quote:
So then a Tesla requires you to keep your hand on the wheel even in autopilot mode? But wouldn't that then preclude being able to "drive" in the back seat? Or does a Tesla allow for you to disengage safety protocols?
Tesla have issued a recall because it’s too easy to work around the driver monitoring.
By contrast, until relatively recently, Tesla merely used a torque sensor on the steering column, which was easily defeated by hanging something heavy like a water bottle off the steering wheel rim. Recently, the company has claimed that a wide-angle camera built into the rearview mirror is capable of driver monitoring, although it apparently does not work well enough to prevent a giant stuffed bear from being recognized as a human driver.
Ars Technica Worth a read for anyone interested in this thread.
That video makes the car look like a perpetual motion machine. it says the car performs electrolysis onboard...that's great, but it doesnt say where it gets the power to do that.
The car engine is just a hydrogen combustion engine, and it uses water as a hydrogen storage medium. All wonderful...but it takes more energy to split water than you can get back by combusting it (turning it back into water) even if the engine was 100% dedicated to running the electrolysis, without even running the car. Entropy is a thing, and 100% efficiency does not exist.
If this were not so, we could solve a lot more than gasoline powered cars or lithium issues. This would be an infinite energy hack and it would prove the laws of thermodynamics wrong.
There's a massive gap there not explained in the video. The gap is roughly the size of the observable universe.
Curiously, I cant seem to find anything from Toyota about this engine. All I see are a few different AI-voiced videos that say much the same thing...and fail to say the missing thing.
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
“A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” – Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 1 Corinthians 15:26King James Version (KJV)
I found a promotional video from Toyota that describes a "water engine", but it contain a significant contradiction. Beginning at 58 seconds and while displaying an image of an internal combustion engine (ICE) it states that Toyota is researching a water engine, but then at time 1:22 it shifts to a diagram of a car that uses a fuel cell.
The video seems genuinely from Toyota, and like GDR's video it says it uses electrolysis to create hydrogen, but given that contradiction it's unclear what technology they're talking about. Here's the video:
Using water to provide hydrogen through electrolysis solves the hydrogen storage problem, but it doesn't seem like it could be very efficient. But let me look up some numbers and play with them.
A pound of hydrogen gas can power a fuel cell car for about 50 miles, and a gallon of water contains about .935 pounds of hydrogen, so 10 gallons of water could power a fuel cell car for about 450 miles, which is excellent.
It takes roughly 2.5 kWh to electrolyze a pound of hydrogen, so 10 pounds of hydrogen could be produced with 25 kWh and take you 500 miles in a fuel cell car. That's amazing, because a Tesla Model 3 with a 75 kWh battery can only go 340 miles. If I've got my math right, a 75 kWh battery electrolyzing water into hydrogen that drives a fuel cell to generate electricity to power the car would give you 1500 miles of range.
But I'm very suspicious of this final number. Perhaps I have wrong how far a fuel cell car can go on a pound of hydrogen, or perhaps I have wrong how much energy it takes to produce a pound of hydrogen. It makes no sense to me that this:
The video seems genuinely from Toyota, and like GDR's video it says it uses electrolysis to create hydrogen, but given that contradiction it's unclear what technology they're talking about.
I suspect this is an elaborate prank.
I don't think the math works and I cannot imagine the engineers at Toyota would fall for a perpetual motion scheme like this. Is the hydrogen fuel fed to the engine in a gaseous state or liquid? At STP the hydrogen will take up considerably more volume than the water.
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What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
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Took another glance at it. You guys are right, it's not from Toyota. I was taken in by how slick the video was, by how much it resembled a company's promotional video, and by how often it displayed the Toyota logo. Are you reading this, Phat? Beware those YouTube videos.
quote:Toyota's recently filed patent for a water-cooled hydrogen combustion engine marks a significant step in their exploration of alternative powertrains beyond full electrification. This innovation addresses the challenge of higher operating temperatures inherent in hydrogen engines compared to traditional gasoline ones, potentially paving the way for high-performance hydrogen vehicles.
From what I can find the new hype is wrong. The engine does not produce its own hydrogen but only controls the excessive heat a hydrogen engine produces. No on-board electrolysis.
The new water-cooled tech is for use dissipating the excessive heat a hydrogen combustion engine produces as it runs.
I find no where on the trusted sites any mention of on-board electrolysis technologies incorporated into an internal combustion hydrogen engine.
Tesla has given all current owners a free month of Full Self Driving. I got in my car yesterday for a 20 minute drive and the notice was on the screen. All I had to do was tell it where to navigate and then pull down on the shift lever.
So I gave it a try. It did an excellent job maneuvering along back roads, obeying stop signs and lights, and turning onto very busy roads. It navigated past a power company truck pulled over to the side of the road with no problem. I was cut off once and it handled that perfectly.
I set it to go up to 10 mph over the speed limit, but it was often at only 5 or 6 mph over the limit.
I have only a few complaints. It's very aggressive about changing lanes. If it needs to change lanes and there's no car beside you then it will turn on the turn signal and change lanes, even though it would mostly eliminate the stopping distance of a car in the adjacent lane. It will change lanes into much tighter spaces than I ever would.
And it actually stops at stop signs. Very, very briefly, but it still comes to a full stop. But it isn't the stop at the stop sign that bothers me since I do that, too (drives my wife crazy, and probably the person behind me, too). The problem is that it stops at the stop sign. Wherever the stop sign is, that's where it stops. If the stop sign is fifteen feet back from the intersection then the car stops at the stop sign and then creeps up to the intersection before making a decision about when to pull out.
It's also more aggressive about pulling out into traffic. I would have let the truck go by. After all, he's big and there was no one after him, but the Tesla did the math and away it went with more room to spare than I would have thought, though it punched the gas, er, electric pretty good.
It was also naive about when to make lane changes. When pulling through the light onto the main road you must always go immediately to the left lane because in a mile you have to turn left and if you don't get in that left lane right away then no one will let you in. Your turn signal only causes them to close ranks. Of course, the Tesla doesn't care. Its logic goes, "Lane change needed, no actual collision would be caused by changing lanes, so off we go! Take that, gap closer!"
I had very ambivalent feelings about the experience. On the one hand I thought it did an amazing job. On the other hand I found it incredibly nerve racking when pulling onto busy roads. It would nose up to the intersection, there would be what felt like an abortive attempt or two, then it would settle down and pick a perfectly safe time to pull out. Meanwhile I'm white-knuckled in the driver's seat, foot poised over the brake pedal in case it makes a wrong decision. Which it never did.
It was also seductive on straight and relatively empty stretches of road. Your hands just unconsciously slip off the wheel. Eventually it warns you to return your hands to the wheel.
I tried telling it to park but it ignored me. Looking it up just now, there's a place on the touchscreen to engage Autopark, it's one of those "touch and hold" things, so I'll try it today.
There also a summon mode, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll be at a daycare, so I might decide not to try it today.
Even after just one use I'm already certain I will not be shelling out $12,000 for FSD when the free month is up. Driving is usually a relaxing experience for me, and this makes me nervous.
I've been using V11 for 4 years. Well, using is a strong term. It was too nerve wracking to use it other than on the highway (where it's always done a good job).
I used V12 for all my driving yesterday and it did a very good job. We might actually get to an autonomous future (and kill a lot fewer people). My major complaint with it was that it was too cautious. I wonder what that says about my driving compared to yours.
Today it approached a light in the left turn lane when it was supposed to go straight. The left turn light was red, and it had almost stopped when it realized its mistake and tried to return to the main lane, but I thought it might do that and was keeping my eye on traffic in that lane in the sideview mirror. A truck was approaching, so I immediately stopped it. Whether it would have actually gone through with it I don't know.
Then later on it shifted into the left lane in front of a gap closer who was really close by the time the lane shift was completed. To register his annoyance he passed on the right and cut in front of me.
I also tried Autopark when I got home. It successfully backed into the garage. Maybe not as straight as a person might do it, but it did it.
I didn't try summon. When I enabled it and set the settings I discovered it only works within 40 feet anyway, so I don't see why I would ever need it. The warnings it displayed said only to try it on private property.
What would be really neat is if you could pull up to a restaurant in the city, tell the car to go park, then summon the car when you're done.
One more minor downside. I try to avoid potholes, bumps, depressed manhole covers, etc., but FSD doesn't know they're there.
There is a setting (under Autopilot) for how aggressive you want the car to be. I haven't noticed any difference between chill and medium though.
I've found it is too careful over speed bumps. It slows to nearly half of what I'd take them at. I haven't noticed about potholes yet.
For the first time it was raining tonight and it warned that it might be degraded and I'd say it was. It's lane centering was just a little bit sloppy.
Long term issues:
1. Hardware 3 can't see far enough ahead to be a "good"driver. Maybe a totally adequate driver but not a good driver.
2. The mapping and navigation side doesn't know enough about the real world to pick a good route. E.g., On my way home from one place it keeps wanting to make two difficult (it made them but not easily) unprotected left turns when it can take a route that is no longer and has one protected left turn only.
2. The mapping and navigation side doesn't know enough about the real world to pick a good route. E.g., On my way home from one place it keeps wanting to make two difficult (it made them but not easily) unprotected left turns when it can take a route that is no longer and has one protected left turn only.
Same here. We live on a loop. Within 500 feet of home if it takes a left it instead goes straight, about a 1000 feet. It doesn't even realize you can't check the mailbox from that direction!
We've had a Mustang mach-E for a little less than a year.
Ford has their own "assisted driving" feature. It only works on freeways, not surface streets, but I use it somewhat regularly. Works pretty well.
The one real issue is that it sometimes seems to detect a speed limit change and then will suddenly try to slow down from what I had set the speed to be. Happens in the same places repeatedly so I think it's a GPS hiccup with a parallel street that runs along the highway - the speed limit would match up. I just quickly re-set the speed and it continues just fine.
So far I've really liked going electric. I do miss my Mustang GT, but I work from home since Covid and we didnt need 2 cars any more, and the Mach-E works better for Costco runs or picking up family from the airport. We don't drive a lot so it actually charges just fine on a 120 outlet using the portable charger that came with the car - didn't need to install a new 240 circuit or anything.
-->“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.” - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
“A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” – Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 1 Corinthians 15:26King James Version (KJV)
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