Gentrified forest is the most cursed phrase I heard in a minute.

What a world we’re living in!

Observing a technical deficiency in a robotics platform requires political considerations. Even when a car drives into a fucking wall at 40MPH on camera, people are asking about the camera man’s political party affiliation and not what’s wrong with the car.

Wild!

Back when Elon made avoiding LiDAR a core part of his professional personality, it was fairly expensive. But as any tech genius can tell ya, component prices drop rapidly for electronics.

Now, radar is dirty cheap. Everything has radar. Radar was removed from Teslas. A radar sensor for my truck is $75, probably much less at scale orders.

LiDAR sensors cost anywhere from $500-$1,500 for a vehicle of this type, near as I can tell (this type being Level 2 autonomy rather than something like a Waymo. A well-kitted out self-driving vehicle has 4 LiDAR sensors).

Here is the LiDAR module currently used on the Mercedes S-Class, it’s $400 used: https://www.ebay.com/itm/285816360464

It’s a hideously small cost-savings in 2025 for a luxury vehicle like a Tesla. Any rational company would’ve reversed course after the first stationary-object-strike fatality. Tesla is not a rational company.

Haha, oncoming train? You’d be lucky to avoid a slow-rolling freight train at a clearly lit crossing in a Tesla using FSD.

Case in point:

https://youtu.be/h4f-crzpZ9w?t=11

“If you’re hearing this, you are the MEEP MEEP!”

EPA is going to investigate him for criminal fraud on Monday, I reckon.

He is studiously apolitical, the only political comment I could find from him was the very sensible advice that we need to tone down our hyperpartisanship :)

https://x.com/MarkRober/status/1641487680168153089?lang=en

For me, I criticize any vehicle that is objectively crappy… and some vehicles where I find them subjectively crappy… and I hope folks don’t assume I’m doing that because of my political leanings.

They really had me in the first half, not gonna lie

They tested a LiDAR rigged car, and it stopped just like you predicted. As of 2021, Tesla uses only cameras for FSD, and not even radar (which my stupid fine Toyota truck has).

They tested the idea safely by building the wall out of styrofoam, or at least that’s what it looks like when it blows apart :)

Aw come on, I thought the lasers versus watermelons demo was a lot of fun, and if that isn’t mad science, I don’t know what is

The scientists in Ireland calling their data set to prevent this exact fucking thing “Coyote” sent me over the moon.

“But humans can do it with their eyes!” - says the man not selling a human brain to go with the optical sensors

I hadn’t considered that possibility! Would you look at that, Ukrainians hacked in and wiped all the security footage.

There are about 35,000 or so Cybertrucks that exist.

The last one that spontaneously burst into flames on a dealer lot was about 60 days ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/1hs7d52/a_tesla_cybertruck_burned_down_at_tesla_lot_in/

I wouldn’t call that insanely uncommon, I don’t think. There might be something about this model that makes it more prone to fires than your average Tesla.

Pffft, you got a link to that video? That HAD to be intentional.

I’m on the fence… literally!

The vehicles that burned were against the fence. That is a piece of evidence in favor of arson, a random fire has high probability of igniting a harder-to-reach vehicle. Also, the ATF was on the scene. A responsible adult (like the Seattle FIU investigator who was dispatched last night to the scene) called in the feds, and they only do that when they suspect a bomb… or when they want to VERY STRONGLY rule out a bomb.

On the other hand, there’s been no preliminary announcement. Elon couldn’t keep it to himself when the Las Vegas Cybertruck detonated, he announced it was a bomb the same day. To avoid speculation that it was just a spontaneous battery fire, like Teslas are well documented to have. Given the absolute shitshow that is going on with Tesla’s stock price, if there was ANY plausible way to claim that it was arson, the investigators would be under maximum pressure to do so and do so quickly.

My gut? We would have video of the arsonists if it were arson, and Elon would be trying to link them to anything political-looking in public. No video means either no arsonists, or very sneaky arsonists, which usually they aren’t. Occam’s Razor makes me wonder about the build quality of those recently built Cybertrucks, particularly their battery packs. Apparently Cybertrucks are idling in their thousands on Tesla lots nationwide. It was just a numbers game until another one ignited itself like that one in Georgia did.

Time will tell.

People who don’t threaten physical violence often… you know, softies, the part-time tough guys… they don’t anticipate how long-lasting the negative reaction from their victims will be.

The annexation talk, the 51st state talk, none of that stuff will be directly linked to whatever counterpunch Canada cooks up, but it’ll be hardening the hearts of the Canadian voters to be in favor of ever-more-draconian countermeasures.

I hope those Twitter threats felt great to issue, because we’ll all be paying for those for a good long while on every agricultural transaction (among others!) that we make with our closest ally in the coming decades.

Ope, shit, I jumped the gun. My bad!

I’m just a journalist/comedian :) I got no dog in this fight, other than that the appearance of corruption in public programs is newsworthy.

If I’m ever unfairly positive about Tesla, do let me know. Most Tesla fans (and assorted grifters who grift in the same circles) say I’m actually the opposite, that I’m shield-biting Tesla hater, probably a paid Anti-Elon shill and maybe a $TSLA shortseller. They feel that way enough to send me threats from time to time. Neither take is true, but it’s funny that I’m getting shot at by both sides.

If you find my stories interesting, you can do me a solid by sharing them on any subreddit or Fedia instance that you think would find them interesting. This publication is a couple weeks old, and that helps me get traction, it’s wild that this story is only getting coverage by Canadian outlets.