Its so rubegoldbergtastic it puts all other successful entrepreneurs in history to shame, which is to say I'm incredibly bearish on it.
Master Plan, Part Deux
91–100 of 705 posts
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#92I am in no position to question EM. But I was hoping he would give some good explanation for spending resources on SolarCity acquisition but nothing. Nothing in this master plan explains why SolarCity was bought other than some hand wavy explanation about inherent difficulties of two separate companies working together. It still doesn't seem like a good purchase for Tesla specially at the moment. Solar car and SolarC…
If you're interested in learning more about the reasoning for the SolarCity acquisition, I can recommend listening to the conference call recording about that: http://edge.media-server.com/m/p/makhvjt8
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#93Meh. Sure, stuff sounds neat, but where are you going to get the capital from? Another secondary share offering? I guess the most concrete thing I saw was new factory for Model 3. Shouldn't that be your only priority? Not designing an electric semi truck on paper to entice Joe Q Public into stepping up for another secondary share offer?
I swear to god he could do it all just as described and there will still be people who have nothing to say but "meh." Blows my mind.
I'm still waiting for him to deliver on his original promises. Like creating a profitable electric car company.
I give him credit for SpaceX, but Tesla's main product so far has been hopes and dreams.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#94It's interesting that they portray self-driving capabilities as something that can be turned on or off, unlike Google's where it's just always on. I think in the long run Google might be building the correct solution for greater number of people.
This is a big part of why we're at such an exciting point with autonomous vehicles: there are several highly promising, meaningfully different methodologies contending right now, including Google's top-down approach, Tesla's incremental approach, and even Comma.ai's maverick pure-learning approach.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not if it's a trailer.
I haven't figured it out, but my intuition is that the increased energy requirements of a tractor trailer mean that there isn't enough area there either. Back of napkin, it looks like you get ~3*15 meters of roof which seems to translate to 10 kW of output under good conditions and then you need something like 150 kW to rumble up the highway.
Well trucks still have a lot of low hanging fruit for becoming more aerodynamic.
Plus you could use the sides of the trailer for some power too.
Finally even if 10kw can't power the truck. It could extend its range by some amount. Plus that's still a significant amount of power you don't need to buy. 2-3 rooftops worth?
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#96"A first principles physics analysis of automotive production suggests that somewhere between a 5 to 10 fold improvement is achievable by version 3 on a roughly 2 year iteration cycle. The first Model 3 factory machine should be thought of as version 0.5, with version 1.0 probably in 2018." What that really means: Tesla is going to lose a ton of money per car on the Model 3, or raise the price, until at least 2022. T…
I think some of this might be offset by the fact that this plan doesn't seem to focus on just cars. A solar product described in the first step of the plan could help fund the cars.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#97Are there any more details on the factory factory? I didn't understand that part.
Check out this video around 1h22m: https://youtu.be/6WyaO29XDf8
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#98Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are comparing premium tesla sedans with ford and Honda cars, of course premium car will take longer to build. Porsche for example produced 189,000 cars [1] in 2014 with 19,000 employees. And the average price of Porsche car is also lower than Tesla's. [1] - http://press.porsche.com/news/release.php?id=897
Sure, but that's still ~3x more per employee than Tesla.
but tesla's production rate is increasing. the end of q2 saw rates of over 2k cars/week, which would be on target for >100k/year, over twice 2015's rate.
Re: Master Plan, Part Deux
#100"A first principles physics analysis of automotive production suggests that somewhere between a 5 to 10 fold improvement is achievable by version 3 on a roughly 2 year iteration cycle. The first Model 3 factory machine should be thought of as version 0.5, with version 1.0 probably in 2018." What that really means: Tesla is going to lose a ton of money per car on the Model 3, or raise the price, until at least 2022. T…
I think some of this might be offset by the fact that this plan doesn't seem to focus on just cars. A solar product described in the first step of the plan could help fund the cars.
SolarCity is not exactly a success story[1]. The more likely scenario is Tesla continues to burn through even more money after purchasing it.
1 - http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-14LQRE/247256098...