What is Elon Musk up to now..

[Irrev-Black]

Crashtacular!

Tesla's lousy week continues. On Tuesday, the electric car maker posted its quarterly results showing precipitous falls in sales and profitability. Today, we've learned that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is concerned that Tesla's massive recall to fix its Autopilot driver assist—which was pushed out to more than 2 million cars last December—has not actually made the system that much safer.

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation has been scrutinizing Tesla Autopilot since August 2021, when it opened a preliminary investigation in response to a spate of Teslas crashing into parked emergency responder vehicles while operating under Autopilot.

In June 2022, the ODI upgraded that investigation into an engineering analysis, and in December 2023, Tesla was forced to recall more than 2 million cars after the analysis found that the car company had inadequate driver-monitoring systems and had designed a system with the potential for "foreseeable misuse."

NHTSA has now closed that engineering analysis, which examined 956 crashes. After excluding crashes where the other car was at fault, where Autopilot wasn't operating, or where there was insufficient data to make a determination, it found 467 Autopilot crashes that fell into three distinct categories.

First, 221 were frontal crashes in which the Tesla hit a car or obstacle despite "adequate time for an attentive driver to respond to avoid or mitigate the crash." Another 111 Autopilot crashes occurred when the system was inadvertently disengaged by the driver, and the remaining 145 Autopilot crashes happened under low grip conditions, such as on a wet road.

As Ars has noted time and again, Tesla's Autopilot system has a more permissive operational design domain than any comparable driver-assistance system that still requires the driver to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road, and NHTSA's report adds that "Autopilot invited greater driver confidence via its higher control authority and ease of engagement."

The result has been disengaged drivers who crash, and those crashes "are often severe because neither the system nor the driver reacts appropriately, resulting in high-speed differential and high energy crash outcomes," NHTSA says. Tragically, at least 13 people have been killed as a result.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/fe ... eversible/

[stylofone]

Twitter had an Australian operation. It didn't survive Skumification.

Profit of $4804: how Musk’s takeover crushed Twitter in Australia

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now known as X, left the company’s Australian outpost riddled with under-investment as it defends itself against the Labor government in a free speech row over the Wakeley church stabbing.
Twitter reported just $3.4 million in revenue in the first half of 2023, plunging more than 80 per cent, new documents filed with the corporate regulator show, representing its final submission before being taken private. The platform, which Statista estimates has about 4 million users in Australia, paid its international parent $2.9 million in January this year, but it is expected it will be wound up before the end of 2024.

[Irrev-Black]

I've been advised this is fake.

Water-shy rust-attractors also apparently lack safety crumple zones.

https://lor.sh/@SNerd/112363131350773356

ac688b5261978e61.jpeg (203.12 KiB) Viewed 849 times

[Loki]

Issa AI fake.

[Irrev-Black]

Issa AI fake.

Should've known.

Finding two of the things in the same place, both capable of driving, was very unlikely.

[Irrev-Black]

I've been advised this is fake.

Water-shy rust-attractors also apparently lack safety crumple zones.

https://lor.sh/@SNerd/112363131350773356

ac688b5261978e61.jpeg

While this may have been a hoax, it's worth doing a bit of research on cybertruck crumple zones.

[Irrev-Black]

Sackage. Lots of it.

Tesla's layoffs expanded over the weekend with staff involved in software, service and engineering all reporting that they'd gotten their pink slips. The 10 percent workforce reduction announced earlier by CEO Elon Musk is, Electrek's Fred Lambert writes, closing in on 20 percent.

The layoffs were expected after CEO Elon Musk made an example of Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla's former head of charging, and her entire team by firing everyone last week. After the move, he emailed other executives and told them that they would also be let go if they don't let go higher percentages of their teams.

Musk and Tesla have given several reasons for the layoffs. Musk first told employees that it was due to Tesla's fast headcount growth over the last few years, resulting in hiring inefficiencies and role duplication.

However, he also told investors and employees more recently that it was about "restructuring for the next phase of growth".

It's not a car company, Musk said after it posted poor sales results, but it's also clearly not an energy infrastructure company either. So what is it? The layoffs don't seem well-planned. If anything, it looks a lot like Twitter in the weeks after Musk bought it: a combination of reckless downsizing and recreational slaughter.

https://boingboing.net/2024/05/06/fourt ... dbath.html

[stylofone]

Sackage. Lots of it.

Musk's wealth is based on the Tesla share price, which is ridiculously high. I seems to be based on the belief people have that every car will be a Tesla in 10 years, or something like that.

It seems to me that belief in "something like that" is the real Tesla product. It's a kind of fairy dust. We don't actually know what it is. I suspect that Chinese competition is making car sales a less credible "something like that", so it has to change. Maybe it's now going to be the domination of "transport as a service" through the provision of robo-taxis. It actually doesn't matter what it is, it's like the Holy Spirit, you just have to believe.

[Irrev-Black]

That brain chip is gradually going all Tesla...

The only hint of trouble was on March 1 when Arbaugh answered questions in an all-hands meeting with Neuralink in which he said at one point: "Sure we’re still working out the kinks and stuff. But once we get this figured out, there’s no reason for [the implant] not to be out there," according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal was the first to report that an unknown number of threads have become displaced in Arbaugh's brain. Neuralink posted its blog confirming the problem after the Journal published the report.

It remains unclear why the threads moved from their placement, but one hypothesis that sources told the Journal is that there was air trapped inside Arbaugh's skull after the surgery, a condition called pneumocephalus. The sources familiar with Neuralink's trial said that the possibility of removing the implant was considered after the problem was identified.

Arbaugh's safety does not appear to be negatively impacted. However, the company reported that the retraction of the threads lowered his bits-per-second (BPS) rate, which is used to measure how quickly and accurately a patient with an implant can control a computer cursor. Neuralink was able to restore the BPS rate to the level seen before retraction by modifying the algorithm that decodes the electrode signals. According to Neuralink, the tweaks included making the implant "more sensitive to neural population signals," improving the techniques to translate these signals into cursor movements, and enhancing the user interface. The company reported improved and sustained BPS rates after the changes.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05 ... rain-chip/

[Irrev-Black]

It appears that there's more Cyberfuckup stuff not under the warranty than stuff that's covered.

First spotted in a tweet by @jonesjason74 and later on the Cybertruck Owners Club forums, they detail how they picked up their new Cybertuck from Tesla’s Pensacola service center. Just 35 miles later, after stopping at a Supercharging station, the Cybertruck starte leaking cooling while charging.

Picked up my beast today in Pensacola. Drove to the super chargers about 35 miles away in Crestview on my way back home to Destin, Fl. While supercharging, coolant started pouring out of the rear of the truck. Called Tesla service. First they told me they don’t cover coolant leaks under warranty. After a few choice words they said they would send a tow truck.

https://gizmodo.com/new-cybertruck-owne ... 1851469646