Autopilot in Tesla Model X helps driver get safely to a hospital

A Missouri man might not have made it safely to the hospital without the aid of his Tesla Model X’s self-driving features (via Slate). Joshua Neally, the 37-year old Model X owner, was on the way home from his law firm after work when he was struck by a pulmonary embolism. Neally allowed the Autopilot system to take over for 20 miles of highway driving, which brought the vehicle and its driver to an off-ramp close to a hospital, where he was able to finish the trip.

Tesla’s Autopilot system may be under scrutiny after an accident in Florida earlier this year resulted in a driver death, but this is an example of where it definitely helped the operator of the vehicle. The obvious question that comes to mind is whether it would’ve been safer on the whole for Neally to pull over and call an ambulance instead of relying on his own car’s self-driving features, since Neally admits he didn’t “remember much of the drive” after his embolism began.

But whether or not Neally made the right call in continuing to drive himself, it proves the importance and necessity of offering safety features like Autopilot: In clutch situations like a medical emergency where we feel like our life is on the line, very few people can be relied upon to make the sane, logical and most conscientious choice about our actions.

Neally told Branson local NBC affiliate KY3 that he “just knew [he] had to get [to the ER]” once he began feeling the symptoms of the pulmonary embolism – in other words, he was essentially panicking and his instinct kicked in, convincing his brain the best course of action was to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.

Continuing to drive while under extreme physical duress might not have been the best choice, but it was the human one, and that’s what makes Autopilot’s role in getting Neally to the hospital in one piece so poignant. Plus, the fact that Neally had a choice at all is a chance outcome of the severity of the embolism: If it had been something more severe, and he wasn’t able physically to continue driving or make a decision, Autopilot would’ve engaged its failsafe mode, which decelerates the vehicle, turns on the four-way hazard lights and slowly moves the car to the roadside.

You can argue about whether or not a driver in this situation is more or less likely to continue driving rather than pull over and call an ambulance since the system is present to begin with, but you can also debate whether allowing Autopilot to drive was more or less safe than other options. What you can’t argue is that people will always make the most rational and informed decision when their life feels immediately threatened, and that’s where autonomous technologies stand to make the most impact.

Tesla misses Q2 earnings, delivers 14,402 vehicles

Tesla news has been dominating Silicon Valley over the last few weeks and today’s earnings report released after the close of the market hasn’t shaken fundamental views about the company.

The energy company born out of an automobile company reported non-GAAP Q2 revenue of $1.56 billion up from last year’s Q2 revenue of $1.2 billion. The company came close but ultimately missed analyst estimates of $1.6 billion.

Tesla closed down 0.62 percent today at $225.79. After the news was released, Tesla shares moved up almost instantly in after-hours trading after the news dropped but have been fluctuating up and down by 2 percent since.

Wall Street analysts expected an adjusted net loss of $52 cents a share but found themselves with a worse than expected loss of $1.06 per share.

Tesla delivered 14,402 new vehicles consisting of 9,764 Model S and 4,638 Model X in Q2, slightly ahead of last month’s estimates.

Tesla had originally aimed to deliver 80,000 vehicles by the end of the year. It is growing tougher by the day for the company to hit that goal. On the bright side, the company noted that almost half of Q2 production occurred in the final four weeks of the quarter.

Investors have expressed angst as Tesla has moved forward on plans to acquire SolarCity and pivot into a vertically integrated energy and transportation company.

A glimpse inside Tesla's super secretive Gigafactory

Even having grown up in California, I’m realizing I’m not built for this heat.

We’re 30 minutes or so outside of Reno, but it feels like I’m on the sun. I can feel my sunscreen baking off. Why the hell did I wear black today?

It’s okay; it’s worth it. I’m out here for a glimpse inside Tesla’s Gigafactory, days before its official grand opening. I’ll be one of the first people to step inside the building outside of those who helped build it. That’s worth a slight sunburn, right?

The machine that builds the machine

Tesla needs more batteries. Between the Model S, Model X, the upcoming Model 3 and its at-home solar energy storage product, the Powerwall, just about everything they put their name on uses a battery.

But batteries like the ones Tesla needs are expensive — and heavy. Even if Tesla could find a company in another country capable of producing the volume of batteries that it needs, just getting them onto a cargo ship and shipping them stateside would make up a sizeable chunk of the bill.

Thus, the Gigafactory. A colossal, $5 billion structure smack dab in the middle of the Nevada desert, meant to help Tesla meet its battery needs.

It’s “a machine to build the machines,” as Elon Musk refers to it.

A working work in progress

We enter on one side of the building — Section A, as it’s called.

To our left, row upon row of machines, racks and robotic arms responsible for assembling Powerwalls.

To our right, separated from the factory floor by just a hip-height dividing wall, are the designers. Their project? The rest of the Gigafactory.


You see, Tesla is moving into the Gigafactory as soon as each section — of which there are currently four in progress — is complete.

They’re working from the inside out, and it’s quite a sight to see. It’s like watching a robot build itself into a bigger, badder robot. Walking through the building is like viewing a timelapse; a gradient of construction.

Section A? Up and running, designers in place.

Section B? The walls are up and painted, but much of the clockwork — like two-story tall, gymnasium-sized machines that Tesla wouldn’t disclose the purpose of — are still being assembled.

Section C? Lifts, hardhats, painters and drywallers.

Section D? Raw steel beams as far as the eye can see.

When all is said and done, the Gigafactory will have the largest footprint of any building in the world.

Secret, super secret and top secret

We’ve been invited in for an early look, but that doesn’t mean we have an all-access pass. Even in most of the areas in which we are allowed, cameras generally aren’t (I’d have brought more pictures back if I could, I promise).

For every machine we’re able to see, two are shrouded under tarps. We enter a room with one machine that nearly scrapes the roof 40 feet above us — covered, of course, in 40 feet of tarp.

“Are those tarps there because it’s not finished yet, or because the machine is secret?” I ask.

“A bit of both,” replies someone from Tesla.

“What does that one do?”

“I can’t say.”

“What part of the process is it for?”

“Battery production.” (Essentially everything in this factory is ultimately for battery production.)

“Can you tell me anything else?”

“It’s part of either the cathode or anode process” — essentially a fancier way of saying that it’s for making batteries.

“…”

“Okay! On to the next room.”

The next room has another 40-foot tall machine, still covered. They won’t tell us what this one does, either.

So what’s the reason for the secrecy?

Ultimately, the Gigafactory isn’t just big for the sake of being big. Tesla, in partnership with Panasonic, is putting $5 billion into this place to have a playground on which they can build all the things they can’t build elsewhere. They’re building new stuff here to help them drive down the costs of the batteries they need… and they don’t want anyone to know exactly how it all comes together.

“[This factory] deserves more attention from creative problem solving engineers than the product it makes,” Musk would later tell us in a Q&A. “Over time… the majority of our engineering will actually go into designing the factory as a product itself… If we take a creative engineering person and apply them to designing the factory — this machine that makes the machine — they make 5 to 10 times the headway per hour than if they’re trying to improve the products it makes.”

What’s next?

Everyone calls this thing the Gigafactory — but that’s short for its official name, “Gigafactory 1.”

As you can probably grep from that “1” tacked on to the end there, Elon doesn’t want this to be the only Gigafactory.

In a Q&A, Elon confirmed that he wants to build Gigafactories in other countries. And he wants to build Gigafactories that handle both halves of the Tesla manufacturing equation — building the batteries AND building the cars. Currently, that job is set to be split between its car plant in Fremont, CA and Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. This one is in the U.S. because that’s where it needs the most batteries; as other countries show demand, they’ll build Gigafactories there.

ABB sensors let low-voltage motors live longer, healthier lives

Low-voltage motors just got a big Internet of Things (IoT) assist with the introduction of smart sensor technology that significantly cuts downtime and extends motor lifespan. This advance in industrial IoT technology could be widely implemented by plant operators using a variety of motors.

Switzerland-based ABB announced its new sensor tech for low-voltage motors that can lengthen equipment lifetime by up to 30% while reducing downtime by a whopping 70%. The efficiencies from the IoT sensors displace the current standard regime of preventative maintenance and monitoring, which is both costly and time-consuming.

See also: Global IIoT market may be worth trillions

“This innovative solution makes condition monitoring the new standard for low-voltage motors,” says President of the ABB’s Discrete Automation and Motion division Pekka Tiitinen.

“Optimized maintenance schedules help reduce maintenance costs greatly. Unscheduled outages are reduced considerably or even eliminated completely,” he adds. “Increased availability significantly boosts our customers’ productivity.”

ABB sensors’ ROI period could be a year, just in energy savings

ABB’s smart sensors attach directly to the motors and wirelessly send operating data such as power consumption, temperature, vibration and potential overload. The data are then analyzed on a customized platform by the plant operator, who makes decisions that will reduce the wear and tear on the low-voltage motors and reduce energy consumption by up to 10%. ABB says the smart monitoring technology can pay for itself in a year through energy savings alone.

The sensor technology is not exclusive to new motors manufactured by ABB, and can be quickly retrofitted on other low-voltage motors that are already operating.

ABB has also taken measures to protect motors affixed with the IoT technology from unauthorized access by ensuring designing the sensors so they are not electrically connected to the motors.  Data transmitted wirelessly are also encrypted to a secure server using proprietary algorithms for analysis