How is Electricity Better than Gasoline? Why EVs Are Better.

May 19, 2021

By Henry Farkas

Neil deGrasse Tyson had an amusing YouTube segment in which he describes why electricity is better than gasoline for running your car. You can watch the video below.

Turning Oil into Salt Book

He bases the video on an important book, Turning Oil Into Salt: Energy Independence Through Fuel Choice, by Anne Korin and Gal Luft.

The book describes the importance of salt from the time it was first discovered until about two hundred years ago. Salt, for most of that time, was used as a preservative. You’d either salt your food to preserve it or you’d die over the winter from starvation. Salt was vital for life. The price of salt was very important, and you'd need a lot of it. Unless you were very wealthy, you'd care about the price of salt. Then canning was invented, and refrigeration became available to the masses. After that, salt became an inexpensive condiment. Nobody worries much about the cost of salt because we don’t need much of it over the course of a year. At least, those of us who care about our blood pressure aren't interested in the price of salt.

Now let’s talk about oil. When there’s a war in an oil-producing region or when hackers mess with an oil supply pipeline, it makes the headlines, and cars line up for gasoline which becomes very expensive. People care. Well, we Tesla owners didn’t care very much. The only reason we even knew about the hackers and the pipeline, is that we kept hearing about it on TV. That’s the difference between electric cars and internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. Even a flex fuel ICE car needs something in its gas tank that can be used in an engine. It could be corn oil, alcohol, gasoline diesel, but something. Our electric cars can be charged by electricity from any source. The source can be dirty like coal or oil. It can be slightly cleaner like natural gas or it can be more clean like power from the nearest dam, nuclear power plant, windmill, or solar farm. In my case, it can be power from the solar panels on my roof. There are some places where they're using the power of the waves and the tides to make electricity. As far as our electric cars are concerned, one electron is just like another. It doesn't matter which power source it came from.

So for those of us whose cars move by battery electricity, oil has stopped being important for our mobility. Just like salt is no longer needed to preserve food in order to avoid starvation in the winter. When we have full electric transportation, we’ll still need some oil to lubricate the few moving parts of our machines, but we won’t need much of it. It’ll be like salt, a condiment for our cars, busses, trains and, eventually, planes.

Tesla Increases Price of Model S; Starts Offering Free Lifetime Supercharging

December 14, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

For the first time in quite a while, Tesla has increased the price of one of its vehicle offerings. The Model S Long Range and the Model S Plaid have both received a hefty price increase. However, not all is bad - as Tesla also added a new benefit for buyers.

Price Increase

The price increase for the Model S is $5,000 - currently only in the United States. This price increase will likely impact other markets, including Canada, in the coming days.

The Model S Long Range now starts at $79,990, while the Model S Plaid now starts at $94,990. The Model S and Model X now have the same starting price. Interestingly, that’s also the same pricing point for the Cybertruck AWD and Cyberbeast Trimotor non-Foundation Series.

The vehicle configuration does not appear to have changed, so the new pricing is simply an increase rather than the addition or removal of features. Tesla previously cut the price of the Model S and Model X by 15% in 2023, so this could simply be an adjustment to ensure that the vehicle pricing stays in line with inflation and other factors.

Free Lifetime Supercharging

For those on the fence about ordering a Model S, Tesla has brought back Free Lifetime Supercharging when you order a new Model S on or after December 13, 2024. As always, Free Lifetime Supercharging is restricted to the buyer’s Tesla account and to that specific vehicle. It cannot be transferred to another vehicle or another owner after ownership transfer. It’s worth noting, that it also doesn’t exclude the owner from receiving Supercharger idle fees or congestion fees. There is currently no end date for this promotion.

There are currently no changes to the Model X, neither a price increase nor the addition of Lifetime Superchargering. However, when Tesla makes changes to one of their premium vehicles, it usually affects the other one as well. So be on the lookout for potential changes to the Model X offering in the coming days.

We’ve seen Tesla value Lifetime Supercharging at $5,000, so this falls in line with the price increase we’re seeing. It’s possible that Tesla will begin to bring back Lifetime Supercharging as a perk for buying into their more premium Model S and Model X cars, or this could be another temporary promotion to get buyers who are on the fence to go ahead and make their purchase while this promotion lasts.

Tesla’s Optimus Robot Learns to Walk Without Vision [VIDEO]

December 13, 2024

By Karan Singh

Optimus Falls - but catches itself!

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.

Daily walks help clear your mind pic.twitter.com/dUsW58trS6
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) December 9, 2024

A Look Behind the Curtain

Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.

Optimus is Blind

Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer.

Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.

Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips.

What’s Next?

Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.

Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.

There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.

We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.