this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 131 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 95 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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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[–] Lucidlethargy 5 points 1 month 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 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago

And be locked behind a subscription

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month 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 1 month 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.

[–] vaultdweller013 14 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month 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] 25 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month 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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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 1 month 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/

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month 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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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

“Let them eat cake”

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

The stock dropped 7% so I guess not everyone is

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month 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 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month 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 1 month 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."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month 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] 5 points 1 month ago

It’s because they do it so poorly. It’s cost-cutting masquerading as innovation and minimalism. This style has been done well by Giorgetto Giugiaro in the 80s. The Delorean and Maserati Boomerang are undoubtedly beautiful (though certainly a product of their time). These are just cheap cosplay pulling at tech-bro nostalgia.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Preorders start now! Preorder bonus: Dark MAGA hat

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month 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.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

It’ll be ready next week, I promise.

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