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Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

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Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla’s profit margin is higher than most of automakers. So no, EVs made by traditional automakers are not cheaper. If anything that means Tesla’s cars are more desirable because they can command a premium. Faster? What is that supposed to mean? Tesla is the largest EV maker by volume (not sure if I miss any Chinese ones). Substantial better build quality? Define substantial. Who decide that? Certainly not the consum…

They can easily make a better interior on usability.

Or better QC.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#163
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but no one could argue that Tesla is a Theranos-like operation. Arguments can be made about whether Tesla's valuation is reasonable, but it's certainly a legitimate car manufacturer.

Tesla certainly delivers cars. But there are parts of it that are quite Theranesque, especially the self driving: * Re-sell third party products for a while ("Until our own offering is ready"). If the recently posted self parking video is to be believed, the in-house products are still not on par with the third party predecessors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA * Pre-sell your product years before it's r…

You forgot "engage in lots of dubiously legal union busting"

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#164

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

I have very simple way of figuring if something will succeed ir it is a scam.

If CEO have some experience in the field then it might succeed (workday, salesforce, okta, etc.) If not, then it is probably a scam.

Of course, there are exceptions but these exceptions prove the rule.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#165

Regarding Boom there are only two reasonable conclusions one can reach: 1. They are a Theranos-style operation 2. They are a Madoff-style operation I, a lone aerospace engineer working out of my garage in my spare time, have a better chance of achieving supersonic flight than Boom does. Even their technology demonstrator is an obvious scam. It demonstrates nothing. It does not demonstrate the ability to design, build…

Harsh! I think Boom is trying to be SpaceX. A technology that is definitely possible, but pretty difficult to pull off as a start-up. But saying they are Theranos or Madoff is unfair. If they succeed to make the technology work and then succeed to make it profitable is of course not obvious at this point.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#166
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you are thinking of touchscreens, not necessarily the computerised cars?

No, as soon as we allow average devs (instead of people working on much more limited ECU software) there will be someone insisting they should put node into it, and run some part of the car on some stack that involves 3 gb of js dependencies, and will inevitably only work half the time, outside of their extremely limited testing. Car software will only be reliable as long as it doesn't seem prestigious to write softw…

Furthermore, before they put cell radios in cars, you could count on the software buried deep in your car working in a consistent manner. Now with over-the-air updates, your car can suffer a software regression at any time.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My angle was the "charismatic and overambitious leaders who think that gumption and sticktoitiveness can overcome any problem and who aren't afraid to start lying when they find out that solving science and engineering problems isn't like the scammy adware/SEO/social network they made their first chunk of money on" aspect. Are you talking about SpaceX?

No comment. edit: Ok comment. perhaps spacex is not the best comparison though. SpaceX had tremendous necessity driving it. The need for launch vehicles for commercial, scientific, and military purposes. There is no similar necessity for supersonic commercial aviation. A Boom customer isn't going to watch 14 test failures and say "well we have no other choice we gotta get people from ny to london in 2 hours" but ther…

Not certain about "tremendous necessity driving" SpaceX. At the time few would have bet that SLS and Starliner would become the duds they are. Maybe Atlas and Ariane incrementing without re-usability and costly Starliner would be viewed positively since there wouldn't be an alternative story (unless BO did better).

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the problem was never technological to start with. The problem with supersonic transports was and will always be economic. There's a reason that there were only two SSTs in the 20th century instead of the five or six that were planned, and it's because the bean counters at Boeing, McDonnel-Douglas, and Lockheed-Martin wouldn't let their companies bankrupt themselves over a vanity project. So, you take that and…

To be technical, I'd actually argue there were four. The first Concorde reached production & was later redesigned to include an afterburner (or reheat). Why I forget, but it apparently did actually save some fuel since it was used while accelerating to supersonic then shut off. The Tu-144 went the opposite direction. Introduce with military engines which require full time afterburner. Later it was redesigned and re-e…

Huh? The Concorde was designed with afterburners right from the start. It certainly did not enter service without them.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would not be a credible lie - it is too widely known how very difficult & expensive the technology needed to produce any such engine is.

Theranos' lie wasn't credible to people in the biomedical technology industry. That's why Theranos had to get investors who knew nothing about it. If Boom's lies(or wishful thinking?) were as egregious as Theranos, they never would have gotten their foot in the door at Rolls-Royce.

They had money, those engines seemed technically possible given RRs history and RR delivered tests and whtnot. And Boom paid RR for it.

Theranos could have easily found a medical lab equipment manufacturer to conduct some similar testing and early stage development.

Re: Rolls Royce Ends Boom Supersonic Partnership

#170
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think I remember lot of comments here criticizing Boom being downvoted and flagged. Is Boom part of YC by any chance?

YC '16 https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5Q-on-starting-and-scali...

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