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Tesla, software and disruption

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Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#91

Post by SECProto »

jfoster wrote: post #70
brian-armstrong wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I reach for climate control all the time. Cars have tiny enclosed cabins and they go from cold to hot quickly depending on sun/shade etc. And how would it do the right thing? The right temperature is pretty subjective.

You set the temperature you like once. It can use that as the default. That will cover most climate control cases, and then there's an override value for when you have passengers. Since there would be someone in the passenger seat then, they can do it whilst the driver drives. The override gets reset every 6 hours. Theoretical way it could work; unsure how much of that applies to Tesla.

Temperature doesnt take in to account radiant heat (or lack thereof). If the sun is shining on you, and the cabin is set to 20, you'll be hot. If it's a cloudless winter night and -20 out, setting to 20 will be frigid cold. I mean just yesterday, I had to alternate between 18 and 22 depending whether the sun was shining on me, or was behind the car shining in the rear window (curvy road)

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#92

Post by Latteland »

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.

I don't know you how you know they lost money, but I guess it's not surprising that the first implementation in Oz lost money. My company sells database software. We sell our stuff at a significant discount to the first entrant in a new market area, so we can get some traction, and use their name to help as a listed company. This is completely standard. It seems like you are suggesting this was some underhanded behavior.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#93

Post by Latteland »

pbreit wrote: post #21
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.

It's probably a representation of the video data that has value to providing autonomy. Plus all the path & geo data. With a few hundred thousand cars collecting it, I'd say that's "massive".

You can also opt out of their monitoring of their car. I've wondered what the impact would be if I opted out on mine.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#94

Post by Latteland »

iabacu wrote: post #73

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.

If lidar was available for a few thousand, I think they would have used it. But it was much much more expensive in 2012 when I got my first one. Now they are kind of committed because they promised it would work for the generation 2.5 hardware in the model 3. So if they can't make it work, they'd have to refund 5k for a lot of sellers, or pay for upgrading to new hardware. I have gen 2 hardware, but I kind of doubt that it will be enough for autodriving.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#95

Post by Latteland »

dragontamer wrote: post #51
trisomy21 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's.“ I get that you might not be bullish on Tesla, but do you seriously believe this?

Were you around during the 2008 financial recession? Major US banks were literally going bankrupt, credit dried up. There was almost no opportunity to borrow money, the stock market was crashing, no opportunity to IPO or perform a secondary offering. Tesla is operating under one of the greatest, and longest, bull markets the US has ever seen. The great 2011 to 2018 (maybe longer??) boom. Tesla has been able to either…

come on, apple was never suffering under financial constraints like tesla has been. That is just a sill comparison.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#96

Post by Latteland »

dragontamer wrote: post #52
seldon999 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how to read a financial statement? They have 26% gross margins on the Model S. Model 3 just turned gross margin positive in Q2. Your response is boring and boneheaded. Next.

I'm not talking gross margin. I'm talking raw and simple profits. If I wanted to talk about margins, I would have said "margin" in my post earlier. I said profit. To be more specific, how about the words "Cash Flow Positive" ?? In any case, Tesla has only had ONE profitable quarter since its IPO, and has never had a profitable year.

But the point of tesla is they are making investments long term. Yes, they definitely need to produce those new products that justify all that money (like the model 3). They don't have dozens of different car products where they can trade off their current cash flow against future development costs - they have had just the S & X. How can you evaluate any company if you can't think about these separately - how much profit they make on one widget, and how much they spend on developing infrastructure and the next things, how much value will that have.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#97

Post by Latteland »

gizmo wrote: post #8
MarkMc wrote: post #2

Excellent article with well-reasoned analysis of the range of future possibilities for Tesla. But one disappointing omission is any mention of ride-hailing - surely it will have enormous consequences for the entire auto industry because people will for the most part stop buying cars and switch to autonomous taxis. This will (a) reduce the demand for number of new cars produced; (b) reduce the profit from each car (no…

If Tesla is the first to crack autonomy they will win, regardless of ride-hailing. If Tesla doesn't crack autonomy they're likely to go under, regardless of ride-hailing.

I don't think they will go under. They believe they will make enough model 3s to be profitable quarterly in the second half of 2018. They could also just sell stock if they needed more money short term. They are at least 10 years ahead on superchargers, long term driving. I'm coming up on 6 years of free long distance driving with my model s. There's no other ev with that capability. The next i-pace is missing charging away from your house.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#98

Post by Latteland »

compcoffee wrote: post #5
diskandar27 wrote: post #4

it seems the article boils down to the autonomy puzzle in Tesla. Could Tesla make the autonomy a realization with their approach? would waymo approach be better in the future? One thing I think that is missing, although it mentioned people love their Tesla and so is other thing in life. It is the fact that I felt that this is derived from the way Tesla designed the car, it is intuitive just like when the first Iphone…

> Not to mentioned as a car company, it has lots of 'legacy' or baggage that they have to deal with. Yeah, all "legacy" is bad. What could they possibly have learned in 100 years of building cars? Nothing that Tesla can't replicate in less than a decade! Meanwhile, Tesla owners are recommending a checklist of possible defects to look for when you go to pick up your vehicle. Non-super-fans will never tolerate that. No…

what does "non-superfans won't tolerate that" mean? I have a tesla, it's fine. it was made by humans, I'm sure it has some problems, but its just a car.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#99

Post by foobarian »

mrfusion wrote: post #6

If batteries are getting so cheap why isn’t anyone making battery powered: chainsaws, full size vacuum cleaners, jet skis, ride on mowers? All of those would be revolutionary.

I've been getting into Lowes' Kobalt branded series of power tools [1] built to run on 80V lithium batteries. Their 18" chainsaw is perfect for casual trimming and a tree or two every couple of months. With multiple batteries and chargers it's possible to run continuously.

The main unknown for me is how durable the tools will be over time, and how the batteries will hold up.

[1] https://www.kobalttools.com/outdoor-tools/80v

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#100

Post by Latteland »

sparkzilla wrote: post #34
_ea1k wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The i-pace looks nice, but really showcases the technical lead that Tesla has. The i-pace is bigger, with less interior space, and poorer energy efficiency, which ultimately leads to less-than-great range. Maybe a second generation of it will be competitive.

The I-Pace range isn't that much different from the Tesla. Anyway, the point isn't that the I-Pace is better, it's that it -- and the many other EVs coming from major manufacturers -- is competitive enough to take sales away from Tesla.

there's no supercharger like network for the i-pace, making it only a city car. Tesla can drive from seattle to bamff, or portland to san diego or across the country. no other car can do that.
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