Electric driverless cars?

goodiepete

A Disturbance in the Force
I'm trying to catch up with modern technologies just to be in the know, but it's becoming quite a tall order to comprehend and get used to all the unbelievable things that are coming. E-cars are not big news, though I still can't put up with the thought that BMW, Ford, General Motors, Toyota and Volkswagen promise to introduce self-driving cars to the market by 2020–2021 https://tranio.com/world/spotlight/self-driving-mobile-homes-how-driverless-cars-will-change-the-property-market_5354/ (like in 4 years!?) Can you imagine the world where we drive cars mostly for entertainment, commute to work while taking a shower (if it's a self-driving mobile home) and just are much more mobile?
And I do look forward that it will be a safer solution both for the planet and people, though some technical issues (like pedestrians crossing the roads, cyclists riding along) are still questionable. So is it a truly good step forward? What do you guys think?
 
I would not suspect that these things are being developed to make our lives easier, or safer. Although I am sure that is how it will be sold. It does seem that it would be a very good thing for the power structure to be able to monitor and control the movements of people through this kind of technology.
 
it is already possible to remote control these all electronic new cars. Very convenient to make easily disappear anyone you want. Just an accident, you know...
 
His thoughts are compelling, considering all the recent (whispering), "automobile attacks". It crossed my mind, as all the event's seamed driven with more than one agenda. Ya know what it mean, wiki wink.

Published on Aug 22, 2017

https://youtu.be/o1VV8bQpmK0
 
Jim Stone has already weighed in on this topic:

[...]And what would their agenda for yet another vehicular attack be? FULLY MANDATED SELF DRIVING VEHICLES.

Chris sent:
Jim, you are saying that they intend to ban all cars, trucks, tractors, motor bikes, and anything else on wheels including possibly boats that are not driven by a robot?

Got news for you it won't happen in our life time no way in hell. Where you are going with this futuristic thing is BS, that is simply not doable not even in the near future. Maybe some day but not in the now. Have you lost your mind? Dude please come to your senses and be realistic and tell us this won't happen anytime soon.

My response: Cars and trucks. What many people do not realize is the seriousness of the awakening in people, and the desperation the communist left is going through right now. They are panicked. And I will make a prediction, which I basically ban myself from doing:

The left is so panicked about the awakening of the public that they are going to do an enormous push for 100 percent self driving cars by 2025 even if the tech is not ready, and they are going to say to hell with the consequences if they succeed in getting a majority public acceptance, which they are working for hard right now with the car and van attacks.

When they get that acceptance (some time after 2025) they will then go around cash for clunkers style, pouring sodium silicate into every single non autonomous car as it sits in the driveway, and destroying the engines (at gunpoint) if needed. This will happen no later than 2032. By then practically all cars will be electric and they'll have some environmental excuse for doing it, and will give you a nice subsidy to buy a new electric car, wanted or not. By 2025 virtually all new cars will be electric, there was a major battery breakthrough and even Volvo is discontinuing gasoline engines, right now.
[...]
The latest van attack in Barcelona

I am not going to get into this much. It happened in front of a Kosher restaraunt, which makes Jews the "victim" and I'd bet no Jews got hit. Because the restaraunt knew. Ahead of time. And Muslims are framed. Muslims, and American "Nazis". And whoever else needs to be black balled. Actually, that means no one, because I can see the agenda - to ban cars that are not self driving.

Yes, they scored points against Islam. They scored points against "whites" who have a will to survive. But what they are really scoring points against with all of this is cars that can be driven at will by an individual.

All they have to do is stage enough killings with cars and they will then have a platform to convince people that they can make everyone safer by having the cars drive themselves.
And when that happens, you won't be able to buy so much as a carrot without them knowing where you went. And they will kill you at will, which won't ever make the news. And they can keep you at home when they want, by parking your car, to enforce "shelter in place". And if they calculate you are guilty of any infractions, you'll get in, to go to Wal-mart and instead be driven straight to jail.

Yes, in a communist system, which we now know is at the root of the problem, self driving cars are a 12 topping pizza with a premium crust. They don't even have to send the storm troopers to get you, your car will do that job.

So we will continue to see car attacks increase in number. They will keep increasing, and keep increasing, until people accept a self driven car ban. We had better not allow it.

Smart Grids, Smart Cities, and Smart Meters - what are the odds that self-driving cars were factored in w/ this roll-out from conception. For the observant, so obvious the incredible push to bring these cars into the mainstream & well before all the recent vehicle terror attacks.

Columbus, OH - a designated Smart City & American Electric Power has just begun deployment of smart meters to central Ohio communities - "part of a rollout that will continue until 2021."

"Eventually 900,000 meters will be installed across the state.

This project, along with 132,000 meters that had been installed in a previous test project, will mean that a majority of AEP’s 1.5 million customers in Ohio will have what the company calls “advanced” meters."
 
Maat said:
it is already possible to remote control these all electronic new cars. Very convenient to make easily disappear anyone you want. Just an accident, you know...

that's really creepy :(
 
Add general automation on top of this. Robots take our jobs, we get a basic income government handout. Unless we are an undesirable. It is all taking control from the people to go where they wish, to be able to earn their own money and spend it how they wish, without permission or oversight. This is all the mark of the beast. In fact, cryptocurrencies may be a clever way to get everyone on board. Create a decentralized and encrypted and anonymous currency, seemingly not in control of big brother, have it exponentially grow in popularity as it is now, and wait til enough people switch over to it thinking they are safe. Then, regulate it, nationalize it, and tie your real identity to it for "security reasons" (can't have terrorists making anonymous money can we). Suddenly the "holy grail" of digital currency is not the savior everyone thought it was, or the safe haven from fiat currency as it is centralized and managed now and is itself fiat.

All the pieces seem to be in place and progressing quickly. It won't take long now, and there is a clear direction from here to "you can't buy or sell or even move unless you are marked by the beast". Your digital crypto-wallet, your car keys and passport ans basic income are all tied to your RFID chip. So get this tech super popular then go ahead and collapse the dollar safely - no national economic meltdown because all the contingency replacements are in place to take over. And done!

So all this talk of economic collapse - I would say it won't happen til they are ready with this replacement, and at the current rate of growth, it won't be more than a decade or so before the switch happens I'd say.

Also I think the current modernization of 3rd world is to ensure you can't just run to an agrarian society free from control. Blessing in disguise! That's why even in the 3rd world smartphones are spreading like wildfire. That's why the last few countries without the Rothschild central banks are invaded, gotta make sure everyone is included, so no place to hide.

How will the general population handle it all is the question. How will the current revolutionary fervor fair? Also the timing of it all - about 2025 ish, coincides with what appears to be when the grand solar minimum is going to really be felt - aka ice age. So far it seems the C's are right on the money given all the technological and climatological direction and research. Total control is coming, revolution is brewing, and right around that same time, earth changes hit in full force. I expect the 20's will put all previous decades to shame given the current trajectory.

Of course another possibility is to do away with cryptocurrencies entirely instead of controlling them, and simply using them as a scapegoat for crashing the dollar and creating their own all-digital currency. And con-artists like Elon Musk are at the helm of pushing all of this, together with his new "brain chip" developments, because god forbid people still have private thoughts. Brave New World!
 
House passes bill to speed deployment of self-driving cars

By JOAN LOWY, ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Sep 6, 2017, 1:40 PM ET

The House voted Wednesday to speed the introduction of self-driving cars by giving the federal government authority to exempt automakers from safety standards not applicable to the technology, and to permit deployment of up to 100,000 of the vehicles annually over the next several years.

The bill was passed by a voice vote. State and local officials have raised concern that it limits their ability to protect the safety of their citizens by giving to the federal government sole authority to regulate the vehicles' design and performance. States would still decide whether to permit self-driving cars on their roads. Generally, the federal government regulates the vehicle, while states regulate the driver.

Automakers have complained that a patchwork of laws states have passed in recent years would hamper deployment of the vehicles, which they see as the future of the industry. Self-driving cars are forecast to dramatically lower traffic fatalities once they are on roads in significant numbers, among other benefits. Early estimates indicate there were more than 40,000 traffic fatalities last year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 94 percent of crashes involve human error.

Members of the Senate Commerce committee are also working on self-driving car legislation, but a bill hasn't been introduced. If a measure passes the full Senate, the two versions would have to be reconciled before President Donald Trump could sign it into law.

The House bill is the product of extensive negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, a rare of example of bipartisan agreement in a Congress riven by political and ideological differences.

The measure "gives the auto industry the tools to revolutionize how we're going to get around for generations to come," said Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said the bill "is fundamentally an issue of American competitiveness" since foreign automakers are developing self-driving cars as well.

The bill addresses "a variety of barriers that otherwise block the ability to safely test and deploy these vehicle technologies," the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement.

The bill permits the deployment of up to 25,000 self-driving vehicles in its first year, rising to 100,000 vehicles annually in the third year.

But consumer and safety groups say they remain concerned the bill will weaken safety standards and undermine public acceptance of the vehicles if a defect led to crashes and fatalities.

"Unfortunately, this legislation takes an unnecessary and unacceptable hands-off approach to hands-free driving," leaders of seven groups wrote lawmakers.

Automakers say safety standards requiring things like steering wheels and brake pedals don't make sense. But consumer and safety groups say the bill could permit the government to exempt self-driving vehicles from occupant protection and crashworthiness standards as well.

"Exposing motorists to the dangers of crashes without proven and needed protections is a wanton disregard for public health and safety," the groups said.

The bill doesn't apply to commercial vehicles, which were carved out after labor unions expressed concern that self-driving trucks would eliminate jobs.

_http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/house-passes-bill-speed-deployment-driving-cars-49654954

A shortened version of this article appeared in today's Columbus Dispatch - it ended w/ the paragraph containing the statement from Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican. Interestingly enough, the paper's Business section contained a short blurb re engine fires in Smart cars:

Federal Probe Finds 27 Engine Fires in Tiny Smart Cars

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEPT. 6, 2017, 4:12 P.M. E.D.T.

DETROIT — A nearly nine-month investigation by U.S. auto safety regulators has found 27 reports of engine fires in tiny Smart Fortwo cars, including one that caused an injury.

The finding of the unusually high number of fires prompted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to upgrade its probe from a preliminary investigation to an engineering analysis. That's the last step before issuing a recall but it may not necessarily result in one.

Mercedes says it's cooperating with the investigation but declined further comment.

In documents posted Wednesday, NHTSA said one person reported smoke inhalation in a fire, but the extent of that person's injuries was not available.

The agency began investigating nearly 43,000 Smart cars made by Mercedes in December. The cars are from the 2008 and 2009 model years. [end of blurb in the Dispatch]

NHTSA said in documents that Mercedes investigated only two of the fires but could not find a cause. The agency said 19 of the fires happened since January of 2015, a sign that the problem is becoming more frequent as the vehicles age.

Investigators analyzed insurance data and found the 2008 model year cars had significantly higher fire claims than comparable vehicles. Data from the Highway Loss Data Institute, which represents insurers who cover 80 percent of the U.S. market, showed a higher claim rate than similar vehicles. It also showed a sharp increase in claims in 2015, the agency wrote.

NHTSA said in documents that it will "continue to investigate the high frequency and increasing trend of non-crash engine compartment fire incidents in the subject vehicles."

The Smart brand is getting rid of its gas-powered versions in the U.S. and Canada and will sell only electric cars after the 2017 model year.

_https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/09/06/business/ap-us-smart-cars-fire-investigation.html

BTW, when I opened this page there was a breaking notice at the top re Equifax cyberattack data breach - including Soc Sec numbers/driver's license numbers plus - for 143 million United States consumers vulnerable to hackers. Add to that, this article:

The “Internet Of Things” Is Sending Us Back To The Middle Ages

Op-Ed by Joshua A.T. Fairfield Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University

Internet-enabled devices are so common, and so vulnerable, that hackers recently broke into a casino through its fish tank. The tank had internet-connected sensors measuring its temperature and cleanliness. The hackers got into the fish tank’s sensors and then to the computer used to control them, and from there to other parts of the casino’s network. The intruders were able to copy 10 gigabytes of data to somewhere in Finland.

By gazing into this fish tank, we can see the problem with “internet of things” devices: We don’t really control them. And it’s not always clear who does – though often software designers and advertisers are involved.

In my recent book, Owned: Property, Privacy and the New Digital Serfdom, I discuss what it means that our environment is seeded with more sensors than ever before. Our fish tanks, smart televisions, internet-enabled home thermostats, Fitbits and smartphones constantly gather information about us and our environment. That information is valuable not just for us but for people who want to sell us things. They ensure that internet-enabled devices are programmed to be quite eager to share information.

Take, for example, Roomba, the adorable robotic vacuum cleaner. Since 2015, the high-end models have created maps of its users’ homes, to more efficiently navigate through them while cleaning. But as Reuters and Gizmodo reported recently, Roomba’s manufacturer, iRobot, may plan to share those maps of the layouts of people’s private homes with its commercial partners.

Like the Roomba, other smart devices can be programmed to share our private information with advertisers over back-channels of which we are not aware. In a case even more intimate than the Roomba business plan, a smartphone-controllable erotic massage device, called WeVibe, gathered information about how often, with what settings and at what times of day it was used. The WeVibe app sent that data back to its manufacturer – which agreed to pay a multi-million-dollar legal settlement when customers found out and objected to the invasion of privacy.

Those back-channels are also a serious security weakness. The computer manufacturer Lenovo, for instance, used to sell its computers with a program called “Superfish” preinstalled. The program was intended to allow Lenovo – or companies that paid it – to secretly insert targeted advertisements into the results of users’ web searches. The way it did so was downright dangerous: It hijacked web browsers’ traffic without the user’s knowledge – including web communications users thought were securely encrypted, like connections to banks and online stores for financial transactions.

One key reason we don’t control our devices is that the companies that make them seem to think – and definitely act like – they still own them, even after we’ve bought them.
A person may purchase a nice-looking box full of electronics that can function as a smartphone, the corporate argument goes, but they buy a license only to use the software inside. The companies say they still own the software, and because they own it, they can control it. It’s as if a car dealer sold a car, but claimed ownership of the motor.

This sort of arrangement is destroying the concept of basic property ownership. John Deere has already told farmers that they don’t really own their tractors but just license the software – so they can’t fix their own farm equipment or even take it to an independent repair shop. The farmers are objecting, but maybe some people are willing to let things slide when it comes to smartphones, which are often bought on a payment installment plan and traded in as soon as possible.

How long will it be before we realize they’re trying to apply the same rules to our smart homes, smart televisions in our living rooms and bedrooms, smart toilets and internet-enabled cars?


The issue of who gets to control property has a long history. In the feudal system of medieval Europe, the king owned almost everything, and everyone else’s property rights depended on their relationship with the king. Peasants lived on land granted by the king to a local lord, and workers didn’t always even own the tools they used for farming or other trades like carpentry and blacksmithing.

Over the centuries, Western economies and legal systems evolved into our modern commercial arrangement: People and private companies often buy and sell items themselves and own land, tools and other objects outright. Apart from a few basic government rules like environmental protection and public health, ownership comes with no trailing strings attached.

This system means that a car company can’t stop me from painting my car a shocking shade of pink or from getting the oil changed at whatever repair shop I choose. I can even try to modify or fix my car myself. The same is true for my television, my farm equipment and my refrigerator.

Yet the expansion of the internet of things seems to be bringing us back to something like that old feudal model, where people didn’t own the items they used every day. In this 21st-century version, companies are using intellectual property law – intended to protect ideas – to control physical objects consumers think they own.


My phone is a Samsung Galaxy. Google controls the operating system and the Google Apps that make an Android smartphone work well. Google licenses them to Samsung, which makes its own modification to the Android interface, and sublicenses the right to use my own phone to me – or at least that is the argument that Google and Samsung make. Samsung cuts deals with lots of software providers which want to take my data for their own use.

But this model is flawed, in my view. We need the right to fix our own property. We need the right to kick invasive advertisers out of our devices. We need the ability to shut down the information back-channels to advertisers, not merely because we don’t love being spied on, but because those back doors are security risks, as the stories of Superfish and the hacked fish tank show. If we don’t have the right to control our own property, we don’t really own it. We are just digital peasants, using the things that we have bought and paid for at the whim of our digital lord.

Even though things look grim right now, there is hope. These problems quickly become public relations nightmares for the companies involved. And there is serious bipartisan support for right-to-repair bills that restore some powers of ownership to consumers.

Recent years have seen progress in reclaiming ownership from would-be digital barons. What is important is that we recognize and reject what these companies are trying to do, buy accordingly, vigorously exercise our rights to use, repair and modify our smart property, and support efforts to strengthen those rights. The idea of property is still powerful in our cultural imagination, and it won’t die easily. That gives us a window of opportunity. I hope we will take it.

Joshua A.T. Fairfield, Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

_https://www.activistpost.com/2017/09/internet-things-sending-us-back-middle-ages.html

Yup - and the professor didn't even touch upon Smart Meters or Smart driverless cars. We already got duped w/ "better living through chemistry" - and now we're being seduced via "better living through technology". Plain to see where all this is headed - and woe the day that we won't even "own" our living bodies!
 
Tesla Doesn’t Burn Fuel, It Burns Cash
A complete guide to how Elon Musk has raised, and then spent, billions of dollars.
By Dana Hull and Hannah Recht April 30, 2018
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The company that Elon Musk built to usher in the electric-car future might not have enough cash to make it through the calendar year.

The anxieties that lurk beneath the tremendous ambition of Tesla Inc. moved into the forefront in recent weeks. The company again fell far short of its own production targets for the mass-market Model 3 sedan, another person died in a crash involving its assisted-driving feature and Musk entered into a public dispute with federal safety regulators. Tesla’s once high-flying stock, buffeted by a downgrade from credit analysts, has dropped 24 percent from its peak in September.

There’s a good reason to worry: No one has raised or spent money the way Elon Musk has. Nor has any other chief executive officer of a public company made a bankruptcy joke on Twitter at a time when so much seemed to be unraveling.

Tesla is going through money so fast that, without additional financing, there is now a genuine risk that the 15-year-old company could run out of cash in 2018. The company burns through more than $6,500 every minute, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Free cash flow—the amount of cash a company generates after accounting for capital expenditures—has been negative for five consecutive quarters. That will be a key figure to watch when Tesla reports earnings May 2.

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Tesla makes three cars—the Model S and Model 3 sedans and the Model X SUV—at its only auto assembly plant, located in Fremont, California. There are aggressive plans to add an electric semi truck, a new roadster sports car and crossover to the production lineup in the next few years. While Musk’s vision for the future once called for extreme automation, the present day is all about manpower. Back in 2010, Tesla had just 899 employees. Today, the company has nearly 40,000 workers.

The ongoing hiring binge is probably contributing to Tesla’s financial straits. Tesla has added employees faster than it has boosted revenue in three of the last four years. This includes more than doubling the workforce in 2017, when the company was scaling up for Model 3 production and took on employees from SolarCity Corp.

Tesla’s employee roster more than tripled from 2014 to 2017, and revenue per employee stagnated. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. each bring in about 2.5 times as much revenue per employee. And Tesla’s swollen employee total doesn’t even account for what Musk recently characterized as a “Russian nesting doll” of contractor and subcontractor companies engaged in production at Tesla.

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Since its founding in 2003, Tesla has been fueled by a kitchen-sink approach to finance shaped in the image of its chief executive. And the public face of the company has always been central to Tesla’s ability to raise money.

For the first seven years of the company’s existence, Tesla scraped by entirely on private and venture capital funds, the bulk of which came from Musk himself. In 2004, when Tesla raised $7.5 million in a Series A, Musk contributed $6.3 million and assumed the chairman role on Tesla’s board. In the throes of the 2008 recession, as Tesla struggled to survive, Musk orchestrated a $40 million debt deal that closed on Christmas Eve, hours before Tesla would have gone bankrupt.

Since its $225 million initial public offering in June 2010, Tesla has raised money by selling stock and convertible bonds, monetizing leases and floating junk bonds—the sort of thing almost any automaker might do. But the company has also been extraordinarily lucky. One rival, Daimler AG, made an early strategic equity investment. Another rival, Toyota Motor Corp., became an investor in May 2010 and sold the Fremont plant to Tesla for a bargain price.

Tesla’s clean-energy mission also sets it apart. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Tesla a $465 million loan in 2010, which Tesla paid off early and in full in 2013. No other automaker has so far been able to convince legions of fans to put deposit money behind a revolutionary agenda or take advantage of government subsidies for emission-free vehicles to the degree that Tesla has.

“Elon Musk is an engineer, and so he treats raising capital as one element that he needs to solve,” said Andrea James, a former analyst who observed Musk’s repeated trips to Wall Street and briefly worked for the company in investor relations.

Tesla ended 2017 with $3.4 billion in cash on hand and $9.4 billion in outstanding debt, a testament to Musk’s borrowing prowess. Many analysts believe that Tesla will need to raise money again—and soon.

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Bruce Clark of Moody’s Investors Service recently warned that Tesla will need an additional $2 billion this year, and he noted that $1.2 billion of existing debt will come due by 2019. Short sellers remain convinced that Tesla is on the verge of an epic meltdown. Famed investor Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates has predicted the company is headed for a “brick wall.”

But the 46-year-old Musk has a higher tolerance for risk than most. When Tesla released figures for first-quarter vehicle production and deliveries April 3, the company stressed that once it can produce 5,000 Model 3 cars per week—an elusive target so far—it will have positive operating cash flow. The company said that it “does not require an equity or debt raise this year, apart from standing credit lines.”

Jeff Osborne of Cowen & Co. isn’t convinced, noting that the company has raised cash in the past after making similar claims. He predicts Tesla will need to raise $3 billion by selling stock during the fourth quarter and an additional $2 billion in late 2019 to keep company resources above $1 billion in cash.

There’s another way Tesla compares unfavorably to its more mature peers: Musk and company spent $146 million on interest payments for its massive debt in the past quarter—roughly the same interest expense as GM, a company with approximately 10 times more revenue.

"Elon Musk is one of our planet’s great hopes. I would offer a kidney to him if he needed it".

One of Tesla’s greatest strengths is its ability to monetize the patience and goodwill of its customers and loyal fans. The company is sitting on a staggering $854 million in customer deposits as of the end of 2017.

Since Tesla sells its products direct to consumers, without relying on a dealer network, customer deposits are cash payments that essentially serve as interest-free loans—and these loans can stretch on for years. If Tesla were to go bankrupt, those deposit holders would likely be wiped out.

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Tesla is holding customer deposits for two vehicles that aren’t even in production yet: an electric Tesla Semi ($20,000 deposit) and a next-generation Roadster (either $50,000 down or the $250,000 retail price paid up front to reserve a limited edition). Even customers interested in installing an array of solar roof panels or the company’s Powerwall home battery must hand over $1,000 to place an order.

Tesla doesn’t break out deposit numbers by car, but the vast majority comes from $1,000 reservations for the Model 3. When Musk first introduced the lower-priced sedan in March 2016, fans stood in long lines at Tesla stores. Two years later, the slower-than-expected pace of production means that most of the more than 400,000 reservation holders are still waiting. And new people appear to be joining the queue: As of April, the company reported “net Model 3 reservations remained stable.”

There’s an additional source of free money from loyal believers: An unknown number of customers have paid up for vehicle features—$3,000 for “Full Self Driving” capability, for example—that Tesla thus far hasn’t figured out or released to anyone.

The consumer psychology that sees hundreds of thousands of people essentially extending an interest-free loan to a public company is unusual, to say the least. Consider the devotion of Bruce Sidlinger, a 60-year-old aerospace engineer who lives in Flagstaff, Arizona:

“The morning after the Roadster was announced, I put a deposit down. Putting down $50,000 for a Roadster that won’t be out for a few years is kind of like buying a bond that returns zero. Elon Musk is one of our planet’s great hopes. I would offer a kidney to him if he needed it.”

Keep in mind that Sidlinger already owns both a Model S and a Model X. He drove across the country to Florida earlier this year in a car made by one Musk company so he could watch a rocket made by another Musk company take flight for the first time.

Even after depositors complete the purchase of a car, Tesla has a way to squeeze further financial juice from the transaction. The company produces only electric vehicles, giving it a unique ability to take advantage of California’s zero-emission vehicle mandate.

Here’s how it works: California uses its air-pollution authority to force automakers into selling a set number of non-polluting vehicles. Those that fall short can buy credits from other automakers, and an all-electric automaker probably will have plenty of credits to sell.

Since 2008, Tesla has sold more than $1.3 billion in regulatory credits. In 2017, the company delivered 103,181 cars globally but earned $360.3 million selling these emission credits, or roughly $3,500 per car. (Tesla does not break down auto sales per region or for specific states; nine additional states have adopted California’s program).

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Then, of course, there’s Tesla’s stock. Issuing new equity typically leads to dilution for existing shareholders—but not Musk. He has maintained control by regularly purchasing more shares and currently owns more than 33 million, or 20 percent of the company. The next largest shareholder, Fidelity, holds a 10 percent stake.

That was before Tesla shareholders in March voted to overwhelmingly approve an unprecedented compensation plan for Musk—a $2.6 billion award, the largest of its kind. His new package of 20.3 million option shares vests if he raises the company’s market cap to $650 billion and meets revenue and earnings targets.

This will give Musk the opportunity to acquire even more shares. If the award fully vests, Musk would own a 28 percent stake worth about $184 billion.

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This unusual move is meant to counter a common anxiety that Musk is getting restless. Besides running SpaceX, which just authorized a $507 million fundraising round, he has started an underground tunneling operation called Boring Co., which recently raised $113 million in equity. (More than 90 percent of that came from Musk himself.) Fans are involved in the fundraising here, too, snapping up 50,000 Boring Co. hats ($20 each) and 20,000 flamethrowers ($500).

The new compensation package offers an assurance that Musk will stay at Tesla. The plan allows him to eventually become chief product officer while someone else runs the company—though he or she will still ultimately report to Musk.

But at some point, even his ability to pull down money from believers will be challenged unless real earnings materialize, something Musk acknowledged in an all-employee email he sent on April 17 that instantly leaked to reporters:

A fair criticism leveled at Tesla by outside critics is that you’re not a real company unless you generate a profit, meaning simply that revenue exceeds cost. It didn’t make sense to do that until reaching economies of scale, but now we are there. Going forward, we will be far more rigorous about expenditures. I have asked the Tesla finance team to comb through every expense worldwide, no matter how small, and cut everything that doesn’t have a strong value justification.

Musk recently admitted that “excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake” and said that “humans are underrated,” an indication that the costly legions of employees won’t be shrinking as quickly as he once imagined. In that email, he vowed to hire hundreds of additional factory workers. Tesla lists nearly 3,000 current job openings.

The fact that so much of his own wealth is on the line is part of what has so many investors willing to go along with him. “Elon Musk is all in,” says Ross Gerber of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, an investor who has become one of the loudest Tesla bulls. “There’s not another CEO in America who is taking as enormous of a financial risk on their company.”
Source: Data compiled by Bloomberg, company filings.
Note: Bloomberg calculates how much money Tesla is burning by taking the 12-month trailing free cash flow number ($-3,475.468M) and dividing that by the number of minutes in a year.
With assistance by: Claire Boston, Taka Endo, Tom Randall, Molly Smith, Craig Trudell, Brian Eckhouse and Brandon Kochkodin
That’s a point on which Tesla believers and skeptics can agree: No other public company chief is taking financial risk quite like Musk.


 
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Morgan Stanley: "Tesla's Call Was The Most Unusual I Have Experienced In 20 Years"
Thu, 05/03/2018 - 12:11
We were not the only ones who were left speechless by Thursday's Tesla Tanturm: Elon Musk's bizarre, childish, perhaps intoxicated, meltdown during Tesla's conference call, in which he interrupted analysts from Bernstein and RBC, cutting them off in the middle of the question for being "boneheaded, boring and dry" (all they wanted was information on the company's capex plans and Model 3 demand). This morning, the entire sellside appears to have joined in, to wit:
  • TESLA INVESTORS SAY ODD EARNINGS CALL ’SHOOK CONFIDENCE’: RBC
  • TESLA LIKELY TO FALL TODAY AFTER ‘TRULY BIZARRE’ CALL: JPMORGAN
  • TESLA REITERATED SELL AT GOLDMAN ON LIKELY MISSED TARGETS
But the best reaction of all came from Morgan Stanley's traditional Tesla fanboy, Adam Jonas: not even he could ignore the fast-motion carwreck (with or without an autopilot) that Musk unveiled 37 minutes into the call.
MS%20note%20tesla.jpg

His rather shocked note on "The Importance of "Boring Questions" out this morning at 1:29am GMT...

Well, when Tesla's access to capital markets is finally cut off in a few quarters, there is always the Teslacoin ICO...
For those who missed it, here is the key part from the call again: / 39:09

 
Maybe, I need to study up more on driver-less electric-car's but I just can't see this experiment "working" under the present social norms?

Take for instance, a train ... it's guided by computers and sensors and even runs on a stationary track but it still needs "operators" to man the electronic hardware on the control panels in front of them - which can be switched over to manual, if the computer software is interrupted or goes hay-wire?

Think of the popular San Francisco Trolley's, even they run on a stationary track but need a human operator at the controls?

Drones are operated and controlled by a human at the other end, so .... how does a driverless car work? What's on the other end?

Guess, I just don't "get-it"?
 
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Think of the popular San Francisco Trolley's, even they run on a stationary track but need a human operator at the controls?

You are correct.
There an antiquated below ground steel cable driven system's. But are functionary. The braking system's are controlled by wood block connected to the brakeman's handle in the cab.

This video shows a better working view. Better than I can explain....:-[

cc_diagram.jpg

How Cable Cars Work
 
SF Bay Area Published on May 10, 2018
A Tesla plowed through the front door of a Starbucks coffee shop in Los Gatos Thursday afternoon. Maria Medina reports. (5/10/18)

Tesla Will Go Bankrupt Without A Near-Term Cash Raise: Schultze
May 10, 2018 — 6:03 PM CEST
George Schultze, head of Schultze Asset Management, discusses the distressed equities and debt markets, and outlook for Tesla. Larry Noble, Senior Director and General Counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, and Bill Allison, campaign finance reporter for Bloomberg, on the gray area of backdoor lobbying to Trump by AT&T, Novartis, and others. Hugh Bromley, Solar market analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, on California requiring solar panels be installed on all new homes starting in 2020.

Toby Harshaw, Bloomberg Opinion columnist, discusses the situation in Iran, the military escalation in Israel, and the Korea summit.

This is a Bloomberg podcast. To download, watch or listen to this report now, click on the thumbnail/player on the sidebar. For additional Bloomberg podcasts, see {BPOD <GO>}. -- Bloomberg Radio +1-212-617-5560
Running time 32:10

Elon Musk Viral Videos Published on May 8, 2018

Narcissist :whistle:

Published on May 7, 2018
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett speaks to CNBC's Becky Quick about "moats" in business and the war of words with Elon Musk.
 
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Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent a major innovation for the automotive industry

claims an article by McKinsey.com

Here are some excerpts...

The car-service landscape changes.

The proliferation of AVs could represent an opportunity for car OEMs. As of 2014, for example, roughly 80 percent of the car-service shops in Germany were “independent” from OEMs. Given the safety-critical nature of AV technologies, customers might strongly prefer strict adherence to OEM service processes and the use of original service equipment when it comes to maintaining and repairing AV systems. This could imply a disadvantaged position for independent service providers unable to afford AV-maintenance systems.

That would mean destroying competition in the car-service business to the disadvantage of customers. Expect prices to rise by around 50%.

Drivers have more time for everything.

AVs could free as much as 50 minutes a day for users, who will be able to spend traveling time working, relaxing, or accessing entertainment. The time saved by commuters every day might add up globally to a mind-blowing one billion hours(...)
It could also create a large pool of value, potentially generating global digital-media revenues of €5 billion per year for every additional minute people spend on the mobile Internet while in a car.

More distraction, more addiction to IT communication gadgets and - not least - billions for IT service providers.

Parking becomes easier.

AVs could change the mobility behavior of consumers, potentially reducing the need for parking space in the United States by more than 5.7 billion square meters. Multiple factors would contribute to the reduction in parking infrastructure. For example, self-parking AVs do not require open-door space for dropping off passengers when parked, allowing them to occupy parking spaces that are 15 percent tighter.

There will be ample parking space when the economy tanks...

Accident rates drop.

By midcentury, the penetration of AVs and other ADAS could ultimately cause vehicle crashes in the United States to fall from second to ninth place in terms of their lethality ranking among accident types. Today, car crashes have an enormous impact on the US economy. For every person killed in a motor-vehicle accident, 8 are hospitalized, and 100 are treated and released from emergency rooms. The overall annual cost of roadway crashes to the US economy was $212 billion in 2012. Taking that year as an example, advanced ADAS and AVs reducing accidents by up to 90 percent would have potentially saved about $190 billion.

Accident rates may drop, if the necessary technology can be enhanced.
Lest we forget: $200 billion costs of car crashes less annually would endanger many jobs in car production and the car repair industry.
(Please apologize my sarcasm)

I have to admit, though, that driverless driving could be helpful for the elderly who otherwise would have to refrain from using their own cars, but it won't fly with 18 to 20 year olds taking Daddy's TESLA out for a ride on saturday night...

I, personally, would have thought that "autonomous driving" was what we are doing today.

My expectation is that, with "AV" becoming the new normal at some point in time, there will be even less freedom and autonomy left for all of us.
State or corporate authorities will be able to shut off your car at will.

Been making defiant remarks on "Facebook"? Credit card overdrawn? Resisting your annual vaccinations?
Car maintenance at cheap repair shops in the neighborhood? You name it...

By the way, on the subject of electrical cars: I will stick to my car with its internal combustion engine as long as I can.
The electrical power grid may not be as reliable as it is in the future.

Ursus :whistle:
 
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