Apparently the author isn't aware of the thousands of recalls other manufacturers make, and is further unaware several owners forgo getting service since the recalls are often for minor issues that don't really affect them.
As much as you and other posters are trying to make this about the other car manufacturers, it's not about them. Others are trying to spin this into "how wonderful Tesla is for standing behind their cars". It's not about that either. Both groups are missing the point entirely.
If Ford issues a recall for 20,000 or even 200,000 cars, they have a massive network of dealers and service centers across the country. Tesla doesn't. (Here in Washington, there's as many Ford dealers in my semi-rural county as there are Tesla dealers in the entire state.) As more and more Tesla cars hit the road, and as they age (meaning more time for defects to be found) this lack of a service and support network could be a significant problem.
Tesla has been dealing in the high end/luxury segment of the market. Now they're trying to move into the average/affordable market and with that change in markets comes a change in expectations. In addition to competing on range and price, will now have to contend with competing on availability of service as well. An average Joe in Spokane who owns a Tesla isn't going to be very happy with having to drive his car (or worse yet, have it towed or transported) almost three hundred miles to one of the two dealers in Seattle for recall work. (And neither of the service centers looks to be particularly large - more than a couple dozen vehicles at once might saturate them.) A Tesla might not need service very often, but that's cold comfort for Joe when his Tesla does need service and he can't drop it off at the dealer on his way home, pick up a loaner, and still be home in time for dinner.
As Tesla's production and number of cars on the road increase (more than doubling if even half the people who have put down deposits on the Model 3 follow through), the rest of their network needs to scale as well. That's as sure and certain as day follows night.
Except for a couple of small short term dips (in 1992, 2002, and 2009), the number of jobs in America has been steadily going up, from 90 million in 1980 to 145 million in 2015. So the idea that there "used to be jobs here" that are now in China is delusional.
No, the delusional ones are the nutjobs like yourself who look only at raw numbers - and miss that millions of good paying jobs (especially factory jobs) have vanished, to be replaced by minimum wage service jobs and McJobs.
It's people like you who simply don't want to face the facts
I'd put down that sack of stones and start looking to move out of that glass house if I was you.
If you knew beforehand your post wouldn't be seen, why bother writing it up and posting it to Facebook?
Because I don't know whether or not they'll be seen beforehand, and because I don't know what my friends will react to or not. But those nobody responds to, no big deal. I don't need that kind of social validation.
Sorry, I'm a geek and share all kinds of geeky things... some people respond to, some they don't. And I don't give a rat fuck either way. It's my feed, I'll post what I want. I don't particularly need anyone else's approval or attention.
Your problem, like with so many other people here on Slashdot, isn't with Facebook - it's that you have a shit group of friends.
How exactly is Yahoo! sinking? They're still making shedloads of money and have a massive userbase, even though they aren't exactly 'cool' by the standards of the digerati.
This means the stage engine is not as efficient as it could be.
There are other goals than fuel efficiency. And really, given how dirt cheap kerolox is, optimizing for extreme fuel efficiency (especially on a first stage) is something of a fool's errand.
It is not obvious that doing this risky vertical landing is going to result in any savings at all.
o.0
Reflying/reusing something is, with rare exceptions, always going to be cheaper than building a new something. The only real question is, how much cheaper?
The author is... more than a little off base. To take the services I'm aware of; Flickr didn't crumble because it reached the mainstream, because it never really reached the mainstream. Flickr* crumbled because of a number of ill advised changes to the UI at the same time Facebook and a number of other photo sharing services were on the rise. In the same way, LiveJournal was quite healthy, even in the mainstream, but the rise of Facebook combined with a number of ill advised changes, and numerous outages due to DDOS attacks pushed people away. Orkut never was mainstream.
He also misses one huge change to Facebook itself - the shift to mobile devices. As slashdotters have long noted, it's hard to produce original content, even text, on tablets, phablets, and phones.
* Yes, Flickr could be considered a social media site even though it's ostensibly a photosharing service. It had extensive groups (forums) dedicated to almost every topic under the sun. People used the text blocks (intended for descriptions) accompanying the photographs for blogging. Etc... etc...
However, since they don't offer such a subscription, running a private server should be allowed as an exemption to the DMCA.
Under what theory? "I'm a self entitled child who thinks that since I only like x version of a game, the company should be forced to provide it to me?"
Most likely based on Tesla's inability to deliver in a timely fashion, given the enormous leap in production capacity required. (Five times their total deliveries to date, thirty times their largest year to date.) Buyer's remorse when it comes time to pony up the balance and actually order the car will also play a factor.
No company with pre-orders of this magnitude can or should have cash problems.
Other than your religious belief in the Cult of Elon - why would you believe that?
This is not money that is already earned but it is the next thing close to that.
No, it's not even close to that - as a deposit isn't a commitment to pay. Lenders know that even if you don't.
If you have cash-flow problems in such a situation and if you do not look like a scam getting money for modest interest should be the most easy thing in the world.
You might think so if you're clueless and only consider a single dimension - the size of the back order book. But other factors matter too, such as the size of their existing debt and lack of production capacity. These things matter to lenders.
If (for whatever reason) the Tesla 3 were to sink Tesla, they'd hardly be the first company to go under for being *too* successful.
Had I said they were expected to be profitable, you'd have a point. I didn't.
Nor did I say they wouldn't be able to get financing, only that it's not going to be the slam dunk the grandparent seems to assume as there are other factors at work than just a deep order book.
Did you even understand what I wrote? Or did you just reply to hear your own keyboard?
That pre-order book certainly is impressive, but that's balanced by their existing debt, their lack of positive cashflow, and the multiplier the pre-orders represent over their known (proven) production capacity.
There's no doubt entities willing to finance them, but I doubt they'd be 'overjoyed'.
So you went out of your way to play Batman for the day. Its worth remembering though, that batman has an alter ego. People you have publicly destroyed now know your full first and last name.
His full first and last name has been plastered all over the place for years now. He's been very visible and public in his campaign. Nobody has taken any action against him.
It's already been stated many times - but $35k is the average selling price of a car in the US. If that isn't the mark of "affordability"... then what is?
That average is pulled up by larger, more expensive, vehicles such as SUV's and trucks. And given that the Tesla 3 is a sedan - that suggests that average is largely useless as a mark of "affordability" since it includes a large number of vehicles that aren't sedans purchased by a large number of people, the bulk of whom are unlikely to replace those vehicles with sedans. (To be fair, this includes folks driving cheap compacts as well as folks driving expensive SUV's.) A few minutes searching around (but by no means exhaustive) seems to show that the average price of a mid-sized sedan is somewhere in the $20-25k range. So, using your criteria but correcting the numbers to compare apples-to-apples... the Tesla 3 falls well outside the affordable range. (But within the range for luxury sedans, a not inconsiderable market.)
$35k with financing is ~$600 a month. If you look at this advice from Consumer Reports ( http://www.consumerreports.org... ) it says you should be making ~$75k a year to afford this car. $75k for a household is not "rich" in my book. It's "doing well"... but MANY people will be able to "afford" this car.
If you're making in the range of $75k/annum, you're in the top third of US families. Not rich, no, but above average (which is around $55k/annum currently).
No shit Sherlock. Here's a free clue, repeating yourself pointlessly doesn't make you right. It makes you look like more of a moron.
If designing is a large enough portion of a projects budget, economy of scale works with smaller manufacturing batches
No shit Sherlock. Why the fuck do you think I pointed out the precise reason why it wouldn't work in this case? Did you even read what I wrote? (You may be ignorant of the situation with regards to such matters, but if you weren't a moron it might occur to you that doesn't mean others aren't.)
I think the OP is asking why we don't try to use economies of scale to lower the cost while increasing the science capabilities we have available.
Because "economies of scale" isn't a magic wand that you can just wave and magically make everything cheaper. In particular, items with enormous amounts of touch labor (such as the mirrors carried by Hubble or Hitomi) aren't really susceptible to economies of scale because the costs of actually building the thing far exceed the costs of setting up to build the thing.
It's a perfectly good question, one that ultimately is probably answered by "there's too many politicians who don't see value in science."
No, as usual, the answer is far more pedestrian - it's "a Slashdot poster pulled a term out of his ass without actually understanding what the term means and implies".
None of these were failures intrinsic to the reactor.
So? Nonetheless, they happened.
We're also talking about reactors based on decades-old technology and Rube Goldberg systems to stave off every possible problem an engineer could envision.
I love the fetishism of new technology here - as if new technology were somehow magical... and wouldn't have the same Rube Goldberg systems to prevent the same problems. (And wouldn't be liable to the same or different faults.)
Rather than just designing a reactor with a default state of "off".
If that were in fact possible, you'd have a point. But it's not.
Look, I'm *for* nuclear power... but the ignorance of your explanation of why we shouldn't worry about past casualties and how magical shiny new reactors are the answer is simply appalling.
There's only one word for that spew - horseshit. Words mean things, and if you have to make up definitions and blow smoke to make them mean something different to prove your 'case' - that shows the falsehood.
Slashdot Mirror
It's almost like you didn't read what I wrote. You certainly failed to comprehend it.
As much as you and other posters are trying to make this about the other car manufacturers, it's not about them. Others are trying to spin this into "how wonderful Tesla is for standing behind their cars". It's not about that either. Both groups are missing the point entirely.
If Ford issues a recall for 20,000 or even 200,000 cars, they have a massive network of dealers and service centers across the country. Tesla doesn't. (Here in Washington, there's as many Ford dealers in my semi-rural county as there are Tesla dealers in the entire state.) As more and more Tesla cars hit the road, and as they age (meaning more time for defects to be found) this lack of a service and support network could be a significant problem.
Tesla has been dealing in the high end/luxury segment of the market. Now they're trying to move into the average/affordable market and with that change in markets comes a change in expectations. In addition to competing on range and price, will now have to contend with competing on availability of service as well. An average Joe in Spokane who owns a Tesla isn't going to be very happy with having to drive his car (or worse yet, have it towed or transported) almost three hundred miles to one of the two dealers in Seattle for recall work. (And neither of the service centers looks to be particularly large - more than a couple dozen vehicles at once might saturate them.) A Tesla might not need service very often, but that's cold comfort for Joe when his Tesla does need service and he can't drop it off at the dealer on his way home, pick up a loaner, and still be home in time for dinner.
As Tesla's production and number of cars on the road increase (more than doubling if even half the people who have put down deposits on the Model 3 follow through), the rest of their network needs to scale as well. That's as sure and certain as day follows night.
No shit Sherlock.
Something very few seem to grasp is that freedom of speech does not grant freedom from consequences.
No, the delusional ones are the nutjobs like yourself who look only at raw numbers - and miss that millions of good paying jobs (especially factory jobs) have vanished, to be replaced by minimum wage service jobs and McJobs.
I'd put down that sack of stones and start looking to move out of that glass house if I was you.
Because I don't know whether or not they'll be seen beforehand, and because I don't know what my friends will react to or not. But those nobody responds to, no big deal. I don't need that kind of social validation.
Because they have to control vertical *and* horizontal velocity. Simple as that.
Sorry, I'm a geek and share all kinds of geeky things... some people respond to, some they don't. And I don't give a rat fuck either way. It's my feed, I'll post what I want. I don't particularly need anyone else's approval or attention.
Your problem, like with so many other people here on Slashdot, isn't with Facebook - it's that you have a shit group of friends.
How exactly is Yahoo! sinking? They're still making shedloads of money and have a massive userbase, even though they aren't exactly 'cool' by the standards of the digerati.
There are other goals than fuel efficiency. And really, given how dirt cheap kerolox is, optimizing for extreme fuel efficiency (especially on a first stage) is something of a fool's errand.
o.0
Reflying/reusing something is, with rare exceptions, always going to be cheaper than building a new something. The only real question is, how much cheaper?
The author is... more than a little off base. To take the services I'm aware of; Flickr didn't crumble because it reached the mainstream, because it never really reached the mainstream. Flickr* crumbled because of a number of ill advised changes to the UI at the same time Facebook and a number of other photo sharing services were on the rise. In the same way, LiveJournal was quite healthy, even in the mainstream, but the rise of Facebook combined with a number of ill advised changes, and numerous outages due to DDOS attacks pushed people away. Orkut never was mainstream.
He also misses one huge change to Facebook itself - the shift to mobile devices. As slashdotters have long noted, it's hard to produce original content, even text, on tablets, phablets, and phones.
* Yes, Flickr could be considered a social media site even though it's ostensibly a photosharing service. It had extensive groups (forums) dedicated to almost every topic under the sun. People used the text blocks (intended for descriptions) accompanying the photographs for blogging. Etc... etc...
Under what theory? "I'm a self entitled child who thinks that since I only like x version of a game, the company should be forced to provide it to me?"
Most likely based on Tesla's inability to deliver in a timely fashion, given the enormous leap in production capacity required. (Five times their total deliveries to date, thirty times their largest year to date.) Buyer's remorse when it comes time to pony up the balance and actually order the car will also play a factor.
They laughed at Columbus - but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Other than your religious belief in the Cult of Elon - why would you believe that?
No, it's not even close to that - as a deposit isn't a commitment to pay. Lenders know that even if you don't.
You might think so if you're clueless and only consider a single dimension - the size of the back order book. But other factors matter too, such as the size of their existing debt and lack of production capacity. These things matter to lenders.
If (for whatever reason) the Tesla 3 were to sink Tesla, they'd hardly be the first company to go under for being *too* successful.
0.o
Had I said they were expected to be profitable, you'd have a point. I didn't.
Nor did I say they wouldn't be able to get financing, only that it's not going to be the slam dunk the grandparent seems to assume as there are other factors at work than just a deep order book.
Did you even understand what I wrote? Or did you just reply to hear your own keyboard?
That pre-order book certainly is impressive, but that's balanced by their existing debt, their lack of positive cashflow, and the multiplier the pre-orders represent over their known (proven) production capacity.
There's no doubt entities willing to finance them, but I doubt they'd be 'overjoyed'.
His full first and last name has been plastered all over the place for years now. He's been very visible and public in his campaign. Nobody has taken any action against him.
That average is pulled up by larger, more expensive, vehicles such as SUV's and trucks. And given that the Tesla 3 is a sedan - that suggests that average is largely useless as a mark of "affordability" since it includes a large number of vehicles that aren't sedans purchased by a large number of people, the bulk of whom are unlikely to replace those vehicles with sedans. (To be fair, this includes folks driving cheap compacts as well as folks driving expensive SUV's.) A few minutes searching around (but by no means exhaustive) seems to show that the average price of a mid-sized sedan is somewhere in the $20-25k range. So, using your criteria but correcting the numbers to compare apples-to-apples... the Tesla 3 falls well outside the affordable range. (But within the range for luxury sedans, a not inconsiderable market.)
If you're making in the range of $75k/annum, you're in the top third of US families. Not rich, no, but above average (which is around $55k/annum currently).
No shit Sherlock. Here's a free clue, repeating yourself pointlessly doesn't make you right. It makes you look like more of a moron.
No shit Sherlock. Why the fuck do you think I pointed out the precise reason why it wouldn't work in this case? Did you even read what I wrote? (You may be ignorant of the situation with regards to such matters, but if you weren't a moron it might occur to you that doesn't mean others aren't.)
Go back to kindergarten child.
Because "economies of scale" isn't a magic wand that you can just wave and magically make everything cheaper. In particular, items with enormous amounts of touch labor (such as the mirrors carried by Hubble or Hitomi) aren't really susceptible to economies of scale because the costs of actually building the thing far exceed the costs of setting up to build the thing.
No, as usual, the answer is far more pedestrian - it's "a Slashdot poster pulled a term out of his ass without actually understanding what the term means and implies".
Reality is not responsible for living up to your ill-informed fantasies.
So? Nonetheless, they happened.
I love the fetishism of new technology here - as if new technology were somehow magical... and wouldn't have the same Rube Goldberg systems to prevent the same problems. (And wouldn't be liable to the same or different faults.)
If that were in fact possible, you'd have a point. But it's not.
Look, I'm *for* nuclear power... but the ignorance of your explanation of why we shouldn't worry about past casualties and how magical shiny new reactors are the answer is simply appalling.
There's only one word for that spew - horseshit. Words mean things, and if you have to make up definitions and blow smoke to make them mean something different to prove your 'case' - that shows the falsehood.
Horseshit. You can live your entire life quite sucesfully in the "digital era" without knowing anything about coding or writing a single line of code.