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It’s pretty interesting actually you can see exactly where Elon is focusing based on what’s going on at each company. The fact that Tesla has failed to output a

by vxNsr 4y ago

It’s pretty interesting actually you can see exactly where Elon is focusing based on what’s going on at each company. The fact that Tesla has failed to output a new car or really innovate much lately, and spacex appears to be stuck in a morass of engine troubles for their latest big rockets, tells you how much he’s taken his eye off the ball.

panick21_ 4y ago
I'm sorry but this is just outright wrong. > The fact that Tesla has failed to output a new car or really innovate much lately They literally turned into a battery company with their own batteries, their own chemistry and their own end to end manufacturing process. They are making state of the art batteries when only 5 years ago this company had never even made single high volume car. You can like or dislike FSD but it is innovative. In terms of manufacturing, things like Gigapress is now getting copied all over the car industry. Innovation is not just new products. And in capital intensive business, scale itself requires innovation. And they are doing this while having 30% growth every year with exploding profits at the same time. After 10 years when people were screaming about how EV wouldn't ever be profitable. > spacex appears to be stuck in a morass of engine troubles for their latest big rockets What? SpaceX is currently reaching an incredibly high operational cadence. That requires innovation. SpaceX is launching Starlink sats with laser communication and deploying it large scale. They are producing incredibly advanced antenna technology as consumer electronics. The Raptor engine is the most advanced rocket engine in human history and they are on their second major iteration building them as fast as very few rocket engine in history have ever been produced. They are regularly doing full duration test of these engines. Currently its not really the engines that is holding them back. Claiming that being a little bit late on building the by far the most advanced rocket system in human history is taking his eye of the ball is pretty absurd.
- impossiblefork 4y ago
  The Gigapress is an Italian innovation though, and the Italians built it because they understood that it could be incredibly useful, not because there was a custom order. Tesla were early adopters by making use of them, but not innovators.
  - geertj 4y ago
    > Tesla were early adopters by making use of them, but not innovators. There are two versions of the Gigapress history going around. In one version the idea came to the Idra CEO in a dream, while in the other version Elon gave multiple die casting manufacturers a call and got a hard no from everyone, expect for Idra who gave him a ‘maybe’. Whichever it it is not that important in my view. What is undisputed is that Tesla put their money where their mouth is and took a real money bet on this new unproven technology early on. That is as much innovation as actually coming up with the machine and idea yourself. Edit: to add to my point about innovation, from what I understand, no car company has ever used die casted parts in structural components due to concerns about internal stresses resulting from the die cast process. Normally this requires expensive post treatments but Tesla developed a custom alloy that makes this post treatment unnecessary. I am a bit light on details; someone with a metallurgy or structural engineering background pls chime in.
    - impossiblefork 4y ago
      As I understand it Idra already had the idea for large presses and understood their potential. The demands Tesla had may still have been difficult to realize. Consequently the stories are in some sense reconcilable. Structural die-casting has been a trend in the automotive industry, having started before the Gigapress. One article on this, from 2018, is https://www.spotlightmetal.com/opportunities-for-die-casting-with-structural-components-a-769215/ https://www.spotlightmetal.com/opportunities-for-die-casting... and in that you see an analysis of the economic benefits, even though it's an article for public consumption. The article itself, back in 2018, mentions cars already using structural die-casting and basically forecasts structural die-casting becoming a more typical manufacturing method.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Tesla specifically came to them and asked them to developed a machine to their specifications, financed and developed the product and they are getting virtually all the machines the company can produce. Also its a part of company from China operating in Italy. These machines are also continuously improved in prosecution at Tesla and that knowlage is flowing back to the company. The machines deployed in Texas are already an improvement over those in California. There is a lot around the core machine that needs to be improved as well.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  > They literally turned into a battery company with their own batteries, their own chemistry and their own end to end manufacturing process. That’s Panasonic, not Tesla. You are confused by the Tesla marketing here. Tesla makes plenty of interesting things but that’s not part of it.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    thanks
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Don't thank him, he is flat out factually wrong, refer to my other comment.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    No its not. You are misinformed or you are buying into some twitter non-sense. Yes, Tesla is buying batteries from Panasonic. They are also buying batteries from LQ and CATL. Nobody questions that. In addition to that Tesla has its totally own production process and chemistries. These are not shared with LG, CATL or Panasonic. Its own fully owned battery factory and research facility in California. They are currently building a battery plan in Austin and in Berlin, these are fully owned and operated Tesla plants. These plants have their own manufacturing processes developed in-house. They even built the machines them selves. A lot of this is done in Germany in a former well known German supplier that Tesla bought outright like 5 years ago. They also bought a company in Canada that makes the battery filling machines and pumps in Canada. If you still think we are in 2014 and Tesla is just being supplied by Panasonic, you have not been paying attention.

by vxNsr 4y ago

panick21_ 4y ago

I'm sorry but this is just outright wrong. > The fact that Tesla has failed to output a new car or really innovate much lately They literally turned into a battery company with their own batteries, their own chemistry and their own end to end manufacturing process. They are making state of the art batteries when only 5 years ago this company had never even made single high volume car. You can like or dislike FSD but it is innovative. In terms of manufacturing, things like Gigapress is now getting copied all over the car industry. Innovation is not just new products. And in capital intensive business, scale itself requires innovation. And they are doing this while having 30% growth every year with exploding profits at the same time. After 10 years when people were screaming about how EV wouldn't ever be profitable. > spacex appears to be stuck in a morass of engine troubles for their latest big rockets What? SpaceX is currently reaching an incredibly high operational cadence. That requires innovation. SpaceX is launching Starlink sats with laser communication and deploying it large scale. They are producing incredibly advanced antenna technology as consumer electronics. The Raptor engine is the most advanced rocket engine in human history and they are on their second major iteration building them as fast as very few rocket engine in history have ever been produced. They are regularly doing full duration test of these engines. Currently its not really the engines that is holding them back. Claiming that being a little bit late on building the by far the most advanced rocket system in human history is taking his eye of the ball is pretty absurd.

impossiblefork 4y ago
The Gigapress is an Italian innovation though, and the Italians built it because they understood that it could be incredibly useful, not because there was a custom order. Tesla were early adopters by making use of them, but not innovators.
- geertj 4y ago
  > Tesla were early adopters by making use of them, but not innovators. There are two versions of the Gigapress history going around. In one version the idea came to the Idra CEO in a dream, while in the other version Elon gave multiple die casting manufacturers a call and got a hard no from everyone, expect for Idra who gave him a ‘maybe’. Whichever it it is not that important in my view. What is undisputed is that Tesla put their money where their mouth is and took a real money bet on this new unproven technology early on. That is as much innovation as actually coming up with the machine and idea yourself. Edit: to add to my point about innovation, from what I understand, no car company has ever used die casted parts in structural components due to concerns about internal stresses resulting from the die cast process. Normally this requires expensive post treatments but Tesla developed a custom alloy that makes this post treatment unnecessary. I am a bit light on details; someone with a metallurgy or structural engineering background pls chime in.
  - impossiblefork 4y ago
    As I understand it Idra already had the idea for large presses and understood their potential. The demands Tesla had may still have been difficult to realize. Consequently the stories are in some sense reconcilable. Structural die-casting has been a trend in the automotive industry, having started before the Gigapress. One article on this, from 2018, is https://www.spotlightmetal.com/opportunities-for-die-casting-with-structural-components-a-769215/ https://www.spotlightmetal.com/opportunities-for-die-casting... and in that you see an analysis of the economic benefits, even though it's an article for public consumption. The article itself, back in 2018, mentions cars already using structural die-casting and basically forecasts structural die-casting becoming a more typical manufacturing method.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Tesla specifically came to them and asked them to developed a machine to their specifications, financed and developed the product and they are getting virtually all the machines the company can produce. Also its a part of company from China operating in Italy. These machines are also continuously improved in prosecution at Tesla and that knowlage is flowing back to the company. The machines deployed in Texas are already an improvement over those in California. There is a lot around the core machine that needs to be improved as well.
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
> They literally turned into a battery company with their own batteries, their own chemistry and their own end to end manufacturing process. That’s Panasonic, not Tesla. You are confused by the Tesla marketing here. Tesla makes plenty of interesting things but that’s not part of it.
- MrMan 4y ago
  thanks
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Don't thank him, he is flat out factually wrong, refer to my other comment.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  No its not. You are misinformed or you are buying into some twitter non-sense. Yes, Tesla is buying batteries from Panasonic. They are also buying batteries from LQ and CATL. Nobody questions that. In addition to that Tesla has its totally own production process and chemistries. These are not shared with LG, CATL or Panasonic. Its own fully owned battery factory and research facility in California. They are currently building a battery plan in Austin and in Berlin, these are fully owned and operated Tesla plants. These plants have their own manufacturing processes developed in-house. They even built the machines them selves. A lot of this is done in Germany in a former well known German supplier that Tesla bought outright like 5 years ago. They also bought a company in Canada that makes the battery filling machines and pumps in Canada. If you still think we are in 2014 and Tesla is just being supplied by Panasonic, you have not been paying attention.