Tesla, software and disruption • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#121

Post by dragontamer » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 2:33 PM UTC

Latteland wrote: post #95

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…

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

"Suffering" ???

Tesla has received $1+ BILLION a year over the past few years from the stock market, and roughly $3.8 Billion from the debt / bond market so far.

A lot of companies would be able to survive if the market magically came up with $2 Billion / year for that company to spend every year.

You might say that its Musk's advantage that he's cultivated the cult of personality. And you'd be correct about that. But I wouldn't call Tesla's financial situation to be "suffering", not by a long shot.

The correct description is "wasted". Musk WASTED the tons, and tons, and tons of money he received from investors. He's not cash flow positive, even after all of these billions of dollars have come in.

$0.813 Billion in 2013: https://www.thestreet.com/story/11924981/1/elon-musk-invests...

$2 Billion in 2014: https://www.ft.com/content/2f2387a0-a00a-11e3-9c65-00144feab...

$0.738 Billion in 2015: http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/tesla-stock-sale-cash/

$1.45 Billion in 2016: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/20/tesla-raises-146b-in-stock-s...

$262 Million Stocks + $850 Million Bonds in 2017: https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-market-thinks-about-t...

------------

Etc. Etc. The financial markets have been very, very kind to Tesla. Any failures on Tesla is 100% Musk's fault at this point. No other company raises billions of dollars every year under normal situations (where "normal" is defined as, any period outside of the 2011 to 2018 bull-run of the current market)

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#122

Post by secfirstmd » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 5:02 PM 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…

Anyone else wonder if Tesla is going to overcome this lack of touch issue by introducting voice controls?

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#123

Post by 3pt14159 » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 7:10 PM 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…

Voice control still sucks hard. And I'm a Canadian born English speaker with deep knowledge of ML trying to predict what queries will be simple enough for Siri to understand. Sometimes Siri will understand the query; but just say:

> I understand you, but I can't do that task. Sorry.

Nothing is more frustrating than a computer telling you it understands what you want it to do, and that want you want to do is reasonable / authorized, but refusing to do it anyway.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#124

Post by Fins » Mon, Sep 03, 2018, 5:16 AM UTC

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?

My (2011) car manual claims that there is a sun sensor that is used to control climate system, so I would assume that yes, it can.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#125

Post by Latteland » Mon, Sep 03, 2018, 5:48 PM UTC

sparkzilla wrote: post #119

Latteland wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tesla has no monopoly on charging stations, which are popping up everywhere. In the UK, for example: https://www.zap-map.com/live/

Agreed, they just staked out a lot of the good spots way ahead of the other companies. Tesla needs some pressure from other companies at least trying to compete. That requires a high power charging network, dealer interest in selling, good cars, and enough to sell. Up to now the competitors are mostly 0/4, although the bolt seems good, as is the i-pace. The i3 was a wasted opportunity (tiny gas tank, too small a battery). Let's see if the next gen is any good, and if they can built enough charging stations to matter. Europe seems way ahead of the us on high power charging (except for tesla).

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#126

Post by pbreit » Thu, Sep 06, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

Latteland wrote: post #93

pbreit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Zero.

Re: Tesla, software and disruption

#127

Post by _ea1k » Mon, Sep 10, 2018, 10:43 PM UTC

sparkzilla wrote: post #119

Latteland wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tesla has no monopoly on charging stations, which are popping up everywhere. In the UK, for example: https://www.zap-map.com/live/

Yeah, Tesla's lead is much smaller in Europe, IMO. In the US, going long distances with most EVs is really impractical. The Tesla can go almost anywhere, though.