patrick.net

We don't need to force it or have stupid government regulations - but I truly believe ICE will go the way of the steam engine in our lifetimes.

Especially now that Tesla has perfected the Semi Tesla that will revolutionize long hauls saving the trucking industry billions in energy and maintenance.

You should ask the guys test driving Tesla semis going up and down the mountain between Reno and Fremont if they miss all the gears and double clutching.

socal2 says

Too much work. Rather just push the go pedal and have all that power instantly available without having to dick around with primitive transmissions trying find the right gear going up and down hills. I can be doing 80 mph screaming down the big hill out of my neighborhood and the car will come to a complete and smooth stop simply taking my foot off the accelerator and all that kinetic energy is captured in my battery instead of wasted heat and brake dust particles.

Hills are an absolute blast for Tesla's going up and down.

LOL! On the ICE BMW, the feature is called cruise-control with automatic speed reduction. It will control speed to the set target regardless up hill or down hill, down-shifting and gently/unnoticeably braking/shaving off gravitational acceleration if necessary when going down hill. You can drive without touching any foot pedal until an emergency braking is required (rolling a thumb-wheel/switch on the steering wheel to increase or decrease target speed). It will maintain the speed instead of coming to a stop. That's without using ACC (radar cruise control).

socal2 says

ICE vehicles are so primitive!

socal2 says

We don't need to force it or have stupid government regulations - but I truly believe ICE will go the way of the steam engine in our lifetimes.

Especially now that Tesla has perfected the Semi Tesla that will revolutionize long hauls saving the trucking industry billions in energy and maintenance.

You should ask the guys test driving Tesla semis going up and down the mountain between Reno and Fremont if they miss all the gears and double clutching.

You may need some information updates. Battery EV Semi-truck projects are being abandoned due to range issues (and weight/capacity, safety, etc..); even the EV box-truck projects are heading toward bankruptcy (due to range problem).

An ICE engine can last decades, whereas batteries' service life span is measured in a few years, resulting in an industrial plastic waste nightmare. ICE fuel has far higher energy density than chemical EV batteries. ICE + fuel tank is the most efficient non-nuclear "battery": not even having to carry the oxidation agent and not having to carry the reaction output/waste home, taking advantage of geothermal energy to turn CO2 dissolved in ocean water and depositing at the ocean floor as limestone (CaCO3) (plus water) into methane (CH4) and longer chains of hydrocarbon, gasoline being mostly C8H18 mixed with shorter and longer hydrocarbon chains with distribution centered around 8-carbon length.

Reality says

You may need some information updates. Battery EV Semi-truck projects are being abandoned due to range issues (and weight/capacity, safety, etc..); even the EV box-truck projects are heading toward bankruptcy (due to range problem).

Not Tesla - they are building their new Semi factory in Reno right now. Pepsi and Frito Lay who got the first Tesla Semi's a year ago absolutely love them and demand is huge. The ROI is only a few years. Cost and maintenance to operate traditional ICE Semis is enormous. Doesn't matter how gay or green people think they are - Fleet Managers know how to manage their P&L's and Tesla will sell every Semi they manufacture.

Tesla batteries will last 1 million miles and the value of old batteries will be huge to the growing recycling industry. No EV batteries will go to waste. It is so much easier to refine and recycle the critical metals like cobalt and nickel from an existing battery than having to mine and process them from the earth.

socal2 says

Too much work. Rather just push the go pedal and have all that power instantly available without having to dick around with primitive transmissions trying find the right gear going up and down hills.

You ever drive a manual transmission ICE vehicle? It's fun. If you're a good driver your brakes will last 100k miles if you know what you're doing. I like driving manual, keeps you paying attention. I can't do the self drive and all that other shit. I don't trust 99% of humans, so not sure how to trust the ones that made them. I can't. I know how to control a car.

I'll take ICE 10 out of 10 times for now. Been doing it over 100 years and there are millions of mechanics that know what they're doing. There's no one trained on the batteries besides the manufacturer. It will be 50 years before EV even come close to being 50-60% of the market. They don't work in cold, so north of I-80 they're basically useless in winter. Can't tow. Long charge times on long trips.

If you live in a city and like living in hell, that's your choice. I'm not getting an EV though until I can get 7-8pax, 9K lbs towing on 350 miles range. Our gas is under $3 here in my part of IL. The horror of filling up a V8 SUV once every other week to the tune of $65. We make $1,232.87 every day 365. I'm sure that bi-weekly gas fill up will bankrupt us.... Wife doesn't pay for gas either

Maybe I'm unique. But I can get a muti-use car for the same price as the lowest model Tesla. Go 400 miles with 5 people and gear up to Northern Wisconsin. Oil changes won't bankrupt me. I don't need speed although my V8 has some go for a big SUV. Tesla or any EV is not remotely appealing to me at all and can't do what I need.

socal2 says

Not Tesla - they are building their new Semi factory in Reno right now. Pepsi and Frito Lay who got the first Tesla Semi's a year ago absolutely love them and demand is huge. The ROI is only a few years. Cost and maintenance to operate traditional ICE Semis is enormous. Doesn't matter how gay or green people think they are - Fleet Managers know how to manage their P&L's and Tesla will sell every Semi they manufacture.

Tesla batteries will last 1 million miles and the value of old batteries will be huge to the growing recycling industry. No EV batteries will go to waste. It is so much easier to refine and recycle the critical metals like cobalt and nickel from an existing battery than having to mine and process them from the earth.

Here is a hint on how to recognize those press releases as way out-of-date material: where in Lithium-Iron-Phosphate or Sodium-Ion batteries do you find Cobalt or Nickel? In any case, your resorting to talking about semi-trucks and Flintstone-mobile is indicative of exhausting valid arguments in support of battery EV's for private passenger vehicle applications.

socal2 says

Not Tesla - they are building their new Semi factory in Reno right now. Pepsi and Frito Lay who got the first Tesla Semi's a year ago absolutely love them and demand is huge.

They're not viable for the cost. They're local "semi" trucks if you can even call them that. They're delivery trucks. Within 20-30 miles of a distribution center for 4-8 deliveries.

Time is money. You can't ship Chicago to say Austin, TX with an EV semi. You'd add on 5 hours. Time is money in shipping. They're gas station delivery trucks. There's a market, but it's not going to be earth shattering.

WookieMan says

You ever drive a manual transmission ICE vehicle? It's fun.

I grew up on manuals and and it's a total pain in the ass. Especially on hills!

Hell - I barely drive my Tesla anymore as the latest version of FSD is that good.

WookieMan says

They're not viable for the cost. They're local "semi" trucks if you can even call them that. They're delivery trucks. Within 20-30 miles of a distribution center for 4-8 deliveries.

Tesla has already demonstrated 500 mile range fully loaded including driving up and down significant grades. Bill Gates bet against Elon (has a big short position on TSLA) claiming that an EV Semi would never work. Pepsi and Frito Lay have been doing medium hauls for over a year now and their drivers love and fight over them. Besides, it is illegal for truckers to drive more than 600 miles without stopping.

Businesses and trucking companies that are lining up to buy these will have megachargers located at the loading docks. Will take less than 30 minutes to charge while they are loading and unloading.

We will ALL benefit getting more Tesla Semis on the road as they can maintain speed and won't slow down the rest of the drivers causing gridlock with the accordion effect. Tesla Semis will also reduce road noise and will ultimately reduce the overall cost of domestic shipping.

Speaking of BMW.

They are impressed with version 13 of FSD.

https://x.com/BMW/status/1866548798798844297

socal2 says

I grew up on manuals and and it's a total pain in the ass. Especially on hills!

Weird. I grew up on manuals and after severald decades it doesn't require any brain power to drive one, hills or no hills. It comes as natural as walking or, dare I say, breathing. Used to have a hellish 1.5hr commute over SM/Dumbarton bridges and even then it absolutely didn't bother me one bit. Maybe because I never stopped driving manuals.

Eric Holder says

Weird. I grew up on manuals and after severald decades it doesn't require any brain power to drive one, hills or no hills. It comes as natural as walking or, dare I say, breathing. Used to have a hellish 1.5hr commute over SM/Dumbarton bridges and even then it absolutely didn't bother me one bit. Maybe because I never stopped driving manuals.

I remember when I had to get off the couch to change the channel on the TV. Didn't think it was a bother until I got a remote control.

With a manual, you have to occupy your left foot on the clutch and right hand to manually change gears. And still need a foot free to work Flinstone friction brakes managing the coasting or trying to slow down with downshifting.

With Tesla's one pedal driving I can easily speed up and slow down to slot my car into any position. It is such a more enjoyable, quicker and more efficient way of driving than having all your appendages commandeered.

One of my gearhead buddies would go on and on about how he preferred manuals (so he could drive faster) until he test drove my car realizing all the extra work he had to put into his ICE car to do less.

socal2 says

With Tesla's one pedal driving I can easily speed up and slow down to slot my car into any position. It is such a more enjoyable, quicker and more efficient way of driving than having all your appendages commandeered.

One of my gearhead buddies would go on and on about how he preferred manuals (so he could drive faster) until he test drove my car realizing all the extra work he had to put into his ICE car to do less.

Writings like this make one wonder if the author drives any car made in the last decade at all. Why would a regular two-pedal automatic car commandeer any additional appendage of the driver at all? Does he use left foot for braking all the time before discovering the "1 pedal driving"? That would be a bad idea due to the risk of pressing both pedals at the same time in an emergency (due to the way human brains are wired, prone to having both halves command both sides of the body doing the same thing at the same time unless specifically trained to do different things: try drawing a circle with one hand and drawing a triangle at the same time with the other hand; it would take long practice to do that.) That's why it's a good idea to condition the driver to shifting the right foot to the left for braking, a mutually exclusive action from pressing the right pedal down for acceleration. It's the conditioning for avoiding accidents. One-pedal-driving breaks that conditioning and therefore brings the risk of the driver either taking no action or pressing down hard on the right when emergency braking is required.

Cars with ACC (Advanced Cruise Control, usually implemented using Radar cruise control on cars made by most brands except for Tesla since 2021 for cost-cutting) can easily follow the car in front for stopping and moving along, without requiring any input from the driver (so long as the speed cap set by the user matches or exceeds the speed of the car in front). The only requirement from driver is deciding when to turn on/off the blinkers and when to change lane (some of the more recent ACC systems take care of that too). Even the earliest implementations like those on my four-cars-ago car 2014 Acura MDX could carry out the automatic follow very well, even when inserting into a lane as soon as the driver executes the insertion. Tesla since 2021 claims to be able to do the same using cameras only without Radar, so why would single-pedal-driving even be relevant to this? How is it even relevant to the EV vs. ICE debate? ACC has been standard function on all new cars introduced by Honda and Toyota since about 2018. The car can literally follow the car in front and stay in its own lane without any input from the driver (except for a couple fingers resting on the steer wheel to let the car know the driver is still around, not making a sandwich in the back seat).

Reality says

Writings like this make one wonder if the author drives any car made in the last decade at all.

It's socal2.

He's usually full of it.

socal2 says

I remember when I had to get off the couch to change the channel on the TV. Didn't think it was a bother until I got a remote control.

Except I drive rental automatics and EVs all the time and still come away with a giant "meh, I prefer my manual jalopies".

Reality says

Why would a regular two-pedal automatic car commandeer any additional appendage of the driver at all?

Wasn't he talking about manual shift cars?

HeadSet says

Wasn't he talking about manual shift cars?

I was talking about manuals.

One of my buddies is having the joy of teaching his daughter how to drive a manual and is pulling his hair out with frustration. I get why advanced drivers with sports cars could prefer a manual just for fun. But don't get why anyone would purposefully go seek out a manual transmission if they are not a driving enthusiast.

Eric Holder says

Except I drive rental automatics and EVs all the time and still come away with a giant "meh, I prefer my manual jalopies".

Pretty much all EV's that are not Tesla are lame. I believe Tesla only rented out their rear wheel drive cars to Hertz and not the much faster dual motor versions. Renting EV's can be stressful if you are not around your homebase and familiar with the roads or have an easy/convenient place to charge.

One of of my co-workers in Boise rented a Model Y while in LA last year for work and was also meh. It didn't have the data plan enacted so he didn't get all the extra streaming for music, movies and internet. No FSD either. I encouraged him to test drive the same car for a few days in his home town and he came back with a totally different experience and ended up buying one.

HeadSet says

Reality says

Why would a regular two-pedal automatic car commandeer any additional appendage of the driver at all?

Wasn't he talking about manual shift cars?

95+% new ICE cars sold in the US are automatics. He/she was pointing out the workload issue with driving a manual as if that were a problem with all ICE cars , and touting the less workload when driving an EV using the "one-pedal-driving" method. 95+% ICE cars sold are automatics (and in the last 5+ years overwhelming majority of which also have ACC, Advanced Cruise Control, which makes touching any foot pedal unnecessary most of the time when following in traffic), over which the EV's have no workload advantage whatsoever.

Reality says

HeadSet says

Reality says

Why would a regular two-pedal automatic car commandeer any additional appendage of the driver at all?

Wasn't he talking about manual shift cars?

95+% new ICE cars sold in the US are automatics. He/she was pointing out the workload issue with driving a manual as if that were a problem with all ICE cars , and touting the less workload when driving an EV using the "one-pedal-driving" method. 95+% ICE cars sold are automatics (and in the last 5+ years overwhelming majority of which also have ACC, Advanced Cruise Control, which makes touching any foot pedal unnecessary most of the time when following in traffic), over which the EV's have no workload advantage whatsoever.

ACC stands for “Adaptive Cruise Control”, in that it adapts the set vehicle speed to respect the set following distance and speed of the vehicle in front of it.

ForcedTQ says

ACC stands for “Adaptive Cruise Control”, in that it adapts the set vehicle speed to respect the set following distance and speed of the vehicle in front of it.

This shit annoys me to no end. It takes one slowpoke to create a long line of ACC-equipped cars to line up behind it and chug along 10mph below speed limit with drivers fingerfucking their phones oblivios to the fact.

socal2 says

Tesla only rented out their rear wheel drive cars to Hertz and not the much faster dual motor versions.

And you'd be wrong. I rented LR AWD ModelY from them.

Reality says

workload issue with driving a manual

Yeah, some back braking labor, LOL. What's next: the unberable burden of steering with your hands?... Wait, I think we already starting to hear that.

Eric Holder says

And you'd be wrong. I rented LR AWD ModelY from them.

Then you must have it set at "chill" mode or drove it like an old lady.

There is no way you can drive a dual motor Model Y and not be impressed with the acceleration. It is one of the quickest cars on the road.

ForcedTQ says

ACC stands for “Adaptive Cruise Control”, in that it adapts the set vehicle speed to respect the set following distance and speed of the vehicle in front of it.

My wife's Hyundai has ACC which is nice for long freeway drives.

But it is nothing like Tesla's Full Self Driving that can literally drive you door to door through busy city streets and now navigate and park itself in busy COSTCO parking lots.

Basically $99/month to have a full time chauffer. No one in the world is close to what Tesla has already accomplished here. GM just announced they are bailing out of Cruz and Waymo is basically locked into geofenced areas that were heavily mapped by LIDAR.

Hope some of you guys were smart and picked up some TSLA shares before the election.

socal2 says

Eric Holder says

And you'd be wrong. I rented LR AWD ModelY from them.

Then you must have it set at "chill" mode or drove it like an old lady.

There is no way you can drive a dual motor Model Y and not be impressed with the acceleration. It is one of the quickest cars on the road.

It accelerates briskly, I give it that. But it is also heavy as fuck and makes you aware of that. It is also underdamped and gets upset where my other cars don't. And that "one pedal driving" thingy? It bored me to death. But it is useful in snow and on ice. Brilliant, actually. People of SFBA in general have no fucking idea how to drive on slick roads so this might save some grief to many occasional travelers to Tahoe area.

socal2 says

Basically $99/month to have a full time chauffer. No one in the world is close to what Tesla has already accomplished here. GM just announced they are bailing out of Cruz and Waymo is basically locked into geofenced areas that were heavily mapped by LIDAR.

$1,200/yr? That's gas for the average commuter with sedans. They have 14 gallon tanks tops. That's 2 fill ups and 400-450 miles or just under 1k/mo. That's not including hybrids. All this done in under 5 minutes one time a month.

EV owners don't value time. It's not green. They're fast on acceleration increasing a risk of an accident. Cool. My niece 16 has a Prius and doesn't fill up for 2 months. She spends less than $200/mo on gas. The up front cost of EV's is 1,000% not worth it in the long run. You've got to change my mind Socal besides it's fun to drive. Which I don't disagree with that.

Eric Holder says

Reality says

workload issue with driving a manual

Yeah, some back braking labor, LOL. What's next: the unberable burden of steering with your hands?... Wait, I think we already starting to hear that.

I loved it for sure and it wasn't hard for me. You learn a lot about driving doing it. Mine was a POS 4 cylinder. 205k miles and no new clutch. One brake change. 1/8th the cost of a Tesla out the door. Not sure how that's not winning. My gas and maintenance was covered before I dumped the car. Spent probably a 1/2 at least overall on what a Tesla sedan costs.

Just because the market "seems" to be changing doesn't mean it is. Power supply is a massive factor that hasn't hit yet. Give it 3-5 years. Our grid is in a bad place and it's at the brink. Especially in CA. Put this in the predictions thread. The fan is spinning the shit just hasn't hit it yet.

WookieMan says

EV owners don't value time.

I absolutely value time. Tesla's Full Self Driving is going to free up millions of hours for commuters all over the world to be doing more productive things then hanging onto a steering wheel and driving in grinding traffic.

socal2 says

WookieMan says

EV owners don't value time.

I absolutely value time. Tesla's Full Self Driving is going to free up millions of hours for commuters all over the world to be doing more productive things then hanging onto a steering wheel and driving in grinding traffic.

Because you live somewhere with traffic and high cost of living? I can live in the country for 1/5 the cost. No traffic. And have access to the same things. I can drive with my knee. I don't operate electronics or anything when driving. I don't want to kill myself or another human based on electronic sensors. My eye work pretty damn well.

How many speeding tickets and accidents you have? I've yet to meet a single human that's NOT been in an accident or had a speeding ticket.

Eric Holder says

Yeah, some back braking labor, LOL. What's next: the unberable burden of steering with your hands?... Wait, I think we already starting to hear that.

This shit annoys me to no end. It takes one slowpoke to create a long line of ACC-equipped cars to line up behind it and chug along 10mph below speed limit with drivers fingerfucking their phones oblivios to the fact.

You are correct on both. The lane-keeping-assist feature is getting quite good too. ACC+LKAS combined can be quite handy when driving long distance on highways: enabling the driver to drive much longer because the constant micro-adjustment to steering wheel (to keep the car centered in the lane despite small bumps in the road surface) would become unnecessary; I used to get tired after a couple hours of driving before getting the MDX a decade ago, one of the first implementations of both (only available on the top trim level that model year, as part of a $15k package, when average new car price was $32k); with those features, I became capable of driving 8+ hours at a time. Also handy in stop-and-go rush hour traffic: not having to touch any foot pedal at all. After having that car for a couple months, I predicted the combination would become available on every newly released car within 5 years simply because the (combined) feature is so great! Toyota and Honda beat my prediction by 1-2 years, and making it free! The sensors are also much much cheaper now thanks to mass production scaling.

A line of ACC-activated cars lining up actually makes passing them easier: they are predictable, and there wouldn't be an asshole suddenly speeding up to prevent you from passing when you are on the other side of the dotted median.

socal2 says

But it is nothing like Tesla's Full Self Driving that can literally drive you door to door through busy city streets and now navigate and park itself in busy COSTCO parking lots.

Basically $99/month to have a full time chauffer. No one in the world is close to what Tesla has already accomplished here. GM just announced they are bailing out of Cruz and Waymo is basically locked into geofenced areas that were heavily mapped by LIDAR.

LOL! No. Costco has some of the largest parking spaces: each space is double-lined between cars/spaces. Tesla's FSD even in its latest version would easily crash a car multiple times each week. It's not a full-time-chauffer any more than you can ride in a pink jeep driven by a 5yo girl who has had the toy for a few weeks: yes, she can go around obstacles in the yard and you can praise her driving skills. She is not quite even at a learner's permit holder's level in terms of driving on real streets with a supervising adult sitting in the passenger seat. Tesla makes it quite clear: it doesn't allow the owner/driver to sit in the passenger seat while letting FSD drive the car solely on its own. Maybe Tesla should install a duplicate brake pedal on the passenger side, so each driver can be a driver's ed teacher being able to stop the car on the passenger side just to prove FSD can drive at least as good as a beginner driver's ed student.

Waymo's approach is far more responsible than Tesla's.

socal2 says

Tesla's Full Self Driving is going to free up millions of hours for commuters all over the world to be doing more productive things then hanging onto a steering wheel and driving in grinding traffic.

"FSD will be able to fully drive itself next year" has been the mantra for almost a decade! and it's still "next year." If/when the technology finally arrives, self-driving will be available on ICE cars, just like ICE cars can also accelerate fast enough to be fun. My ICE car has quicker 0-60 and quarter mile times than Tesla Model Y LR dual-motor, and cost about the same when I bought it despite having far better interior, far better UI, far better ride quality and better architecture. Now it's quite clear battery EV's can be made very cheaply, in the range of $15k USD for making an econobox similar to Tesla Model Y (single-motor version). That may indeed have its appeals in markets like China, India and Mexico. However, battery EV's can not deliver energy density (range + quick refill), collision/puncture safety or low-temperature environment operability anywhere near what ICE cars can deliver. Then there is the issue of service longevity. Will Chinese, Indians or Mexicans pay for another battery EV in 8 years after their first one's battery dies of old age? quite unlike an ICE car that can keep operating for at least 2x to 3x as many years. Is a brand new battery EV car comparable to the Model Y (single-motor) at $15k and 8yr service life really price competitive to a 3-5yo ICE car that has 10-20 years of service life left? Seems to me the utter disappearance of cheap new cars in the US already answered the question: people would rather have a used Lexus or Toyota instead of a brand new POS. ICE cars that last decades through several owners is also far less polluting than EV's that last only 8yrs each, and eventually becoming more affordable in the 2nd and 3rd decade its service life than even cheap brand new EV's (old used EV's don't deliver mobility function but only fire hazard).

WookieMan says

I don't want to kill myself or another human based on electronic sensors. My eye work pretty damn well.

Didn't you say you sometimes have health issues impacting your driving?

Wouldn't this technology be a lifesaver and super convenient for your personal freedom and autonomy if your health condition got worse preventing you from driving all together?

There are millions and millions of older, sick and young people where this technology could be a game changer.

The version I have in my car already drives better and safer than my teenage daughter.

Reality says

LOL! No. Costco has some of the largest parking spaces: each space is double-lined between cars/spaces. Tesla's FSD even in its latest version would easily crash a car multiple times each week.

Huh? The Costco's in my area are some of the busiest and tightest lots around.

There are hundreds of videos on Youtube and X showing Tesla's totally handling busy parking lots with people running around everywhere. I've experienced it myself.

If Teslas were crashing every week, all the Lib Elon haters in the Media would be trumpeting it to the moon and back.

socal2 says

Huh? The Costco's in my area are some of the busiest and tightest lots around.

Check your Costco parking lot again: there is a rectangular zone between every two adjacent parking spaces, unlike a simple line between parking spaces in almost all other parking lots. It's there because Costco sells goods in large packages that may need more width to load into the back seats of sedans.

There are hundreds of videos on Youtube and X showing Tesla's totally handling busy parking lots with people running around everywhere. I've experienced it myself.

There are / were hundreds of videos on Youtube showing people sleeping in their Tesla's while the car drives itself on the highway. It's called selective editing and survivor bias: the cases where the driver got killed or the car getting into crashes don't get uploaded. Also, many brands of ICE cars also have self-parking option; sometimes it works, even working very well, but sometimes don't as the car gets confused by un-anticipated scenario.

If Teslas were crashing every week, all the Lib Elon haters in the Media would be trumpeting it to the moon and back.

Crashes are not happening multiple times every week because the drivers are actively intervening half a dozen times or more every week. That means Tesla FSD is not a chauffer like you promoted/lied, but more like a beginner driver's Ed student requiring the driver's Ed teacher intervene to avoid accidents, just like I characterized quite accurately. A chauffer is worth $30-50k/yr, but a beginner driver's ED student has to pay $200/hr to the teacher doing the active intervention!

socal2 says

Wouldn't this technology be a lifesaver and super convenient for your personal freedom and autonomy if your health condition got worse preventing you from driving all together?

There are millions and millions of older, sick and young people where this technology could be a game changer.

If/when the technology finally works, wouldn't it be better for the same technology to be applied on a car that has the range that wouldn't leave the passenger stranded in the middle of winter? Unless the goal is liquidating the vulnerable members of society Nazi-style. Wouldn't it be better for such a service vehicle to have the load factor to serve people most of the time instead of spending half its time charging and driving to/from a charge station? Wouldn't it be better for such a vehicle to have decades of service life so that even people with limited means can afford used ones after the vehicle's first decade? In other words, the same technology would be more beneficially applied on an ICE vehicle than on a battery EV.

I'm not at all a technophobe. I spent $15k price premium (when average new car price was $32k) when buying the 2014 MDX in order to get the ACC+LKAS combo when it was only available on the top trim/option package that model year as the technology was just coming out (IIRC, the only other vehicle offering the combo that year was Mercedes E-class). My thinking was: if it could allow me to take both hands off the steering for a few seconds to open a water bottle on a long road trip, that was worthwhile and I was willing to pay up to help technology/manufacturing scaling. After owning that car for a couple months, the result far exceeded my expectations: the reduced work load of not having to make micro-adjustment to keep the vehicle centered in the lane (despite road surface imperfections) all the time enable me to drive 8+ hours at a time instead of getting tired after only a couple hours. Battery EV however was a whole different ball game for me: being a physics major and EECS major (electrical-engineering and computer-science), I understood the energy density issue and fire risk issue, just like I was never dumb enough to sleep in any vehicle with driving aid (when I was the driver). When my girlfriend at the time complained why the MDX was beeping and cutting out ACC+LKAS after the driver's fingers were absent from the steering wheel for about 15 seconds, unlike Tesla's at the time, I said that was to keep you alive!

The version I have in my car already drives better and safer than my teenage daughter.

LOL! Shall we fill in the info that your teenage daughter doesn't have a full driver's license?

Reality says

Check your Costco parking lot again: there is a rectangular zone between every two adjacent parking spaces, unlike a simple line between parking spaces in almost all other parking lots. It's there because Costco sells goods in large packages that may need more width to load into the back seats of sedans.

It is not the size of the parking spaces. It is the sheer number of people walking around with carts that makes it impressive to see Tesla FSD safely and smoothly navigate around all that pedestrian traffic.

Reality says

That means Tesla FSD is not a chauffer like you promoted/lied, but more like a beginner driver's Ed student requiring the driver's Ed teacher intervene to avoid accidents,

I said it will be like a chauffer within 5 years. Probably sooner.

The rate of improvements from Version 11 to 12 and now version 13 that is coming out this month is incredible.

Reply back if you ever get the opportunity to try the latest version of FSD in person. Otherwise, it's a waste of time debating with a guy that has no first hand experience with the technology. I have about 5 thousand miles logged on FSD now with multiple drives to Los Angeles and back with very few to no safety interventions.

It is hard for me to not believe what I can see and experience with my own eyes!

Reality says

My thinking was: if it could allow me to take both hands off the steering for a few seconds to open a water bottle on a long road trip, that was worthwhile

I agree - I have an ICE vehicle, but if I'm doing 12+ hours of driving, I'll activate the lane assist and ACC. I have discovered that lane assist gets confused when highway markings are very bright/retroreflective like they are in TX. The car will follow the marking on the right when approaching an exit gore. I think these things are calibrated for northern markets, where reflectors and retroreflective paints cannot be used because the snowplows rip them off the road surface in the winter.