Latest news with #Skunkworks
Tom's Guide
18 hours ago
- Automotive
- Tom's Guide
Ford reveals its 'Model T' EV moment with an affordable $30,000 electric pickup
Ford's 'Model T moment' for electric vehicles has finally arrived with the reveal of what it's billing as a more affordable EV platform. The car maker announced its universal EV platform today (August 11) with plans to build a family of affordable electric vehicles starting with a four-door midsize pickup truck. The truck won't arrive until 2027, but Ford is touting that its new EV will start at $30,000. Ford teased the platform in July, when CEO Jim Farley said that it was planning to build a 'breakthrough' EV that would be built in Kentucky. "This is a Model T moment for us at Ford, a chance to bring a new family of vehicles to the world that offer incredible technology, efficiency, space, and features,' Farley said at the time. Ford reportedly had a Skunkworks team in the Bay Area run by a former Tesla engineer to develop the platform in secret for more than a decade. Part of the project involved tearing up the assembly line concept with the new platform and 'radically simplifying vehicle assembly for safety, quality, and speed.' According to Farley, Ford has a difficult goal in trying to make a sustainable business that offers affordable vehicles. 'We took a radical approach to a very hard challenge: Create affordable vehicles that delight customers in every way that matters – design, innovation, flexibility, space, driving pleasure, and cost of ownership,' Farley said in a press release. In the world of electric vehicles, Ford has lagged behind, only really offering its F-150 Lightning and an electric version of the classic Mustang. Neither of those cars could be described as affordable. The idea of a new EV platform isn't unique. As The Autopian notes, companies like Volkswagen, GM, and Hyundai/Kia have ongoing platforms that underpin their electric vehicles like the Blazer EV or Kia EV6. Ford told The Autopian that its platform differentiates itself by being more modular than the approaches of other EV makers. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. This more modular design is supposed to make the vehicle more affordable because it creates vehicles with fewer parts than traditional gas cars. This harkens back to the Model T, which pioneered mass-produced, affordable cars. 'The platform reduces parts by 20% versus a typical vehicle, with 25% fewer fasteners, 40% fewer workstations dock-to-dock in the plant and 15% faster assembly time,' Ford said in its announcement. One estimate claims the new vehicle will reduce wiring by 4,000 feet and 10 fewer kilograms than the Mustang Mach-E. Additionally, the platform is scalable, meaning that eventually Ford will be able to offer a variety of vehicle types beyond trucks, including vans and SUVs. Outside of actually building the car, Ford says the new cars will be 'software-defined,' meaning the eVS will have operating systems that Ford can improve via over-the-air updates. With manufacturing becoming more streamlined and cheaper, Ford is also looking to save money with a new smaller battery. The company is planning on using lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry in future EVs. Reportedly, this battery will be somewhere between 49 kWh and 60.48 kWh, smaller than the 57 kWh battery in the original Chevy Bolt, which launched in 2016. This is quite tiny compared to the 300+ mile range of most modern battery packs. However, in comparison to most lithium-ion batteries, LFPs have improved lifecycles and, from what we understand, can be charged to 100% more often. According to Alan Clarke, head of the Skunkworks team, the company is planning on boosting range via improved aerodynamic designs and software optimization. Ford is massively investing in an EV future that finds itself at a fraught time in the United States, as President Donald Trump has been antagonistic toward electric vehicles. The recently passed "Big Beautiful Bill" nixes the $7,500 tax credit for EVs. And the administration is also considering zeroing out fines for vehicles that exceed fuel efficiency standards. Ford is also dealing with heavy-handed tariffs across the board from the Trump Administration, which the company has said could cut more than $2 billion off its earnings. Elsewhere, Chinese companies like BYD have grown exponentially popular in their home country as well as other countries thanks to more affordable options. The most affordable brand new EV you can find is the 2025 Nissan Leaf, which starts $28,140, but it's not a four-door pickup. If Ford can be the first while offering good tech and decent range, it could be the breakthrough Ford is seeking. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Miami Herald
01-08-2025
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
Ford CEO Says Its Newest EVs Are Ready for Its "Model T Moment"
During Ford's second-quarter earnings call with investors on the evening of July 30, Ford CEO Jim Farley revealed that the automaker is set to reveal its new strategy centered around a new line of electric vehicles underpinned by a new platform. In his remarks, Farley said that the future plans would be a "Model T moment," referring to the 120-year-old model that was the world's first mass-produced, affordable car. He hinted at a transformative breakthrough that would help position Ford to sell a new line of electric cars aimed at competing against low-cost Chinese models from known names like BYD. "On Aug. 11, that will be a big day for all of us at Ford. We will be in Kentucky to share more about our plans to design and build a breakthrough electric vehicle and a platform in the U.S.," Farley said. "This is a Model-T moment for us at Ford. A chance to bring a new family of vehicles to the world that offer incredible technology, efficiency, space, and features." In the past, the Ford CEO admitted his admiration for his Chinese competition. Late last year, he revealed on a podcast appearance that he daily drove a Xiaomi SU7 that Ford used for benchmarking, adding that he was having a hard time giving it up. On the earnings call with Wall Street insiders, he acknowledged that Ford is falling behind its East Asian rivals, pegging them as their new competition to beat. Farley noted to the investors and Wall Street insiders listening in that the next EVs developed by its internal California-based "Skunkworks division" are set to be released within "the next year or two - starting," adding that its strategy against its Chinese counterparts "is to go and really push ourselves to radically reengineer and transform our engineering, supply chain and manufacturing process." "We really see, not the global (automakers) as our competitive set for our next generation of EVs, we see the Chinese. Companies like Geely, BYD," Farley said. "That's how we built our vehicle. How we've engineered what kind of supply chain we've used and the kind of low content in our manufacturing." Despite this, Farley's announcement underscores that Ford has yet to make any money selling its electric vehicles. Its internal "Model e" division, which is dedicated solely to EVs, has been hemorrhaging money for several quarters. During Q2 2025, Ford reported that the Model e division lost $1.3 billion, a worse quarter than the division's loss of $1.1 billion just a year earlier. Farley told the Wall Street analysts on July 30 that over the past three years, the automaker saw EV consumer demand and government regulations and support rapidly change, which pushed it to think carefully about its next moves. As part of its new EV strategy, Ford's CEO said it will offer EVs in select body styles in segments where it "can actually make money on EVs." Another part of that strategy is its investment in LFP, or lithium-iron-phosphate batteries -a cheaper, longer-lasting form of EV battery, particularly used in Chinese-market electric vehicles. Starting next year, it plans to build them at the BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan, which he touts as "a big advantage for the company." But despite this, Ford feels that its investment in EVs is part of a larger lineup puzzle, which includes gas-powered cars like hybrids and extended range electric vehicles. "We think that's a much better move than a $60,000 to $70,000 all-electric crossover," Farley said. "We think [offering a variety of powertrains] is really what customers are going to want long term, and we're investing a lot in more durable internal combustion engine powertrains." This development feels like a preview of the end result of something that Farley and his Blue Oval engineers have been working on since he and other Ford executives learned of the level of innovation that Chinese automakers were capable of. In a September 2024 profile written by Mike Colias and published by The Wall Street Journal, Farley was described less as a traditional businessman than as a hands-on executive obsessed with his competition. The piece centered around a trip to China in 2023, during which Farley and other Ford executives got the full picture of their Chinese competition. According to the Journal, Farley's fascination with Chinese automakers began when he and Ford CFO John Lawler test-drove an electric SUV made by Changan, Ford's joint venture partner in China. "Jim, this is nothing like before," Lawler said to Farley after the drive, per the Journal. "These guys are ahead of us." In light of the signing of the "Big Beautiful Bill" and its provisions against EVs, Ford's EV announcement comes at an interesting time. Nonetheless, I wonder what kind of vehicle Farley will reveal in Kentucky come August 11. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Scoop
05-07-2025
- Automotive
- Scoop
Zeltwanger Completes Dominant Day With Race Win
Lee dominated practice and qualifying at the Manawatu track before fighting off Harry Townshend by just a couple of tenths of a second in the first of the weekend's races. Zeltwanger and his Skunkworks team are now hot favourites to win the inaugural series title. Townshend's strong run increased his lead in the Winter series class for Bridgestone GR86 runners in the Trophy Series. Chief class rival Ajay Giddy made contact with Harry in the heat of battle for third on lap five between turn 1 and 2, swiping the tyre barriers and putting him to the back of the field. Thankfully for him he was able to continue. Surprise of qualifying, Nathan Grammer backed up his front row start with a podium finish for Mackenzie Motorsport but was unable to maintain the blistering pace of the two leaders and came home four seconds behind Townshend at the flag. CareVets Scholarship winner Corban Sprague was next up a couple of seconds behind the impressive Grammer and he had his mirrors full of Matt Day throughout the ten lap race. Toby Elmiger was next up with a healthy margin over Giddy by the end. Two more races on Sunday could see the impressive Zeltwanger take a big step towards securing the title and a pathway into the 2025-2026 Bridgestone GR 86 Championship. Toyota 86 Trophy Series – Round 3 Manfeild – Circuit Chris Amon – Race 1 Pos Car # Driver name Trophy / Winter Team 1 22 Lee Zeltwanger Trophy Skunkworks Racing 2 73 Harry Townshend Winter Mackenzie Motorsport 3 50 Nathan Grammer Trophy Mackenzie Motorsport 4 84 Corban Sprague Trophy iMac Engineering 5 100 Matt Day Trophy Dayle ITM Racing 6 74 Toby Elmiger Trophy Action Motorsport 7 10 Ajay Giddy Winter Mackenzie Motorsport 2025 Toyota 86 Trophy Series Rd1 9-10 May 2025 Hampton Downs - NZIGP Finale Rd2 21-22 June 2025 Taupo Int. Motorsport Park - Taupo Winter Series Rd3 5-6 July 2025 Manfeild – Circuit Chris Amon - Manfeild Winter Series Rd4 26-27 July 2025 Taupo Int. Motorsport Park - Taupo Winter Series Visit us:
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Ford's Farley believes he knows how to beat the Chinese on EVs. Wall Street's reaction.
Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley sees the automaker as in a race against Chinese manufacturers to make affordable, yet profitable, electric vehicles. Farley says that the key to winning is to downsize the vehicles and the price. That might sound obvious, but it is also counterintuitive, given that the automaker's first all-electric vehicle in recent years was the F-150 Lightning pickup. Also, Ford's bread-and-butter moneymakers are the F-Series gasoline and hybrid pickups. But Ford's restructuring of its EV investments and strategy has become a repetitive mantra for Farley in recent weeks, as he tells Wall Street analysts the automaker is in good shape to develop a variety of vehicles and propulsion systems to meet customers' range requirements and wallets. Most importantly, Ford is positioned to better compete against the Chinese EV giants, especially BYD, which is known for high-quality, yet affordable, EVs. Those cars are currently barred from the U.S. "We think that our battery strategy is more fit than our competitors," Farley said at a Wall Street conference recently. "And we have understood BYDs through teardowns and future knowledge from the supply chain." While Ford deserves credit for tweaking its EV strategy to focus on smaller, more affordable EVs, some industry experts said all of the Detroit automakers should have recognized sooner that developing cheaper battery technology on smaller vehicles was the right way to gain widespread EV adoption in the United States. "If anything, Ford was way too aggressive in capacitizing for more expensive vehicles and late to recognize that it needed the Skunkworks," Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of Market Research at Telemetry Insights said. Skunkworks is the team of engineers that Ford put together in California to develop a low-cost EV platform. "Even Tesla was early in recognizing the need to take cost out of its EVs, and while affordability remains challenging with Teslas, they have found a path to profitability, something few automakers globally have achieved with EVs," Abuelsamid said. In its EV fleet, Ford currently sells the Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning and E-Transit van. The company remains on target to launch a new, smaller EV, likely a midsize pickup, in 2027. It is expected to be priced below $30,000. In the fourth quarter, Ford's sales of 30,176 EVs in the states rose 16% from the year-ago period. For the full year, Ford sold 97,865 EVs, up 35% from 2023. Farley told Wall Street to expect more news this year around Ford's EV investment strategy and that one thing is certain: Exorbitantly priced EVs will not yield high sales volume or profits, so don't expect to see them come from Ford, he said. 'For larger retail electric utilities, the economics are unresolvable,' Farley said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts earlier this month. 'These customers have very demanding use cases for electric vehicles: They tow, they go off-road, they take long road trips. These vehicles have worse aerodynamics and they're very heavy, which means very large and expensive batteries." Farley said retail customers have shown that they will not pay a premium for these large EVs, making them "a really tough business case given the expense of the batteries.' He told Wall Street that some of Ford's competitors are continuing to bring expensive EVs to the market "that are not going to work." While he did not name those competitors, General Motors has launched newer EVs that include the GMC Hummer pickup and SUV, both starting at about $96,500 and the Silverado EV starting at $73,100. GM also offers the more affordable Chevrolet Equinox EV starting at $35,000. Farley said Ford will make more profits from its larger vehicles if they are extended-range electric vehicles — which means they combine an electric motor with a small internal combustion engine — where "one tank of gas gets over 700 miles of range, but still drives most miles all-electric," Farley said. The "sweet spot" that has emerged for EVs, Farley said, are small and medium-size pickups and SUVs. They are good daily commuters and, because they require smaller, much lower-cost batteries, they can be priced reasonably. Farley told investors at Wolfe Research Auto, Auto Tech and Semiconductor Conference held in New York earlier this month that Ford is in "good shape" after restructuring its EV investment strategy. That's even after the automaker lost about $5.1 billion on its EVs last year. In 2022, Ford established Skunkworks, where Farley said, "My badge does not work in that building," alluding to the top-secret development happening there. He said Ford hired a whole new team in California, with many from competitive all-EV brands. "They have developed a platform that we think is fully competitive with BYD," Farley said. Farley said creating Skunkworks proved to be effective from a cost standpoint. The automaker has developed a new platform at about a third of the cost than had Ford done it in-house. "That will give us a huge benefit, because we believe that EV demand is still out there, that there is a very underserved group of people on the super affordable," Farley said. "But these very large EVs that cost $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, we don't believe in. We think (extended-range electric vehicle) or hybrid is a much better, more profitable investment in our capital." For that reason, Ford canceled plans last August to develop an all-electric three-row SUV. The high costs of producing a large battery for it would require a high-price tag on it and likely little, if any, profit margin. "We learned quickly," Farley said at Wolfe. "We adjusted our capital spending in line with where we think the market is going." Farley did not address the fate of the F-150 Lightning in any of his recent comments to Wall Street. But the EV is a big pickup that starts at $47,780, which would not fit his expressed vision for Ford's EV future. A Ford spokesman did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on the Lightning's future. But industry follower and host of the podcast and webcast "Autoline After Hours," John McElroy, told the Free Press that he thinks the Lightning, in its current form, is likely to go away. 'Ford will almost certainly let the current Lightning fade away when it comes to the end of its product cycle,' McElroy said. 'Though it's a good truck, it never sold very well, mainly because it couldn't carry heavy loads or tow for long distances. It will probably be replaced by an electric truck with a range-extender gasoline engine. And we'll see if Ford decides to use the Lightning name on that.' For all of last year, Ford sold 33,510 Lightning trucks, a 39% increase from 2023 sales. Ford spokesman Ian Thibodeau said the Lightning remains an important part of Ford's lineup. 'Lightning sales grew last year — and we continue to learn a lot about the evolving electric vehicle market by having been in the game early with a full-size electric pickup truck,' Thibodeau said. He added that Farley was referring to the need for better efficiency in bigger batteries, which will come as the technology evolves. Also, Farley believes in the importance of growing the EV market more rapidly through the introduction of more affordable vehicles, Thibodeau said. Overall, U.S. automakers face a serious challenge to catch up to Chinese automakers that have the benefit of government support not just encouraging the technology but almost mandating it, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of Global Vehicle Forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions LLC. "By building an industry around battery electric vehicles, China positions its companies as global market leaders rather than having to find openings in the global (gasoline-powered) vehicle market or by establishing their brands as low-cost, entry-level offerings, Fiorani said. "Brands like MG and BYD are carving out their own niche in many markets and will be well-positioned as buyers find they can live with EVs." China automakers' head start will snowball because they can put revenue back into research and development to make better batteries, which keeps them ahead of the profit-focused automakers in Europe, North America, Japan and South Korea, Fiorani said. "Unless there's a huge shake-up among the Chinese automakers, this lead isn't going to diminish," Fiorani said. It should come as no surprise that smaller, less expensive EVs make sense, Abuelsamid said. For that reason, he stops short of giving Ford too much credit for refocusing its strategy, saying it's what Ford and its Detroit counterparts should have done all along. "All you have to do is look at China and Europe where those form factors are thriving as EVs," Abuelsamid said. "Unfortunately, for Ford and the rest of the U.S. industry, they have become so utterly dependent on large trucks and utilities they overcommitted to electrifying those segments and put way too much resource there." Abuelsamid concedes that GM did have affordable EVs as part of its plan from the beginning with the Chevrolet Bolt and, later, the Equinox. CEO Mary Barra has said offering an EV at under $30,000 was the key to widespread EV adoption. The Equinox EV was supposed to start at under $30,000. Unfortunately, it got more expensive when battery material costs spiked in 2022, Abuelsamid said. But the Chevrolet Bolt was available starting at about $27,000 in its last two years of production before GM halted it at the end of 2023. The new Bolt, due out this year, is supposed to start at under $30,000. For Ford and GM, the move to EVs was initially an opening to transform the legacy car companies into technology companies, Fiorani said. He said the companies knew that years of undervalued stock prices were not going to be turned around by simply making a faster Corvette in GM's case, or a more capable F-150 in Ford's case. But the stock could be improved if the carmakers morph into modern technology firms by engineering EVs. There was just one problem, he said, "GM's 'all-in' approach was a bit too premature for the public and Ford's direction to appeal to established nameplates like Mustang and F-Series was a good first step, if only people were ready in huge volumes," Fiorani said. "Both automakers saw the need to appeal to everyday buyers with the Chevrolet Bolt and Ford's Skunkworks vehicles, however, that also anticipated millions of buyers looking for an EV but only turned off by price." Fiorani said the widespread volume of EV buyers is years away, and until then, automakers should be offering "lower-cost models that use gas, mostly because that's what they know and appreciate." Abuelsamid said Ford, GM, Stellantis, Rivian and Tesla should have paid more attention to what was happening in China with vehicle sizes and battery technology. For example, lithium iron phosphate — a type of lithium-ion battery that uses iron phosphate instead of cobalt and nickel and is cheap to produce — and extended-range electric vehicles were both created in the United States, he said. But Abuelsamid said U.S. automakers largely ignored them instead of developing the technologies. "For full-size pickups, the emphasis should have always been on the commercial sector where 300-plus mile ranges just aren't needed," Abuelsamid said. "The focus should have been on products like the Lightning Pro and they should have launched from job one with cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries to keep the cost down where it was originally promised." The commercial use of all-electric pickups offers big cost savings in both fuel and service. But for consumer vehicles, all-electric pickups do not make sense because of towing expectations, which severely hinder range, Abuelsamid said. "On the other hand, the GM approach of a ridiculously large battery gets the range, but the cost and weight are just too high to be a viable product," Abuelsamid said. According to Chevrolet's website, the 2025 Silverado EV can tow up to 12,500 pounds and it gets an estimated 460 miles of range, but its starting price is $73,100. GM spokesman Shane Levy sent a statement in response to the idea that GM's batteries are large and costly. He noted the results from GM's fourth-quarter U.S. sales in which EV sales soared 125% for the quarter to 43,982 EVs sold compared with the year-ago period, roughly doubling GM's market share over the course of the year. 'GM's battery platform is powering the most diverse portfolio of EVs on the road today, including the segment range-leader Chevrolet Silverado EV which has an EPA-estimated 492 miles of range," the statement read. "With our diverse portfolio, we continue to innovate on our battery technology to deliver even greater choice to customers — aligning performance, cost, and range with customer needs.' More: Ford introduces new features to its security app to prevent theft of F-150 pickups Stellantis actually had the right solution with an extended-range electric truck, Abuelsamid said, and should have planned to launch that first. In January, Stellantis canceled its long-range version of the RAM 1500 REV electric pickup and delayed the launch of the all-electric model to 2026 so that it can instead focus on the Ram 1500 Ramcharger, which will use both gas and electric power. Abuelsamid said Stellantis announced plans at its investor day last year for a Jeep EV, to be priced starting below $30,000, due to market next year. Then there's Hyundai Motor Group, which has also offered a much wider array of EV models in the United States than any other automaker. "While Ford likes to tout being the No. 2 brand, it only sells EVs under the Ford brand (no Lincolns) while Hyundai has three brands and sold about 26% more EVs than Ford in 2024 and 2023," Abuelsamid said. "The Hyundai Kona EV starts at $32,000 and offers up to 260 miles of range while the range spans up to the three-row SUV Kia EV9 and the upcoming Hyundai Ioniq 9." Abuelsamid said because the domestic industry has put so much emphasis on selling large pickups and SUVs, "they painted themselves into a corner" and tried to convince consumers that they don't want smaller vehicles. "The marketers also put too much emphasis on range, so they had to commit to using nickel-rich cell chemistries that increase costs compared to the lithium iron phosphate batteries that are dominant in China and growing in popularity in Europe," Abuelsamid said. "The reality is the commitment to building expensive premium EVs was a huge product planning mistake." He said there was never going to be enough demand for $100,000 EVs to justify the capacity the automakers wanted to build. "GM's target of 400,000 electric trucks and Ford's expansion of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center to 150,000 capacity along with BlueOval City was never likely to pay off," Abuelsamid said. "Now they may have a harder time selling smaller EVs to American consumers." More: Ford cuts stock middle manager stock bonuses; bosses told to pick who gets them Ford builds the F-150 Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn. For 2024, the 33,510 Lightnings sold was nowhere near the 150,000 capacity. Ford's BlueOval City is a 4,100-acre campus under construction in Tennessee to make batteries, electric trucks and other EVs. If the industry had invested in a charging infrastructure, smaller EVs, cheaper lithium ion phosphate batteries and extended-range electric vehicles, Abuelsamid said, EV adoption would be further along. At the Wolfe conference, Farley assured investors that Ford is "doubling our EV volume this year." "We still have a vibrant business in Europe, the Puma electrics coming out," Farley said. "We're going to go from 100,000 to 250,000 to 260,000 EV (production). So we have a lot of growth, but it's not in America so it's not as obvious to investors." He said the innovation at Skunkworks is to design a vehicle for "manufacturability." That means to have the "simplest, smallest footprint in a plant with the lowest labor content and that drives a lot of complexity reduction," he said. All in all, Wall Street was pleased with Farley's message, saying at least "there's a pilot on the plane navigating," Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, told the Free Press. "Ford was late to game with the rest of the crowd, but has been ahead of it with its 2027 strategy plans with a smaller, cheaper EV," Ives said. "Farley is trying to get his arms around the EV strategy, but we believe heading in the right direction with all the changing headwinds in the Beltway." Jamie L. LaReau is the senior autos writer who covers Ford Motor Co. for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Jamie at jlareau@ Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford's Farley believes he has a plan to compete against Chinese on EVs
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Most Tesla drivers won't get self-driving without a hardware upgrade
For years, Tesla has been selling people on the idea of full self-driving cars. Now, Elon Musk admits that most Tesla owners won't see this without a meaningful hardware upgrade. In the company's most recent earnings call, Musk expressed his satisfaction with the lack of sales growth for FSD (unsupervised full self-driving). He also explained that in order for everyone to benefit from the service, should it become available, Tesla would need to install additional hardware upgrades before it would offers two versions of self-driving: autopilot and full self-driving. To complicate matters further, 'Autopilot' is often referred to as 'full self-driving (supervised),' and people often call autopilot 'FSD.' Full self-driving—the real FSD—is the carrot Tesla continues to dangle to existing owners and new car buyers. FSD means the vehicle is in charge of all functionality, and the driver can do anything, even sleep. Drivers are so confused by all the self-driving misdirection that they've been caught sleeping using Autopilot. In 2021, a Tesla driver was sleeping behind the wheel as Autopilot sped down the highway. There have also been crashes associated with Musk said little during Tesla's most recent earnings call, he did express that most Teslas on the road aren't adequately equipped. Hardware 3, the computer Tesla used in vehicles from 2019 to 2023, cannot handle FSD, even though the automaker has been selling it in its vehicles and offering FSD as an upgrade for years. - "The honest answer is that we're going to have to upgrade people's Hardware 3 computer for those that have bought full self-driving,' Musk said. 'And that is the honest answer, and that's going to be painful and difficult, but we'll get it done. Now I'm kind of glad that not that many people bought the FSD package.' Another issue Musk faces is whether Tesla needs LIDAR (light detection and ranging) for FSD. Other vehicles, like Alphabet's Waymo cars, use LIDAR to operate autonomously. LIDAR bounces lasers off surrounding items to help a vehicle's onboard computer avoid other cars, people, obstacles, and buildings. Musk doesn't believe LIDAR is necessary, saying, "Obviously, humans drive without shooting lasers out of their eyes," adding, "Humans drive with eyes, and a neural net and a brain neural net, sort of biological, which is the digital equivalent of eyes and a brain are cameras and digital neural nets or AI. So, the entire road system was designed for passive optical neural nets.'Musk's idea that Teslas only need cameras and an onboard computer seems misguided and unsafe. He's distilling driving to ocular sensors and decision-making based on experience, not reason. He cares more about AI than making great cars. Alphabet's Skunkworks division created Waymo using LIDAR technology. If an entire team of dreamers decided on LIDAR for what Musk is trying to achieve, it seems like the most reliable path forward. We may soon see if Musk is right. Tesla is allegedly rolling out an autonomous robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, this June, which Musk claims will use FSD. We'll have to see it to believe it, though, as we've been told FSD is 'months away' for years. Love reading Autoblog? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get exclusive articles, insider insights, and the latest updates delivered right to your inbox. Click here to sign up now!
