$50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse • Hacker News Board

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#51

Post by briandear » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

jdc wrote: post #39

SEJeff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, they've just massively upgraded the M1s to where they're nothing like the original tanks at all: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/armys-new-tank-here-c... It isn't as though they've been building the same old thing since the 2000s, they've been incrementally and steadily improving them as technology and materials science improves.

I think the point is tanks in general have little use in the vast majority of modern American battles.

However, tanks are strategic weapons as well as tactical ones. Similar to why we have ICBMs but never hope to launch one.

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#52

Post by walrus01 » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

mr_overalls wrote: post #30

ErikAugust wrote: post #9

Wait until they hear about the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of all sorts of stuff sitting idle that has been purchased by the DoD and USG paid for by tax money.

Prime example: the NRO donated two unused spy satellites to NASA, each more powerful than the Hubble Telescope. https://www.space.com/16000-spy-satellites-space-telescopes-...

Those were mirror and optics/satellite body assemblies, not two fully completed unused spy satellites. The electronics, power systems and communications systems were entirely absent.

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#53

Post by briandear » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

blackearl wrote: post #17

bluedino wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've bought "surplus" Dell and HP servers from different government entities that were two generations old, basically brand new in the box. I wonder what % of purchases go unused for whatever reasons.

I've heard you need to use it or lose when it comes to gov budgets. Anecdotes of jets dumping fuel into the ocean just to come back and refill to keep a budget.

Zero based budgeting would be my first policy proposal as President.

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#54

Post by tootie » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #12

> State government documents put the final price tag at $958,600,000 for the property, building construction and equipment. The cost for the equipment alone is close to $300 million. What a staggering number. How does our government get away with wasting so much money without any accountability?

It's hard to follow what's actually happening, but it doesn't seem like it's wasted at all. It's just going slower than expected. The factory is in use and has promised to meet its hiring obligation on time. It sounds like they made a bet on its value and came up a bit short. This sort of thing actually happens pretty frequently and it's fine because we don't have all our eggs in one basket. No different than buying stocks, these investment funds pay for a lot of projects knowing that some will bust and some will do well enough to cover the losses.

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#55

Post by dwnvoted2hell » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #21

ErikAugust wrote: post #9

Wait until they hear about the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of all sorts of stuff sitting idle that has been purchased by the DoD and USG paid for by tax money.

Reminds me how the US continually produces tanks despite the armies recommendations, to the point where we have enough tanks to essentially fight WW3 with purely tanks and still have some left over, just so some congressmen can keep jobs in their constituency. At least that was the situation in the 2000s, no idea if that wackiness is still continuing

If I understand the difficulty with production systems in general, things of high complexity have difficulty being stopped and restarted, because the technology and know how to do them are lost. I believe that's why we can't make another Saturn V rocket at the moment.

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#56

Post by briandear » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

lobotryas wrote: post #44

searine wrote: post #5

This seems like kind of a 'gotcha' article. "One out of every $6 spent on machinery for the Tesla factory is now unused." I'd imagine most healthy large companies operate this way. Utilizing the majority of their equipment and having some reserve capacity in parts and equipment stored.

Absolutely is a hot piece. Look how they went out of their way to mention that Musk is a billionaire (is that even true?). Hating on billionaires - so hot right now.

Hating on billionaires is hot among a certain constituency. They are the 21st century boogeymen.

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#57

Post by tfolbrecht » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:51 PM UTC

atonse wrote: post #38

new_realist wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that Tesla will longer make solar cells in that factory (Panasonic is ending the relationship and withdrawing by September) I’d guess that it will all be unused shortly; this is just what has obviously been relocated so far.

What am I missing here? Is there any reason why another company can't just take over, seeing as they could probably get the equipment at a great discount?

If Panasonic’s leaving I’m assuming it wasn’t that sweet of a deal.

Even if someone else comes in will the state off the same terms? Can this hypothetical company fulfill their side? Is there somewhere greener?

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#58

Post by tomatotomato37 » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

qubex wrote: post #41

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me how the US continually produces tanks despite the armies recommendations, to the point where we have enough tanks to essentially fight WW3 with purely tanks and still have some left over, just so some congressmen can keep jobs in their constituency. At least that was the situation in the 2000s, no idea if that wackiness is still continuing

The production of armaments is a bit of an economic anomaly, to be honest. All businesses, including arms manufacturers, require a constant flow of business in order to cover their fixed costs and remunerate their investors (debt holders and shareholders). If governments only order weapons when they need them to fight a war, then the arms manufacturers would shut form at the end of a conflict and would take ages to “…

It seems like it would be a better use of resources to just build up enough of a stockpile that the industry would be able to safely retool into a similar civilian industry, such as railroad locomotives, and then have time to switch back without a loss of combat capability. You'd just have to keep a small industry around for upgrades and maintenance.

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#59

Post by mindslight » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

ErikAugust wrote: post #9

Wait until they hear about the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of all sorts of stuff sitting idle that has been purchased by the DoD and USG paid for by tax money.

Hardware sitting idle is still more productive than the trillions of dollars being spent to disrupt foreign countries and generate future enemies!

Re: $50M worth of Tesla equipment sits unused in a Wheatfield warehouse

#60

Post by walrus01 » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #21

ErikAugust wrote: post #9

Wait until they hear about the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of all sorts of stuff sitting idle that has been purchased by the DoD and USG paid for by tax money.

Reminds me how the US continually produces tanks despite the armies recommendations, to the point where we have enough tanks to essentially fight WW3 with purely tanks and still have some left over, just so some congressmen can keep jobs in their constituency. At least that was the situation in the 2000s, no idea if that wackiness is still continuing

One of the problems with entirely ceasing production of a category of incredibly complex military system is that the engineering knowledge to build it retires, goes elsewhere or becomes unavailable.

The UK faced a number of problems with their domestic construction of the Astute class nuclear attack submarines, as they had not built a nuclear sub in more than 15 years. The institutional knowledge of how to build such a thing had become scarce or retired.