Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

kxan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 691 posts

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#611

Post by bravetraveler »

minhazm wrote: post #293
scoofy wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, to be fair, 78725 is effectively the middle of nowhere in Austin. It makes sense if Musk's goal was to choose a fairly undeveloped exurb, but the gigafactory is as close to Manor and Webberville as it is to central Austin. I know Fremont is suburban, but it's a well incorporated suburb to both SF, Oakland and San Jose. 78725 is on the opposite side of Austin from most of the fancy neighborhoods.

Google maps says downtown Austin to Giga Texas is 17 miles, 24 minutes. I don't know what traffic is like in Austin but I imagine it's not nearly as bad as the bay area. I think a 25-30 min commute is pretty reasonable and most people would happily take that for much cheaper housing. The big difference is that in Austin you have the option to commute a bit for much cheaper housing. But in the bay area you could be co…

If you ever do come visit Austin, learn to love I-35.

It's a weird mix of nascar and bumper cars, but also rolling parking lot.

Edit: It's the main way you'll go North/South here. Often times I'll double the commute taking side streets just to avoid 35 - depends on the day/time/personal interest in sport driving.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#612

Post by JPKab »

etchalon wrote: post #141
Apocryphon wrote: post #56

The official reason is because of housing: "To be clear we will be continuing to expand our activities in California," Musk said. "Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50%. If you go to our Fremont factory it's jammed." But, he added, "It's tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away....There's a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area." https://ww…

As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.

I'm not trying to say that Austin isn't expensive because of course it is.

I'll simply state that I would never consider working for Tesla before, but now I would be open to it.

Travis County is pricey but it isn't too long of a drive to get to pretty cheap real estate.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#613

Post by JPKab »

scoofy wrote: post #307
minhazm wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google maps says downtown Austin to Giga Texas is 17 miles, 24 minutes. I don't know what traffic is like in Austin but I imagine it's not nearly as bad as the bay area. I think a 25-30 min commute is pretty reasonable and most people would happily take that for much cheaper housing. The big difference is that in Austin you have the option to commute a bit for much cheaper housing. But in the bay area you could be co…

Traffic in Austin is insane. Legit insane. Definitely comparable to the Bay Area if not worse. And there is absolutely no transit alternative comparable to BART. There is a morning and evening train, but it's really only effective if you live and work exactly on the stops.

Based on my experience dealing with offices of software engineers versus actual corporate HQs for companies that aren't purely software, it really won't matter.

Employees at corporate HQ's tend to want to have houses in the burbs. They tend to be in there 30s and up as well. There is no shortage of suburban real estate in the vicinity of the gigafactory. A minority of employees will live in downtown Austin and hate their life due to the horrific commute out of there.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#614

Post by vesuvianvenus »

scoofy wrote: post #466
t-writescode wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/worst-traffic-cities-americ... According to this, Austin Texas is #10 on this chart. #1, LA #2, NYC #3, San Fran #4, San Jose (near San Fran) #5, Seattle #6, Miami #7, DC #8, Chicago #9, Honolulu #10, Austin *two* of the top 5 worst traffic areas in the US are in the Greater San Francisco area.

Again... LA has a surprisingly extensive subway system. NYC, SF, Miami, DC, and Chicago all have robust public transit. Even San Jose and Seattle have non-negligible transit alternatives. Austin has essentially nothing, the train they built is legitimately the dumbest, cheapest option that was offered at the time, though they are building dense housing along it now. People often choose which side of the river to live…

North-South traffic in Austin is the big problem. Because Austin stretches from North to South-- from the suburb of Kyle in the South, or the suburb of Georgetown to the North.

East-West commuting is much easier. The wise strategy is to live East/West of town, not North/South.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#616

Post by tzm »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #15
tzm wrote: post #2

Yet, Tesla will still have to ship Texas cars out of state to sell to Texans.

Symbolic move with some logistic practicality with Boca Chica and his 400 sq ft tiny house [1] being home base at Starbase. All signs point to Tesla continuing manufacturing at Fremont and they just opened a Megapack manufacturing facility in Lathrop, CA (hiring 1k-2k workers) [2]. The irony that "pro business, less regulation" Texas doesn't allow direct to consumer sales of Teslas. [1] https://www.architecturaldiges…

They're def keeping and growing Fremont (> 50%). I walked the floor last week.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#617

Post by snypher »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #615

It would be interesting if these huge companies started funding the creation of new cities in Nebraska or something. Somewhere with tons of land, centrally located, they could fund some amazingly large airports to get anywhere…

What could go wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#618

Post by valparaiso »

tshaddox wrote: post #343
pmorici wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder if it had anything to do with this… https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/14462517624...

A childish Twitter exchange from May 2020? I doubt it.

People vote for such leftists who are corrupt and sponsored by Oil companies, like in this particular example.

Proposition 47, taxes on whites for reparations and so on - Commifornia gets what it should - people are leaving.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#619

Post by jen20 »

minhazm wrote: post #293
scoofy wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, to be fair, 78725 is effectively the middle of nowhere in Austin. It makes sense if Musk's goal was to choose a fairly undeveloped exurb, but the gigafactory is as close to Manor and Webberville as it is to central Austin. I know Fremont is suburban, but it's a well incorporated suburb to both SF, Oakland and San Jose. 78725 is on the opposite side of Austin from most of the fancy neighborhoods.

Google maps says downtown Austin to Giga Texas is 17 miles, 24 minutes. I don't know what traffic is like in Austin but I imagine it's not nearly as bad as the bay area. I think a 25-30 min commute is pretty reasonable and most people would happily take that for much cheaper housing. The big difference is that in Austin you have the option to commute a bit for much cheaper housing. But in the bay area you could be co…

> 17 miles, 24 minutes

This is genuinely hilarious. Perhaps this is true at midnight, or during the early days of the pandemic. 17 miles in Austin is well over an hour at peak commuting times.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#620

Post by foxyv »

etchalon wrote: post #141
Apocryphon wrote: post #56

The official reason is because of housing: "To be clear we will be continuing to expand our activities in California," Musk said. "Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50%. If you go to our Fremont factory it's jammed." But, he added, "It's tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away....There's a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area." https://ww…

As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.

The area they are building in is the outskirts of Austin where an unimproved 1/3 acre will go for less than $100k. With current building costs, a house that would cost $2 million in California, would cost less that $400k in this area of central Texas.

In addition, a large part of Texas is privately owned and counties are much more relaxed about land use. This means high land availability for new housing. This will reduce the price increases from demand increases.

Post reply on HN