# Time’s Up: Tesla Missed the Deadline for Its Nationwide Autonomous Test Drive



## jocker12 (May 11, 2017)

While The Truth About Cars has occasionally been accused for having it in for Tesla, the honest-to-god-truth is that we just possess a severe aversion to unbridled hype. Autonomous cars have made a lot of progress in the last few years, but there's something about the way manufacturers talk about them that makes us want to say, "Interesting, but we'll believe it when we see it."

Automakers love making grandiose claims and Tesla Motors' Elon Musk may be the prince of hyperbolic statements and lofty promises. He should be commended for delivering on many of them. Still, though there have been many occasions where the other shoe dropped and it was our job to report it. We're having to do that again, now that Tesla has missed its initial deadline to dazzle the world with an autonomous cross-country road trip.

You may have forgotten but, back in October of 2016, Musk said he wanted to showcase his company's self-driving prowess by having a vehicle drive itself across the entirety of the United States. "It will do this without the need for a single touch, including the charger," the CEO claimed at the time. The car was even supposed to park itself at the end of the journey. The self-imposed deadline for this event? January 1st, 2018.

Had Tesla achieved that goal, the whole world would be losing its mind right now. No automaker seems even remotely prepared to take on that kind of endeavor - either because the technology isn't ready or the associated risks are too great. But it's another example of Musk making a promise he couldn't back up. In fact, he even said as much this summer during an earnings conference. "It is certainly possible that I will have egg on my face on that front, but if it's not at the end of the year it will be very close," Musk said on the matter.

Tesla hasn't provided an adjusted timeline as of yet. We expect Musk to give the firm another 12 months to do the deed. However, now that we've seen the deadline pushed back once already, we'll be less inclined to believe it. That's kind of what our hype aversion all boils down to. We know companies have to make big promises to keep investors and the general public interested. But, as we are neither, it doesn't work out the same for us.

Maybe we're simply weary because we've seen other EV companies promise big and deliver nothing. We certainly don't revel in seeing Tesla, or any other carmaker, fail when it's clearly doing its utmost to thrive. But it would be nice if all brands spent a little more time down here on Earth making more measured statements. Tesla has a lot going for it and doesn't need relentless gimmickry to succeed. The associated expectations are unsustainable and largely unnecessary. We're ready to be blown away, but manufacturers needs to make sure they're ready, too.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/01/tesla-missed-deadline-nationwide-autonomous-testdrive/


----------



## heynow321 (Sep 3, 2015)

who could have possibly predicted they wouldn't meet that deadline. impossible to predict I tell you.


----------



## 123dragon (Sep 14, 2016)

heynow321 said:


> who could have possibly predicted they wouldn't meet that deadline. impossible to predict I tell you.


How many timelines has Musk actually met? The only one I can think off of the top of my head is the battery contract in Australia. I doubt he produces 10000 cars per week like he predicted for model 3 this year either...


----------



## jocker12 (May 11, 2017)

heynow321 said:


> who could have possibly predicted they wouldn't meet that deadline. impossible to predict I tell you.


This is how, after Elon Musk fed the hype, he also brought people back from their stupidity. He wanted to create the self driving cars cult and own it.



123dragon said:


> How many timelines has Musk actually met? The only one I can think off of the top of my head is the battery contract in Australia. I doubt he produces 10000 cars per week like he predicted for model 3 this year either...


The only big difference between Elon Musk and the vast majority of the rest of the self driving cars technology developers is that, set aside Auto Pilot, Musk actually has a very strong product in his Tesla models. When the self driving cars technology will eventually/finally fail, Musk will still have the cars, while most of his competitors will need to re-orientate to kitchen robots. The only exception is Volvo, company that is not using a third party software and hardware developer in order to build and test this nonsense.


----------



## The Gift of Fish (Mar 17, 2017)

All this talk of "green" electric cars and this lie on the license plate of all factory-fresh Teslas:










Maybe Tesla thinks that the magical electricity fairy waves her wand and fills the power grid up with electricity every morning. Electric cars aren't zero emissions. What they do is move the power generation from the roads to power stations. Not a bad thing, but not zero emissions, considering that 85% of electricity in this country is from non-renewables. Moving the pollution away to places where it can't be seen or felt doesn't make it disappear.

Tesla isn't developing new battery technology, either. All they do is put (a lot of) Panasonic Li-ion batteries in their cars; enough to give them more range than other electric cars. What Tesla is excellent at is marketing. They are the Apple of electric cars - they realised that for their products to catch on they have to focus on cosmetic design and make them attractive, nice and bright and sparkly, to people with deep pockets. And this they do very well. Before Tesla, electric cars were ugly little dorkmobiles. For a car to sell well it has to look good. Who knew?

But if you look at their work as a whole, i.e. the self-driving cars that don't, the physics-defying semi truck they announced, all the missed production deadlines, or the inability to turn a profit - it's not so impressive.


----------



## heynow321 (Sep 3, 2015)

The Gift of Fish said:


> Tesla isn't developing new battery technology, either. All they do is put (a lot of) Panasonic Li-ion batteries in their cars; enough to give them more range than other electric cars. What Tesla is excellent at is marketing. They are the Apple of electric cars - they realised that for their products to catch on they have to focus on cosmetic design and make them attractive, nice and bright and sparkly, to people with deep pockets. And this they do very well. Before Tesla, electric cars were ugly little dorkmobiles. For a car to sell well it has to look good. Who knew?
> 
> But if you look at their work as a whole, i.e. the self-driving cars that don't, the physics-defying semi truck they announced, all the missed production deadlines, or the inability to turn a profit - it's not so impressive.


that's a good point. there's a reason they first produced an incredibly impractical roadster sports car with a high price tag.


----------



## jocker12 (May 11, 2017)

The Gift of Fish said:


> All this talk of "green" electric cars and this lie on the license plate of all factory-fresh Teslas:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


These are exceptionally good points, and I agree about emissions, battery technology and marketing. After all, Tesla is a (successful) corporation and should play by the same "rules" - misleading their customers into thinking Tesla does something it actually doesn't.

Speaking about battery technology, I am quite intrigued why Musk, as such a phenomenal visionary he thinks and says he is, is not looking into new technologies or materials (like graphene - boosts battery capacity by 45% and charges 5 times faster) sticking with soon to be too ineffective Li-ion technology. If he had the nerve to challenge an entire industry and built an electric car against all odds, only because he wanted to get straight to the effective technology and jump all the intermediary (hybrid) BS, in my opinion he could at least try the same in the battery sector, which is heavily related to his most successful product.

Problem is he started this lunacy about travelling to Mars, the Hyperloop or connecting a human brain to a computer, which makes me wonder if he is mentally sane at this point.


----------

