Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#141

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #133

TeMPOraL wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs was basically a salesman. A brilliant one. Nothing bad in that; I just wouldn't call him a "tech leader" - he was involved with technology only incidentally.

Steve Jobs was hacking on electronics in the 1970s and building the most advanced personal computing devices from then until his death. He was not a programmer but he knew more about computers than most programmers do. There's absolutely no way to call him non-technical accurately. Bill Gates giving up programming did not make him non-technical. Elon Musk wouldn't make this mistake. He's very openly trying to emulate…

I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that in the early days of Apple, it was Wozniak who was the tech guy and did most of the tech stuff.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#142

Post by falcolas » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #137

falcolas wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has lost money to PayPal, I have a hard time agreeing with the 75%, especially when you consider all the caveats associated with it. That said, I won't argue the point. I could swear that the rush for solar via Solar City has dropped precipitously. It seems like those who want it have it at this point. Its business model is also heavily dependent on US grants, and has seen some major downturns in terms…

The boring company includes the idea of ~140MPH electric sleds that carry cars. This is part of their goal for 1/10th the price. It may or may not be implemented long term, but it is a novel concept and they are actually digging right now to gain expertise. I would call it similar to Space X before they started landing the rockets. Just making digging cheaper much like making rockets cheaper is a basis for a profitab…

Consider this comparison: buses carrying 50 people each on I-66 going 60mph. Which is going to carry more people into DC, at what cost? Think of the station wagon filled with hard drives vs. gigabit internet.

Cars, unless going ungodly fast (140mph is not enough), are inefficient at throughput.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#143

Post by Retric » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #142

Retric wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boring company includes the idea of ~140MPH electric sleds that carry cars. This is part of their goal for 1/10th the price. It may or may not be implemented long term, but it is a novel concept and they are actually digging right now to gain expertise. I would call it similar to Space X before they started landing the rockets. Just making digging cheaper much like making rockets cheaper is a basis for a profitab…

Consider this comparison: buses carrying 50 people each on I-66 going 60mph. Which is going to carry more people into DC, at what cost? Think of the station wagon filled with hard drives vs. gigabit internet. Cars, unless going ungodly fast (140mph is not enough), are inefficient at throughput.

You can design a bus for these tunnels fairly easily. However, 140mph under a city vs 3 mph at street level and buses lose unless they have 47+ passengers but a 50 passenger bus costs 2-3 car slots easily so it's a wash.

PS: I-66 really does have 3mph traffic as it will take 30+ minutes to travel 10 miles. As in I was happy if that part was under 30 minutes, and not surprised if it took 40 minutes as the average was well over 30.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#144

Post by salawat » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #73

andrepd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well first of all they're not his rockets. The engineers and scientists did it, he supplies the money, arguably a meritless in ck prison. Second, there are many promises he still hasn't delivered on: SpaceX targets not met, Tesla still running at a massive loss, Hyperloop being doomed to failure, etc etc. I can definitely see why people say he is mostly talk, even though admittedly he has achieved some successes.

What a ridiculous strawman. Do you want him to insert every last rivet and weld every last joint in his cars and rockets before they become 'his' cars and 'his' rockets? Tesla I could still grant but you do him great injustice by simply ignoring how much of his personal resolve is responsible for SpaceX even existing. Feel free to list the number of times a group of engineers have spontaneously teamed up to form a ro…

I disagree. It's not a straw man at all.

Your assume that A) big things can only ever get done by companies. B)A CEO 'owns' a company's assets.

I'll give credit to him for creating and acquiring funding for the organization. I'll give him credit for publicizing his vision. Each and every rocket/car however, was massively subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and made feasible by hundreds of people WORKING TOWARD A COMMON GOAL.

The practice of abstracting away hundreds to thousands of people's hard work and financial support, involuntary or not, is disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst.

Abstraction is evil. Abstraction is what turns "people" into "human resources".

And before the inevitable "That's not practical!" or "That's unreasonable!": It really isn't. Most people have just gotten so used to credit for their own work being sacrificed to someone else that nobody points out how incredibly screwed up the practice is.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#145

Post by Robotbeat » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

thisisit wrote: post #99

kumarvvr wrote: post #14

There is so much negativity about Tesla. Watching Tesla reminds of the the quote "We hoped for flying cars, but what we got was 140 characters" (or something similar, I don't remember it verbatim) Every time I think about Tesla, I am reminded of the thousands of brilliant engineers toiling away in Silicon Valley trying to optimize online advertising. Maybe we could be a bit more closer to Fusion energy, maybe we coul…

Inside that negativity there is some truth too. Tesla for one is leveraged 7:1 and that too in a time of easy and near zero interest rate credit. With Feds changing rates they might be painted into a tight box. I am sure situation is same for SpaceX too. And then the whole SolarCity acquisition which didn't go down well. That said, yes you have to hand it to Musk. Even if these companies go belly up, they have brough…

Elon Musk always plays pretty close to the line. If Tesla wasn't so leveraged, doubtless Musk would immediately start trying to expand to more and more Gigafactories until it was.

The situation for SpaceX is different. SpaceX got 18 successful launches last year, several of them with reused rockets and most of them recovered afterward (no unsuccessful landing attempts, though a few were intentionally expended for performance reasons).

Their only real domestic competitor ULA which launches Atlas and Delta, long held as the giants in American space launch, only had a total of 8 launches, all expended of course.

Not only does SpaceX have a huge technological moat in the form of operational space launch reuse, but operationally their Falcon 9 (which had complete success in 2017) is out-launching everything else, including both the Chinese DF-5 (which had a failure) and the Russian R7/Soyuz (which also had a failure).

And their future products build tremendously on this already sizable lead:

1) Falcon Heavy, completed pad fit checks by the end of the year and now getting ready for a static fire and launch in a couple weeks, is even MORE reusable (3 cores recovered, counting for 27 out of 28 of the engines) and MORE powerful than any other rocket launching today. Dragon Crew also nearing completion and will be the first (of 3 total vehicles nearing completion) to return Americans to orbit on a domestic vehicle, likely this year.

2) A satellite constellation which is readying satellite prototype launch in the next month or two, has the potential of making SpaceX a telecomm giant. The scale of this constellation would not be feasible without the reusability tech they've developed.

3) And BFR, which will further cement their space launch tech moat, make launching the full version of the potentially-extremely-profitable satellite constellation WAY cheaper, and potentially open several new markets.

SpaceX is like Tesla after a full ramp-up of the Model 3 selling as many cars as Toyota does but in a world where no one else has an electric car for sale. So understandably (for Musk), he's leveraging this position to make things like BFR a reality.

Both companies are in extremely good positions compared to 2008 when both companies nearly went under. SpaceX in particular. And given the fact that Elon was able to save both, it means a market down-turn is something he has seen before and he has some powerful strings to pull in case the market has some major problems.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#146

Post by bpicolo » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

wernerb wrote: post #139

While I appreciate the record, the GPS fast forward video shows frequent texting while driving. Is this legal in the US? Here in the Netherlands we have statistics showing car accidents up after a downward trends with texting while driving as the leading cause. It makes me wish people were back to using cellphones without carkits, at least people had more chance of eyes on the road.

It's not legal in most states. It's also possibly not legal to be driving at the speeds they were probably driving at for this record at various points (previous canonball run records for non-EVs went far over the speed limit and used police radars to avoid run-ins. I'm not sure if this attempt stuck to a more legal approach or not)

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#147

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

InTheArena wrote: post #50

I drove the Model 3 last week. It’s a properly good car in it’s own right - It reminded me of the MOdel 3 from BMS in how it handles, of course the performance curve is totally different. The rethinking of the dashboard is perfect for the cell phone age. It’s Apple Good (back when Apple was good). The performance curve - the instant power at any point is addicting. The seats were comfortable, and the trunk space was…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#148

Post by cornholio » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

arcticfox wrote: post #122

reaperducer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NASA TESS on track to discover an explosion in habitable zone exoplanets. Not a factor. Until we can travel many multiples faster than light, it doesn't matter how many things we can see far, far away. You and I will both be centuries dead before that happens.

> it doesn't matter how many things we can see far, far away. Why does it "not matter" since we can't land on them in our lifetimes? It's still interesting.

The GP meant to say "it doesn't matter for SpaceX that we find new planets, since no rocket company will send anything there in the forseeable future". The GGP was pointing out that TESS itself is launched by SpaceX.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#149

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #144

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a ridiculous strawman. Do you want him to insert every last rivet and weld every last joint in his cars and rockets before they become 'his' cars and 'his' rockets? Tesla I could still grant but you do him great injustice by simply ignoring how much of his personal resolve is responsible for SpaceX even existing. Feel free to list the number of times a group of engineers have spontaneously teamed up to form a ro…

I disagree. It's not a straw man at all. Your assume that A) big things can only ever get done by companies. B)A CEO 'owns' a company's assets. I'll give credit to him for creating and acquiring funding for the organization. I'll give him credit for publicizing his vision. Each and every rocket/car however, was massively subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and made feasible by hundreds of people WORKING TOWARD A COMMON G…

It is a strawman because it is reliant on a literalist interpretation that no one is actually arguing for. Of course the rockets are not literally his just as Obamacare wasn't literally Obama's.

> B)A CEO 'owns' a company's assets.

Never made the claim nor does it seem relevant here. No one is talking of actual ownership. When it comes to ownership and accounting of a company, there are already well-established metrics and practices to figure that stuff out.

Yes, the rocket is designed by engineers and put together by technicians and mechanics and thousands of souls have come together to achieve this task, and no one is denying their contributions.

But none of that would have existed without Elon. And he is being praised for that vision and steely resolve while others work on their PhDs from Armchair University.

This leadership is not trivial and it is central to something like SpaceX even existing.

Re: Tesla Model 3 Sets New EV Cannonball Run Record

#150

Post by awj » Wed, Jan 03, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #20

kumarvvr wrote: post #14

There is so much negativity about Tesla. Watching Tesla reminds of the the quote "We hoped for flying cars, but what we got was 140 characters" (or something similar, I don't remember it verbatim) Every time I think about Tesla, I am reminded of the thousands of brilliant engineers toiling away in Silicon Valley trying to optimize online advertising. Maybe we could be a bit more closer to Fusion energy, maybe we coul…

It's always been my sincere opinion that even if Musk fails miserably I'll still admire him more than most other "tech idols". There are people that say he's all talk, but I don't care. Even if he's 75% talk and delivers on the rest, whatever he does achieve is still better than a face-detecting smartphone or a social network that makes money by profiling your personality for advertisers. I don't care about the money…

He's arguably already had legitimate and impactful successes. Building a business even remotely capable of commercial spaceflight is a huge deal. What Tesla has done, both in batteries and in getting the major auto makers to put focus on EVs is a huge deal.

Musk arguably does significantly more talking than doing, but his goals are lofty enough that even failing to make it halfway still means significant advancement.