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Musk endeavours

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Howard
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Re: Musk endeavours

#200102

Postby Howard » February 9th, 2019, 12:00 pm

The Invasion of Europe

I shouldn’t spend too much time commenting on Tesla, but I have to admit I’m hooked by the newsflow at the moment.

This will make a super business case study for future generations.

After reading posts on this forum about a year ago about how ICE manufacturers are doomed and within three years will be overwhelmed by the mighty Tesla I’m watching with fascination, as the clock ticks onward, about the implementation of what I think Elon Musk called “the Invasion of Europe”.

His fleet of Ro Ro ships are on the high seas with “thousands of cars” on board. We were told that this was planned years ago. I’ve been wondering about the logistics of delivering these cars to customers. We should be expecting a state of the art demonstration of how to do this better than BMW, VW, Audi, Toyota, Lexus etc.

Reading the local Belgian press about Tesla’s plans it all looked so easy. After all Elon’s team had the help of the most professional operation in the world. (“The Port of Zeebrugge is the undisputed world leader in car handling. The number of cars passing through the port is expected to grow by 18% this year, reaching a total of 2.8 million”). Tesla signed a contract with ICO the”global market leader in the port handling and storage of roll-on/roll-off cargo on its various deepsea terminals. In addition to loading and unloading new vehicles, construction materials, breakbulk, heavy lifts and any other RoRo cargo, we offer vehicle processing, shipping agency and various services related to Customs and fiscal representation, as well as the full door-to-door logistics from factory up to delivery to the client / dealer.”

Anyone who has bought a European car recently knows that after it is unloaded from the RoRo ship in the UK it generally takes 2-3 weeks to go through PDI, local equipment modifications etc before it is loaded onto a transporter and shipped to a dealer. Yes, it can be quicker but, on average that’s what experienced dealers will tell you. Tesla obviously thinks they can do this much quicker.

ICO recruited about 100 new employees at the beginning of the year to handle Tesla Model 3 shipments. And they started to install chargers at the port as the cars needed to be charged to 80% for hand over to customers or dealers. (A half decent car manufacturer wouldn’t want its first customers to be desperate for a charge as they drove away because unlike ICE cars they aren’t easy to refuel in a strange location if you are keen to get home.)

What could go wrong? …… hubris?

Reading the local paper (hat tip to Google translate) it was rumoured that Elon Musk was due to fly in to Zeebrugge this week in triumph as his shiny Model 3s were acclaimed by delighted customers driving away from Tesla delivery points.

Instead he is apologising on February 6th saying “ Sorry, many unexpected challenges with cars coming through Zeebrugge first time. Cars will start moving out in volume tomorrow.”

By volume, presumably he means by the thousand? We have yet to hear. In the meantime, it is reported that thousands more Model 3s are on the high seas. Let’s hope the problems are sorted or someone’s going to have a big parking bill at Zeebrugge.

One final thought for the business case study: Tesla has been successful in persuading Californians to pay up front for their cars and, in many cases, tolerate poor delivery service. After the first wave of Tesla fanatics, will European customers be so tolerant?

We won’t have long to wait to see how this all pans out. Will Tesla have the likes of VW shaking in their shoes at Elon’s invasion? Or will we learn a lot about how not to do logistics and marketing?

Yours hooked

Howard

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200170

Postby BobbyD » February 9th, 2019, 5:19 pm

Exclusive: Tesla's delivery team gutted in recent job cuts - sources

...Some 150 employees out of a team of about 230 were let go in January at the Las Vegas facility that gets tens of thousands of Model 3s into the hands of U.S. and Canadian buyers, they said, in a sign the company expected the pace of deliveries to significantly slow in the near term.

The cuts, which have not been previously reported, could fuel investor worries that demand for the Model 3 in the United States has tailed off after a large tax break for consumers expired last year and the car remains too expensive for most consumers.

Tesla has said its focus this quarter is on supplying cars to customers waiting in China and Europe.

“There are not enough deliveries,” one of the former employees told Reuters. “You don’t need a team because there are not that many cars coming through.”


https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-tesla ... KKCN1PY00F

Haven't read this, but I like the title:

DR. ELON & MR. MUSK: LIFE INSIDE TESLA'S PRODUCTION HELL


- https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-t ... gafactory/

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200193

Postby odysseus2000 » February 9th, 2019, 6:51 pm

This is one view of a Tesla (lots of cussing and swearing!) by the guy who Musk had a drag of pot with:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1094004442708525056

Should open at Tesla part which is about 1 hr 41 14

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200258

Postby odysseus2000 » February 10th, 2019, 9:45 am

EVGO take on electric which I still think is too pessimistic:

https://youtu.be/iA55DSF4N-E

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200383

Postby BobbyD » February 10th, 2019, 6:42 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:EVGO take on electric which I still think is too pessimistic:

https://youtu.be/iA55DSF4N-E

Regards,


Out of interest have you come across a prediction on the future of EV's you consider to be overoptimistic yet?

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200397

Postby odysseus2000 » February 10th, 2019, 7:49 pm

BobbyD wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:EVGO take on electric which I still think is too pessimistic:

https://youtu.be/iA55DSF4N-E

Regards,


Out of interest have you come across a prediction on the future of EV's you consider to be overoptimistic yet?


No

I just think that the advantages of electric are so overwhelming that we are at a propellor-jet moment.

Once it became obvious that jet were better, more reliable etc, most of the aviation market went to jet propulsion.

I expect a similar thing to occur with battery EV.

Almost everyone I have seen or talked to who has practical experience with battery EV says they will never go back to hydro-carbon.

Once one gets such an overwhelming positive reaction the moment of adoption and decline become huge.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200444

Postby BobbyD » February 11th, 2019, 6:27 am

odysseus2000 wrote:
BobbyD wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:EVGO take on electric which I still think is too pessimistic:

https://youtu.be/iA55DSF4N-E

Regards,
I just think that the advantages of electric are so overwhelming that we are at a propellor-jet moment.


You think ICE's will still be around in 60 years time?

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200505

Postby odysseus2000 » February 11th, 2019, 11:10 am

BobbyD wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:
BobbyD wrote:I just think that the advantages of electric are so overwhelming that we are at a propellor-jet moment.


You think ICE's will still be around in 60 years time?


We still have horses, so probably some, but as mass transport I doubt it.

One can argue that there are currently no practical hydro carbon free long duration aero engines or co2 free rocket motors, so for the moment they are the two areas which have no clear path to replacement, but I suspect in long duration aero there may be significant improvements that reduce hydro carbon consumption if not eliminate it.

One can not also entirely neglect some of the more wild ideas from physics in terms of anti-gravity etc. All of these appear impossible and may stay that way, but people work on such things and like warp drive there are those who believe.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200716

Postby BobbyD » February 11th, 2019, 11:39 pm

A Tesla vehicle crashed into ‘several signs on the road’ in New Jersey last night and the driver claims that his Model X was on Autopilot and he couldn’t disengage the driver assist system, which would be a first.
The accident happened in Middlesex County last night when a Model X crashed off the road on route 1 near North Brunswick.

The driver was not hurt nor charged, but the vehicle reportedly “sustained extensive damage.” it was towed away as pictured above.

According to local news outlet NJ.com, the police wrote in the report:

“The vehicle could have gone straight or taken the Adams Lane exit, but instead split the difference and went down the middle, taking the vehicle off the roadway and striking several objects at the roadside,”


- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/teslas- ... -half.html

t. Rowe Price cut its stake in Tesla in half during the fourth quarter, according to a government filing.

The international money manager owned 8.98 million Tesla shares by the end of last year, according to a filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The new, smaller stake represents 5.2 percent of the electric auto maker's common shares outstanding at the end of December. The Baltimore-based fund group reported in a prior filing that it owned 17.4 million shares, or a 10.2 percent stake, as of Sept. 30.


- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/teslas- ... -half.html

MIT Self-Driving Cars: State of the Art (2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... RxaMDDMWQQ

Other MIT slef driving car vids here: https://deeplearning.mit.edu/

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200721

Postby odysseus2000 » February 11th, 2019, 11:58 pm

This is very interesting on the Maxwell acquisition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE97Mj7Cmzk

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200724

Postby BobbyD » February 12th, 2019, 12:12 am

Rather enjoying this at the moment: Emilio Frazzoli, CTO, nuTonomy - MIT Self-Driving Cars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSbItd ... vNjby9efdf

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200726

Postby BobbyD » February 12th, 2019, 1:42 am

BobbyD wrote:Rather enjoying this at the moment: Emilio Frazzoli, CTO, nuTonomy - MIT Self-Driving Cars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSbItd ... vNjby9efdf


Very wide ranging touching on amongst other things the economics of AD's as a service vs as a consumer product, where you are going to see them first and why, different approaches to developing AD's (eg. starting at level 2 and working up vs starting at L5), different ways in which AD's can work, a slightly more nuanced approach to the who should you run over given the choice problem, and what we do know about AD's has taught us about what we don't know about human drivers.

Interesting, approachable, well presented by somebody with a long history in the area.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200796

Postby Howard » February 12th, 2019, 11:08 am

We should soon be able to read about European customers' experiences with their new Model 3s.

At least two Ro Ro ferries have arrived and disgorged their cargoes.

There still seems to be some doubt about Autopilot in Europe. Let's hope Tesla knows what it is doing? It may not be straightforward updating cars over the internet if the modification requires Regulatory Approval. This doesn't just apply to Autopilot but may apply to future upgrades. The following thoughtful article sums up the current situation.

http://www.thedrive.com/tech/26437/the- ... an-model-3

No doubt the Tesla fans will be patient, but this may be a test of how thorough the company is in getting service issues right.

regards

Howard

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200807

Postby odysseus2000 » February 12th, 2019, 11:52 am

BobbyD wrote:
BobbyD wrote:Rather enjoying this at the moment: Emilio Frazzoli, CTO, nuTonomy - MIT Self-Driving Cars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSbItd ... vNjby9efdf


Very wide ranging touching on amongst other things the economics of AD's as a service vs as a consumer product, where you are going to see them first and why, different approaches to developing AD's (eg. starting at level 2 and working up vs starting at L5), different ways in which AD's can work, a slightly more nuanced approach to the who should you run over given the choice problem, and what we do know about AD's has taught us about what we don't know about human drivers.

Interesting, approachable, well presented by somebody with a long history in the area.


I did not like Emilio's talk, it was too focused on his view that the future is robotic cars and ride sharing and within that type of approach as he noted the cost of the hardware and his salary were small compared to the revenue that such system could bring. He justified himself by arguing that the recent advances in auto pilots were nothing more than was done 20 years ago, completely ignoring that then it was a applied to just a few cars not the hundreds of thousands currently and that the current technology is very different to what was available 20 years ago.

This lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53YvP6gdD7U

is in my opinion far more about what is available now, how it works and what it can do and what may it be able to do. Very significant to me were that the cost of the neural net technology is falling dramatically and that there are competitions to bring it as low as possible with some systems getting over 90% success for just a few $ of cost, some for cents. Moreover the modern neural nets are working like humans, not requiring billions of calculations but able to look over a situation and give the best moves as a Grand Master would do with a chess board.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200849

Postby BobbyD » February 12th, 2019, 3:33 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:
I did not like Emilio's talk, it was too focused on his view that the future is robotic cars and ride sharing and within that type of approach as he noted the cost of the hardware and his salary were small compared to the revenue that such system could bring. He justified himself by arguing that the recent advances in auto pilots were nothing more than was done 20 years ago, completely ignoring that then it was a applied to just a few cars not the hundreds of thousands currently and that the current technology is very different to what was available 20 years ago.


Whether or not you agree with the arguments put forwards or not, and there are a number of them, it's hard to argue that it wasn't a coherent, well referenced, lecture using specific projections and actual video footage from numerous sources by somebody whose experience in the field goes back to what most people consider the beginning of modern AD development. He justifies his opinions with argument, his presence is justified by his senior position in a company currently running level 5 taxis in Boston and Singapore, he has no need to justify himself.

You might choose to put a counterargument, but to dislike it because it doesn't agree with your current view does't seem very constructive.

It's hardly his fault if somebody built a car which was capable of autobahn driving in the 90's, which would I guess make Tesla's autopilot 20th century technology, although I can understand why you didn't like hearing about it.

Daimler boosted the project’s funding. Car lobbyists ironed out doubts inside the French government. And in October 1994, Dickmanns’ team picked up a group of high-ranking guests from Charles de Gaulle airport, drove them to the nearby motorway and switched the two cars into self-driving mode.

An engineer remained in the front seat of each car — with his hands on the steering wheel in case something went wrong — but the cars were doing the driving.


- https://www.politico.eu/article/delf-dr ... -mercedes/

Sound familiar?

...and he isn't saying the current tech is no different to what was around in '94, he is saying if you are still at L2 you have not progressed from what was available 20 years ago. The cutting edge is L5, and he goes on to talk about how his project which is an MIT spinoff have gone about achieving L5.

Ernst Dickmanns’ VaMoRs Mercedes Van, 1986-2003

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I39sxwYKlEE

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200895

Postby BobbyD » February 12th, 2019, 6:16 pm

Base Level VW ID expected to be single motor, 48kWh, 200 miles £22,500

- https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswage ... tric-hatch

- https://www.carbuyer.co.uk/news/154980/ ... lease-date

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200950

Postby odysseus2000 » February 12th, 2019, 9:57 pm

BobbyD
Whether or not you agree with the arguments put forwards or not, and there are a number of them, it's hard to argue that it wasn't a coherent, well referenced, lecture using specific projections and actual video footage from numerous sources by somebody whose experience in the field goes back to what most people consider the beginning of modern AD development. He justifies his opinions with argument, his presence is justified by his senior position in a company currently running level 5 taxis in Boston and Singapore, he has no need to justify himself.

You might choose to put a counterargument, but to dislike it because it doesn't agree with your current view does't seem very constructive.

It's hardly his fault if somebody built a car which was capable of autobahn driving in the 90's, which would I guess make Tesla's autopilot 20th century technology, although I can understand why you didn't like hearing about it.


Emilio is an academic so it should not be surprising that he can give coherent well referenced talk.

He is Chief Technology Office of a business and has at least two academic appointments as well.

This is a classic situation I have seen many times and almost always raises red flags as Venture Capital wants folk who have significant positions is a business to also have "skin" in the game. When you have situations like this it is very hard for the person to put serious effort into the business since he has too many other responsibilities and that rarely leads to good things happening, usually the business flounders and fails to reach the potential it would have with a Chief Tech officer who has just that responsibility.

It was clear, at least to me, that he was doing way too much selling in his lecture and as I have said the comparison between a 20+ year old technology in a very limited number of cars and the modern version using a technology that was not available 20+ years ago is meaningless.

It may be that he is right and that level 5 in a ride sharing environment is the way this technology will develop, but as I look at the developments in neural nets I come to a different conclusion.

This is why we have markets of different minded folk to do price discovery.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#200958

Postby BobbyD » February 12th, 2019, 10:43 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:
BobbyD
Whether or not you agree with the arguments put forwards or not, and there are a number of them, it's hard to argue that it wasn't a coherent, well referenced, lecture using specific projections and actual video footage from numerous sources by somebody whose experience in the field goes back to what most people consider the beginning of modern AD development. He justifies his opinions with argument, his presence is justified by his senior position in a company currently running level 5 taxis in Boston and Singapore, he has no need to justify himself.

You might choose to put a counterargument, but to dislike it because it doesn't agree with your current view does't seem very constructive.

It's hardly his fault if somebody built a car which was capable of autobahn driving in the 90's, which would I guess make Tesla's autopilot 20th century technology, although I can understand why you didn't like hearing about it.


Emilio is an academic so it should not be surprising that he can give coherent well referenced talk.

He is Chief Technology Office of a business and has at least two academic appointments as well.

This is a classic situation I have seen many times and almost always raises red flags as Venture Capital wants folk who have significant positions is a business to also have "skin" in the game.


I don't think you need to worry about VC, the company sold for $450 million in 2017, and is owned by a firm with a £20 billion market cap.

odysseus2000 wrote:It may be that he is right and that level 5 in a ride sharing environment is the way this technology will develop, but as I look at the developments in neural nets I come to a different conclusion.


Then a structured counter argument would be far more constructive that a dismissive me no like.

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Re: Musk endeavours

#201033

Postby Howard » February 13th, 2019, 10:50 am

From out of left field comes a US-based challenger to Tesla. Will they get backing from Amazon and GM?

Obviously a completely different vehicle with totally different characteristics. But possibly much more appropriate to the wider US market. And already employing technicians with Tesla backgrounds.

This range will appeal to another strata of wealthy consumers who don't value ridiculous acceleration and juvenile electronic features. They may enjoy literally looking down on model 3 fanatics? :)

https://electrek.co/2019/02/12/rivian-gm-amazon/

regards

Howard

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Re: Musk endeavours

#201063

Postby odysseus2000 » February 13th, 2019, 12:11 pm

Howard wrote:From out of left field comes a US-based challenger to Tesla. Will they get backing from Amazon and GM?

Obviously a completely different vehicle with totally different characteristics. But possibly much more appropriate to the wider US market. And already employing technicians with Tesla backgrounds.

This range will appeal to another strata of wealthy consumers who don't value ridiculous acceleration and juvenile electronic features. They may enjoy literally looking down on model 3 fanatics? :)

https://electrek.co/2019/02/12/rivian-gm-amazon/

regards

Howard


Ha ha, was this styled by Lada?

We are now in the "me-too" phase of the electric car revolution where everyone and their dog are bringing a new electric car to market, very like the dot com rise late last century.

My guess is that most of these will fail and be forgotten, especially if they are ugly and try to bring a 20th century modus operandi into the 21st century.

Regards,


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