Comment by zelon88
6 days ago
My concerns are the computerization of vehicles in general. The issue is not entirely with the telemetry itself, as you frame it. My issue is "what happens when the telemetry is not available?" You, and perhaps your friend, seem to be framing the problem as though the concern is that the car is filled with "spyware." My issue is that the car is filled with "DRM" from the manufacturer. When I buy a car, I expect to own that car entirely, forever. If I wanted to rent the right to someone else's car... I'd lease a car.
Musk touts the CyberTruck as "the perfect armageddon vehicle" but if you have no cell phone service how do you charge the truck? What if Tesla disappears, or GCP is down, or WW3 actually happens and the datacenters go dark? Can you operate the vehicle? What if the power goes out because... Armageddon. How do you fuel the vehicle?
What if Musk sees what I said about him on social media and accuses me of violating the TOS? Will he disable my vehicle remotely? I've seen this in the real world when a machine shop missed it's payment to Haas.
In a real armageddon, my 1997 shitbox would still function. My 2013 F150 would function right up until the EMP hit. A 2025 EV probably would not make it to a fueling source within 24 hours after the power goes out.
Have you tried to fuel a ICE vehicle in a power outage? I waited a week in the Congo.
Getting fuel out of underground tanks and paying for it are non trivial with no power.
I can charge an EV off my solar panels.
And solar is just one of many ways of generating electricity. Wind turbines continue to work, as do hydroelectric plants (and on a smaller scale, water wheels). Worst case scenario, you can burn more readily accessible carbon based fuels like wood to make steam to generate power. Vehicles that are dependent on extraction and refinement of petroleum are actually quite limited in comparison.
On a side note, you should look up "wood gas". There are YouTube videos of 110v generators running off wood gas, and while it takes a bit of setup, it's within the realm of what a country person could do in a weekend or two. By weight, I think I remember that it takes 4x of wood vs gasoline to get the same energy. So while a generator takes 6 lbs of gasoline (a gallon) to give you ~5kw, it takes 25 lbs of wood. Sounds bad til you realize how much a tree weighs.
The battery in a model X is 57,000 watts. To charge that with an 800 watt consumer grade wind turbine would take 71 hours. Try again.
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I have a diesel car and in theory you could fuel it with used cooking oil if you needed to.
I don't think I'm likely to do that as I think this would gum up the engine but I know people that have told me they've done it with a filtration.
For the record I would like to switch to an electric car next but my current diesel seems to have a lot of life in it yet.
You find another car and use a center punch on the gas tank. Drain it into a container and fuel whatever you want with it.
You'll be charging a 57kw model X for AT LEAST an entire day using solar panels that would barely fit in the trunk.
And, ah, during a time of gas shortages, exactly which cars have gas in them just sitting around not being used, and who is going to let you do that to their car?
I can tell you’ve never actually lived this reality, you’re just making stuff up.
I had gas pumps not work due to lack of electricity (and lack of gas in the tanks) on half a dozens occasions in different countries.
You forgot to bring your pump, spotter, and nail-tipped bat. If you had those I'm sure you would have been able to fight your way through and have your go juice in no more than 15 minutes.
Not in a line of hundreds of people waiting days.
In armageddon, you would run out of fuel around day 3 and then that's it.
A CyberTruck will charge just fine from anything that can generate the proper AC or DC, no phoning home needed. Many home solar installations can work off grid and charge your car.
To charge a 57,000 watt tesla with an 800w consumer solar panel would take 71 hours of sunlight. There is not 24 hours of sunlight in a single day. This also is not considering the battery management which heats the battery passively. So it would take a week to charge a Tesla with equipment that you could carry inside the car.
Strange that you assume a single solar panel? If you’re installing solar at home, wouldn’t you install more than one panel?
I have a 15KW setup at home (kinda large, but adjust the numbers to what’s reasonable for you), it should charge the Tesla in less than 4 hours.