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This entire comment makes less sense than a llama driving a taxi. This "biggest risk" you've named is....entirely fantastical. A battery invention making the G

This entire comment makes less sense than a llama driving a taxi. This "biggest risk" you've named is....entirely fantastical. A battery invention making the Gigafactory obsolete? What? 1. What kind of invention are we talking here? A new battery that stores 100,000mi per charge, is lightweight (magically), and charges in 10 seconds? Great, then the Gigafactory can start manufacturing that instead. It wouldn't be obsolete. 2. Even if such a thing as #1 were invented, great, now Tesla's product is infinitely more compelling. They'll sell that many more cars. The car now has enormous range and charges very quickly. This is a bad thing? What?? 3. Even if #1 were invented and somehow intellectual property'd out of Tesla's reach, how's it going to hurt them? Are we imagining one of their competitors magically coming up with this, and conjuring an equally compelling but superior car out of thin air, using technology Tesla has no access to? That's an incredible turnaround time, this new tech being revealed AND reaching mass production AND having a car designed around it which ALSO reaches mass production...all before 2017. Incredible! Unheard of! 4. #1 is a joke. That won't happen, can't happen, has never happened. New revolutionary hardware technologies don't just appear. They gradually work their way into society, and it takes a lot of time before methods are found to cheaply mass produce new hardware technologies. Given that your "biggest risk" is an absurdist fantasy, I think we can safely say Tesla's in a good position!

mschuster91 11y ago
> Great, then the Gigafactory can start manufacturing that instead. It wouldn't be obsolete. The Gigafactory IIRC has a $5B budget. The building and the land isn't expensive, especially given the preferential treatment by the government. The machinery and infrastructure, tailored for lithium battery production, are the biggest part of the budget and you won't be able to "just switch it out". The Gigafactory is a lithium battery factory on a massive scale, nothing else. > New revolutionary hardware technologies don't just appear Do you remember the revolution that got sparked by the iPhone? That one needed half a year to totally turn over the mobile phone market. It's not uncommon. On the other hand, I agree that a revolutionary new technology is unlikely to appear - and with the Gigafactory, Tesla and Panasonic can basically control battery prices for the rest of the world.
- wtallis 11y ago
  The iPhone was a revolution in product design, but its hardware was all off-the-shelf technology. There was no fundamental hardware invention like new battery technology. The iPhone's most radical departure from existing smartphones was its use of a capacitive multitouch display, but Apple got that tech from a startup they acquired in 2005 that had been founded in 1998 by academics who had been researching uses for multitouch. So that revolutionary advance was brewing for more than a decade.
  - unusximmortalis 11y ago
    what was/is distinguishing apple products from the rest, many years (even now I think), is the battery life; and that was also in part because the software developed for iOS was tested and maintained and designed to consume as less possible processor cycles; there was special attention given to this aspect (I am not sure if they are still doing it, but I know they were doing it in the past), which the rest I never heard of doing it.
chx 11y ago
1. Yes it would be. You can't manufacture graphene (most likely) batteries in a factory made for lithium batteries. 2. Sure, the cars have better range and probably Tesla can sell more cars but that's capital intensive and they just pissed away 15% of their market cap. Not great capital wise. 3. It hurts them because, as I mentioned, they spent a fortune and they might as well have lit a fire with the money. At least they'd be warm for a bit... Investors typically are not happy when a company makes a bad bet to the tune of a couple billion bucks. 4. How long have you been reading about graphene batteries? What about the company I mentioned which promises them this year?
- aerovistae 11y ago
  I just don't have the time to explain to everyone on the internet why they're wrong. I'm sorry :/
  - emcq 11y ago
    The original point was that there is risk. Its very unreasonable to claim that the risk is zero. Perhaps you don't believe this is the primary risk to Tesla, although it seems more like you think Tesla is unfailable, but your counterpoints aren't particularly convincing. New battery technology is very expensive to research and create in mass production, but we have a long road of potential improvements to catch up with the energy densities of most other fuels and research has batteries that improve upon lithium ion.

mschuster91 11y ago

> Great, then the Gigafactory can start manufacturing that instead. It wouldn't be obsolete. The Gigafactory IIRC has a $5B budget. The building and the land isn't expensive, especially given the preferential treatment by the government. The machinery and infrastructure, tailored for lithium battery production, are the biggest part of the budget and you won't be able to "just switch it out". The Gigafactory is a lithium battery factory on a massive scale, nothing else. > New revolutionary hardware technologies don't just appear Do you remember the revolution that got sparked by the iPhone? That one needed half a year to totally turn over the mobile phone market. It's not uncommon. On the other hand, I agree that a revolutionary new technology is unlikely to appear - and with the Gigafactory, Tesla and Panasonic can basically control battery prices for the rest of the world.

wtallis 11y ago
The iPhone was a revolution in product design, but its hardware was all off-the-shelf technology. There was no fundamental hardware invention like new battery technology. The iPhone's most radical departure from existing smartphones was its use of a capacitive multitouch display, but Apple got that tech from a startup they acquired in 2005 that had been founded in 1998 by academics who had been researching uses for multitouch. So that revolutionary advance was brewing for more than a decade.
- unusximmortalis 11y ago
  what was/is distinguishing apple products from the rest, many years (even now I think), is the battery life; and that was also in part because the software developed for iOS was tested and maintained and designed to consume as less possible processor cycles; there was special attention given to this aspect (I am not sure if they are still doing it, but I know they were doing it in the past), which the rest I never heard of doing it.

chx 11y ago

1. Yes it would be. You can't manufacture graphene (most likely) batteries in a factory made for lithium batteries. 2. Sure, the cars have better range and probably Tesla can sell more cars but that's capital intensive and they just pissed away 15% of their market cap. Not great capital wise. 3. It hurts them because, as I mentioned, they spent a fortune and they might as well have lit a fire with the money. At least they'd be warm for a bit... Investors typically are not happy when a company makes a bad bet to the tune of a couple billion bucks. 4. How long have you been reading about graphene batteries? What about the company I mentioned which promises them this year?

aerovistae 11y ago
I just don't have the time to explain to everyone on the internet why they're wrong. I'm sorry :/
- emcq 11y ago
  The original point was that there is risk. Its very unreasonable to claim that the risk is zero. Perhaps you don't believe this is the primary risk to Tesla, although it seems more like you think Tesla is unfailable, but your counterpoints aren't particularly convincing. New battery technology is very expensive to research and create in mass production, but we have a long road of potential improvements to catch up with the energy densities of most other fuels and research has batteries that improve upon lithium ion.