It’s happened again. Yesterday, on a highway in Taiwan, a Tesla Model 3 plowed into the trailer of an overturned truck. Accounts of the event suggest the vehicle’s Autopilot system was engaged. The failure of the system to perceive the danger ahead and avoid the inevitable collision suggests an “edge case”… Read More
Author: Roger C. Lanctot
Tesla Driving on the Edge
COVID-19: A Pandemic Made for Tesla
With Tesla Motors’ CEO Elon Musk spewing accusations of civil rights violations and fascism in the face of restrictions forcing him to keep his Fremont, California factory closed it is tempting to assume that Tesla is suffering through the shutdown with the rest of us. Don’t kid yourself. The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis tailor-made
Autonomous Cars Reality is Stranger than Fiction
For tech-sensitive viewers of streaming content it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the appearance of autonomous vehicles in serialized television programs. Amazon’s “Upload” and HBO’s “Westworld” are two such examples.
Described as a comedy (with elements of a thriller) “Upload” makes gratuitous use of autonomous… Read More
COVID-19 Cars as an Essential Service
The Automotive News reported Friday that updated guidance from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Iinfrastructure Security Agency had identified cars as an essential service. AN reported: “The new guidelines include “workers critical to the manufacturing, distribution, sales,
I Cancelled My Flight
Three weeks in to the current period of COVID-19 “social distancing” guidelines I have cancelled already-booked flights to Barcelona (cancellation of Mobile World Congress), Austin, Tex. (cancellation of SXSW), and London (cancelled company meeting). So it seemed logical that I’d cancel my flight to … Read More
Can a Pandemic Stop the Apocalypse?
The negative impacts of the coronavirus, COVID-19, on the automotive industry continue to radiate out from the closure of factories and dealerships (for vehicle sales, while service operations continue) to employee furloughs and plunging stock prices. At the same time, the global pandemic has begun to undermine the investment… Read More
The Great 2020 Mobility Rethink
General Motors’ announced shut down of the Maven car sharing service was hardly a surprise, especially coming in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time of its demise, Maven was only operating in four or five cities, down from a high of 17. The venture was doomed from the start, and its departure is a cautionary tale for
COVID-19 and Chinese Automotive Innovation
It’s a shame that the U.S. president and his administration have chosen to criticize and attack China for its poor management of the novel coronavirus crisis. It is rapidly becoming evident that China now knows more than any other country how to effectively confront the pathogen and bring it to its knees.
Rather than reaching
Shut Uber Down Now
By now it is pretty clear that everywhere outside of China and South Korea human beings are doing a lousy job of “social distancing,” locking down, and sheltering in place. This is unfortunate because experts agree that only a complete lockdown will stop COVID-19 from infecting millions, continuing to kill thousands,
Tesla’s 2019 Turning Point
2019 will be remembered as the year the automotive industry decided to right-size its autonomous vehicle ambitions. Multiple auto makers tempered their vaunted claims for delivering fully autonomous cars within a few years and Daimler Chairman of the Board Ola Kälenius declared in December that the pursuit of autonomous “robotaxis”
CES 2025: All In on AI and Proposed Tariffs