Master Plan, Part Deux • Hacker News Board

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#661

Post by int_19h » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:25 AM UTC

Tiktaalik wrote: post #656

int_19h wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious about your "have a negative impact on health" approach. The density of a typical city is orders of magnitude greater than anything that our ancestors have seen in nature; and, historically, cities have been a breeding ground for all kinds of diseases (because sanitation is harder and spreading is easier). Can you clarify what exactly you meant? I'm not sure that higher pollution is innate in lower densiti…

Walking is good for your health. It's basically impossible to walk anywhere in the suburbs. Many don't even have sidewalks. In a car oriented suburb where you have to drive to literally every location you have to try extra hard to get even a basic level of exercise.

Again, you're pointing out issues that are about a specific implementation of low-density living, and not inherent to the concept itself. Why can't we have suburbs with sidewalks, for example?

FWIW, the suburb where I live is on the edge of a wilderness area. There are several great walking, cycling and hiking trails within a 2 mile radius. Some of those are fairly steep, too, so even one mile provides a good workout. I find that I engage in these activities far more often than what I lived in a large city, and had to drive for quite a bit before getting anywhere bigger than a tiny block-sized park.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#662

Post by ejz » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:41 AM UTC

This isn't really that interesting. There's nothing here that hasn't been said already or at least very strongly suggested by Musk. The last master plan was interesting because no one had ever really made a successful electric car company, so no one imagined it could be anything but a rich person's toy, so Musk's claim that he could make a desirable mass production car was a huge shock.

It's also very sloppy; it's not an actual plan, with goals and steps that logically follow each other. The last master plan had a clear logic to it: you used the margin of each successive step to fund research and development further down in order to increase the use of electric cars and limit global warming. This is more like a wish list than a plan. "We want to make semis." "It'd be great if we also provided the solar part of the stack because it dovetails with this other initiative we're doing." "Once we have solar, we can do this new thing." Etc, etc. Unlike the first master plan, I can't gauge how long any of this will take or whether it is feasible. I can't gauge what the actual strategy is any better than I could yesterday. And isn't that the point of a Master Plan?

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#663

Post by andys627 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:49 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #407

andys627 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proven technology around since the beginning of time - walking. The rest of the world love it. We should give it a try.

Is that why the streets are empty and you can always find a parking space in London? How about downtown Shanghai? Or Rome? Or the suburbs of Guadalajara? This qualifies as some of the rest of the world and all of the places mentioned are traffic nightmares. It must be all of the walkers clogging up the roads. As far as the rest of the world loving it, that's ridiculous. The mom in rural Kenya walking miles each day f…

Yes there are bad things too. I contend the bad things about car societies are worse. Not everyone can afford to not live in walking distance... we probably can't even afford it.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#664

Post by PinguTS » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:20 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #627

PinguTS wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first that seems right. But there is a big BUT. Even Tesla has outsourced a lot of components. A lot of the components except the drivetrain is being outsourced. There are only 2 manufacturers for airbags in the world. There is only 1 good quality manufacturer in the world for the in car rearview mirror. There is only 1 manufacturer for the Homelink system with its best features developed by an Audi engineer I per…

> There is only 1 good quality manufacturer in the world for the in car rearview mirror Why is that? That seems insane.

Patents, as I was told.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#665

Post by hueving » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:28 AM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #74

serge2k wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's almost as if he's delivered on everything he promised hasn't Tesla repeatedly missed price points and delivery dates. Or are those not promises. I actually think most of what he is talking about is pretty doable. The ones I'm skeptical of are his talk about the massive factory improvements (in a few years too?) and the magic buses with no aisles or entrances. By what measure are Tesla and SpaceX the "two most…

I'm actually curious about the bus, too. Sounds weird. But I trust his judgement, I'm sure it'll be great. He has a track record, you know. Regarding missed promises, if you're saying that as if to suggest that what he's promised isn't nonetheless coming true at a pace faster than anyone else could have possibly delivered, I think you're wearing blinders. Regarding "most difficult".......are you aware of other compan…

>Regarding missed promises, if you're saying that as if to suggest that what he's promised isn't nonetheless coming true

So you're saying that, if I promise you I'll give you a thousand dollars in a week but then I give it to you in two years, I haven't broken a promise?

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#666

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:42 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #644

vonmoltke wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement you linked clearly shows a gross profit and net loss. "Selling, general and administrative" is not a cost of revenue, hence why it does not count against the gross profit. These are fixed costs not tied to the sales volume that covers the basic operation of the company, advertising, executive compensation, and other overhead costs not directly tied to generating revenue or R&D (since it is a separate li…

I'm combating the "aggressive expansion" meme that people don't understand. Tesla could stop ALL R&D they're doing and they will still be an unprofitable company.

[deleted]

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#667

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:59 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#668

Post by tikl1 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:06 AM UTC

rsync wrote: post #583

tikl1 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are the very definition of imperfection and thinking that you are capable of "correctly using a car" that is, never make the mistake that will cause a terrible accident is a big problem. It's probably why so much people keep resisting evolution like autopilot, they can't admit that even them can someday fail and crash. They believe that if they are good drivers they will avoid it. Sadly very good drivers die e…

"Humans are the very definition of imperfection and thinking that you are capable of "correctly using a car" that is, never make the mistake that will cause a terrible accident is a big problem." A human, with proper training and heuristics, can reasonably be expected to never make a mistake that causes a terrible accident. Unfortunately, a large part of "proper training" involves being driven around as a passenger f…

Wow! That's exactly what I said earlier, you are convinced that a good driver (one with proper training or whatever heuristics are) will be able to avoid those crashes.

And in my opinion the only reason that can make you believe that is that there is, fortunately, few enough car crashes that you think those who had never crashed avoided it because of their skills.

Of course skills and training will allow you to behave well in a lots of situations that could have killed you otherwise but my conviction is that if you go through life without a big accident, a huge part of it is due to luck. Luck that you didn't encounter the situation in which training and skills couldn't have saved you.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#669

Post by tikl1 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:17 AM UTC

restalis wrote: post #574

tikl1 wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can say it would be infuriating to be unable to take risks to save let's say your wife dying in the car but you can't argue that it's a GOOD thing to take those risks... who are you to decide that it is worth risking others lives to try to save one ?

"you can't argue that it's a GOOD thing to take those risks... who are you to decide that it is worth risking others lives to try to save one ?" That's exactly what I argue about. In a rare (but very important) occasion where risk taking would be needed, you're forcing the moral dilemma of an even rarer occurrence with a presumed victim. We don't know if it would come to that. For all I care there might be only some…

I understand you and again it will be something to have in mind during design of said cars but I don't think this will be a huge problem.

Even if the problem exists in the early days, I'm pretty sure this is the kind of things that can be dealt with easily later. Those car are already capable of evaluating dangerous situations for others and I don't think that's unreasonable to believe that they will adapt their comportment to conditions and even in some special cases allow for risks taking if it only concerns the one that chose so.

And don't forget that we don't speak about only one company. There will be concurrence as it exists today and if some constructors are so limiting in the behavior of their cars that people die in it when conditions would have allowed to save them otherwise then soon enough someone will come with a car that can deal with that situation and so forth.

Re: Master Plan, Part Deux

#670

Post by tikl1 » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 7:37 AM UTC

robmcm wrote: post #419

tikl1 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that in nowadays automobile industry a HUGE part of the production is made outside the constructors facilities by contractors. So considering only car constructors employees is a pretty inaccurate estimation of man-hours/item in that scenario. EDIT: comma satan

Would it be fair to say this outsourcing is similar regardless of company. Perhaps if some of the larger manufactures have in house teams for things others outsource, it will be largely insignificant given their larger size. Essentially it's not significant.

I think this is different between companies but not in the way you are suggesting.

For example, concerning the subject we are discussing in the first place, Tesla because of the specificity of their cars probably have to produce themselves a huge part of the components of the car whereas Ford, Volkswagen,... are now to a point where a huge amount of the parts of their car are similar and can be outsourced to contractors that will decrease costs by producing only one type of components in huge quantity and provides to multiple constructors (who looks more and more like assemblers nowadays).

So I agree that it is in fact not easy to compare manufacturers on this metrics but I would believe that it's actually suggesting that Tesla does a lot more in-house than conventional car manufacturers.