O.t.tesla autonomy vehicle investor day

[marciero]

Originally Posted by fkelly

...

People are driving the cars with some of the self-driving features activated today. And while there have been some well publicized accidents, overall I think they are a lot safer than human driven cars.

I think so, but people seem much less tolerant of error with autonomous vehicles than human-operated. It's more akin to planes, where the public expects perfect safety.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by skiezo

I just read on smart news that he/they are working on a battery pack that will last 1,000,000 miles. That seems quite a feat if achieved.
The batteries now lose 10 percent of rated capacity at 150,000 miles.

Better also include a way to charge them as quickly as going to a gas station and filling up with petrol now..plus similar range...

Hopefully that same battery technology will filter to solar/wind and storage for when the wind doesn't blow at night..plus November 2020..

The 'future' is definitely electric power, generated with something besides crushed and preserved 'dino' guts..

[alancw3]

imho what will make electric cars a game changer is when they develop a battery that can drive the car 400 miles and then be recharged in about 1/2 an hour. hell I'll buy one of those cars, if for no other reason than to just stick it to big oil. I do have to think that technology is coming soon. I hope!! wait and for everyday use have a recharging dock that you can just drive over in your garage and have start recharging. that would be my wish list. if that were met I would buy an electric car in a heartbeat. and I think millions of others would do the same. so let's hope we get to that point very soon.

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by mistermo

Granted, Musk is a narcissistic arse, but my experience with the company, in general, it's employees, blows my experiences with other brands away. Musk IS NOT TESLA, despite his attempts to have us believe otherwise. There's thousands of employees who represent Tesla. Their customer service has been A+ and I've never spoken to him. Don't feed his narcissism by giving credit, or blame, for what happens there.

Yes, I should be clear. There are many people that are earnestly making livelihoods at the company and I don't want it to fail just because I think their CEO is a huckster charlaton. Indeed, his over the top persona and failure to meet his own outrageous promises may be the very thing that dooms the company.

At the same time, he is the chief executive officer and his behavior sets the tone for those at the firm. As a leader, you don't get to delegate the culture of an organization. It starts with you.

Originally Posted by alancw3

imho what will make electric cars a game changer is when they develop a battery that can drive the car 400 miles and then be recharged in about 1/2 an hour. hell I'll buy one of those cars, if for no other reason than to just stick it to big oil. I do have to think that technology is coming soon. I hope!! wait and for everyday use have a recharging dock that you can just drive over in your garage and have start recharging. that would be my wish list. if that were met I would buy an electric car in a heartbeat. and I think millions of others would do the same. so let's hope we get to that point very soon.

Not a chemist or physicist, but I've watched a couple presentations that argue lithium ion is running up against the limits of the chemistry. There may be incremental improvements still on the table, but a step function improvement is only possible with a new battery chemistry.

As Old Potato notes, despite its many detrimental impacts, dinosaur based fuel still has a tremendous amount of energy per unit volume/weight. So, without a price on carbon emissions (ie. carbon tax), that chemistry challenge is significant, to say the least.

Originally Posted by mistermo

There's many who think their margin per car on the Model 3 is closer to 30%. No one knows for sure, but given the significantly reduced number of parts in each car, that's not unreasonable to assume. Their overhead costs, somewhat fixed, are the killer. At this point, volume is what they need (and are getting) to absorb the fixed OH costs.

30% seems plausible in the short term. Given the global competitiveness of the auto industry, I have some reservations projecting 30% in perpetuity -- especially as they move down market. That said, my point was more about how many cars they need to sell at some future point at some profit margin (whether it be 10% or 30%), to recoup the 10 million they spent each day last quarter. Even if they're making 15K per car, they will need to sell a lot of future cars.

[dancinkozmo]

musk is the 21st century p.t barnum

[alancw3]

Originally Posted by dancinkozmo

musk is the 21st century p.t barnum

that is exactly what they said that about Steve Jobs twenty years ago! I actually wonder if Steve were alive today if Apple would not have bought Tesla or did some kind of partnership? jobs and musk seem to be visionaries and nobody likes them until their vision comes to pass. and then everybody is on board. just the nature of human beings. just saying.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by alancw3

that is exactly what they said that about Steve Jobs twenty years ago! I actually wonder if Steve were alive today if Apple would not have bought Tesla or did some kind of partnership? jobs and musk seem to be visionaries and nobody likes them until their vision comes to pass. and then everybody is on board. just the nature of human beings. just saying.

Jobs was nothing like Musk. Apple was not a technology innovator - the vast majority of the technology in Apple products had actually been developed elsewhere. Jobs' key contribution was pre-visualizing new ways to use that technology, how it could be integrated into peoples lives, and creating the infrastructures necessary to allow people to utilize it.

Instead, Musk is making huge assumptions and suppositions about technology that doesn't exist yet (and often over-reaching in his predictions). Does anyone really need and want a HyperLoop? While Apple sold new uses for today's technology, Musk is selling dreams of future technologies.

[mistermo]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Better also include a way to charge them as quickly as going to a gas station and filling up with petrol now...

Last month Tesla began rolling out V3 superchargers that will provide up to 1000mi in an hour of charging. I’ve seen a peak of about 400mi in my experience. Usually it averages about 250 miles in an hour.

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

Jobs was nothing like Musk. Apple was not a technology innovator - the vast majority of the technology in Apple products had actually been developed elsewhere. Jobs' key contribution was pre-visualizing new ways to use that technology, how it could be integrated into peoples lives, and creating the infrastructures necessary to allow people to utilize it.

Instead, Musk is making huge assumptions and suppositions about technology that doesn't exist yet (and often over-reaching in his predictions). Does anyone really need and want a HyperLoop? While Apple sold new uses for today's technology, Musk is selling dreams of future technologies.

Also, after almost losing Apple once, Jobs became extremely conservative with regards to Apple's finances and keeping an eye on cash -- beyond what was reasonable. Musk seems to have the complete opposite approach. Profligate spending with the "if you build it, they will come" mindset.

[alancw3]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

Jobs was nothing like Musk. Apple was not a technology innovator - the vast majority of the technology in Apple products had actually been developed elsewhere. Jobs' key contribution was pre-visualizing new ways to use that technology, how it could be integrated into peoples lives, and creating the infrastructures necessary to allow people to utilize it.

Instead, Musk is making huge assumptions and suppositions about technology that doesn't exist yet (and often over-reaching in his predictions). Does anyone really need and want a HyperLoop? While Apple sold new uses for today's technology, Musk is selling dreams of future technologies.

but is that not what a visionary does? I think you are under valuing Steve Jobs contributions to where we are today. he was probably a sob of a boss for what he thought could be accomplished and demanded from his employees. but again is that not what has happened over and over again in life to get where we are today? I do not pretend to be an Elon Musk fan but i do have to give credit where credit is do and imho mush is right up there with jobs.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by alancw3

but is that not what a visionary does? I think you are under valuing Steve Jobs contributions to where we are today. he was probably a sob of a boss for what he thought could be accomplished and demanded from his employees. but again is that not what has happened over and over again in life to get where we are today? I do not pretend to be an Elon Musk fan but i do have to give credit where credit is do and imho mush is right up there with jobs.

No, I'm not under valuing Steve Jobs contributions. Jobs took technology that already existed in the lab, and made it a practical reality for everyday people. Musk takes technology that doesn't exist yet, and sells it to unwitting investors as if it does exist. Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos) thought she was Steve Jobs, too. But she turned out to be a huckster, making promises she couldn't deliver on. Musk may not be as bad as Holmes, but he's no Steve Jobs, either.

If Steve Jobs didn't actually invent new technology, was he still important? In some ways, he was more important than the inventors. Here's an example:

Pop quiz - Who invented the electric light bulb? If you said Thomas Edison, you'd be wrong. The electric light bulb was actually invented by Charles Swann. But the electric light bulb invention languished for years with no practical way to use it, before Thomas Edison had the vision to assemble all the pieces of existing technology to develop a practical system to deliver electric lighting to the masses.

Similarly, Jobs was the key individual to develop the music downloading/streaming industry. The MP3 player already existed before the iPod, the internet already existed, file download systems already existed, online retailing already existed, etc. But there was no easy way to get new music onto your MP3 player, so the online music download market just didn't exist - at least not until Jobs put together all the pieces.

[verticaldoug]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

No, I'm not under valuing Steve Jobs contributions. Jobs took technology that already existed in the lab, and made it a practical reality for everyday people. Musk takes technology that doesn't exist yet, and sells it to unwitting investors as if it does exist. Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos) thought she was Steve Jobs, too. But she turned out to be a huckster, making promises she couldn't deliver on. Musk may not be as bad as Holmes, but he's no Steve Jobs, either.

If Steve Jobs didn't actually invent new technology, was he still important? In some ways, he was more important than the inventors. Here's an example:

Pop quiz - Who invented the electric light bulb? If you said Thomas Edison, you'd be wrong. The electric light bulb was actually invented by Charles Swann. But the electric light bulb invention languished for years with no practical way to use it, before Thomas Edison had the vision to assemble all the pieces of existing technology to develop a practical system to deliver electric lighting to the masses.

Similarly, Jobs was the key individual to develop the music downloading/streaming industry. The MP3 player already existed before the iPod, the internet already existed, file download systems already existed, online retailing already existed, etc. But there was no easy way to get new music onto your MP3 player, so the online music download market just didn't exist - at least not until Jobs put together all the pieces.

Although I am not a Musk fan, I don't think this is a fair comparison. Musk has really been about repackaging existing technology and just making it a little sexier. Not all that different than Jobs. His original driving assist features on the tesla were developed by Mobileye which was the market leader in the space before being bought by Intel. The batteries are largely built by Panasonic, and for the most part, the innovation for Tesla has been on the packaging and cooling. Electric cars already existed before tesla.

However, as his hubris has increased, the not invented here disease has taken him over. To design your own chip for autonomous driving when you are then competing against the likes of Intel, NVDIA , Xlinix, AMD is nuts.

[fkelly]

To design your own chip for autonomous driving when you are then competing against the likes of Intel, NVDIA , Xlinix, AMD is nuts

They seem to have done a great job with the new chip. A chip for autonomous driving has to have some features, such as redundancy and built in cryptographic functions to keep hackers out, that chips from the chip companies may not have. And a key feature of Tesla's hardware/software combination it that it provides a way to constantly feed images back from the "fleet" of Tesla's out on the road that will maintain a cycle of continuous improvement for the self-driving software. And the software is designed to take advantage of that since it uses machine learning and annotated images from real life driving as a basis for improvements. In other words it will continue getting better.

I suspect that chip and software costs are a small fraction of what it takes to run a manufacturing plant for 5000 cars a month.

[paredown]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

No, I'm not under valuing Steve Jobs contributions. Jobs took technology that already existed in the lab, and made it a practical reality for everyday people. Musk takes technology that doesn't exist yet, and sells it to unwitting investors as if it does exist. Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos) thought she was Steve Jobs, too. But she turned out to be a huckster, making promises she couldn't deliver on. Musk may not be as bad as Holmes, but he's no Steve Jobs, either.

If Steve Jobs didn't actually invent new technology, was he still important? In some ways, he was more important than the inventors. Here's an example:

Pop quiz - Who invented the electric light bulb? If you said Thomas Edison, you'd be wrong. The electric light bulb was actually invented by Charles Swann. But the electric light bulb invention languished for years with no practical way to use it, before Thomas Edison had the vision to assemble all the pieces of existing technology to develop a practical system to deliver electric lighting to the masses.

Similarly, Jobs was the key individual to develop the music downloading/streaming industry. The MP3 player already existed before the iPod, the internet already existed, file download systems already existed, online retailing already existed, etc. But there was no easy way to get new music onto your MP3 player, so the online music download market just didn't exist - at least not until Jobs put together all the pieces.

If I were to cast the players, Edison is more like Bill Gates--ruthless, anti-competitive and willing to take credit for the inventions of others. And package the "electric home" by assembling all the parts to make it work as you say.

Musk is like Tesla (the man)--wild man innovation, but not so good on the implementation (although the edge clearly goes to Tesla on basic science, I think). Tesla got eaten alive by Edison, which is why we have AC current as well as incandescent light bulbs...

Steve Jobs--a different kind of visionary. There's the famous quote of Henry Ford that Jobs was fond of quoting; "If you asked Americans what they wanted, they would have said a better horse." Jobs had that same ability to see what people wanted before they knew they wanted it--but I think Musk does try to do the "visionary" thing a little too hard.

My lovely wife came home with a report from a local Sierra Club group--a bunch of committed activist suburban women, who are all about saving the environment--and not one of them drives an electric car, and not one gave it serious consideration even though some have recently purchased a new car.

Why?--simple. They want the new car to be like the old car--roomy, 4 wheel drive, preferably an SUV/Crossover style--because that is what works for their current lives--kids/sports/hauling crap/vacations/large pets--the usual list. These are the decision makers for their families (and the women are that for a lot of other families) about vehicles--and they are NOT interested in driverless, electric, zoomy, future-is-now vehicles.

Now take the Steve Jobs/Henry Ford line--they want a better horse. And I have yet to see a compelling proposition from any of the electric car makers to convince them that what they really want is the paradigm shift like going from a horse and buggy to the 'new, new transportation unit.' It will happen, but the value proposition is not there yet.

[54ny77]

The main difference between Jobs and Musk is Jobs did it all with equity capital, corporate debt and cash, and Musk did it all with equity capital, corporate debt and a MASSIVE BOATLOAD of taxpayer cash.