Tesla, software and disruption • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#71

Post by mdeeks » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #62

Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.

I have found it to actually not be a problem at all in my wife's Model 3. Almost everything you normally do while driving is one or two taps away and doesn't require as much cognitive load as you would think (Mirror adjustment sucks though). Mapping/Directions on the big touch screen is amazing. The radio/volume controls are on the steering wheel just like most cars.

Most modern cars use digital displays for AC now anyway and it requires you to look down to see what it is set to. My Audi looks like this:

https://cevpu.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2018-Audi-A5-Ca...

The BMW 4 series was similar:

https://st.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/2016-bmw-...

The Porche Macan I test drove was a UX atrocity:

https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/g...

All digital displays.

In all of the cars I test drove, the controls for AC/Radio/etc were all very low, tiny text, and require me to take my eyes completely off the road. At least with the model 3 display I can kind of keep the road in my peripheral vision.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#72

Post by r00fus » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 1:02 AM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #62

Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.

I know that I successfully used hybrid button-touchscreen interface for my Prius for over a decade. It was great and resulted in no accidents or even distractions.

It's modular so additional features can be integrated by pure software so upgrades are possible.

Sure 90% touchscreen (some stuff is still manual) sounds crazy but Model3 owners don't seem to complain too much. I'd bet an 80% interface would work great today.

Enter a perfected voice control and L4 auto drive and we'll officially be living in the future.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#73

Post by iabacu » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 1:09 AM UTC

Autonomous driving is such a big opportunity, that trying to do it wihtout LIDARs is a giant premature optimization.

Just like trying to make fully automated assembly plants.

Whatever edge it may give on sensor cost savings in the long run, it has a steep penalty in time to market.

Even if eventually they make it without LIDARs, guess what? The competitors with successful fleets won’t be too far behind.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#74

Post by brian-armstrong » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 1:10 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #72

brian-armstrong wrote: post #62

Why are touchscreens in cars touted as innovation? They are a usability disaster. It is much easier to, say, change the A/C power when the control is a physical control I can reach for and identify by touch.

I know that I successfully used hybrid button-touchscreen interface for my Prius for over a decade. It was great and resulted in no accidents or even distractions. It's modular so additional features can be integrated by pure software so upgrades are possible. Sure 90% touchscreen (some stuff is still manual) sounds crazy but Model3 owners don't seem to complain too much. I'd bet an 80% interface would work great tod…

90%? There really aren't very many controls in a car, does that mean headlightd and windshield wipers are not on stalks but in a touchscreen?

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#75

Post by kjksf » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #42

IBM wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's even less of a moat for Tesla in selling batteries to utilities than there is for their cars. And SolarCity was heading to zero. It was acquired by Tesla because Elon had to bail himself out or the myth of Elon Musk as Tony Stark would have been undone. But also because he along with his cousins would have lost a lot of money. That's compounded by the fact that Elon is significantly personally leveraged and a…

Especially since Tesla doesn't make cells. They buy from Panasonic. Panasonic competes directly with Tesla in home and bulk energy storage.[1] [1] https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-storage...

That product is not made by Panasonic but by Pika Energy (https://www.pika-energy.com/harbor-battery/).

Never heard of Pika before? Me neither.

Which is why they are not as much a threat to Tesla's Powerwall as you claim.

When you order from Tesla (https://www.tesla.com/powerwall) you get some inkling of how much it'll cost.

When you order from Pika (https://www.pika-energy.com/purchase/)? "Call us".

I yet have to see any serious competition to Tesla's Powerwall. BMW tried to compete and they folded (https://electrek.co/2018/04/30/mercedes-benz-kills-tesla-pow...).

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#76

Post by kjksf » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

IBM wrote: post #37

pcprincipal wrote: post #28

I read a lot of articles on TSLA and usually fail to see any mention of their power business. Granted, this is a small part of revenue right now ($1.1BN for FY17 of $11.8BN total), but growing fast and with some highly visible data points (Puerto Rico, South Australia). They are going to win multi-billion-dollar contracts if the US or other countries decide to rebuild their grids. As a TSLA shareholder, this opportun…

There's even less of a moat for Tesla in selling batteries to utilities than there is for their cars. And SolarCity was heading to zero. It was acquired by Tesla because Elon had to bail himself out or the myth of Elon Musk as Tony Stark would have been undone. But also because he along with his cousins would have lost a lot of money. That's compounded by the fact that Elon is significantly personally leveraged and a…

At which point making a better product at lower prices stopped being a moat?

SolarCity was a totally different business (installing traditional solar panels but mostly the business was financing those installation) and Tesla is winding it down.

The future of energy in Tesla is Solar Roof, Powerwalls (residential storage) and Powerpacks (utility-scale storage).

In storage Tesla has significant advantages on cost because of scale. Battery cell production is a Joint Venture with Panasonic (so I'm sure they get them cheaper than anyone else) and they have greater scale than all non-Panasonic cells and the batteries involve lots more components (and cost) that just cells and Tesla makes that, at scale.

Powerwall is significantly better looking than the competition I could find (LG Chem RESU and Pika Harbor are plain ugly, Sonnen eco looks decent).

Tesla has superior marketing and distribution (all those people buying Teslas are exposed to Solar Roof and Powerwalls and can order online).

Solar Roof looks like a product without the competitor.

Both Powerwall and Solar Roof are sold out a year in advance.

I'm less versed in utility storage business but based on headlines Tesla is killing there as well, breaking size records one after another, doubling the size of the business YoY, which is a crazy growth.

If you claim competition then name names and provide data that shows that they are actually doing better than Tesla on some reasonable metric like revenue.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#77

Post by kjksf » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #45

mariushn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much profit do those projects bring?

Tesla lost money on the Australia project. They bought the battery cells from Samsung and put them in a Tesla branded unit. Samsung also could have installed the battery themselves (always cheaper to cut out a middle man), but Tesla was willing to buy their cells and then sell them at a loss to Australia. Tesla got a ton of publicity out of it, though, so it was probably a win for all parties involved.

And your source for that information? (other than using Samsung cells).

I'm really curious because claiming they lost money on that project is rather specific.

Also, claiming that Samsung could have done that is specific.

Was Samsung one of the 90 bidder on that project?

Did Samsung do any utility-scale storage installation.

Does Samsung even have a competing product? Contrary to what you seem to assume, Powerpacks involve a bit more than putting li-ion cells in a box.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#78

Post by annerajb » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #74

r00fus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that I successfully used hybrid button-touchscreen interface for my Prius for over a decade. It was great and resulted in no accidents or even distractions. It's modular so additional features can be integrated by pure software so upgrades are possible. Sure 90% touchscreen (some stuff is still manual) sounds crazy but Model3 owners don't seem to complain too much. I'd bet an 80% interface would work great tod…

90%? There really aren't very many controls in a car, does that mean headlightd and windshield wipers are not on stalks but in a touchscreen?

Yes both on touchscreen headlight is automatic same with wipers thought.there are also keybindings to the multi way scroll wheels on the steering wheel. It also modify bindings based on last action.if you manually had to enable wipers it switches the scroll wheels to activate it.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#79

Post by annerajb » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 2:04 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #39

mariushn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much profit do those projects bring?

Hard to tell at this point. At least in South Australia I think he pretty much built it at cost just to have a reference site to help persuade other governments. That said you would think these projects would be profitable since they are billion dollars purchases made by governments.

That was bidded by private companies and financed by private consortium. My understanding is that ongoing revenue will break it even. Initial install was near zero margin.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#80

Post by annerajb » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 2:06 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #17

What "massive amount of data" from Tesla? They don't send all the video back to HQ. Tesla owners have observed large uploads, but apparently they are software crash dumps.

They are not crash dumps only. It includes images along with data of area where images where taken. It's not gbs thought. They only ask the car to upload relevant needed data. Example I want you to send pictures Everytime you get into a construction zone.