Master Plan, Part Deux • Hacker News Board

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#151

Post by pm90 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:41 AM UTC

JeffL wrote: post #30

jonny_eh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's been likely working on self-driving cars, potentially in partnership with Google. What Tesla has as an advantage though, is an assembly line to produce lots of quality cars. In other words, Tesla will likely be ready for the future of transportation before Uber.

But with Tesla's open policies, such as open sourcing all their patents, maybe they will happily supply Uber with all the self driving cars Uber might want, plus the API's to remotely control them?

I'm sure they would be more than willing to supply Uber with cars but how much access/control they give to Uber of the data from the cars remains to be seen.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#152

Post by maxander » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:42 AM UTC

Elon Musk is like the cat who tried to jump from the sofa to the top of the bookcase, fell to the floor in a tangle of wildly gyrating limbs, and is now sitting there quietly licking its paw like it was intending to do that all along. Even with his brilliance he's fooling no one into thinking the SolarCity merger was actually in his plan- there are some synergies, sure, but they're easily outweighed by the added corporate complexity.

But I mean, he's Elon Musk. He could still pull it off.

His biggest problem by far (excepting, perhaps, Model 3 production targets) will be regulations. It makes a nice story when you talk about the relative risks rationally, but there's no chance whatsoever American politics will deal with the issue in a rational fashion. Autopilot may retroactively become illegal in places people currently get away with it; cars driving themselves around is a different and titanic can of worms. What if a terrorist gets their hands on a Tesla and stuffs it full of explosives?

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#153

Post by Axsuul » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:42 AM UTC

soheil wrote: post #148

I'm wondering what the effect of this plan will be on Uber.

It would seem Tesla's ride sharing service is more about getting more of the public into a Tesla with a side effect of selling more cars. Electric vehicles aren't essential to autonomous ride sharing--market share and technology are. Uber's app is already installed in orders of magnitude more phones than Tesla right now.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#154

Post by rukittenme » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:43 AM UTC

> Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it

Gives "pimp my ride" a whole new meaning.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#155

Post by seanp2k2 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:43 AM UTC

JeffL wrote: post #41

thucydides wrote: post #23

> "When used correctly, [partially autonomous driving] is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves" If you're an American, you're twice as likely to die with a steering wheel in your hands as you are to die at the hands of a murderer. Human-driven vehicle deaths cause grave second-order suffering for families and friends - and hurt the economy. A shift to technologies safer than human-driven ca…

Maybe that would be a good thing? Without need for parking, commercial districts could get denser and denser, and people could have nice large homes far away for cheaper than ever. If the cars aren't causing pollution or gridlock, what's so bad about living in the suburbs?

Electric cars cause pollution; they run on mostly coal or natural gas and have very toxic-to-mine, manufacture, and dispose-of batteries. They also emit just as much particulate emissions as normal cars: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/electric-car-particulate-m...

The way to "save the planet" is to not drive. Driving a 5000# vehicle around thinking you're doing good for the environment is just the marketing genius of the car industry in 2016.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#156

Post by mshenfield » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:45 AM UTC

Less of a master plan, and more a list of goals. The original was awesome because it clearly laid what Tesla wanted to accomplish "Consumer electric vehicles" and how. This just lays out the what.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#157

Post by frankchn » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:47 AM UTC

Vik1ng wrote: post #80

mrfusion wrote: post #22

I didn't understand what enables them to get rid of aisles inside buses? People still need to reach their seats right?

Also sounds like it's written by someone who has never used public transport his entire life. In my bus in the morning 70% of the passengers are standing not sitting.

Yeah, higher densities on public transports can be achieved by standing rather than sitting. For instance, BART has been testing removing seats to fit more people into each train carriage [1].

[1]: http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/02/04/bart-tests-new-seat-layo...

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#158

Post by pm90 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:47 AM UTC

clintonb wrote: post #116

bane wrote: post #108

I'm always surprised when we get insight into Musk's plan, not because they're complicated but because they always come across as "no duh, why aren't we already doing these things? weren't we already on track to do these things decades ago?" As much as the Internet transformed society, I also can't help but feel like we were on the track to have achieved these things and got distracted by our global communications an…

Tesla and SpaceX required a lot of startup capital (relative to most other technology startups). Yes, their ideas are simple, but few people have the capital to implement those ideas. Additionally, the existing players in the rocket market didn't have much incentive to innovate given how few players there were. Your guess is as good as mine on why the automobile industry didn't continue much EV research after the 90s…

Its the same reason why Kodak invented the first digital camera and didn't put it in the market. We see the same pattern over and over again and if you work at any of these huge corporations, you understand that the main duty of the executives is to protect their profit centers at all costs. Any product that is capable of cannibalizing on the profit centers will face a tough road to success and at the worst, get culled early.

Then a startup comes along, reinvents or polishes that product and is very successful. Eventually it turns into a BigCo. And the cycle repeats.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#159

Post by dpcx » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:48 AM UTC

rjdagost wrote: post #132

danhak wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ford can have fewer employees per car because they're at full scale, they've outsourced nearly all their engineering and have outsourced their sales as well via an antiquated dealer model. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf15nMnayXk

Say what you will about their "antiquated" business practices, but Ford consistently does one thing that Tesla never does: it turns a profit

You know why Ford turns a profit? Because they've gotten those economies of scale. If/when Tesla does, I'm sure they'll make a profit, too.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#160

Post by joshdickson » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:49 AM UTC

hackguru wrote: post #56

I am in no position to question EM. But I was hoping he would give some good explanation for spending resources on SolarCity acquisition but nothing. Nothing in this master plan explains why SolarCity was bought other than some hand wavy explanation about inherent difficulties of two separate companies working together. It still doesn't seem like a good purchase for Tesla specially at the moment. Solar car and SolarC…

> Nothing in this master plan explains why SolarCity was bought

Do note that it was only a proposal and nothing has been accepted yet with the deal, so it's an offer only - in fact, if you look at SolarCity's stock price, it's weighted toward investors believing that the deal does not happen.