Tesla says Model X logs show recent crash was due to driver's actions, not caused by autopilot

[captaincranky]

Just popping back in on this to correct mis-information. Tesla gets very little in federal subsidies - the consumer's that buy them do:
http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/...gn=article&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=yahoo-2

The people at Forbes beg to differ: http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrick...ng-cars-wed-all-save-some-money/#7a3aba094de6 The tax credit a Tesla buyer gets, comes from other taxpayers.

Where do you think governments get their money, if not from their citizen's taxes?

I used these search terms: Did Tesla motors ever get US government loans?

And then Tesla subsidies per car Try it sometime.

 

[dylannnnnn]

I seriously doubt that a 45-year-old woman which has been driving for over 20 years will park car using autopilot. does she even understand how to turn it on? unlikely.

In a car that they had owned for 5 days only....not a chance she knew how to use it.

 

[Darth Shiv]

In a car that they had owned for 5 days only....not a chance she knew how to use it.

Yes that's a good point. Gotta say, when you are used to a car that does 0-60mph in close to 8-10s then go to a car that does it in 3.1 seconds, honestly that is just asking for trouble. Thinking about it from that perspective, I've got little doubt the driver is MUCH more likely to be at fault here.

She may have been driving for 20 years but not likely in a car like that. It accelerates faster than more Ferraris and almost up to a McLaren F1 (the road car not an actual formula 1 car). Seriously it takes a lot of skill to control this car if you stuff up.

99% chance the owner is just trying to get Tesla to pay for their fault.

 

[Puiu]

The people at Forbes beg to differ: http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrick...ng-cars-wed-all-save-some-money/#7a3aba094de6 The tax credit a Tesla buyer gets, comes from other taxpayers.

Where do you think governments get their money, if not from their citizen's taxes?

I used these search terms: Did Tesla motors ever get US government loans?

And then Tesla subsidies per car Try it sometime.

Yes, Tesla does get subsidies (a few thousand $ per car, it varies a lot depending on the local laws), but the loan you are talking about is not a problem. Every car manufacturer gets government loans in the US and Tesla is the only one that paid their loan and they managed to do it 9 years early.
--- from forbes --
“I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the ATVM program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” said Elon Musk. “I hope we did you proud.”

 

[captaincranky]

Yes, Tesla does get subsidies (a few thousand $ per car, it varies a lot depending on the local laws), but the loan you are talking about is not a problem. Every car manufacturer gets government loans in the US and Tesla is the only one that paid their loan and they managed to do it 9 years early....[ ]....

I heard about the "payoff" around the time it happened. Although I'm not entirely sure of the details, I had thought he either got money for investors and / or borrowed money elsewhere to do so.

I also believe GM paid off their bail out as well. (Again, not sure. I can only do so much research and rely on memory).

--- from forbes --
“I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the ATVM program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” said Elon Musk. “I hope we did you proud.”

Don't you think it's really superfluous and disingenuous quoting Elon Musk, making promises, saying nice things about himself and his company, and blowing sunshine up everybody's a**. It's pretty much all he's good for. Sorry, but that does bear mentioning.

 

[Puiu]

I heard about the "payoff" around the time it happened. Although I'm not entirely sure of the details, I had thought he either got money for investors and / or borrowed money elsewhere to do so.

I also believe GM paid off their bail out as well. (Again, not sure. I can only do so much research and rely on memory).
Don't you think it's really superfluous and disingenuous quoting Elon Musk, making promises, saying nice things about himself and his company, and blowing sunshine up everybody's a**. It's pretty much all he's good for. Sorry, but that does bear mentioning.

please don't confuse bailouts with proper business loans that companies need to expand. private investors is the normal way of paying back such loans.
bailouts don't usually have interest rates and do not need to be payed back. (mostly because the government becomes partial owner of the companies)
GM did indeed buy the shares back, in fact in 2015 the entire car manufacturer industry did, but in the end about 9 billion dollars were lost (the bailout for car manufacturers was about 80 bil in total).
You could say that the government used 9 bil to save the economy from imploding. A fairly big loss, but very much needed (and which could have been avoided if people did their jobs better)

 

[captaincranky]

please don't confuse bailouts with proper business loans that companies need to expand. private investors is the normal way of paying back such loans.
bailouts don't usually have interest rates and do not need to be payed back. (mostly because the government becomes partial owner of the companies)

Yeah well, Tesla is still losing money on every car it sells (about $4000.00 ?). Last quarter they turned in something like a $200,000,000.00 loss.

It's obvious we believe in contra-rotating spins, but still, here's how Musk paid off his last loan, and, "what happened then". (This is also from Forbes May, 2013)

"The latest round of Tesla wonderment came when it reported its first quarterly profit earlier this month. TSLA stock darned near doubled in a week. Musk then borrowed $150 million from Goldman Sachs (shocking!) and floated a cool billion in new stock and long-term debt. That’s how we—the taxpayers—were repaid"

 

[Puiu]

Yeah well, Tesla is still losing money on every car it sells (about $4000.00 ?). Last quarter they turned in something like a $200,000,000.00 loss.

It's obvious we believe in contra-rotating spins, but still, here's how Musk paid off his last loan, and, "what happened then". (This is also from Forbes May, 2013)

"The latest round of Tesla wonderment came when it reported its first quarterly profit earlier this month. TSLA stock darned near doubled in a week. Musk then borrowed $150 million from Goldman Sachs (shocking!) and floated a cool billion in new stock and long-term debt. That’s how we—the taxpayers—were repaid"

Well, Goldman Sachs must know something that we don't otherwise they wouldn't invest that much. They didn't have 40 bil revenue last year because of bad investments. They are most likely banking on the success of Model 3 which is known to have better profit margins for Tesla.
I don't really care that Tesla is bleeding money, it's not my money anyway. And you should not care too since they aren't operating using your money (at least not anymore), but at the end of the day we are talking about a huge number of jobs. Tesla needs every penny so they can stay afloat.

 

[captaincranky]

Tesla needs every penny so they can stay afloat.

Or......., Tesla needs every penny it can get so that Elon Musk can remain a billionaire (?) Again, reverse spin, my apologies.


There does exist another possibility. Musk might borrow the money from Morgan Chase to pay off Sachs Goldman.....

As I'm sure you would imagine, most of the comments about the story I quoted were vehemently negative. However, I pulled this excerpt from one comment, because it is so far off the mark, it's ludicrous:

"When consumer reports conclude it to be “the best car ever” we should all be proud cause this is a car made through the best of American values involving innovation and passion for perfection. What Steve Jobs did with Apple in the mobile phone business, Elon Musk is now doing with Tesla in the car business. The USA need more of these visionary people or our debt will never recover our insane debt".

(*) First of all, "Consumer Reports", isn't always right or unbiased. But more importantly, Steve jobs created jobs, alright. However, ironically, they were mostly for the Chinese, and at "Foxconn".

Foxconn factories had "suicide nets" around their "dormitories", to prevent employees from killing themselves by jumping out of windows, brought on by stress and poor working conditions. In addition Apple has headquarters in Ireland as well as the US, to escape US corporate tax rate.

Recently, a press release from Foxconn suggested that 50,000 of its already underpaid employees were going to be replaced by, (cheaper), robots.

So, I suppose this respondent has stock in one or both of the companies involved, or perhaps he might be less forthcoming with his praise.

(*) Actually,"first of all", this guy's grammar and syntax both suck.

 

[DaveBG]

Its a common mistake. The women thinks her foot is on the brake while in fact is on gas. There are countless videos where women crash almost stopped cars ...

 

[Darth Shiv]

Let's be realistic here. $4k a car loss on bleeding edge tech when it is the future of the industry is a decent investment at this stage. It's better than military research because at least it's not being driven by blowing up a country.

1) Li-ion research - the technology is only in infancy. They have not achieved anywhere near optimal economies of scale. The cost of the tech and efficiency are moving massively. The things we are seeing achieved in labs are only the tip of the iceberg. If they alone were to hit mass manufacturing, Tesla's profitability will skyrocket. Let alone the fact that we haven't done many years of research into the tech yet. Computers have taken how long to get to mobile IoT capable devices?

2) Electric vehicle components and manufacturing in general. They don't even have their major plant constructed yet. I really don't think I need to go into detail on how a single plant let alone a mainstream sized manufacturing capability would change the balance sheet. Many of Musk's problems with supply chain have been the parts are bleeding edge. So even his suppliers are only in infancy. The costs will go down tremendously as things scale up. To get optimal economies of scale, this is decades away.

3) Grid suitability. The costs and infrastructure around charging are only in infancy as well. The grid is not going to be optimally setup for decades as well.

$4k loss per vehicle is pretty darn impressive considering the amount of pioneering work being done. They are on a projected path to profitability and if you look at how Li-ion costs have absolutely plummeted and the other component projected costs, it's an absolute no-brainer. If you have the money to invest in this, like Musk and Tesla investors do, they are tremendously placed and kudos to them.

What is staggering is how poorly the mainstream manufacturers have been in their investment. VW's research budget is larger than the whole value of Tesla yet where are they? They should be leading this field. They should have been there 15 years ago. Yet instead we have coal locomotives in memes talking about how they have lower emissions than a golf. Classic.

 

[Puiu]

Let's be realistic here. $4k a car loss on bleeding edge tech when it is the future of the industry is a decent investment at this stage. It's better than military research because at least it's not being driven by blowing up a country.

1) Li-ion research - the technology is only in infancy. They have not achieved anywhere near optimal economies of scale. The cost of the tech and efficiency are moving massively. The things we are seeing achieved in labs are only the tip of the iceberg. If they alone were to hit mass manufacturing, Tesla's profitability will skyrocket. Let alone the fact that we haven't done many years of research into the tech yet. Computers have taken how long to get to mobile IoT capable devices?

2) Electric vehicle components and manufacturing in general. They don't even have their major plant constructed yet. I really don't think I need to go into detail on how a single plant let alone a mainstream sized manufacturing capability would change the balance sheet. Many of Musk's problems with supply chain have been the parts are bleeding edge. So even his suppliers are only in infancy. The costs will go down tremendously as things scale up. To get optimal economies of scale, this is decades away.

3) Grid suitability. The costs and infrastructure around charging are only in infancy as well. The grid is not going to be optimally setup for decades as well.

$4k loss per vehicle is pretty darn impressive considering the amount of pioneering work being done. They are on a projected path to profitability and if you look at how Li-ion costs have absolutely plummeted and the other component projected costs, it's an absolute no-brainer. If you have the money to invest in this, like Musk and Tesla investors do, they are tremendously placed and kudos to them.

What is staggering is how poorly the mainstream manufacturers have been in their investment. VW's research budget is larger than the whole value of Tesla yet where are they? They should be leading this field. They should have been there 15 years ago. Yet instead we have coal locomotives in memes talking about how they have lower emissions than a golf. Classic.

while I agree with almost everything, there is one thing that I must correct. without a doubt the '20s will be all about electric cars, we don't need to wait decades.

 

[Darth Shiv]

I did say "optimal" . The tech and the manufacturing facilities will take years just to get rev 1 in let alone 2 or 3 where things are working near peak.

 

[captaincranky]

Let's be realistic here. $4k a car loss on bleeding edge tech when it is the future of the industry is a decent investment at this stage. It's better than military research because at least it's not being driven by blowing up a country.

Actually, I'd say that depends on what country would be blown up.Take North Korea ror example.

1) Li-ion research - the technology is only in infancy. They have not achieved anywhere near optimal economies of scale. The cost of the tech and efficiency are moving massively. The things we are seeing achieved in labs are only the tip of the iceberg. If they alone were to hit mass manufacturing, Tesla's profitability will skyrocket. Let alone the fact that we haven't done many years of research into the tech yet. Computers have taken how long to get to mobile IoT capable devices?

2) Electric vehicle components and manufacturing in general. They don't even have their major plant constructed yet. I really don't think I need to go into detail on how a single plant let alone a mainstream sized manufacturing capability would change the balance sheet. Many of Musk's problems with supply chain have been the parts are bleeding edge. So even his suppliers are only in infancy. The costs will go down tremendously as things scale up. To get optimal economies of scale, this is decades away.

3) Grid suitability. The costs and infrastructure around charging are only in infancy as well. The grid is not going to be optimally setup for decades as well.

$4k loss per vehicle is pretty darn impressive considering the amount of pioneering work being done. They are on a projected path to profitability and if you look at how Li-ion costs have absolutely plummeted and the other component projected costs, it's an absolute no-brainer. If you have the money to invest in this, like Musk and Tesla investors do, they are tremendously placed and kudos to them.

What is staggering is how poorly the mainstream manufacturers have been in their investment. VW's research budget is larger than the whole value of Tesla yet where are they? They should be leading this field. They should have been there 15 years ago. Yet instead we have coal locomotives in memes talking about how they have lower emissions than a golf. Classic.

Blah, blah, blah. I hate to be so rudely dismissive, but the simple fact of the matter is, for all these "acceptable losses" you're preaching about, Elon Musk's net worth is listed on the order of 13 billion dollars. The more money him and his companies lose, the richer he gets..

Oh, and while we at it, we can rebuild the entire electric grid to humor him. (That's an exaggeration, granted).

 

[Puiu]

Actually, I'd say that depends on what country would be blown up.Take North Korea ror example.

Blah, blah, blah. I hate to be so rudely dismissive, but the simple fact of the matter is, for all these "acceptable losses" you're preaching about, Elon Musk's net worth is listed on the order of 13 billion dollars. The more money him and his companies lose, the richer he gets..

Oh, and while we at it, we can rebuild the entire electric grid to humor him. (That's an exaggeration, granted).

Please don't confuse the net worth of someone and his personal wealth.
Why do you even hate the guy? It's not like he's the CEO of British Petroleum or EA. I really don't understand how you can always be so negative about everything.

 

[captaincranky]

Please don't confuse the net worth of someone and his personal wealth.
.

How bout if I just say, "the more money his companies lose, the more comfortable Musk becomes"? That way, we don't have to play, "guess which pocket is the money in", Kay?

Why do you even hate the guy? It's not like he's the CEO of British Petroleum or EA.

It gives me something to argue with you about? I know you think I should shut up so you can simply gush on about him, unopposed. It's not happening.

 

[Puiu]

How bout if I just say, "the more money his companies lose, the more comfortable Musk becomes"? That way, we don't have to play, "guess which pocket is the money in", Kay?
It gives me something to argue with you about? I know you think I should shut up so you can simply gush on about him, unopposed. It's not happening.

Pretty sure you were the one who keeps talking about that guy. Nobody else here cares who Musk is and how much money he is making from his own business endeavor. It's not like he's doing anything illegal. Hell, he's probably the least corrupt car manufacturer if we look at recent events. Hating someone just because he has more money than you is just childish.

And if you knew anything about economics you would understand why his net worth kept growing even when his company wasn't doing so well. Increased car sales and a huge influx of private investments helped Tesla grow enormously (we are talking about both short and long term investments). There's no hidden conspiracy here. By law he's not allowed to take money and put it in his pocket, that's not how a company operates.

 

[John J Miller]

Please don't confuse the net worth of someone and his personal wealth.
.

How bout if I just say, "the more money his companies lose, the more comfortable Musk becomes"? That way, we don't have to play, "guess which pocket is the money in", Kay?

Why do you even hate the guy? It's not like he's the CEO of British Petroleum or EA.

It gives me something to argue with you about? I know you think I should shut up so you can simply gush on about him, unopposed. It's not happening.

What I really want to understand is what exactly does all your blabbing have to do with a woman crashing her car? Please stay on point or please take a hike!

 

[captaincranky]

What I really want to understand is what exactly does all your blabbing have to do with a woman crashing her car? Please stay on point or please take a hike!

You know, every noob who has come through here recently really has quite a mouth on them.

As to not being on topic, your post certainly isn't

Couple of additional points. I've been here for 10 years, and I'm certainly not going anywhere on the "suggestion" of some "2 post wonder".

AFAIK, the rank "TS Rookie" doesn't come with administrative privileges. So, don't assume you have any.

As far as the Tesla crash goes, I actually doubt the Tesla was at fault. IMHO, it is about some "woman driver", trying to turn her stupidity into a gold mine.

As far as Tesla goes, nobody in their right mind should patently accept their assessment of the crash. Let the government deal with it. The one thing Musk can do better than anything else, is make people believe, swear to, and follow his blather to the ends of the earth. In short, people will believe whatever he says, even if the car was at fault. That / he has to be taken out of the equation.

 

[cliffordcooley]

And if you knew anything about economics you would understand why his net worth kept growing even when his company wasn't doing so well.

Resembles a captain* not willing to go down with his ship. A true business man putting himself above his own company, and slowly preparing for the day if and when it sinks.

*not intended to be associated with captaincrank

 

[captaincranky]

@cliffordcooley : At some point in time, being preoccupied with technological advancement is likely to be declared a "neurosis".

And I do know something about "economics". In fact I come from a generation which understood it better than the fools who pass themselves`off as "professors of economics" today. Cause guess what, we were still on the "silver standard" until 1963

"Commodity" is the real basis of wealth. The guy with the oil well, or the copper mine is the rich man. The rest of this happy horse s*** like "Facebook", is parasitic in nature. The reason Yahoo isn't doing too well, is well, how can you sell advertising, when people don't have any money for advertising, or money to buy advertised products? They should take this chica who is running Yahoo, give her a shovel, and let her go out and dig for gold.

And back to topic, we don't actually need electric cars, nor Elon Musk siphoning off the "profits" from "his businesses" What we need is the world's population cut in half, that would be, at least a start. You can create as many bulls*** "techo-toys" as you can make a profit from, and like the proverbial "better mousetrap" the world will beat a path to your door. The trouble is, it will be on the strength of ever increasing numbers of a useless sector of the population, eating up tax revenues and resources faster than a forest fire consumes trees.

As far as the primary topic of the thread goes, I get the distinct impression the bulk of the "techno-brats" here, think that Musk in infallible, and by extension, Tesla Motors is as well. "Tesla would never put out a product that needed recall", "Elon is swell". Elon is a great man". "Elon is the 2nd coming", blah, blah, blah "Tesla will save the world". I tend to agree with Aldous Huxley, that selective breeding is a much more suitable course of action.

 

[Puiu]

Resembles a captain* not willing to go down with his ship. A true business man putting himself above his own company, and slowly preparing for the day if and when it sinks.

*not intended to be associated with captaincrank

As the company gets more and more revenue the net worth of Musk grows (and the company is growing at a fairly fast pace). It's not that he is stealing money from the company. He doesn't have access to that money, why are people even assuming that? This is what happens when you own a lot of shares in multiple companies, all of which are growing.

There are many reasons he is rich. First of all his first company Zip2 (started with just $28k) sold to Compaq and he received 7% (~$22 mil). He then went on to start X.com (10 mil investment) which merged with Paypal. From the sale of Paypal he got $165mil (he owned ~11% shares). Then we have SpaceX, Tesla Motors, SolarCity, Hyperloop, etc all of which are worth a ton of money. And these are not his only investments. From his track records, this guy is a genius at making money.

What we should critique about him is the fact that Tesla and SpaceX currently function thanks to big state subsidies and the fact that he is slow in becoming independent.

Musk is someone who has many problems. How he got his money is not one of them. In fact, people who want to start a business should learn from him.


@captaincranky : "we don't actually need electric cars, nor Elon Musk siphoning off the "profits" from "his businesses" What we need is the world's population cut in half"

I'm sorry, but this can only be seen as crazy talk. you can't really expect people to take you seriously when you say things like that.

 

[captaincranky]

...[ ]....@captaincranky : "we don't actually need electric cars, nor Elon Musk siphoning off the "profits" from "his businesses" What we need is the world's population cut in half"

I'm sorry, but this can only be seen as crazy talk. you can't really expect people to take you seriously when you say things like that.

Gosh, you least of all I expect to take me seriously, as I am aware of the utter impracticality of having it happen in the short term. Nonetheless, it is something the should take place over the coming centuries.

We place very low limits on any species numbers, (save for our own), before we deem to declare them endangered. In nature, predation and disease keeps populations in check. Since Homo "sapiens", has indeed eliminated much disease, and we have indeed wiped out any predators we've had as well, what else could possibly happen other than there being far too many fat, useless, non productive members of the species? . Yet still, mutts with no income, no hope of income, no skills, no training, reproduce with unrepentant and unrelenting abandon.

I'll be gone soon enough, and I expect you'll take over the job of supporting that breeding with your tax dollars and hard work. It's a given that an ever increasing segment of the population, will expect, but be ungrateful for, your support.

But yes, I expect you're so wrapped up in technological "advancement", and today's "play money", that I would never be able to force any sort of reality check upon you.

...[ ]....Musk is someone who has many problems. How he got his money is not one of them. In fact, people who want to start a business should learn from him....[ ]....

This is something I've never disputed. Musk has the best "long con game", I've ever seen. In fact, I'd be willing to change my view of him, should it ever come to pass that's he's playing and winning, with anything other than "house money".

 

[Puiu]

Yet still, mutts with no income, no hope of income, no skills, no training, reproduce with unrepentant and unrelenting abandon.

no comment

 

[captaincranky]

no comment

Well, you may not choose to comment about it, (I respect that), but it is an ever present, growing, and ugly reality, which greatly impacts the glowing future which people would like to imagine for themselves....