17 – Semi Interesting
We unpack the Tesla Semi announcement, covering the history of trucking, the market of Semi trucks today, who the players are, what is important in the Semi market, and what Tesla will be able to contribute.
We unpack the Tesla Semi announcement, covering the history of trucking, the market of Semi trucks today, who the players are, what is important in the Semi market, and what Tesla will be able to contribute.
We share our immediate take on the Master Plan, Part Deux unveiled today. We discuss the news of Tesla Semi, the new bus concept, the pickup truck, full autonomy and the milestones Tesla sees there, the 10x improvements in manufacturing efficiency, and the new Tesla Sharing system that will challenge Uber and Lyft.
We discuss the first fatality in a Tesla with Autopilot enabled. We cover what happened, the media coverage of the event, the naming of Autopilot, how aircraft autopilot is expected to work and more.
We explore the ethical implications of self-driving cars. Why ethics is important in the context of self-driving cars, what are the philosophical approaches one can take when reasoning about ethics for self-driving cars, and how we think Tesla should approach these difficult choices.
We explore the proposed Tesla acquisition of SolarCity. What is SolarCity? Why does Tesla want SolarCity? Why is the market against the deal? Is it a good idea for Tesla?
We discuss how Tesla's Autopilot system is able to learn and update itself. How Tesla has engineered their vehicles with a new architecture that allows both rich connectivity with LTE for software updates and sensor data sharing, and the implications of a car that updates itself and adds new functionality over time.
We continue our discussion of self-driving vehicles. We dig into the regulations in place today and what's needed to allow self-driving on the roads. We also chat about the impact they will have on the insurance market. And we dig into how self-driving will change what we think of as a car – from small pods all the way to hotel rooms on wheels.
We continue our discussion of autonomous driving and the broader societal impact their advent will bring. We discuss how autonomy does not require electric vehicles, what urban planners should do to prepare for autonomy in their cities, how more miles will be driven, the impact on public transport, and what impact autonomy will have on jobs like truck driving.
We begin our discussion of autonomous driving. We cover why autonomous driving is important in the first place, what the current state of the art is for Tesla and Google, where we are going, and how long it will take to get there.
We both test drove the Model X. We discuss our impressions of the entire Tesla test drive experience and the Model X specifically – the performance, the handling, the interior, the falcon wing doors, and Autopilot.
We chat about our expectations for Part 2 of the Model 3 unveil – what the Model S and X option packages mean for the Model 3, what are the "next level" features Elon Musk was alluding to, and what a HUD and Autopilot mean for Model 3 going forward.
We discuss the origins, current status, and importance of the Gigafactory to Tesla.
A special bonus episode. Tesla just released their Q1 2016 numbers and after listening to the conference call we couldn't help but share what Tesla announced and the updates to Model 3 production Elon Musk revealed.
We unpack everything Supercharger – their history, how they work, where they are, what they are, and what the Model 3 launch will mean for Supercharging.
We dig into Tesla's production history and their recent factory upgrades to understand how they will reach their stated goals of 500,000 vehicles by 2020 and how that might change with the ever increasing Model 3 reservation count.
We discuss the results of the Model 3 unveil – the reservation counts, what it means for Tesla, and what it means for the car industry at large.
An in-depth discussion of the Model 3 pre-order and unveil day.