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Old 09-26-2020, 07:52 AM   #341
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I don’t think this is how economics work.

Just because someone is willing to invest billions, doesn’t mean it will happen any time soon, or in time for the company doing all the heavy lifting to reap the benefits.

Google Ballard Fuel Cells. That’s awesome tech.

Not much of a business.
Uhh, according to Wikipedia, Ballad Power Systems has shipped 400MW of fuel cell products to date? Are you saying that is not much of a business?
Quote:
VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ: BLDP) (TSX: BLDP) today announced that the Company's proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology and products have now powered Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles – or FCEVs – in commercial Heavy- and Medium-Duty Motive applications for an industry-leading cumulative total of more than 50 million kilometers on roads around the globe, an increase of over 5-times since 2017.

Ballard PEM fuel cell technology and products – with the 8th generation power module launched in 2019 – have been integrated for many years into FCEVs to provide zero-emission power for vehicle propulsion in 15 countries around the world. This includes approximately 1,000 Fuel Cell Electric Buses (FCEBs) and 2,200 commercial trucks. Approximately 70% of the more than 50 million kilometers has been achieved in FCEVs deployed in China, with the remaining vehicles deployed in Europe and North America.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...301106099.html

Incapable of doing a google search yourself?

I also don't get your point. Should they shut down the business because you deem it not to be successful? Or continue researching and developing products while they have investors and customers that are interested?

Just a quick glance shows me that they are targeting one of the higher growth areas of 'cell' technology. Trains & mining trucks.

If you had bothered to do a google search on any of this, you'd notice that since the year 2000, train traffic has shifted towards being 60% electric. So whatever Ballard is doing, they are definitely targeting the correct customer.

Sounds like a great business to me. Looks like they have partnerships with some car manufacturers and power companies as well.

Exactly the type of innovation we need to get towards more renewable and clean energy sources. Good thing you are not in charge of any of this.
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Old 09-26-2020, 09:20 AM   #342
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And yet despite all that most research is showing that is implemented successfully, self driving cars can still save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Even right now the idea of driver assistance is paying big dividends. All the car manufacturers are advertising some form of 'vehicle automation.'



https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...merica/407956/

It is just a matter of time.

But hey, Green Lantern says nobody will 'like' it, so I guess we have that to go on.
I never said nobody likes it, I said the majority of customers don’t use it and don’t care about it.

Most people who use it like it. Like air conditioned seats. Nice to have, but rarely the reason someone makes a $40,000 purchase.

And fair play about Ballard, they’re a viable business. But they didn’t erase all the other energy companies, and they’re not valued higher than Exxon. And they don’t say things like “we’re not a fuel cell company” when they very much are.

Question for you: what do you drive?
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Old 09-26-2020, 09:40 AM   #343
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First you said it is not much of a business, now you're saying they didn't erase all other energy companies and aren't valued higher than Enron? So? It'll take many companies on many fronts covering many different aspects of the energy business to move towards cleaner sources. Ballard seems to be covering more of a commercial side, something that most people have no idea about.

400MW of shipped product in an field where development is extremely hard is actually pretty amazing.

I drive a vehicle that has many different automation features, and I find the ones that seamlessly integrate with my driving experience to actually be very worthwhile.

Things like parking assist, lane correction, better camera view, adaptive cruise control, etc.

What Tesla is offering with smart summon, auto-pilot, etc is definitely something I would personally find very usable. It definitely depends on what kind of driver you are, and where you drive, but I think people that spend a lot of time commuting will be one of the first ones to adopt self driving features.
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Old 09-26-2020, 09:44 AM   #344
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I should also mention that in regards to the market not demanding a product so why development it, one could say there was no demand for the iPhone either until Apple & Steve Jobs came out and told everyone this is what they wanted.

But even that was WAY more of a stretch than self-driving cars.

We have continually moved towards higher levels of automation with transportation. If you actually go read the research on how we've progressed from level 1 automation and beyond, it is clear that this is definitely something we will be seeing in the near future.

The biggest issue seems to be to collect the data, build the AI and develop the software. From a hardware perspective the sensors and mechanical aspects are available to implement self driving, but the computer still can't interpret everything properly.

Tesla is constantly releasing updates to their software, and again, if you had bothered paying attention the last few months, they are starting to move towards recognizing red lights, crosswalks, etc. Just another step towards full self-driving.
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Old 09-26-2020, 09:53 AM   #345
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Musk's problem is he says a lot of things are ready when they are not. He's been selling "full self driving" as an option for years, taking money for a feature that doesn't exist. Heck, this is just last year:
Quote:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company should have robotaxis on the roads in 2020.
“I feel very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year,” Musk said on stage at the Tesla Autonomy Investor Day in Palo Alto, California. They won’t be “in all jurisdictions, because we won’t have regulatory approval everywhere, but I am confident we will have at least regulatory approval somewhere, literally next year,” he said.
...
Musk also predicted that in two years, Tesla will be making cars with no steering wheels or pedals.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/22/elon...next-year.html


So he said that last year, yet in the past few months they "are starting to move towards recognizing red lights, crosswalks, etc. Just another step towards full self-driving."-Azure


How could Musk say robotaxis are coming, if just now they are starting to recognize traffic control devices? Seems to be a major disconnect, no? As to his prediction of no steering wheels in 2 years, well...come on.
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Old 09-26-2020, 10:28 AM   #346
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Yes, Musk has a long history of stating overly ambitious future plans and how things will shake out, and then being off by weeks, months or even years.

Is he manipulating Tesla stock, taking money (preorders) etc? Sure.

But getting hung up on dates and timelines when there is clear progress is strange position to take.

I guess every new development that humans have ever built will have its share of naysayers who all disappear once the end goal is accomplished.

I'll share some doozies with you.

“The automobile is a fad, a novelty. Horses are here to stay.” The President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Company; 1903.

“Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered in hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand right at the brink of an era of rocket-powered mail.” Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General; 1959.

“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will certainly flop. It has no chance of success.” Time Magazine, 1966.

“Mobile phones will absolutely never replace the wired telephone”. Marty Cooper, inventor of the mobile phone, 1981.

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be attainable. It would mean the atom would have to be shattered at will”. Albert Einstein, 1932.

“Television will never hold onto an audience. People will very quickly get bored of staring at a plywood box every night”. Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

“Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will ever use it.” Thomas Edison, famous inventor and holder of more than 1,000 patents. 1889.

“There is practically no chance satellites will ever improve telephone, television or radio reception within the United States.” T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, 1961.

“No-one will ever need more than 637KB of memory in a computer. 640KB ought to be enough for anybody.” Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, 1981.

“This ‘telephone’ has far too many shortcomings to be taken seriously as a means of communication. It has objectively no value.” William Orton, President of Western Union, 1876.

“Why would we make this? The global potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at absolute most”. IBM, to the guys who would eventually found Xerox, 1959.

“There is no reason an individual would ever want a computer in their home”. Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977.

“The idea of a personal communicator in every pocket is nothing more than a pipe-dream fuelled by greed.” Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, 1992.

“I predict that the internet will go spectacularly supernova, and in 1996 it will catastrophically implode”. Robert Metcalf, inventor of Ethernet, 1995.

“There is no chance of the iPhone ever gaining significant market share”. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, 2007.

“The internet will fade away because most people have nothing to say to each other. By 2005 it will be clear that the internet’s impact on the global economy has been no greater than the fax machine.” Paul Krugman, renowned Economist, 1998.

“Subscription models for music are bankrupt. I think you could make the Second Coming of Jesus himself available on subscription and it wouldn’t be successful.” Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, 2003.

If you go look at the timelines on some of those projects, almost every single one of them suffered setbacks despite the ambitious plans by the people leading development.

So to get hung up on what Musk says about his timeline or the future is just a strange line to draw in the sand.

I could also provide you with some great quotes about people saying SpaceX will never be able to land a rocket back on earth after launching, and laughing at Musk when he said it was not only possible, but vital for future space flight.

The point being that sure he has an ambitious view on most things, but I find it strange that people get hung up over it.
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Old 09-26-2020, 11:20 AM   #347
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First you said it is not much of a business, now you're saying they didn't erase all other energy companies and aren't valued higher than Enron? So? It'll take many companies on many fronts covering many different aspects of the energy business to move towards cleaner sources. Ballard seems to be covering more of a commercial side, something that most people have no idea about.

400MW of shipped product in an field where development is extremely hard is actually pretty amazing.

I drive a vehicle that has many different automation features, and I find the ones that seamlessly integrate with my driving experience to actually be very worthwhile.

Things like parking assist, lane correction, better camera view, adaptive cruise control, etc.

What Tesla is offering with smart summon, auto-pilot, etc is definitely something I would personally find very usable. It definitely depends on what kind of driver you are, and where you drive, but I think people that spend a lot of time commuting will be one of the first ones to adopt self driving features.
Exxon, not Enron. There’s a difference.

Tesla, based on Fuzz’s admittedly rudimentary math, is projected to be worth 7x DaimlerBenz. That’s not realistic. They don’t do anything vastly different than any other company. Even if you want to argue their tech is better, it’s not so much better that it’s worth 7x DaimlerBenz - that’s an awful lot of Cybertrucks.

Ballard, as you correctly point out, is more utilized in commercial applications. Its share price is $19.12. It’s been a company since 1979, and Google says they have 630 employees.

None of which is meant to slag off Ballard- I love em. I wish them all the success in the world.

I’m glad you see the value in self driving features. More people should.

Would you buy a car that you couldn’t manually control yourself?
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Old 09-26-2020, 11:28 AM   #348
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My point was he says stuff is really close when in reality it is years away. It was years away in 2016 when he said they would be ready by 2017.


https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...dy-being-built


It's still years away. It's like cold fusion. It's always 10 years away.
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Old 09-26-2020, 12:20 PM   #349
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Exxon, not Enron. There’s a difference.

Tesla, based on Fuzz’s admittedly rudimentary math, is projected to be worth 7x DaimlerBenz. That’s not realistic. They don’t do anything vastly different than any other company. Even if you want to argue their tech is better, it’s not so much better that it’s worth 7x DaimlerBenz - that’s an awful lot of Cybertrucks.

Ballard, as you correctly point out, is more utilized in commercial applications. Its share price is $19.12. It’s been a company since 1979, and Google says they have 630 employees.

None of which is meant to slag off Ballard- I love em. I wish them all the success in the world.

I’m glad you see the value in self driving features. More people should.

Would you buy a car that you couldn’t manually control yourself?
You simply can't use share price or profitability to decide whether a company is viable. Most startups lose money for years. Amazon is only now making a profit.

There are many examples of companies in the clean energy field that have been around for a long time and have little to show. Some technologies take a long time to develop which is why I don't get the focus on timeline and what people say.

Bill Gates is also overly ambitious about clean nuclear power and carbon capture, both technologies that are years away from mass implementation. Should we simply write it off, or spend another 50 years trying to develop it?

I would buy both types of cars. I see self driving as being a big plus in a commute, but there are definite scenarios where it may not work well or even be available.
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Old 09-26-2020, 12:23 PM   #350
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My point was he says stuff is really close when in reality it is years away. It was years away in 2016 when he said they would be ready by 2017.


https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...dy-being-built


It's still years away. It's like cold fusion. It's always 10 years away.
Well it seems like the mechanical aspect of the technology is there, but the software, AI and even regulation are slow to catch on.

Again, you are getting hung up on timelines. I don't get it. Big deal if he is off by a few years. The biggest worry I would have is if he is scamming people, and I think it is pretty clear that he is most definitely not.

Musk is the dreamer that everyone likes to yell at because they don't understand how he thinks. Then when he is actually successful (landing dual rockets back on earth at once) the dumb naysayers go back into the woodwork and shutup.
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Old 09-26-2020, 01:51 PM   #351
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I'm not sure the mechanical bits are in Tesla's. A lot of what I have read is that you really need Lidar to do it properly. Tesla decided not to go that route, and maybe that is why they have issues. Volvo, being from a winter country, has been working with Lidar so they may end up better off the Tesla, despite maybe not having as deep of knowledge as Tesla has with the software side. Lidar is expensive though, and tough to integrate as the units are larger.
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Old 09-26-2020, 04:12 PM   #352
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I'm not confident in Musk's ambitions, but to say Tesla doesn't do anything any other company does is missing some perspective. Electrification is coming. Not just transport, but everywhere. Distributed energy is also coming. Tesla is designing it's future to be the leading electricity storage manufacturer with an edge that quite frankly will not be able to be matched very easily **based on the advancements they just spoke of**.


Depending on your view of for the future will play out, that could be a massive leap in tech that will give them advantages in automotive, distributed energy, and energy storage. That could make a company worth much more than 7x Daimler because it ain't cars you're counting. By building and owning upstream mining/production for batteries and making giant leaps in processing raw ingredient you significant cut costs to where others simply can't compete. By their numbers, they will have less than half the cost to produce the batteries that others will have. When batteries are by a long shot the most expensive part of a vehicle, that's a huge advantage.

Having said all that, I watched a conversation by Benchmark Minerals about the Tesla presentation. Benchmark is probably THE leading consulting group on everything battery from mineral mining to battery production (one panelist is actually previous battery head for Tesla) and they poured cold water on the timelines. They generally agreed that many of the advancements seem reasonable, but some will never happen and the timelines are impossible. You can't claim you found some clay in Arizona and poof you're going to turn that in to raw ingredient for manufacture. You can't simply tell nickel producers to produce more and poof it's there. There's still going to be resource bottlenecks and constraints. I think Tesla continues to have an edge in battery production and technology, but not too the extent they announced. A 56% decrease in costs per kwh would make electric cars cheaper to produce than most ICE vehicles excluding large commercial vehicles. Tesla is also now profitable and likely will be for good. The people calling for their downfall were wrong
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Old 09-28-2020, 01:25 PM   #353
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I'm not sure the mechanical bits are in Tesla's. A lot of what I have read is that you really need Lidar to do it properly. Tesla decided not to go that route, and maybe that is why they have issues. Volvo, being from a winter country, has been working with Lidar so they may end up better off the Tesla, despite maybe not having as deep of knowledge as Tesla has with the software side. Lidar is expensive though, and tough to integrate as the units are larger.
Well it depends on how you ask. Many people and not just Musk think that the non-Lidar approach is the best.

Quote:
While not as anti-LiDAR as Musk, it appears researchers at Cornell University agree with his LiDAR-less approach. Using two inexpensive cameras on either side of a vehicle’s windshield, Cornell researchers have discovered they can detect objects with nearly LiDAR’s accuracy and at a fraction of the cost.

The researchers found that analyzing the captured images from a bird’s-eye view, rather than the more traditional frontal view, more than tripled their accuracy, making stereo camera a viable and low-cost alternative to LiDAR.
https://www.therobotreport.com/resea...-driving-cars/

But, it doesn't mean one is right the other is wrong. The better approach is probably a combination of both, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Tesla approach has not worked. From all accounts their system works really well despite Musk being completely wrong on the timelines.
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Old 09-28-2020, 01:40 PM   #354
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I don't understand why people cheer for/against Tesla like it's some kind of sports team.

They make incredible vehicles that are so far unrivaled. I'm cheering for all other automobile makers to close this gap ASAP so the bar is set higher.
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Old 09-28-2020, 04:34 PM   #355
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I don't understand why people cheer for/against Tesla like it's some kind of sports team.

They make incredible vehicles that are so far unrivaled. I'm cheering for all other automobile makers to close this gap ASAP so the bar is set higher.
People don't like to see other people or companies have success.
Makes them feel better about themselves.
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Old 09-28-2020, 05:04 PM   #356
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Well it depends on how you ask. Many people and not just Musk think that the non-Lidar approach is the best.

https://www.therobotreport.com/resea...-driving-cars/

But, it doesn't mean one is right the other is wrong. The better approach is probably a combination of both, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Tesla approach has not worked. From all accounts their system works really well despite Musk being completely wrong on the timelines.
Well it will be interesting to see what is the most successful. Volvo's lidar isn't very obtrusive, and they say it will add $100 per vehicle. still more expensive that basic cameras, but not nearly as expensive as it used to be.
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Old 09-28-2020, 05:10 PM   #357
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I don't understand why people cheer for/against Tesla like it's some kind of sports team.

They make incredible vehicles that are so far unrivaled. I'm cheering for all other automobile makers to close this gap ASAP so the bar is set higher.
I'm not cheering for or against anyone. My argument is I don't think Tesla has done anything truly revolutionary that no other automaker will be able to match, once they decide things like battery costs have come down enough to make producing them across the lineup a profitable decision.

I don't think their auto driving capabilities are as grand as they say they are. I think their centre screen with no buttons is dumb, but I like tactile buttons and knobs, so maybe that's just a 'me' issue.

I do appreciate that they have taken massive risks and have been the ones to show that electric cars can be practical, and have decent enough range for most situations. But Musk needs to stop writing checks his engineers can't cash.

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Old 09-28-2020, 05:24 PM   #358
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I'm not cheering for or against anyone. My argument is I don't think Tesla has done anything truly revolutionary that no other automaker will be able to match, once they decide things like battery costs have come down enough to make producing them across the lineup a profitable decision.



I don't think their auto driving capabilities are as grand as they say they are. I think their centre screen with no buttons is dumb, but I like tactile buttons and knobs, so maybe that's just a 'me' issue.



I do appreciate that they have taken massive risks and have been the ones to show that electric cars can be practical, and have decent enough range for most situations. But Musk needs to stop writing checks his engineers can't cash.
Weird, I wasn’t specifically directing my comment at you.

All new technology will eventually be matched and/or surpassed by someone else so that’s not exactly a hot take. I hope this is the case for Tesla. I really want to see the Honda’s and Toyota’s of the world put their minds and resources to pure EV vehicles and see what comes out of that.

I’ve come to appreciate the no buttons thing. Whenever I use a gas car now, I find the sea of buttons incredibly distracting. But maybe that’s just a ‘me’ issue.

Lastly, Tesla’s vehicles continue to improve... just not at the light speed as everyone hoped. To get to this point is quite remarkable as this has started something new in a rather technologically stagnant industry. Their engineers seem to have cashed quite a few of those cheques to date. I’m not dwelling on the outstanding ones.
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Old 09-28-2020, 05:50 PM   #359
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I'm interested to see what wins out in the long run, batteries or hydrogen. Hydrogen definitely has it's issues, but it also has major advantages. Toyota has been really dragging on it when they started out so strong a decade ago.
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Old 09-29-2020, 12:16 AM   #360
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I'm not cheering for or against anyone. My argument is I don't think Tesla has done anything truly revolutionary that no other automaker will be able to match, once they decide things like battery costs have come down enough to make producing them across the lineup a profitable decision.
Battery costs don't come down by themselves as with anything else it takes several or even many generations of product. Your argument is basically, sure Tesla is way ahead but the other automakers will surpass them when they feel like it. All the while completely ignoring the investment it takes in people, tech, factories, experience gained and so many other things.

Also the lead engineer at Tesla is Elon Musk I can't think of another auto maker like that. Another company doing very well recently is AMD, their CEO Lisa Su has a doctorate in electrical engineering. Contrast that with the no nothing come and go CEOs of most companies.
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