tesla , the future ?

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Discussion

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
menguin said:
While much can be made of the other points, Musk wanting to colonise Mars is not a new thing. Maybe for those following Tesla it may sound like it but if you've never heard of SpaceX then I'd suggest reading up. That he is owner/CEO/fall guy for both companies is not a secret. They announced their Mars rocket a year ago and the recent announcement was an update.

Musk doesn't want to "win" against other manufacturers with Tesla - that's why they make all of their patents public - he wants to drive change. He's certainly doing that.

Aren't all patents public? What would be the point if not?

If you mean that he makes the information in them freely available for others to use, as I understand he does, I still don't see why a patent is needed.

Of course, his method does mean that if someone enhances his ideas he has the potential to benefit even more than they do.

Europa1

10,923 posts

187 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
REALIST123 said:

Aren't all patents public? What would be the point if not?

If you mean that he makes the information in them freely available for others to use, as I understand he does, I still don't see why a patent is needed.

Of course, his method does mean that if someone enhances his ideas he has the potential to benefit even more than they do.
Indeed - perhaps some confusion between "patent" and effectively "open access/source".

Murph7355

37,648 posts

255 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
REALIST123 said:

Aren't all patents public? What would be the point if not?

If you mean that he makes the information in them freely available for others to use, as I understand he does, I still don't see why a patent is needed.

Of course, his method does mean that if someone enhances his ideas he has the potential to benefit even more than they do.
I guess a patent prevents others patenting an idea and also allows control over misuse.

Perhaps cynically, it also offers opportunity to change your mind later when you sell the company smile

Jonesy23

4,650 posts

135 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Murph7355 said:
I guess a patent prevents others patenting an idea and also allows control over misuse.

Perhaps cynically, it also offers opportunity to change your mind later when you sell the company smile
The former could be sorted by transferring the patents to a charitable foundation - protects the ideas with no one doubting the motivations.

Keeping them in the company with a vague promise not to enforce (not a proper opening up as some believe) suggests the latter.

Basically no one involved with IP believes him especially with the sorts of patents that have continued to be generated. You'd be properly insane to rely on any of them which is why no one has.

Russ T Bolt

1,685 posts

282 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
REALIST123 said:
If you mean that he makes the information in them freely available for others to use, as I understand he does, I still don't see why a patent is needed.
To prevent someone copying your design/invention, patenting it and then sueing you for Patent infringement.

As Indian did to HD

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
98elise said:
The average driver needs about 7.5kWh per day, so that's about so thats less than 1kW per hour per car for an overnight charge. That's not even remotely difficult. A domestic supply can easily handle charging a car over night, and that can either be in the road or at your house. The cable for each car would be no bigger than the cable supplying your shower or hob if you want a fast charge, or mains flex for slow charging.

Put it this way, your domestic supply can handle a 13kw shower, or a 9kW hob, or a 3kW kettle with no issues during peak times. Why would you think the local grid couldn't handle car charging? On a 10 hour a car would need less power than my garden lights consume.

At peak power we will probably have to throttle charging (so when your hob is on you can't fast charge) but that's about it.
You can't design supply for the average you have to design for the peak.
http://fes.nationalgrid.com/insights/forecourt-tho...


rodericb

6,657 posts

125 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Back to the people laid-off - that was lay-offs due to performance. Tesla is an unusual company with some weird problems but the annual cull is not unusual for large American companies such as this.

durbster

10,223 posts

221 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
fblm said:
durbster said:
There are plenty of arguments against EVs but I don't get this one. Is it any more of a logistical challenge than installing the nation's broadband network? Or the cable TV network?
My mum and dad live in a village 10 miles outside Northampton. Until this summer their max broadband was 0.3Mb/s... so even this is apparently something of a challenge. But yes power cables are far more of a challenge than a little optical cable and considerably more expensive. I'm not saying it can't be done but it's not going to be cheap.
Of course, but some people talk about installing a car charging network as if it's a total impossibility, despite the fact that similar scale projects have been done many times in the past, both recent and distant, whenever the market called for it.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Russ T Bolt said:
To prevent someone copying your design/invention, patenting it and then sueing you for Patent infringement.

As Indian did to HD
Which Indian?

You can't patent something already in the public domain. A Prior Art application would stop that in its tracks.

98elise

26,370 posts

160 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
fblm said:
98elise said:
The average driver needs about 7.5kWh per day, so that's about so thats less than 1kW per hour per car for an overnight charge. That's not even remotely difficult. A domestic supply can easily handle charging a car over night, and that can either be in the road or at your house. The cable for each car would be no bigger than the cable supplying your shower or hob if you want a fast charge, or mains flex for slow charging.

Put it this way, your domestic supply can handle a 13kw shower, or a 9kW hob, or a 3kW kettle with no issues during peak times. Why would you think the local grid couldn't handle car charging? On a 10 hour a car would need less power than my garden lights consume.

At peak power we will probably have to throttle charging (so when your hob is on you can't fast charge) but that's about it.
You can't design supply for the average you have to design for the peak.
http://fes.nationalgrid.com/insights/forecourt-tho...
Why? Not everyone will be charging at the same time. You fill your car with energy not power, so you may have to throttle power locally (rate of charge) at peak power times but as long as you have enough energy then you are fine. During the night we have plenty of spare capacity.

That is very very easy to implement. I could design something to do that in a matter of hours, and could build it from a few simple components available in Maplins.


DapperDanMan

2,622 posts

206 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Toaster said:
WestyCarl said:
Only on PH, the bloke who has helped develop paypal, made rockets re-usable and able to land and changed the auto market, is a bullst artist biggrin
I think the answer is in the first part of your statement, he helped develop PayPal....you could view the guy as helping to make re-usable rockets........and helping to change the auto market. He hasn't invented these ideas.

I would argue these are the actions of a marketeer not an inventor or visionary others have provided the tech he has brought the components together and marketed them. its entrepreneurial which is defined as 'characterised by the taking of financial risks in the hope of profit; enterprising'

As a visionary...a definition is 'a person with original ideas about what the future will or could be like' probably not a visionary as others have also had views such as this.

So yes Musk is a great Marketeer
I will counter this as saying he is one of the foremost visionaries in the world today.

He has constructed with his own money a rocket company with the sole aim of colonising Mars. He invested in Tesla when they were making the Roadster again with his own money and is now in the process of building a car manufacturer from the ground up as well as being a key player in SolarCity over the years and finally that is now part of Tesla. His intention is to move the world to a more sustainable energy future. He has done this in parallel over many years.

If that isn't vision I don't know what is.

Zoon

6,654 posts

120 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
durbster said:
Of course, but some people talk about installing a car charging network as if it's a total impossibility, despite the fact that similar scale projects have been done many times in the past, both recent and distant, whenever the market called for it.
The problem is getting enough chargers installed before EV's start to reach saturation point, not enough will cause people to be peeved off when they can't charge their car.

durbster

10,223 posts

221 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Zoon said:
durbster said:
Of course, but some people talk about installing a car charging network as if it's a total impossibility, despite the fact that similar scale projects have been done many times in the past, both recent and distant, whenever the market called for it.
The problem is getting enough chargers installed before EV's start to reach saturation point, not enough will cause people to be peeved off when they can't charge their car.
Perhaps I overestimate the diligence of the British public but I doubt many people are going to buy a car they can't charge.

kev1974

4,029 posts

128 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
RobDickinson said:
fblm said:
That's just made up. There's absolutely no way you can run the required cabling for a street of chargers down old street light conduits. Besides street lights aren't spaced every car apart. Do you have any idea how thick (and expensive) cables rated to run a whole street of chargers would be? This is crazy talk, not to mention a carbon copy of the last Tesla thread. As has already been pointed out; out of town/supermarket/work fast charging stations are a far better solution outside of new towns with new electrical infrastructure, than charging at home.
Yep utterly impossible, shame its already been done.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/london-st...

They wont be fast chargers, just low wattage trickle charge meant for overnight topups I guess

https://youtu.be/rKaEhBjt1ls

"They charge at about 5 kW, or 16 amps, not super fast but overnight charging is all most drivers need."

Edited by RobDickinson on Tuesday 17th October 01:46
Hmm when you say "it's already been done", I think that scheme, which is just a trial, extends to about seven lampposts. And they're all in different streets, rather than running a whole load off one street's cabling. I live around the corner from there.

I've just looked at the row of nine street parking bays directly outside my house, and only one of them is near a lamppost. So they are going to have to do a lot of digging up to put columns in if they want the other bays to be covered. This example is repeated in every street in the borough.

I'm not sure how they've covered off the issue of cables lying across the footpath either.

Whenever I see electric charging bays in supermarket car parks, or at the weekend I saw Ikea had some, they always seem to be non-electric vehicles in them. It's the new "parent and child space misuse" waiting to happen.

anonymous-user

53 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Tesla makes zero financial sense, this is not a start-up like Amazon, where long term investment will lead to dominance of the market, this is a start-up where there is huge competition from established players who are catching up fast in Teslas USP.

I see a huge loss on the horizon, if not a complete collapse. It's the emperors new clothes on steroids.

dandarez

13,245 posts

282 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
98elise said:
fblm said:
98elise said:
The average driver needs about 7.5kWh per day, so that's about so thats less than 1kW per hour per car for an overnight charge. That's not even remotely difficult. A domestic supply can easily handle charging a car over night, and that can either be in the road or at your house. The cable for each car would be no bigger than the cable supplying your shower or hob if you want a fast charge, or mains flex for slow charging.

Put it this way, your domestic supply can handle a 13kw shower, or a 9kW hob, or a 3kW kettle with no issues during peak times. Why would you think the local grid couldn't handle car charging? On a 10 hour a car would need less power than my garden lights consume.

At peak power we will probably have to throttle charging (so when your hob is on you can't fast charge) but that's about it.
You can't design supply for the average you have to design for the peak.
http://fes.nationalgrid.com/insights/forecourt-tho...
Why? Not everyone will be charging at the same time. You fill your car with energy not power, so you may have to throttle power locally (rate of charge) at peak power times but as long as you have enough energy then you are fine. During the night we have plenty of spare capacity.

That is very very easy to implement. I could design something to do that in a matter of hours, and could build it from a few simple components available in Maplins.
2 families near me have leccy cars. I know both of them mainly charge overnight at home. One drives daily to Oxford and back from where he works driving an i3.
The other family, I was speaking to them this morning, they're both retired have a Nissan. I asked them about charging the car every night. The hubby said 'Oh fk no, I last charged it overnight on Friday. We've been into town a few times, it's still got enough juice till this Friday if we don't decide to go further afield!
Good point. Not everyone drives miles daily.

Jonesy23

4,650 posts

135 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
DapperDanMan said:
I will counter this as saying he is one of the foremost visionaries in the world today.

He has constructed with his own money a rocket company with the sole aim of colonising Mars. He invested in Tesla when they were making the Roadster again with his own money and is now in the process of building a car manufacturer from the ground up as well as being a key player in SolarCity over the years and finally that is now part of Tesla. His intention is to move the world to a more sustainable energy future. He has done this in parallel over many years.

If that isn't vision I don't know what is.
Most of it wasn't his money. There is a lot of notoriety around this especially the public funds.

SpaceX and Mars is a recent distraction. And it'd be nice to get the first part of the business going properly before moving to the fantasy cash hole bit.

Solar City is an utter mess. The prime reason for the merger with Tesla was to shuffle cash to pay off certain bond holders, one called Elon. The rest of the company will crash and burn before (for example) it has to find $400m+ to repay for jobs it never created.

The vision thing made up after the fact is a great way of selling a story, doesn't make it true.


Zoon

6,654 posts

120 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
durbster said:
Perhaps I overestimate the diligence of the British public but I doubt many people are going to buy a car they can't charge.
You've missed my point, I'm referring to the occasions when you reach the nearest charger and it is out of order or in use.
Assuming the entire population have access to a home charger and never need to use public charge points then it becomes less of an issue.

poo at Paul's

14,116 posts

174 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Zoon said:
durbster said:
Perhaps I overestimate the diligence of the British public but I doubt many people are going to buy a car they can't charge.
You've missed my point, I'm referring to the occasions when you reach the nearest charger and it is out of order or in use.
Assuming the entire population have access to a home charger and never need to use public charge points then it becomes less of an issue.
This is what people may well be forgetting. It is not that every car / owner needs a charger, it is that every place they could potentially park their car, needs a charger. Hence they need one at home and one free at each destination they may visit. Or access to them etc.

What's the approximate average time one is at petrol station? 3 minutes ? 5 minutes tops? Now if they can get the charging done as quickly as that, I can see them taking over, but if this is possible, at what cost will it be? Part of the viability of EVs present is the cheap or free charging, you can bet that once the infrastructure is in place to make it viable universally, it will be neither free nor cheap.
The massive investment in infrastructure will need to be recouped and then a profit made. Ultimately, the arrival of this new tech universally will cost the motorist / public, no way around that, and naïve in the extreme to think otherwise.

DapperDanMan

2,622 posts

206 months

Tuesday 17th October 2017
quotequote all
Jonesy23 said:
DapperDanMan said:
I will counter this as saying he is one of the foremost visionaries in the world today.

He has constructed with his own money a rocket company with the sole aim of colonising Mars. He invested in Tesla when they were making the Roadster again with his own money and is now in the process of building a car manufacturer from the ground up as well as being a key player in SolarCity over the years and finally that is now part of Tesla. His intention is to move the world to a more sustainable energy future. He has done this in parallel over many years.

If that isn't vision I don't know what is.
Most of it wasn't his money. There is a lot of notoriety around this especially the public funds.

SpaceX and Mars is a recent distraction. And it'd be nice to get the first part of the business going properly before moving to the fantasy cash hole bit.

Solar City is an utter mess. The prime reason for the merger with Tesla was to shuffle cash to pay off certain bond holders, one called Elon. The rest of the company will crash and burn before (for example) it has to find $400m+ to repay for jobs it never created.

The vision thing made up after the fact is a great way of selling a story, doesn't make it true.
There was an excess of $100 Million of his own money. He didn't have to do it after PayPal he could just have retired and driven his McLaren F1 around but he didn't. here

Tesla has repaid the Government loan 9 years early here

As for SolarCity bonds well Musk & Co have had their's converted to regular bonds whilst the rest have been discharged as part of the Tesla merge. here

SPACEX now reusing first stages and performing multiple launches per week. Announcement of single rocket strategy to more tightly focus on the goals of the company (getting to Mars), potential for getting anywhere on Earth within an hour (I know it has a lot of hurdles to overcome but another example of vision).

The vision thing has been with him from childhood as for making things up I realise that is the norm on NP&E but not from me.