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I find it interesting they tuned it to the driver's preferences. I wonder how they translate to other driver's preferences. I recall a story about electronic st

I find it interesting they tuned it to the driver's preferences. I wonder how they translate to other driver's preferences. I recall a story about electronic stethoscopes. They didn't have the same artifacts as the mechanical ones, so doctors didn't like it. Designers then added back in the artifacts artificially and had better acceptance. I wonder how much of the Tesla's tuning was in reality a de-tune to match the driver's preferences.

mywittyname 8y ago
They tuned it to the preference of a professional driver, who has also driven probably every sporty car made in the past decade on that track. So it's not like his preferences are arbitrary, they are the result of a huge amount of experience. And clearly his expertise is paying off, as the lap times have improved considerably. I also don't think that preference is the right word to use. Cars have unique characteristics which need to be leveraged differently to maximize performance. A Mustang GT, a 911 Turbo S, and a Audi TT-RS are going to have different handling characteristics by virtue of their design. Since the Model3 is so unique, adapting characteristics of, say, a BMW M3 or an Audi RS3 to a Model3 might not yield the best results. Which is probably what the original engineers did.
barkingcat 8y ago
In reality, every car maker does this. Ferrari and Lamborghini has test drivers, usually pro racing car drivers that went into private practice or on commission during their off seasons, and they tune the cars to what the test drivers want. There is no other way to do it. Do you imagine that there's a non-human standard that car makers calibrate to? These cars are meant to be driven by humans, so they tune it to fit one, or a small team of test drivers. There's literally no other way to do it. You take the car out on the road, and get the test driver to talk to the engineers, and they tune it, one small bit at a time, until you get the feel and times that the company is shooting for. The fact that Tesla has started realizing this means the company is maturing.
jhayward 8y ago
Race drivers have extremely fine senses for how the car is handling, and what makes it handle. While there is a degree of preference for the most part engineers use professional drivers as more of a highly refined sensor to tell them how to make the car corner faster and accelerate quicker. There's a famous anecdote by Indy champion Rick Mears[1] who could correct the car's 'stagger', the (small) air pressure difference in each tire, just by driving it in precisely the right way to heat up a single tire by a few degrees. TLDR; drivers are precision instrumentation coupled with deep domain knowledge. [1] https://949racing.com/using-a-tire-pyrometer-949-Racing.aspx https://949racing.com/using-a-tire-pyrometer-949-Racing.aspx

mywittyname 8y ago

They tuned it to the preference of a professional driver, who has also driven probably every sporty car made in the past decade on that track. So it's not like his preferences are arbitrary, they are the result of a huge amount of experience. And clearly his expertise is paying off, as the lap times have improved considerably. I also don't think that preference is the right word to use. Cars have unique characteristics which need to be leveraged differently to maximize performance. A Mustang GT, a 911 Turbo S, and a Audi TT-RS are going to have different handling characteristics by virtue of their design. Since the Model3 is so unique, adapting characteristics of, say, a BMW M3 or an Audi RS3 to a Model3 might not yield the best results. Which is probably what the original engineers did.

barkingcat 8y ago

In reality, every car maker does this. Ferrari and Lamborghini has test drivers, usually pro racing car drivers that went into private practice or on commission during their off seasons, and they tune the cars to what the test drivers want. There is no other way to do it. Do you imagine that there's a non-human standard that car makers calibrate to? These cars are meant to be driven by humans, so they tune it to fit one, or a small team of test drivers. There's literally no other way to do it. You take the car out on the road, and get the test driver to talk to the engineers, and they tune it, one small bit at a time, until you get the feel and times that the company is shooting for. The fact that Tesla has started realizing this means the company is maturing.

jhayward 8y ago

Race drivers have extremely fine senses for how the car is handling, and what makes it handle. While there is a degree of preference for the most part engineers use professional drivers as more of a highly refined sensor to tell them how to make the car corner faster and accelerate quicker. There's a famous anecdote by Indy champion Rick Mears[1] who could correct the car's 'stagger', the (small) air pressure difference in each tire, just by driving it in precisely the right way to heat up a single tire by a few degrees. TLDR; drivers are precision instrumentation coupled with deep domain knowledge. [1] https://949racing.com/using-a-tire-pyrometer-949-Racing.aspx https://949racing.com/using-a-tire-pyrometer-949-Racing.aspx