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I am not hoping he fails, and certainly where battery tech is concerned Tesla have moved on R and D - especially when it comes to battery pods and keeping batte

I am not hoping he fails, and certainly where battery tech is concerned Tesla have moved on R and D - especially when it comes to battery pods and keeping batteries at a consistent temperature and state. But.....the grand visions before the boring grunt work of engineering has been accomplished, and trying to build massive $5 billion factories before any kind of profitability is on the horizon is not going to help Tesla stick around beyond a few years at most.

farcical_tinpot 10y ago
The battery technology is certainly where Tesla have a big lead. It's not really the battery chemistry per se, but building and engineering a battery pod that is safe and that keeps battery cells in a consistently good state whether under charging or discharging. Once a battery starts losing performance it only accelerates. If you have to keep it in a good window and it will last for many years. Liquid cooling is also the way to be doing this. They're also right about hydrogen fuel cells. They're stupid. Maybe if we get into space and can get an abundance of hydrogen things will be great. But, here on Earth you have to manufacture the hydrogen and create a vast infrastructure to transport and store it. Tesla also have a big lead in the use of telemetry and their ability to do software updates over the air and their approach to security and building this in-house. Other car manufacturers will continue to outsource this and continue to fuck up completely. However, Tesla had to follow through with all of this, maybe be out of the public eye for a while and iterate over the engineering, keeping costs to a minimum and doing the R and D, before moving on to other capitally expensive projects. They've massively overstretched and I don't see it being recoverable.
qaq 10y ago
You seriously think you are in a better position to make such analysis then FMR, Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard?
samsonradu 10y ago
I kind of think that in case Tesla runs into serious financial issues in the future it might get a hand from the US government in some way or another, because of the long term benefits of Tesla succeeding. Just my opinion, no sources for that.

farcical_tinpot 10y ago

The battery technology is certainly where Tesla have a big lead. It's not really the battery chemistry per se, but building and engineering a battery pod that is safe and that keeps battery cells in a consistently good state whether under charging or discharging. Once a battery starts losing performance it only accelerates. If you have to keep it in a good window and it will last for many years. Liquid cooling is also the way to be doing this. They're also right about hydrogen fuel cells. They're stupid. Maybe if we get into space and can get an abundance of hydrogen things will be great. But, here on Earth you have to manufacture the hydrogen and create a vast infrastructure to transport and store it. Tesla also have a big lead in the use of telemetry and their ability to do software updates over the air and their approach to security and building this in-house. Other car manufacturers will continue to outsource this and continue to fuck up completely. However, Tesla had to follow through with all of this, maybe be out of the public eye for a while and iterate over the engineering, keeping costs to a minimum and doing the R and D, before moving on to other capitally expensive projects. They've massively overstretched and I don't see it being recoverable.

qaq 10y ago

You seriously think you are in a better position to make such analysis then FMR, Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard?

samsonradu 10y ago

I kind of think that in case Tesla runs into serious financial issues in the future it might get a hand from the US government in some way or another, because of the long term benefits of Tesla succeeding. Just my opinion, no sources for that.