juvenile western bluebird

In Album 7/29/16

A four cylinder +Honda with actual low end torque is a good thing, even with a CVT

In Album 7/21/16

They may be called crossovers by manufacturers and customers may see them as utilities but they are really cars and I'm OK with that

2017 Infiniti QX30 Shows That Crossover Utilities Are The New Cars
2017 Infiniti QX30 AWD (Photo credit: Sam Abuelsamid) Five years ago when Dieter Zetsche and Carlos Ghosn formed a partnership between Daimler and the Renault-Nissan Alliance, one of the first products to be added to the roadmap was a compact crossover for Infiniti. At the time, Infiniti was looking for something […]

The lesson to engineers working on autonomous systems, don't ever assume the person between the steering wheel and seat will do the right thing. Design your systems to be robust to the human element or degrade gracefully.

Tesla Autopilot Accidents Demonstrates Need To Design For Robustness In Autonomous Systems
The auto pilot settings screen indicates that the features are still in beta although most customer probably don’t realize what this means (photo credit: Sam Abuelsamid) Among people that work in computer tech support there is a pejorative acronym that is used all too frequently, PEBKAC. It stands for problem exists […]

Yup, it's 2016 and the Prius is still the mileage champ among cars without a plug…at least until the Hyundai Ioniq arrives

2016 Toyota Prius Three – Still The Mileage Champ – Sam’s Thoughts
It’s not often that a single automotive nameplate becomes virtually synonymous with a powertrain technology. Yet over the course of almost two decades, that’s exactly what has happened with the Toyota Prius. When you think hybrid electric, Prius is likely the first and probably only name that comes to mind. Late 2015 brought us an …

For good or ill, a single data point is not a trend.

Adding Some Statistical Perspective To Tesla Autopilot Safety Claims
Tesla has attempted to reassure the public by stating that Josh Brown’s death is the first known fatality in just over 130 million miles where Autopilot was activated. It isn’t so reassuring when you take a closer look at the data and the assumptions involved.

bumble bee among the sweet peas

In Album 7/3/16

I think the key thing I neglected to emphasize sufficiently in this 2013 article was to make more of a distinction between safety critical systems like Autopilot and non-safety stuff like powertrains and convenience features.

Should Automakers Be Selling “Beta” Cars?
Despite the dangers of open public beta testing in the car business, a number of automakers have been doing exactly that to varying degrees.

I made my debut on Al Jazeera today to talk about autonomous driving https://youtu.be/uD_c8nXqRqU