Sandy Munro gets a chance to go in a Ford Mach E with a representative of Ford, and he experiences Ford's Blue Cruise. The Ford guy just wants to talk about Blue Cruise, but Sandy can't seem to restrain himself from making comparisons with Tesla. This is probably not what the Ford guy wanted him to do.
First of all, it was clear that Ford's Blue Cruise is available only on limited access highways. And Blue Cruise isn't connected to the GPS navigation system at all. It won't steer you off at your appropriate off ramp. So the appropriate comparison is Blue Cruise vs Autopilot. Autopilot works on any road where there are painted lane markers, Blue Cruise works only on limited access highways. And Blue Cruise won't change lanes for you. You need to take control and do that manually. Ford is thinking about adding that feature in the future.
Ford advertises that Blue Cruise is a hands-free system. It uses a cabin-facing camera to make sure that the driver is paying attention. It will allow the driver to look away from the road briefly, but it will send the driver a reminder to pay attention after a few seconds of inattentive driving. Blue Cruise will stop working if the driver continues to be inattentive. The video doesn't make clear what, exactly, happens when Blue Cruise stops working due to the driver's sudden inability to pay attention.
There's another issue with hands-free driving. It's a reaction time issue. A long time ago in a previous millennium, when I took Driver Education, we saw a movie that I still remember. In the movie, a car was rigged so the front seat passenger, the instructor, could secretly push a button that would make a noise and shoot a chalk mark onto the road. The driver was told to immediately slam on the brake. At that point, the car shot another chalk mark onto the road. Then, a bit farther along, the car came to a stop.
It takes the brain about three quarters of a second to realize that an emergency exists and another three quarters of a second to move the foot off the accelerator and get it slammed down on the brake. At 65 miles an hour, the car will have traveled 96 feet down the road before a human being can initiate the stopping process. A few phantom braking events are a small price to pay for a quicker response to an emergency stop situation. So what does that have to do with hands-free Blue Cruise?
The brain still needs to see a situation that demands a sudden avoidance maneuver. Then it must decide which way to turn the steering wheel and how much to turn it. That delay will increase by the same one and a half seconds of effective inaction if the brain has to first figure out how to get the hands onto the steering wheel and then get them there before it can initiate a calculation about which way and how much to steer for the avoidance maneuver. That means you're 96 feet further down the road before you start the avoidance maneuver if your hands are off the steering wheel when an emergency becomes evident.
So I have to say that for level 2 autonomy, where the driver may need to take over quickly, it's better if the hands are already on the wheel.
There was another odd quirk about Blue Cruise. Sandy Munro was chatting with the Ford guy when he suddenly noticed a visual, but not audible, warning that he had to take control of steering. This was on a limited access highway going seventy miles an hour. It's a good thing he noticed it because Blue Cruise poops out when it sees a "sharp curve."
This particular curve was on a limited access highway. It wasn't sharp enough to require a reduction in the speed limit. I foresee that this will become an issue when drivers don't notice that Blue Cruise has quit working and the car drifts to the outside of the curve and out of its lane.
Autopilot stops working around sharp curves, too. But Autopilot gives an audible signal, your hands are already on the wheel, and Autopilot's definition of a sharp curve is one where you have to slow down to 20mph, not one that you can negotiate at highway speeds.
My advice? Don't ride in a car with Ford Blue Cruise.
Ford's Blue Cruise technology is way behind what Tesla offers today, not even considering the FSD Beta, which should become available to the public later this year. As Tesla advances further in vehicle autonomy, they'll be solving problems Ford has yet to come across. It's great to see that Tesla has started the electric revolution in cars, but Tesla's competition won't come with existing auto makers.
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Back in 2023, Tesla put together a rather unique Supercharger site idea - one with a CyberCanopy. This canopy is intended to provide solar power for Supercharging, helping to reduce the impact on the local grid while also providing a futuristic and Cybertruck-themed location that would set it apart.
Unfortunately, the plans never moved beyond the filing stage. Instead, Tesla opened a standard-looking Supercharger at the same Canton, Massachusetts location. However, the site is still well-situated just off the highway and benefits from natural tree cover in the parking area.
However, Tesla is at it again with a concept for another CyberCanopy with RGB lighting. Thanks to MarkoRP for spotting this. No April Fool’s this time.
We want to build a few Superchargers cool enough to be worthy of the trip itself. - Max de Zegher
CyberCanopy 2
This second Supercharger with CyberCanopy is set for Roswell, New Mexico, at the Whataburger in town. Featuring just eight stalls, this will be one of Tesla’s smaller Supercharger sites, but for what it lacks in size, it makes up for it in uniqueness. The charging stalls are covered from the rain by a futuristic, Cybertruck-themed canopy, which will have solar panels installed on the top of it.
According to the plans, the CyberCanopy boasts 20.88kW of solar panels on its roof, providing shelter from the elements while also providing some power back to the grid.
RGB Lighting
At nighttime, the Supercharger will make a big statement. Tesla intends to light the long edges of the canopy, which will not only look amazing, but it’ll actually make finding the Supercharger easier in a large parking lot.
The lighting coming off the edge of the canopy reminds us a lot of the lightbar on the Cybertruck and now the new Model Y. It’s definitely the direction Tesla is moving for all their models, so expect all future models to have it, including the new Roadster and the next-gen model.
Tesla’s Max de Zegher also took to X after the plans for the new Supercharger were found and shared the image above. He stated that Tesla wants to build a few cool Superchargers that will be worth stopping at, even if they’re out of the way a little bit. So it seems like this isn’t just a concept, but an idea that Tesla wants to expand to several areas around the country or world.
We want to build a few Superchargers cool enough to be worthy of the trip itself. Wish we could have kept it under wraps for longer, but submittal was needed for Planning Approval. We can't hide anything from @MarcoRPi1! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/X2WaKDd408
This particular site doesn't have a Megapack or other form of energy storage, unlike the upcoming Harris Ranch Supercharger site in California. That means that Tesla won’t be storing the solar energy gained from this site, but instead will be either offsetting the immediate grid impact or serving energy back to the grid when the site isn’t actively charging.
Tesla will likely be incorporating V4 Superchargers, including both V4 posts and the new, more powerful V4 Cabinets, as the permit states that Tesla will be redesigning the site internally before beginning construction. For Cybertruck owners, 500kW charging may be around the corner.
We’re hoping Tesla continues to deploy these kinds of Supercharger sites around the world - they make a stylistic statement about Tesla’s futurism, like the Shell gas station that was upcycled into a Supercharger site earlier this year in Spain.
They also make a big impact for ownership because it is a far more comfortable charging experience when you stop at a site that’s shaded from the elements - and one that’s better for the environment with offset emissions.
It was a rainy April 1st when a news-searching author went on a delve into the depths of April Fools to find fact from falsehood. And while we found a lot of fantastic jokes, we also found some good ideas.
So, with a shoutout to MarcoRP on X, whose April Fool’s Joke gave us a good run for our money for a couple of minutes, we thought to ourselves - what would a Cybercab Charging Station / Cleaning Hub really look like?
Cybercab Wireless Charging Sites
Now, before continuing, we’d like to point out that the image up top is a joke from Marco - it isn’t an accurate or real site map submission from Tesla. However, it gave us the impetus to think critically about what is required for a Robotaxi fleet, based primarily on the Cybercab, to be able to service a city.
Requirements
Tesla will likely need to charge a small fleet of Cybercabs at a single time and in a single place. That means that the site needs to be large enough to cover a major metro area while also still being compact enough to not cost too much money to build out.
In addition, we need to factor in charge times. The Cybercab is likely to launch with a battery around 50 kWh, which will result in a range of approximately 300 miles. With that much range, the average Cybercab may not need to charge more than once or at all during daytime shifts, so instead, most of the vehicles will charge overnight.
MarcoRP
Math and Charge Times
The overnight charging means that most of these vehicles could be charged slowly. When we did some back-of-the-napkin math last year, we determined that Tesla’s wireless charger will likely peak around 17 kW (for comparison, Tesla’s Wall Connector at 32 amps charges at about 7 kW). If we scale Tesla’s wireless charger down slightly to 10 kW, accounting for some energy loss and the potential size of the site, that means a Cybercab will be able to charge in about 5 hours.
Tesla’s upcoming V4 Supercharger unit can currently handle 1.5MW per cabinet, but this slower-speed charging is A/C, not DC, which means there is a step-down loss of about 3-5%. Let’s make that a comfortable 10% for any other overages, but we can estimate around 1.35MW of power. That 1.3MW will easily handle charging up to 100 Cybercabs at once - all wirelessly, using Tesla’s unique beam-forming and beam-steering technology to keep efficiency high at every single stall.
Within about 5 hours, a whole fleet of 100 Cybercabs could be charged overnight when electricity rates are cheaper and still be out in time for the morning commute.
While this is all just hypothetical, it really does make sense that Tesla will be establishing these sites that won’t require much space or a ton of energy.
Tesla recently curtained off a large section of the parking garage at Giga Texas, as well as some of their chargers on the eastern end of the facility, leading us to believe they may just be testing this at scale internally.
There’s a lot to look forward to with Tesla’s V4 Supercharger deployment coming this year and with Robotaxi launching in just a couple of months.
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