Former NHS emergency first responder Dr. Amit Patel suddenly and completely lost his sight in 2013. While his life-saving days may be over, he's traded in the ambulance for a certain red Toyota GT86 from the world's most famous car show: Top Gear. Move aside James McAvoy, because Patel piloted the show's Reasonably Fast Car around the show's famous Dunsfold test track in 1:46.58, which would put him ninth on the show's celebrity leaderboard.

In addition to the significant visual handicap, Patel had to make up for the added weight of his driving instructor. Riding shotgun was Mark Watkins, a performance driving instructor with experience working with the visually impaired. "Amit was immediately natural behind the wheel," said Watkins. "What impressed me all the way through was how he was just so smooth."

"Being on the Top Gear test track, driving the GT86, dream come true," said Patel. "You know, you always imagine doing this in a Reasonably Fast Car. You watch Top Gear and you kind of think, 'Oh, I can do better than that,' but the fact that I'm actually doing this as a blind person is incredible."

Watkins acted as Patel's eyes, delivering verbal instructions throughout the day at Dunsfold as well as during a preliminary test session in a Yaris, days prior. It's also worth noting that Watkins didn't have an extra brake pedal tucked in his footwell either like you'd find on a driver's ed. Corolla. One-hundred percent of the GT86 was under the control of a man who doesn't even know what the front of this car looks like—the sports coupe's facelift only came in 2017.

"It's been six years or so since I’ve been behind the wheel of a car," said Patel. "But it's funny how things come back to you—the sound of the engine, the gear changes, the clutch, and the brake. But then driving, and not knowing where you’re driving, that’s the insane part."

Year, Make, Model: 2020 Chevrolet Silverado HD

Topline: Chevrolet has brought its next-gen, heavy-duty truck to the fight with a finely tuned Duramax diesel engine, all-new Allison 10-speed transmission, and class-leading work capabilities.

What's New: Plenty. Off the bat, the 2020 Silverado HD's design is an eye-catcher—take that how you will. While many have criticized its looks, and perhaps rightfully so, the range-topping High Country trim is the most handsome of the lot. Luxury has not been overlooked and certain differentiators like the Bowtie-toting front grille make it a more pleasant sight than the lower-trimmed trucks.

The next-gen model is taller at its peak than the outgoing Silverado HD, but its bed rails sit at the same height; because in the case of hooking up a fifth-wheel trailer, higher isn't necessarily better. Combined with the totally redesigned bodywork, Chevrolet has taken aim at a more aggressive stance that reinforces the heavy-duty attitude its customers look for when stepping up from half-ton pickups.

Technology is also at the forefront of the Silverado HD's strong suits. Chevrolet has packed in enough innovative equipment to assist in work and play, both of which are major focus points for the ever-expanding truck market. Among the various features that were developed to make life easier on drivers, the most intriguing is the Chevy's transparent trailer view which combines a host of rearward-facing camera angles to allow a "see-through" look of what's behind the truck. In essence, it enables drivers to keep an eye on their surroundings when towing anything from fifth-wheel campers to 30-foot-long box trailers.

Owners are offered innovative connectivity features, many of which can be accessed on their iPhones and Androids via the MyChevrolet app. When paired, the Silverado HD can relay loads of vital information to your smartphone including operating temperatures, HVAC controls, and trailer status insights such as fifth-wheel water tank levels and other various details.

All of these exterior doo-dads were created to complement the truck's core capabilities, which can be credited to a redesigned 6.6-liter Duramax diesel engine and 10-speed Allison automatic transmission in top-spec.

What You Need to Know: Chevrolet's Duramax powerplant ponies up 445 horsepower and 910 pound-feet of torque with the 2020 Silverado HD. While it may not win any power competitions when pitted against the likes of Ram and Ford, it does boast the highest towing capacity at 35,500 pounds. That's 400 pounds more than the newly unveiled 2019 Ram HD and 500 more than the 2019 Ford Super Duty offering, and not to mention a massive 52-percent increase over the outgoing model. Furthermore, Chevrolet boasts the truck's ability to put this performance to the ground at any time thanks to alleged smarter gear ratios and the Allison 10-speed.

An all-new, 6.6-liter gasoline V-8 is offered as standard, which still generates a respectable 401 hp and 464 pound-feet of torque.

Quotable: “We set out to make the best HD trucks on the market, bar none,” said Jaclyn McQuaid, chief engineer for the Chevrolet Silverado HD. “We increased towing capabilities across the line, not just for dually buyers. We added class-leading towing technologies, such as 15 available camera views, to make trailering more convenient, whether pulling a large cargo trailer or fifth-wheel camper. And we made a host of changes to make tasks easier.”

What Else: 2020 Chevrolet Silverado HDs are built at General Motors' Flint, Michigan plant. The 159-acre, six-million square foot facility has been the benefactor of major investments from the Detroit auto giant, totaling $1.5 billion since 2011. It's also the oldest and longest continuously operating GM plant of them all, starting production way back in 1947.

Expect to see examples in all five trim levels—Work Truck, Custom, LT, LTZ, and High Country—hit showroom floors in summer 2019.

Uber is investing in alternative modes of transportation such as bicycles and scooters, but to deal with Mumbai's notoriously terrible traffic, the ride-hailing company is trying something a bit more unusual. Mumbai residents can now hail speedboats to bypass traffic, Uber announced in a blog post.

The boat service is actually a new extension of Uber Boat, which has been offered intermittently in the United States. Passengers can travel between three water-accessible locations within Mumbai: Gateway of India, the Elephanta Islands, and the Mandwa Jetty.

Rides start at 5,700 rupees ($80) for a six or eight-seat boat and rise to 9,500 rupees ($132) for an Uber XL boat accommodating up to 10 people. Uber only accepts bookings for an entire boat, not individual seats. The service is launching as a pilot program, but will expand in the coming weeks, an Uber spokesperson told CNN.

India's cities have some of the worst traffic in the world. CNN cited an Uber-commissioned report by Boston Consulting, which stated that Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata lose more than $22 billions year because of traffic jams. It takes commuters about 1.5 hours longer to travel a given distance than in comparable Asian cities, according to the report. In addition to the volume of traffic, the chaotic nature of Indian roads makes driving even more challenging.

Commuting by boat is nothing new. In New York City, commuters relied on a network of ferries to get to the island of Manhattan before the advent of subways and cars. Today, overcrowding on streets and subways has led New York to bring back ferries. While increased traffic congestion is definitely a concern for Uber, it's unlikely that customers will ever hail boats as often as they do cars.

Ford Australia revealed Tuesday its 2019 entry into Australia's iconic touring car race series: the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, or V-8 Supercars to most of us.

The Ford Performance Mustang Supercar, as Ford calls it, is the successor to the retired Falcon Falcon FG X, whose last factory-supported Supercars race was the 2018 Newcastle 500, where it won. Ford of Australia ceased production of the Falcon in 2016, 46 years after the Falcon nameplate's retirement in North America, and elected to replace the Falcon's sedan body style with that of the Mustang.

Current Supercars Championship vehicles are all built on an identical base chassis and roll cage setup, though constructors are allowed to add make-specific bodywork and aero components. All cars competing in the series have homologated bodies, whose drag coefficients and downforce levels are as close to identical as possible. Weight must match or exceed 1,410 kilograms (3,109 pounds), at least 755 kilograms (1,664 pounds) of which must be over the front axle, where the engine is.

Engines are not mandated to be V-8s, but all manufacturers still use naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V-8s, making more than 600 horsepower. Ford and Holden—a General Motors brand—still use pushrod-actuated valves, two per cylinder. The latter considered switching to a twin-turbo V-6, but ultimately shelved the project in 2018.

Mustangs will also find their way into the NASCAR Monster Energy Series, America's closest analog to the Supercars Championship, in 2019. It will mark the first time that Mustangs (or Mustang-bodied lookalikes) will have competed in the NASCAR Cup Series.

The NASCAR Hall of Fame inducted its 10th class of legends on Feb. 1, bringing total membership to 50. The 2019 class of inductees included Jeff Gordon, Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki, Jack Roush, and Roger Penske.

“What a special evening. I’m so honored to be here surrounded by friends, family, fans, and many people that have worked very hard behind the scenes for me over the years,” Gordon said during his acceptance speech. “Thank you to the fans who make racing the great sport that it is. You make being a race car driver a dream come true.”

Gordon was a near-unanimous choice to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility since retiring from full-time competition as a driver at the end of the 2015 season. His name appeared on all but two ballots cast by the NASCAR Hall of Fame voting committee.

Gordon is near the top of multiple NASCAR premier-series stat lists. His 93 wins in 805 races put him third on the all-time wins list behind Richard Petty and David Pearson, and his four championships in 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2001 place him fourth on the all-time title-winners list behind seven-time champs Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jimmie Johnson.

Gordon’s Cup career began in the final race of the 1992 season, the final full-time campaign for Allison and Kulwicki. Tragically, both of the latter died the following year, Allison in a helicopter crash at Talladega Superspeedway and Kulwicki in a plane crash near Bristol Motor Speedway. Although their careers were cut short after kicking off with part-time seasons in 1985, both drivers made the best of their short time in NASCAR’s top series.

Kulwicki died as NASCAR’s reigning champion after a close title battle that also included Allison in 1992. Kulwicki was one of the last of a breed of NASCAR drivers who owned and operated their own single-car team. He was a five-time race winner.

Allison fell short of a Cup Series title in his brief stint at the top level, but he was a frequent visitor to victory lane. With 19 wins, he was victorious in nearly 10 percent of his 191-career races.

The other two HOF spots went to prolific team owners who have experienced success in multiple forms of motorsports. Roush has claimed fame in both drag racing and NASCAR while Penske is a known IndyCar powerhouse alongside his stock car racing team.

“This Hall of Fame honor and this moment is very special to me, and I am so glad to share it with my family and friends,” Penske said. “Racing has been a part of my life almost as long as I can remember. It is a common thread that is woven throughout all of our Penske business. Racing is simply who we are.”

Both Penske and Roush have two NASCAR Cup Series championships as car owners. Penske is the defending champion, courtesy of Joey Logano’s 2018 title. Brad Keselowski gave “The Captain” his first NASCAR premier-series championship in 2012. Penske has 114 wins as a Cup Series car owner.

Roush’s two Cup titles came in consecutive years, with Matt Kenseth as the driver in 2003 and Kurt Busch in 2004. Roush is the winningest team owner in NASCAR with eight championships and 324 race wins across all three of NASCAR’s national series. He’s a 137-time winner in the Cup Series.

The late Jim Hunter and Steve Waid also were recognized during the induction ceremony, Hunter with the presentation of the Landmark Award for Outstanding Contributions to NASCAR and Waid with the Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence.

I finally did it: I'm a dad. The funny thing is, I've always owned dad cars, even before I needed to. Owning anything with less than four doors never made much sense, which is how I ended up with a stable of souped-up grandpa cars from the Sixties and Seventies. Now that I'm a father, the '74 Oldsmobile sedan I brought my wife and son home from the hospital in seems a bit dated. And that, my friends, is how I found myself on this quest to find the perfect new dad car. The latest contender: the new 2019 GMC Sierra AT4.

The 2019 GMC Sierra AT4, By the Numbers

• Base Price (Price as Tested): $53,200 ($65,475)
• Powertrain: 6.2-liter V-8, 420 horsepower, 460 pound-feet of torque; 10-speed automatic transmission; four-wheel-drive
• Fuel Economy: 15 mpg city, 19 mpg highway
• Towing Capacity: 9,300 pounds
• Random dad fact: According to the US Department of Energy, each gallon of gasoline produces about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide when it's burned (the heavy weight has to do with carbon molecules in the fuel combining with oxygen in the atmosphere). Assuming you drove a 6.2-liter-equipped AT4 13,500 miles in a year—the average annual mileage in the US—your truck would produce more than 15,800 pounds of CO2.

The first vehicle I ever bought with my own money was a 1980 GMC four-by-four. It had an eight-foot-long bed, a six-inch suspension lift, 35-inch TSL Super Swampers (those are big, knobby tires, if you're not familiar with them), and a fairly half-assed coat of red primer on it. It was perfect. Of course, the truck lacked creature comforts; there was no air conditioning, the heat was either off or unbearably hot, and the suspension was so stiff that every time I hit a bump, my fillings came close to rattling out. But man, could it chew through deep mud, sand, and snow.

Needless to say, I didn't have a child when I owned that extremely tall GMC. You didn't climb into as much as you mounted it; giving rides to parents and grandparents was always accompanied by comments about the utter absurdity surrounding its monumental stature and abysmal fuel economy. Still, it felt good to drive it.

GMC's newest off-road truck model, the Sierra AT4, has the same general "I'm more badass than yewww" attitude my old truck possessed, but is a) more powerful, b) more comfortable, and c) costs about $63,000 more to purchase. The AT4 puts forward an old school renegade vibe, but buttresses its bad boy fortitude with plush leather seats that are heated and cooled, a quiet interior, and (marginally) better fuel economy.

Now that I'm a father, interior and cargo volume eclipse most other factors when I'm considering a vehicle's worthiness for family duty. While pickup trucks are generally not ideal in terms of price tag and fuel consumption, they absolutely rule where space is concerned. In most vehicles, two car seats really put a pinch on space in the back seat. Not so in a full-size pickup. You could fit three child safety seats on the Sierra's rear couch without much issue. Cargo? Same deal. In addition to the short bed's 62-plus-cubic feet of volume (that rises to 89 cubes for the long bed, and you can add even more by adding a bed cap), there's a 24-liter storage tray beneath the rear seat that's perfect for storing/losing pacifiers, diapers and other assorted odds and ends. I could carry a year's supply or more of diapers and powdered formula in this thing, and tow a rusted-out 1975 GMC K20 I might have picked up from a trailer park in Coinjock, North Carolina. [It's a real place. We checked.—Ed.]

Shifting our focus to the interior: GM has at last updated its instrument panel gauges to include modern screens, although I can't for the life of me figure out why the company's engineers didn't choose a new gauge layout. But perhaps that, like the column-mounted shifter, is a 1990s holdout dear to GMC's core customers. More likely, it's a cost-cutting scheme. Either way, I love the throwback aesthetic—even if most in the $65,000 truck market likely won't. Some people may take issue with the materials GMC uses for its dash and door panels; unlike the leather seats, they're a bit plasticky. But to a father, who should realize that everything nice will either be destroyed or perennially covered with fingerprints and dried chunks of food, that doesn't matter so much.

The AT4 drives like a dream. It's smooth, but not bouncy. The 6.2-liter V-8 roars with a primal authority familiar to anyone who has had anything to do with GM's performance-oriented small block V-8s over the past 50 years. For a truck, the AT4 is fast, with no problem hurtling up to speed, both on beach sand and on the highway. The tall driving position imbues the driver with confidence, and keeps that person convinced—and rightfully so—that he or she looks like a complete badass driving this sinister truck.

But the height—so great for off-roading and feeling tough—was a bit of a challenge when it came time to load the niño into the back seat. Being an off-road model, there's no fancy electric step that extends to assist you into the lofty environs of the cab. You have to sort of chuck the baby up in there, then figure out a way to keep the as-yet-unsecured child steady as you hurl yourself upwards after him or her. (It'll counts towards at least a few minutes of your daily exercise regimen, I'll give it that.)

Fortunately for accessibility, the Sierra AT4 comes with GMC's handy in-bumper steps, and the version I tested came with an ingenious multi-configuration tailgate that was as good for stepping into the back of the truck as it was for lowering part of the tailgate just a little bit to accommodate long, light items. (In my case, surfboards.) Hoisting heavy, rain-soaked bags of yard waste into the truck was much easier with the tailgate step than it would have been if I had been compelled to fling them up into the bed like we did in the olden days (when, admittedly trucks usually sat at a much more reasonable height).

Until I considered the physics of a 5,400-pound truck with giant, ever-humming all-terrain tires, I was a little surprised at the AT4's voracious fuel consumption. Here we are in 2019, and I was scarcely able to reach 18 mpg on a four-hour highway trip. Around town, it was closer to 14 mpg. But a big truck is a big truck, no matter how modern the fuel delivery system, so this one sucks down plenty of fossil juice.

I'm a lifelong fan of antiquated GM products, and this truck struck me as an extremely well-executed modern version of the GMC I once owned. It's tough, it looks and drives great, and my family loved it. For someone who has the ducats to buy one of these for the odd camping trip, creek bed romp or beach excursion, the Sierra AT4 is perfect. But for the average family man, buying one as a daily driver would be plain silly. As much as I liked this truck, having a kid means thinking about the future, a time when I will be trying to tell my son to act like a responsible adult. A truck like this—any big truck, really—would make me look like a complete hypocrite. After all, I don't tow a horse trailer back and forth to work or anything like that; lugging around around all that excess capability day in and day out would just be burning through a not-insignificant amount of otherwise college-bound dollars.

So in the meantime, I'll keep plowing my little 85-hp Subaru wagon through the sand if I want to drive on the beach. It's not big or tough or handsome, but it's got enough space inside, and it gets decent fuel economy. At the very least, it helps silence the inner echoes of my forebears' puzzlement over my past adventures with impractical vehicles.

Acura confirmed on Tuesday that it will become the title sponsor of the 2019 Grand Prix of Long Beach, an iconic race on the streets of Long Beach, California that's been held since the mid-'70s. The 2019 edition of the race will see a plethora of racing series take to the narrow and bumpy streets, but the headliners will be two series in which Acura and Honda are heavily invested in: the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and IndyCar.

According to a statement released by the automaker, the multi-year sponsorship deal aims to strengthen the brand's involvement in high-level motorsports (as if Honda wasn't already a household name), and celebrate Acura's successful return to the top level of sports car racing with the Acura ARX-05 of Team Penske and the NSX GT3 Evo of Meyer Shank Racing.

"With our U.S. headquarters nearby in Torrance, this is a true 'home' event for the Acura brand," said Jon Ikeda, Acura vice president and general manager. "The Grand Prix of Long Beach is one of North America's premier motorsports events, and an institution in Southern California. Acura is delighted and proud to be associated with the Grand Prix of Long Beach, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership."

Acura picks up the naming rights to the event after rival automaker Toyota had it for 44 years, having sponsored the popular event since 1975. When the announcement was made in 2018 that Toyota would terminate its agreement it didn't reveal a specific reason for its withdrawal, with a spokesperson simply citing that it was "a very difficult decision."

The 45th Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will take place April 12-14, 2019.

The U.S. Navy halted development of an anti-torpedo defense system for its ships last year due to poor performance, including unreliable sensors and interceptor torpedoes, and will remove the prototype systems from five carriers over the next four years. This comes at a time when the service routinely sounds the alarm about growing submarine threats, especially to high-value ships, from potential “great power competitors,” such as Russia and China.

The latest annual report from the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E, revealed the Navy’s decision to suspend work on what it officially calls the Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Defense System (ATTDS) in September 2018. DOT&E issues these reports to provide a public summary of significant testing developments regarding major U.S. military programs in the preceding fiscal year.

At present, three of the Navy’s Nimitz-class aircraft carriers – USS George H.W. Bush, USS Harry S. Truman, and USS Nimitz – have prototype engineering and development models of the ATTDS installed. Bush was the first to receive the ATTDS in 2013. Two more Nimitz class carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Theodore Roosevelt, initially had earlier interim roll-on/roll-off versions of the system, but the Navy eventually added full prototypes to those ships.

The basic components of the ATTDS on all five carriers are the same. It consists of the Torpedo Warning System (TWS) and the Countermeasure Anti-Torpedo (CAT).

The TWS includes a towed acoustic sensor that trails behind the ship to detect potential threats, classify them, and provide targeting information for the CAT. The CAT is a torpedo-like “hard-kill” interceptor that homes in on the torpedo and destroys it either by physically smashing into it or with its own explosive warhead. You can read more about the system and how the Navy expected it to work here.

The problem, according to DOT&E, is that after more than five years in development, the ATTDS's demonstrated capabilities were improving, but not fast enough. The system’s performance in testing and other evaluations, including during operational deployments on Bush, Eisenhower, and Nimitz in the 2017 Fiscal Year, was limited.

“TWS demonstrated some capability to detect incoming torpedoes,” DOT&E’s report for the 2018 Fiscal Year explained. “The significance and effect of false target alerts on TWS capability are unknown.”

“CAT demonstrated some capability to defeat an incoming torpedo,” the annual review continued. “CAT has uncertain reliability. The lethality of CAT is untested.”

In short, the two major components of the torpedo defense system have shown, in principle, that they might be able to destroy an incoming threat, but they’re not reliable enough to accurately evaluate those capabilities. The latest DOT&E report is otherwise light on specific details.

However, DOT&E reviews from previous years do shine some additional light on significant ongoing issues. For one, the system reportedly suffers a high rate of false alarms when large numbers of other ships are present. This could suggest the TWS might have difficulty spotting an actual threat amidst other friendly ships, neutral vessels a hostile submarine might use to hide its approach, or anything else creating acoustic signatures during an actual combat scenario.

The active acoustic sensor component of the system, which might’ve helped mitigate that with its ability to actively search for targets, was still in testing at the time the Navy halted work in 2018. In every instance that a carrier had deployed with the ATTDS installed, the TWS was capable of passive detection only. DOT&E’s report for the 2017 Fiscal Year said that crews onboard Bush, Eisenhower, and Nimitz had rarely bothered to roll out the TWS array during their cruises and therefore collected little information on how it might work under real-world conditions.

DOT&E also criticized the Navy’s use of highly scripted tests to evaluate the CAT’s performance, as well as how relevant the surrogate torpedo targets actually were. The service’s existing training targets are modified American designs and are not meant to reflect any foreign torpedo’s specific capabilities. As such, while the testing met the Navy’s requirements, DOT&E said it was impossible to gauge whether the data was representative of how the anti-torpedo interceptor would perform against a real threat.

The ATTDS was supposed to be part of the larger Surface Ship Torpedo Defense (SSTD) system, which also includes the AN/SLQ-25 Nixie and the Mk 2 Acoustic Device Countermeasure (ADC), both of which are in widespread Navy service already. The Nixie is a towed decoy meant to lure enemy homing torpedoes. The ADC is a standoff system that gets launched from Navy ships and then settles at a predetermined depth pumping out acoustic noise to attract homing torpedoes.

The complete arrangement was supposed to provide important close-in protection against underwater threats for Navy carriers and other high-value ships, such as amphibious assault ships. The added protection ATTDS is supposed to offer reflects the very real and growing threat of advanced submarines, including steadily harder to detect diesel-electric types with air-independent propulsions (AIP) systems. China and Russia are both looking to expand the size and capabilities of their submarine fleets and many of their new, non-nuclear submarine designs are available for export, increasing the chance that these potential threats will proliferate.

This is to say nothing of increasingly capable Chinese and Russian torpedoes, many of which are also available on the export market. The latest variants and derivatives of Russia’s Type 53 family have ranges in excess of 12 miles, have features to defeat acoustic countermeasures, and zig-zag in the terminal phase of their attack to make them particularly hard to evade or intercept.

Though its general configuration is reverse engineered from the U.S. Mk 48 torpedo, China’s Yu-6 reportedly has some similar capabilities to the Type 53. In 2012, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) introduced the Yu-9, which is a quieter, electrically-powered version of the Yu-6 that is more difficult to detect.

However, the most recent report from DOT&E does not offer any recommendations for how the Navy might proceed, strongly implying that the ATTDS program might end up heavily restructured or canceled entirely. In 2017, the Navy pushed back the planned date for reaching initial operational capability with the system from 2018 to 2022.

As of 2016, the service had hoped all of its carriers and other high-value ships would have the new anti-torpedo defenses by the end of 2035. Now it will remove all of the ATTDS components from the five carriers with the system by the end of 2023.

Still, it seems hard to believe that the Navy wouldn’t at least try to squeeze some capability out of the system. The service has received more than $760 million in funding for the continued development of the entire SSTD, including almost $85 million in the ATTDS in the 2017 and 2018 Fiscal Year defense budgets alone.

As already noted, there is certainly a continuing need for improved anti-torpedo defenses that only looks set to grow in urgency the coming years, as well. Whether ATTDS, or a revamped version of the system, ultimately provides the capability or not, the Navy’s expensive carriers and other major surface ships are still in desperate need of a more robust array of defenses against enemy submarines.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

New video has emerged from yesterday's special operations forces realistic training exercise right in downtown Los Angeles, California. We have never seen MH-6 Little Birds from the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment fly so low during one of these urban warfare drills that occur in cities that are very much going about its usual business, a feat made all the more impressive given the rain and wind at the time.

The Los Angeles Police Department issued a public statement about the exercise late on Feb. 4, 2019, as it was going on, with MH-6s, as well as MH-60 Black Hawks, carrying special operators through the skies of L.A. There may be more drills yet to come through Feb. 9, 2019, across the greater Los Angeles and Long Beach areas, according to the press release.

But some residents didn't need a press release to tell them the helicopters would be flying by, as the video below shows. If the people on the street weren't aware of what was going on at the time, they certainly got a surprise as a pair of blacked out MH-6s went buzzing by at extremely low altitude.

Helicopters flying crazy low in DTLA! #military pic.twitter.com/Cvi6EO83mp

— Mario Mercado (@mmercad4) February 5, 2019

#dtla #military #helicopters @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/z2XYcIlnRt

— Alex Strezev (@AlexStrezev) February 5, 2019

Separately, an MH-60 touched down in the middle of the street to pick up a number of special operators as they rushed out of a building. News crews had already spotted Black Hawks and Little Birds depositing forces on top of various structures, where they would have worked there way down to the assigned objective before exiting at street level.

So intense DTLA…!#DTLA #LosAngeles #military #helicopter #bomb pic.twitter.com/UiAHsBjKr6

— ats (@ats_1004) February 5, 2019

Footage shows helicopters landing on the street near DTLA pic.twitter.com/DmOVfnCQbN

— William Craddick (@williamcraddick) February 5, 2019

Never a dull moment in #DTLA pic.twitter.com/UtW6bq0m8f

— Alex Strezev (@AlexStrezev) February 5, 2019

I was part of this.
Military Helicopters Conduct Covert Exercises Over Los Angeles, Californ... https://t.co/Tcp45aySng via @YouTube

— Henry Solstice (@HenrySolstice) February 5, 2019

This is all in a days work for the 160th SOAR, which specializes in exactly these sorts of insertion and extraction missions, enabling special operators to get right on top of their targets quickly before the enemy can react and then out again safely. The MH-6's diminutive size is ideal for getting personnel in and out of particularly hard to reach spots.

Given the rain and wind, it must've been a particularly exciting ride for the occupants of the MH-6s, especially since the personnel were riding externally on the helicopter's side-mounted planks. Piloting a helicopter in this kind of weather is no easy feat even without having to contend with the many potential hazards on the street in a major American metropolis, which includes unpredictable winds caused by highrises, all types of wires, tight spaces between structures and obstacles, and even circulating debris.

The flying you can see in these various clips is just another testament to the skill of pilots assigned to the 160th SOAR. The videos are also good examples of why there is simply no substitute for this kind of hyper-realistic training in a real urban environment, even though it might give residents a brief scare. And let's be honest here, if you saw blacked out helicopters with silhouettes of soldiers hanging out the side flying down a metropolis street at treetop level, you probably would be freaked out too.

The U.S. military as a whole, as well as local authorities, always has to balance the clear demand for this type of realistic training with the equally obvious disruption the drills often cause to civilians. You can read about these issues in detail here and here.

We'll definitely be keeping our eyes out for more clips of Monday's exercise, as well as others that occur as the week goes on.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

????USS Abraham Lincoln, one of America's Nimitz class supercarriers commissioned in 1989, recently completed a multi-year mid-life Refueling and Complex Overhaul that began in 2013. In May of 2017, she was redelivered to the fleet and is slated to make its first operational deployment since its refitting. During her downtime, the nuclear-powered carrier received many upgrades, some of which are very visible when viewing the ship externally.

Chris Cavas (@cavasships) noted that there were changes to Lincoln's island superstructure on Twitter, which prompted us to take a closer look.

#Carrier ABRAHAM #LINCOLN CVN72 off the US East Coast last wk training for upcoming deployment w/ CVW7. Will be Abe's first cruise since coming to Norfolk in Aug 2012 for a 4-yr refueling overhaul. Last image is composite with 2008 view showing changes in the island structure pic.twitter.com/xkoE7ClkZT

— Chris Cavas (@CavasShips) February 5, 2019

Below is a comparison shot of the USS Abraham Lincoln's island from before the overhaul (right) and after (left). The changes are quite dramatic. An entirely new mast has been fitted as well as a new radar tower design located just behind the island superstructure.

Also, what's clear is how the carrier's satellite communications suite has been totally reconfigured and expanded. Satcom domes cover not just the island but also the radar tower.

One of the ship's AN/SLQ-32 SEWIP electronic warfare systems has been relocated from the upper section on the island, down to just below the deck-line.

Finally, what's also immediately clear is that the number of radar target illuminators used to guide RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSMs) have been reduced by two and the remaining two have been repositioned. The three previously mounted atop the island have been reduced to just one, which is now positioned at the forward right corner on the island. The one that was on the radar tower still remains, but it has been moved up a bit on the new tower.

The reduction in illuminators could be because of the fact that the new Block II variant of the ESSM is active homing capable and networked. As a result, it doesn't have to rely on illuminators to home in on its target. You can read all about this system in this past article of ours.

Once again, these are just the obvious changes to the area around the ship's island, but it serves as a good example of just how extensive these complex overhauls are.

CVN-72 is now ready to get back in the fight after the better part of a decade spent getting overhauled and training. After this complex refit, she is set to serve for the back half of her 50 year, and potentially even longer, lifespan. As the ability for the Navy's newest carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), to meet her introduction into operational service is increasingly in doubt, the Lincoln's ability to return to hot spots around the globe will be greatly appreciated.

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

Truckmakers are constantly working to create innovative technologies that make the ownership experience easier for their customers, and currently, one of the areas seeing a lot of focus is the tailgate.

Now, to combat GMC, Ram is introducing a split tailgate that seemingly doubles as a Swiss Army Knife.

As we predicted last week, Ram is showing off the new tailgate at this year's Chicago Auto Show. It's a 60/40 split gate that operates like a normal tailgate—including dampening and auto release —and can also be operated individually on each side by swinging out.

“The Ram Multifunction Tailgate is intuitive to operate, and owners will find it immediately useful,” said Reid Bigland, head of the Ram brand. “Combined with Ram’s class-exclusive RamBox feature and new tailgate step, we’re taking Ram’s cargo management and storage to the next level.”

The gate comes with the spray-in bed liner and includes an optional center step to ease in entry to the bed.

This feature will go gate-to-gate with GMC's new MultiPro tailgate in an epic battle utilitarian supremacy. Both offer unique sets of functionality, so it'll be interesting to see how customers take to these new options.

The Ram Multifunction tailgate will reach dealerships during the second quarter of this year, and will be available on Ram 1500 models. The price of the new tailgate is $995, with the optional step being an additional $295.

For now, the Ram tailgate remains a half-ton offering, but it should be noted that the GMC Sierra's MultiPro gate is available on both half-ton and heavy duty trucks.

What do you think? Is something like this worth it to you or is it just another pickup doo-dad that’ll never see much use?

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile? So last century. The Oscar Mayer Wienerdrone? Totally 2017. This summer, the tubed-meat giant is once again taking to the skies, introducing the newest addition to its iconic fleet of hot dog-shaped vehicles: a jetpack (Wienerjet?) with an intrepid pilot named Super Hotdogger

So yes, this is the second aerial vehicle in the Wienerfleet, with the hot dog-shaped Wienerdrone capable of air-dropping hot dogs one at a time. But like a heavy bomber of sorts, Super Hotdogger can carry multiple dogs to people with substandard picnics in holsters that sort of look like Beats Pill speakers.

The actual jetpack is a real-life, fully-functional unit built by a company called Jetpack Aviation with a real dude flying it. Oscar Mayer claims it has a maximum altitude of 15,000 feet and a top speed of 150 mph. Super Hotdogger’s uniform is appropriately ridiculous with lots of orange and yellow and what appears to be a motorcycle helmet. Even the jetpack itself is in Oscar Mayer livery.

Super Hotdogger's sidekicks are the Hotdoggers, the team of drivers who pilot the company's Wienermobiles around the country. We're guessing they'll be playing a fair amount of catch-up: the heavy Wienermobile is just a hair slower than 150 mph.

Rumors have been going around for a while about a feature film telling the tremendous true story of Ford and Ferrari's epic racing rivalry of the 1960s. But with a director attached and a new round of casting negotiations, a Variety report suggests the green flag for the yet-to-be-named movie is imminent.

It’s a story that’s tough to summarize briefly, but if you don’t already know it, Ford tried to buy Ferrari in the 1960s and the deal fell through at the last minute. Then-executive Henry Ford II was so angry that he got a team together lead by Carroll Shelby to beat Ferrari at its own game at the 24 Hours of LeMans endurance race. Spoiler alert: The resulting car was the Ford GT40, and it went on to take the top three positions in the 1966 LeMans World Championship race.

It's reported that the unnamed film will be directed by James Mangold, whose resume includes Logan and Girl, Interrupted, with a script by Edge of Tomorrow writers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. It will be based on The Drive alumnus A.J. Baime’s 2010 book Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans.

The cast is where this future film really gets interesting. Oscar winner Matt Damon of the Bourne movie series, Good Will Hunting, The Departed, and countless other modern classics will play the role of Carroll Shelby. Damon might seem an odd choice to play Shelby at first, but he's actually a little older now than Shelby was in the mid 1960s.

British driver Ken Miles will be played by none other than former Batman Christian Bale. Miles was behind the wheel of the GT40 that finished second at LeMans in 1966. A close friend of Shelby, he was instrumental in the development of the GT40 and other legends like the Shelby Cobra and Mustang GT350. His tragic death in the experimental Ford J-car at the Riverside International Raceway in 1966 at age 47 resulted in mandatory steel roll cages at LeMans thereafter.

The newest possible addition to the cast, which sounds like isn’t a done deal quite yet, is Jon Bernthal. Bernthal is probably best known for his role of Frank Castle in The Punisher and Daredevil on Netflix. He was also in Baby Driver, Fury, The Accountant, and early seasons of The Walking Dead. Bernthal is slated to play car industry legend Lee Iacocca, who both spearheaded the development of the Mustang and played a part in getting Ford's racing A-Team together.

If IMDb is to be believed, shooting for this movie will begin this summer, possibly for a 2019 release. It’s worth noting that a TV show about the same subject is in the works with Peter Dinklage and Channing Tatum producing. If that's not enough for you, there are also multiple Enzo Ferrari biopics in development which will surely touch on the Ford rivalry.

Even if that seems like overkill, it's all in the spirit of Ford's maniacal desire to beat Ferrari at all costs. And it's certainly a story that deserves to be told.

What's the difference between perfume and soap? One conceals a smell, the other removes its source. Even in an increasingly polarized world, we can all agree soap is a good thing. Perfume? Too much is pungent, and no matter how much you put on, the stench of filth will eventually catch up with you.

When it comes to covering Tesla, every day is that day at Electrek.

(Disclaimer: I don't own any Tesla stock, and other than a monthly paycheck from The Drive, I do not derive any benefit from writing about Tesla, which makes me a rarity among those writing about one of the world's most popular companies.)

What is Electrek? This is what they claim:

Innocent enough. But Electrek is far, far more than that. Electrek is a steaming heap of everything wrong in the media today. It is a site full of news but short on facts; filled with hot takes and short on perspective; a place where no pro-Tesla rumor is too small to publish, yet no anti-Tesla fact is large to omit; where motivations are murky, while accusations of bias are heatedly denied. The Editor-in-Chief blocks legitimate journalists on Twitter and answers ethics questions with shameless #WhatAboutism, every story ends with an Aw Shucks apologia for Elon Musk's latest foible, and the stench of hollow Tesla optimism conceals factual omissions that can be found one Google search away.

And this is coming from me, someone who doggedly roots for innovation, whatever the source. For all of Musk's mistakes, no one can deny he is attempting to grow a company that makes radically different cars, sold in a different way, and that his vision has captured the imagination of friends and foes alike.

Electrek propagandist-in-chief Frederic Lambert knows what he's doing. He can't not know. He's one of the most popular Telsa-centric sites on the web. He appears to be the most frequent beneficiary of Tesla leaks—real or not—often publishing "breaking news" before the major news outlets. And yet his seemingly willful omission of facts and context would be comical if he wasn't so frequently cited as a comprehensive source of information.

@JournalismStudents: if you want to see how news is shamelessly bent, packaged, framed, twisted and re-sprayed daily with sickly sweet perfume by Canada's most cynical Tesla fan, just take a look at how Lambert covered three recent Tesla stories:

Lambert starts by describing his ride-along with a Tesla owner who installed George Hotz's Comma.ai EON—a sub-$1000 aftermarket unit that adds lane-keeping functionality using crowdsourced data—to an early Model S lacking Autopilot hardware.

The story is rife with factual errors—including the usual conflation of the words "autonomous" and "automated"—but the true intellectual dishonesty is at the end in Lambert's "Electrek's Take" section, where he likes to claim objectivity with mild criticism, a little faint praise, a glaring omission, and a feeble non-conclusion.

Let's deconstruct.

"In my limited experience with the driver assist system, the auto-steering appeared really similar to Tesla’s Autosteer, which is impressive considering that Hotz built the software with a fairly small team over a relatively short period of time."

Yes, the Comma.ai system is similar to Tesla's Autosteer, but both have been evolving. I drove Hotz's personal car using his first generation solution back in 2016, and it was very close to Tesla's Gen 1 Autosteer, and that was when Comma's software was in its infancy. I tried a later generation Comma unit in 2017, and it was superior to Tesla's Autosteer at the time. Why? Because after Tesla stopped using Mobileye hardware, Autosteer's quality temporarily declined...until software updates brought it to where it is now. Depending on whom you ask, Autosteer today is almost as good as or on par with with Gen 1. Based on my recent use of a Comma unit on the 101 just south of San Francisco, Comma might have a slight lead, which is insanity given Hotz's limited resources and budget.

One might forgive Lambert skipping out on the context of Hotz's achievement, but then we have this outrageous conclusion:

"And on top of the auto-steering and dashcam features, [Comma's] EON also comes with Spotify and Waze, two features that Tesla owners (in North America for the first one) have wanted in their cars for a long time."

You know what else the Comma EON comes with that no Tesla has? A camera-based driver monitoring system, or DMS. A DMS is a critical safety feature for any driver assistance system that allows any hands-off use. People have died due to inattention to Autopilot warnings. Any safety expert or undertaker will tell you that a DMS can be the difference between life and death. There are two types: 1) a control DMS verifying hands-on-wheel, and 2) an awareness DMS verifying eyes on road. The first one is cheap, and can use capacitive touch (cheap and reliable) or a torque sensor (cheap and unreliable). Tesla uses a torque sensor. Comma uses an awareness DMS in the form of a camera. How well does it work? At its worst, it's better than a torque sensor. There's a reason Cadillac went with an awareness DMS. They work.

This is Tesla's blind spot, and they need to resolve it.

Does Lambert know this? If he does, he's presumably keeping quiet so as not to hurt his retirement nest egg. If he doesn't, he's negligent, and cannot be trusted to cover any automotive technology.

Lives are at stake, which makes the following headline especially offensive:

That "nag" Lambert dropped in the headline is there to save your life. Those "nags" are actually warnings that your hands have been off the wheel for too long. Those "nags" need to be louder or more frequent, or more inattentive drivers will be killed.

Let's jump to Electrek's Take:

"If the goal is to have the driver keep their hands on the steering wheel, I think this update should do it."

It didn't work every other time Tesla increased the "nag" frequency. Why should this be any different? It won't be, because nothing can guarantee hands-on-wheel except a capacitive sensor, which Tesla lacks and Lambert refuses to acknowledge in this or his article about Comma.ai.

Driver monitoring matters. Not that you do it. How you do it. A torque sensor barely qualifies, because it's not doing any monitoring. In a Tesla, it's a timer based on varying criteria. The "nag" is how you reset it.

It's almost as if Lambert...doesn't want to criticize Tesla. Again. And again. I wonder why. Could it be anything to do with his spat with Automotive News or TTAC, who wrote about his ethical conflicts? Hmmm.

Let's keeping going with Lambert's absurd mental gymnastics:

"The thing is that many owners don’t think it should actually be required to keep your hands on the wheel and I think there’s certainly an argument for it."

Which Tesla owners don't want to keep their hands on the wheel? The ones who don't read the onscreen disclaimers and warnings. The ones who don't understand how Autopilot works. And the dead ones. It's a choice. Is there an argument for keeping your hands on the wheel? Yes, it's called common sense. When Lambert says, "I think there's certainly an argument for it," he's giving the fools who oppose safety a cowardly wink-wink, nudge-nudge. As in, hey guys, I want you to have your fun. Too bad about those warnings.

I mean nags.

"I think paying attention to the road and to what Autopilot is doing is a lot more important for safety than actually having your hands on the wheel as long as you can get them on the wheel fairly quickly if needed, which is generally always the case if you are in the driver’s seat."

What a crock. Crashes happen. You can't make an emergency maneuver if your hand isn't on the wheel. Life comes at you fast. So does death. A half-second delay can be the difference. Since Tesla lacks an awareness DMS but includes serious boilerplate legal verbiage about driver responsibility, 100% of responsibility falls on the the driver using a system with the cheapest, laziest method of warning drivers to pay attention. Legally, functionally, and practically, the driver is responsible.

But morally?

Has Lambert heard of skill decrement, or safety expert Missy Cummings? She was invited by former Autopilot honcho Sterling Anderson to speak about human factors at Tesla back in the day. Guess what she says? Semi-automated systems like Autopilot can lead to inattention and skill atrophy, which leads to crashes because users aren't trained or ready to take over when necessary.

I've enjoyed Tesla Autopilot, but such systems are only as safe as the user is skilled. Technology is only as good—or safe—as our understanding of it. Lambert isn't helping.

"But this is a case of a few people abusing the system and making it harder for everyone else. A good example is the Tesla owner who got caught on video leaving the driver’s seat while on Autopilot."

What an endorsement for safety, from someone who never saw a Tesla Autopilot video he didn't post. With a disclaimer. Gotta get those clicks.

"Right now, forcing the driver to keep their hands on the wheel is Tesla’s best solution for keeping drivers responsible, which ultimately is a good thing for safety."

It might be Tesla's best solution, but it's not a solution, because it doesn't force your hands on the wheel. Not even close. It just resets the timer. And it isn't "keeping drivers responsible." They're already legally responsible, based on Tesla's disclaimers. It's reducing bad PR from crashes that may be attributed to Autopilot, even if Tesla's not at fault. And it's not even close to the best possible solution, which isn't coming from Tesla unless they introduce DMS hardware in the cabin itself. You can't wireless update something that requires hardware.

Do you smell the rot yet? Lambert's argument stinks.

"GM’s Supercruise uses eye-tracking which works fairly well, but Musk was apparently not impressed with the technology, so he decided not to use it for Autopilot."

GM's Supercruise eye-tracking—courtesy of Seeing Machines—works wonderfully. Here's my deep dive comparing it to Tesla's system. And here's another one. I've seen no evidence Lambert has honestly analyzed GM's system. But he sure had the time to link to his own story about Elon Musk saying eye tracking is ineffective. I admire Musk, but he's wrong, and Lambert is a shill for failing to cite opposing views, which are many, and well documented.

Oh, wait, here's a deep-dive into Musk's decision.

"Yet, the Model 3 is equipped with a driver-facing camera, so you never know."

Lambert has hundreds, if not thousands, of readers with Model 3's. All he has to do is pop off the plastic housing from that driver-facing camera, check the model number, and determine if it's capable of driver monitoring. Also, it appears to be cabin facing, not driver facing. Does it have the resolution to monitor driver behavior off-axis? Maybe. If so, why hasn't it been activated up until now? What hasn't Lambert taken 15 minutes to investigate this?

Maybe because...it would require curiosity, which is the backbone of real journalism.

To be fair, Lambert doesn't claim to be a journalist, which is obvious when you check out the piece-de-resistance of irresponsible, clickbait headlines:

What does that headline mean? Here's the first line of the story:

"Tesla’s next major software update ‘version 9.0’ is now set for a release in August and it will include the first ‘full self-driving features’ for Autopilot 2.0 vehicles, says CEO Elon Musk."

Does that mean the cars will be self-driving? Hard to say. What did Elon Musk actually say? Here's the tweet:

That issue is better in latest Autopilot software rolling out now & fully fixed in August update as part of our long-awaited Tesla Version 9. To date, Autopilot resources have rightly focused entirely on safety. With V9, we will begin to enable full self-driving features.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2018

What Musk actually said is "we will begin to enable full self-driving features."

But what does that mean? What is "full self-driving"? Electrek has quoted Musk as saying it's Level 5 autonomy, which means go anywhere, anytime, and that it would arrive by April 2019. If that's true, what does a full self-driving "feature" mean? A car is L5, or it's not. A car is autonomous, or it isn't. Anything short of the fully kitty is semi-automated—which means not "full self-driving"—and a lot less likely to generate tens of thousands of people ready to pay $3000 for it pre-delivery, or $4000 after.

The more people who place deposits for Teslas and pay up for "Full Self-Driving," the more the stock will rise. Who benefits from that?

Here's Electrek's take:

"Again, I think it’s important to note that unless there’s something Musk is not telling us, the fact that he says Tesla will “begin to enable full self-driving features” doesn’t mean that it will actually drive itself."

What does that mean? Nothing. Word soup. So Musk has a secret? Is the secret that I'm right and the cars won't be L5 in August? Of course it is. What semi-automated features could possibly be worth $3000? Should people pay for Full Self-Driving now? Lambert isn't saying.

"If people had issues with Tesla naming its driver assist system “Autopilot,” I can’t wait to see what they are going to say about that."

People, as in safety advocates? I've oscillated on Tesla's use of Autopilot as a brand, and did a semantic deep dive last year. Many safety experts have said that even if Tesla's system is a form of autopilot, the general public is unaware of what an autopilot in a plane actually does, and that confusion is unsafe. Duh. So when Lambert says he "can't wait to see about that" he's really saying that he won't investigate why the Autopilot brand has been problematic. Like a passive-aggressive in-law, he'll happily take your side when it suits him, but not too much. Enjoy your Autopilot. Be safe. It's perfect. Until the next software update. Just be safe. All crashes are your fault.

Strange. He sounds just like Tesla. Except that saying those things is Tesla's job. It's not Lambert's. At least, not if he's supposed to be source of news. News cuts both ways—unless you omit some. Lambert is trying to have it both ways, grabbing the site traffic while setting up his own defense for what will happen in August when the first "full self-driving" features aren't.

But wait. We're not done with Lambert's mastery of misinformation.

"But like Musk said, Tesla had mostly been focused on safety when it comes to Autopilot development. Now it looks like they will put some resources on actual new features."

What is Lambert talking about? Autopilot isn't a safety system. It's a convenience system. The Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) is present and functional even if Autopilot is disabled. Forward Collision Warning? Same thing. There is no evidence that using Autopilot is safer than not. It might be safer on long trips, if a driver heeds the warnings and pulls over rather than use it a substitute for paying attention. We all know where that leads.

Lambert suggests that Autopilot is both a safety system, and that sufficient work on its safety is complete for work on "actual new features." What does that mean? I consider my life to be an important feature. Several high profile crashes have killed people recently. Is there some other feature that's more important than safety? If so, what is it?

Again, Lambert word soup.

Safety—and especially Tesla safety—dominates headlines almost daily. Anyone who purports to cover Tesla news has an ethical obligation to do so honestly. You don't need to be an accredited journalist or work for a major news organization to raise the flag of transparency, honesty and ethics. If you have an audience, you owe them the respect of telling the truth not as you see it, but as it is.

I don't care how much money is made or lost on $TSLA, but I do care how many people are killed because of misinformation flowing from Lambert's apparent desire to champion a company from whose success he benefits. If he doesn't, then he's a fool. Either way, Lambert is deceiving everyone, including Tesla fans. Lambert would have us believe Tesla can do no wrong, that their technology is flawless until updated, and that there are no alternatives to what they're selling. These are lies of omission. Lambert would have you believe the critics are literally making things up, which is also a lie.

It is perfectly reasonable to love the vision and have issues with execution, to love the cars and kvetch over quality, to love the innovation but doubt the plan.

Electrek is the perfume fools think they want, rather than the soap they need. If you want to invest in Tesla, read the Wall Street Journal, subscribe to Morningstar, and study some economics. You may not like what you find, or maybe you just have faith in the Tony Stark narrative. I don't care, and if you want to drive a piece of the future, neither should you. The future always comes with a price. It's not just money. It's teething problems. For some, that price is too high. For others, part of the game.

You know what price is too high? Your life. And Electrek is guilty of playing word soup with safety, which is disgusting. No company is without rot, but many companies are without external propagandists on the order of Electrek, who serve their own interests at the expense of others'. When Musk suggests we need a site that ranks journalists based on honesty, he should be careful what he wishes for, because Electrek wouldn't pass the smell test.

We, on the other hand, can choose to buy and read whatever we want. There are many great sources of Tesla news that aren't Electrek. I'd love to recommend some, but I don't want to appear biased.

(CORRECTION: Missy Cummings wasn't hired to speak at Tesla, she was invited.)

Alex Roy — Founder of the Human Driving Association, Editor-at-Large at The Drive, Host of The Autonocast, co-host of /DRIVE on NBC Sports and author of The Driver — has set numerous endurance driving records, including the infamous Cannonball Run record. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Who objects to safety? No one. But all this safety talk about self-driving cars got me thinking. What is safety? And does anyone really care? You certainly can't trust Department of Transportation boss Elaine Chao. She doesn't know the SAE Automation Levels, and actually stated that self-driving cars are on the road right now. How about the self-driving lobby? Please. $80 billion-plus has been invested in self-driving so far, but they won't make a real dent in road deaths for decades. Mobility experts? Where were they before self-driving became a thing? Nowhere, because before 2015 "safety" didn't get you a TED Talk and a consulting gig.

How about car companies? They talk safety, but it's all schizophrenic. Except for Volvo, the history of car marketing is one of marketing things that make you less safe: bigger wheels, lower-profile tires, more power. You want laughs? Check out this photoshopped ad depicting the new, all-wheel drive Dodge Challenger:

Unless this thing is delivered with snow tires, they should include a shovel and a casket. Was it too dangerous to shoot the car in actual snow? Or just too expensive?

It's not just FCA. Every manufacturer with a performance badge is guilty of the same, but it gets worse. GM has put $2B+ into their Cruise Automation self-driving division while their best-of-breed semi-automated SuperCruise languishes within Cadillac. And let's not forget GM marketplace, an in-car "commerce platform for on-demand reservations and purchases of goods and services," because nothing is safer than moving functionalities drivers shouldn't be using on their phone, to the car's dashboard.

News flash: according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, it may take 30 years for the auto industry to achieve 95 percent adoption of new safety tech. Why? Because selling performance, or even the cosmetics of performance, is both more profitable and easier than safety, at any price.

How about car rental companies?

Here's a joke for you: What's the difference between traditional car rental and sharing platforms like Turo? The people who own the cars on Turo actually care if their cars come back.

What about drivers? Some care about safety, but obviously not enough to keep Skip Barber Driving School from going bankrupt. Passengers? Nope. If passengers cared at all about safety, we'd demand restaurant-style grades in every hailing app and on every cab window.

Hardly anyone really cares about safety, even if they say they do. Safety is an excuse, a lie. No one is safe as long as people think safety something you can buy.

"Safety" Does Not Equal Safe
"Safe" is a state that only occurs when one is 100 percent immune from harm, which is impossible, so let's just take that right out of the discussion.

What about "safety"? "Safety" doesn't actually mean anything. The word "safety" is a perfect example of the failure of language. When popular definitions of safety define it as the "state of being safe," they are perpetuating this failure. "Safety" is just a feeling somewhere between optimism and resignation, crawling along a continuum with the impossibility of "safe" at one end, and a shallow pool full of crocodiles on the other.

Safety is a word behind which companies hide when they want to sell us something we could have by other means, if only we had better judgment. It's the sense of peace we literally buy into when we don't want to invest time in actually being safer. It's the equilibrium between real and perceived risk, at the intersection of the lies told to us and the lies we tell ourselves.

Once in motion, no vehicle currently on the road is 100 percent safe.

Therefore, there can be no such thing as a "safe" car. There is only X and anything safer, and X is always evolving. To wit: the Mercedes-Benz S-Class has always been a benchmark for safety. The one guy wearing a seatbelt in the hi-speed crash that killed Princess Diana? He's still alive. That was safety. But the 1 percent aren't hunting for deals on a 1997 S-Class, because compared to a new one, a '97 is a $3,000 casket on wheels.

(Not coincidentally, that's also the average price of a new casket.)

Safety short of 100 percent will therefore always be a moving target, and the safest method of getting from A to B is only "safe" as the best choice you make.

The Folly of Perception
The number one lie told about safety is that you can buy it. Unless and until Level 5 self-driving cars are ubiquitous, that's just not possible. You can buy "safer," but the term is worthless to those killed in a safer car. Those who survive accidents in "safer" cars invariably credit the car's design for saving their lives. The families of those who die blame 1) the other driver, if there was one, or 2) fate, a straw man always ready to take the fall.

"The driver lost control," police reports often say, but few look to the root cause of car crashes. By definition, accidents rarely happen, because accidents are unforeseen and unavoidable events. An "accident" is no more than the crash a driver lacked the skill to avoid.

I love it when people ask me what the safest car is. No matter what I say, they all want trucks. Maybe not real trucks. but anything that looks beefy with a high seating position.

"I like to sit high," they say, "so I can see what's going on."

I like to see what's going on too, except when it's a fiery death I can't avoid. There's nothing less safe than an SUV whose weight dictates stopping distances far longer than a station wagon or sedan, and whose handling prohibits steering around a crash.

But that would require learning skills. Why did Skip Barber Driving School go bankrupt? Because given the choice between investing time and money in acquiring skills, or merely spending money on a "safer" vehicle, people choose the vehicle.

Money is spent. Time is invested. Money out mitigates mistakes; time in helps you avoid them.

Rocket Science, Safety & YOU

People have been driving cars for over one hundred years, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that the overwhelming majority of drivers have survived. How much R&D has been devoted to why? Not so much. Virtually every new technology developed since the Model T is designed to 1) save people who are bad drivers, or 2) help mediocre drivers think they're great drivers.

If you're reading this, chances are you're a good driver, or at least aspire to be. You can wait for self-driving cars, but you'll be waiting a long time. They're going to come in dribs and drabs over decades, so unless you want to live your life in the prison of wherever they do work, you need a driver license. That means you're at the mercy of everyone else who has one, and who may have chosen a "safe" SUV over skill.

Don't be a victim, no matter what you drive.

There is only one way to be truly safer, and that is to understand how machines work, wherever and whenever we need them. Technology is only as good as our understanding of it. For now, no car is safer than the human being behind the wheel. In the future, no self-driving car will ever be safer than the minimum viable AI necessary to get to market. The only difference is who chose the level of intelligence and skill applied to using a machine.

Make the choice to be a better, safer driver, now, and you may even live to see machines do it better. Maybe. Or you can continue to buy the best car makers can do, and leave your safety to strangers, and fate.

Not me.

Alex Roy — Founder of the Human Driving Association, Editor-at-Large at The Drive, Host of The Autonocast, co-host of /DRIVE on NBC Sports and author of The Driver — has set numerous endurance driving records, including the infamous Cannonball Run record. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

If all press is good press, Elon Musk has had an amazing week. And month. And year. And decade. One could write a book about it. I'd call mine Assault & Battery: The Tesla Story. But how many times was Tesla supposed to go bankrupt? How many crises can they weather? How much scrutiny can they withstand? And yet Tesla persisted, its rise largely dependent on Musk's hero mythology and near-total mastery of modern media.

And then Musk—unhappy with a week of totally survivable negative press—foolishly bit the media hand that fed him, suggested launching a media-rating site called Pravda, and attracted a blistering opinion piece in the New York Times.

(My usual Tesla OpEd disclaimer, shortened: I don’t own any $TSLA or get paid for traffic. I've been on both sides of the Tesla debate. Snowflakes should stop reading now, because neither side comes out well.)

What inspired Bret Stephens to write Elon Musk, the Donald of Silicon Valley? How many of his facts are correct? What does he omit in building his argument? What does it tell us about Musk? And what does it say about its author, and the media whom Musk thinks are arrayed against him?

The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them https://t.co/Ay2DwCOMkr

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 23, 2018

Let's go through Stephens' opinion piece line-by-line:

"He is prone to unhinged Twitter eruptions. He can’t handle criticism. He scolds the news media for its purported dishonesty and threatens to create a Soviet-like apparatus to keep tabs on it."

True. True. Mostly true. If what Musk says about Tesla having no advertising/budget is true, then he has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of free media in history, the overwhelming majority of it positive. He's one of the most popular and influential human beings in the world, and to suggest otherwise is absurd. How would one deploy a media ratings platform, even if only for automotive, or just Tesla? Remove all bots and there remain vocal groups of pro and anti-Tesla fanatics. If the organ of output is also its subject, self-bias must be built-in or it must destroy itself to survive. To call it Pravda — or "Pravduh" — as Musk suggested? Ironic. But not in a good way.

"He suckers people to fork over cash in exchange for promises he hasn’t kept."

Half true, half false. Has Musk suckered people? Musk is famous for missing deadlines. Just last week Tesla settled a class action suit over delays in their rollout of Enhanced Autopilot functionality. Clearly someone felt suckered. But a lot of people — including a majority of those who still have $1000 deposits on the Model 3 — don't seem to care. Do they feel suckered? Apparently not.

"He’s a billionaire whose business flirts with bankruptcy."

True.

"He’s sold himself as an establishment-crushing iconoclast when he’s really little more than an unusually accomplished B.S. artist."

True and false-ish. Of course Musk is an establishment-crushing iconoclast. Without Tesla, EVs would still be in the stone age. So would charging infrastructure, direct sales, wireless updates and—although Autopilot is no more than a driver assistance system—public awareness of self-driving cars.

If those are true, how can Musk be a B.S. artist? Because for everything he's done, he's exaggerated something else. What is the line between B.S. and aggressive salesmanship? It's a matter of opinion. Musk is obviously more than a B.S. artist. He's a master of human psychology, a salesman of the highest order, whose fans forgive exaggerations because what he does deliver is more than anyone else can, for now. Musk isn't just selling vision—or even visionary products—but hopes and dreams, for which there is no tangible metric of delivery, and even a flawed product and sense of belonging satisfy true believers.

Case in point: Tesla Autopilot, whose history deserves its own book. The Autopilot brand trades as much on perception and misunderstanding as it does on its transient functionality. Is it good? Is it bad? That depends on you, where you live, your expectations, when you bought it, and how you use it. If technology is only as good as our understanding of it, then Autopilot's depiction—among fans, foes and most of the media—is a reflection of vast ignorance.

"His legions of devotees are fanatics and, let’s face it, a bit stupid."

True and false-ish. Whatever your feelings about Tesla and Musk, this type of loyalty is priceless. It isn't a sign of weakness, but of strength. Are they stupid? Some of them are, but no more stupid than Apple fans (like myself) who hung on during the dark years in the late nineties. There is a growing schism between fans who love the products and diehards who live for the vision. The first demand better, the second will forgive worse. It's a free market.

The dark side of overly enthusiastic fans? Gamergate level abuse of legitimate journalists, especially women. Not good.

"I speak of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, the Donald Trump of Silicon Valley."

Half true, half false. Musk and Trump are the yin and yang of forward-leaning narratives. Trump's future is the past. Musk's future is one that never was. Trump's is inherently negative: look what we lost. Musk's is positive: look what we can have. That Trump sees enemies everywhere — and often invents them — is the foundation of his mythology. That Musk claimed no enemies was core to his, until Musk blew that up by declaring war on a straw man. Live by the media, die by the media.

Trump-like messaging? No. Trump-like strategy? A fresh and possibly tragic yes.

"Not long ago, a wise friend with an enviable Wall Street reputation wrote me to describe his astonishment with Tesla, calling it “a situation unlike anything I have ever seen.”

This happens to me almost every day.

“The stock market valuation of a well-known company is stratospheric,” he said, “while at the same time its bonds are viewed as junk.”

True.

“Meanwhile,” he added, Musk “plays to his audience with constant tweets of claims that go largely, repeatedly and visibly unfulfilled. And the S.E.C., which is supposed to prevent companies like this that raise money from the public on false pretenses, sits idly by.”

True.

"Strong words — too strong, if you ask the satisfied customers of Tesla’s Model S (base price, $74,500) and X ($79,500). But Tesla is supposed to be the auto manufacturer of the future, not a bauble maker for the rich."

Musk did promise a mass-market car, as far back as 2008. Clearly there are a lot of Model 3 deposit holders waiting for the $35,000 version, and this recent tweet tells the story of how long that's going to take:

With production, 1st you need achieve target rate & then smooth out flow to achieve target cost. Shipping min cost Model 3 right away wd cause Tesla to lose money & die. Need 3 to 6 months after 5k/wk to ship $35k Tesla & live.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2018

Ask Musk anything, and the answer is often 3 to 6 months, but do the fans care? Does Musk? Does it matter? Not as long as Tesla holds enough deposits, and collects enough new ones for the upcoming performance version of the 3, to run $78,000. Rolling out your middle model, then your performance version, then the cheap one? It works for Porsche. It may yet work for Tesla.

"The company has rarely turned a profit in its nearly 15-year existence. Senior executives are fleeing like it’s an exploding Pinto, and the company is in an ugly fight with the National Transportation Safety Board. It burns through cash at a rate of $7,430 a minute, according to Bloomberg."

True. True. True. True.

"It has failed to meet production targets for its $35,000 Model 3, for which more than 400,000 people have already put down $1,000 deposits, and on which the company’s fortunes largely rest."

True, and maybe. Tesla has missed production targets, but does their survival depend on those deposits? Based on the psychology of investors long accustomed to missed deadlines, Tesla need only slightly improve production to increase their stock price, against which they can raise more money.

Crazy, but hey, it's worked before.

"Also, the car is a lemon. Like the old borscht belt joke, the food is lousy and the portions are so small."

Is it a lemon if people forgive the flaws? The Model S has had problems since the beginning, and yet enough people seem to love it for Tesla to have survived. Will the Model 3 be any different? The New York Times seemed to like it — even though I think their review got Autopilot wrong — and I wrote a mostly positive review this past January. I wasn't alone. Can Tesla make the necessary quality improvements before they run out of diehards willing to overlook them?

Nobody knows, but the 3's braking problem raised by Consumer Reports a few days ago is allegedly being resolved this week by wireless update. If true, it's a customer service triumph that FCA would kill for. It still doesn't explain why a single 3 went out with brakes inferior to a Ford F-150.

"So much, then, for Elon Musk solving climate change or everything else he has promised to do, like building cities on Mars or (much more preposterously) solving L.A. traffic."

Here's where Stephens starts to go off the rails. Can anyone, or any one company, solve climate change? Of course not. But even if one could, Bret Stephens doesn't believe climate change matters, which makes this a cheap shot. What about Mars? It's my personal opinion that anyone who doesn't believe in the inevitability of humankind's expansion into space is an idiot. I'd say Musk is among the few human beings alive taking steps in that direction, even if it doesn't pan out in my lifetime. How about The Boring Company? I think this is a dead end. I can be wrong, but so can Musk. It wouldn't be the first time for either of us.

"At this point, it would be enough for Musk to save his company and the jobs of its 37,000 or so employees. For them and their families, saving the world first requires that Musk turn a profit on his existing business, not spin tales about his future ones."

Snarky, but who can disagree?

"I’ll leave it to market analysts to figure out whether that can happen (some actually think it can), though the solution will not come from finding the next John Sculley to discipline Musk’s Steve Jobs. The Apple of the 1980s was a brilliant idea with a terrible leader."

Fair enough.

"Tesla, by contrast, today is a terrible idea with a brilliant leader. The terrible idea is that electric cars are the wave of the future, at least for the mass market."

Huh? Even if you think Musk is an idiot, the management of every car maker on Earth disagrees with Stephens, and almost entirely because of Tesla. So do the governments of China and India, and the European countries and cities moving to ban internal combustion (ICE). Does anyone believe they are all fools? We've spent more than fifty years fighting and propagating wars over oil. Future wars will be fought over the natural resources needed for EV batteries, and the world's militaries — including our own — are already planning for it.

"Gasoline has advantages in energy density, cost, infrastructure and transportability that electricity doesn’t and won’t for decades."

True, and false-ish. EV technology is improving at increasing rates. Mass adoption of ICE cars 100 years ago occurred with range and infrastructure far inferior to EVs of today...pioneered by Tesla, and Renault-Nissan, who deserve more credit than they've gotten. Maybe Stephens hasn't heard about the massive Chinese investments in affordable EVs, all predicated on market expansion in the near term. To suggest EVs aren't inevitable on even a mid-term timeline is absurd.

"The brilliance is Musk’s Trump-like ability to get people to believe in him and his preposterous promises. Tesla without Musk would be Oz without the Wizard."

True, but Musk also gets people to believe in the promises he keeps. Can it survive without him? Many believe Tesla would do even better without him.

"Much of the blame for the Tesla fiasco goes to government, which, in the name of green virtue, decided to subsidize the hobbies of millionaires to the tune of a $7,500 federal tax credit per car sold, along with additional state-based rebates. Would Tesla be a viable company without the subsidies? Doubtful. When Hong Kong got rid of subsidies last year, Tesla sales fell from 2,939 — to zero. It may be unfair to describe Tesla as Solyndra on wheels, but only slightly."

True and false-ish. How much of Stephen's argument is anti-Musk, how much is anti-government/subsidy, and how much is anti-EV? Hard to tell. Of course the federal tax credit helps Tesla, and of course it will impact them when they reach 200,000 cars sold and it goes away, but states like California offer additional ongoing credits, and I'm unconvinced that the credit had that much of an effect on the S and X. How many people bought them not because of price, but in spite of it? Based on my experience, more than even their fans want to admit.

So yes, Tesla's going to suffer to some degree, but US car sales aren't taxed like Hong Kong. Besides, the US isn't Tesla's only market, nor is Tesla the only EV on sale here or abroad. If Tesla can't move EVs sans subsidies, there is a universe of car makers whose entry-level, price-subsidized EVs will arrive here just as Tesla's prices spike. Tesla would have to fight them off with or without subsidies, whose loss is nowhere near as big a threat as the combined EV manufacturing prowess of the Germans, let alone the Japanese.

"But the Tesla story isn’t just about the perils of misdirected government-led development and clever rent-seeking entrepreneurs. And it isn’t about the virtue signaling of those who like their environmentalist bona fides to come with vegan-friendly upholstery. It’s about hubris and credulity — the hubris of the few to pretend they know the future and the credulity of the many to follow them there."

Missing the forest for the trees. Stephens obviously hasn't spent a lot of time talking to rank-and-file Tesla owners. Most of the ones I know don't care about the environment at all. They do hate gas stations, however, and car companies, and especially car dealers. I've met as many from the extreme right as the extreme left, a vast and fascinating cross-section of Americans which says more about Musk's appeal than Stephen's criticism, and greatly differentiates Musk varied "base" from Trump's.

And what of Stephen's opposition to the vision of a potentially better future? Many visionary inventors had their skeptics:

I wonder if @BretStephensNYT is aware of this column the New York Times did thrashing Thomas Edison and the economic viability of electricity in February 1880... pic.twitter.com/gFZZUUnWVs

— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) May 27, 2018

Stephens hails from the right, and therefore should be a supporter of entrepreneurship, innovation and job creation. Set aside Musk's mistakes and exaggerations, and Tesla remains the most innovative car company since Toyota invented lean manufacturing. Tesla didn't spring out of thin air, nor do the subsidies account for demand. Tesla filled a need, born at the confluence of trends other nations see, and both Stephens and our current administration does not.

Would any self-proclaimed pro-business patriot be happier were Tesla French? Or Korean? Or Chinese? Musk is ours, love him or hate him, and we are better off if he succeeds rather than fails.

"Electric vehicles were supposed to be the car of the future because we were running out of oil — until we weren’t. And Musk was supposed to be a visionary because he spoke in visions, for which there will always be a large receptive audience. Casting about for a cause and a savior to believe in is what too many Americans do these days, perhaps as a result of casting off the causes and saviors we used to believe in."

True, but the arguments against oil and for electricity aren't merely tied to oil supply. Oil dependency has brought war, pollution and a global order many no longer want to live with. Is there anything wrong in casting off old ideas and reaching for new ones? Is that not the nature of learning, discovery, and innovation? Oil is the devil we know. What price the one we don't? Can it be higher than the last half century? Or even the last 17 years of The War On Terror?

"Donald Trump long ago figured out that truth is whatever he thinks he can get away with, a cynical kind of wisdom he rode all the way to the White House and whose consequences we live with every day. With Musk the consequences are hardly as serious, but the essential pattern is the same. Maybe he’ll next try to sell us on a time machine and promise rides to anyone willing to make a $10,000 deposit. Tesla could surely use the cash."

Yadda yadda. Musk exaggerates. If you don't like his tactics, don't buy the stock. I know lots of people who can't stand him — some even on a personal level — who still love the cars. Personally, I'd love to own a Tesla, but I live in downtown NYC where charging sucks. Actually, so does refueling. Trying getting gas on a weekday south of Harlem. Also, I drive a Morgan, which is worse than the worst Tesla, and I love it.

As for a Tesla time machine, a $10,000 deposit would be a bargain if it showed up anytime during my lifetime. That's the nature of time machines; you can always go back. Maybe Stephens is onto something.

Sadly, Stephen's doesn't appear to have done any research into Tesla's actual problems, especially those around manufacturing, Autopilot development, and what I consider an inexplicable lack of a Driver Monitoring System, which would likely have prevented the spate of Autopilot-related crashes.

But that would require actual reporting, which is not what he does. Too bad, because that's exactly what Musk was complaining about. Unless an opinion piece is labeled satire, it should be based on facts, and Stephens comes up short. Sure, Musk is a piece of work, but his behavior would be called quirky and charming if he had solved Tesla's real problems.

Is it over for Tesla? I doubt it. GM weathered the ignition switch scandal. VW weathered DieselGate. All Musk has to do is keep his head down. Can he? Good news for Tesla fans and stockholders. Deflection, thy name is concept car reveal:

March 15

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2018

Unless the Y catches fire onstage, and probably even if it does, $TSLA is likely to go up. Maybe even long enough to raise enough money and keep going. How long can this go on? Not forever. If I were Musk, I'd follow up the Y with another rocket, and broadcast from the nose in 360 video. That should divert everyone's attention just long enough to get 3 production on track. From the sounds of it, it can't get any worse.

P.S. The optics of this subtweet by Musk are very, very bad:

Who do you think *owns* the press? Hello.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 27, 2018

Dear Elon Musk: You're Elon Musk. You're in the big chair. If you can't see why this looks like a dogwhistle, you need some media training. And a reality check.

Alex Roy — Founder of the Human Driving Association, Editor-at-Large at The Drive, Host of The Autonocast, co-host of /DRIVE on NBC Sports and author of The Driver — has set numerous endurance driving records, including the infamous Cannonball Run record, in a variety of vehicles, including a Tesla Model S and 3. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Late in the Cold War, the Standard Manufacturing Company pitched a new type of short-range air defense vehicle, called Excalibur, to the U.S. Army. Looking like something out of a G.I. Joe playset or a 1980s action movie, this Vulcan cannon-armed vehicle was just one of many designs the company suggested could revolutionize the service’s mechanized units.

It’s not clear exactly when Standard Manufacturing, situated in Dallas, Texas – and apparently unrelated to the Connecticut-based gunmaker of the same name – built the first prototype design, but one was available for tests by 1985. The firm had applied for a patent for the vehicle’s unique 8x8 trailing-arm suspension in 1984, which the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted two years later.

According to Fred Crismon's Modern U.S. Military Vehicles, Excalibur, also known as the Vulcan Wheeled Carrier, combined this suspension with a 135-horsepower Detroit Diesel V8 engine, which reportedly gave it a top speed on improved roads of 45 miles per hour. On top of the chassis, there was a lightweight, open-framed crew-cab in front and a turret in the rear with a radar-assisted 20mm M168 six-barrel cannon, a variant of the M61A1 Vulcan cannon found on fighter jets and other aircraft. The entire vehicle weighed approximately 16,000 pounds.

More importantly, Standard Manufacturing claimed that the suspension system, in which every one of the eight wheels could articulate up and down independently, would give it the same mobility on uneven ground as a tracked vehicle. At the same time, Excalibur would have significantly higher speeds on rough terrain and improved roads, but with fewer maintenance requirements, reducing the operating costs compared to traditional tracked designs.

At the time, the Army’s had tracked and towed Vulcan Air Defense Systems, or VADS, in service using the same manned turret. Excalibur would have been lighter than the M113 armored personnel carrier that served as the basis for the tracked system.

The tracked VADS, also known as the M163, was significantly heavier than the standard M113, as well, necessitating a reinforced suspension and additional floatation gear to maintain its amphibious capabilities. On roads, that vehicle could hit a top speed of 40 miles per hour, but at the cost of increased wear and tear on its tracks and the road surface.

The M167 towed version was limited in its mobility by whatever vehicle was pulling it along. In 1985, the system's prime mover was the first iteration of the new ubiquitous Humvee, which had better mobility off-road than its predecessors, but still could not match the capabilities of a tracked vehicle, especially when pulling a heavy trailer.

Even so, it’s not clear what the exact impetus was for the Texas-based company to develop this vehicle, since the Army had two versions of the VADS in service already, primarily to provide short-range defense for ground units against low-flying aircraft and helicopters. But it did come at a time when the Army had become increasingly concerned that its ground units and their vehicles might be too heavy and bulky to rapidly deploy in response to far-reaching conflicts.

The rapid collapse of the Shah's regime in Iran and the speed at which the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, both of which occurred in 1979, pushed the service to craft what it first dubbed a High Technology Test Bed and then renamed as the High Technology Light Division. Excalibur would have been well at home in this organization, which for a time had an entire battalion of militarized dune buggies.

The same organization subsequently experimented with various light tank and assault gun concepts, Humvees carrying Hellfire missiles, and other state-of-the-art, but highly mobile systems. Likely with this type of organization in mind, Standard Manufacturing’s patent outlines an entire family of vehicles based on its 8x8 suspension, including cargo trucks, armored personnel carriers, scout vehicles, mobile artillery rocket launchers, and platforms for communications nodes and electronic warfare systems.

The drawing of the last vehicle actually looks very much like a truck carrying the Franco-German-designed Roland surface-to-air missile, which the Army had planned to acquire in the 1980s. We don’t know exactly what happened to Standard Manufacturing’s concept. None of the vehicles based on its proprietary chassis, which also included a variety of civilian trucks and construction equipment, ever entered series production.

The complexity of the independent suspension system may have made the vehicles too costly or unreliable for military use, especially during rapid deployment operations where there might not be the immediate benefit of established repair facilities or robust logistics chains. It would also undoubtedly have needed additional armor protection for the crew cab and other military equipment. This, in turn, might have increased its overall weight and reduced the potential mobility and speed benefits.

Especially after the Cold War ended in 1991, and the U.S. defense budget began to contract, Excalibur may just have been too expensive when compared to the existing mix of traditional tracked and wheeled vehicles. By the end of the 1980s, the Army had already shelved the entire High Technology Light Division concept and returned most of the test units to more conventional force structures.

The basic underlying concepts didn’t go away, though. In the 1980s, the U.S. Marine Corps had purchased a fleet of 8x8 wheeled armored vehicles based on the Swiss-designed MOWAG Piranha, known as the LAV-25 family, for a variety of roles. This fleet included a small number of LAV-Air Defense variants, or LAV-ADs, which featured a turret with a Vulcan cannon and eight Stinger short-range surface-to-air missiles. Early prototypes iterations also included a 70mm rocket pod for attack ground targets, a concept that carried over to a similar, proposed Canadian design known as the Multi-Mission Effects Vehicle (MMEV).

In the early 2000s, the Army finally followed suit with the Stryker series, derived from the MOWAG Piranha III. By that point, however, the service had largely dismissed the need for short-range air defense in the future and did not buy an air defense type. This decision that has since proven to be immensely short-sighted, which you can read more about in detail in this past War Zone feature.

Some foreign VADS operators have put the turrets on various other wheeled vehicles, as well. The Saudi Arabian National Guard acquired a version of the Cadillac Gage V-150 4x4 armored vehicle straight from the manufacturer with the Vulcan weapon system.

More recently, Jordan’s state-owned King Abdullah II Design and Development Bureau (KADDB) defense company modified a number of the country’s 6x6 Cougar Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to carry the VADS turret. This combination is more about providing massive firepower against ground targets, though, which was always a secondary role for the tracked and towed Vulcan systems.

The turrets themselves appear to be relatively durable and the basic components of the gun system remain in production. Variants of the Vulcan cannon remain in service as air-to-air weapons and as part of the Phalanx close-in defense system on ships.

The Army even adopted a trailer-mounted version of the Phalanx as a means of protecting forward outposts against small rockets and mortar bombs. Just in November 2017, reports emerged that South Korea was upgrading its towed variants with new thermal optics as an interim defense against North Korean threats such as low- and slow-flying An-2 biplanes and small unmanned aircraft.

Especially when it comes to the increasing proliferation of small drones among state among state and non-state actors, the VADS system, or weapons like it, are increasingly relevant again. Combined with a short-range surface-to-air missile system, such as Stinger, the old turrets might be a good interim short-range air defense option in many cases, regardless of what platform carrying them.

As it stands now, the Army is looking to field a Stryker-based air-defense vehicle in the near term to address its aforementioned and increasingly glaring short-range air defense gap, both with regards to the threat of low-flying manned aircraft and small drones. Though the service appears to be focusing largely on missile-based systems, OrbitalATK has demonstrated a vehicle carrying both an electronic warfare jammer to target small drones and an XM914 single-barrel 30mm cannon.

The Army wants prototypes of the air defense Stryker ready for testing by 2019, but has yet to settle on a particular design. If everything proceeds on schedule, the first batch of vehicles could join units in Europe the following year.

At that time, more than three decades after Standard Manufacturing designed its Excalibur prototype, the Army may finally have an 8x8 air defense system.

Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com

Formula 1 has always been a catalyst for progress in the automotive industry, even in its infancy. In those days, manufacturers would try all manner of wacky and unproven technology to get a leg up on the competition. Detailed in the book, BRM V16: How Britain's Automakers Built a Grand Prix Car to Beat the World, fledgling engine builder British Racing Motors managed to design one of the craziest power-plants to grace F1.

Work began on the BRM V-16 in 1947. Regulations at the time split Grand Prix into two classes: cars with 4.5-liter naturally aspirated engines, and cars with 1.5-liter supercharged engines. BRM chose the second option, mating a Rolls Royce designed centrifugal blower with two tiny dual overhead cam V-8s joined at the crankshaft. The resulting machine was a little fireball that made 612 horsepower at 12,000 RPM. This astronomical power figure was achieved by the more than 80 pounds of boost coming in from the supercharger.

Naturally, an engine of such strange proportions would create a note like no other. In 2004, Pink Floyd drummer, and vintage racing collector Nick Mason wrote a book entitled Into the Red. This book came with an audio CD featuring recordings of 22 of Mason's race cars, and one chapter is dedicated to the BRM V-16. That audio has been cut over some sped-up footage in this YouTube video, and it's a sound you will not regret listening to.

Unfortunately, the V-16's racing career didn't really live up to its stat sheet. In its debut race at Silverstone in 1950, the car broke down on the starting line. The V-16 did later take a win at Goodwood, but blown head gaskets then became a persistent issue, thanks to the insane amount of boost being forced into the engine. Improved cooling would later make the V-16 somewhat reliable, but by 1955, new class regulations meant the engine was obsolete. It was replaced around that time with a much more sensible four-cylinder unit. These events can be seen in a short documentary below.

Even if the engine was not the world-beater that BRM had hoped, it is impressive by even modern standards, and it represents the drive and creativity of its era.

For all the genius that went into creating (and marketing) Tesla Autopilot, it's been missing a critical safety feature since day one: a driver-monitoring system. Why the blind spot? According to Tim Higgins at The Wall Street Journal, the answer might actually have been that Elon Musk knew how to solve Tesla's Autopilot issue, but chose not to.

Musk responded to the WSJ story within hours with the following tweet:

This is false. Eyetracking rejected for being ineffective, not for cost. WSJ fails to mention that Tesla is safest car on road, which would make article ridiculous. Approx 4X better than avg.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2018

What is Elon Musk talking about? Cadillac SuperCruise, the only other system currently competitive with Tesla Autopilot, has a wonderful driver monitoring system that's available on the CT6 right now.

So what was Elon thinking in 2015 when he reportedly rejected a driver-monitoring system (DMS)? And what was he thinking when he wrote that tweet?

I've long been a fan of Tesla's innovations, but lost in the debate over Tesla Autopilot safety has been any real discussion over what it really is, and how a DMS would solve its shortcomings. Tesla Autopilot isn't autonomous, semi-autonomous, self-driving, partly self-driving or driverless. It's not a technology itself as much as a brand name for a suite of semi-automated features including radar-based cruise control (which Tesla calls TACC) and a lane-keeping assistance system that Tesla calls Autosteer. These are convenience features, and there is no evidence yet that they improve safety.

(The most popular safety figure attributed to Tesla, its 40% reduction in crashes, is almost certainly attributable to automatic emergency braking, common on most luxury cars and active on all Teslas even in the absence of Autopilot.)

Since its October 2015 launch, every generation of Autopilot has allowed limited hands-off operation. It can be engaged almost anywhere but won't stay engaged unless conditions are good, if not excellent. Neither its radar nor camera(s) are infallible, nor is the software interpreting what they see. Autopilot may disengage anywhere, at any time, which means the driver, who remains legally responsible at all times, should keep his eyes on the road and his hands on or near the wheel.

But no one ever listens, of course, because the "Autopilot" brand is too easily conflated with aviation autopilots, which are conceptually similar but functionally different, and require no less than one highly trained human at the controls. Most cars have none.

Every single Autopilot-related crash can be attributed to a lack of training—and, in my opinion, the absence of a DMS.

Commercial airliners have always the equivalent of a DMS; it's called a "second pilot." Even with the benefit of time, altitude, and two (if not three) pilots in the cockpit, the world's most advanced planes sometimes go down.

Which is why allowing cars with any hands-off operation—anywhere, anytime—without real driver monitoring and/or additional training, is insane.

Unless or until we raise drivers licensing standards, only a DMS can solve this problem, to the extent that it can be "solved" at all. Until zero-human input (what I call geotonomous) systems are commercially available, any semi-automated system with a steering wheel that allows any hands-off use is only as safe as the human "on-the-loop". At the very least, that requires drivers to be paying attention. Tens of thousands of people are killed every year due to distracted driving without the benefit of semi-automated driving systems; give human beings the slightest reason to pay less attention, and history suggests they will do just that.

Tesla has attempted to mitigate the absence of a DMS in two ways: 1) shortening the hands-off intervals; and 2) increasing the volume and visibility of hands-off warnings. Neither of these force a driver's eyes back to the road, an directive without which there is no possibility of a driver taking safe control when Autopilot disengages.

What are the options for a DMS?
There are are two distinct types of DMS, which serve different purposes: a control DMS keeps yours hands on the wheel, and an awareness DMS keeps your eyes on the road.

How to keep people's hands on the steering wheel? Two cheap systems exist right now: 1) a torque sensor that measures steering input; and 2) a capacitive sensor on the wheel itself.

A torque sensor is basically free to automakers, because it's built into any power steering system. It's easily fooled by fruits, vegetables, and water bottles jerry-rigged to the wheel, which means it's not a true DMS but a way to notify the system of your continued existence.

A capacitive sensor is basically free, if you've got a heated steering wheel. If not, the necessary coil is under ten bucks. You'll need some code, but no more than you need for a torque sensor. You can't fool this with fruits or bottles, which means this is what you want for your control DMS.

Guess which one Tesla used:

Musk can say skipping eyetracking wasn't about cost, but why skip a capacitive sensor? There's no question they work, so the only reason not to install one is cost.

What about an awareness DMS? As I explained in The Half Life Of Danger: The Truth Behind The Tesla Model X Crash, having your eyes on the road is more valuable than having your hand on the wheel:

So how to keep people's eyes on the road? You need a camera on the driver. Cadillac's excellent SuperCruise DMS camera is made by the Australian company Seeing Machines. The camera is on sale right now for $261. The wonderful light-up steering wheel upgrade, which includes the necessary infrared lamps, is on sale for $711.77, or $367 more than a standard wheel. That's a bit over $630 in hardware costs, plus whatever Seeing Machines charges GM.

Alternatives? Numerous cameras under $100 can run software from Affectiva, a company that does emotion recognition analysis that looks like this:

Or maybe Tesla should call Smart Eye AB in Sweden, or FotoNation in San Jose, not far from Tesla HQ. The vendor list is growing, and with good reason: Euro NCAP, the European voluntary vehicle safety system, made driver-monitoring systems a primary safety standard by 2020. In other words, any car that wants a five-star rating will have to have one. What that looks like hasn't been defined, but I'd bet it's a hands-and-eyes system. Which means Tesla better already have something better in the works, or the company will likely have to say goodbye to its current five-star safety ratings less than two years from now.

So what was Elon thinking back in 2015, if in fact he vetoed a DMS as suggested?

How do you say Minimum Viable Product in Fremont-speak? Autopilot. Cost. Time to market. Musk could have added capacitive touch for a few dollars a car, but didn't.

What about that "ineffective technology and overly sensitive sensors that would beep too often" part? Seeing Machines had solved it by that time, and Cadillac designed a beautiful system around that company's hardware. Musk wanted to be first to market with a semi-automated system; GM was willing to wait. Autopilot was released two years before Supercruise, and that extra time in development shows.

That Tesla Autopilot was ever any good at all is a testament to Musk's genius; that it's missing a critical piece of safety hardware is a testament to his impatience. Software is easy to upgrade. Hardware, not so much.

Why doesn't Tesla just add a real DMS now? They certainly could. True, it would be an admission that that current hardware is inadequate, but it would be wise to get ahead of the problem because there's no way around this omission, no matter how much people enjoy Autopilot (myself included). The more Teslas are sold, the more the familiar accidents will happen over and over. Even if the Autopilot brand goes away, the cat's out of the bag. People will always use technology as they wish in addition to or instead of as intended—which is why I predict camera-based DMS will be mandated for all hands-off systems.

Besides, that Euro NCAP DMS standard is coming in 2020.

And what of Musk's tweet attacking the WSJ story? Probably no more than a backhand. Musk isn't stupid. He knows DMS hardware has leapfrogged Tesla's system. My guess is that Musk is betting everything on Fleet Learning, neural nets, and artificial intelligence—praying Autopilot becomes Enhanced Autopilot, then evolves into Full Self-Driving before he's forced to admit a mistake. (He also thinks that will all happen without Lidar, and with the camera technology currently being installed on his cars.)

That's a lot of moving parts. There's a reason there's so much turnover in the Autopilot division, which is rarely a good sign.

Despite what his fans want to believe, Musk is a carmaker like any other, and that industry has a long history of cutting corners. I want Musk to succeed, because the whole industry benefits from innovation, but sometimes the light that shines too bright burns half as long.

Musk loves to surprise us. Maybe he'll make heated steering standard on all Teslas, declare capacitive touch has arrived, and make it a win-win for everyone. Hands-on will never be as safe as eyes-on, but it sure does help.

Here's my analysis of the relative safety of two types of DMS:

But who knows? The Tesla Model 3 has a tiny cabin-facing camera above the center rear-view mirror. I've yet to see anyone pull one out and determine whether it could be used for driver monitoring.

I doubt it, but anything is possible.

Alex Roy—Founder of the Human Driving Association, Editor-at-Large at The Drive, Host of The Autonocast, co-host of /DRIVE on NBC Sports and author of The Driver—has set numerous endurance driving records, including the infamous Cannonball Run record. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In my last column, I laid out why the language of self-driving cars is broken, and why I think the SAE Automation Levels need to be replaced. Short version: they are conceptually vague yet technologically restrictive, and people are dying as a result. That the SAE Levels were created by and for engineers is irrelevant; the media cite them, manufacturers use them, investors think in terms of them, marketers manipulate them. And end users suffer as a result.

What's the first step? Clarity. Language must answer itself accurately—a word or phrase shouldn't raise more questions than it ultimately answers—not only on a technical level but a cultural one. Confusion introduces risk in every situation, but when you're talking about cars those risks become increasingly severe, and human beings have already died from misunderstanding what even semi-automation means.

Even Tesla insists this is true. When Tesla chalks up an Autopilot-related crash/accident/incident to "driver error," the company is essentially saying, "Our product worked as intended; it was the operator who misused it."

Clarity, then, becomes a moral imperative.

Here are the words and phrases currently lacking clarity, and some suggestions for how to work back towards a solution.

Self-Driving: This should only describe fully autonomous cars, as the phrase itself suggests—the top level phrase for a truly self-driving car that does everything you think a "self-driving" car does. Unfortunately, it's continuously used to describe cars limited to far less. Tesla Autopilot is the best example. Autopilot can drive itself for limited periods of time, but only if there's a human ready to take over anytime. That doesn't make it self-driving; at best, it makes it semi- or partly self-driving, which are too vague to be helpful, and effectively meaningless. If "self-driving" is not limited to its strictest definition—a car that can drive itself in all the ways a human can drive it—it doesn't mean anything at all.

Driverless: This term overlaps somewhat with self-driving and is equally vague: it currently encompasses everything from a car without a steering wheel or pedals, to a vehicle with self-driving capability carrying only passengers, to no one in a vehicle at all, to riders being chauffeured by remote control, à la Phantom Auto or Starsky Robotics—in which case a driver remains in the equation, just not in the vehicle.

Automated/Automation: Basically, a repetitive task performed by a machine. We've had automation for hundreds of years. ABS is a form of automation. So are windshield wipers. All cars today are partially automated, but none can be called fully automated until no human is required to perform any task anywhere. For example, an automatic transmission can select the correct forward gear, but still needs a human to put the car in "Drive," "Park," "Neutral," etc.—the transmission can't start doing its job until a choice is made by a human. If a human is necessary for core operation, that is only ever a highly-automated machine. When a human is no longer necessary, you've moved to the next stage: Autonomy.

Autonomy/Autonomous: Autonomy is defined as freedom of thought and action, even in the absence of complete information. Autonomous vehicles are theoretically possible, but none currently exist, or are close to existing. Even Waymo's state-of-the-art vehicles are limited to a clearly defined location called a "domain." For a Waymo vehicle operating only in its domain, unless it can function fully, without a human being, 100 percent of the time, including weather, it is not an autonomous vehicle. The term can only be applied if the machine meets or exceeds a human decision-making standard. Not in terms of quality—which may never be possible—but quantity. This is the strictest possible standard, as it needs to be.

Robocars: The "robo-" prefix is nothing more than another way of suggesting automation, with all the same drawbacks. Anything with any level of level of automation is robotic. Too vague to be useful.

Semi-autonomous: Many (including myself) have used "semi-autonomous" in an effort to avoid the all-or-nothing implications of "self-driving," "driverless," "automated" and "autonomous," but the "semi-" prefix is nothing more than a band-aid. It doesn't fix the core issues.

Let's go back to the current SAE chart on the NHTSA website:

The only mention of "autonomous" is in the L0 language: the definition states that level has "[z]ero autonomy." This suggests that not only that autonomy starts at L1, which is misleading, but also that there are different degrees of autonomy. (That may someday prove true, i.e. two different autonomous systems come up with different paths around the same obstacle, but we're not there yet.) For now, autonomy is totally binary: vehicles are either autonomous, or they're not. Autonomy by that definition only exists as SAE L5, which they call "Full Automation." To call anything short of L5 "semi-autonomous" is to mistake a high level of automation as autonomy, which is dangerous.

Semi-Automated
This applies to any automation between L1 and 4, which makes it great for differentiating itself from autonomy but lousy for describing specific functionalities. Adding loose synonyms like "partial" or descriptors like "conditional" doesn't help, because L3 is also partial, L2 is also conditional, and every manufacturer's semi-automated system operates under different conditions. Those sub-definitions? They make no room for automation types that doesn't fit, like aviation-type parallel systems and teleoperation.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS)
We may not see ADAS on the chart, but it's fair to say that advanced driver assistance systems, made up of technologies like radar cruise control, automatic emergency braking (AEB), and lane keeping (LKAS), are the only systems currently on the road, and are often conflated with L2. All ADAS suites are not equal, however, and high-functioning examples like Tesla Autopilot and Cadillac SuperCruise are often confused with L3 due to advanced functionality, even though both are technically L2, and are frequently portrayed in the media as L4. That's not good.

How to Replace SAE Automation Levels:
As futurist Brad Templeton points out, defining automation by degrees of human input is the root flaw. Any system that requires human input at any level is only as effective, or safe, as the user. Any language around a system that fails to clarify when human input is necessary is dangerous.

By that logic, there are only two types of automation:

1. Any level of human input
2. Zero human input

No one in their right mind believes zero-human-input vehicles will achieve 100 percent ubiquity anywhere for decades. The corollary is that Waymo will likely be deploying zero-human-input vehicles in very limited parts of Arizona later this year.

Vehicles that require human input will function virtually anywhere, or at least anywhere humans are willing to risk them. Zero-human input vehicles? They're geographically limited to domains with optimal conditions, and will be for decades.

The framing device should therefore not be human input, but location. The language used to describe those systems must make this distinction clear.

Let's Ditch Levels, Not Replace Them
My proposal for the simplest possible system for defining automation in vehicles: there are no levels. There are only categories, and there are two of them:

• Geotonomous/Geotonomy
• Human-Assisted Systems (HAS)

These are not levels; these are functionalities. A vehicle may possess one, or both. Let's define them, and talk a little bit about their interrelationship.

GEOTONOMOUS
Geotonomy is autonomy limited by location. It replaces self-driving, autonomous, driverless and robo-anything, using a new word with a restrictive prefix that forces the question: Where does it work?

Remember the early days of cellphones, when you needed a map to know where yours worked? Geotonomy would require it, disclosure would be mandated by law, and the system provider would assumes 100 percent liability. In commercial fleets like Waymo, Uber, Lyft, & Didi, geotonomy would be apparent in the corresponding app. As its domain grows, geotonomy grows until it becomes functionally synonymous with autonomy. It may never happen, but at least we have a goal.

If a vehicle has a steering wheel for use inside or outside its geotonomous domain, it would require a system for transitioning to human control that meets a regulatory safety standard. Unless or until transitions could be implemented safely (and let's not get into the fact that no one agrees what "safety" is) geotonomy would not be able to be deployed in vehicles with steering wheels.

Goodbye, L3.

Check out the L3 NHTSA/SAE definition:

"The vehicle can itself perform all aspects of the driving task under some circumstances. In those circumstances, the human driver must be ready to take back control at any time when the ADS requests the human driver to do so. In all other circumstances, the human driver performs the driving task."

The L3 definition lacks language about safe transition, which means vehicles that only meet the definition cannot be safely deployed, and should be banned. There's a reason Waymo and many car makers skipped this. As Templeton points out, L3 is a dead end anyway.

Human-Assistance Systems
Human-Assistance Systems (HAS) are anything that isn't geotonomous. It's a hybrid of human and ADAS, with a clear focus on the human. It isn't a sexy name, and it shouldn't be. If a human is necessary, the category has to have the word "human" in it, and human deprives anyone of confusion over automation, autonomy, or geotonomy. With HAS, the human is 100 percent responsible at all times.

Why not call it ADAS? It's 25 percent longer, and "driver" is the second word—"advanced" is the first. Also, ADAS is so inconsistent that safety cannot be assumed.

HAS has no levels. Since any system requiring human input is only as safe as the user, then no HAS system can be ranked by safety. Individual functionalities, like automatic emergency braking, can be ranked that way, but until there's statistical evidence for anything else, no hierarchy works except for degrees of convenience.

I propose a restaurant-style HAS convenience rating system. NYC uses letter grades, so let's run with that. Based on my recent Cadillac SuperCruise v Tesla Autopilot comparo, the Caddy gets a "B" for convenience, and the Tesla gets a B-minus. (Don't be annoyed, Tesla fans: everything else I've tested gets a C, or worse.)

Of course, letter ratings for HAS systems don't tell the full story of the individual sub-functionalities, but better they should all be in thrown in the soup of convenience than stand on the counter of safety.

Or until someone has a better idea.

A couple thoughts for the road:

What about dual-mode vehicles?
What happens when HAS-enabled vehicles get geotonomy as an option? The best of both worlds—as long as there's a safe transition system. That deserves its own article. Or book.

What About Grey Areas?
There are tons of grey areas, but they all fall under HAS. Teleoperation? HAS. Parallel systems? HAS. They have to fall under HAS, so as to avoid anyone mistaking them for possessing any autonomy. Let the market decide which convenience features they want. It's important for HAS to remain vague enough that technologies as-yet uninvented have a place to live.

What about HAS branding that uses the words "auto" and/or "pilot"? A lot of people aren't going to like what I have to say about that, but that's also another story.

Questions? Comments? Better ideas? Let's hear them!

Alex Roy — Founder of the Human Driving Association, Editor-at-Large at The Drive, Host of The Autonocast, co-host of /DRIVE on NBC Sports and author of The Driver — has set numerous endurance driving records, including the infamous Cannonball Run record. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.