Elon Musk $41B offer for Twitter
Discussion
Talksteer said:
That you wrote out such a long reply about this platform not even on the platform itself indicates how much relevance the whole company has.
I for one would hold judgement, Musk had barely owned the company for half a year. It's not scientific but compare the current headlines with Tesla's "production hell" 3-4 years ago. That was the pain point that lead to Tesla having 30% margins while Ford looses $10-20k on each EV they make.
Musk isn't an idiot and has a business plan which has at least some chance of getting the company to a $250bn value. That would be indicative that the long term strategy isn't based on blue ticks or anything else that the app currently does.
The current chaos is because Musk tends to make decisions based on a long term end state and just endure short term problems (We won't need X department when we automate it, run it down now). From his perspective today's issues are basically noise while he builds engineering teams to roll out whatever the long term strategy is.
$250bn? I for one would hold judgement, Musk had barely owned the company for half a year. It's not scientific but compare the current headlines with Tesla's "production hell" 3-4 years ago. That was the pain point that lead to Tesla having 30% margins while Ford looses $10-20k on each EV they make.
Musk isn't an idiot and has a business plan which has at least some chance of getting the company to a $250bn value. That would be indicative that the long term strategy isn't based on blue ticks or anything else that the app currently does.
The current chaos is because Musk tends to make decisions based on a long term end state and just endure short term problems (We won't need X department when we automate it, run it down now). From his perspective today's issues are basically noise while he builds engineering teams to roll out whatever the long term strategy is.
What's that, a 1250% increase in value? Not a hope.
The big car makers were making losses on EVs as they were actually developing them, not just installing Doom in the cars and bumping up the power for headlines.
Tesla are being left behind by the likes of Ford and Hyundai now. They need investment to keep up but Musk has been pulling billions out over the last year.
Al Gorithum said:
Talksteer said:
chance of getting the company to a $250bn value.
Newsflash: Musk stating utter BS in order to inflate shareholder value. He's never done that before eh? Shocked. Shocked I tell you...
I.e. he halved what he pays out.
ZedLeg said:
Tesla are being left behind by the likes of Ford and Hyundai now. They need investment to keep up but Musk has been pulling billions out over the last year.
This. It was easy to talk up Tesla when there was no competition, but now every car manufacturer has EV in it's range. If I had £80k burning a hole in my pocket, would I buy a Tesla or a BMW, or a Mercedes or a Volvo etc etc...That's why Elno keeps on pushing the autonomous vehicles tech, it's the only part of Tesla which the competition doesn't claim to have. Primarily because traditional companies and their engineers know that it's not tech ready for the road yet, but honesty isn't a valued trait in snake-oil salesmen and bulls
tters.tangerine_sedge said:
That's why Elno keeps on pushing the autonomous vehicles tech, it's the only part of Tesla which the competition doesn't claim to have. Primarily because traditional companies and their engineers know that it's not tech ready for the road yet, but honesty isn't a valued trait in snake-oil salesmen and bullstters.
"1 million robotaxis on the road by next year " - Elon Musk, April 2019tters.Number of robotaxis on the road 4 years later? Zero.
He can claim all he likes but it doesn't exist! At least snake oil salesmen actually had a product
Full disclosure: I used to be one of those who was impressed by Musk some time ago.
However, as with all Bustters, it's only a matter of time before they're exposed.
There'll always be fans/idiots that still like Bullstters (Boris/Trump/Musk/Tate etc), but at some point there must come the realisation that they've been conned.
However, as with all Bus
tters, it's only a matter of time before they're exposed. There'll always be fans/idiots that still like Bulls
tters (Boris/Trump/Musk/Tate etc), but at some point there must come the realisation that they've been conned. tangerine_sedge said:
ZedLeg said:
Tesla are being left behind by the likes of Ford and Hyundai now. They need investment to keep up but Musk has been pulling billions out over the last year.
This. It was easy to talk up Tesla when there was no competition, but now every car manufacturer has EV in it's range. If I had £80k burning a hole in my pocket, would I buy a Tesla or a BMW, or a Mercedes or a Volvo etc etc...That's why Elno keeps on pushing the autonomous vehicles tech, it's the only part of Tesla which the competition doesn't claim to have. Primarily because traditional companies and their engineers know that it's not tech ready for the road yet, but honesty isn't a valued trait in snake-oil salesmen and bulls
tters.For the uninitiated early Teslas (S/X) came with a rain sensor, the sort of part that is basically ubiquitous in any half decent car for as long as I can remember. This discrete part has one function - to determine if the windscreen is becoming obscured by precipitation, and to what extent. Some cars have sensitivity settings for this, but a lot of them just handle it for you. It's the sort of technology that once you have experienced it, you just take it for granted, it disappears into the background - like any decent automation tech does.
Tesla, in its infinite wisdom, didn't want to keep paying Bosch ~$5 per car for one of these sensors, so instead decided to remove it and make it so the cameras (and software) does this job. I don't know how much has been spent on R&D for this, or how much is wasted in CPU cycles, but it would be accurate to say that the end result falls on a spectrum between flat out broken in situations where you might expect it would be (e.g. at night, or dealing with road spray) to just about reaching parity with the aforementioned rain sensor - in perfect conditions.
I say all of this because in October Tesla announced that they were removing ultrasonics from their future delivered cars. Ultrasonics are, as I'm sure most are aware, an invention that has been around for at least 15 years, and has been basically standard equipment for as long as I can remember. Ultrasonics, like a rain sensor, have two properties that Elon seems to hate - a) they have a discrete purpose and b) someone else makes them. Someone else making and supplying parts means the potential for the production line to slow down a little bit, which is unacceptable, even if customers ultimately suffer.
Like the rain sensor Tesla's solution to people still needing to park in their £50k+ cars is to use the cameras to work out how close things are. Can you see where this is going?...
Naturally, Tesla removed these ultrasonics before they had an alternative system ready to go. In fact, as of writing this, we're now 6 months on from when they announced they would be removing the sensors and UK owners still don't have the software (just released a couple of days ago) on their cars. 6 months of ownership without parking sensors, as well as other features that use them (notably several autonomous ones).
Reviews of this camera-based distance detection solution are.... not great:
https://twitter.com/tigunin/status/164000117966815...
https://twitter.com/jeremyjudkins_/status/16400407...
https://youtu.be/lELCS0RfcPs
The 3 and Y have a 3ft blind spot at the front of the car that the front camera can't see, so it has to try and comprehend what is in front of you as you drive towards it, and remember it so that when you get out of your car and come back to it later it doesn't think it's all clear in front, not that it would notice anything that moves within 3ft in front - because it can't see it.
Maybe cameras will be the future of autonomous driving, and can replace all of these things, but not these cameas, and not now. Tesla don't have any problem using paying customers to beta test ALL of this stuff though, and they have no choice in the matter - you can't pay extra for a rain sensor or ultrasonics. Your only choice is not to buy the car full stop.
AW111 said:
Al Gorithum said:
That sounds extremely optimistic. At best.
It will also require staff to implement, and Electric Jesus does not appear to be any good at managing staff, although he inspires devotion from his online fans.Engineers will work for a.s
tty boss if they're doing fun stuff like rockets or electric cars - wrangling social media doesn't have that cachet.Musk has said a few times he's a big fan of Shackleton's advert for his polar expedition (chance of death high, hardships inevitable, chances of success low, glory and medals only reward etc.etc).
Given his track record/profile I doubt very much that he will have any issues finding the few hundred "hardcore engineers" he's after and it's not like the working conditions will be worse than a start up which is the only place where they are likely to get the same autonomy, mastery and rapid results.
The biggest issues are likely to be how whatever comes next bolts on to the existing set-up, though from what I've heard their setup is massively over complex and possibly due a wholesale change anyway.
All of that’s great. But how do you think he achieves a valuation of $250bn. He admits he overpaid for it at $44bn and most valuations at that point were $25bn. He’s lost value since so I’d argue that his claimed $20bn is optimistic.
He actually said ‘he thinks that one day it could be worth $250bn’. That’s a long way from a business plan to get there. Advertisers haven’t returned and won’t, and tickling the edges like paid verification won’t even cover the interest payments due on the loans he took out to buy it.
So yeah, $250bn is pure fantasy. Even getting back to $44bn is a leap.
He actually said ‘he thinks that one day it could be worth $250bn’. That’s a long way from a business plan to get there. Advertisers haven’t returned and won’t, and tickling the edges like paid verification won’t even cover the interest payments due on the loans he took out to buy it.
So yeah, $250bn is pure fantasy. Even getting back to $44bn is a leap.
tangerine_sedge said:
ZedLeg said:
Tesla are being left behind by the likes of Ford and Hyundai now. They need investment to keep up but Musk has been pulling billions out over the last year.
This. It was easy to talk up Tesla when there was no competition, but now every car manufacturer has EV in it's range. If I had £80k burning a hole in my pocket, would I buy a Tesla or a BMW, or a Mercedes or a Volvo etc etc...That's why Elno keeps on pushing the autonomous vehicles tech, it's the only part of Tesla which the competition doesn't claim to have. Primarily because traditional companies and their engineers know that it's not tech ready for the road yet, but honesty isn't a valued trait in snake-oil salesmen and bulls
tters.To put this into context Tesla surpassed Hyundai in revenue in Q4 2022, they surpassed Ford in profit in 2022 as well. This is a company with 4 vehicles on two platforms. At current growth rates it will be the largest automotive company by sales value in about 4 years.
Tesla's competitive advantage now comes from it's size in the EV market and the fact that it's a few generations ahead in terms of design and manufacturing.
Over the last few years it's been happy to price it's cars against the competition and collect healthy margins as demand exceeded supply. However to keep scaling output it's now beginning to bring prices down quite dramatically, which is all being underpinned by their pricing power with suppliers and their continuous cost reduction in manufacturing.
Talksteer said:
Before Tesla/SpaceX he built the engineering team for PayPal and Zip2, as well as founding OpenAI. It's safe to say he isn't too bad at building engineering teams.
Musk has said a few times he's a big fan of Shackleton's advert for his polar expedition (chance of death high, hardships inevitable, chances of success low, glory and medals only reward etc.etc).
Given his track record/profile I doubt very much that he will have any issues finding the few hundred "hardcore engineers" he's after and it's not like the working conditions will be worse than a start up which is the only place where they are likely to get the same autonomy, mastery and rapid results.
The biggest issues are likely to be how whatever comes next bolts on to the existing set-up, though from what I've heard their setup is massively over complex and possibly due a wholesale change anyway.
Nobody who's actually any good will choose to work there and there is no reason for anyone to do so - it's not putting people on Mars after all. He will indeed be able to find 'hardcore' engineers but they will likely be individually disastrous and more likely unable to even work with each other, which is fatal to achieving anything, because modern software is entirely a team endeavour.Musk has said a few times he's a big fan of Shackleton's advert for his polar expedition (chance of death high, hardships inevitable, chances of success low, glory and medals only reward etc.etc).
Given his track record/profile I doubt very much that he will have any issues finding the few hundred "hardcore engineers" he's after and it's not like the working conditions will be worse than a start up which is the only place where they are likely to get the same autonomy, mastery and rapid results.
The biggest issues are likely to be how whatever comes next bolts on to the existing set-up, though from what I've heard their setup is massively over complex and possibly due a wholesale change anyway.
Your last paragraph is nonsense.
Leithen said:
Durzel said:
……Lots of fascinating stuff….
And yet Tesla’s driver software appears to still knock the socks off all the legacy manufacturers. The exception that proves the rule?Musk is a bag of contradictions.
FSD also does not do well when compared to the rest of the industry. While some still have way to go, the Cadillac system has been widely praised as excellent (for the roads that it allows it to be engaged) and others are catching up quickly. Mercedes recently got certification for their system in Nevada, well ahead of Tesla.
So no, Tesla has the news and popularity - but in the comparison reviews, it is NOT the best. Now, for included standard ADAS systems, the Tesla system is good. Lane keep, dynamic cruise control etc - great, better than many. FSD? Not so much.
off_again said:
Unfortunately the most recent versions of FSD from Tesla have not good. Supposedly the latest release is going to 'fix everything' but lets wait and see. Even the die-hards have had to admit that phantom braking, random disables and a general lack of awareness has been getting worse and worse.
FSD also does not do well when compared to the rest of the industry. While some still have way to go, the Cadillac system has been widely praised as excellent (for the roads that it allows it to be engaged) and others are catching up quickly. Mercedes recently got certification for their system in Nevada, well ahead of Tesla.
So no, Tesla has the news and popularity - but in the comparison reviews, it is NOT the best. Now, for included standard ADAS systems, the Tesla system is good. Lane keep, dynamic cruise control etc - great, better than many. FSD? Not so much.
This looks good:FSD also does not do well when compared to the rest of the industry. While some still have way to go, the Cadillac system has been widely praised as excellent (for the roads that it allows it to be engaged) and others are catching up quickly. Mercedes recently got certification for their system in Nevada, well ahead of Tesla.
So no, Tesla has the news and popularity - but in the comparison reviews, it is NOT the best. Now, for included standard ADAS systems, the Tesla system is good. Lane keep, dynamic cruise control etc - great, better than many. FSD? Not so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWx7MuwC2Gs
off_again said:
Unfortunately the most recent versions of FSD from Tesla have not good. Supposedly the latest release is going to 'fix everything' but lets wait and see. Even the die-hards have had to admit that phantom braking, random disables and a general lack of awareness has been getting worse and worse.
FSD also does not do well when compared to the rest of the industry. While some still have way to go, the Cadillac system has been widely praised as excellent (for the roads that it allows it to be engaged) and others are catching up quickly. Mercedes recently got certification for their system in Nevada, well ahead of Tesla.
So no, Tesla has the news and popularity - but in the comparison reviews, it is NOT the best. Now, for included standard ADAS systems, the Tesla system is good. Lane keep, dynamic cruise control etc - great, better than many. FSD? Not so much.
Driver interface software. Compare with VW. Etc. Even the most ardent critics seem to still admit that Tesla is still much better.FSD also does not do well when compared to the rest of the industry. While some still have way to go, the Cadillac system has been widely praised as excellent (for the roads that it allows it to be engaged) and others are catching up quickly. Mercedes recently got certification for their system in Nevada, well ahead of Tesla.
So no, Tesla has the news and popularity - but in the comparison reviews, it is NOT the best. Now, for included standard ADAS systems, the Tesla system is good. Lane keep, dynamic cruise control etc - great, better than many. FSD? Not so much.
Tear downs of the latest Model S have also revealed really very good drivetrain engineering integration developments. They must have some clever engineers working there.
Credit where credit is due. Criticism where criticism is due. Musk is the ultimate contradiction.
Leithen said:
Driver interface software. Compare with VW. Etc. Even the most ardent critics seem to still admit that Tesla is still much better.
Tear downs of the latest Model S have also revealed really very good drivetrain engineering integration developments. They must have some clever engineers working there.
Credit where credit is due. Criticism where criticism is due. Musk is the ultimate contradiction.
You wont find me contradicting that. I will keep saying that Tesla offers the best charging network, the most efficient overall packages and multiple industry scoring safety records. And add to that a fully integrated and usable infotainment system with app and services - its a compelling package. They are good and a lot of thought has gone into them.Tear downs of the latest Model S have also revealed really very good drivetrain engineering integration developments. They must have some clever engineers working there.
Credit where credit is due. Criticism where criticism is due. Musk is the ultimate contradiction.
That said, some spectacular miss-steps though:
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-uptick-crash...
and
https://electrek.co/2023/03/21/tesla-engineer-conv...
and
https://insideevs.com/news/658439/elon-musk-overru...
Will they crack it just on vision? Maybe. Has Tesla started to fit radar sensors to brand-new models? Seems so.
Frik said:
Are people buying so many Teslas because of the cars, or the charging infrastructure?
Hard to argue they're buying them for their looks or build quality.
I would suggest that most people buy a Tesla based on the overall package rather than a specific single aspect. They might not be the best built or best looking cars on the road, but clearly this doesnt matter to a lot of buyers, who are prepared to overlook such aspects. But note that I am not suggesting that its unimportant though. A car purchase IS an emotional purchase and we do care what it says about us. We just choose to ignore certain things based on our own biases. Personally, I like the Porsche Panamera but I am the first to admit that it doesnt look... errr, good? I understand what it is and what it can do, but its hardly an attractive car. Hard to argue they're buying them for their looks or build quality.
Build quality has improved though and they are better now than they have ever been. However, they are still getting issues with steering wheels falling off, absolutely shocking PDI / resolution and significant corners cut for simple things (fixings and quality of the parts around the roof on the inside and alignment of lights & body panels. You can argue that this is OK for a $25k car and maybe stretch this to a $35k given the performance that is available. But when you are into $100k territory, a lot of this stuff is just unacceptable.
Frik said:
Are people buying so many Teslas because of the cars, or the charging infrastructure?
Hard to argue they're buying them for their looks or build quality.
Would depend on the market but I'd bet a quite a few were shifted because unlike others they had stock available at fairly short notice, and that made them a viable option for people needing a new electric company car. Hard to argue they're buying them for their looks or build quality.
So many literal white goods spec ones out there, Model 3 & Y are just the latest thing to fill what once might have been a Mondeo or a 320d.
High spec Model X though seems to be the domain of antisocial gimps who buy them because theyre big & fast.
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