptive cruise control Tesla is the only one that doesn't suffer from a problem where it will happily run into the rear of a stopped car.

I'm not sure of that.


> A typical scenario is that if cruise control is active and there are traffic jam ahead the car will keep cruising and not brake until too late to avoid a collision.

I'm pretty sure that will still happen in the Tesla. These things help, but they aren't perfect.


> Another scenario in urban traffic is when the car is following another car that turns off into a lane to goes to the left or right (depending upon country) but there is a line of cars stopped at a red light that was previously obscured by the car directly in front, the cruising car will not see them (as they have zero velocity) and keep going. I've always chickened out and applied the brakes manually.

There are many times I won't let the car do what it wants including parking.. I was test driving a model 3 and they had warned me that any accident was my problem. The car is backing between two other Teslas and it can't line up enough. I hit the brake even though the sales person told me to let it go and it would stop and retry. I asked her who would take responsibility and she didn't say Tesla would.

I've seen this behavior on BMW, Infiniti, Audi and Toyota cars.

The Audi and Infiniti were even worse in that they did not support full authority on the throttle down to zero speed and would quietly disengage when the speed of the lead car went below to 10-15 mph. It would leave you coasting into a stationary car and would require that you intervene.

It's not like this is intended to be full self driving!


> The Tesla seems much better than those others and when using adaptive cruise control (they call it TACC) it has never cause such a problem.

No, it has it's own problems like jumping the speed up and down for no apparent reason. I think it is a database screw up.

--

Rick C.

---++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
---++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 1:31:45 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:

On Thursday, 27 June 2019 04:23:02 UTC-7, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
...
An interesting question how these automated systems (from any
manufacturer) perform when snow is falling, especially if the size of
a snowflake is several millimeters

I haven't seen it in snow (not common the SF Bay Area!) but I have seen a warning under heavy rain that the system should not be used and it will reduce speed.

kw

Yeah, I had that once in snow. It was a sudden snow squall as I drove over a mountain. It blew up suddenly, the autopilot was still managing, then it quit and would not engage even after I got out of the snow. It gave a warning about the radar malfunctioning. I called the 800 number and they told me to check the two front camera in the bumper. They are in recesses and had a snow block in front of them. I removed it and wiped them clean and it worked again.

--

Rick C.

--+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 08:21:26 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 10:31:23 AM UTC-4, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

Maybe I'm confused. What lower voltage? UK and much of the world supply 240 to the home. The US supplies 240 to the home.

In the US, the single phase voltage is 120 V and in the split phase
(actually antiphase) 240 V between "phases".

In Europe the single phase voltage is 230 V and 400 V between phases.
In some countries also 220/380 V or 240/415 V (e.g. old UK).

Now that the comparable US voltages are about one half compared to the
rest of the world, twice current is needed to transfer the same power.
The allowed voltage drop is specified as a percentage of nominal
voltage, thus a 5 % voltage drop from 120 V is 6 V and 11.5 V from 230
V.

In the US, the increased current and reduced allowed voltage drop
severely limits the maximum economical distance between customer and
the distribution transformer, requiring a pig every few pole. As such
that would not be too bad, but feeding these transformer a quite dense
medium voltage network is needed.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christense]

torsdag den 27. juni 2019 kl. 20.55.07 UTC+2 skrev upsid...@downunder.com:

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 08:21:26 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 10:31:23 AM UTC-4, upsid...@downunder.com wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 07:55:53 +0100, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/06/19 07:20, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 23:42:43 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 6/26/19 10:09 PM, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 9:57:47 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Wednesday, 26 June 2019 18:14:57 UTC-7, bitrex wrote:
...
"Charging at home will require
the installation of a dedicated high-capacity outlet"

a 40 amp level 2 charger unit is plenty for many use cases and
installing one is not a complex job. it won't charge up the car in a
couple hours. it'll charge a 3 up ~150 miles overnight, how many people
are driving 150 miles a day every day goddamn.

The summary seems to make it out like you can either charge from a 120
volt outlet over 1.5 days or you have to install a three phase AC-DC
level 3 charger with a cable 4" in diameter to charge the car.

...

'Which' is a UK magazine so a normal wall socket can do up to 2-3kW (as a reference other cars in the UK seem to be set to 10A resulting in 2.4kW).

I did forget that this was a UK magazine. I have talked about this with folks from there and I never got a clear answer, but it seems like they do 13 amp outlets easily, but to get more they wire 3 phase, which *is* a lot more hassle... at least I guess so. They talk about totally different wiring methods than we use and smaller service to the house, so maybe higher current 240 volt outlets aren't so easy. On the other hand, they tend to drive shorter distances so the daily need for charging is not as much. The 3 kW available from a standard outlet gets you around 180 miles on a model 3... assuming they don't do the derating thing that we do in the US. Can someone confirm that?

In the UK there are a number of smaller EVs available with smaller batteries and higher mileage. I don't know the names, but they seem to work well according to the owners.


I believe it's common in the UK and Europe to have smaller per-dwelling
or per apartment (flat?) structure distribution transformer/pole pig as
compared to the US where there's usually one large pole pig to supply a
neighborhood

It is the other way around. In Europe pole mounted transformers are
typically 100-315 kVA feeding dozens of detached houses up to several
hundred meters from the distribution transformer.

Here you /never/ see pole mounted transformers for
domestic properties.

So you have those low transformer buildings every few hundred meters
feeding the houses around it.

In Finland, you can get at least a 3x63 A 230/400 V up to 600 m from
the (ground or pole mounted) distribution transformer from most
electric companies.

In the US, due to lower voltage and hence large currents, a
distribution "pig" transformer only serves one or at most a few
houses.

Maybe I'm confused. What lower voltage? UK and much of the world supply 240 to the home. The US supplies 240 to the home.

In the US, the single phase voltage is 120 V and in the split phase
(actually antiphase) 240 V between "phases".

In Europe the single phase voltage is 230 V and 400 V between phases.
In some countries also 220/380 V or 240/415 V (e.g. old UK).

Now that the comparable US voltages are about one half compared to the
rest of the world, twice current is needed to transfer the same power.
The allowed voltage drop is specified as a percentage of nominal
voltage, thus a 5 % voltage drop from 120 V is 6 V and 11.5 V from 230
V.

and three phase adds 50% more power with just one more wire compared
to "two" phase

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 19:11, Rick C wrote:

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 1:14:02 PM UTC-4, keith wright wrote:
On Thursday, 27 June 2019 00:12:22 UTC-7, Tom Gardner wrote: ...
If there is a collision due to a Tesla suddenly in front suddenly braking
to comply with a speed limit on a *different* road, who gets sued. The
driver, manufacturer, engineer?
I think they misinterpreted what was happening. It was not due to the speed
limit from a different road.

I've never seen my Tesla suddenly change speed due to a speed limit change,
however it has on a few occasions become timid at going under a bridge,
overpass etc. and slowed down before resuming.
I absolutely have seen this. There is one spot where it is very reproducible
but not severe. The road goes from two lanes to four with a median. Earlier
the cruise was set to 60 in a 55 zone. At the point where the road widens,
the car thinks the speed limit drops to 45 and the car won't go more than 5
over on this type of road so drops to 50. A few hundred feet down the road
the car realizes the road is one where it doesn't restrict the speed to 5
over the limit and the cruise is set to 60 again. Not really a problem, but
other drivers mush think I'm nuts.

Translation: you aren't "driving with due care and attention",
which is an offence here.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 27/06/19 20:58, keith wright wrote:

"The third part is a lot more difficult. When the car is approaching an
overhead highway road sign positioned on a rise in the road or a bridge where
the road dips underneath, this often looks like a collision course. The
navigation data and height accuracy of the GPS are not enough to know whether
the car will pass under the object or not. By the time the car is close and
the road pitch changes, it is too late to brake.

I wonder what it would do when confronted with this piece of emergent design:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5189318,0.1500483,3a,17.5y,208.23h,85.24t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEDEpYhjvBBvnpGZhN7u9Yw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The google car didn't dare go along the normal path under the bridge.

 

[keith wright]

On Thursday, 27 June 2019 11:11:23 UTC-7, Rick C wrote:
....

In Tesla's case they have input from the optical sensors as well as crowd-sourced information from other cars that have driven that way to enable improved algorithms.

That would be scary. If someone else's car is providing incorrect info because of a sensor malfunction and it causes my car to malfunction... see the problem?

It doesn't do it form a single vehicles, this is quoted from the Tesla Blog (https://www.tesla.com/blog/upgrading-autopilot-seeing-world-radar)

"The third part is a lot more difficult. When the car is approaching an overhead highway road sign positioned on a rise in the road or a bridge where the road dips underneath, this often looks like a collision course. The navigation data and height accuracy of the GPS are not enough to know whether the car will pass under the object or not. By the time the car is close and the road pitch changes, it is too late to brake.

This is where fleet learning comes in handy. Initially, the vehicle fleet will take no action except to note the position of road signs, bridges and other stationary objects, mapping the world according to radar. The car computer will then silently compare when it would have braked to the driver action and upload that to the Tesla database. If several cars drive safely past a given radar object, whether Autopilot is turned on or off, then that object is added to the geocoded whitelist."

Of the 7 or 8 cars that I have driven with adaptive cruise control Tesla is the only one that doesn't suffer from a problem where it will happily run into the rear of a stopped car.

I'm not sure of that.


A typical scenario is that if cruise control is active and there are traffic jam ahead the car will keep cruising and not brake until too late to avoid a collision.

I'm pretty sure that will still happen in the Tesla. These things help, but they aren't perfect.

Agreed it is not perfect but much better than the others I've tried.

Another scenario in urban traffic is when the car is following another car that turns off into a lane to goes to the left or right (depending upon country) but there is a line of cars stopped at a red light that was previously obscured by the car directly in front, the cruising car will not see them (as they have zero velocity) and keep going. I've always chickened out and applied the brakes manually.

There are many times I won't let the car do what it wants including parking. I was test driving a model 3 and they had warned me that any accident was my problem. The car is backing between two other Teslas and it can't line up enough. I hit the brake even though the sales person told me to let it go and it would stop and retry. I asked her who would take responsibility and she didn't say Tesla would.

I've seen this behavior on BMW, Infiniti, Audi and Toyota cars.

The Audi and Infiniti were even worse in that they did not support full authority on the throttle down to zero speed and would quietly disengage when the speed of the lead car went below to 10-15 mph. It would leave you coasting into a stationary car and would require that you intervene.

It's not like this is intended to be full self driving!

Agreed but when just on cruise control I think it is highly desirable.

The Tesla seems much better than those others and when using adaptive cruise control (they call it TACC) it has never cause such a problem.

No, it has it's own problems like jumping the speed up and down for no apparent reason. I think it is a database screw up.

Maybe - I've not seen that.

kw