I think the best way to describe it is corruscatingly, brutally fast.
April 22, 2016 5:43 PM   Subscribe

Do you like electric cars? Renewable energy? How about a certain Service Mechanoid from Red Dwarf? If so, you should be watching Robert Llewellyn having a tremendous time hosting Fully Charged (YouTube). Whether it's acquiring "roadborne Tourettes" driving the Tesla Model S P85D (and the followup in the Model S P90DL), or the slightly modified 1974 Enfield 8000 ECC, called the Flux Capacitor, he's the very picture of a man having a terrific time.

There is also a very interesting commentary on the state of current nuclear power efforts. And some very good points about the benefits of using electricity to get around.
posted by underflow (50 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh, him being terrified in that tesla so makes me want one.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:15 PM on April 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


I so love the British language:"give it a bit o' Wellie..."
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:52 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Not to carjack this thread, but don't miss Llewellyn's Carpool series on Youtube, with in-car interviews with David Mitchell, Stephen Fry, Rob Brydon, Jo Brand, Shappi Khorsandi, and former Red Dwarf co-stars, Craig Charles and Danny John Jules, and many others.
posted by LURK at 6:52 PM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


And I hope and pray fervently to whatever useful Being might be out in the cosmos somewhere that the price of that sort of electric vehicle and that sort of acceleration drops down into the range of my plebeian wallet before I get too old to be able to appreciate it!
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:55 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


(also, waiting for the obvious Spaceballs reference...)
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:56 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


I am pleased to note how much more I like Llewellyn when he doesn't have a faked accent and creepy makeup putting him on the wrong side of the uncanny valley.
posted by gusandrews at 7:27 PM on April 22, 2016


What is the appeal of one of these over, say, a Cadillac CTS-V? Is it that it won't disturb as many golfers with the engine note when you roll up to the country club?
posted by indubitable at 7:31 PM on April 22, 2016


The appeal is that it is electric and it can also make that CTS-V look like a Chevy Sonic in a drag race. Even a plain (non-P, non-D) Model S will rip the face off of just about anything short of a true supercar in terms of acceleration. As if that weren't enough, they are eminently practical cars when driven sensibly. Given the savings in running cost, they arent even all that expensive in total cost of ownership. The up front cost is too steep for most folks, though. Sort of like solar panels, in that respect.
posted by wierdo at 7:40 PM on April 22, 2016 [8 favorites]


What is the sticker price of a P90 DL these days because honestly that is an insane car. Obviously top speed is quite a bit lower than the average super car and I imagine handling is nowhere near as good but that level of acceleration is crazy.
posted by vuron at 8:02 PM on April 22, 2016


My wife says that the clothing store Anthropologie makes her a bad person because when she is there she wants everything and hates that she can't have it. Telsa makes me a bad person. I have never cared about cars and suddenly all I want is to win the lottery and own this car. I don't even like driving!
posted by ChrisHartley at 8:11 PM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


wierdo: "Even a plain (non-P, non-D) Model S will rip the face off of just about anything short of a true supercar in terms of acceleration. "

The base 90KW model has a 4.2 sec 0-60 (already two upgrades over the base 60KW S 5.9 second 0-60). Which is good but hardly super car level. Other cars with that or better 0-60 times include the Chrysler 300C, Chevy Camaro, Dodge Viper, Superbee, Charger, Ford Mustang, assorted AMG Mercedes and GT Porsches.

Special Mention: GMC Syclone, a pickup, had a 4.3 0-60.
posted by Mitheral at 8:21 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


Telsa makes me a bad person.

I know exactly what you mean.

About two and a half years ago I bought a VW GTI, which not only comes with a turbocharged engine that - with a bit of aftermarket tweaking - produces something like 230hp, but also steers like a damn go-kart. It can be quite refined, but when I want I can not just zip around corners but square around them. Not since I rode a motorcycle in my teens and early 20's have I had a vehicle that's such outrageous FUN to drive. The sheer kinesthesia of bopping along a twisty road, whipping around corners without slowing down yet never needing to break the speed limit to have giddy fun, is a profound revelation to me after decades of being relegated to boring underpowered econo-boxes. Plus, it's a very practical hatchback that can comfortably carry four adults!

That's the most whoopie I can probably get within my modest means, and honestly I'm pretty satisfied with it. Yet watching a quiet unassuming car exhibit titanic amounts of acceleration takes me beyond rational thought, tickles my lizard-brain, and (sorry, gross-trigger warning) makes pure testosterone drool out of the corners of my mouth. I can't help it. I'd love to have that sort of non-guilty (or at least less-guilty) Binford 9000-style POWER at my beck and call.

Until then, at least there's YouTube videos of extravagant (or ludicrous) Teslas to whoop and cackle over....
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:35 PM on April 22, 2016 [11 favorites]


before I get too old to be able to appreciate it

Don't worry, if you're a car guy it never happens that you get too old.
Trust me; if they can get you out of the Rascal and into the driver's seat and if you have enough strength to push the throttle to the floor - you will still appreciate acceleration.
We just do.
Unfortunately.
posted by Alter Cocker at 8:54 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


The base 60kWh Model S has a real world 0-60 time of 5.1 seconds (I thought they could all do sub-5-second 0-60..my mistake).

Seriously, though, the big advantage of a Model S over other cars with similar performance is that you aren't paying for it with terrible fuel economy every mile you drive. In the Model S, you only pay the penalty when you are actually mashing the go pedal all the way to the floor. The big V8 in the Chrysler gulps fuel no matter how you drive it. That's why more and more cars are coming from the factory with turbochargers, but even then you're still paying for the extra performance even when you aren't making use of it, just to a smaller degree.
posted by wierdo at 9:05 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


'Long as I can still whip it round a corner without hitting anything or anyone or breakin' a hip.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:31 PM on April 22, 2016


handling is nowhere near as good but that level of acceleration is crazy.

Handling is at BMW M3 levels. The Tesla S's center of gravity is 18" off the ground. A stock P85D does Nurburgring in 8:50. The limiting factor I believe is battery cooling: at max effort the pack eventually heats up and the car has to limit output.
posted by zippy at 9:42 PM on April 22, 2016


It's also worth noting that controlling wheel slip in an electric vehicle is much easier than in a petrol vehicle - output power is simply a function of current, with none of the (comparatively) Rube Goldberg-esque throttle plates and ignition curves and fuel cut of an ICE powerplant. It's hard to get a typical car on a typical day to hook up well enough to do a sub-5-second 0-60. My impression of the Model S is that you simply mash the torque request pedal and go.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 10:25 PM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


The Regular Car Review guy likened the S to riding a motorcycle in that you don't have to "wind up" the car to move position in traffic. Which, by the way, on a motorcycle you don't. You think "I'm going to put myself there" and you are there, because you can accelerate so fast, both in relative and absolute terms, that the rest of traffic may as well be cones. Even in a "fast" car, you have to downshift, or wait for boost, or climb the power curve, and there's a lot of attendant Sturm und Drang and then you have to slow back down which on a motorcycle is much less of an Event than in a car... I could go on, but if an electric vehicle is anything like a motorcycle, I'm looking forward to that Model 3.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 10:30 PM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]


In Silicon Valley you buy one because everyone else has one. Someone on my block owns one which is clearly a sign that any sort of luxury appeal is completely gone from the tesla brand.

It is true that they accelerate insanely.
posted by GuyZero at 11:10 PM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yeah, we shouldn't let people have this bloody car. (Unless it automatically summons a police escort for what must be an emergency race to the hospital or away from criminals.)
posted by pracowity at 11:51 PM on April 22, 2016


Yeah, we shouldn't let people have this bloody car.

Imagine if we thought this way about the ones that are ruining the planet...
posted by carsonb at 12:55 AM on April 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Electric cars are cool. I'm trying to keep my ICE car running long enough to trade it in for an electric Apple or Tesla. But whether or not nuclear power (fission) is expensive, with respect to Kryten, the problem isn't cost. The real problem is that once the world's meagre supply of fuel is spent, that's it. Even ignoring the outrageous costs and major safety issues with operating this technology under corrupt regulatory regimes, there just isn't enough fuel to fully supply global demand in the long term — be it electric cars, or even just keeping the lights on. Governments can subsidize nuke construction all they want, but if there won't be much or any fuel to put in them when construction is done, it will be a mostly dumb waste of money at any price. We're probably not lucky enough to have any supernovas throw big chunks of fissile uranium our way, in the meantime.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 2:30 AM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh, darn. And things were just starting to look up for me.
posted by Flashman at 2:35 AM on April 23, 2016


a lungful of dragon: that report on uranium availability is basically rubbish. Firstly, suppliers stopped prospecting for new deposits in the 1950s; this is about mining out existing deposits. (You can extract it from seawater; it's found pretty much everywhere.) Secondly, it assumes that nuclear reprocessing and use of MOX fuel simply won't happen. Today, the vast majority of our "high level waste" stockpile is fuel rods that are about 2-5% consumed after one pass through a reactor, and consequently chock-full of fission products that make them unsuitable for continued use. These can be recycled in a reprocessing plant and turned back into MOX fuel, thus increasing the power yield from our existing stockpile by an order of magnitude (and reducing the high level waste pile accordingly). This isn't currently done because fresh fuel is so cheap that reprocessed fuel isn't economically competitive; if we actually get close to running out of cheap uranium ore, reprocessing will become standard.

Finally, if we begin running low on fuel from reprocessing plants, that's when it'll be time to begin building breeder reactors to turn the 99.8% of natural uranium that is the 238U isotope into 239Pu, which is entirely suitable for generating power in a MOX reactor.

So the actual energy reserves from existing known uranium deposits can be multiplied by some large factor—between three and four orders of magnitude.

(Despite which, I expect photovoltaic/wind/tidal power to provide most of our energy and nuclear to be an also-ran retained for providing base load regulation rather than a main input to our power infrastructure by the end of the 21st century. Oh, and by 2116 most of our nuclear fleet will still be fission, although I expect some fusion reactors to begin showing up in service by then: the life expectancy of a modern fission reactor is pushing towards 75-150 years—the ones hitting end-of-life today at 30-40 years old are 1960s designs.)
posted by cstross at 2:58 AM on April 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


What I find interesting about electric cars is that it takes away all the complexity that you need in a petrol car (as stated a bit upthread) with a standard internal combustion engine you need to step up and down gears to deliver the correct torque because they sort of deliver torque the wrong way round (you want lots when you're sitting still, less when you're moving) with electric this is the other way round, as a consequence of electric motors being the way they are basically. So you can get great 0-60 times because all your torque is available straight away.

For all the advanced technological complexity at their heart electric cars are way simpler because you don't need nearly so much in terms of complicated mechanical stuff.
The real issue always has been energy density.

The other fun thing is if you're in a 2016 McLaren 675LT (which the internet tells me has the same 0-60 time as the Tesla) it sounds like this but the tesla doesn't make any noise. I can only imagine that must be pretty unnerving.
A lot of car enthusiasts claim that they like the noise, I know early electric cars had fake engine noise piped in (so they still do that?) but to me it just sounds archaic, broken.

For purely unworthy reasons it makes me happy because my old boss was a "petrolhead" who hated electric cars, called them milk floats and golf buggies and that they'd never be better than petrol cars.
And to be honest the Tesla P85D is still an early car in electric cars. I believe they'll outsrip their petrol driven cousins comfortably in the next 5 to 10 years. The top performing cars will all be electric.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:32 AM on April 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


Chrysler 300C

That surprised me. I looked it up, and it seems they dropped the SRT8 hemi in there. So, yeah. I have the predecessor LA-Series 5.9L in my '98 Jeep. It does 60 in less then 7 seconds, even with all that weight and a transfer case, with the stock tuning.

So, the 300C seems to have the same philosophy as the F4 Phantom.

What seems especially neat about the Tesla's acceleration to me is that it isn't sensitive to transmission bands. (right?) Which is a thing that has a subtle dominance in the experience of driving regular cars. Like, my Jeep hauls ass off the line, but acceleration at speed is somewhat less impressive. Meanwhile, I have a '91 Saab 900 turbo, and you could make toast while waiting for it to come off the line but once you're in second with the turbo spooled up it goes from cruising to passing speeds with a quickness that surprises people in newer, nicer cars.

Or what This Guy just said, I guess.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:28 AM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


And Wazoo.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:37 AM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I know early electric cars had fake engine noise piped in

One of the biggest fails that Elon has committed is not having the option to have that little 𝑩𝒓𝒃𝒓𝒃𝒓𝒃𝒓𝒃𝒓𝒓𝒓𝒓𝒓𝒓𝒓𝒓 sound from 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓙𝓮𝓽𝓼𝓸𝓷𝓼' flying bubble car. It's the future, man.
posted by pjern at 8:07 AM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


About two and a half years ago I bought a VW GTI, which not only comes with a turbocharged engine that - with a bit of aftermarket tweaking - produces something like 230hp, but also steers like a damn go-kart.

Same, I'm at about 250 HP with a little piggyback box... and if you turn off all the sport stuff you can still get 36 MPG on the highway without trying. I never thought I'd own a VW, but it's really the best car I've ever had. We'll see what happens with resale, though... :-(

Hopefully in 10 years or so there'll be a few choices for a fun, practical electric car... maybe an electric GTI?
posted by Huck500 at 8:27 AM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


As a car culture warrior these super powered electric sports cars are terrifying. I really don't think we can handle the responsibility of driving a race car on streets with pedestrians and bikes.
posted by enkmar at 10:03 AM on April 23, 2016


Hopefully in 10 years or so there'll be a few choices for a fun, practical electric car... maybe an electric GTI?
Between my Fiat 500e and my friend's GTI, I'll go for my 500e any day. Still love teasing him about beating him off the line...

Practical? Well, you won't be putting anybody in the back seat, but it's enough to load up surfing gear or even kitesurfing gear.
posted by Llama-Lime at 10:09 AM on April 23, 2016


As a car culture warrior these super powered electric sports cars are terrifying. I really don't think we can handle the responsibility of driving a race car on streets with pedestrians and bikes.

That is an odd (over-) reaction. There is no 'sudden influx of super powered cars' from the electric market. The Tesla is no nearer a 'race car' than maybe 30-40% of cars on the road anyway. It is just not that much faster and it has a little mode that is entirely impractical (ludicrous mode massively reduces the range) just to allow people to get a bit excited about a concept for an electric car. Its excellent marketing, but not an everyday use for the car. They are not 'super powered sports cars' any more than the Golf GTi, 300C, Porsche (entire range), BMW (anything above a 'Insert model here'30) and basically anything above 2.5l or 2.0T engined cars. All of them are fast enough to be problematic in the wrong hands, and all have been around for ten years or more.

There is nothing 'terrifying' here, just the same stuff (give or take) being available with a different propulsion method. It is as available to unskilled hands as very fast cars in the same price range are (ie lots of people). This reality is already here (interaction of fast cars and bicycles - pedestrians not so much in the US), don't blame Tesla for it as it happened a decade ago.
posted by Brockles at 10:43 AM on April 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


Yeah, we shouldn't let people have this bloody car.

We shouldn't let maybe 50% of the driving public have ANY car, really. That's why I like the idea of electric cars and autonomous cars. Get the people that don't have the driving awareness and ability into Uber-style autonomous 'personal taxi' cars with massive availability, then make the 'manual driving test' about ten times harder so that only people that can genuinely operate a fast and complex machine can do so. Instant safer roads.
posted by Brockles at 10:47 AM on April 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


Thankfully, most people are not stupid enough to push the go pedal hard against the floor on surface streets unless they are driving an econobox that requires doing so to get up to speed in anything under 10 seconds.

Brockles, I think in the shorter term we are more likely to see new cars that give you the mere illusion of control than we are to see fully self driving cars driving people around with zero human interaction. I suspect it will take 5-10 years after autonomous vehicles are on the market for people to get comfortable with them. Toward the end of that time, regulations will require that all the nannies be on by default to prevent humans from doing stupid shit and the car will be pretty much driving itself, just in a way that makes the ape in the driver's seat think he or she is in control. At that point, the crash rate (at least for newer cars) will be so low that people completely forget about ideas like extra hard (or just reasonable, by world standards) tests for manual driving since the car prevents the ape from crashing into things.

You really think the police are going to give up their DUI and speeding ticket revenue just because it is no longer actually dangerous? (At least without a fight)

A car that can drive itself can just as easily let you point it and tell it how fast to go while keeping you from pointing it at someone else or going fast enough to crash, which is all the government regulators care about.
posted by wierdo at 11:04 AM on April 23, 2016


Oh and they can also drive themselves for about 80%/90% of your average journey dont forget. And they have fleet learning - once a Tesla has got to know a road, all the others get to know it.

There's a lot more to these cars than just fast acceleration. Ask the 400,000 people who have reservations for the forthcoming Tesla Model 3.
posted by memebake at 1:55 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


... maybe an electric GTI?

I'd buy one. And also make it the name of my new band.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:07 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have seen videos of the Teslas toasting other fast cars.

I do drive a stupid fast car, and the Tesla drivers around here seem to be more interested in the science of their cars and not interested in the speed of their cars.
Whenever I try to entice them to try to keep up with me, the Teslas never attempt it. The guys driving the big engine American cars (of any year), the BMWs, and the modified imports are always game. The Tesla drivers seem to have no idea they are driving a fast car. They are a disappointment.

I do want to get the top of the line Tesla for the instant acceleration. But, I think I will have to get a combustion motor and strap it to my chest. Whatever I am driving, I need to feel a purr inside my body.

The arguments that a Tesla will be attractive to fast car people because it's got a low gas cost are off-base. Fast car people happily spend every last dime on high octane gas, nitrous kits, and all sorts of mods to squeeze out a few more horses. Cost of ownership is completely irrelevant to the car freaks. Speed and handling at any cost.
posted by littlewater at 4:10 PM on April 23, 2016


Whenever I try to entice them to try to keep up with me, the Teslas never attempt it. The guys driving the big engine American cars (of any year), the BMWs, and the modified imports are always game.

Huh. Seems to bolster the stereotype that Teslas are bought by intelligent people if there is some consistency in them also not being moronic enough to be tempted to race on the street.
posted by Brockles at 4:23 PM on April 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


The arguments that a Tesla will be attractive to fast car people because it's got a low gas cost are off-base.
Well, of course. I'm not sure anyone's claimed that.
Fast car people happily spend every last dime on high octane gas, nitrous kits, and all sorts of mods to squeeze out a few more horses. Cost of ownership is completely irrelevant to the car freaks. Speed and handling at any cost.
posted by littlewater
Right, and as a fast-car person (and how), if I could get that kind of performance without needing to dick with finding 100LL or E85, and refilling nitrous cylinders, and my car idling like shit because the wideband O2 sensor has gone bad again, &c, you bet your sweet patootie I'll find a Telsa attractive! (to be honest, it's why I motorcycle - unbelievable power-to-weight with less hassle) The possibilities for modification are unknown, of course, but as the sort who also hacks on computer stuff, I've no doubt it'll get there, if not with a Tesla-made car.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 4:50 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Modifying a car, and of course, the outcome of street racing everywhere from stoplights to dirt roads is a big part of the cultural mesh of America.

If Tesla doesn't become mod-able, like TheNewWazoo says, there will still be a culture that wants a combustion engine that they can fiddle with. My own car has way too many electronic parts, and I long for the time and opportunity to get something older that I can wrench on. Part of why Honda is so respected in the US is because of the ability to turn a Civic into a beast.

I hope Tesla does give us the next street rod. The car culture won't die, and I'd love to see a hack-able car give a new rebirth to a new kind of hot rod.
posted by littlewater at 5:42 PM on April 23, 2016


My favourite ever electric car is a Datsun 1200 that does 0-60 (0-100 in my units) in 1.8 seconds. The thing is nuts.
posted by deadwax at 5:51 PM on April 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


That Datsun company is gonna be HYUGE if they can modify their concept to have a longer range. Oh wait.

seriously though that 1200 is mighty impressive to watch off the line.. stunning acceleration.
I'd drive one.
posted by some loser at 6:18 PM on April 23, 2016


Now i need to know exactly how this was done in like... intricate detail. holy cow.
posted by some loser at 6:21 PM on April 23, 2016


There is a reasonable amount of information on conversions like that available if you look around. There is also a company in Texas (I think) doing conversions of classic muscle cars to electric. Give them $125k and they'll turn your 60's Mustang into something that will do 0-60 in 1.8 and can pop wheelies. I believe they are currently trying to get their own car to 200mph in one mile. It already runs sub ten second 1/4's.

Here in Australia I've had a look at quite a few conversions, although they are mostly into the geeky side more than the speedy side, and I knew of one electric superbike doing reasonably well a few years ago.

It's a growing scene and I reckon in five or ten years it's going to be pretty big.

I grew up working on cars and was technician for ten years - that confluence is producing an itch I'm increasingly thinking of scratching. I'm also not much of a fan of petrol head macho culture and I LOVE the electric disruption of that.
posted by deadwax at 6:57 PM on April 23, 2016


So Elon apparently claims that Autopilot is already reducing the number of Model S crashes by 50% when activated. If true, expect to see NHTSA mandating lane keeping, forward collision avoidance, and all that good stuff in the next 5 years or so. US fleet-wide, that would be 8 million auto crashes avoided each year, preventing 15,000+ deaths, 1,100,000+ injuries, around $20 billion in direct costs, and on the order of $400 billion in indirect costs. That's fucking hyooge, especially when you consider that this is a fairly weak form of autonomy that can be implemented relatively inexpensively. It shouldn't add more than 15% to the cost of the very cheapest cars and more like 5-10% for cars in the more common price range.

Obviously, you don't need to go electric to have this stuff, but it does make some of the control issues slightly easier to deal with.
posted by wierdo at 12:44 PM on April 25, 2016


So Elon apparently claims that Autopilot is already reducing the number of Model S crashes by 50% when activated

That sounds like utter dog toffee, to me. It seems to be a gross stretch of the numbers from what I have read, plus an impossibly small sample size makes the number meaningless.

However, like I said before, I believe automation for the 'average and below' driver is an essential part of the future. I just find it a little laughable that an instantaneous 50% reduction is provable in a tiny number of cars in such a small timescale.
posted by Brockles at 1:25 PM on April 25, 2016


So Elon apparently claims that Autopilot is already reducing the number of Model S crashes by 50% when activated. If true, expect to see NHTSA mandating lane keeping, forward collision avoidance, and all that good stuff in the next 5 years or so.

I think when that stuff gets to be widely adopted, we're gonna have people just walking out in front of traffic because they can. "Check this out..."
posted by straight at 8:02 PM on April 25, 2016


The nightmare for Tesla and other companies building largely self-piloting cars will be when people are doing that to rob or kill the notional-driver and they can't escape because the car refuses to allow the driver to hit the assailants boxing it in.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:47 PM on April 25, 2016


The nightmare for Tesla and other companies building largely self-piloting cars will be when people are doing that to rob or kill the notional-driver and they can't escape because the car refuses to allow the driver to hit the assailants boxing it in.

This is a pretty outlandish scenario, and it's not as if it's difficult to converge on a stopped or slow-moving vehicle to abduct or assassinate that person in it with normal cars. Unless perhaps the target is driving a monster truck that can simply drive over the hood of other vehicles.

Considering the loss of life that would be mitigated by self-piloting cars and smart roads (if you believe the studies), supposing this is even a thing that started to happen, it would still be much better from a utilitarian perspective.

And if people were worried enough about this for it to be a real obstacle to adoption, you could just have an auto-driver defeat switch.

However, people are likely to use it to be assholes to each other in traffic, given that the AI is reactive and not predictive, so to speak. I can cut someone off knowing their AI will slam the brakes on, etc, whereas the AI in my car probably isn't good enough to see around corners to stop me from doing that....until we get beacons and peer to peer communications etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:46 AM on April 27, 2016


On second thought, I think I'm probably muddying the waters between driver assists (lane keeping, proximity sensing) and full-on self piloted cars with that.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:36 AM on April 27, 2016


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