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As someone who does not have any stake in Tesla, I dont see a path forward for them without a company with the bank account on the scale of Apple/Google/Amazon
by S_A_P 8y ago
As someone who does not have any stake in Tesla, I dont see a path forward for them without a company with the bank account on the scale of Apple/Google/Amazon funding them. Bootstrapping software is hard, hardware is harder, cars are 10x harder than those squared...
- 2bitencryption 8y agoI think the smartest thing Musk ever did for Tesla was to start sending rockets into space and landing them over and over. It really makes you think, "Hey, if they can do all that rocket science, they can probably make a sedan." (This is mostly a joke... but it's also not entirely a joke)
- maxxxxx 8y agoRockets may be easier to develop than a product for the mass market. Car manufacturers have had many decades of optimizations of their processes. It’s very hard to catch up.
- Causality1 8y agoIt would be easier if he'd stop making grandiose claims like "self driving is only two years away!"
- FireBeyond 8y agoTwo years away? Just in mid-February he said "You'll be in FSD, coast to coast, in of our cars, _this year_".
- maxxxxx 8y agoThese comments are weird. Everybody is stretching the truth to some degree but these claims are pretty bold.
- natch 8y agoThe claims sound bold because he never made them. The poster is misquoting. Elon said that Tesla would have a version of the software that could do full self driving by the end of this year. Then he very clearly spelled out that it would not be available to consumers until regulators approve it at some later date (possibly years).
- tim333 8y agoI tried googling and found "Elon Musk promises fully autonomous, coast-to-coast Tesla road trip in the next 7 months" in Feb 2018, not this year. Obv didn't happen. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/02/08/tesla-fully-autonomous-roadtrip-musk-tsla.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/02/08/tesla-fu...
- natch 8y agoHe also stated that advanced summon would be rolled out last week, but then it didn’t happen. Why? We (the general public) don’t know exactly but rumors are that some issues were uncovered and Tesla decided to slow down the rollout of this feature until the issues are fixed. That’s good that they slowed down the rollout. I’d rather wait for a safer, better version of the feature than get a dangerous version, if that’s part of the issue. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this picture except for people interpreting forward-looking statements as 100% locked-in promises. They are not promises. In technology, people predict stuff all the time and sometimes the predictions come true on time; other times they take longer. Perfectly normal stuff but outsiders don’t always get this. Elon has correctly predicted plenty of stuff that has come to pass. Not always on time, but it is a given that schedules can slip in technology.
- Dylan16807 8y agoOn the other hand "coast to coast" probably just means "freeway, under normal conditions" which is the lowest of bars to clear. So if they can make it capable of detecting stationary objects they're basically already there. Still amazingly far from "full" self driving.
- natch 8y agoHe said no such thing. If you believe otherwise, please provide a link to back up your claim. He was saying only that the internal development versions of the software would be able to do that by then.
- bobsil1 8y agoCars-as-software demand software-centric co's hiring ML people. Legacy won't catch up, startups will.
- maxxxxx 8y agoDream on. Cars aren’t software.
- bobsil1 8y agoNope. Car differentiators are going to be tablet screen + special-purpose AI. Dumb cars = vinyl.
- maxxxxx 8y agoA car is a thing to get from A to B in a reliable manner. Screens and AI are secondary.
- bobsil1 8y ago“A phone is for voice calls.”
- maxxxxx 8y agoCurrent smartphones are an evolution of the PDA idea that started with the Apple Newton, Palm Pilot and others. People always dreamed of a handheld device that would enable them to communicate and get information. What do you expect a car to do other than carting people around? Once it can go autonomously from A to B what else will people use a car for?
- phkahler 8y agoThere is a lot of software in cars, but cars are not software. Making cars is a lot harder from a business perspective than doing AI. In the end software is just a file that gets loaded into a module - one step in a very long chain.
- cperciva 8y agoThe bar for success is different too. A rocket which safely delivers its cargo 99.99% of the time would be a huge step forward. A car which safely delivers its cargo 99.99% of the time would be taken off the roads.
- stellar678 8y agoIt’s funny you mention 99.99% - because 40,000 people are killed by car crashes in a year in the United States, which is actually .012% of the population. So cars actually do a bit worse than your stat...
- maxxxxx 8y agoIf a majority of the population used a rocket daily then the numbers would be different. The number of people killed per space flight is probably a little higher than the number if people killed per drive in a car.
- cperciva 8y agoPer trip, not per year.
- iamaelephant 8y agoYes this makes perfect sense if every person in USA took one car journey in a year.
- the_duke 8y agoAgreed. Can't find it now, but Musk said something like "For a rocket, manufacturing is 10 times harder than building the actual rocket. For cars, it's 100 times harder". This is not that surprising, the incumbent manufacturers have decades of experience, vast amounts of know how and optimized supply chains. There's a reason why no new manufacturers have emerged.
- ajmurmann 8y agoHe also stated making rockets way before he started making cars.
- taneq 8y agoThat's actually a very good point - Tesla's current "halo car" isn't the Model S or the Roadster 2.0, it's the Falcon Heavy.
- ulfw 8y agoIs it? Do people buy a $100K Tesla because the same owner owns a rocket company? Why? I’ve never met anyone who considered a Rolls because the company used to build aircraft engines
- whamlastxmas 8y agoRolls definitely have a prestige factor due to their aircraft engines. And personally when I see Tesla hardware and tech I admire the level of engineering that goes into it and feel that part of the reason it's so good is because there's many shared competencies between the two companies
- double0jimb0 8y agoNot sure if you are serious. Becuase, yes, that is actually part of it.
- newnewpdro 8y agoWhat? SpaceX and Tesla are completely distinct companies. What you're saying here is somewhat insulting to the folks at SpaceX who are actually responsible for creating the Falcon Heavy.
- nostrademons 8y agoThe irony is that Tesla was supposed to bankroll SpaceX, but SpaceX is killing it on profits and Tesla is floundering. If anything it looks like SpaceX will end up bankrolling Tesla. Musk should forget about trying to save this planet and focus on getting to the red one.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIt’s a shame people condemn Tesla’s for its troubles when internal combustion gets a ridiculous amount of subsided despite it causing irreparable harm to the planet. Musk plays on Boss Mode (along with others) while everyone enjoys bread and circus and laughs at people trying to accelerate progress with regards to climate change. I hope those quarterly profits, trucks, and SUVs are worth it when climate change hits its stride. Humans can be irrational, ignorant animals.
- mamon 8y agoWe are definitely living in different universes. ICEs do not get any subsidies, quite the opposite: in many countries, e.g. the whole EU gas is so heavily taxed that more than half of the retail price is tax. Also, Tesla is an easy target to make fun of, because of its narcistic, arrogant CEO that seems to think that he can outsmart everyone, when in fact his business is a total mess.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoGas is about $3/gallon in the US. Ford is moving towards only making SUVs, pickup trucks, and the Mustang. Different countries, not different universes. I like that Musk is narcissistic and arrogant in public. He doesn’t hide it like the execs at every automaker who was part of Dieselgate. Be an asshole, by all means, just deliver faster. (Credit to BYD and their electric bus fleet efforts, and China’s renewables push in general; I would be remiss if I made it sound like Musk alone was working towards these goals).
- golfer 8y ago
- ilamont 8y agoWhat about another carmaker buying them out?
- Tiktaalik 8y agoThis makes the most sense. Buy the tech and the brand and then build them properly.
- goshx 8y agoFunny to think that a company that has been around for much longer can’t compete with Tesla and they would be the ones to “build them properly”.
- bduerst 8y agoVolkswagen tried but Musk shot specifically shot it down on hubris, despite VW's cash and manufacturing capacity being the solution to Tesla's problems at the time. https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-bravado-private-doubts-how-elon-musks-tesla-plan-unraveled-1535326249 https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-bravado-private-doubts-h...
- canada_dry 8y ago> Musk specifically shot it down on hubris This, of course, will ultimately catch up with Musk, just like it did for Jobs. Elon success relies on the same 'distortion reality' shield that Jobs relied on. It forces his staff to keep trying to achieve his practically impossible demands. Continued success requires that it keep working over and over while not burning out critical staff and burning through your investor's deep pockets.
- pbreit 8y agoTrue, it's off-the-charts amazing what Tesla has been able to accomplish. People have been convinced that it would die pretty much since the beginning. But it doesn't. If they can sell 90k cars this quarter I think they make it through this danger zone.
- Reedx 8y agoYeah, but people have been saying they won't make it for over a decade now. It's tiresome and unproductive. Meanwhile they've done amazing things that most considered impossible. They went for it despite the difficulty and actually changed an industry. Electric cars were thought of as golf carts! Not so anymore. The idea of covering the country with chargers was a pipe dream. Now it's reality. Here's hoping Telsa continues doing big things.
- steelframe 8y agoI'm an ex-Tesla owner (went for an I-PACE with my last EV purchase), but I have to agree with this sentiment. Tesla will go down in history as an amazing phenomenon, regardless of whether they survive in the marketplace.
- m3kw9 8y agoHaha I see that you did. That’s after you’ve tried an I-Pace
- semi-extrinsic 8y agoI'm not sure they've done things anyone considered impossible. People have said these things will be wildly unprofitable, sure, and so far those people are mostly right. But nobody has said it would be impossible to build a big expensive electric sedan with high range. Nor did anyone say it would be impossible to build a wide coverage fastcharge network. Surely they are impressive feats, but not "thought to be impossible". In fact, other companies have managed to build similar things. Today the Jaguar and Audi e-SUVs are competing with the Model X, in a few months the Porsche Taycan is competing with Model S, and the ChaDeMo charger network is the same size as the Supercharger one (both have 12,000 units deployed globally).
- pbreit 8y agoFirst US car company in 60 years, electric at that. Best crash test ratings. Highest owner satisfaction. First US-owned factory in China. Built in about 6 months. Ability and willingness to use OTA updates. Willingness and ability to put auto-pilot on the road for consumers. Ridiculous performance. Better chip than Nvidia. Top 2 auto battery supplier. Best selling lux car in US (ICE or EV). Dramatically better battery efficiency. No dealerships. Online ordering. Plausible FSD story. Camera-based autonomy. $35k price point.
- kylecordes 8y agoTesla as a part of Apple (whose cash stuck between mattress cushions far exceeds the market cap of Tesla) would be unstoppable. Also, a Tesla car is an iPhone in a world of flip phones. The Tesla design ethos fits Apple pretty nicely.
- azinman2 8y agoI don’t really agree with the idea that Tesla’s are so far ahead of everyone else. Having just road in a model 3, so much of it felt really cheap. From the way you need two hands effectively to open the door from the outside, the flimsy plastic compartment in the center console that you have to “gently” close otherwise it bounces open, watching the autonomous car visualization merge and split apart cars that in reality hadn’t changed lane positions (deeply worrying), to the single point of failure touch screen eliminating any other part (for cost savings), I don’t see what the big deal is (except for their range/price, which is far better than everyone else). I hear the model S and X are better, but at their price point there are many other really nice options as well.
- kylecordes 8y agoFor reasons not clear to me, "ride in" just doesn't work as well as "drive every day for a while". From the latter point of view: one hand is plenty for the doors, the plastic thing in the middle irritates you the first dozen times then it's fine, and the single screen is a large win. The screen doesn't "test drive" well, but for daily use many find it highly preferable. Still, to get more wide adoption they should fix the irritations for the next iteration. There is no reason for either electricity or self driving to imply doors that are tricky to open or a strange center console closure. Fixing those distractions would make it easier to sell more.
- mdorazio 8y agoJust as an anecdotal counterpoint, I drove one for a week and my opinion of it didn't change. It continued to feel cheap to the point where I thought I would break things, the center screen did not become nice to use in comparison to the Model S split screen/gauges setup, the door handles were continuously annoying, and also the seat was never comfortable regardless of how much time I spent adjusting it (why the hell didn't they buy them from Recaro instead of building them in-house??). It does drive well in terms of general performance, responsiveness, and handling in comparison to other cars in the price class, though.
- m463 8y agoWell, they could get full self driving going and sales would go through the roof.
- newsoul2019 8y agoNot so much after the local guy died on Highway 101. The sentiment in my circle is that the self driving can't be trusted.
- dominotw 8y agosame sentiment about a/c power back in the day. But tesla was proven right :D
- hw 8y agoYou're not supposed to go to sleep or take your eyes off the road with self driving. Just like how you can't rely on chat bots and AI to fully answer your customers' questions. What's not reported in the media is how self driving / autopilot has saved lives. There are plenty of videos online about Teslas making the right split second decision to swerve (in the right direction) or apply the brakes to avoid an accident. There's way too much focus on accidents due to self driving when there are a lot more accidents happening from non-self-driving vehicles.
- gattilorenz 8y agoThis is drifting off topic, but... you're advocating for being constantly alert while the car drives itself? Doesn't this have the same cognitive load as driving, with possibly the additional time needed for "flexing your muscles" to regain control of the driving wheel? To me, self driving means that I can not care. If I must pay attention to avoid being killed, it is at most some glorified adaptive lane keeping and/or emergency braking. That's nice to have, but it's not self driving.
- m463 8y agoThe person in the accident was not using "full self driving". At that time they only did traffic aware cruise control + lane keeping.
- samstave 8y agohttps://m.imdb.com/title/tt0091159/?ref_=m_nmfmd_act_66 https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0091159/?ref_=m_nmfmd_act_66
- dayaz36 8y agoWe've been hearing this since the company's inception. There was even a website back in 2008 with a time clock of when Tesla will go bankrupt. Ironically the site went bankrupt and is not around anymore. Meanwhile Tesla has become a multi billion dollar company with the largest BEV fleet in the world. Tesla has done this in the face of a constant onslaught of smears from the media and social media comments like yours.
- djakjxnanjak 8y agoEvery big company that went bankrupt made it for years without going bankrupt.
- prostoalex 8y agoOver the long term declaring bankruptcy and emerging from one seems to be a standard procedure for most automotive manufacturers in the US, as well as airlines.