this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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[–] Sanctus 132 points 2 months ago (2 children)

All he's doing is making worse trains and busses. This isn't innovative. Its a waste of fucken time. Make trains and busses.

[–] dojan 96 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Respectfully, I don't want to see any trains or buses made under his guidance.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (3 children)
[–] dojan 16 points 2 months ago

My roomie is a trucker. He has laughed so much at the Tesla semitruck because it kind of fails at everything a truck is meant to do.

[–] FlowVoid 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Technically, it's far less explosive than a gasoline powered vehicle. However, batteries are very hard to extinguish if they catch fire.

[–] EleventhHour 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Any fires are the product of a technical malfunction, and those are very easy to either mitigate, and, especially, engineer beyond.

Gasoline will always be flammable, and using it as a fuel source will always present certain concerns and risks. Measured against battery technology, however, it’s kind of a no-brainer as to which is much more safe.

Even Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cells (unquestionably more explosive than any battery or gasoline powered vehicle) are now technically safer than gasoline powered vehicles, just because of their amazing containment pods for the hydrogen fuel. Again, this sort of thing is just an engineering problem, not a problem with developing new resources and/or new techniques of harnessing their energy output.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Don't worry, he doesn't supply any guidance, only orders to orders who then do the things.

This man has no talents to speak of.

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

We just have to apply Leon math. He says 2-3 years, so that's 7 to 10 in reality. It will also cost 5x what is expected and be missing 60% of features at launch. Plus it'll have new features, like it will have a steering wheel and peddles and require driver input every 15 miles or so.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And the 40% of features that are there will only work half the time.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago

And be locked behind a subscription

[–] fpslem 56 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Cybercabs are two-seater vehicles

Just two seats why? Has this so-called genius ever taken a cab with friends ever?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's hilarious. He gets rid of the driver, so now instead of an extra seat there's 3 less seats compared to a conventional cab.

This guy is so out of touch that he doesn't even know people that could tell him that.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Which is impressive since itd be the first place my mind would go to for space utilization, mind you I dont think this stupid cab will ever be a working thing outside of prototypes but still.

[–] EmpathicVagrant 8 points 2 months ago

Don’t worry I’m sure he’ll get loads of investments for it and get a city to shut down their public transport in some way before he cancels the project.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago

Friends? What does that mean?

Dude famously hates being around other people, that’s why he hates transit so much. I’m sure in his mind it makes perfect sense.

[–] billiam0202 49 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Anyone else expecting a $100,000 "RoboBeast" in eight years and no mention of the $30,000 version ever again?

Like all techbros, Elon wants to paint himself as some kind of visionary genius. Instead they're all just anti-regulatory right-wingers who just poorly regurgitate better people's ideas. Elon's already run this playbook before so we know he's gonna do it again.

[–] Takumidesh 23 points 2 months ago (3 children)

This is what I don't get, I can also just say 'visionary' things by just opening any sci-fi book and pointing at a random page and claiming that I want to make that.

The hard part isn't envisioning cool sci-fi concepts like self driving cars, colonized planets, ai servants, and life like VR. The hard part is actually doing them.

[–] FlyingSquid 6 points 2 months ago

Actually paying attention to the sci-fi you're consuming would give you an advantage over Musk. He says he loves the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a series which spends a lot of time mocking corporate executives and corporate marketing. It's also a series where every AI is either an asshole, malfunctioning or both.

He also thinks the main character in Blade Runner is named Bladerunner despite the fact that Deckard's name is said like 10 times in the movie.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-main-character-blade-runner

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[–] barsquid 43 points 2 months ago

"Always your car," is corporate speak for "you will be liable for whatever it does."

[–] teft 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Right beside full self driving? Is this like the classic “fusion is just 5 years away”?

[–] EleventhHour 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (16 children)

Hey, at least we have actually accomplished (edit: net-positive) fusion. 10-20 years before the first commercial plant comes online, but fusion is a technology which now exists. This is extremely awesome. Honestly, I never thought I’d see it. But, it’s here, it exists, and now the distance between today and when the first power plant comes online is just a matter of scaling the tech upwards.

Full, autonomous self-driving cabs - especially from Tesla - on a massive scale… not so much.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Question for you, when you say that we've accomplished fusion, do you mean fusion that produces more power than took to generate it? Or simply the act of fusing atoms together in a reactor (vs the uncontained fusion present in thermonuclear bombs)? If it's the former, then like, holy shit, that's actually been accomplished‽ Like, I know NIF had their whole thing with breakeven fusion a couple of years ago, but that was only counting the energy that made it to the hohlraum, not all the energy that was lost powering the lasers and shit. When you factor all of that in (like you'd need to for realistic power generation) then it's very far away from breakeven generation. It's still an incredible breakthrough and will help us figure out fusion energy, but it's not a practical means of energy generation at this time. Did something else happen that I missed‽

If it's the latter, then we've actually been fusing atoms together in reactors since the 1950s. In fact, there's a community of people who build small fusion reactors as a hobby! I learned about this a few years ago when a 16 year old made the news by being the youngest person to build their own reactor. The main site I know of is https://www.fusor.net/

[–] movies 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Previous commenter may have been referring to this, where Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced producing more energy than the laser energy put into it https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-national-laboratory-makes-history-achieving-fusion-ignition

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[–] EleventhHour 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes, net-positive fusion was achieved in August of last year:

Scientists achieve net energy gain breakthrough with nuclear fusion

Of course, this is going to take a decade or two to scale up to commercial energy production, but net-positive fusion is real and does exist.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Ah, okay, that's what I was referring to with NIF. They absolutely have generated more power than they put in, but only in a way that is scientifically interesting. If you only consider the energy flowing into the hohlraum, then more energy was produced, which is crazy cool! They also achieved true ignition which is great. We've never been able to get things hot enough and squozed enough for long enough to be able to directly observe that in a controlled setting. The fact that they can now just do that means they can experimentally probe where the boundaries are and find the cheapest way for us to get to ignition.

However, they got the energy to the hohlraum using lasers. Those lasers (and all of the equipment around them) required (I think) three orders of magnitude more power to generate the laser impulse that triggered fusion. A productive fusion reaction did occur, but it absolutely wasn't productive enough to make up for all the power required to generate the laser pulse. Making lasers that can output at the required power levels and frequencies without all of the waste (i.e. 2.5 MJ of electricity to laser results in 2 MJ laser output) is a Hard Problem™ and is probably impossible with our current understanding of physics.

When you made your comment, I wondered if someone had achieved breakeven using a tokamak or some other form of magnetic confinement setup. Inertial confinement fusion is great for research but not practical for power generation, whereas magnetic confinement fusion is probably where the future is.

ICF is really good at putting the squoze on stuff, because the things you want to fuse are all stuffed in a tiny hohlraum and you're zorching it with a shitload of giant friggin lasers. Magnetic confinement fusion used in tokamaks occurs much more gradually by magnetically heating and containing plasmas. The nice thing about tokamaks is that they just constantly generate heat. With modern superconducting magnets, the infrastructure efficiency is also pretty decent, giving them a chance at truly generating more power than they use when you take the entire reactor into consideration.

Jesus that's a lot of words. I should go do my damn job instead of distracting myself talking about fusion. Sorry for the brain dump.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (3 children)

In the video, when he's talking about the robot Optimus, he claims that at scale this will cost $20-30K and goes on to say "this will be the biggest product ever of any kind" and "everyone of the 8 billion people one earth will want their Optimus buddy".

Dude. Most people on this planet can barely afford a $1,000 smart phone.

[–] EleventhHour 22 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

“Let them eat cake”

— another famous rich person, shortly before she got what she deserved.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake

Appears not to be the case. I was curious about the full context, and that context is that it almost certainly didn't actually happen.

[–] EleventhHour 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Hush, you ;)

But, yes, Marie Antoinette probably never said it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau very likely made it up.

Nonetheless, it’s prescient legend.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

All Tesla shareholders and twitter users asked to hold their breath until then.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

The stock dropped 7% so I guess not everyone is

[–] oakey66 20 points 2 months ago
[–] ramenshaman 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The robot taxi and the bus thing both depend on FSD working well, so maybe they'll be ready in like 20 or 30 years.

[–] EleventhHour 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Although skeptical, and especially disliking Elon musk, this is merely speculative. It could take five years, or it could take 25 years. We just don’t know yet. However, unlike fusion, we’ve never achieved FSD yet. But, like fusion, I’m sure we will.

Just not yet, and, I hope, not a product of an Elon Musk company.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

They'll do what every AI company does and have guys in India do the actual driving 'until the technology is ready', like how the Amazon grab and go stores were implemented.

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[–] reddig33 17 points 2 months ago

I love that at least some of the press is finally calling Elon on his bullshit. The ArsTechnica review of this event was particularly delicious.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (3 children)

These things and the trucks are so damn ugly... Who the hell watched 80s sci-fi and was like "Yes! Give me that aesthetic."

[–] athairmor 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Not even good 80s sci-fi. That truck looks like it came from a low-budget Star Wars or Mad Max ripoff.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Bruh the streets of San Francisco are packed with waymos carrying passengers today

[–] pyre 10 points 2 months ago

daily reminder that if you were only 10% as bad at your job as billionaires you'd be fucking fired in an instant.

[–] inclementimmigrant 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Well FSD is just right around the corner after all!

But in all seriousness, if his shitty candidate and party he endorses wins, they honestly probably will be on the roads in a few years time.

[–] SlopppyEngineer 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If things are at least progressing somewhat he predicts next year. For Musk to say 2-3 years means the project has hit a brick wall and they're desperate.

[–] credo 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think it’s hilarious. I think he got his name in the news again, and here we are talking about him.

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 2 months ago

Not all publicity is good publicity when you're desperate for the world to love you like Elon is.

[–] LEDZeppelin 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Preorders start now! Preorder bonus: Dark MAGA hat

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

It’ll be ready next week, I promise.

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