Master Plan, Part Deux • Hacker News Board

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#471

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 10:58 AM UTC

Can we talk about what I see as the most important driving force behind acceptance of full or partial electrification of transportation? Heavy duty and transport. Specifically I think Tesla would be best off getting school buses to full EV or even partial EV capability.

Using a Cobb County Georgia as an example, stats posted awhile ago listed over a thousand school buses traveling almost seventy thousand miles a day. Seventy thousand miles a day! Since the buses have to load/unload at schools and such its easy to establish charging points to include fast top offs where five or six minutes of charging can extend enough to the next time. Then between major routes, elementary, middle, and high school, longer charge periods can be done.

Get kids and parents used to silent electric buses and you go a long way to establishing a generation on them. Get autopilot to work well in that environment and you get to sell them on two innovations at once

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#472

Post by joe563323 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 10:59 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

Also burns more carbon. Does not make cars any cheaper. No good for a poor man.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#473

Post by makomk » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 10:59 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #423

tdy721 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon was never a profit machine. I do think that's part of the core business, re-invest everything and more... and they turned into a giant comparable to Walmart.

And so it is for Tesla. And SpaceX. Those companies are means to an end, not profit-generating machines.

It's not really the same thing. Amazon don't turn a profit because they intentionally re-invest they money they would make into areas that they think will make them money in future. (Once or twice they've screwed this up and accidentally ended up making a profit.) Tesla don't turn a profit because they're making and selling cars at prices below their total costs.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#474

Post by restalis » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:02 AM UTC

Hey, Musk, small nitpick: I think when you say „inertial impedance” you're actually referring to „mechanical impedance”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_impedance

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#475

Post by makomk » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:04 AM UTC

carterehsmith wrote: post #392

Joof wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it a logical fallacy that a premium car takes longer to build because it is premium.

The premium car will have lot more parts, like 26-speaker sound system etc, additional soundproofing, double-pane glass, heated _and_cooled seats etc. That takes work to install. Next, the QA on a premium car has to me more stringent, simply because the expectations are higher. So I can't imagine luxury car not taking more time to make than a budget car.

By all accounts, Tesla neither have particularly stringent QA nor a premium car level of interior.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#476

Post by furyg3 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:06 AM UTC

pfranz wrote: post #258

pdq wrote: post #139

I still don't understand the SolarCity part. Tesla is atop the best rated electric cars, and has a good trajectory toward that product line future, with lots of innovation ahead. Successful companies like Apple focus on best-in-class products, so Tesla is smart to continue focusing their resources into those product lines. Meanwhile SolarCity has been burning cash on a consistent basis [1], and is sitting in a hyper…

I thought SolarCity's competitive advantage was solar leasing [1]. Which would mean they're sacrificing upfront profits for longer term gains and any dollar spent now would very likely mean profits in the future. I haven't paid enough attention to see how well that's going. Oh, and I've heard Tesla described as "a battery company that makes cars." Solar is also tightly coupled with battery tech since without it they'…

Solar leasing is not going to be profitable, very soon.

Solar panels (+ installation) is now pretty cheap and getting cheaper. Subsidies are being removed, financing is available. It's becoming a no-brainer. So they're winning there, but this creates a problem. When a significant portion of homes have solar panels, the power companies can no longer act as a free-ish battery for day/night or summer/winter. They will have to massively adjust their pricing... charging solar homes for storage, paying them a crap daily rate, and charging higher rates a night and in the winter. Regulators will be forced to let them do this because otherwise they will go bankrupt.

This screws with the solar leasing model. Tesla makes big batteries that happen to have wheels on them, which gives a lot of room to innovate here. They can smooth out the day/night cycle; car/home owners can profit from the low energy price instead of be punished by it (especially if you're uber-ing out your car); used car batteries that aren't ideal for continued usage in cars (say 70% capacity or slower charge/discharge rates) are fine for power smoothing in your basement, etc.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#477

Post by craigcabrey » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:08 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #473

TeMPOraL wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so it is for Tesla. And SpaceX. Those companies are means to an end, not profit-generating machines.

It's not really the same thing. Amazon don't turn a profit because they intentionally re-invest they money they would make into areas that they think will make them money in future. (Once or twice they've screwed this up and accidentally ended up making a profit.) Tesla don't turn a profit because they're making and selling cars at prices below their total costs.

Care to provide a source to back up that claim?

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#478

Post by shasheene » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:13 AM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #456

shasheene wrote: post #452

Hopefully Tesla will be able to achieve this new plan. Looking back at the first 'master plan' from 2006, it's clear that it failed pretty badly as Tesla Motors wasn't close to being able to self fund its goals over that time. Since the first master plan was published in 2006, Tesla Motors has raised money privately (during its near death experience in 2008), sold a 10% stake to Daimler (which was recently divested),…

Was self funding ever part of the plan? One can take it for granted that the company has to survive economically for the plan to work, but besides that why say the plan must be funded in a particular way?

Yes, self-funding was a definitely the core part of the plan. Here's the original "master plan" text from 2006 [1]

  Build sports car
  Use that money to build an affordable car
  Use *that* money to build an even more affordable car
  While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options
  Don't tell anyone.

I think the term "that money" ('that' is italicized in the original) is pretty clear he means funding from the profits of the prior models. (Elon Musk has definitely articulated the funding thing in interviews.)

Also, the summary Elon Musk has just posted continues using the same italicized emphasis:

  Create a low volume car, which would necessarily be expensive
  Use that money to develop a medium volume car at a lower price
  Use *that* money to create an affordable, high volume car

[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-j...

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#479

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:18 AM UTC

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…

While the fact that hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved annually, worldwide, due to self-driving vehicles is more than enough to justify hurrying toward that goal, self driving technology will have enormous secondary effects, only some of which can be reliably predicted.

Your concern about sprawl could come true, or vehicles could switch largely to on-demand access, where urbanization will provide the critical mass for on-demand vehicle use, making the exurbs relatively more expensive.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#480

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:22 AM UTC

seanp2k2 wrote: post #155

JeffL wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When vehicles don't crash, they don't have to be crashworthy, and don't have to weigh two tons. That, in turn will cut particulate emissions from brakes and tires, and cut the environmental impact of manufacturing inputs.