flâneur

Tesla's First Coast-to-Coast Drive with Zero Human Intervention

agifriday.substack.com · 1,306 words · saved by 1 readers

The Tesla fandom is abuzz this week because a Tesla just made the first coast-to-coast trip with zero human interventions. The glory goes to a lidar salesman from Tacoma, Washington. (Wait, lidar salesman?? The irony is so off the charts that I didn’t believe it either but I investigated and it’s true. Ish. He sells lidar equipment for construction work, unrelated to self-driving cars. He’s now doing an impressive job of milking this for the meme value, like taping one of his gadgets to the roof of his Tesla. He also, as part of his publicity tour in a huge podcast studio, showed off a 3-D model of the venue that he made using the lidar equipment he sells. It’s amazingly rich and full-color and to me just drives home how crazy it is not to take advantage of such wildly superhuman sensing capability.) So what’s the verdict? Is this cross-country trip a big deal or what? We keep doing this, like when Tesla autonomously delivered their first car, and I keep finding ways to be unimpressed.

The Tesla fandom is abuzz this week because a Tesla just made the first coast-to-coast trip with zero human interventions. The glory goes to a lidar salesman from Tacoma, Washington. (Wait, lidar salesman?? The irony is so off the charts that I didn’t believe it either but I investigated and it’s true. Ish. He sells lidar equipment for construction work, unrelated to self-driving cars. He’s now doing an impressive job of milking this for the meme value, like taping one of his gadgets to the roof of his Tesla. He also, as part of his publicity tour in a huge podcast studio, showed off a 3-D…

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