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Tesla, software and disruption

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Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#101

Post by Latteland »

olivermarks wrote: post #40
justicezyx wrote: post #24

"When many car company people look at a Tesla, they see a not-great car with some cool features that they’re going to build too, being produced at a small fraction of the volumes they’re selling. “Look at the fit and finish, and the panel gaps, and the tent!” " Is this the basis of the article? The earliest Tesla car is rodster right? THAT IS A GREAT CAR in every aspect, right?...

The earliest Tesla was a Lotus Elise with an electric motor and batteries installed by Tesla

But I think a lot of people are stuck on that earlier car and don't get the engineering capability that Tesla has built over time.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#102

Post by jfoster »

SECProto wrote: post #91
jfoster wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Good point. I wonder if that could be detected and compensated for, though?

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#103

Post by amluto »

henrikschroder wrote: post #46
amluto wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 introduced. I beg to differ. The iPhone was intuitive in that all the (built-in) apps were nicely laid out so you could easily interact with them while you are looking at the phone and giving it most of your attention. Kind of like a Tesla is nicely laid out so that you can mostly eas…

> To Tesla’s credit, their on/off/drive/reverse control is vastly superior to anyone else’s. They got it from Mercedes, as well as all the other steering wheel stalks (lights, window washers, cruise control), as well as the driver door window and mirrors control pad. Good on them for selecting the best on the market, but it's not their invention.

As far as I know, Teslas are unique or nearly unique in that you can put the car in park and exit the car and there is no risk that you accidentally leave the car on. Certainly in Toyota vehicles (even brand new) you can arrive at your destination, do the wrong sequence of button presses, and end up with the car in park (so it won't roll), with the engine physically off (because the car has automatic stop-start, so it is likely to turn off the engine by itself when you park) and exit the car, and end up with the car in a state that will restart the engine when it starts to cool down or when the 12V system wants to be topped off and start emitting CO. In your garage.

I've made this mistake myself, although not in a garage, and I've noticed it before I actually exited the car. But a surprising number of people have actually died due to this UI failure.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#104

Post by dragontamer »

Latteland wrote: post #96
dragontamer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

> But the point of tesla is they are making investments long term.

What definition of "long term" do we have here?

How many years did it take for Apple to become profitable from the iPod? The iPad? The iPhone? It was profitable throughout all of those years.

That's the very point of technology gadgets: they don't require huge upfront costs like Tesla. Apple does have innovations (see their custom ARM chip, which is consistently superior to Snapdragon in benchmarks every year). But even with the billions of dollars needed to custom-make an uncore from scratch, Apple remains profitable.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/267728/apples-net-income...

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/net-inc...

Since 2005 (and maybe earlier), Apple has made a profit every quarter. Since 2009 (before Tesla's IPO), Tesla has NEVER made a profit.

Its completely insane to compare these two companies. They're run completely differently, aside from both being California based.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#105

Post by dragontamer »

trisomy21 wrote: post #57
dragontamer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was. And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to Apple. The iPhone actually launched in 2007, the same year in which Apple generated over $24B in revenue and was sitting on $15B in cash at the end of the fiscal year. In 2008, they did $37B in revenue and ended the fiscal year sitting on about $25B in cash. The claim that Apple's financial challenges with launching a smartphone were "expone…

> And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to Apple.

I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article is. And I'm trying to point out how utterly silly the comparison is.

Quote the first paragraph:

> When Nokia people looked at the first iPhone, they saw a not-great phone with some cool features that they were going to build too, being produced at a small fraction of the volumes they were selling. They shrugged. “No 3G, and just look at the camera!”

> When many car company people look at a Tesla, they see a not-great car with some cool features that they’re going to build too, being produced at a small fraction of the volumes they’re selling. “Look at the fit and finish, and the panel gaps, and the tent!”

--------

This comparison is fundamentally insane, and shouldn't be the starting point of any serious discussion.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#106

Post by kbob »

mdeeks wrote: post #71
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 a…

In counterpoint, I've had a Model 3 for two weeks now, and can't operate the touchscreen at all while the car is moving. I can't hit the small buttons at arm's length while the car is bouncing around. The first (and last) time I tried to turn on the fog lights, I turned off the headlights instead.

So my personal rule now is, don't touch the screen while the car is moving.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#107

Post by kbob »

jfoster wrote: post #67

"That is, it’s entirely possible that Waymo, or someone else, gets autonomy to work in 202x with a $1000 or $2000 LIDAR and vision sensor suite and Tesla still doesn’t have it working with vision alone." In this scenario there still may be an upside for Tesla. For Waymo to cover the world in LIDAR-equipped cars will take decades. Tesla already sells cars all over the world. The Tesla car sharing network may scale ext…

Is LIDAR actually better than video? If I understand LIDAR correctly, it gives a 1D array of depth data and is fairly limited in either resolution or speed. Video provides much more data at higher speed, and it seems like it'd be easier to identify objects from 2D color images. Stereo (never mind eight cameras) can be used to derive depth information.

But I'm not a practitioner, so educate me. How does LIDAR beat video?

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#108

Post by brian-armstrong »

jfoster wrote: post #102
SECProto wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Good point. I wonder if that could be detected and compensated for, though?

Absolutely. My brain tells me I'm hot, and my motor system activates to move my arm, which adjusts the climate controls, bringing the temperature back within tolerance. It's pretty sophisticated.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#109

Post by trisomy21 »

dragontamer wrote: post #105
trisomy21 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was. And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to Apple. The iPhone actually launched in 2007, the same year in which Apple generated over $24B in revenue and was sitting on $15B in cash at the end of the fiscal year. In 2008, they did $37B in revenue and ended the fiscal year sitting on about $25B in cash. The claim that Apple's financial challenges with launching a smartphone were "expone…

> And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to Apple. I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article is. And I'm trying to point out how utterly silly the comparison is. Quote the first paragraph: > When Nokia people looked at the first iPhone, they saw a not-great phone with some cool features that they were going to build too, being produced at a small fraction of the volumes they wer…

You said: “The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's.“

I brought attention to this and showed how ridiculous of an assertion it was.

And now you're saying: "I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article is. And I'm trying to point out how utterly silly the comparison is."

The other quotes you've added are all irrelevant. You're all over the place. Give it a rest and come back when you have a properly thought out point to make with some evidence to support it.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#110

Post by slededit »

trisomy21 wrote: post #109
dragontamer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And all that might even be relevant if you weren't comparing Tesla to Apple. I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article is. And I'm trying to point out how utterly silly the comparison is. Quote the first paragraph: > When Nokia people looked at the first iPhone, they saw a not-great phone with some cool features that they were going to build too, being produced at a small fraction of the volumes they wer…

You said: “The political, environmental, and financial headwinds Apple faced during its time to create the iPhone were exponentially more difficult than Tesla's.“ I brought attention to this and showed how ridiculous of an assertion it was. And now you're saying: "I'm not comparing Apple to Tesla. The parent article is. And I'm trying to point out how utterly silly the comparison is." The other quotes you've added ar…

You did say it was ridiculous, but never proved it. Apple may have had money in the bank but selling a luxury product in the middle of a financial crisis was an up hill battle.

Consumer confidence was at all time lows and disposable income saw the biggest drop since the great depression. People were more concerned about whether they'd still have a job and savings rates upticked dramatically while salaries fell.

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