KayLeadfoot

joined 3 weeks ago
[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 1 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Breitbart is not a reliable source.

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago

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

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago

"If you're hearing this, you are the MEEP MEEP!"

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 33 points 1 day ago

It's dirt cheap, too. If this was a cost-cutting measure, it was a thoroughly idiotic one. Which feels like the mark... of a certain someone I can think of

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 2 points 2 days ago

I did low-key get the squiggles before writing the article. I thought, from an ethical hacking disclosure-type perspective, that this info might cause folks to... well, ya know, paint tunnels on walls.

Then I looked, the cat was already out of the bag, the video had something like 5 million views on it in the 4 hours it took me to draft the article. So I shared it, but I definitely did have that thought cross my mind. I am also a little worried on that score.

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So, your comment got me thinking... surely, in a big country like the US of A, this mural must actually exist already, right?

Of course it does. It is an art piece in Columbia, S.C: https://img.atlasobscura.com/90srIbBi-XX-H9u6i_RykKIinRXlpclCHtk-QPSHixk/rt:fit/w:1200/q:80/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL3BsYWNl/X2ltYWdlcy85ZTUw/M2ZkZDAxZjVhN2Rm/NmVfOTIyNjQ4NjQ0/OF80YWVhNzFkZjY0/X3ouanBn.webp

A full article about it: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tunnelvision

How would Tesla FSD react to Tunnelvision, I wonder? How would Tesla FSD react to an overturned semi truck with a realistic depiction of a highway on it? JK, Tesla FSD crashes directly into overturned semis even without the image depiction issue.

I don't think the test is misleading. It's puffed up for entertainment purposes, but in being puffed up, it draws attention to an important drawback of optical-only self-driving cars, which is otherwise a difficult and arcane topic to draw everyday people's attention to.

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 1 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I am fairly dumb. Like, I am both dumb and I am fair-handed.

But, I am not pretentious!

So, let's talk about your points and the title. You said I had fairly dumb pretenses, let's talk through those.

  1. The title of the article... there is no obvious reason to think that I think computers think like humans, certainly not from that headline. Why do you think that?
  2. There are absolutely realistic situations exactly like this, not a pretense. Don't think Loony Tunes. Think 18 wheeler with a realistic photo of a highway depicted on the side, or a billboard with the same. The academic article where 3 PhD holding engineering types discuss the issue at length, which is linked in my article. This is accepted by peer-reviewed science and has been for years.
  3. Yes, I agree. That's not a pretense, that's just... a factually correct observation. You can't train an AI to avoid optical illusions if its only sensor input is optical. That's why the Tesla choice to skip LiDAR and remove radar is a terminal case of the stupids. They've invested in a dead-end sensor suite, as evidenced by their earning the title of Most Lethal Car Brand on the Road.

This does just impact Teslas, because they do not use LiDAR. To my knowledge, they are the only popular ADAS in the American market that would be fooled by a test like this.

Near as I can tell, you're basically wrong point by point here.

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago

The radar module on my truck costs $70.

The richest man on earth doesn't think the lives of your vehicle's passengers are worth $17.50 a pop.

And that's to a knuckledragger like me, buying a single radar unit online. I'm sure the manufacturer gets insane quantity discounts.

[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Got me laughing with the subtitle

 

In covering car news, I will sometimes look at a new piece of technology and do a double take. “That can’t be real, it is simply too stupid for a room of automotive engineers to have signed off on it.” Often times, those pieces of tech are on Stellantis vehicles.

Here’s a winner that I had to confirm was real (spoilers, it is real). Popup ads in your car… for the Mopar extended warranty service.

Take a look, it’s the whole bleeping infotainment screen, every time you stop.

 

Tesla’s Cybertruck, once touted as “the World’s Toughest Truck,” now seems to be gathering rust in inventories across major U.S. metropolitan areas.

A recent count reveals that within 25 miles of some of the top 25 most populous zip codes, a staggering 1,246 Cybertrucks remain in unsold inventory. The total count nationwide of Cybertrucks waiting on a buyer is likely much higher, as these 25 mile segments only account for about half of the US population.

If each Cybertruck sells at the minimum price of $79,990, that’s about $100 million worth of what Ask Car Guys voted overwhelmingly for the Worst Truck Ever Made.

Here’s the data!

 

Tesla’s Cybertruck just made its grand debut at Mardi Gras 2025, and, well… it didn’t go great. Watch the Video: The Crowd Was Not Having It A group of Cybertrucks rolled through the Orpheus Parade, a generally tame, family-friendly event known for marching bands, fabulous floats, and an all-around good time. But when the small […]

 

We saw an interesting press release from the National Fire Protection Association, they released an EV firefighting video game for free with the help of a private developer and a Department of Energy grant. So far, more than a million firefighters have used the game to learn about fighting EV fires.

Well, that pitch was irresistible to us. We wanted to know more about how EVs work in emergencies, and we get to play video games to do it? Awesome, count me in, let the games begin. Here's how the game plays and what we learned from it.

 

Thought y'all might find this interesting, if you like automotive tech.

We all know automakers want to keep tabs on their cars. Stolen vehicle tracking? Sure. Fleet management? Fine. Microphone eavesdropping to serve more ads? Hate it, but OK, that’s a thing.

Hold onto your tin-foil hats: Ford just published a patent for something that takes vehicle tracking into full-blown Twilight Zone territory.

(If this sort of post is unwelcome, just let me know and I can remove it, or y'all can remove it with no worries.)

 

We all know automakers want to keep tabs on their cars. Stolen vehicle tracking? Sure. Fleet management? Fine. Microphone eavesdropping to serve more ads? Hate it, but OK, that’s a thing. Hold onto your tin-foil hats: Ford just filed a patent for something that takes vehicle tracking into full-blown Twilight Zone territory. Always-On Tracking… In Your Car, or Somebody Else’s.

 

Tesla has finally updated its self-driving software in China, but it’s not exactly what long-waiting FSD customers were hoping for. According to Reuters, the new system, called Urban Road Autopilot Assistance, rolled out after weeks of rumors that the Full-Self Driving (FSD) supervised system would finally launch in China.

 

Tesla has finally updated its self-driving software in China, but it’s not exactly what long-waiting FSD customers were hoping for. According to Reuters, the new system, called Urban Road Autopilot Assistance, rolled out after weeks of rumors that the Full-Self Driving (FSD) supervised system would finally launch in China. Here's video and analysis.

 

Update: We broke this news over the weekend from a lucky catch on Reddit, but the Washington Post and TechCrunch are expanding on it, citing anonymous sources. They report that 10% of the NHTSA employees have been cut, which would be about 80 staffers, with especially heavy cuts for the employees in the new office overseeing autonomous vehicle safety.

 

We now have a full year of data for the Cybertruck, and a strange preponderance of headlines about Cybertrucks exploding into flames, including several fatalities. That’s more than enough data to compare to the Ford Pinto, a car so notoriously combustible that it has become a watchword for corporate greed. Let’s start with the data...

 

Last week, Ars Technica broke the news that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) quietly took down their 2022 crash data, for the rumored purpose to scrub gender data from its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). At the time, the records had simply vanished from the public database, leaving only speculation... now that the data has been reposted, we see that Ars Technica had it exactly right.

 

Here’s a story you all saw coming. If a new model pickup truck is on the road for any amount of time, somebody is going to ram a deer with it! What makes this collision unique is the pickup truck in question: a 2024 Tesla CyberTruck. The headline tells much of the […]

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