Tesla is committing automotive suicide • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#421

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:57 AM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #304

godelski wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simple cooling sinks, dense I think you need to go back to physics class. You seem to not even understand the very basics of heat transfer. You need more than "cold". I'll give you a hint, the problem is the same problem as "in space no one can hear you scream." I'll also mention that the moon isn't very cold, except on the dark side. In the moon's day the temperature is 120C and at night -130C. The same side of th…

> You seem to not even understand the very basics of heat transfer. Basic physics: The moon is very cold in surface shadows and below the surface. It is an enormous pre-chilled heat sink. The surface is also the support structure for any scale of radiative cooling with the same heat physics as orbit, but much better for larger and enhanced radiative engineering. For example, heat pumps can centralize waste heat energ…

> Only downsides are ....

Yeah the only downsides are those you listed, and about 1000 others.

Anybody that is serious about data centers on the moon should have their brain examined.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#422

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 5:11 AM UTC

EthanHeilman wrote: post #104

amelius wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that EVs are basically a solved problem. There isn't any technological advantage to be gained, since the technology in an EV is very basic (+) compared to ICE vehicles. So then it comes down to manufacturing, and there China is king. (+) Except for the battery, but that's a very long term battle with very tiny steps.

EVs are a solved problem, but as amelius notes the real tech is the battery. Tesla + Panasonic has a built in advantage in terms of battery manufacturing. Tesla has a massive amount of capital, if they put it into reducing and scaling manufacturing of vehicles and batteries, I think they could probably win. Now maybe Telsa has looked at the numbers and decided they can't win and are choosing to pivot rather than die…

> Tesla + Panasonic has a built in advantage in terms of battery manufacturing. Tesla has a massive amount of capital, if they put it into reducing and scaling manufacturing of vehicles and batteries, I think they could probably win.

This is a very wrong way to tell the story.

Tesla + Panasonic were the first to commit to a massive factor car cells with very advanced chemistry. But this advantage didn't hold long as the model was soon copied.

And at that point, when that investment happened Tesla did actually not have 'a massive amount of capital'. And Panasonic also didn't, and even more so, Panasonic didn't want to go all in on batteries. As they were a company from Japan that still believed in the Hydrogen future.

By the time Tesla had serious capital, the other battery companies had long shot past Tesla+Panasonic and it wasn't even close.

Claiming that Panasonic and Tesla can win now is just silly and based on nothing.

Tesla was actually pretty clever on this and invested rather a large amount in their own battery supply chain. And they spun up a whole battery supply chain pretty quickly. But arguably they were a bit two ambitious. Musk really pushed the boundary with the cells, introducing or trying to introduce a lot of things that were hard to do and simply took time. They should have started more conservatively first and only tried to innovated once they could match the other companies on the standard process.

There was no chance for them to be a massive battery supplier to the outside, but making their own batteries for their own cars and getting better margin then all the other companies was well within the cards. And that by itself is a win.

But overall their battery strategy wasn't really the problem. They did a lot of good things there. And things that can pay off over time. The problem was to much investment in stuff other then batteries and their car models. The most important thing for them was to have growing volume every year. Work on manufacturing improvements and fight on margins.

But as you say, I agree the focus on driverless was a mistake.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#423

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 5:16 AM UTC

alterom wrote: post #162

hinkley wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s boring.

Not in principle, mind you. It's just that the company has stalled every major project they started, and, so far, completed a rather shitty an uninspiring one in Vegas that has no reason to exist in the first place (it's subway but with Teslas instead of trains). Its only purpose is to prevent the money from being spent on viable public transportation projects, and in that sense, it's very interesting that it got so…

Their mistake was to go from tunnels to transportation systems. I'm sure there are some innovations possible in tunnel boring. But that's not going to be some massive growth market.

But trying to reinvent transportation was stupid.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#424

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 5:22 AM UTC

scottyah wrote: post #396

stephen_g wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea isn’t great, tunnels for cars or pods have really low throughput (low occupancy + safety margin headways, even at a high speed). And it hinged on them magically revolutionising an already highly mature field, which surprise, surprise didn’t work out. If it had been possible to speed up and reduce the cost of tunneling, the thing that would most make sense is running regular trains through them. But they neve…

I disagree, tunnels for transport of both people and goods, especially in high-density urban areas is the best way to go. Walking and biking is great for their distance, but cars and trucks are still needed for larger and heavier items. Using shared transportation (like a train) is terrible for "The last mile". Doing everything at night just seems like a band-aid and sucks for all those workers. The idea of trying to…

Here is the thing, you demand incredibly high amounts of capital cost for not actually achieving much. And that capital could be use for far, far, far, far more useful things the city actually needs. Like high capacity transports, like metros, trams or bike lanes.

The amount of goods that need to be transported to stores and such things isn't that big. And using literally free unused roads at night or early in the morning is just a great deal.

For individual transport last mile is regularly being done by cargo bike or small electric truck just fine.

But you are right, tunnels do make sense for some things. Like transporting garbage underground. Or transporting heat underground for district heating, or district cooling. Both would be better investments then trying to move logistics under-ground.

There is a reason, no serious attempt anywhere in the world is trying to move logistics under-ground. There are just so, so many better ways to invest in the city. Its literally not even in the Top 100 most needed things.

Specially in the US where the road network is so hilariously overbuilt that it could serve 10x the amount of people on the same area if public transport was just taken minimally serious. And in the US, underground cargo transport isn't even in the Top 1000 things a city should consider spending money on.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#425

Post by nate_meurer » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 7:24 AM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #222

toephu2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way they are going to make robots at scale in the next 5 years If you said 1 year okay I would believe you. But have you seen the advances in AI recently...? And the work done in robotics by other companies like Google and Figure? 5 years is definitely doable.

AI isn't the only bottleneck - even if the software problem was solved today, a robot arm competitive with human arms simply doesn't exist (and the only ones that have a hope of competing cost $16k each) - it turns out all those degrees of freedom makes the arm super fragile, and the human arm is filled to the brim with sensors (e.g. to figure out the weight of the item you're holding, or to tell when the teatowel is…

I know the Optimus marketing wank is all sci-fi humanoids, but I wonder if the products that actually hit the market will be much simpler, not trying to compete with human arms, as you say. Does that seem likely to you?

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#426

Post by munchler » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:43 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #150

Bipedal robots are dumb. A robot that can only walk around my house is still useless. A robot that can wheel or track or even park in front of my dryer and fold laundry would be incredible. Yet every demo is Robot Jumps And Dances, not Robot Does Something Useful. My theory is that bipedal motion is the "easy" problem, and fine motor control is the hard problem. That makes me bearish on Optimus: A car with questionab…

In my house, the bedrooms are two flights of stairs above the dryer in the basement. Good luck wheeling.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#427

Post by ethbr1 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

SR2Z wrote: post #391

ethbr1 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way in hell I'd buy a car nowadays without at least a weekend rental. There's too many random dumb features. (Hyundai/Kia's coffee break notification?)

Pretty much all the manufacturers have that now. I'm skeptical that it works, but it definitely tackles a real problem with drowsy drivers.

The problem with Kia's implementation is that it can't be turned off.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#428

Post by hinkley » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #424

scottyah wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, tunnels for transport of both people and goods, especially in high-density urban areas is the best way to go. Walking and biking is great for their distance, but cars and trucks are still needed for larger and heavier items. Using shared transportation (like a train) is terrible for "The last mile". Doing everything at night just seems like a band-aid and sucks for all those workers. The idea of trying to…

Here is the thing, you demand incredibly high amounts of capital cost for not actually achieving much. And that capital could be use for far, far, far, far more useful things the city actually needs. Like high capacity transports, like metros, trams or bike lanes. The amount of goods that need to be transported to stores and such things isn't that big. And using literally free unused roads at night or early in the mo…

Metros are in tunnels.

There’s only so much gridlock you can avoid without going above or below grade. I was shocked when I moved to Seattle and they had no subway system. It was made even worse by being crammed up against a tall hill with a ridiculously deep lake behind it. They are finally changing it now but I’d spent time in Tokyo before, and time in London and Paris shortly after and it was a real head scratcher. One bus tunnel helped, as was evidenced when they shut it down for a couple years, but cmon.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#429

Post by hinkley » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:42 PM UTC

gizzlon wrote: post #316

hinkley wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost as if a company would be better off having a CEO who wasn’t also the CEO of four other companies while also dabbling in geopolitics.

and drugs

I think we can all agree that the world would be a better place if Elon made time for his kids instead of whatever the fuck it is he’s been doing.

Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide

#430

Post by alterom » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 9:42 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #428

panick21_ wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the thing, you demand incredibly high amounts of capital cost for not actually achieving much. And that capital could be use for far, far, far, far more useful things the city actually needs. Like high capacity transports, like metros, trams or bike lanes. The amount of goods that need to be transported to stores and such things isn't that big. And using literally free unused roads at night or early in the mo…

Metros are in tunnels. There’s only so much gridlock you can avoid without going above or below grade. I was shocked when I moved to Seattle and they had no subway system. It was made even worse by being crammed up against a tall hill with a ridiculously deep lake behind it. They are finally changing it now but I’d spent time in Tokyo before, and time in London and Paris shortly after and it was a real head scratcher…

Seattle also is a great example of "why tunnels for cars are not tantamount to a public transport network".

As well as all the impediments to the glorious vision of the parent commenter's "tunnels everywhere" as a panacea.