Art Lightstone

So you may have heard about Tesla’s new Full-Self Driving hardware, sometimes referred to as Hardware Version 3. The new hardware is a direct replacement for the Nvidia full self-driving computer that Tesla used in its HW2 and HW2.5 equipped vehicles. 
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The FSD chip integrates two custom-designed neural processing units. Operating at 2 GHz, each NPU has a peak performance of 36.86 trillion operations per second (TOPS), and with two NPUs on each chip, the FSD chip is capable of up to 73.7 trillion operations per second of combined peak performance. 

Now, I’m no computer engineer, but that sounds pretty amazing. 

​Today, all new Teslas come with the new full self-driving computer, and, as of September 2019, Tesla started to retrofit some of their newer Tesla’s that had paid for Full-Self Driving with their new Hardware 3 computer. Apparently, my 2019 Model 3 just missed getting the new FSD Hardware installed during production, but I recently got the call to come in for the retrofit, and I got my new Full Self-Driving computer upgrade today.

What I noticed today was that my car was actually detecting and displaying traffic pylons that were on the other side of those concrete barriers. Not only that, but these pylons were practically on the other side of the highway median strip. Let’s take a good close look at what my car saw. ​(See video below.)

You may not notice it at first, but there’s a group of four pylons lined up on the other side of the concrete barriers, almost on the other side of the median strip dividing the opposing lanes of traffic. 
If you don't catch it in the video, take a close look at the slow motion view of the four pylons... and then compare the slow motion view of the four pylons displayed in the car’s road visualization

That means my car’s front cameras spotted these pylons, and then Tesla’s neural network recognized these objects as pylons... at 115 km an hour, across a highway median strip, on the other side of a concrete barrier.

That’s pretty impressive.

Bear in mind that Tesla's neural net recognizes a lot more than just cars, trucks, buses, and pylons. However, for the time being, Tesla is holding back on displaying everything that Tesla vehicles can actually recognize... lest Tesla drivers get the idea that Teslas are permitted to respond to everything that we humans can see displayed in the car's visualization. In other words, if Tesla drivers knew that their cars were actually recognizing red traffic lights, then the fear, naturally, would be that drivers would abdicate responsibility for stopping to the car's FSD computer. However, at this point in time, Tesla is not allowing their cars to perform at this level of autonomy. ​

Art Lightstone

The age of climate denial is dead. Not everybody knows it yet, but, at this point in time, the days of climate denial are clearly numbered. Of this, there is no doubt.

I say this because no matter what silly things you might read from the mysterious, self-proclaimed experts on Twitter, the very companies that stand to profit the most from climate denial have now openly conceded that burning fossil fuels contributes to anthropogenic climate change. Once they were taken to court for their wanton destruction of our planet's biosphere, the world's largest and wealthiest oil companies were forced to make these concessions. Essentially, as soon as they had to come before a judge, the jig was up. 

All Lies are not the Same

You see, it's one thing to lie and misdirect the public through privately funded intermediaries, but doing these same things in court is a whole other ballgame, 

In 2018, when brought to court to examine "the best available knowledge that we have today on the issue of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and how that affects global temperature" (P. 80, LL. 20-22. State of California vs. BP, Chevron, Conocophillips, Exxon Mobil, & Royal Dutch Shell, US District Court, Northern District Of California, March 21, 2018), lawyers for the oil companies immediately conceded that the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are indeed correct. Moreover, they wasted no time on climate denial or alternative theories regarding global warming, and they took absolutely no issue with the fact that burning fossil fuels contributes to anthropogenic global warming. 

On March 21, 2018, in his submissions to the US District Court, Northern District Of California, Theodore Boutrous, the attorney for Chevron Corporation, stated, ​"Chevron accepts the consensus of the scientific community on climate change. The scientific consensus is embodied in the results of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC." Boutrous was even bold enough to say, "And that has been Chevron's position for over a decade." (P. 80, LL. 20-22, 2018). 

​This public concession telegraphed a significant and marked departure from the silent, "no comment" position that oil companies have historically taken on the connection between fossil fuels and climate change. Moreover, it effectively pulled the carpet out from under the climate denial lobby. After all, if the oil industry itself is now officially accepting anthropogenic climate change, then the freshly disavowed climate denial lobby immediately becomes relegated to the status of disenfranchised crackpots.
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Traditionally, oil companies relied heavily on a healthy and mutually beneficial relationship between themselves and third-party climate deniers, including trade associations and think tanks, to confuse and misdirect the public about the impact that fossil fuels were having on the planet. In fact, some studies have suggested that oil companies spend $200,000,000.00 on climate denial efforts every year. In 2013, Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University, published the first peer-reviewed study of who was actually funding what he called the "climate change counter-movement" (CCCM) that had so effectively delayed action on the climate crisis. Brulle found that between the years of 2003 and 2010, more than $500,000,000.00 had been donated by "private conservative philanthropic foundations to organizations whose output included material disputing the consensus" (Brulle, 2013). Brulle concluded that "Thinktanks, trade associations and front groups" were a key part of the effort, with their major funders being foundations affiliated to the fossil fuel magnates, such as the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, and the ultra-conservative Scaife and Bradley foundations. A few years before the Brulle study was published, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway explored the history of climate denial in their 2010 book, The Merchants of Doubt. Oreskes and Conway argue that "keeping the controversy alive" by spreading doubt and confusion about the scientific consensus on climate change was the basic strategy of those opposing climate action. In 2014, their book was made into a film, Merchants of Doubt, directed by Robert Kenner.

Today, oil companies are hastily pivoting from their traditional position of climate denial to one of climate acceptance - at times even attempting to present themselves as climate champions. As opposed to suppressing their scientific studies, they now acknowledge - even take pride in - the science that they have conducted for decades. Today, Exxon Mobil's web site includes a page entitled "Climate Change," with a tagline that states, "We believe that climate change risks warrant action and it’s going to take all of us — business, governments and consumers — to make meaningful progress." The page goes on to say, "ExxonMobil scientists have been involved in the forefront of climate research for four decades, understanding and working with the world’s leading experts on climate." It is as if they are now saying, "Of course we know about climate change... we're the ones who discovered it!" 

How the Courts Are Responding

Neither the science, nor the brazen measures that oil companies have undertaken to confuse the public on the issue of climate change, have been overlooked by the courts. On July 22nd, 2019, Republican-appointed Judge William Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled that the state of Rhode Island would be permitted to pursue their public nuisance case against 21 different oil companies in state court. In this case, the State of Rhode Island is pursuing compensation from these oil companies damages for the damage that their products have had, and will continue to have, on the state by way of climate change. 

After hearing the evidence brought forward, Judge Smith sharply derided oil companies for their wilful destruction of the planet:

At this point in time, the prospects for big oil are not particularly good. It would be an understatement to say that neither the oil industry nor their shareholders are happy about the potential of paying out billions of dollars in damages to states, countries, or jurisdictions now suffering the effects of climate change. However, the bad news gets even worse for the oil industry.

There are those who now say that civil lawsuits do not go far enough: that, to big oil, civil payouts could just be seen as a new cost of doing business. Jojo Mehta, is currently calling on the International Criminal Court to include ecocide as a crime against humanity. Mehta suggests that, "In a weird kind of way, suing is almost a way to legitimize this. You're saying you can do this, but you have to pay for it. Actually, what we want is for them to stop, and for that to be done requires a crime."

Facing a growing number of civil suits around the world, and more recently facing the daunting prospect of becoming criminally liable for their actions, oil companies are scrambling to reinvent themselves in the post-denial era. As the decades-old, oil-funded web of deceit quickly unravels, we are witnessing companies such as Shell distancing themselves from the climate-denying oil lobby groups they previously funded, and proactively reframing their position on climate change. Shell is even producing its own Podcast, entitled The Energy Podcast, wherein the company comes clean about the role that fossil fuels play in climate change.

However, it should be noted that there is a subtle but critical difference between accepting the role that fossil fuels play in climate change, and accepting responsibility for the climate change caused by fossil fuels. The distinction requires a certain amount of skillful mental acrobatics... but Shell does an admirable job of it. 

According to Big Oil, We are All to Blame

Essentially, Shell now takes the position that we are all responsible for climate change. In this regard, Shell and Exxon Mobil are united in their positions.

Episode #5 of Shell's Podcast features an interview with Maarten Wetselaar, the Integrated Gas & New Energies Director at Shell. Wetselaar responds brilliantly to a question asking him if Shell is responsible for climate change. He responds by saying, "Society as a whole has built itself around hydrocarbons, and much of our prosperity and current health and wealth comes from it, so that problem is a problem that we share with all our consumers and regulators and governments."  

Wetselaar also makes no bones about his view that climate action has to start with the consumer. When asked, "Why don't you just stop producing oil altogether?" Wetselaar states, "From a system perspective... the answer is not in producing less oil and gas. The answer is in consuming less oil and gas. If I produce no oil tomorrow, someone else will. If I consume less oil tomorrow, the production can go down accordingly." (Emphasis added.)
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So there you have it. Big oil no longer denies climate change, nor will they openly, and I stress "openly," attempt to obfuscate the role that hydrocarbons play in anthropogenic global warming. On that issue, they now side with the scientific consensus. Big oil does, however, stop short of accepting responsibility for the climate change caused by their products. That dubious honour, as it would turn out, they place squarely on you and me.

In a manner of speaking, I suppose they are right. With the age of climate denial clearly coming to an end, we consumers of energy can no longer feign a position of ignorance or wilful blindness. It is now incumbent on us all - each and every one of us - to take immediate, bold, and decisive steps to confront the existential crisis that lies before us. While the momentum is certainly going in the right direction, we cannot wait for governments, courts, or corporations to do the right thing. We know what the right thing to do is... and we must do it. 

Why you Should Consider Transitioning to a Vegan Lifestyle

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, raising animals for human consumption is the single largest source of human methane emissions. While methane does not stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, it is a far more powerful greenhouse gas. Thus, over a 100 year period, pound for pound, methane is approximately 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. 

Raising animals, especially ruminant animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, are destructive to our environment in four main ways. First, these animals essentially burp methane. Through a process known as enteric fermentation, ruminant animals produce methane when microbes in their digestive tracts (known as rumen), decompose and ferment their food, Second, the manure produced by these animals also produces methane. Together, the manure and the enteric fermentation comprise the single largest source of methane emissions related to human activity. Third, the land cleared to raise these animals destroys millions of acres of natural carbon sinks (often forest) that would have sequestered some of the carbon that humans are producing. Fourth, the energy and water used to grow food for livestock, and then transport and process these animals, accounts for approximately half (3.5 gigatonnes annually) of the more than 7 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalents associated with livestock production. 

Beyond all that, from a humanitarian standpoint, raising animals in modern corporate farms creates a hell-on-Earth nightmare for billions of animals, from chickens, to pigs, to cattle. If you are brave enough to watch the movie Dominion, then you can get a thorough, inside view of the pain and suffering endured by millions of animals every year just so humans can consume animal protein. If you're not quite brave enough to watch Dominion, then the animated video entitled The Meatrix also does a fine job of conveying some basic facts about raising livestock.

Given that raising livestock is estimated to account for between 10% and 12% of human GHG emissions, eating less meat, or even transitioning to a vegan lifestyle, is definitely one of the quickest, easiest, and cheapest actions that people can take in order to combat climate change. 

If you're interested in exploring a vegan diet, just click on the "Vegan Lifestyle" filter in the right-hand menu of this blog to see more plant-based recipes and ideas. ​

One question that constantly comes up about electric driving is the time it takes to charge an EV.

My wife and I own two Teslas: a Model X and a Model 3. The X replaced a 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe, and the 3 replaced a 2012 Honda Civic. Upon making the transition to EVs, we immediately noticed something that one might not expect. We found that we actually spent less time dealing with fuel for our cars.

Allow me to explain.

We used to go get gas our Honda Civic about once every ten days, as that was our main commuter vehicle. (My wife and I actually work at the same place, so we only use one car for our daily commute.) We tended to gas up our Hyundai Santa Fe about once every 20 days because we drove that vehicle far less than our Civic. Nonetheless, combining both vehicles, that still works out to about 55 trips to a gas station a year - and that's not including road trips.

Now, I have to tell you... our family is really busy, and every one of those trips to the gas station was almost always hassle that involved a trip to Costco. We went to Costco for gas because the price of gas there is always significantly less than at other gas stations. For us, Costco is about a ten-minute drive away. I confirmed this with Google Maps, which suggested the trip is nine minutes. 

As we all know, real-world travel times always take longer than the estimates provided by Google Maps, so I added one minute to the Google Map estimate. This is also consistent with my perception of the time that it takes to drive this particular trip. (Admittedly, I haven't timed this trip with a stop watch as of yet, but I will, and then I'll update this article.) Now, let's add in the time to wait in the Costco gas line (and there is almost always a lineup for Costco gas). I would estimate this to be about seven minutes on average. Then there is the time to actually gas up once you get to the pump. I would estimate this to be about three minutes. I was always racing against the other folks gassing up, so I always carried out this process as quickly and as efficiently as I could. Then there is, of course, the ten-minute return trip back home. Add up all that time and you get about 30 minutes per trip to the gas station. Multiply that 30 minutes by 55 trips each year, and you get a grand total of... drumroll please...

27.5 wasted hours a year!

Of course, we often timed our gas trips with shopping at Costco, but that generally meant not timing our gas trip with the need for a full (or near-full) tank of gas, so that would simply mean smaller fill-ups, and that would mean even more trips to the gas station. 

Now, in the interest of full transparency, I fully admit that I hated those gas trips. I resented the time it took, and I hated it all the more because I was buying gas... gas that I knew was contributing to climate change. In fact, I often Tweeted out my dislike for the entire rigamarole of getting gas while I was waiting in the Costco gas line. 

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​Now that we drive electric vehicles, we spend absolutely no time obtaining fuel for our daily driving. We simply plug our cars into our home EV charger (which is situated conveniently on the inner wall of our garage, right in between our two cars) and the act of plugging a car in to a home EV charger takes all of about five seconds. We then walk inside our house, and forget all about it. We only need to do this once every few days. (Less in the summer, more in the winter.)

The car may take between two to eight hours to charge on our Schneider Electric 30 Amp EV charger, but that's all happening while we're home at night, and, quite often, this is happening while we're sleeping... so this process doesn't require us to take any time at all out of our day.

Moreover, we pay a mere 6.5 cents per kWh of energy after 7:00 PM, so that would cost us around $3.00 to fill our Model 3, and about $5.00 to fill our Model X. Not too shabby. 

As far as I'm concerned, that's a win-win-win:

1. we save time,
2. we save money, and
3. we save the environment.

If you drive an EV but do not yet have a home EV charger, then I would highly recommend that you go out and get one today in order to experience the full convenience of owning and driving an electric vehicle.

Recently, Alex Guberman from E for Electric published a somewhat sheepish video wherein he admitted that "Tesla may not be doomed after all." 

The May sales numbers for EVs, plug-in hybrids, and soft hybrids had just been published by Inside EVs, and they looked particularly good for Tesla... but perhaps not so great for those who, for whatever reason, like to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Tesla. (These folks are affectionately known as FUDsters in the industry.)

Of course, in the industry, I suppose I would be dubbed a Tesla "Fanboy," so my opinion could certainly be perceived as biased. 

Fair enough. 

But let's look at something that's not biased: numbers.

Specifically, lets look at the US sales data for EVs, plug-in hybrids, and soft hybrids for just the month of May, 2019. As I said, these numbers come from InsideEVs, who consistently do a great job of gathering and publishing sales numbers for automobiles in the electric and hybrid sector. 

Principle #1: EVs are the new mode of personal transportation. 

Electric vehicles are replacing the internal combustion engine. This is now perfectly clear. You don't need to take my word for it: even the presidents and CEOs of the top legacy automobile manufacturers are now admitting this as they scramble to catch up in the EV market. This past December, after announcing the impending closure of the GM plant in Oshawa, Ontario, Travis Hester, the president of GM Canada, said that "EVs are the future." This past February, Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo, announced that Honda would be closing its plants in England and Turkey as they restructure for electrification. He stated, "We have decided to carry out this production realignment in Europe in light of our efforts to optimize production allocation and production capacity globally as well as accelerating electrification." Just two days ago, in a Tokyo press conference, Executive Vice President of Toyota, Shigeki Terashi, confessed  that, "Demand for electric vehicles has grown stronger than we had projected." Toyota, who had been the industry laggard in bringing EVs to market (even making fun of electric vehicles in their advertising up until very recently), has now announced that they are pushing their EV program five years ahead of schedule. 

Principle #2: In the EV market, Tesla is the juggernaut. 

Compared to Tesla, all of the other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are producing paltry numbers of units, and they are offering products that are having a very hard time competing with the products offered by Tesla. I will present more on this below, as I dissect the US sales numbers for the first five months of 2019.

Principle #3: Tesla has a huge first-move advantage. 

In both electric vehicles and autonomous driving, Tesla has years of lead time on other OEMs. Very recently, ARC Invest stated that Tesla is easily a few years ahead of their competition.

I took the liberty of copying and pasting the data provided by InsideEVs into a spreadsheet so that I could work with the numbers. (That spreadsheet is available to be downloaded at the bottom of this article.) I was curious to put these numbers into perspective, so I decided to add up the sales for Tesla Models S, 3, and X, and then compare those numbers to all the other models available in the US EV, plugin-hybrid, and soft hybrid market.

​Here's what I found.

• In the US, there are 45 vehicle models available for sale in the battery electric, plugin-hybrid, and soft hybrid market. 
• Of all these vehicles, Tesla sells more of its Model S, 3, and X than all other vehicles combined.
• In fact, just Tesla's Model 3 alone sells more units in this sector than all other manufacturers combined.
• Specifically, in the month of May, Tesla's three vehicles commanded a 58% market share, leaving the other 42 models of vehicles to share the remaining 42%. 
• That's an average of just 1% market share per non-Tesla vehicle. 

If that doesn't put things into a rather stark perspective, then I'm not sure what will. 

In Summary

With companies like Toyota already conceding defeat to Tesla, it's pretty difficult to imagine Tesla's competition doing very well ten years from now.

​Tesla never planned to take over the automobile market. Their mission is, and always has been, to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Ironically, that means that Tesla is motivated to make their cars the most compelling vehicles on the planet, and to keep their customers driving their electric vehicles for a million miles. Undoubtedly, this is a very difficult value proposition for traditional car companies to compete with.

Manufacturers of automobiles powered by internal combustion engines are invariably falling  victim to the biggest disruption since the gas-powered automobile replaced the horse and carriage. These traditional car manufacturers have always depended on dealerships, maintenance and service fees, and possibly even planned obsolescence to drive their revenues. Now they have to compete with a company that has a deeper purpose than just earning money, and a longer-term vision than just the next quarter's financials.

I truly hope that the traditional car manufacturers do learn to adapt and survive in the emerging era of electrified transportation. After all, as much as I admire Elon Musk and Tesla, one relatively new company cannot possibly facilitate the transition to electrification as quickly as the world needs it to happen. We're going to need all of the world's major automobile manufacturers to come out with strong EV sales numbers every single year for the next ten years if we are to achieve the monumental task that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlined in its 2018 Climate Change Report. However, it is now becoming painfully clear that the traditional automobile manufacturers are going to be facing an increasingly uphill battle as they set out to compete in this rapidly evolving market.