191–200 of 218 posts
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I don't know if you've heard of this little thing called The Law of Accelerating Returns. It's the law.
Wow, I finally understand the underlying theory of people who invest in the stock market. Thanks. I will be rich now.
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Falling demand, really? "After delivering 25,051 vehicles during the first quarter, it pushes deliveries to “approximately 47,100” according to the company. [For the year.] It represents a 53% increase over deliveries during the same period last year and both Model S and Model X deliveries were higher than during Q2 2016" Maybe a plateau could be argued looking at the graph here. https://electrek.co/2017/07/03/tesla-…
"After delivering 25,051 vehicles during the first quarter" ... they delivered 22,000 vehicles in the second quarter. That sounds like a 12% decline to me. It sounds like a 12% decline to Goldman Sachs. I am not sure what you call it.
There is no way on god's earth that Tesla can ramp up production like that. I suspect the first cars that they sell will roll off the VP tools and not off the main lines anyway. With a lack of product maturation the quality of the first cars will be appalling too. I'd bet that the guys at the coal face are wanting to kill their PR people right now for making promises that they know will get broken. Disclosure: work i…
There was an article recently where some higher ups talked about the engineering. They described focusing work on the factory itself instead of the product with the idea being that every time you improve or fix the factory, you gain many upsides in the final output. Can't find the article but I was an interesting read
Electrek has an article quoting it. Elon was describing the idea of designing the "Machine that builds the Machines"[0].
“We realized that the true problem, the true difficulty, and where the greatest potential is – is building the machine that makes the machine. In other words, it’s building the factory. I’m really thinking of the factory like a product.”
[0]:https://electrek.co/2016/06/01/elon-musk-machines-making-mac...
How long do the batteries last? I've heard replacement batteries will be $20,000.
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People said the exact same thing when Musk announced SpaceX. Then they said no big deal after the Falcon 1 worked, and laughed when Musk said he was going to land the Falcon 9 on a barge in the ocean, then he did. Next they said there was simply no way SpaceX would be able to refly a used first stage, which they've now successfully done twice. History of his accomplishments show us "industry knowledge" doesn't really…
Musk seems to set high goals with the full intention of meeting them, but shrugging it off if he's wrong in the end so long as progress was made. In the end the goal doesn't matter, just the progress, which was certainly affected positively by the goal.
I've got a friend who has worked for Aerospace Corporation for close to 11 years as a structural engineer. He people when they have to stop removing things to prevent rockets from exploding (aka a rocket scientist). He told me ~5 years ago there was literally no way SpaceX could land orbital class rockets. Yeah, he doesn't say that anymore.
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What's more, a lot of the materials science and metalworking "lessons learned" (particularly when it comes to working with aluminum) at SpaceX are available to Tesla.
Really not the case. Space X have built, um, not many rockets. Tesla are planning to churn out hundreds of thousands of cars. The key isn't being able to do it (as someone else said joining metals is a solved problem), it's being able to do it with high quality and in a reliable way. Do you think Space X joining techniques are optimised for making 100k joints in a factory environment?
https://electrek.co/2015/05/24/spacex-transferred-novel-weld...
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> we fire up the dirty, old oil-fired power plants as the generators of last resort. But it's probably still a net win if that extra electricity is going to power electric cars, because a power plant is more efficient than thousands of internal combustion engines. See: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-li...
It's not just a question of thermodynamic efficiency. Cars have emission control systems (catalytic converters, etc.) that mitigate some of the pollutants, and perhaps most importantly, use a much cleaner fuel (the heavy fuel oil burned in power plants produces soot, sulfur compounds, etc. which the more highly refined hydrocarbons in gasoline do not).
It is of course possible to make power plants even dirtier and less efficient, but it's also possible to make them cleaner and more efficient, which is of course what we should be doing.
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and then you ignore that a cheap ev can't be the only car for a person, specially out of san fran. so now you have two insurances. two garages or live well enough to have two street parking. two maintenance bills. etc. etc.
Why can't a cheap EV be the only car for a person? Most people drive I drive a four door sedan currently. It doesn't handle 100% of my motoring needs, that doesn't mean I need to own a moving van for that 0.1% of the time I need it. I just go rent it. It also isn't able to be checked as luggage when I travel, and so I rent a car when I arrive at my destination (if needed). I don't pay someone to transport the car to…
m3 has such tight bearings that all it does outside of a track is break internal engine parts 80% earlier than any other consumer car.
now, even if you think renting a car that one time a month you need more than 100 miles, for most people it's a hassle they want to avoid more than you want to spend money.
and lastly, buying a new 530e will keep you carbon negative for two decades at least. not buying a new car is infinitely better than even buying electric.
There is no way on god's earth that Tesla can ramp up production like that. I suspect the first cars that they sell will roll off the VP tools and not off the main lines anyway. With a lack of product maturation the quality of the first cars will be appalling too. I'd bet that the guys at the coal face are wanting to kill their PR people right now for making promises that they know will get broken. Disclosure: work i…
I'm not clear what like that you are referring to, or what would be a more reasonable plan.
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I'm reminded a little of how the Blackberry board supposedly watched the iPhone announcement and insisted it was fake, as there was "no way" someone could build and profitably sell a phone with that feature-set. Tesla might not do what they're promising. Hell, they probably won't do what they're promising. But pronouncing something impossible on the basis of industry experience can be a dangerous thing. Some things a…
Even just using Tesla's numbers, it's unlikely they can ramp up production. They currently produce ~25K Model X and S per quarter, and they're having supply issues with battery packs. (see the other, recent thread on them) How in the world are they going to be producing 20K Model 3s by December, without cannibalizing their more profitable existing sales, and judging by their own previous growth rate and demand proble…
They are building a huge factory for making battery packs in Nevada. That's already operational and will be more so by December. I imagine that's part of the solution.