I was watching the NRL Grand Final with the lads on Sunday. Cracker of a game. Afterwards, we flicked over to the Singapore Grand Prix. Boring as batshit. So we started talking cars. Out of five of us, three had Teslas – me included. The other two owners love their cars. Cheap to run, great drive, no servicing. But both said they wouldn’t buy another. One reason: Elon’s turned into an arsehole.
That’s sad, and here’s why. I got Tesla’s Supervised Full Self Driving (FSD) three weeks ago. Paid full freight, I’m no Tesla influencer. I was sceptical until I drove it. SolarQuotes blogger Ronald Brakels summed it up after trying mine:
“I am at IKEA. Alive! Tense at first, but it handled itself. Safe when cut off, calm behind a bus. Weird how quickly you relax.”
Full Self Driving Is Nearly Here
The cheerful rainbow colour scheme representing Tesla’s self driving mode unfortunately did not make Ronald feel any more relaxed.
My experience: it is 99% there. Most drives feel relaxing and safe with zero interventions. Whether Tesla will ever nail the final 1% to make it Non-Supervised Full Self Driving is an open question. But I’m grateful someone’s trying.
As a parent and a cyclist, I’d rather share the road with the current build of FSD than a human. It’s better than most Adelaide drivers. Not once did it risk a cyclist’s life to get to a red light 3 seconds early. This thing can save millions of lives.
Stalled By Emotion
Yet many people won’t buy Teslas because of emotion. That’s Marketing 101: we buy with emotion, not logic. And fewer FSD-capable cars means less safety for everyone.
The same emotions stall other parts of electrification. Some won’t buy panels from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Others won’t join a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) because they hate big energy. And yes, SolarQuotes is now owned by Origin, one of those “big energy” players. But Origin isn’t the only VPP in town. There are plenty of others. The point isn’t whose logo is on the app. The point is that the spare capacity of giant home batteries sitting idle helps no one.
With average home batteries post-rebate now over 20 kWh, that’s a mountain of wasted capacity. A wasted chance to cut carbon.
The revolution will happen. The tech is too good. But it’ll drag, slowed by the messiness of humans. We’ll still end up with safer roads and a cleaner grid just later and bloodier than it had to be.
Phase Shift is a weekly opinion column by SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock. Subscribe to SolarQuotes’ free newsletter to get it emailed to your inbox each week along with our other home electrification coverage.
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These arseholes are also responsible for doing incredible harm to people. One does not negate the other.
We do not need arseholes to have good things.
Very much my own position, Finn. Business owners will not change unless their customers tell them in clear terms they need to, so not buying a Tesla sends that message. But I have a second rationale that has generally stood me well over the years. I often support the second best in any competition, particularly when it is an up-and-comer. They have to try harder to get to No 1; their margins are generally keener; and without effective competition the No 1 is a monopolist and rent extractor. So, overall, not buying a Tesla but one of their keen competitors is actually a very good thing from a broader economic and whole-of-society viewpoint. Now, can I stretch that logic to go with the Alfa Junior? Geeez, but of a stretch that, but…….
Finn Peacock: – “The revolution will happen. The tech is too good. But it’ll drag, slowed by the messiness of humans.”
Unfortunately, the Laws of Physics does not wait for us humans to get busy.
A 2017 research paper, reported by The Conversation, suggested that Sydney & Melbourne are on course for 50 °C summer days by the 2040s if high GHG emissions continue.
https://theconversation.com/the-reality-of-living-with-50-temperatures-in-our-major-cities-85315
The all-time max. temperature for Penrith was 48.9 °C, recorded on 4 Jan 2020. On that day, Penrith was the hottest place on Earth & set a new record for the Sydney basin.
Since 2017 paper was published the rate of GMST warming has accelerated to ~0.4 °C/decade most recently.
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6079807/v1
Thus, it seems to me 50 °C summer days may arrive sooner.
At 52 °C shaded dry bulb temperature with 15% relative humidity, at this condition, heat stroke is imminent.
I’ve been an avid advocate of Elon for honks and have read both Vance’s and Issacson’s bio’s on the man.
There is the old ethos “ends justify the means” and we see that, if we care to look at every influence of our lives, who is selling what and how?.
Is ethics a reality when we are the commodity being used and our vital essence is being squeezed and used for the benefit of others?
We are enraged when people we disagree with become successful and untouchable by the cancel culture community.
We applaud the battlers that struggle hard fought wins at every juncture in their journey.
Elon is both those people wrapped in one, we have managed to pivot our meagre achievements to align with with his overwhelming vision and in the same nonsensical “logic” condemn him as a “nazi” for doing what he does.
Elon’s direction has not altered, his self imposed mandate is to save the collective human intelligence from the “nonsensical stupidity of the masses.
I have decided to focus in on the product itself, rather than being emotional about a purchase like a car. The main thing is that there are no other car manufacturers that come close to what Tesla has done with Full Self Driving Supervised (and kinda unsupervised in the current RoboTaxi fleet in USA). Tesla is so far ahead. Just look at the data centre with immense compute power Tesla has to train the data, plus the 5 million fleets of Tesla vehicles around the world that is sending data for training.
I choose to respect and appreciate all the people who have engineered and designed everything at Tesla instead.
Not only are Tesla vehicles cheap to run, the Tesla API catalogue and commands that can be sent remotely, allows tech savvy enthusiasts to further automate EV charging with the house’s setup, plus more fun automation scenarios. Sure, you can do the same with some other vehicle manufacturers, but Tesla is the CHEAPEST and flexible in this setup.
I don’t think people eschew VPPs because they “hate big energy”; they are simply not good value at best and snake oil at worst. If Origin or AGL or whoever came up with an improvement on Amber, people wouldn’t care who owned it (just like I am unphased by Origin owning SQ).
With solar and a decent battery (>16kWh), you are free of being an obligate energy consumer because you are 100% shielded from wholesale spikes. What you need from a retailer then is just a relatively simple software service to mediate access to the grid / market for your net evening exporting and occasional cheap daytime imports. Which should return a profit, not just lower bills.
Last night in NSW (with Amber) I made $23 in an unusually high evening spike. A Big Energy VPP would have pocketed that, not mentioned the event, and told you how lucky you are to have zero bills.
I reckon Big Energy VPPs have about the same prospects we are now seeing in hydrogen – the idea seems great until rubber hits the road.