Electric driverless cars?

Tesla with self-driving capability crashes into fire truck, investigation launched (PHOTO)
Published time: 13 May, 2018 09:15
An investigation has been opened after a Tesla Model S, which can be driven autonomously, crashed into the back of a fire truck in Utah. It comes amid two separate probes involving fatal Tesla crashes.

The incident occurred in the Salt Lake City suburb of South Jordan on Friday, when the Tesla S slammed into a fire department's mechanics truck while it was stopped at a red light.

Tesla Model S rear ends UFA truck

“For unknown reasons, the Tesla failed to stop for the traffic at the red light and ran into the back of the Unified Fire Authority vehicle at 60 miles per hour,” Sergeant Samuel Winkler of the South Jordan Police Department said, according to Fox 13. Authorities said they have been in contact with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) about the crash, AP reported.

Although the Model S can be driven autonomously, it remains unclear whether the car's autopilot feature was turned on at the time of the crash. That feature uses cameras, radar, and computers to maintain speed, changes lanes, and stop. However, Tesla has warned that drivers must still keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel in order to prevent accidents from taking place.

The NTSB is already investigating two fatal incidents involving Tesla vehicles. One of those happened on Tuesday, when a Model S crashed into a concrete wall and caught fire in Florida. The driver and his passenger, both 18-years old, were killed. The agency and Tesla have both stated that they do not believe the accident was caused by the car's autopilot feature.

Meanwhile, a Model X crash in California in March led to the death of the driver, with Tesla stating that the accident could have only occurred if the driver was not paying attention, noting that he was given warning to put his hands on the wheel in the seconds before the crash.

In a conference call earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk slammed journalists for reporting on the dangers of autonomous vehicles. "It's really incredibly irresponsible of any journalists with integrity to write an article that would lead people to believe that autonomy is less safe. Because people might actually turn it off, and then die. So anyway, I'm really upset by this," he said.

Near Reno Nv. where they have snow and mustangs.

 
¡Ay, caramba! :shock:

Tesla Bursts Into Flames After "Violent Crash" In Switzerland, Killing Driver Trapped Inside
by Tyler Durden Mon, 05/14/2018 - 16:35
When it rains, it pours, or in the case of Tesla, it bursts in flames.

In the same week in which a Tesla Model S erupted in flames after a "horrific" crash in Ft. Lauderdale, fatally trapping the two teenagers who died inside, while a second Model S rammed a stopped Salt Lake City firetruck at 60mph, mercifully without any fatalities, the Swiss tio.ch reports that yet another Tesla burst into flames after crashing on the A2 highway near the town of Bellinzona, killing a 48-year-old German driver who was trapped inside.

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According to the Swiss publication, the driver, a 48-year-old German motorist from Baden-Wurtermberg, lost control of the vehicle a few meters after the Monte Ceneri tunnel, crashing into the central guardrail, an accident that was remarkably similar to an October 2017 crash in Austria, in which a Model S also burned down, however without any fatalities.

The car then overturned and caught fire, fatally trapping the driver.
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According to the Facebook page of the Bellinzona fire department, the flames were once again started by the lithium-ion batteries after the crash. The Fire department explains that "the violent impact of Lithium Ion Batteries could probably have caused a phenomenon called "thermal runaway", i.e, a rapid and unstoppable increase in temperature."
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It's unclear if the car had its autopilot engaged at the moment of the crash, although now that both the NTSB and NHTSA are looking to last week's tragic Tesla crash which killed two young men under similar circumstances, we are confident the answer will be available soon.

And yet, Matt Schwall, won't be there the reveal it: as we reported yesterday, Schwall, the Tesla exec who until last week had been Tesla's "primary technical contact" with both the NTSB & NHTSA, resigned quietly and moved to Tesla's competitor Waymo. Commenting on this departure, we wondered if it suggests that the "company's troubles with government regulators may be set to escalate."

Judging by the trio of crashes in just one week, two of which fatal, we are willing to go on a limb here and answer "yes."


 
Published on May 18, 2018

LA Times
Los Angeles could fast-track Elon Musk's first tunnel project in West L.A.
Apr 18, 2018 | 4:50 PM
Comments:
Blue Wave 1 month(s) ago
A year ago I would have been one of those who unquestioningly supported Musk's vision and encouraged the LA City Council to do whatever needed to give him the approvals and exemptions needed to carry on his work.

However, in that year's time there have been quite a number of reports regarding Musk's record of safety and attention to the well-being of both his workers and the greater environment (www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-workplace-safety-20170524-story.html, www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-factory-safety-20180418-story.html). Now that some of the luster has come off Musk's shine, perhaps our council members might consider taking a closer look at his plans, his record, and his promises before succumbing to his charisma and razzle-dazzle vision of our future.
Huddy's Revenge 1 month(s) ago
Funny how this clown gets fast tracked and virtually every other project in the city grinds to a halt in City Hall. Time to audit the bank accounts of the City Council. Someone is getting paid off.
Ridgeley 1 month(s) ago
How about fast tracking permanent homeless housing? Traffic is bad, I know, but leaving people to live on the streets is inhumane and small-d undemocratic.
tommy5011 month(s) ago
Billionaire Musk pours millions into Democrat's political coffers. In return, he gets hundreds of million a year in tax breaks and incentives. L.A. Democrats will fund this at "our" expense too. Democrats are great a corporate welfare for billionaires.


Here Comes Tesla’s Next Big “Ask” from Taxpayers
by Tyler Durden Sat, 05/19/2018 - 18:07
Snip-a- roni:
The Real Point of This “News”
Tesla is getting ready to ask the State of California for a “favor”. Whether it is a major bailout or some additional taxpayer subsidy to help it hang on for a few more quarters only time will tell. As discussed in our article on ZEV Credits (here), Tesla may ask for some reform to that program to produce a more generous subsidy to the company. Musk made his position clear that ZEV subsidies should be increased on an earnings call in 2016 when he reportedly said:

“The California Air Resources Board is being incredibly weak in its application of ZEV credits. The standards are pathetically low. They need to be increased. There’s massive lobbying by the big car companies from increasing the ZEV credit mandate, which they absolutely damn well should. CARB should damn well be ashamed of themselves.”

Will California Cooperate? Maybe. Musk may ultimately raise the specter of Chapter 7 and the loss of the entire enterprise to motivate uncooperative public servants. However, public bailouts of private companies are controversial and governments do not like controversy. Car dealers are not exactly disengaged politically, so any large bailout could encounter some meaningful opposition.
 
Driver's body recovered after Tesla Model S veers into Castro Valley pond
CASTRO VALLEY, Calif. Updated: May 21 2018 09:57AM PDT

A driver of a Tesla Model S drove into a pond Sunday night and his body ended up being recovered early Monday morning in a fatal accident that closed a portion of Crow Canyon Road in Castro Valley, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. Ray Kelly identified the driver as Keith Leung, 34, of Danville. It is unknown at this time if the Tesla was in autopilot mode or not.

A property owner heard the Tesla, driving northbound on Crow Canyon Road, just before 8 p.m. on Sunday, according to CHP Officer Daniel Jacowitz. He called 911 and when he came outside he saw damage to his fence and tire tracks leading up to the pond.

Nine members of the Alameda County Sheriff’s rescue team went into the pond about 10 p.m. and found the driver, still sitting upright in the driver's seat, Jacowitz said. He was pulled out and declared dead at the scene about 5:30 a.m.

"It's really tragic," Jacowitz said.

Tesla did not immediately respond for comment on Monday.

However, CHP officers did acknowledge that this stretch of road is a problem area and they conduct enforcement there on a regular basis. The speed limit ranges from 35 mph to 55 mph and officers say they have cited people for going as fast as 75 mph.

Neighbors have regularly complained that they can’t get out of their drive ways because vehicle are driving so fast.

Jacowitz added that Leung would have had to have been driving more than posted speed limit of 35 mph to have gone airborne and fly the distance it did.


“The vehicle was submerged...trees in the water made it difficult to tow it out,” said CHP Sgt. Michael Novosel.

Elon Musk's Great Model 3 Bait and Switch
by Tyler Durden Mon, 05/21/2018 - 10:44
Snip:
The Tesla Model 3 was supposed to be the "entry-level" electric vehicle for the middle class, that "made it up in volume": leading up to the release of the Model 3, it was positioned as the people's EV that everybody could afford and that, once mass produced, would help Tesla generate cash and profits consistently. The car's relatively modest $35,000 price tag was heralded as one of its key selling points, low enough that Tesla could generate the volume needed to gain operating leverage from selling it to the masses.

But as Elon Musk himself admitted this weekend on Twitter, selling a $35,000 Model 3 right now would cause Tesla to "lose money and die"

So, instead of selling this mass-market vehicle, Tesla has focused on selling a more expensive version of the vehicle. A much, much more expensive version, in fact more than double the base price... and, if Elon Musk's Tweets this weekend are any indication, Tesla doesn’t have any near-term plans to start selling the vehicle at anything close to the $35,000 price tag that was initially promised anytime soon.


Instead, Musk was busy introducing yet another high priced variation of the Model 3, this time the dual motor, all wheel drive Model 3 that could run a price tag of just under $80,000.
.

Tesla Slides After Consumer Reports Warns Of Model 3 "Braking, Controls, & Ride Quality Issues"
by Tyler Durden Mon, 05/21/2018 - 12:34
It was all looking up for Elon Musk this morning.

Once again, just as his company's stock looked set to face up to reality, he spewed some new headline-making smoke with mirrors and the stocks ramped, helped by price upgrade by Berenberg to offset the bitter taste from last week's Morgan Stanley price target cut... and then Consumer Reports just spoiled the party.
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https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/2018-05-21_9-23-45.jpg?itok=gSsjaaGg
The problem: Consumer Reports filed to "recommend" the Tesla Model 3 - a huge slap in the face for a car that was supposed to be the next big thing for the middle class, and here's the reason why: "Our testers also found flaws - big flaws - such as long stopping distances in our emergency braking test and difficult-to-use controls"

The Tesla’s stopping distance of 152 feet from 60 mph was far worse than any contemporary car we’ve tested and about 7 feet longer than the stopping distance of a Ford F-150 full-sized pickup.
In our tests of both Model 3 samples, the stopping distances were much longer than the stopping distances we recorded on other Teslas and other cars in this class.

CR’s experience with the Model 3’s braking is not unique. Car and Driver, in its published test of a Model 3, said it noticed “a bizarre amount of variation” in its test, including one stop from 70 mph that took “an interminable 196 feet.”

“I’ve been testing cars for 11 years,” Car and Driver Testing Director K.C. Colwell said in an interview with CR, “and in 11 years, no car has stood out with inconsistent braking like this. Some trucks have. . . . It was just weird.”

Another major factor that compromised the Model 3’s road-test score was its controls. This car places almost all its controls and displays on a center touch screen, with no gauges on the dash, and few buttons inside the car.

This layout forces drivers to take multiple steps to accomplish simple tasks. Our testers found that everything from adjusting the mirrors to changing the direction of the airflow from the air-conditioning vents required using the touch screen.

These types of complex interactions with a touch screen can cause driver distraction because each act forces drivers to take their eyes off the road and a hand off the steering wheel.

The Model 3’s stiff ride, unsupportive rear seat and excessive wind noise at highway speeds also hurt its road-test score.
Well, on Saturday Musk did say the Model 3 all-wheel drive with options, paint, wheels included for $78,000; he never said anything about brakes being included.

Joking aside, apart from inconsistent braking problems, distracted driving from controls, wind noise, stiff ride, and unsupportive rear seat, the Tesla Model 3 is clearly a game-changer.

We suspect Bonds are still right on this.
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Tesla workers say factory paint shop has had multiple fires, causing more problems than Tesla let on :whistle:
Published 2 Hours Ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/tesla-factory-paint-shop-fires-worse-than-revealed-workers.html
Employees say Tesla has experienced at least four fires in its paint shop in the last four years, and that sprinklers and air filtration systems are clogged with paint.
Fires in the paint shop contributed to sluggish Model 3 production, some employees say, and fumes there are leaving them concerned about their health.

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Tesla has had at least four fires in the paint shop at its Fremont, California, factory since 2014, according to five people familiar with operations at that plant.
One previously reported fire, in April, was serious enough to stop Model 3 production for multiple shifts that week, these people said. Another fire took place in January 2016 and caused at least a day of suspended vehicle production. Both fires damaged expensive equipment.

These people blamed the fires in part on improper cleaning, maintenance and insufficient training for new employees in the face of high pressure to meet production goals. Two current employees said they were concerned about their health because of fire hazards and poor air quality. All the people agreed that the April fire contributed to slowing down Model 3 production.
A Tesla spokesperson denied that the April fire was "significant" or had any impact on Model 3 production, and said:

"In recent months, we have further enhanced the safety and efficiency of our paint shop, including significant upgrades to equipment, as well as an extensive maintenance effort involving cleaning and calibration. In order to protect the health of our employees, we also conduct regular air monitoring and have proper ventilation and personal protective equipment for everyone who works in the paint shop."

Tesla's future as a mass-market carmaker hinges on efficient, high volume production of the Model 3, the company's lowest-priced offering so far. When Tesla unveiled the Model 3 in 2016, CEO Elon Musk said it would be able to produce 100,000 to 200,000 Model 3 cars by the end of 2017 with a base price of $35,000.
Instead, Tesla produced just 2,685 Model 3s in total for all of 2017.

Tesla also missed its goal of producing 2,500 Model 3s per week by March 31, 2018. So far, the company has sold only premium versions of the Model 3, which cost $44,000 to $78,000.
Paint shop issues are still hampering Tesla's progress with Model 3 production, according to current employees and other people familiar with Tesla's paint shop. They requested anonymity because they have not been authorized to speak to the media.

April fire

When a paint shop fire halted vehicle production around 7 a.m. on April 3, a Tesla spokesperson said the fire was "small" and extinguished by internal teams in a matter of seconds.

But employees told CNBC the fire was significant enough to stop work for at least a full shift on that day. The shop was also shut down for at least one more shift two days later. It also forced Tesla to decommission two burnt sprayer robots that they estimated were worth over $1 million.
The fire happened just after the company's head of vehicle engineering, Doug Field, who is now on leave, sent out an e-mail encouraging employees to "prove the haters wrong." In that spirit, and under management's direction, paint shop crews worked on.

The week of the fire, according to two employees and two other people familiar with Tesla's Fremont factory, Musk showed up to assess damage to the paint shop. The fire had burnt an entire zone dedicated to painting Model 3s.

Rather than suspending operations immediately, Musk and others encouraged teams to fix what they could and push through.


Some Model 3 parts, including B-pillars and chassis components, which had been in the paint shop at the time, were moved into a containment area, visually inspected and put back into production, rather than being scrapped or further tested for damages, employees said.

Tesla emphasized that no damaged parts were used in new vehicle production.
Engineers scrambled to repurpose equipment in the paint shop that week so that robots could be used to put primer on both the interior and exterior surfaces of Model 3 vehicles. Before the fire, separate robots handled interior and exterior primer application.
Tesla handled the April 3 fire with its own internal brigade. It did not report it to the Fremont Fire Department, a spokesperson for the department confirmed.
However, a citizen did call after seeing reports about the fire on social media that day, the fire department spokesperson said. Tesla security greeted a fire department battalion chief who went to investigate and said the department had no internal reports of fire at the facility, the spokesperson said. The chief toured the exterior of the Fremont factory looking for signs of fire, and seeing nothing but a "cloud formation" outside, left without going inside, according to the spokesperson.

A week and a half later, Tesla announced it was shutting down its Fremont factory operations temporarily to make some improvements. (Tesla also shut down its factory for a week in May for planned upgrades.)

Improper maintenance and production pressure reported

Fires like these are not common in auto manufacturing. It is especially uncommon for a plant to have multiple fires in a paint shop.

According to the most recent available data from the National Fire Protection Association, local fire departments respond to 190 fires per year on average in maintenance or paint shop areas of factories and processing facilities. That is just 4 percent of fires that occur in all of manufacturing.

The rate of paint-shop fires in auto plants is far lower than that, says Jason Reason, a former OSHA officer and senior vice president of safety and health at Lewellyn Technology in Indiana.

"For the most part, corporations know how to control fire hazards associated with spraying operations, and work to establish a safety culture," said Reason. "If you're having multiple fires, you really need to audit your paint shop and make sure it never happens again, even if that means redesigning the whole thing."

A spokesperson for GM manufacturing, Dan Flores, noted: "At GM, we would consider a fire in a paint shop an extremely rare occurrence — that's because our paint shops operate in a very controlled manner."

Two Tesla employees say that vehicle production goals have been the highest priority in recent months, sometimes at the expense of fire and environmental considerations. They said, for example, that months before the April fire, the sprinkler heads were clogged and coated at least an inch thick of paint and clear-coat. Filters below the paint booths and exhaust systems that clean and carry air into and out of the building were also visibly coated, they added.

A former paint shop employee said associates there are given minimal training — just what they need to meet OSHA safety requirements — before they are put to work on jobs that need more specialized skills. The result is that while Tesla has invested in state-of-the-art equipment, these inexperienced employees don't follow best practices. The result: botched jobs and a potentially unsafe environment, according to the former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Workers are hopeful things may soon change. Since early April, Tesla has replaced some sprinkler heads, and put out a request for quotes on new air filtration equipment.

On a tense earnings call in May, Musk plainly acknowledged that the paint shop at Tesla's Fremont factory poses a risk to mass-production of the Model 3 electric sedan.

The CEO said: "General assembly is probably our biggest risk, and I'm refocusing personally on that a lot in the next — in the coming month. And then our paint shop is maybe the second biggest risk after general assembly."

On the same call, he sought to assure analysts "[It's] not like you need brain surgery to get these things right."

Here is Tesla's full statement to CNBC:

"In recent months, we have further enhanced the safety and efficiency of our paint shop, including significant upgrades to equipment, as well as an extensive maintenance effort involving cleaning and calibration. In order to protect the health of our employees, we also conduct regular air monitoring and have proper ventilation and personal protective equipment for everyone who works in the paint shop.

As was previously reported, we experienced a fire in our paint shop in April, though it was quickly extinguished and did not materially impact production. As part of this event, we immediately mobilized an internal team to learn from the event and we're confident that the steps we're taking will prevent similar events from occurring in the future. We put a lot of effort into this endeavor and are very proud of this team's work."

The Truth About the Tesla Semi Electric Truck | Auto Expert John Cadogan | Austral
AutoExpertTV Published on Dec 18, 2017 / 16:59
The Tesla truck - the much-hyped Semi - is heavy-hauling electrified pie in the sky.

Another Cal/OSHA Tesla Investigation After Factory Worker Breaks Jaw
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FREMONT (CBS SF) – As Tesla faces questions over safety at the Fremont factory, state officials are investigating an incident where a subcontractor suffered a broken jaw.

Bloomberg News reported Friday that the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health launched an investigation on April 12 into the incident.

Cal/OSHA spokesperson Erika Monterroza said the 30-year-old worker was hospitalized when he was struck by a skid carrier, suffering a broken jaw and a laceration to his face.

The maker of electric cars told Bloomberg that they are cooperating with the investigation.

Earlier this week, Cal/OSHA announced a separate investigation into Tesla over the reporting of worker injuries at the factory.

A report by the Center for Investigative Reporting accused Tesla of undercounting worker injuries on official injury reports, by listing injuries in several cases as “personal medical” cases unrelated to work.

Tesla has come out strongly against the report, claiming it was “an ideologically motivated attack” and that the center was working with supporters of a plan to unionize the plant.

The automaker is facing increased scrutiny on other fronts, including production delays on the mass market Model 3 sedan, and a deadly crash involving a Model X SUV on Autopilot in Mountain View last month.

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May 16, 2016
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Step Aside Uber, Tesla: Waymo Will Launch World's First "Self-Driving Transportation Service" This Year
Tyler Durden Fri, 06/01/2018 - 16:51
In the race for autonomous driving and "autonomous driving as a service," Google's Waymo is lapping its competitors including Uber and Tesla.

According to media reports, Waymo is going to be launching 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica minivans, which it will be adding to its fleet in anticipation of launching its self driving transportation service as soon as this year. These minivans will be equipped with the company's autonomous driving software, which puts Waymo ahead of companies like Uber and Tesla, both of which are also working on pushing into the new, burgeoning self-driving industry

The push to launch these vans comes as a result of a partnership with Chrysler and as the company looks to create an autonomous ride sharing program that can be hailed with an app. The Daily Mail reports:
Google-owned Waymo is adding as many as 62,000 Fiat Chrysler minivans to its autonomous fleet in an expanded collaboration announced by the companies on Thursday. Delivery of the Chrysler Pacifica minivans was expected to begin later this year, with the automaker also exploring the potential to build Waymo technology into a self-driving car it might add to its model line-up for consumers.
'FCA is committed to bringing self-driving technology to our customers in a manner that is safe, efficient and realistic,' chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne said. 'Strategic partnerships, such as the one we have with Waymo, will help to drive innovative technology to the forefront.'
The article then notes that Waymo will likely be the first company, before Uber and Tesla, to launch the first truly self-driving vehicle later this year, and that Uber and Waymo could eventually wind up working together to get Waymo's software into Uber vehicles:

Waymo plans to launch the 'world's first self-driving transportation service' this year, with people able to summon rides from driverless vehicles using a smartphone application. The announcement came a day after Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi reportedly said at a Code technology conference that the company is speaking with Waymo about putting its cars to work at the smartphone-summoned ride service.
Uber early this year negotiated a settlement with Waymo over trade secrets purportedly purloined from the self-driving unit of Google-parent Alphabet. Uber suspended its own autonomous car testing in April after an accident that killed a woman pushing a bicycle in a street in Arizona.
Waymo CEO John Krafcik has publicly contended that the fatal accident involving a self-driving Uber car would not have occurred with his company's technology.
In addition to Waymo working on its partnership with Chrysler, the company is also collaborating with Jaguar Land Rover, which is said to be toying with the idea of launching a higher-end, self-driving electric car service (just in case not everyone wants to be seen being ushered around in a Chrysler Pacifica):

Fiat and Waymo first announced a self-driving car partnership two years ago, and said that engineers from their companies have been working together since then. Fiat has delivered 600 Pacifica Hybrid minivans to Waymo so far, the companies said. Earlier this year the companies said 'thousands' more would be added.
Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover in March announced they have joined forces on a posh, self-driving electric car tailored for a ride-hailing service run by the Google-owned firm.
...
Waymo and Jaguar said they aim to develop a 'premium self-driving electric vehicle' based on a new I-PACE model.
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The news about Waymo's surprising progress comes in the wake of recent disturbing headlines from Tesla and Uber regarding their cars‘ self driving capabilities. Tesla has been dealing with the media fallout from several deadly accidents linked to the the "autopilot", while Uber has reportedly suspended its self-driving tests after a woman was killed in Arizona some months back after being stuck by an autonomous vehicle.

Waymo has so far been luciky to sidestep any bad press and has been silently executing on this partnership and pushing its software forward.

Meanwhile, the great race to be the first to roll out a truly self-driving vehicles is only accelerating, and just yesterday SoftBank announced that it would make a $2.25 billion investment into General Motors' autonomous driving technology. On Thursday morning, tech-investing giant SoftBank Vision Fund announced it would invest $2.25 billion in General Motors Co.’s driverless-car unit valuing it at $11.5 billion, creating a new player in the ongoing fierce battle between tech companies and startups to become the first to commercialize autonomous vehicles.

The deal will provide not only a major financial backer - a la what Uber tried to do with Warren Buffett and failed - but will also "afford GM increased flexibility with respect to capital allocation" as it plows more money into developing a network of autonomous ride-share vehicles, targeted for sometime next year, GM said.

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Opening the Cruise subsidiary to SoftBank’s giant fund allows it to access capital that investors have been reluctant to grant the 110-year-old auto maker. GM will retain an 80.4% stake in GM Cruise and invest $1.1 billion in the business.

During a press conference Thursday morning, GM Chief Executive Mary Barra called it a “landmark” investment that gives GM Cruise the capital it needs to get its driverless-car business to market.

With the Softbank investment and the news that Waymo is working with Chrysler and could be working with both Uber and Jaguar, there is no doubt that the race for full autonomous has now officially been put into high gear.


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Recode Daily
Nearly a quarter of Tesla’s Model 3 reservation deposits in the U.S. have supposedly been refunded
https://www.recode.net/2018/6/4/17414496/nearly-a-quarter-of-teslas-model-3-reservation-deposits-in-the-u-s-have-supposedly-been-refunded
Jun 4, 2018, 7:24am EDT
Most of the refunds happened this April, after Elon Musk again said the mass-market car would be delayed.

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Two years ago Tesla began accepting $1,000 deposits for its new, lower-priced Model 3 electric car, with the expectation that customers would likely receive their vehicles in 2018. Hundreds of thousands of people have reserved one.

But perhaps due to extended production delays, many customers have been asking for their money back.

As of the end of April, some 23 percent of all Model 3 deposits in the U.S. had been refunded, according to new U.S. data from Second Measure, a company that analyzes billions of dollars in anonymized credit and debit card purchases.

These cancellations aren’t necessarily bad for Tesla, since its production rate is nowhere near as high as it needs to be to fulfill the more than 450,000 reservations it still has. Last quarter, it delivered just 8,180 Model 3s.

Presumably, potential Tesla customers could make a deposit again when production is more regular. The potential longer-term harm would be in alienating them so that they choose a different brand of car altogether.

A Tesla spokesperson said that Second Measure’s data does not align with its internal data, but would not be more specific as to how far off it is.

But Second Measure’s numbers did match up last August, when Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed that there were 455,000 net reservations out of 518,000 gross reservations, suggesting 63,000 cancelations and a 12 percent cancellation rate.

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Source: Second Measure
About 60 percent of Model 3 reservations so far in the U.S. were made back in April 2016, when Tesla first began taking deposits.

About 18 percent of the total refunds on the Model 3 happened this past April, the largest share out of any month, according to Second Measure. That’s when Musk explained that Model 3s would be delayed six to nine months.

That’s also when the largest share of “configuration fees” — a non-refundable deposit customers put down to customize their vehicle shortly before they receive it — were spent, meaning with production ramping up more customers had to decide whether they actually wanted to pay $35,000 (at the very minimum) for their Teslas or ask for refunds. As more Tesla Model 3s become available, we’ll get a better glimpse of what share of reservations turn into purchases.
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*Refers to configuration fees. Sliding Scale:
Second Measure
As of April 2018, 8 percent of Model 3 customers have paid a $2,500 configuration fee. We’d note that paying a configuration fee could also mean that the customer opted for a more expensive Tesla model, like the S or X. Indeed, Musk has said that Tesla is doing its best to “anti-sell” the Model 3 so that people buy more expensive models.

In its latest earnings release, Tesla blamed order cancellations on “delays in production in general and delays in availability of certain planned options, particularly dual motor AWD and the smaller battery pack.

Elon Musk must be fired as Tesla chief say some shareholders ahead of crucial meeting
Published time: 4 Jun, 2018 15:06

:shock:
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May 30, 2018
 
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Another fly in the ointment for driverless cars?
Connected Cars Can Lie, Posing a New Threat to Smart Cities

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By Qi Alfred Chen, University of Michigan and Z. Morley Mao, University of Michigan

The day when cars can talk to each other – and to traffic lights, stop signs, guardrails and even pavement markings – is rapidly approaching. Driven by the promise of reducing traffic congestion and avoiding crashes, these systems are already rolling out on roads around the U.S.

For instance, the Intelligent Traffic Signal System, developed with support from the U.S. Department of Transportation, has been tested on public roads in Arizona and California and is being installed more widely in New York City and Tampa, Florida. It allows vehicles to share their real-time location and speed with traffic lights, which can be used to effectively optimize the traffic timing in coordination with the real-time traffic demand to dramatically reduce vehicle waiting time in an intersection.

Our work, from the RobustNet Research Group and the Michigan Traffic Laboratory at the University of Michigan, focuses on making sure these next-generation transportation systems are secure and protected from attacks. So far we’ve found they are in fact relatively easy to trick. Just one car that’s transmitting fake data can cause enormous traffic jams, and several attack cars could work together to shut down whole areas. What’s particularly concerning is that our research has found the weakness is not in the underlying communication technology, but in the algorithms actually used to manage the traffic flow.

Misleading an algorithm
In general, algorithms are meant to take in a variety of inputs – such as how many cars are in various locations around an intersection – and calculate an output that meets a particular goal – such as minimizing their collective delay at traffic lights. Like most algorithms, the traffic control algorithm in Intelligent Traffic Signal System – nicknamed “I-SIG” – assumes the inputs it’s getting are honest. That’s not a safe assumption.

The hardware and software in modern cars can be modified, either physically through the car’s diagnostic ports or over wireless connections, to instruct a car to transmit false information. Someone who wanted to compromise the I-SIG system could hack her own car using such methods, drive to a target intersection and park nearby.

Once parked near the intersection, we’ve found that the attacker could take advantage of two weaknesses in the algorithm controlling the light to extend the time a particular lane of traffic gets a green light – and, similarly, the time other lanes get red lights.

The first vulnerability we found, which we call “last vehicle advantage,” is a way of extending the length of a green-light signal. The algorithm keeps an eye on approaching cars, estimates how long the line of cars is and determines how long it thinks it will take for all the vehicles in a line of traffic to get through the intersection. This logic helps the system serve as many vehicles as possible in each round of light changes, but it can be abused. An attacker can instruct her car to falsely report joining the line of cars very late. The algorithm will then hold the attacked light green long enough for this nonexistent car to pass, leading to a green light – and correspondingly, red lights for other lanes – that is much longer than needed for the actual cars on the road.

We called the second weakness we found the “curse of the transition period,” or the “ghost vehicle attack.” The I-SIG algorithm is built to accommodate the fact that not all vehicles can communicate yet. It uses the driving patterns and information of newer, connected cars to infer the real-time location and speed of older, noncommunicating vehicles. Therefore, if a connected car reports that it is stopped a long distance back from an intersection, the algorithm will assume there is a long line of older vehicles queuing ahead of it. Then the system would allocate a long green light for that lane because of the long queue it thinks is there, but really isn’t.

These attacks happen by making a device lie about its own position and speed. That’s very different from known cyberattack methods, like injecting messages into unencrypted communications or having an unauthorized user logging in with a privileged account. Therefore, known protections against those attacks can do nothing about a lying device.

Results from a misinformed algorithm
Using either of these attacks, or both in concert with each other, can allow an attacker to give long periods of green lights to lanes with little or no traffic and longer red lights to the busiest lanes. That causes backups that grow and grow, ultimately building into massive traffic jams.

A congestion attack on a traffic signal control system.

This sort of attack on traffic lights could be just for fun or for the attacker’s own benefit. Imagine, for example, a person who wants to have a faster commute adjusting his own traffic-light timing, at the expense of other drivers’ delays. Criminals, too, might seek to attack traffic lights to ease their getaways from crime scenes or pursuing police cars.

There are even political or financial dangers: A coordinated group could shut down several key intersections in a city and demand a ransom payment. It’s much more disruptive, and easier to get away with, than other ways of blocking intersections, like parking a car across traffic.

Because this type of attack exploits the smart traffic control algorithm itself, fixing it requires joint efforts from both transportation and cybersecurity fields. This includes taking into account one of the broadest lessons of our work: The sensors underlying interactive systems – such as the vehicles in the I-SIG system – aren’t inherently trustworthy. Before engaging in calculations, algorithms should attempt to validate the data they’re using. For example, a traffic-control system could use other sensors – like in-road sensors already in use across the nation – to double-check how many cars are really there.

This is just the beginning of our research into new types of security problems in the smart transportation systems of the future, which we hope will both discover weaknesses and identify ways to protect the roads and the drivers on them.

Connected Cars Can Lie, Posing a New Threat to Smart Cities

Hmm - can AI be ponerized? Or just traumatized from being programmed to be psychopathic? :rolleyes:
Will our cars have to pass lie-detector tests in order to be road worthy? Will we have to 'pull the plug' on cars deemed pathological liars?

Yeah - the Smart future isn't looking too smart.
 
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SF Bay Area Published on Jun 7, 2018
A Tesla SUV using the company's Autopilot driving system accelerated just before crashing into a freeway barrier in March, killing its driver.

Bloomberg
Jun 7, 2018
Autonomous Tesla Sped Up in March's Accident
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Tesla's Surprising Surge Looks Like a Short Squeeze to Analysts
”Musk saying it’s “quite likely” that Tesla will achieve 5,000 Model 3 production per week by early July is “one year ahead of our expectations.”“If Tesla were able to achieve 5,000 of weekly production...

Jun 8, 2018
Tesla Model 3: Photos of Elon Musk’s Factory in Fremont
Gardi for Bloomberg BusinessweekTesla has consistently missed its production targets since deliveries of the Model 3 began last July. The first major snag was at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada...

Jun 7, 2018
Tesla Model X in California Crash Sped Up Seconds Before Impact
The Tesla Inc. Model X that crashed in California while being guided by its semi-autonomous driving system sped up to 71 miles an hour in the seconds before the vehicle slammed into a highway barrier...

Jun 8, 2018
Porsche Picks Taycan as Name for Its First Electric Vehicle
Porsche AG named its first car to directly compete with electric leader Tesla Inc. the Taycan, as the German manufacturer gears up for what will arguably be its most ambitious and potentially risky...
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"You won't want to drive a fuel car anymore" - the title on the video above reads...
But what are the power plants you need to operate an e-car fueled by?

Autopilot driving may have some advantages, like the car transferring you to the nearest hospital in case of a medical emergency or returning you home safely after an alcoholic night out.

But if your car can operate without your control, any IT geek or intelligence agency might be able to hack into the software of your car to take it over.

There must be two factors driving the production of autonomously operated e-cars:

the enormous business expectation of replacing all vehicles with combustion engines

and the prospect of being able to control or even shut down individual traffic.
 
TESLA Spontaneously Combusts in LA Street

The Tesla Model S belonging to the husband of actress Mary McCormack spontaneously combusted in Los Angeles. In a late Friday tweet, the West Wing actress said that flames burst out of the undercarriage - most likely the car's battery compartment - while her husband was driving the car on Santa Monica boulevard in Los Angeles.


zerohedge.com
 
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‘Only the paranoid survive’: Musk hints at sabotage as Tesla plant rattled by fire
19 Jun, 2018 03:44
A fire that has briefly disrupted operations at a Tesla plant in Fremont, California, has prompted the car-maker’s CEO Elon Musk to send a cryptic message, asking staff to be vigilant, in light of “another strange incident.”

The internal email from Musk, first reported by CNBC, revealed that a “small” fire broke out at a car body production line in the factory late Sunday, halting operations “for several hours.” Calling the blaze “a strange incident that was hard to explain,” Musk then appeared to suggest that the mishap might have been the result of malicious intent.

“Could just be a random event, but as [Intel co-founder] Andy Grove said, “Only the paranoid survive,” the electric car manufacturer’s CEO noted, before urging employees to “be on the alert for anything that’s not in the best interests of our company.”

In a tone highlighting the gravity of the matter, Musk asks workers to contact him directly if they don’t get any feedback otherwise. The fire resulted in no injuries; nor did it inflict substantial damage on equipment and nobody was present on the premises, Musk wrote, as cited in the report.

In a later update, CNBC cited another email, which was sent by Musk on Sunday, which claimed that a Tesla employee “had conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage” against the company. The unnamed employee allegedly altered the code of the plant’s manufacturing operating system and exported data to third parties, the email claimed, adding that powerful players, including “Wall Street short-sellers” and “oil & gas companies” were not beyond playing dirty against Tesla.

The ‘unexplained’ incident follows a similar one at the plant in April, when a paint shop fire reportedly brought production to a halt for at least a full shift. Although Tesla argued that the fire was “small” and barely affected the operations, the workers cited by CNBC claimed that it was severe enough to burn down an entire section where Model 3s were being painted. However, Musk, who reportedly flew in to assess the damage, encouraged the staff to apply a quick fix and go on with production instead of putting it on hold.

The report on the latest fire comes as Tesla struggles to meet its CEO’s ambitious goal of churning out 5,000 Model 3 vehicles weekly. Earlier in June, Musk said that it was “highly likely”Tesla would reach the designated production rate by the end of this month.

In run-up to the latest fire incident, Musk had reiterated his push for a higher production rate, in an email titled “only 8 days left to reach 700 cars/day or 5k/week,” which he’d sent on Friday. In the letter calling for “radical improvements,” he stressed the need to “achieve sustained, 700+ per week on the body line,” vowing to be at the factory “almost 24/7” to oversee the process first-hand.

The electric car company and its CEO are facing a host of problems, including the need to cut costs to preserve capital in order to complete the orders for the Model 3, which has been touted as a mass-market product, as well as pending lawsuits over what some shareholders see as Musk’s poor management and enrichment at the company’s expense.

Tesla has yet to make its first profit, having accumulated some $2billion in debt last year. In a bid to “reduce costs and become profitable,” Musk last week announced a major round of layoffs that would affect some 9 percent of the company staff. The cuts will not affect those involved in the production, he stressed at the time.

Aside from its financial and performance woes, Tesla is now under increased scrutiny for a series of incidents in which several of its cars in the US and Europe burst into flames. Last week, a Tesla vehicle was again making headlines for all the wrong reasons, when US actress Mary McCormack wrote on Twitter that her husband’s electric car caught fire “out of the blue.” The video, showing the flames shooting underneath the car, went viral on social media.

Musk Accuses Mystery Employee Of "Extensive And Damaging Sabotage"
Snippity-de-due: Follow the tweets :wow:
Mon, 06/18/2018 - 21:18

Maybe for Musk's next distraction he will kidnap himself?

For now, however, Musk is merely building up the tension as he juxtaposes the lone crusader company against the entire world:
Most of the time, when there is theft of goods, leaking of confidential information, dereliction of duty or outright sabotage, the reason really is something simple like wanting to get back at someone within the company or at the company as a whole. Occasionally, it is much more serious.​
Musk, who recently wanted to purchase the pravudh.com domain to take on the press for their "fake news" then had some advice to his workers: if you see something, immediately rat someone out say something.
Please be extremely vigilant, particularly over the next few weeks as we ramp up the production rate to 5k/week. This is when outside forces have the strongest motivation to stop us.​
If you know of, see or suspect anything suspicious, please send a note to [email address removed for privacy] with as much info as possible. This can be done in your name, which will be kept confidential, or completely anonymously.​
Musk's final words to his remaining workers - as a reminder last week he fired 9% of the Tesla workforce just before he bought $25MM in TSLA stock on margin in the premarket in hopes of starting another short squeeze - were somewhat more optimistic...
Looking forward to having a great week with you as we charge up the super exciting ramp to 5000 Model 3 cars per week!​
... but of course, if the "super exciting ramp to 5000 Model 3 cars per week" fails, well now one can just blame a saboteur.

Musk's letter immediately prompted various comments from skeptics:





Fire Engineering was live.
· 8 hrs Merchants of a false narrative

Elon Musk sent an email to Tesla employees about another fire in its factory on Sunday
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Covert Recordings Of Tesla's New Model 3 Facility Reveal Something Unexpected
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/19/2018 - 17:28
Update: According to Business Insider, fewer than 100 vehicles have actually made it through the "tent" facility, technically known as GA4 (or General Assembly 4) line since production began in early June. The publication also notes that it is "unlikely GA4 will provide the output Tesla needs to reach it's 5,000 Model 3 goal for some time, according to one of the company's employees."

Business Insider also reported that Tesla has only built made around 6,000 Model 3s this month, well short of the 5,000/week quota set by Elon Musk.

* * *
Over the past week Tesla stock has enjoyed a torrid surge, driven by a short squeeze following an email to employees by CEO Elon Musk, in which he updated workers of the company’s plan to produce 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of this month, and warning short sellers "they have about three weeks before their short position explodes", supposedly a warning that the company will surprise Wall Street with either stellar (or at least positive) cash flow or production numbers.

Musk said the company is now producing “about 500” vehicles per day, or about 3,500 per week, adding that some parts of the production system have already reached the quota of 700 cars per day and praised staff for their hard work.

“It’s getting very exciting! All parts of the Model 3 production system are now above 500 and some are almost at 700 cars already. Congratulations to all on making so much progress,” Musk said in the email sent Friday night.

And yet, it wasn't all clear skies, because Musk also said that there are a few bottlenecks preventing all parts of production from reaching the goal of 700 cars per day. “Radical improvements” are still needed on some parts of the production line, the real world Tony Stark lamented. That confused some investors: how can the company be on track to hit its quota yet be in desperate need of "radical improvements"?

Adding to the bizarre narrative and the inherent contradictions in the story, the CEO told employees that he will be at the Fremont factory “almost 24/7 for the next several days” to make sure the teams that are behind -- which include the paint shop and the end of the general assembly line -- get “as many resources as they can handle.”

The paradoxical twist, of course, was that one week ago, just as Tesla was entering the burst quarter end period, Musk was firing 9% of the "salaried workforce" raising more than one eyebrow about the company's management (and motivational) methods.

Still, even with all this excitement, Tesla was behind: earlier this month Musk said it is “quite likely” that Tesla will hit a weekly Model 3 production rate of 5,000 cars “by the end of this month.” Here, too, eyebrows were raised as Tesla had originally planned to make 5,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of 2017, but could not even hit half that quota in reality.

Which brought us to this weekend, when Musk unveiled that as crunchtime was approaching, the company launched a whole new general assembly line "in 3 weeks w minimal resources" which incidentally was housed in a tent, and tweeted what he claimed was a "pic of 1st Model 3 dual motor performance coming off the line."

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Link for the Tweet

Then, on Tuesday morning, with just 11 days left until the end of the quarter and the deadline to hit the Model 3 quota, Musk explained that he "needed another general assembly line to reach 5k/week Model 3 production. A new building was impossible, so we built a giant tent in 2 weeks.


Incidentally, these are just two of the dozens of tweets Musk has sent out in the past two weeks, a time when he supposedly was "on the factory floor", when in reality he has been wasting much of his time in futile Twitter arguments.

And so, as the back and forth between Trump and his skeptics and critics continues, earlier today covert videos showing the inside of the Model 3 production "tent", which houses the latest assembly line was leaked. What it reveals is concerning... because it reveals nothing at all: an assembly line with a handful of cars on it, with virtually no production, with no engaged workers and worst of all, no movement or purpose at all. Almost as if the whole facility is one elaborate stage prop to give the impression of work, as the actual workers just sit around and do nothing.

One look at the below video, and one wonders just how many Model 3 is Tesla really producing at this moment?




After watching these recording, our only question is how long before Elon Musk blames them on another "saboteur."
 
SF Bay Area Published on Jun 7, 2018

A Tesla SUV using the company's Autopilot driving system accelerated just before crashing into a freeway barrier in March, killing its driver.
Some thought-provoking excerpts from:
Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and the Feud Over Killer Robots
[...]
OpenAI recently “trained” a system to play a boat racing video game, encouraging it to win as many game points as it could. It proceeded to win those points but did so while spinning in circles, colliding with stone walls and ramming other boats.

It’s the kind of unpredictability that raise grave concerns about the rise of A.I., including superintelligence.
[...]
But in his testimony, Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged that scientists haven’t exactly figured out how some types of artificial intelligence are learning.

“This is going to be a very central question for how we think about A.I. systems over the next decade and beyond,” he said. “Right now, a lot of our A.I. systems make decisions in ways that people don’t really understand.”
[...]
Inside Google, a group is exploring flaws in A.I. methods that can fool computer systems into seeing things that are not there.
[...]
Mr. Hassabis, the founder of DeepMind, still thinks Mr. Musk’s views are extreme. But he said the same about the views of Mr. Zuckerberg. The threat is not here, he said. Not yet.
Hmm - the Apple engineer, the woman walking her bike, and the first casualty whose SDC hit a turning truck may beg to differ - if they weren't deceased thanks to Autonomous Vehicle technology.

Several accidents involving driverless cars have happened in the past few years. The first fatality occurred in July 2016, when a Tesla owner was killed after its Autopilot mode failed to recognise an oncoming lorry.

I suppose if Musk goes bankrupt, this push for driverless cars may decrease a bit - as opposed to people being killed during the test phase as money trumps people every time! Of course, Musk just got a big contract w/ Chicago to build high-speed transit tunnels w/ loop technology featuring self-driving electric vehicles:

Chicago taps Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build high-speed transit tunnels that would tie Loop with O'Hare


This video offers a conceptual look at The Boring Company’s loop technology, which would transport up to 16 passengers at a time on self-driving electric vehicles called "skates," built on a Tesla chassis.

Autonomous 16-passenger vehicles would zip back and forth at speeds exceeding 100 mph in tunnels between the Loop and O’Hare International Airport under a high-speed transit proposal being negotiated between Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Hall and billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s The Boring Co., city and company officials have confirmed.

Emanuel’s administration has selected Musk’s company from four competing bids to provide high-speed transportation between downtown and the airport. Negotiations between the two parties will ensue in hopes of reaching a final deal to provide a long-sought-after alternative to Chicago’s traffic gridlock and slower “L” trains.

Read more [eliminate spaces for link]:
http: // www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-ohare-high-speed-transit-elon-musk-boring-company-20180613-story.html
 
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"Words Fail Me. It's Insanity": Inside Tesla's "Preposterous" Model 3 Production Tent
by Tyler Durden Mon, 06/25/2018 - 18:45
Bears and bulls alike following Tesla's gripping nailbiter of a story - the company has until the end of the month to pumpt out 5,000 Model 3 sedans a week - both agree on one thing: the output of the company's new "tent" structure which Musk erected recently to produce Model 3 vehicles is going to decide whether or not the company hits its production goal that it has touted over the last couple of months.

The tent was erected in just a matter of weeks, and came online in early June, to help the company produce more vehicles at a time when they are under the microscope. Until recently, we didn’t know the details as to when it was erected, what the timing looked like and what it is expected to produce. However, a Bloomberg article out today helped shed some light on the details of what is arguably the most important - if archaic - structure that Tesla has built yet.

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Skipping Down

James Womack, the founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Tesla’s haphazard approach worrisome. “The chaos of how Musk is going about this makes it difficult for him to provide the standardized, repeatable work routines that allow people to function,” said Womack, author of “The Machine That Changed the World,” which sprang from an influential study of Toyota’s production techniques. “He’s going to need a second tent for repair and rework.”

The word “temporary” may be in Tesla’s tent permits with Fremont, but Musk has suggested it could stick around a while. He told one Twitter follower last week that he’s not sure the company actually needs a building anyway. He described the new assembly line as “way better” than the one in the plant that cost the company hundreds of millions.

That tweet spoke volumes to Dave Sullivan, an analyst at research firm AutoPacific who used to supervise Ford factories. “To say that it’s more efficient to build this with scrap pieces laying around means that either somebody made really bad decisions with the parts in the plant inside, or there are a lot of other problems yet to be discovered with Tesla’s efficiency.”

Fremont is working closely with Tesla to make sure that the tent is in compliance with building and fire codes, said Gary West, an official for the city. Tesla applied for a building permit to erect the tent on June 7, according to municipal records. A permit has been issued for equipment installation and one for an overhead fire sprinkler system is pending. The tent doesn’t have air conditioning, according to the city documents.

The tent was supplied by a company called Sprung, which refers to its products as “high performance tensioned membrane structures” and constructed the facility that housed the NASA Space Shuttle in the 1980s. The one at Tesla covers 137,250 square feet. Building plans show that it’s adjacent to the factory’s north paint shop; it’s visible from the platform of the Warm Springs BART station.

The assembly line inside will start out as fully manual and gradually convert to automation in steps, according to Brian Johnson, an analyst at Barclays Plc who met with Tesla’s investor relations department last week.

“It’s preposterous,” Bernstein’s Warburton said. “I don’t think anyone’s seen anything like this outside of the military trying to service vehicles in a war zone. I pity any customer taking delivery of one of these cars. The quality will be shocking.”

Comments: (Brutal)
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'Here's One Big Reason Tesla Still Doesn't Dominate Our Roads' by Decrypted
Podcast Decrypted / 00:24:32 :zzz:
 
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