We are in the same field as them; we have contracts for non-disclosure that would ruin us if disclosed. While much of the information is quite mundane, the timing of access to information could have a few of our clients suing us quite quickly.
While I get things being mis-configured in a small shop, it amazes me how lazy of a solution many companies have. (That reminds me... I should get a pen-test audit done...)
Arguably the opposite could be true: auto manufacturers today are primarily about service and marketing; slapping a cabin on a slightly value-added chassis makes sense for their model.
I could also see highly mass-marketed "skateboards" becoming the foundation (heh) of the auto industry-- it lends itself to more customization and is consistent with today's "platform" model.
Agree; I don't know how much they are putting into fundemental research, but I have to imagine they are restricted in chemistry. This provides significant long-term risk for them.
That said, they are doing the right things by finding multiple markets for the batteries fast which should lower costs, and arguably more importantly an existing model isn't just going to jump onto a new battery overnight, so there is some inherent logic to focusing on improving one chemistry.
If China starts dumping batteries it will hurt Tesla-- but in scale it might not be material. If they need $5B in capital investment over the next 5 years that could be a bigger existential concern.
Well, the premise is people that cannot read or write making up the next billion.
For me, I HATE video or audio presentation of information; it is too information-sparse and modal. Strong visual presentations can be quite effective, and I do understand that verbalization of information can be helpful to many people, but if this is the direction we are going I will quite happily disconnect from the internet.
Grid stability requires diverse sources of energy. Cheaper to do solar-thermal in the Sahara than PV+batteries in Germany, although the two are not mutually exclusive.
Think less remote-control and more autonomous. It will happen in stages-- first things to reduce the cockpit workload for the pilot and co-pilot, next elimination of the co-pilot, next elimination of the reserve pilot on long flights, and ultimately making the purser the human backup.
There seem to be a number of fake Duracell batteries on Amazon... or quality has gone way down. Didn't know you could get compensation though... had to re-finish my desk because of a battery leak in keyboard...
Personally, I am pretty torn on this; we are in a regulatory era that turns a 2-year construction project into a 10-15 year process. The immediate impact of this is increasing the cost. However, we don't really need a new era of the robber-barons, and things should be safe.
If Musk can bore tunnels at a pace of a mile per month this makes fairly long distance tunnels economically viable... but it also means you are stuck working with many different jurisdictions at the same time. If he can do it with zero surface impact along the route, at a safe depth clear of building foundations and utilities, what should the process look like from a regulatory standpoint?
My wife and I do it. Trader Joe's is about 3 miles from home, and on my bicycle I can fit about 40 pounds of groceries in my backpack. Perishables go day 1 and non-perishables day 2. When I get home this afternoon, I will walk the ~0.6 miles to "down town", grab a beer with the wife and friends, run across the street to the grocery store and pick up heavier things like Ice, throw them in the backpack, and walk home with them.
It does help that TJ's is close to my office, as I only have to go over there one trip and can keep things in the office for staging home.
It isn't that hard, and this is in suburban Los Angeles area. To make it work you need walkable and bikeable communities.
It doesn't mean you can't drive yourself places either; it just means that you need to focus on using other means when practical, and not just taking the easy way out.
You are missing the concept of a risk pool. They know men and 80-year old nuns aren't going to have babies. They are assuming a specific percentage of the population will though (likely around 1.24% each year). Similar statistics cover other risks.
Ultimately, the cost is fixed; ACA just spreads that cost out somewhat uniformly as a cost for society to bear. They do try to force preventative care to be included despite what some people may want from their plan, in the hopes they drive down the costs of serious care from people neglecting problems.
There are a few spots where Tesla still has strategic advantages compared to the other US manufacturers; the interesting spot will be what the German manufacturers do over the next 3-5 years.
Toyota likely could have killed them if they weren't obsessed with fuel cells.
Tesla needs to hit a critical mass for their business model to really work and generate positive cash flow. That is clearly more than the ~2-300k cars they have on the roads today, and is likely closer to 1MM cars. They also need to have learned lessons from previous models for the mass-market strategy to actually work.
From what little I see of the Model 3, my guess is they have worked hard to address complexity issues and design a vehicle that can be manufactured with reasonable complexity, and that is higher reliability than the Model S. They seem to have stayed away from the more ambitious goals of the Model X, which seems to have been a disaster.
I would say that in 18 months there is a reasonable chance they will be turning a modest profit, although I imagine they will still need $5-10B in financing to get through the next 5-10 years.
(I own Tesla stock, although I don't consider it a logical investment.)
Actually, the prime factor was Westinghouse's liability limit was $2.2B, which would not make a dent in the cost to complete. Westinghouse could have walked away years ago, and would still only be on the hook for the $2.2B.
I'm not sure I agree. The US does multi-billion dollar projects all the time, but we have lost the generation of people from Bechtel and others that had the specific experience in this field. Compare how these projects are run to a major mass-transit project or stadium and you will see the issues pretty quickly.
The problem isn't strangling the project, it is that the people building them do not understand how to build a comprehensive schedule (because design isn't "complete"). There are too many "black box" elements that cannot be incorporated into the construction efficiently until their design is complete.
This leads quickly to squandering money-- too many people on site and unable to work effectively you end up with a downward spiral where people don't take the work seriously.
China is effectively mass-producing the reactors by comparison. I don't "trust" them too much on it, but we won't really know for another 10-30 years if they have taken shortcuts.
Actually, after breaking down and trying to get the thing to work it looks like it might just have terrible default values for caching and asynchronous transfer...
I know a few companies going with 7x6' private offices and a 6x2' sit/stand desk. They are tight, but you can get very good noise control. Only really supports a max of 2x27" screens though.
Slashdot Mirror
We are in the same field as them; we have contracts for non-disclosure that would ruin us if disclosed. While much of the information is quite mundane, the timing of access to information could have a few of our clients suing us quite quickly.
While I get things being mis-configured in a small shop, it amazes me how lazy of a solution many companies have. (That reminds me... I should get a pen-test audit done...)
Arguably the opposite could be true: auto manufacturers today are primarily about service and marketing; slapping a cabin on a slightly value-added chassis makes sense for their model.
I could also see highly mass-marketed "skateboards" becoming the foundation (heh) of the auto industry-- it lends itself to more customization and is consistent with today's "platform" model.
Agree; I don't know how much they are putting into fundemental research, but I have to imagine they are restricted in chemistry. This provides significant long-term risk for them.
That said, they are doing the right things by finding multiple markets for the batteries fast which should lower costs, and arguably more importantly an existing model isn't just going to jump onto a new battery overnight, so there is some inherent logic to focusing on improving one chemistry.
If China starts dumping batteries it will hurt Tesla-- but in scale it might not be material. If they need $5B in capital investment over the next 5 years that could be a bigger existential concern.
Well, the premise is people that cannot read or write making up the next billion.
For me, I HATE video or audio presentation of information; it is too information-sparse and modal. Strong visual presentations can be quite effective, and I do understand that verbalization of information can be helpful to many people, but if this is the direction we are going I will quite happily disconnect from the internet.
Grid stability requires diverse sources of energy. Cheaper to do solar-thermal in the Sahara than PV+batteries in Germany, although the two are not mutually exclusive.
Hint... it already is.
Think less remote-control and more autonomous. It will happen in stages-- first things to reduce the cockpit workload for the pilot and co-pilot, next elimination of the co-pilot, next elimination of the reserve pilot on long flights, and ultimately making the purser the human backup.
There seem to be a number of fake Duracell batteries on Amazon... or quality has gone way down. Didn't know you could get compensation though... had to re-finish my desk because of a battery leak in keyboard...
Because it is grossly over priced that way!
Personally, I am pretty torn on this; we are in a regulatory era that turns a 2-year construction project into a 10-15 year process. The immediate impact of this is increasing the cost. However, we don't really need a new era of the robber-barons, and things should be safe.
If Musk can bore tunnels at a pace of a mile per month this makes fairly long distance tunnels economically viable... but it also means you are stuck working with many different jurisdictions at the same time. If he can do it with zero surface impact along the route, at a safe depth clear of building foundations and utilities, what should the process look like from a regulatory standpoint?
Easy to make fake news, much harder to create a coordinated system and message to shape opinion. Think "news cycle" rather than "story."
Unfortunately, copy/paste isn't so secure either.
My wife and I do it. Trader Joe's is about 3 miles from home, and on my bicycle I can fit about 40 pounds of groceries in my backpack. Perishables go day 1 and non-perishables day 2. When I get home this afternoon, I will walk the ~0.6 miles to "down town", grab a beer with the wife and friends, run across the street to the grocery store and pick up heavier things like Ice, throw them in the backpack, and walk home with them.
It does help that TJ's is close to my office, as I only have to go over there one trip and can keep things in the office for staging home.
It isn't that hard, and this is in suburban Los Angeles area. To make it work you need walkable and bikeable communities.
It doesn't mean you can't drive yourself places either; it just means that you need to focus on using other means when practical, and not just taking the easy way out.
You are missing the concept of a risk pool. They know men and 80-year old nuns aren't going to have babies. They are assuming a specific percentage of the population will though (likely around 1.24% each year). Similar statistics cover other risks.
Ultimately, the cost is fixed; ACA just spreads that cost out somewhat uniformly as a cost for society to bear. They do try to force preventative care to be included despite what some people may want from their plan, in the hopes they drive down the costs of serious care from people neglecting problems.
There are a few spots where Tesla still has strategic advantages compared to the other US manufacturers; the interesting spot will be what the German manufacturers do over the next 3-5 years.
Toyota likely could have killed them if they weren't obsessed with fuel cells.
Tesla needs to hit a critical mass for their business model to really work and generate positive cash flow. That is clearly more than the ~2-300k cars they have on the roads today, and is likely closer to 1MM cars. They also need to have learned lessons from previous models for the mass-market strategy to actually work.
From what little I see of the Model 3, my guess is they have worked hard to address complexity issues and design a vehicle that can be manufactured with reasonable complexity, and that is higher reliability than the Model S. They seem to have stayed away from the more ambitious goals of the Model X, which seems to have been a disaster.
I would say that in 18 months there is a reasonable chance they will be turning a modest profit, although I imagine they will still need $5-10B in financing to get through the next 5-10 years.
(I own Tesla stock, although I don't consider it a logical investment.)
We have 20-25 year batteries today, although I agree that base load is a power SOURCE and not a storage mechanism.
Cheap, Safe, Clean: Pick two.
(I would have switched Clean for Fast personally though. The time element is a big part of the problem.)
Actually, the prime factor was Westinghouse's liability limit was $2.2B, which would not make a dent in the cost to complete. Westinghouse could have walked away years ago, and would still only be on the hook for the $2.2B.
Really. How many people in the US that were/are working on the 4 nuclear power plants have ever worked on one before?
I'm not sure I agree. The US does multi-billion dollar projects all the time, but we have lost the generation of people from Bechtel and others that had the specific experience in this field. Compare how these projects are run to a major mass-transit project or stadium and you will see the issues pretty quickly.
The problem isn't strangling the project, it is that the people building them do not understand how to build a comprehensive schedule (because design isn't "complete"). There are too many "black box" elements that cannot be incorporated into the construction efficiently until their design is complete.
This leads quickly to squandering money-- too many people on site and unable to work effectively you end up with a downward spiral where people don't take the work seriously.
China is effectively mass-producing the reactors by comparison. I don't "trust" them too much on it, but we won't really know for another 10-30 years if they have taken shortcuts.
Actually, after breaking down and trying to get the thing to work it looks like it might just have terrible default values for caching and asynchronous transfer...
OS X still has such miserable SMB client we are stuck with SMB1/CIFS to maintain some semblance of reliability and speed.
I know a few companies going with 7x6' private offices and a 6x2' sit/stand desk. They are tight, but you can get very good noise control. Only really supports a max of 2x27" screens though.