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Rally GB: Preview TOYOTA GAZOO Racing confident heading into the Welsh forests

Sep. 27, 2019

Rally GB: Preview
TOYOTA GAZOO Racing confident heading into the Welsh forests

70 years ago, the United Kingdom handed over trustee¬ship of Volkswagen to the Federal Republic of Germany

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Consumer Reports Calls Tesla Smart Summon “A Science Experiment”

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Published on October 12th, 2019 |

by Steve Hanley

Consumer Reports Calls Tesla Smart Summon “A Science Experiment”

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October 12th, 2019 by Steve Hanley

It is fair to say the rollout of Tesla’s Smart Summon feature has not been an unqualified success. Reports have filtered in over the days since the feature was installed via an over the air update of Teslas lurching through parking lots like zombies, getting lost, and struggling to achieve their mission, which is to unpark themselves and drive slowly to wherever the smartphone is that controls them. A few fender benders have been reported as well, but without any clear evidence they were caused by Smart Summon.

Smart Summon is supposed to be a step forward on the road to fully self-driving cars, but if that is so, it seems to some onlookers there is still a long way to go. As the Chinese proverb suggests, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.”

Consumer Reports, which always seems to have a love/hate affair with Tesla automobiles, has tested Smart Summon at its facility in Connecticut. It’s fair to say the new technology was weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Jake Fisher, CR’s senior director of auto testing, says consumers are not getting technology that has been fully tested and ready to meet their expectations. He suggests Tesla owners are little more than unpaid beta testers who are volunteering to help Tesla fine tune the Smart Summon technology — even though they are paying $6,000 up front for the autonomous Full Self Driving package. (Not many Tesla owners with Full Self Driving are complaining, while thousands or tens of thousands seem to be thrilled about the opportunity.)

“What consumers are really getting is the chance to participate in a kind of science experiment,” Fisher says. “This is a work in progress.” Ouch!

Consumer Reports says it attempted to contact Tesla several times but never got a response from the company.

“CR’s experience with the system shows that Smart Summon can exit a parking space, turn and start moving toward the vehicle owner, and negotiate around stationary objects. It also can detect and stop for pedestrians and slow down if it senses cross traffic.

“But we found that the system works only intermittently, depending on the car’s reading of the surroundings. The system is designed to work only in private parking lots, but sometimes it seemed confused about where it was. In one case, the system worked in one section of a private lot, but in another part of the lot it mistakenly detected that it was on a public road and shut itself down. At various times, our Model 3 would suddenly stop for no obvious reason.

“When it did work, the Model 3 appeared to move cautiously, which could be a positive from a safety perspective. But it also meant the vehicle took a long time to reach its driver. The Model 3 also didn’t always stay on its side of the lane in the parking lots.”

The vehicles sometimes drove in the middle of two traffic lanes or wandered left and right like a drunk or distracted driver. One car drove the wrong way in a one-way traffic lane, requiring the tester to run to the car and move it manually so traffic could begin flowing again.

“Under the right circumstances, our Model 3, with Smart Summon activated, would slowly and successfully make its way to the person summoning it with a smartphone — and in those cases, the car was indeed controlling itself, steering, braking, and making decisions about its route. But the person operating the app still has the responsibility to monitor the car and keep it out of trouble,” says Consumer Reports.

The system requires the operator to continuously hold down a button on the smartphone, a fail-safe procedure recommended by CR. If the button is released, the car will bring itself to a full stop to await further instructions.

Tesla Warnings Are Confusing
The testing service says Tesla’s warnings about using the feature in a controlled setting are confusing. The company says to use Smart Summon only in “private” parking lots, but many consumers consider shopping centers parking lots to be public areas, which raises the question of where exactly it can be used.

“Tesla once again is promising ‘full self-driving’ but delivering far less, and now we’re seeing collisions,” says Ethan Douglas, a senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports in Washington, D.C. “Tesla should stop beta testing its cars on the general public by pushing out experimental features before they’re ready.”

NHTSA told Consumer Reports in a comment that it is aware of the safety concerns related to Smart Summon. It says it has ongoing contact with the company and will continue to gather information. Consumers are encouraged to report any concerns to NHTSA online.

Beta Testing
CleanTechnica is often accused of being a Tesla fanboy site. It is true that we publish a lot of stories about Tesla, most of them favorable. But Tesla has a habit of putting new software in the hands of customers and gathering feedback from their experiences to improve it. That process began when the company began installing the “Hardware 1” self-driving suite of sensors 3 years ago, or even earlier when Autopilot came out 5 years ago.

It continued before the Model 3 was released to the general public when the company delivered early production cars to employees with the understanding that they would uncover any defects and report them when they came to work the next day. What better way to address customer complaints than at the factory where the cars were built?

The argument is that the early release testers are volunteers. The flaw in that argument is that the cars involved in the beta testing are driving on public streets (or parking lots) in the presence of other drivers who are not volunteers and who have no idea beta testing is taking place around them.

It’s like taking a group photograph with the consent of the person in the middle without getting consent from the others. It raises a number of privacy and legal issues that Tesla seems (to some of us) to ignore, claiming its interest in providing cutting-edge technology supersedes such mundane concerns. Regulators may not see things quite the same way.

About the Author

Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island and anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. His motto is, “Life is not measured by how many breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away!” You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter.

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Volkswagen Group India consolidates into a new entity: ŠKODA AUTO Volkswagen India Private Limited

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World Champions Return Home for Fuji

Sep. 30, 2019

World Champions Return Home for Fuji

[Athlete Stories] SEITO YAMAMOTO: “After crawling back up from the bottom, I hope to grab on to something that will change my life.”

Oct. 02, 2019

SEITO YAMAMOTO:
“After crawling back up from the bottom, I hope to grab on to something that will change my life.”

Volkswagen and its British roots

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Smooth

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Published on October 11th, 2019 |

by Zachary Shahan

Smooth

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October 11th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

Since I got the Tesla Model 3 a month and a half ago, I’ve been trying to figure out a one- or two-sentence summary of the car. It’s been tough. I’m plagued by a few issues. For one, I’m used to communicating with people who know a ton about Tesla (you), whereas people in the “real world” are often not such people. It’s hard to know where to start. Secondly, I had a Model S for a while and I think my brain tries too hard to come up with something new and different for the Model 3 since it’s a different car. I think my typical response about how I liked the Model S was, “It’s awesome!” This second matter actually just came to mind as I started writing this, so maybe that will remove the mental block and I’ll start responding in that way again for the Model 3. It is hard to find a better word than “awesome” to describe the car.

A third issue is that I often just want to say it’s the best car you can imagine, the best car ever. However, “best” is not really a descriptor, it’s a ranking. Additionally, it’s a little ridiculous to make that claim and then not explain why it’s the best, but to explain why it’s the best would entail covering a bunch of different topics. Generally speaking, in these situations, I don’t think the other person really wants to hear a long monologue about a product they know nothing about. Being a totally crazed fanboy talking a million miles an hour is not a good look.

So, with “it’s the best,” I either make a wild claim that is so exuberant that it probably makes people nervous, or I start rambling and ranting for 5 minutes in a way that turns off the listener even more. Not the best options.

Internally, one way I’ve thought about the car is that it’s the most complete car out there. It just feels right because it’s so complete, is put together so thoughtfully and perfectly, is such an overall good package. That said, “complete” is another vague, useless term for someone who doesn’t really know from personal experience what I’m talking about. Yes, I think other Model 3 owners know what I’m trying to say when I say it’s the “most complete car” out there. Strangers on the street? Not so much.

Somehow, in recent days, one word finally popped into my head for how to describe the car — smooth. It drives so extremely smoothly. The user interface on the touchscreen is so brilliantly smooth. Autopilot is now a smoother driver than me. The exterior and interior design of the car is the definition of smooth. The car is a beautiful wonder. The app: smooth. The navigation: smooth. The air conditioning vents: smooth. It’s all smooth. The whole car is smooth.

That said, I’m sure some of you have already thought of this — if someone asks me how I like the car and I say, “Great! It’s so smooth,” they’re going to look at me like I’m a crazy person and probably walk swiftly in the opposite direction. Again, it’s a nice word for describing the car to people who have it or know it well, but it’s a horrid explanation for someone with little to no experience with a Tesla.

My conclusion is two-fold. First, I think it’d be appropriate to say, “It’s awesome! It’s so smooth, such a complete car — like nothing else out there.” Afterward, I can then ask them, “What do you care most about? What’s important for you in a car?” Depending on what they say, it’s very easily to highlight the car’s many benefits. You can talk about its record safety score, its wicked acceleration, its traction control and superb handling, its unmatched infotainment, its home charging and Supercharging capabilities, or other goodies. Inviting the listener to set the frame for the discussion is a good way to make sure your answer interests them, and you know the Model 3 is going to soundly defeat anything else in its price class.

Perhaps awesome is going to be the best way to talk about the car to a newbie asking me about it. However, for talking to myself in my head (it happens), the words that really capture the car best are now smooth and complete. These words represent the car in a useful way. They communicate the car and “life with the car” better than all of the other efforts to put the Model 3 into simple descriptive words.

Have another descriptor you love? Want to chime in about this whole smooth thing. We’ll see what happens as more features roll out.

If you’d like to buy a Tesla Model 3 and want 1,000 miles of free Supercharging, feel free to use my referral code: https://ts.la/zachary63404 — or use someone else’s if you have a friend or family member with a Tesla. I won’t cry.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the CEO of Important Media. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.

Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA] — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in this company and feels like it is a good cleantech company to invest in. But he offers no investment advice and does not recommend investing in Tesla or any other company.

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Subaru Tecnica International Expands the STI Gallery in Mitaka, Tokyo

September 20, 2019

Subaru Tecnica International Expands the STI Gallery in Mitaka, Tokyo

Tokyo, September 20, 2019 – Subaru Corporation announced that its motorsports subsidiary Subaru Tecnica International (STI) *1 has completed expansion of the STI Gallery located in Mitaka, Tokyo, The new Gallery will be open to the public from Saturday, September 21.

Established in 2009, the STI Gallery has exhibited the company’s historical items, especially its iconic vehicles such as Impreza WRC models which competed in the World Rally Championship and a special edition model Impreza 22B STI Version. The Gallery was updated in the beginning of 2019 with additional display such as the trophies STI has won in its motorsports activities, company’s latest history timelines with milestones and the walls where visitors can write their messages to STI. Since then, a lot of Subaru enthusiasts, including those who come from overseas, have visited the Gallery.

To offer the special experience to visitors, more memorial items related to STI are newly added to display. The Gallery is also designed to be able to hold various STI special exhibitions or events.
The Gallery is open on both weekdays and weekends*2. On weekends, a special STI ambassador will be on site to provide information to visitors.
STI aims to make this Gallery a special place where Subaru/STI can communicate and engage with Subaru/STI fans and any other car enthusiasts from all over the world.

To commemorate the expansion of the Gallery, STI holds a special exhibition “Discover STI vol. 1 ‘The early years of STI’ 1988-1998” so visitors can feel STI’s progress in the early days. The exhibition highlights the early years of STI when its first President Ryuichiro Kuze led the company by showing panels with stories as well as his personal items.

SUBARU and STI will continue to offer “Enjoyment and Peace of Mind” through the efforts centered on vehicle development and tireless challenges in motorsports field.

*1: STI: President Yasuo Hiraoka; Located in Mitaka, Tokyo. The company manages motorsports activities of Subaru.
*2: For opening hours, see https://www.sti.jp/gallery/

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SEAT joins the Princess of Girona Foundation to promote youth employment

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