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Personally I could never drive a ICE car when an equivalent electric vehicle presented itself. I would never forgive myself. Everyone needs to get to electric c

Personally I could never drive a ICE car when an equivalent electric vehicle presented itself. I would never forgive myself. Everyone needs to get to electric cars as soon as possible or we cook and die here on Earth. It makes the arguments about the interior seem really tone deaf. Again, personally. EDIT: Autopilot and constant software updates are huge.

hangonhn 9y ago
I think your response is a bit narrow and takes my response out of context. It also ignores a number of other issues to make electric cars look better than they really are. 1. Electric cars use a lot of copper and lithium. Mining of both are horribly polluting. The worst EPA superfund site is a former copper mine. Lithium mining is also pretty bad. However they are at least localized. Electric cars still need power, most of which still comes from carbon emitting sources. Until the world switches to renewables, electric cars still generate carbon indirectly. California and other areas are much better about this but Tesla Model 3 customers don't all live in CA. 2. I was trying to answer the initial question from the perspective of a potential customer of the Model 3. If someone is as passionate about the carbon emitting issue as you, they can already do that with Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, or Chevy Volt. They don't need to wait nor pay more for the the Tesla Model 3. So within that context, the other things that make BM3 3-series what it is matters. These things include the interior, etc. 3. BMW already do updates over the air but not nearly at the rate that Tesla does. Tesla really has embraced software whereas other carmakers treat it as an overhead. I really hate how Autopilot is presented. It's not really self-driving because they keep telling you to be involved in the driving process. Until they can confidently say it's completely autonomous, it's more of a novelty than an useful feature. Edited: Kudos for being so passionate about the issue. It does matter to me and which is why I still haven't completely dismissed the Model 3 as a choice.
- sxates 9y ago
  To be fair on #1, even considering the entire supply chain and lifecycle of an EV vs ICE, the EV comes out WAY ahead of the ICE in terms of carbon impact. Even better if you have solar panels on your roof, or live in a place like California that has a significant amount of renewables in the main grid.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  "If someone is as passionate about the carbon emitting issue as you, they can already do that with Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, or Chevy Volt. They don't need to wait nor pay more for the the Tesla Model 3" 1. I don't get it either. Then again--I don't think like a wealthy person. I am drooling for my first electric vechicle, but not willing to spend a lot of money. Plus, as a former mechanic, I want to be able to do all the repairs, including modifying/flashing new software. That might never happen, so I might need to build my own electric vechicle? 2. I do think they are the future though. Form a practical point, they have less things to go wrong. It will be so nice not to have to worry about a transmission that goes at 140k, and not having to worry about smog tests, and all the crap that fossil fuel cars bring. 3. We need to modernize the electrical grid. Since the vechicles are pulling electricity at night, it won't be an immediate problem, but we will eventually need more Power, and better state by state management of the grid. 4. I really think Tesla is making a mistake by not open sourcing certain parts of their software.(just the basic operating system, not the AI portion.) A few years ago, I wanted to buy a wrecked Tesla, and soon found it's practically impossible. Yes--guys wreck them, but you just can't repair them, and get a Salvage title. I buy old vechicles and repair them. I can't do that with a Tesla. I know the founder of Tesla knows the old marketing adage, "If you win over a man, you have him for life." If I had ten minutes with "forget his name--Musk", I would beg him to let the little guys get their hands on wrecked Teslas. Once you win over the Shade Tree mechanics, you might have a product for life. Right now, I just appreciate the Technolgy that's hidden in Teslas. Aesthetically, they look like every other vechicle in my community. Just boring. 4. I do see forsee a big vechicle manufacturer building an affordable, good looking electric vechicle, and blowing away Tesla. Something along the lines of the the old Ford Mustangs.
- bjelkeman-again 9y ago
  As someone who uses the autopilot v1 constantly, for me it really isn't a novelty feature. Driving 6-7 hours on motorway/highway, the car drives 80-90% of the way. Yes, I have to pay attention and supervise the car, but I am definitely less tired at the end of the drive. Edit: spelling
  - hangonhn 9y ago
    That's a really good insight. Having never experienced that, I would have never imagined how the middle ground between full attention and complete autonomous driving could be a good place. That's definitely something for me to keep in mind.
- sliken 9y ago
  Tesla reported that air bags being triggered dropped by 40% when they turned on the autonomous braking. Do you consider that "a novelty"?
  - lttlrck 9y ago
    Autonomous braking is collision avoidance, not 'autopilot' - it's widely available https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system#List_of_cars_with_collision_avoidance_features_available https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system#Lis...
- crush-n-spread 9y ago
  Hey thanks for the reply. Sounds like you've also thought quite a bit about this. I'd like to offer my thoughts on your numbered points. For 1, you're right, we have to mine minerals to get these cars to work. I'm not really sure how much more polluting the production of Lithium and copper is compared to steel, but I assume it's bad. However in the long term I assume most of those polluting mining processes could be electric, could they not? The point is that long term you could make mining those minerals completely clean. For 2, you're right there are plenty of electric cars you can buy right now. And obviously Tesla interiors aren't terrific, we all know that. The main reason I would choose Tesla is that EVs are their bread and butter. Chevy and Nissan have an interest in keeping ICE cars going, so supporting them doesn't align with the goal of making all cars electric long term. For 3, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with Tesla being a software company where other companies see software as a cost center. As far as the autopilot goes, you should cut Tesla a little bit of slack, because while their software is not true-to-the-name autopilot, they are also limited by regulators with how much freedom they can give the driver to rely on the software. So in many places where autopilot falls short of being true autopilot, it's likely due to regulators holding them back. So that's my take on things. I'm in my early 20s, and I take you to be a gen Xer. You know, as an aside, I am really disheartened by Gen X's lack of passion for climate change, no offense to you. I love HackerNews but I get a little sad when I see people blow it off. I strongly believe that how we handle this climate disaster will define humanity's fate in the 21st century, but coming here people seem very relaxed about the whole thing. Oh well. Cheers.
  - hangonhn 9y ago
    Haha. Not really, I'm actually a millenial (on the older end of the spectrum though). I can see what you may think I'm Gen X though. It may surprise you to know that I'm actually an environmentalist as well. I was definitely more active and passionate about it when I was younger. Time and other priorities have dulled my passion over time -- regrettably.
rsync 9y ago
"EDIT: Autopilot and constant software updates are huge." Huge, unknown unknowns and huge attack surface, respectively. Look, as the owner of an Audi A8 that had all kinds of MMI/Nav/Audio bugs, I very, very much appreciate the idea of frequent and iterative software updates - they were desperately needed. Never once did I ever wish they were provided automatically, over a network connection. Never once did I wish the car even had a network connection. A lot of hard lessons are going to be learned over the next decade. I would prefer that people learned these lessons with their idiotic wifi refrigerators and not on public roads.

hangonhn 9y ago

I think your response is a bit narrow and takes my response out of context. It also ignores a number of other issues to make electric cars look better than they really are. 1. Electric cars use a lot of copper and lithium. Mining of both are horribly polluting. The worst EPA superfund site is a former copper mine. Lithium mining is also pretty bad. However they are at least localized. Electric cars still need power, most of which still comes from carbon emitting sources. Until the world switches to renewables, electric cars still generate carbon indirectly. California and other areas are much better about this but Tesla Model 3 customers don't all live in CA. 2. I was trying to answer the initial question from the perspective of a potential customer of the Model 3. If someone is as passionate about the carbon emitting issue as you, they can already do that with Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, or Chevy Volt. They don't need to wait nor pay more for the the Tesla Model 3. So within that context, the other things that make BM3 3-series what it is matters. These things include the interior, etc. 3. BMW already do updates over the air but not nearly at the rate that Tesla does. Tesla really has embraced software whereas other carmakers treat it as an overhead. I really hate how Autopilot is presented. It's not really self-driving because they keep telling you to be involved in the driving process. Until they can confidently say it's completely autonomous, it's more of a novelty than an useful feature. Edited: Kudos for being so passionate about the issue. It does matter to me and which is why I still haven't completely dismissed the Model 3 as a choice.

sxates 9y ago
To be fair on #1, even considering the entire supply chain and lifecycle of an EV vs ICE, the EV comes out WAY ahead of the ICE in terms of carbon impact. Even better if you have solar panels on your roof, or live in a place like California that has a significant amount of renewables in the main grid.
icantdrive55 9y ago
"If someone is as passionate about the carbon emitting issue as you, they can already do that with Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, or Chevy Volt. They don't need to wait nor pay more for the the Tesla Model 3" 1. I don't get it either. Then again--I don't think like a wealthy person. I am drooling for my first electric vechicle, but not willing to spend a lot of money. Plus, as a former mechanic, I want to be able to do all the repairs, including modifying/flashing new software. That might never happen, so I might need to build my own electric vechicle? 2. I do think they are the future though. Form a practical point, they have less things to go wrong. It will be so nice not to have to worry about a transmission that goes at 140k, and not having to worry about smog tests, and all the crap that fossil fuel cars bring. 3. We need to modernize the electrical grid. Since the vechicles are pulling electricity at night, it won't be an immediate problem, but we will eventually need more Power, and better state by state management of the grid. 4. I really think Tesla is making a mistake by not open sourcing certain parts of their software.(just the basic operating system, not the AI portion.) A few years ago, I wanted to buy a wrecked Tesla, and soon found it's practically impossible. Yes--guys wreck them, but you just can't repair them, and get a Salvage title. I buy old vechicles and repair them. I can't do that with a Tesla. I know the founder of Tesla knows the old marketing adage, "If you win over a man, you have him for life." If I had ten minutes with "forget his name--Musk", I would beg him to let the little guys get their hands on wrecked Teslas. Once you win over the Shade Tree mechanics, you might have a product for life. Right now, I just appreciate the Technolgy that's hidden in Teslas. Aesthetically, they look like every other vechicle in my community. Just boring. 4. I do see forsee a big vechicle manufacturer building an affordable, good looking electric vechicle, and blowing away Tesla. Something along the lines of the the old Ford Mustangs.
bjelkeman-again 9y ago
As someone who uses the autopilot v1 constantly, for me it really isn't a novelty feature. Driving 6-7 hours on motorway/highway, the car drives 80-90% of the way. Yes, I have to pay attention and supervise the car, but I am definitely less tired at the end of the drive. Edit: spelling
- hangonhn 9y ago
  That's a really good insight. Having never experienced that, I would have never imagined how the middle ground between full attention and complete autonomous driving could be a good place. That's definitely something for me to keep in mind.
sliken 9y ago
Tesla reported that air bags being triggered dropped by 40% when they turned on the autonomous braking. Do you consider that "a novelty"?
- lttlrck 9y ago
  Autonomous braking is collision avoidance, not 'autopilot' - it's widely available https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system#List_of_cars_with_collision_avoidance_features_available https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collision_avoidance_system#Lis...
crush-n-spread 9y ago
Hey thanks for the reply. Sounds like you've also thought quite a bit about this. I'd like to offer my thoughts on your numbered points. For 1, you're right, we have to mine minerals to get these cars to work. I'm not really sure how much more polluting the production of Lithium and copper is compared to steel, but I assume it's bad. However in the long term I assume most of those polluting mining processes could be electric, could they not? The point is that long term you could make mining those minerals completely clean. For 2, you're right there are plenty of electric cars you can buy right now. And obviously Tesla interiors aren't terrific, we all know that. The main reason I would choose Tesla is that EVs are their bread and butter. Chevy and Nissan have an interest in keeping ICE cars going, so supporting them doesn't align with the goal of making all cars electric long term. For 3, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with Tesla being a software company where other companies see software as a cost center. As far as the autopilot goes, you should cut Tesla a little bit of slack, because while their software is not true-to-the-name autopilot, they are also limited by regulators with how much freedom they can give the driver to rely on the software. So in many places where autopilot falls short of being true autopilot, it's likely due to regulators holding them back. So that's my take on things. I'm in my early 20s, and I take you to be a gen Xer. You know, as an aside, I am really disheartened by Gen X's lack of passion for climate change, no offense to you. I love HackerNews but I get a little sad when I see people blow it off. I strongly believe that how we handle this climate disaster will define humanity's fate in the 21st century, but coming here people seem very relaxed about the whole thing. Oh well. Cheers.
- hangonhn 9y ago
  Haha. Not really, I'm actually a millenial (on the older end of the spectrum though). I can see what you may think I'm Gen X though. It may surprise you to know that I'm actually an environmentalist as well. I was definitely more active and passionate about it when I was younger. Time and other priorities have dulled my passion over time -- regrettably.

rsync 9y ago

"EDIT: Autopilot and constant software updates are huge." Huge, unknown unknowns and huge attack surface, respectively. Look, as the owner of an Audi A8 that had all kinds of MMI/Nav/Audio bugs, I very, very much appreciate the idea of frequent and iterative software updates - they were desperately needed. Never once did I ever wish they were provided automatically, over a network connection. Never once did I wish the car even had a network connection. A lot of hard lessons are going to be learned over the next decade. I would prefer that people learned these lessons with their idiotic wifi refrigerators and not on public roads.