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Elon Musk admits Tesla nearly died


silvrsvt

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2 hours ago, fordmantpw said:

Seriously?  Do you actually believe that crap?

Bob Lutz is making a future prediction. Nobody including Lutz can verify right now what will actually happen to car dealers in 2040. Maybe dealers will transition quickly to the new norm of shared autonomous and electrified vehicles at that time and prove Lutz wrong. Maybe not.

But his prediction is very reasonable and has historical precedent. What happened to most horse drawn buggy companies after the automobile became popular in the early 20th century?

Edited by rperez817
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6 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

Bob Lutz is making a future prediction. Nobody including Lutz can verify right now what will actually happen to car dealers in 2040. Maybe dealers will transition quickly to the new norm of shared autonomous and electrified vehicles at that time and prove Lutz wrong. Maybe not.

But his prediction is very reasonable and has historical precedent. What happened to most horse drawn buggy companies after the automobile became popular in the early 20th century?

Comparing the change from horse-drawn buggies to automobiles is not nearly the same as comparing the change from self-driven ICE vehicles to autonomous electric vehicles.  That's apples and oranges.

I predict that his prediction is not reasonable.

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The future of automated vehicles is commercial fleets and deliveries, not personal use.   Ford understands this and is planning for it.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is just wishful thinking.  There is virtually no difference in a consumer using an AV in the future vs. using Uber/Lyft today.

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3 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Bob Lutz is a bitter old man these days. I can't take him seriously. 

OTOH, on a recent Autoline After Hours, he pretty much said that Cadillac is wasting it’s time trying to compete with the Germans, and lauded Lincoln’s efforts to rebrand itself as “American Luxury.” 

 

Favorite quotes from the show, “the only people who care about Nuremberg track times (Cadillac) are car enthusiasts.  The general public doesn’t care at all.”  

 

In talking about RWD vs. FWD architecture, “nobody goes to a dinner party and asks whether your car’s AWD system is FWD or RWD based.  All they what is something that works.”

 

I was surprised he was so critical of Cadillac.

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1 hour ago, akirby said:

The future of automated vehicles is commercial fleets and deliveries, not personal use.   Ford understands this and is planning for it. 

In the sense that AVs will be mostly be operated by large fleets or companies rather than individual AV owners, yes sir. That's one thing Bob Lutz is predicting. The future of AVs is much more than just consumer goods delivery vehicles and commercial fleets though. "Mobility on demand" or "mobility as a service" or MaaS is going to be the norm once AVs become commonplace. Both for moving people and moving goods. 

It will be exciting to see and experience the MaaS offerings that Ford, Tesla, and many other automakers are planning to deploy in the next few years.

Edited by rperez817
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Its going to take longer then 20 years to kill off dealerships/etc

Self Driving EV's will make inroads to the market, but they aren't going to completely replace ownership of cars. I can see maybe 10-20% of the total sales being made up of this type of product. 

Just looking at this practically-Who is going to want to spend say $500-700 or more a month (basing this on car payment/insurance/gas costs per month for a typical car) on a service to get a "pod" (something with no substance/styling etc-thing you get in a car today) to take you around in that you don't actually own and share with other people? What happens when you find puke, drugs, or other nasty leftovers in the car? Then add in that you'll have to plus up the amount of cars on the road to support this (these pods have to be recharged, travel, serviced, etc) that will increase traffic on the roads again. Then what about multiple trips-Hey alexa get me a pod-Pod take the kid to the soccer game, hey I need to go to the store and so on-do you use mulitple pods? What about just having the forethought of calling ahead, instead of just jumping into the car sitting in the driveway? Seems the further we go down this rabbit hole the closer we are getting to a form of mass transit that Americans' have rejected in most places.

Then add in the loss of snob appeal that cars bring to people and other things-the car is ingrained into US Society...I don't see us giving that up easily. 

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1 hour ago, rperez817 said:

In the sense that AVs will be mostly be operated by large fleets or companies rather than individual AV owners, yes sir. That's one thing Bob Lutz is predicting. The future of AVs is much more than just consumer goods delivery vehicles and commercial fleets though. "Mobility on demand" or "mobility as a service" or MaaS is going to be the norm once AVs become commonplace. Both for moving people and moving goods. 

It will be exciting to see and experience the MaaS offerings that Ford, Tesla, and many other automakers are planning to deploy in the next few years.

So you think millions of people will give up their personal cars and switch to TaaS?   We have TaaS today - it's called Uber and Lyft.  It's exactly the same model and the cost won't be that much less because you still have to pay for the vehicle and for fuel and the system to manage it.

I just don't see that many people suddenly giving up their vehicle and using TaaS all the time.  The ones who are willing to do that have already done it.

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3 hours ago, akirby said:

Did he really say Nuremberg or was that a typo on your part?

Actually a misquote.  He said that only enthusiasts care that a Cadillac may handle better than a BMW or Audi.  The vast motoring public (my words) really doesn't care.

Edited by mackinaw
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13 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

Thats the other thing-How much service is going to be needed for an EV? Outside of brakes and tires, I can't really think of any maintance that is going to be needed a on regular basis. That is going to impact the dealer model down the road too.

Actually its only going to be tires.  The brakes don't wear out because of the regeneration.

 

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On 11/28/2018 at 9:20 AM, rperez817 said:

There were some people in the media and investor community that were actually cheering on Tesla's "imminent death". Very inspiring how Musk and Tesla employees worked like superhumans to make sure their company didn't die.

All three major U.S. domestic automakers (GM, Ford, Tesla) have made amazing efforts in the past 2 years to ensure their survival. The list of dead U.S. automakers is a long one. And the three big U.S. automakers that are still around today have each faced near death experiences (GM went bankrupt as well).

GM and Tesla are currently the leaders in electric vehicles, and Ford is not too far behind. All three are doing well with autonomous vehicle development too. If they don't slack off, I think they will not only survive, but thrive as the automotive industry transforms itself in the coming years. 

I love that we can now confidently say "big three" and not have to include Fiat Chrysler with an asterisk.

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6 hours ago, rperez817 said:

In the sense that AVs will be mostly be operated by large fleets or companies rather than individual AV owners, yes sir. That's one thing Bob Lutz is predicting. The future of AVs is much more than just consumer goods delivery vehicles and commercial fleets though. "Mobility on demand" or "mobility as a service" or MaaS is going to be the norm once AVs become commonplace. Both for moving people and moving goods. 

It will be exciting to see and experience the MaaS offerings that Ford, Tesla, and many other automakers are planning to deploy in the next few years.

 

We already have transportation as a service - it’s called Uber and Lyft.   People who want TaaS instead of owning a car are already using it.  It won’t be drastically cheaper because you still need a car and you have the overhead of the TaaS management infrastructure.   People will use it to augment their personal vehicle ownership - when they don’t want to drive or can’t drive or when they’re away from their personal vehicle.  

We are not going to see millions of people give up their personal vehicles for AV Uber and Lyft.  You’ll see expanded use of Uber and Lyft type services but the major use will be deliveries and human transportation at schools, amusement parks, large business campuses, etc.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is dreaming.

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18 hours ago, rperez817 said:

In the sense that AVs will be mostly be operated by large fleets or companies rather than individual AV owners, yes sir. That's one thing Bob Lutz is predicting. The future of AVs is much more than just consumer goods delivery vehicles and commercial fleets though. "Mobility on demand" or "mobility as a service" or MaaS is going to be the norm once AVs become commonplace. Both for moving people and moving goods. 

It will be exciting to see and experience the MaaS offerings that Ford, Tesla, and many other automakers are planning to deploy in the next few years.

If autonomous vehicles were available when my parents were still alive, I would have gotten one for them so that when they were going to a doctors appointment or run to the store...when I get to an age where I can no longer "drive"...I hope the AV's will be perfected so I can still have my mobility without having to rely others for said mobility. 

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21 minutes ago, twintornados said:

If autonomous vehicles were available when my parents were still alive, I would have gotten one for them so that when they were going to a doctors appointment or run to the store...when I get to an age where I can no longer "drive"...I hope the AV's will be perfected so I can still have my mobility without having to rely others for said mobility. 

Uber/Lyft?

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I've rarely had to wait more than 10 minutes for a ride in a major city.    For occasional use that should be just fine although availability outside major cities might be an issue.   And Uber/Lyft would be using the same AVs that you're talking about owning.   The advantage to owning an AV would be if you're in an area not served by Uber/Lyft.   And you can use Uber/Lyft today with the caveats you mentioned.

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13 hours ago, akirby said:

 

We already have transportation as a service - it’s called Uber and Lyft.  

 

41 minutes ago, akirby said:

Uber/Lyft?

The main problem with Uber, Lyft, and other "Transportation Network Companies" (TNC) as they exist now is the use of human drivers. Contracting with these drivers is very costly and makes the TNC's services relatively expensive for its customers. And in some cases low quality if the driver has a poorly maintained car, criminal record, etc. It also is a big reason why Uber and Lyft have negative net income year after year. Also as twintornados mentioned, there's the "relying on others" thing when human drivers are involved, which most TNC customers probably want to do without.

Autonomous & electrified shared vehicles should enable the TNCs as well as automakers to provide better quality, lower cost transportation to customers compared to what's available today. Speaking of automakers, Elon Musk mentioned his thoughts about Tesla Network during the 3Q 2018 earnings conference call a month ago. Very interesting combination of Tesla owned and operated autonomous cars plus individual Tesla owners being able to share their autonomous car.  https://electrek.co/2018/10/25/tesla-network-elon-musk-competing-uber-self-driving-cars/

"We absolutely see the future as kind of a shared electric autonomy, so that you’d be able to do ride-hailing or share the car anyway, you know sort of a long-term model that’s probably some combination of like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb. There will be Tesla dedicated cars for ride-hailing and any customer will be able to share their car at will, just like you share your house on Airbnb. So, its a combination of those two models, I think is pretty obvious where things are headed long-term. The advantage that Tesla will have is that we’ll have millions of cars in the field with full autonomy capability and no one else will have that. So I think that will end up putting us in the strongest competitive position long-term.”

"The company-owned fleet will just be where there aren’t enough customer cars to be loaned out. So if we find a particular metro where there aren’t enough customers who are loaning cars to the shared fleet then that’s where we will supplement with a Tesla own fleet. So that’s why it sorts of a combination of Uber and Airbnb. And then we charge something probably comparable to yeah [Apple App store] or I don’t know we charge 30% or something in order for somebody to add the cars to fleet. I think that’s like a pretty sensible way to go.”

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I see Uber/Lyft (and future AVs) as a great option when you're in a place where you don't have transportation - on a trip, car doesn't work, etc.  Anything else, meh.

 

But then again, I'm a car enthusiast, so a car to me is more than just A to B transportation that it is to most of the general public.

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4 minutes ago, fordmantpw said:

A client that I work for has essentially quit driving and is using Uber for everything.  It seems rather expensive to me.  I've never used it myself due to there being no real use for it in the rural area I'm in.

I get the argument of not paying for a car, etc., but that sounds expensive using it for everything.

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