361–370 of 408 posts
but although there's "ballistic" grade alumimium, titanium that's usually found in "military" applications, and the steel "spear" braced in asphalt test, will it survive assault rifle fire? or anti-tank weapons? how about a tactical nuclear strike? i mean, is it really safe?
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Well, not to other people, no. "Benevolent" would be the last word I'd choose to describe him. But I believe Jobs was "benevolent" to the product itself.
Yup. Benevolent in this case has nothing to do with the person's personal treatment of others, and everything to do with the person being willing to serve the company/state rather than herself. The conventional dictators in failed states simply extract as much value as they can, at the expense of everyone else. A benevolent dictator uses her power to advance the cause. The way she does it might be suspect, even uneth…
Jobs made billions. Your sentence is subsequently nonsense.
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> This is what you get when a company/group/effort/community is lead by a "benevolent dictator" - someone with an absolutely pure vision of what they want their output to look like and the autonomy and strength to make it so no matter what. Good explanation of Steve Jobs as well IMO
Also a good explanation of Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew
Capitalism without democracy is what we want!!! /s
This is what you get when a company/group/effort/community is lead by a "benevolent dictator" - someone with an absolutely pure vision of what they want their output to look like and the autonomy and strength to make it so no matter what. I love this... I actually love that it probably pissed off Musk to no end the amount of attention the fires got and out of spite he went totally over the top and added ballistic pla…
I don't know if that's the case. Perhaps Musk is enabling the media by specifically stating that these reinforcements are for preventing fires. I actually would go so far as to say that a good CEO would not do something like this because it lends credence to the media's claims about the fires - that the fires are an issue that need to be fixed, rather than some rare occurrence that would probably be worse in any othe…
But on that note, I would say it's good PR in light of what's going on with GM. The current story in the media isn't so much the issues with GM's vehicles, but the company's negligence in not owning up to the problems.
So, Tesla is simply getting out in front and contrasting themselves with that story. There is virtually no risk that it will be seen as an admission, and every chance that it will play as a glaring positive differentiation.
BTW, the timing nods to this play. Rumors of fire issues and actual fires have haunted Musk for years now. He usually comes out defensive. But, suddenly, with GM's woes, he is taking these over the top measures. So, not sure that he was so much a visionary in this, as much as a fast learner.
This is what you get when a company/group/effort/community is lead by a "benevolent dictator" - someone with an absolutely pure vision of what they want their output to look like and the autonomy and strength to make it so no matter what. I love this... I actually love that it probably pissed off Musk to no end the amount of attention the fires got and out of spite he went totally over the top and added ballistic pla…
Of course, because around here we're taught that executives from the Valley are smart, and everyone else are clueless "MBAs".
First, realize that it's a lot easier for Tesla to undertake changes like this, not because they are oh-so-awesome, but because they are operating on a scale a magnitude (or two) smaller than bigger auto companies.
Second, the larger companies do react to such problems, a specific case being the "exploding gas tanks" in the Crown Victoria's. If memory serves me correctly, in the early aughts it was discovered that Ford Crown Vic (and the same-model Mercury Grand Marquis') were exploding due to rear impact collisions. The problem was severely overblown in the media, and the reality was that the significant uptick in real-impact explosions of these models was due to the fact that these were cars used by police around the globe, and hence had a higher probability of being parked on the side of the road and, hence, a higher probability of being impacted from behind at high speed and sometimes exploding due to the gas tank being ruptured.
So, like Tesla, Ford tried to explain, "Look, if you take any car and park it on the side of the road and it gets slammed into, from behind, at high speed, it has a chance of exploding. These cars are parked on the road more often than other cars as emergency service vehicles".
But, nobody wanted to hear that (which I agree with), so Ford set about solving the problem through engineering. They ended up developing some sort of impact resistant gas tank bladder. Case closed.
So, TL;DR: try not to compare the issues that Tesla faces to those of much (much) larger companies. Tesla is not magical.
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I don't know if that's the case. Perhaps Musk is enabling the media by specifically stating that these reinforcements are for preventing fires. I actually would go so far as to say that a good CEO would not do something like this because it lends credence to the media's claims about the fires - that the fires are an issue that need to be fixed, rather than some rare occurrence that would probably be worse in any othe…
I don't know if I'd go as effusive as the grandparent in my praise for Musk here. It's just PR. But on that note, I would say it's good PR in light of what's going on with GM. The current story in the media isn't so much the issues with GM's vehicles, but the company's negligence in not owning up to the problems. So, Tesla is simply getting out in front and contrasting themselves with that story. There is virtually n…
That is not just PR. That is damned amazing engineering. That's the kind of description you get out of an episode of Knight Rider, not something in real life.
That's clearly evidence that these cars are designed and built to an amazing level.
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I don't know if that's the case. Perhaps Musk is enabling the media by specifically stating that these reinforcements are for preventing fires. I actually would go so far as to say that a good CEO would not do something like this because it lends credence to the media's claims about the fires - that the fires are an issue that need to be fixed, rather than some rare occurrence that would probably be worse in any othe…
I don't know if I'd go as effusive as the grandparent in my praise for Musk here. It's just PR. But on that note, I would say it's good PR in light of what's going on with GM. The current story in the media isn't so much the issues with GM's vehicles, but the company's negligence in not owning up to the problems. So, Tesla is simply getting out in front and contrasting themselves with that story. There is virtually n…
There are no sudden movements in industry. That shield is probably being developed since the fires happened.
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Look what they did to Toyota over the Sudden Unrequested Acceleration that never was. $1.6bn fine! EDIT: By they I mean the Media. I guess I should add some substance. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/nesc-toyota-stu... NASA's Toyota Study Released by Dept. of Transportation 02.08.11 WASHINGTON -- The results of a ten-month study by 30 NASA engineers of possible electronic causes of unintended acceleratio…
I don't know what to believe about this. Wasn't it just all over the news that an embedded software engineer found all sorts of code quality problems with Toyota and could even demonstrate unintended acceleration via various bugs?
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I don't know if I'd go as effusive as the grandparent in my praise for Musk here. It's just PR. But on that note, I would say it's good PR in light of what's going on with GM. The current story in the media isn't so much the issues with GM's vehicles, but the company's negligence in not owning up to the problems. So, Tesla is simply getting out in front and contrasting themselves with that story. There is virtually n…
> We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wal…
Well, yeah, it's exactly that: a description, and a fantastic one at that. It makes no guarantees or even assertions about the efficacy of the changes. Instead, it plays up this explosive scenario, then concludes that they hope the changes will help prevent fires.
And, there's a reason it's not written in technical, engineering jargon with test results, etc. Instead, it reads like a Hollywood screenplay. Judging from your comparison to Knight Rider, it appears to be working.
>That is damned amazing engineering
So, I mean what engineering are you hailing as amazing here, with regard to the new announcement that was gushed over higher up in the thread? The part you quoted just briefly references bolting some plates on the undercarriage amidst a lot of hyperbolic crash talk from the pre-plates days.
Sure, there can be great engineering alongside good PR. The auto itself without the newly announced iron man suit is an impressive piece of engineering.
I'm simply saying that I wouldn't gush over the new announcement. The guy walking away without injuries was pre-crash plates and we have no evidence that the plates will actually help or to what extent. Just sensational, cool-sounding descriptions. There are a lot of things for which Musk deserves credit as a visionary, but this bit of PR could have just as easily been the brainchild of a relatively astute PR staffer talking to an engineer over lunch.
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That's entirely fair. I didn't look at it that way. What do we consider affordable? I haven't had the time to do this, but you could take US Census data (average/median income per zip code), derive a formula for percentrage of income someone can spend on transportation, and thereby determine what affordable is. A Model S is definitely a luxury item at this time; on the other hand, if it was self-driving, and could ro…
That is actually what Elon Musk has explicitly said: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-p... "1. Build sports car 2. Use that money to build an affordable car 3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car"