Thread regarding Ford layoffs

@gnf+1ruMtZOS Interesting post. A lot of engineers knew from the start that AV won't work, at least not yet. This doesn't require too much power of observation or a profound wisdom, just to know a little bit of the marvel called Nature, particularly the human being.

Machines require precision, require a very standard input/output. Humans adapt easily and our brains supply the missing parts. We can talk with people from different backgrounds and understand them. We can notice the letters in weird shapes (like websites use to prove the user is a human). We can stretch to grab an object out of place. In general, our brains were molded and adapted to deal with the chaos of life itself.

Pretending to be able to foresee the chaos of life and "code" the acceptable behavior in a program run by the onboard computer of a vehicle, is at best arrogance, most of the time though, just plain stoopid. Computers are still d-u-mb. Even AI is just machine learning, discovering "common sense" answers by running millions of scenarios, and feeding from human answers.

BEVs, on the other hand, has been around for decades. Many people knew it was not practical. That's the main reason it never went to full production. Some i-diots like to use the horse and the buggy comparison when talking to BEVs, but that's because they don't understand the difference (and they are i-diots, as established before).

An ICE car brought many improvements over the buggy, not only speed and the lack of horse sh!t. The car owner doesn't have to feed, care and keep healthy an animal for transportation. The factories can churn engines and parts faster than farms can produce horses. The size of a car is smaller than horse/buggy, making it easier/cheaper to store. Cars don't bite, sh!t or kick their owners. Cars don't get pregnant, nor run after a mare, nor fight with other cars.

A BEV is not that much different from an ICE, except the power source. Simple physics shows gas has more energy density than a battery, while weighting less. Therefore, until we are forced by the lack of cheap fuel (Biden has been working on that since day one), ICE is still better than BEVs.

Does that mean nobody will buy BEVs? Of course not. Like my grandma used to say, in the farm of the Lord, there is all kind of fruits, therefore, there will always be some fruitcakes buying BEVs. However, expecting (or worse, banding with the government forcing) people to buy BEVs over ICE in great numbers was, at best, ignorance, at worst, just bad corporate greed.

Toyota played it well, keeping most of its lineup as it is, and transitioning to hybrids, while researching alternatives. Ford disregarding hybrids and ICE in the pursuit of BEVs, was just stoopid, and we'll pay for it. However, Ford didn't take this course of action based on the engineers technical advice, but on the ignorance of Bill Ford.

Having vision and in a sense wisdom works both ways. The path to see forward towards opportunity, and the wisdom to avoid absolute roadblocks that are immoveable and unavoidable. It was no wonder that through the tens of billions of dollars spent, that simple minds of corporate management could not see the immoveable objects and vast roadblocks, that are EV/AV.

This mindset trickles down to the engineers and the every day people with pie in the sky dreams. The engineer that wants AV so bad, and this is a true story, until I knew a few of them that got behind one of their creations - only to absolutely hate it. To customers that wished for EV's, only towards many having a great experience, and also a number that had tremendously bad experiences. The road to he-l is paved with good intentions always, and in some cases, paved with the dead bodies required to get there. These are called the guinea pigs.

The truth of the matter is that most minds aren't intelligent enough to conceive the answer the simple question below honestly, which is a red flag as to why they aren't capable of seeing the roadblocks ahead. The horse and buggy, the modern day car, the EV or AV, which one is not like the other and why? Most people might argue that you're just stuck in the "horse and buggy" mindset, and that some are afraid of progress. I would say that EV's are the precursor to the eventual wishful AV platform, fair enough? Even in their potential "blow up your home or random fireboom style" of energy distribution. So which one is not like the others?

EV/AV's. The modern car you remained in control. With the horse and buggy, you were more or less in control. With the eventual EV/AV platform, you relinquish control, not so much with EV's yet, but you assume other risks. As the world knows there are always ghosts in the machine, AI might determine that one day, it's your day to die. Whether that be through unfortunate events. Whether that's through a computer malfunction. Whether that's through the already there mechanical malfunction. Or simply, it might decide that the life of that family of four is more important than your single life. When that day comes, you might wish you still had a bit of control left in your travels. It only takes one event. Like most things in life, your ability and capabilities can impact your life. While this might be foreign to many, would you believe there are actually people in existence, without a single driving ticket or accident to their name? So here we are with EV, and eventually AV, catering to those that can not.

Having vision works both ways. The intellectually inferior and hopeful only see one way. But that's why we test out the bugs - using human guinea pigs. I'm honestly looking forward to the results that are waiting to be unleashed. Meanwhile, I have to sit and wait longer, while the OEMS catch up to that adjustment. I mean who knew this clusterf*ck wasn't going to be profitable? I mean really? Was it really that hard to see? Just short of removing gasoline from the pumps, that's about what it's going to take to get some people to switch over to EVs. Even at $20/gallon.