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When BMW brought Mini back in the early 2000s, the taillights on Frank Stephenson’s original design were triangular. They later filled out and got a bit more squarish, and have remained so for about a decade — but that looks to change starting next year. The upper and lower inner chunks of the clusters have been chipped away, making sideways trapezoids.
The entire unit has been subdivided into what I could only describe as pixels, but like pixels from an old-school LCD display. If I squint, it seems like the bars that would comprise the Union Jack are a bit lighter than the rest, and I bet those light up in similar fashion as the current Mini’s taillights.
This would be a very smart move for Mini, because it’s getting so much attention over the flag lights from nerds like us. I’m willing to bet every person that directly follows a new Mini has noticed the design, and so long as they’ve ever seen 15 seconds of Austin Powers, they probably get the joke.
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I have less to say about the rest of the upcoming Mini’s look. I mean, I’m still reminded of goatees or that one episode of The Powerpuff Girls when I study the front, and the headlights have these crossbars on their upper and lower portions that almost look like eyelids on a Family Guy character. I’m overflowing with cartoon character references.
There’s more to say about the interior, where Mini designers have seemingly ditched the small pill-shaped digital instrument cluster behind the steering wheel in favor of a heads-up display. The dash is entirely clad in what looks to be canvas, with a big old circular panel affixed to the center dash. It’s like the essence of a Mini interior stripped down to its most iconographic parts, and it’s kind of soulless. I don’t love it coming from the current Mini’s fun and lighthearted cabin.
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Supposedly this new Mini Cooper will be available in internal combustion and battery electric forms. If the manufacturer can squeeze roughly 50 more miles out of the SE while keeping the price around where it sits today — and the driving dynamics on point — it’ll be a pretty compelling bargain EV.
Holy crap, right? That wheel just smacks that column out of the way like it was smacking away a fly, and then it sounds like it shatters glass on the door before helpfully ringing the doorbell.
It’s not really clear what the wheel came from; it could be a trailer tire, though it seems large enough to have come from a car, too. The hub is smoking pretty dramatically, so perhaps the bearings seized or something like that, which caused a enough friction to weaken the metal, snapping off the wheel and sending it on its new mission to trash someone’s front door.
I especially like this look of absolute bafflement as this kid hears the doorbell and commotion, and comes out to see a smoldering tire on the lawn and a trashed front porch; you can almost feel the what-the-fuck rays emanating right from your monitor.
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So, um, be careful out there, I guess? Do what you can to keep random wheels from slamming into your houses, somehow.
What I like about this test is that it presents a very good mix of everyday, normal driving situations in an environment with a good mix of traffic density, road complexity, lighting conditions, road markings, and more. In short, reality, the same sort of entropy-heavy reality all of us live in and where we expect our machines to work.
There’s a lot that FSD does that’s impressive when you consider that this is an inert mass of steel and rubber and silicon that’s effectively driving on its own through a crowded city. We’ve come a long way since Stanley the Toureg finished the DARPA Challenge back in 2006, and there’s so much to be impressed by.
At the same time, this FSD beta proves to be a pretty shitty driver, at least in this extensive test session.
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Anyone arguing that FSD in its latest state drives better than a human is either delusional, high from the fumes of their own raw ardor for Elon Musk or needs to find better-driving humans to hang out with.
FSD drives in a confusing, indecisive way, making all kinds of peculiar snap decisions and generally being hard to read and predict to other drivers around them. Which is a real problem.
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Drivers expect a certain baseline of behaviors and reactions from the cars around them. That means there’s not much that’s more dangerous to surrounding traffic than an unpredictable driver, which this machine very much is.
And that’s when it’s driving at least somewhat legally; there are several occasions in this video where traffic laws were actually broken, including two instances of the car attempting to drive the wrong way down a street and into oncoming traffic.
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Nope, not great.
In the comments, many people have criticized Kyle, the driver/supervisor, for allowing the car to make terrible driving decisions instead of intervening. The reasoning for this ranges from simple Tesla-fan-rage to the need for disengagements to help the system learn, to concern that by not correcting the mistakes, Kyle is potentially putting people in danger.
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They’re also noting that the software is very clearly unfinished and in a beta state, which, is pretty clearly true as well.
These are all reasonable points. Well, the people just knee-jerk shielding Elon’s Works from any scrutiny aren’t reasonable, but the other points are, and they bring up bigger issues.
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Specifically, there’s the fundamental question about whether or not it makes sense to test an unfinished self-driving system on public roads, surrounded by people, in or out of other vehicles, that did not agree to participate in any sort of beta testing of any kind.
You could argue that a student driver is a human equivalent of beta testing our brain’s driving software, though when this is done in any official capacity, there’s a professional driving instructor in the car, sometimes with an auxiliary brake pedal, and the car is often marked with a big STUDENT DRIVER warning.
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I’ve proposed the idea of some kind of warning lamp for cars under machine control, and I still think that’s not a bad idea, especially during the transition era we find ourselves in.
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Of course, in many states, you can teach your kid to drive on your own without any special permits. That context is quite similar to FSD beta drivers since they don’t have any special training beyond a regular driver’s license (and no, Tesla’s silly Safety Score does not count as special training).
In both cases, you’re dealing with an unsure driver who may not make good decisions, and you may need to take over at a moment’s notice. On an FSD-equipped Tesla (or really any L2-equipped car), taking over should be easy, in that your hands and other limbs should be in position on the car’s controls, ready to take over.
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In the case of driving with a kid, this is less easy, though still possible. I know because I was once teaching a girlfriend of the time how to drive and had to take control of a manual old Beetle from the passenger seat. You can do it, but I don’t recommend it.
Of course, when you’re teaching an uncertain human, you’re always very, very aware of the situation and nothing about it would give you a sense of false confidence that could allow your attention to waver. This is a huge problem with Level 2 semi-automated systems, though, and one I’ve discussed at length before.
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As far as whether or not the FSB beta needs driver intervention to “learn” about all the dumb things it did wrong, I’m not entirely sure this is true. Tesla has mentioned the ability to learn in “shadow mode” which would eliminate the need for FSD to be active to learn driving behaviors by example.
As far as Kyle’s willingness to let FSD beta make its bad decisions, sure, there are safety risks, but it’s also valuable to see what it does to give an accurate sense of just what the system is capable of. He always stepped in before things got too bad, but I absolutely get that this in no way represents safe driving.
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At the same time, showing where the system fails helps users of FSD have a better sense of the capabilities of what they’re using so they can attempt to understand how vigilant they must be.
This is all really tricky, and I’m not sure yet of the best practice solution here.
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This also brings up the question of whether Tesla’s goals make sense in regard to what’s known as their Operational Design Domain (ODD), which is just a fancy way of saying “where should I use this?”
Tesla has no restrictions on their ODD, as referenced in this tweet:
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This raises a really good point: should Tesla define some sort of ODD?
I get that their end goal is Level 5 full, anywhere, anytime autonomy, a goal that I think is kind of absurd. Full Level 5 is decades and decades away. If Tesla freaks are going to accuse me of literally having blood on my hands for allegedly delaying, somehow, the progress of autonomous driving, then you’d think the smartest move would be to restrict the ODD to areas where the system is known to work better (highways, etc) to allow for more automated deployment sooner.
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That would make the goal more Level 4 than 5, but the result would be, hopefully, safer automated vehicle operation, and, eventually, safer driving for everyone.
Trying to make an automated vehicle work everywhere in any condition is an absolutely monumental task, and there’s still so so much work to do. Level 5 systems are probably decades away, at best. Restricted ODD systems may be able to be deployed much sooner, and maybe Tesla should be considering doing that, just like many other AV companies (Waymo, Argo, and so on) are doing.
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We’re still in a very early transition period on this path to autonomy, however that turns out. Videos like these, that show real-world behavior of such systems, problems and all, are very valuable, even if we’re still not sure on the ethics of making them.
All I know is that now is the time to question everything, so don’t get bullied by anyone.
The tribute includes a one-off special livery in throwback Honda Championship White with red accent, paying tribute to the rising sun livery the company wore when it first joined F1 in the 1960s. The cars also carry the characters for the Japanese word ‘arigato’ with a hearty and heart-felt thank you to the powerplant manufacturer. The Alpha Tauri cars will also carry the thank you message.
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Rather than switching to a new powertrain supplier in 2022, Red Bull will take over the intellectual property and production of Honda’s V6 hybrid power units later this year ahead of the revised chassis requirements next season. It would likely be too much of a pain in the ass for Red Bull to have to build a brand new chassis to new regulations and build a relationship with a new powerplant manufacturer at the same time. As a result the fizzy energy drinks company will start its own engine division called Red Bull Powertrains.
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RBR’s Max Verstappen currently sits 2 points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton with seven rounds remaining in the championship. Perhaps this special livery will be enough to push him to his eighth victory this season, or perhaps it will go about as well as the last time Mercedes decided to run a special one-off tribute livery. We’ll see when the Turkish Grand Prix goes off this Sunday.
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Twitter user @Benshooter later walked back the accusation of Musk lying about the record. Tesla posted onboard video to its own YouTube channel of the record run, and it appears that the only modification made was to put an aftermarket digital gauge readout in front of the driver, even retaining the stock yoke steering wheel. The video was also posted to The ‘Ring’s YouTube channel, corroborating the authenticity of the record. The official lap time for this onboard video is 7:35.579.
So what gives? What’s with the other time listed, a 7:30.909? Clearly Tesla has more speed up its sleeve. Judging by the onboard video being set in a red car, it appears Tesla may have had two red cars on hand, one stock and one seriously modified. There was also at least one black car on hand as well. Maybe Tesla ran several iterations of the Plaid at the track, including some future track-focused version with carbon ceramic brakes and a round steering wheel.
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With the results having been certified as a record by the necessary officials, Tesla seems to have gone through the motions of getting this done the right way. There’s no reason not to be a little skeptical of Elon Musk claims, but at least this time it appears that everything is on the up and up. It’s a little sketchy that Elon didn’t explain the actual “record” was the slower of the two lap times he posted on Twitter, but it’s entirely possible he doesn’t know the difference.
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Yesterday afternoon I played hooky from work to go check out my local Pegaso dealership, which is just a short drive from my house to a pill I found on a park picnic table that lets me transcend space and time. At the dealership, I was able to see the full Pegaso product line, which is really quite bonkers.
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Pegaso is interesting because the same company made, under the same name, beautiful, sleek sports cars like the Z-102 and Z-103, and also innumerable huge trucks, buses, and big military, tank-like vehicles. That’s a pretty remarkable breadth.
But there’s other companies with similarly vast breadths of vehicles, right? I mean, Tatra made advanced, aerodynamic luxury cars and huge trucks, and Honda makes tiny city cars and mopeds and even jets. And doesn’t Hyundai build container ships under the same name brand as they sold the Veloster?
So, of all the carmakers that make wildly divergent vehicles, which divergence is the most wild? Tell me, tell me now, dammit.