Autonomous Driving is (Almost) Here!

My Model 3 Driving Itself

About 2.5 years ago, Tesla posted a video of a self-driving Model X.  It completely blew my mind!  You can see it in my old post about autonomous driving.  Elon Musk then promised an autonomous cross country trip by the end of 2017. That year came and went and then another year without any meaningful progress.  This, by the way, is called "Elon time".  However, with most things from promising to land rockets back on Earth to building hundreds of thousands of Model 3s in a year, I think autonomous driving will come to fruition soon.

There are a handful of Tesla owners in my readership and I know you guys already know all this stuff, but the large majority of people who read my blog aren't really that much of a fanatic as I am with Tesla and Elon Musk.  So, the above video is something that will give you a look into what is already available in Teslas.  I personally took that video a couple of weeks ago while I (or really, the car) was driving to the airport (for a Turo dropoff).

Tesla released what they call "Navigate on Autopilot" several months ago.  You probably know what Autopilot is.  It is essentially a glorified adaptive cruise control.  It will follow a lane and also brake according to the car in front of you.  If a car swerves into your lane, it will also be able to maneuver out of the way if it was safe to do so.  Navigate on Autopilot is a step up from there.  You set a destination on the navigation system (and this only works on highways right notw), and the car will know what lanes to take and which exits to take on the route to take you all the way to the destination highway off-ramp.  However, Tesla had disabled the auto-lane change; so, the driver must accept the lane change by pressing on the turn signal stalk, that is, until a few weeks ago.

The user can now disable lane change acknowledgement and allow the car change lanes by itself.  The car still requires you to keep your hands on the wheel and will alert you when it's trying to change a lane via a tone and/or vibration on the steering wheel.  If you watch the video, for the entire 1:17 of the drive, the car was essentially driving itself.  I started taking the video on the on-ramp to the 401.  The car then changes lanes 3 times by itself, while avoiding cars that were driving along in the lane that it was trying to get into.  I don't think I need to talk much more...just watch the video!  If a picture is a thousand words, then a video is a million words!

On April 22, Tesla will be holding an Autonomy Investor Day to show off the next steps in autonomous driving.  Elon Musk has been very vocal about autonomous driving recently and has made a number of statements about how close Tesla is to full self-driving.  Below is an interview he did with MIT research scientist, Lex Friedman, on autonomous driving and AI.  It's a long video but well worth the time.  One thing that he said, which I thought was very interesting was, "I think it will become very quickly, maybe even towards the end of this year, but I would say I'd be shocked if it's not next year, at the latest, that having a human intervene will decrease safety."  I look forward to that day!

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What Did Jesus Write in the Sand?

Just this past Sunday, we heard the famous gospel passage of John 8:1-11, where the scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman who was accused of committing adultery, asking Him what they should do with her. Jesus responds by saying, "Let the one among you who is without sin 

be the first to throw a stone at her" (Jn 8:7), to which the crowd responded by leaving, one by one. Jesus then forgave the adulteress and let her go. This is the jist of this Gospel story, but there was always one part that puzzled me. It is the part that talked about how Jesus initially didn't respond to the crowd, but "bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger" (Jn 8:6). The gospel doesn't say what He wrote, which makes it the more intriguing.  All these years, I've wondered about it, but didn't do anything about it, until today.

Thanks goodness for Google, my answer came on the first page of the search results after I had searched for "ancient Israel writing on the ground".  I wanted to find some history on what the significance of writing on the ground was. Instead of some history site talking about ancient Jewish customs, I actually found a Christian site explaining this exact passage. The answer was very satisfying. As expected, the Evangelist wrote a well crafted account with much theological significance buried in the text.

You can find the article here:

https://www.preachitteachit.org/articles/detail/what-did-jesus-really-write-in-the-sand

I will just briefly summarize what is said there.

First, in ancient Israel, whenever a couple is caught in adultery (why only the woman was caught in this case is worth pondering), they would be brought to the temple gates, and the priest would write the law that was broken and also the name of the accused.  In the gospel story, when they brought the accused woman to the temple, Jesus proceeds to start writing on the ground.  Jesus' action seem to indicate that He was the priest in this instance.

Second, and more importantly, we need to look at Jeremiah 17:13, which is a verse that the High Priest recites at the end of Yom Kippur every year, "O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters" (Jeremiah 17:13 [KJV translation]).  And who would be departing the scene in this instance?  You got it...the scribes and Pharisees.  From this, we can deduce that Jesus was probably writing down the names of the scribes and the Pharisees.  The fact that they left the scene fulfills this prophecy that they have forsaken the Lord.

Third, if we look at John 7, the chapter just before the start of this gospel reading, it reads, "On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.'" (John 7:37-38).  So, St. John preps us for this story of the adulteress by telling us that Jesus is the "fountain of living waters", and if he is the fountain of the living waters, He is then the "Lord".  But do know this, the "Lord" in this case is YHWH (Yahweh), which is God Himself.  And if the reader knows Jeremiah 17:13, which most ancient Jews would, they would also know that the scribes and the Pharisees are the ones who will "be ashamed and...they that depart from [God] shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of the living waters."

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2018: A Year in Review - Part II: Building My Car Rental Empire

Read Further to See How I Can Afford This Thing!

In my last post, I talked about the family and what we were up to in 2018.  Today's post is about money.  As most of you will agree, raising a family requires a lot of resources, and money is definitely one of the important ones.  So, I'm going to tell you about one of the things I did on the money front.

Owning a Tesla for Free?
Back in late 2017, I read an article on Business Insider about a couple using a car-sharing app called Turo, to pay for their two Teslas.  This got me interested as I had reserved a Model 3 back in 2016.  At that time, Tesla advertised that it was going to be a $35,000 (USD) car.  With the savings in gas on my daily commute of 100 km+, that would not be such a heavy burden.  However, as 2017 progressed, it became apparent that the $35,000 car wasn't going to be in sight for quite some time (it's still not here yet).  So, having read this article, I have renewed hope that I was somehow going to be able to make it work.

In January 2018, I decided to buy a used Honda Accord with 2 things in mind.  First, my mom's old Toyota Matrix needed to replaced at some point.  The Accord could very well be it.  I could also use this car as a pilot vehicle to try out Turo and see if I could make some money.  That is exactly what I did.  At first, I listed it at around $40 to $45/day, but wasn't getting any rentals.  After joining a Facebook group of Turo owners, I learned that pricing will need to be tweaked to find the sweet spot.  After lowering it to low to mid $30s, I got my first rental.  It went ok but was only a 1-day rental.  Then, a couple who newly immigrated here from Brazil rented the car for a month straight!  I was ecstatic, as that meant I didn't have to do any cleaning, vacuuming, or really anything when the car was away.  Since then, my poor mother did not end up driving that Accord much! 🤷

Soon after, I replaced my aging 12-year old Prius with a 6-year old Lexus CT.  Since I didn't really need the car on weekends (we went everywhere in our Odyssey), I would put that car on Turo on the weekends as well. 

And soon after that, Tesla told me that I was then able to place the order for the Model 3.  There was really no choice in trim level or options at that point; only the long range battery with RWD and premium package was available.  The car with destination fees and taxes would be more than $80,000!  Up to that point in time, I had never spent more than $25,000 on a car.  That was a great departure from my usual frugal (...more like stingy...) self.  Seeing that the Liberal government had a fairly good chance of losing the election, I bit the bullet and ordered the Model 3, in hopes that it would arrive in time for me to take advantage of the $14,000 rebate.  In the end, I was able to submit my rebate application before Doug Ford ended it.  It still feels somewhat unreal that I now drive such an expensive car!

Thus far, the Model 3 has been able to pay for its monthly car payments.  So, Turo is kind of the real deal.  You can say it's the AirBnb for cars.  Some of you are wondering how I could even let someone else drive the Tesla without worrying to death...to which I respond that I would rather own a Tesla and let someone else drive it once in a while than not owning one at all.

Some Details
I think some of you may be intrigued at this point and would like to know more.  So, I will give you some details.  With the Accord and CT, I have been able to net $300-400 per month.  This would be after all costs including insurance, depreciation, interests, maintenance, repairs, etc. etc.  The daily rate ranges from $28 to $40 (higher in summer months) and utilization is probably around 25 days a month, +/- a couple of days.  There are also extras like delivery, cleaning charges, late fees, etc. that boost my revenue.  Turo takes 25% of that, but provides full insurance coverage when the car is rented out.  So, if a guest crashes the car, it would not hit my personal insurance policy, and there is no deductible for me.  I get paid fully on the damages or value of the car if it is totaled.  This is also fully legit with my insurance company, The Personal.  Turo, in fact, partners with a bunch of insurance companies, including Belair Direct, Intact, Desjardins, etc.

As with any venture, there is no free lunch.  I do have to put in some work.  Most of it is cleaning the car after each rental, and occasionally, delivering and picking up from the airport.  It is, however, much better than driving Uber, in terms of time investment.  I would say I spend about 4 to 8 hours a week managing 4 cars right now.

Some have asked me if I were spending money paying for cars, why not buy a house and rent it out.  Renting out cars and renting out real property are two different business models.  Renting out a house is usually a cash flow negative business (i.e. the rent you receive will not be able to pay for all your expenses + mortgage), but you are hoping for the asset to appreciate.  That's where you would make your money.  Renting out a car has to be a cash flow positive business, because your asset is a depreciating asset.  If you're not cash flow positive, then forget about it.  As I mentioned at the start, I need money to raise a family (i.e. cash flow), which is why Turo is my kind of business.

As a host, I can certainly see how Turo is indeed the AirBnb for cars.  Like AirBnb, it provides such a good experience for both the host and the guest.  Like many people, I've rented cars from Avis, Budget, Enterprise, etc. and the experience pretty much is always sub-par.  First, you book a class of the car you want, but never know what car you will actually get.  Then, you are greeted by an expressionless customer service rep at the counter.  The paperwork usually takes 15 minutes, most of which consists of hard selling extras like insurance, prepaid gas, damage waivers and the like, before you finally get assigned a bland car that excites exactly no one.  Contrast that with Turo, there is literally no paperwork required and you can pick the exact car you want.  The review system gives you peace of mind that the host you're dealing with will likely provide you an excellent experience.  Lastly, Turo hosts will often deliver to curbside at the airport, just like how your friend would pick you up, except they leave you with their beautiful car.  When I was in Florida, I used Turo and preferred it over the traditional car rental places.

Shameless Self-Promotion
So, the next time you need to rent a car, take a look at Turo and see if it meets your needs. In fact, let me shamelessly provide you my referral link!  https://turo.com/c/felixw41  If you sign up using this link and rent a car, both you and I get $25 USD in Turo credit!  Also, check out my fleet; if you have guests coming into town, I'd be glad to help if they needed a car!

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