Tesla CEO Musk on Battery Factor, Model X, Apple [video] | Hacker News Reader

Tesla CEO Musk on Battery Factor, Model X, Apple [video]

bloomberg.com

123 pointsdavidbarker45 comments

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I don't want to watch a 10 minute video. What did he say exactly?

Edit: The title of this story was originally something like "Musk confirms talks with Apple".

There is a transcript on this page http://hedgeaccording.ly/2014/02/elon-musk-to-bloombergtv-we...

Thanks! The relevant snippet:

LIU: [...] Is there any truth to a possible partnership, merger with Apple?

MUSK: Well of course it’s – if – if – if one or more companies had approached us last year about such things, there’s no way we could really comment on that.

LIU: Well did you have a conversation with Apple?

MUSK: We had conversations with Apple. I can’t comment on whether those revolved around any kind of acquisition.

LIU: Are you for sale? If there was a right price, are you for sale?

MUSK: I think that’s very unlikely [...]

I admire Elon for what he is trying to do. But selling to Apple would be a complete U-turn to what he has said. On many occasions he has mentioned that he won't change ownership of Tesla till the mass market electric vehicle becomes a success. That would be at least 2020 as that would be the time frame when one can say whether Model E is a success or not. I hope he sticks to what he has said.

Agreed, I hate this trend. So many websites are now opting for video over written content. I can skim an article / blog post and glean most of the salient points. Video makes that impossible.

That is the same reason I don't like learning from videos.

Theres a definite difference...Learning step by step to a voice and visual instructed teacher (in my opinion) is much more clear than having to read something and reread it to really understand it.

IMO it's much worse. It's slower, less knowledge-dense and you can't jump around and learn the things you need the way you like. Reading and re-reading is a feature IMO, not a bug, and videos have all the drawbacks of sitting in the classroom without providing any of the benefits (you can't, say, ask the video for clarification).

If the medium is visual (knitting, a sport, etc) then video is great. But a math lecture is probably better as text, with images/diagrams.

How often are videos remade to fix poor examples? How often is text fixed? (Where's the ever improving video version of Wikipedia?)

This is true <in person>, when you have confidence that the presenter is of high quality and on target. It's not true generally, because in reality the needle/haystack problem. Line of sight is better for parralel processing than serial/ sequential a/v.

Well, it's not about buying Tesla, because that makes basically no sense for Apple. It's not about getting him to work for them because what's the appeal for Musk to take anything short of CEO (and the job is already taken by a fairly capable man).

So, iOS in vehicle; or possibly some kind of partnership related to battery technology (research or production).

Given how much GM is pushing Siri Eyes Free Integration, I would imagine it would not be profitable to buy Tesla. Probably, as you said, iOS in vehicle or iOS integration.

> Given how much GM is pushing Siri Eyes Free Integration

Which is to say not very much? I was aware it was on the horizon through promotion by Apple, but I only accidentally discovered support in my new GM vehicle. Its usage is non-obvious and there was nothing I came across in the promotional materials or indication through the dealer suggesting that it was available.

GM has been advertising very heavily on the Olympics and other venues. They're spending cash on it.

Now that you say that I notice that I have seen the ads.

I wonder how much of that is a response to Ford and their Sync stuff.

(I don't pay attention to the new car market, but I am aware of Ford Sync as a brand and have no idea what GM had for a comparable feature)

GM has had comparable stuff in their Buick line (very popular in China), Ford just advertises on more tech sites because of Microsoft. Siri hands free is also in the some Honda models.

Perhaps they are targeting specific markets? I don't think I have even seen a GM ad during my viewing of the Olympics.

Its the one with the "dude" who is listening to his messages while his wife is in the passenger seat. The last message is about a tattoo. Its another "stupid husband" commercial.

I think the autopilot stuff is way more interesting than any talks with Apple. Tesla wants to bring autopilot to market in just a few years, ahead of all other companies? And Tesla claims to have more autonomous vehicle expertise than anyone else (including Google)? These are awesome claims, I can't wait to see them play out!

They might have just discussed an integration of Apple technology into Tesla cars. Android manufacturers are already pursuing it, and it would seem like a logical fit for Apple to partner with a company like Telsa first.

"Woah, Teslas have big ass iPads in their dashboard." http://i.imgur.com/FcJ9hdL.jpg

I said that jokingly when I first saw it, there may be some truth to that now!

The stack is more likely Linux based than ios.

The autopilot discussion at the end was more interesting than the Apple part. Side note: Betty Liu looks stoned.

I agree. I've been confused by this notion of driver-less cars up until now because at the end of the day it didn't seem workable or acceptable to have cars on the road with no human attendant. Musk clears that up when he says he doesn't like the term driver-less and it's much more like auto-pilot on an airplane that will assist drivers. He predicts it will be a common accessory in high end cars in 3 years and in all cars in 10 years. One scenario where this would be very helpful would be in the dense fog which occurs in the California Central Valley.

Driver assist is a common feature in currently available high end cars and is working down through the model tiers.

(Lane keeping, adaptive cruise, accident avoidance (brake pressure priming/auto braking), in some sense traction control is a driver assist feature)

I shouldn't have said "assist drivers" because I took it to mean full auto-pilot like an airplane. The car could drive itself from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible without human intervention, while the licensed human driver remained ultimately responsible for safe operation. I wonder if activities like texting or reading a book while piloting a car will become legal in this case.

Yeah, fair enough. I think that is the worst case situation, because people won't pay enough attention (so to allow it the pilot has to be good enough to anyway work/license/stand up to liability alone).

That isn't really what aircraft autopilots do (intend to do a full point A to point B without human intervention). Texting and reading won't become legal if the driver is still responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle.

A few minutes research shows mine is a common misconception in modern commercial flight [1] and "Autopilots exist that automate all of these flight phases except taxi and takeoff" [2].

I think this speaks further to the difficulties with driver-less cars. I was taught not to swerve when an animal ran out in front of the car, even if it meant hitting the animal, because the car might roll. If a driver-less car makes this calculation, there will be ramifications. Should a driver-less car destroy itself rather than hitting an animal?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/24/travel/autopilot-airlines/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopilot

The driverless vehicle can probably calculate a lateral acceleration for the vehicle that won't roll it over but still avoid the animal, then monitor the application of turn input to further ensure the vehicle doesn't roll over.

I have a problem with his assertion that Tesla will be the first company to market with a significant "autopilot". You can go out today and buy a car from Honda that will autonomously turn the steering wheel to stay within lanes and adjust the throttle/brake to maintain speeds in traffic. If I read the (marketing) details correctly, it sounds to me like you could turn the system on in LA and not touch the wheel/brake/throttle until you have to exit I-5 or run out of gas. If that's not a significant advance in autopilot technology, I wonder what Musk is cooking.

> If that's not a significant advance in autopilot technology, I wonder what Musk is cooking.

He's probably willing to fork over licensing fees immediately for Google X's Level 3 [The driver can fully cede control of all safety-critical functions in certain conditions. The car senses when conditions require the driver to retake control and provides a "sufficiently comfortable transition time" for the driver to do so.] automation technology.

Can someone please fix the title? It's a battery factory. Tesla plans to build a "giga battery factory" with one or more of its battery partners in a three-year timeframe.

An outright merger would ruin both Tesla and Apple. Tesla needs to focus on car design and Apple needs to focus on mobile devices and computers. If Tesla joined Apple the resulting organization would be too large and would ensure that neither of them could focus.

A software/embedded hardware deal, as the interviewer refers to, would make much more sense.

I was more interested in his comments about the Model X. It has been a while since the announcement. I'd like to get some pricing info, either to say "Send me one" or "Uh-oh."

Interesting given these statements:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Apple-Google-Smartphone-Ste...

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Elon-Musk-says-Android-apps-c...

I wonder if Musk made these statements to coerce Apple into a better deal?

I also would not be surprised if Tesla becomes one of the early adopters of the 'iOS in the car' device.

Other than that, Apple and Elon are focussed on very different markets.

If Musk helped shape the executive team, that would be a boon for Apple. They need another muti-faceted genius to run the place and apparently they aren't under every rock.

Shortcut for comments regarding Apple - http://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/19/tesla-ceo-acquisition-un...

Musk vision + Apple's $100B in cash = iOS integrated mass market cars?

Apple question is at 6:24

Elon cannot work for someone else. He is freaking Elon!

Reverse acquisition?

That would be interesting if Apple didn't have essentially the world's largest hedge fund. I hope these were only partnership talks as I believe a free Elon Musk is a net gain for society.

Still not enough to bankroll the Hyperloop.

Right?

Say it ain't so

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