Comment by viscanti
3 years ago
The question is what value would a city get after, what seems to be, a very expensive process? What value do they get from unlocking semi competent AI cars that's worth the time, effort, and requires dedicated street space and an inconvenience to everyone else who travels a different way? It doesn't seem like it's replacing public transit and if someone needs a private vehicle to go beyond the area that's optimized they'll need a different transportation solution. It seems like a lot of cost for a very small benefit.
A very small benefit for society but potentially a very large benefit for a select few stakeholders.
Musk largely became the richest person on the planet off the back of the promise that nobody else would have decent EV tech (turns out, they do), nobody else would have the battery production capacity (turns out, they do, plus super ironic when Tesla is partnering with Panasonic for battery production), AND the promise of fully self driving cars (which will happen for Tesla immediately after flying cars).
I don't have a good term for this, but it's basically corruption: a few benefit at the cost of everyone else.
> off the back of the promise that nobody else would have decent EV tech (turns out, they do)
That just simply not true. He became one of the richest people in the world when Tesla cracked really high volume productions of EVs at a quite amazing margin. That is what people didn't believe was possible when they did it in 2018.
And at the same time SpaceX, where Musk owns much more stock off, managed to re-usability operational and started to launch Starlink.
> production capacity (turns out, they do, plus super ironic when Tesla is partnering with Panasonic for battery production)
Tesla is by far largest BEV producer in the world so its actually true. And if you think all Tesla does is partnering with Panasonic you have not been paying attention.
Telsa has its own battery production and also is one of the largest costumers of CATL, LG and Panasonic. For quite a while Panasonic and Tesla have co-developed technology that Panasonic can just sell to anybody.
As you can see, Tesla has to be both a producer and a major consumer of most battery companies in the world to achieve the volume they do.
And others can not simply replicate it because the industry is supply constraint.
> I don't have a good term for this, but it's basically corruption
Tesla is the largest BEV producer in the world, and just recently made a larger profit then Ford/GM combined (if I remember correctly). Tesla has industry leading margin and is still the fastest growing car company of any size.
SpaceX is one of the most advanced technology companies in the world and I don't think you will find anybody serious who disagrees with that.
The only argument you have that makes sense is that Musk over-promised Self-Driving. That is certainty true, but I wouldn't call it corruption. And I don't think that today the stock price of Tesla is hugely inflated by this as there is so much pessimism on self-driving.
Lets cut the argument very short.
If Tesla or SpaceX were to disappear tomorrow nobody would experience any existential crisis.
If you disappeared Microsoft, Apple or Amazon or Walmart overnight the whole economy would come to a halt. Same for JPMChase,WellsFargo, BoA etc.
Musk is the first guy to reach the top of the Forbes list while being at the helm of an aspirational company, not one that is structurally important one in the present.
It’s a dangerous precedent, and in fact soon enough it was repeated when bitcoiners and owners of exchanges such as Coinbase and FTX reached the top 10 of the Forbes list.
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It's an enormous benefit to society. A huge number of people are killed or seriously injured in car crashes every year. Plus the quality of life benefits and reduction in property damage.
Yeah, but it has nothing to do with what I'm saying.
What you're referring to doesn't exist. Right now it's vaporware, and for all we know, we could be 1 century away from solving it up to human levels.
How is my example, street signs, an inconvenience to others or needs dedicated street space? Signs need to be replaced anyway, just add a code at the next replacement.
You're thinking back and white "it's not replacing...". What does that matter? To me what matters is "can we make transport better"
I thought the question was "can we actually make fully autonomous vehicles?" If we have that, the value is pretty obvious.