Latest Tesla Motors-Related News (Feel Free To Post Here)

[markwj]

The background read says it well, Android IS open source, only the Google apps sources aren't, so my point remains valid.

Um, have you ever tried to use an Android device that doesn't have the google stuff? No maps, no play store, no gmail, no google services at all? Amazon are the only ones who have had any success with such a fork, and they do it by being closed source.

The core of "Android" is open source. However, the vast majority of devices running Android are not open source. You can't take the device, recompile from source, and do what you want with it. Locked boot loaders. Locked modems. Proprietary skins. Bloatware.

Back on topic of Tesla open sourcing it's patents - the terminology is wrong there as well. They haven't open sourced anything they don't seem to have even open licensed anything. Just said that they won't sue if someone uses their patents 'in good faith' (whatever that means).

 

[Lerxt]

I think Tesla wants to see their patents only used with ethics. I'm sure they will vet all applications and veto many.

 

[lx3h]

Um, have you ever tried to use an Android device that doesn't have the google stuff? No maps, no play store, no gmail, no google services at all? Amazon are the only ones who have had any success with such a fork, and they do it by being closed source.

The core of "Android" is open source. However, the vast majority of devices running Android are not open source. You can't take the device, recompile from source, and do what you want with it. Locked boot loaders. Locked modems. Proprietary skins. Bloatware.

Back on topic of Tesla open sourcing it's patents - the terminology is wrong there as well. They haven't open sourced anything they don't seem to have even open licensed anything. Just said that they won't sue if someone uses their patents 'in good faith' (whatever that means).

Well, I have been using custom ROMS for years now. From Resurrection Remix, to to Rainbow ROM, to IOmega, to now Sweet ROM, have always been using unlocked boot loaders, picking my own choice of modem and kernel, over and under-clocking the CPU, removing bloatware with Titanium Backup whenever I wish. Never heard that Apple stuff can do the same -- jailbreaking an iDevice does all so little to its customisability and permission access. Anyway, my ultimate point is, sharing is good for everyone, but a doubt how a company can survive if everything they created, are creating and will be creating are shared completely. Tesla still has to answer to its shareholders. Not one of them wants a wealthier company to completely duplicate Tesla's cars, making and selling their own exact copy of Model S or even Model X the next month! That will be disastrous to the stock price!

 

[markwj]

lx3h: Apple has had the same having community since the first iPhones. Jail breaking, rooting, etc.

Regarding Tesla, I think the issue is that there is pretty much no competition at the moment. As Elon said, they have a long way to go to even get to 1% market share. Being completely alone, with a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of market share is a scary place to be. Hence the desire to get some real competition out there. When the bigs guys start selling significant numbers of EVs, then the technology will get some real recognition, and Tesla may benefit. But, it is a scary gamble. Isn't there an old proverb about waking a sleeping tiger?

 

[lx3h]

Elon Musk Disruptor 50 Interview About SpaceX, Solarcity, Tesla & The Future

markwj: I've been jailbreaking since iPhone 1 till iPhone 4S & iPads and then I stopped, what jailbreaking allows the owners to do with their devices is minute as compared what rooting an Android device does.



Another link to DITB's Elon Interview:

 

[miimura]

This is posted elsewhere here on the forums, yet still worth mentioning here:

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000285676

Elon Musk interviewed by CNBC.

I have held a high regard for Elon Musk, and his achievements (mainly with electric cars, and to some extent with solar power), but after watching this, I have elevated him to permanent divine status.

Not only is he doing the right thing, but he is so genuine and natural, to the bone. For something he doesn't know, he says "I don't know", instead of pretending or talking around the subject. He is so non-boasting and humble, and very respectful towards everyone, even competitors and people who try to stop him and his efforts. No name calling or ridiculing of even the worst of haters.

Often in an interview or other video, you want to fast forward, or get annoyed by the way the interviewer(s) try to control the outcome from a script - not one single time did I wish to skip anything here.

Well worth 21:30 minutes of your life to watch.

Subjects cover the whole range, more or less, from Tesla, Gen III/Gigafactories, patents "release", solar city, spaceX, AI, investments and more, pretty nicely summed up.

What we see here is a person speaking honestly and sincerely from his heart.

Well played, Elon, well played, although it's obviously neither play nor acting.

I finally set aside some time to watch this interview. I think this is the best interview I've seen with Elon. He is much more at ease and less stuttery than many prior appearances. I think he could have said something better than "I don't know" in regard to what Artificial Intelligence is good for. However, I think he was thinking more directly about the brain simulation type of research and AI that the specific company mentioned is doing. I think autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars) are an obvious application of AI programming, but it may be more of an "expert system" approach than a "brain simulation" approach. My impression is that the Google Self-Driving Car project is basically building a database of every conceivable driving situation and pre-determining how the system should handle each situation. The last thing you want an autonomous vehicle to do is panic (unhandled exception) when it encounters an unusual situation.

The parallel between SolarCity buying a high-efficiency solar panel maker and Tesla building the GigaFactory was enlightening. Basically what he's saying is: "To get where we want to go, we have to do things that are non-obvious to outside observers. The excess capacity that exists in the industry (low to mid efficiency solar panels and prismatic automotive lithium-ion batteries) is not the right type for what we need, so we have to plan to build capacity of the right type in order to take control of our destiny." Starting from a market position that is not even next to the decimal point (below 0.1%) and getting to "mass market" requires huge investments. These investments are usually shared among industrial partners, but it appears that SolarCity was not able to ensure supply of low cost high efficiency panels without buying a panel maker and coordinating the growth plans of the manufacturing and installation sides of the business.

As DITB said, well worth your time to watch this.

 

[brianman]

@mods - Given the recent patent activities of Tesla, I suspect a "plan" to deal with the open source topic across multiple threads (the Android branch topic here is just the beginning of a new wave, IMO) will be needed soon. I don't know if it's something akin to the political quarantine thread or a new sub-forum or what.

 

[DITB]

I finally set aside some time to watch this interview. I think this is the best interview I've seen with Elon. He is much more at ease and less stuttery than many prior appearances. I think he could have said something better than "I don't know" in regard to what Artificial Intelligence is good for.
...

As DITB said, well worth your time to watch this.

I think that was a deliberate answer - but I can see it could be misunderstood as if he doesn't know what AI is at all. I think no-one knows what AI is, other that "time will show". Just as Elon, although super enthusiastic about technology, I am also very concerned about what it can do to us. Man has some self destruction tendencies - and more power means better leverage for us in all regards, also the bad ones. It is hard to develop something very powerful and useful, without some dark forces using it for something bad.

Albert Einstein devised the unified field theory in his later days. No-one understood it, except himself. When he realised how dangerous the implications of that knowledge, he unselfishly denounced his own theory, before he finished working on it. He already saw what happened after he helped build the nuclear bomb. Had he continued, we would probably all have had levitation powered devices today (if we hadn't killed civilisation already), being able to counter gravity with almost no power, as the unified field theory combines all the know forces of gravity (short and long), magnetism, electric fields and so on, into one. No moving parts "flying carpet" anyone? Sure it would be awesome, but also scary.

Imagine every other person being able to "fly", if not like superman, then at least, move around above the surface of the Earth, with hardly any effort. Fences would be meaningless, in the way we know them today and ... well, I'll stop here, but just to say, when Elon Musk is "scared" of AI, I think he has a very valid point, just like Albert Einstein successfully stopped (or delayed) levitation technology. And I think the same goes for genetical modification, nano-technology and other highly experimental technologies, where the human race and the Earth is becoming one, big science experiment. It's scary sh1t!

Sleep well ...

 

[lx3h]

I think that was a deliberate answer - but I can see it could be misunderstood as if he doesn't know what AI is at all. I think no-one knows what AI is, other that "time will show". Just as Elon, although super enthusiastic about technology, I am also very concerned about what it can do to us. Man has some self destruction tendencies - and more power means better leverage for us in all regards, also the bad ones. It is hard to develop something very powerful and useful, without some dark forces using it for something bad.

Albert Einstein devised the unified field theory in his later days. No-one understood it, except himself. When he realised how dangerous the implications of that knowledge, he unselfishly denounced his own theory, before he finished working on it. He already saw what happened after he helped build the nuclear bomb. Had he continued, we would probably all have had levitation powered devices today (if we hadn't killed civilisation already), being able to counter gravity with almost no power, as the unified field theory combines all the know forces of gravity (short and long), magnetism, electric fields and so on, into one. No moving parts "flying carpet" anyone? Sure it would be awesome, but also scary.

Imagine every other person being able to "fly", if not like superman, then at least, move around above the surface of the Earth, with hardly any effort. Fences would be meaningless, in the way we know them today and ... well, I'll stop here, but just to say, when Elon Musk is "scared" of AI, I think he has a very valid point, just like Albert Einstein successfully stopped (or delayed) levitation technology. And I think the same goes for genetical modification, nano-technology and other highly experimental technologies, where the human race and the Earth is becoming one, big science experiment. It's scary sh1t!

Sleep well ...

You know what, I was thinking that he really wants to first build his JARVIS and then he will move on to building his Mark I suit.

 

[waidy]

If all EV owners has one of this myEV by MyCarma: electric vehicle logger app | Indiegogo, you can ask for their permission to unplug. Please watch the video, demo is at ~2:00 time.

 

[Vmax]

Very interesting. Who would be willing to get one?

 

[lx3h]

a chinese man smashed his brand new model S to protest 'Tesla's Arrogance'

Chinese Tesla Model S Customer Smashes Windshield With Wrench - Business Insider

 

[Lerxt]

The above guy is a complete wanker, he has made himself look stupid in front of the world. Hopefully Tesla will refuse to touch his car for any repairs or warranty.

 

[lx3h]

The above guy is a complete wanker, he has made himself look stupid in front of the world. Hopefully Tesla will refuse to touch his car for any repairs or warranty.

Agree. I do believe that this guy still wants to keep his car, so he only broke the windshield. Having made himself public, there is no way he still has his warranty.

 

[callmesam]

Agree. I do believe that this guy still wants to keep his car, so he only broke the windshield. Having made himself public, there is no way he still has his warranty.

You don't void the warranty for being an a-hole. Of course, he will be required to pay for the windshield, just like if a pebble had flown up and cracked it.

In other words "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” - Macbeth

 

[brianman]

In other words "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” - Macbeth

I'm not so sure about that. I suspect it counts to the detriment of relations between citizens of his country and the U.S. While much of the world might have "opinions" about the average U.S. citizen, I find it fairly likely that every U.S. citizen (who hears the story) will have a strongly negative opinion about this individual -- and perhaps others in his culture.

This doesn't come off as a protest or "making a statement". It comes off as being a child. While the scale is much less, it's kind of like setting your house circuitry on fire in protest of not getting your HPWC at vehicle delivery.

 

[lx3h]

You don't void the warranty for being an a-hole. Of course, he will be required to pay for the windshield, just like if a pebble had flown up and cracked it.

In other words "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” - Macbeth

I don't know whether it void the warranty or not if the owner himself publicly told the world he himself broke that windshield, but definitely, if you remove some seals inside your phone, you void your warranty, if you physically open certain parts of the Model S, as what some OS hackers did, you void the warranty, so to what extent Tesla covers warranty?

 

[lx3h]

Just backtracking things, do you hear the lady say there will be 4G as soon as 4G is stable?

 

[lx3h]

Tesla Model S costs lower to run than clothes washing and drying in a year

Assumptions applied.

iPad: $1.50 per year - In Photos: How Much Energy Does Your iPhone (And Other Devices) Really Use? - Forbes

 

[Vmax]

Quote from the Forbes article:
"If you're driving 15,000 miles a year in your Tesla your fuel bill will come to about $450. That's a hefty $1,750 savings over gasoline, but then again, the Tesla does cost around $75,000, and most of that fuel savings will be wiped away when you have to shell out $12,000 to replace your battery after five years or so."

Can those incompetent journalists not do their research and go on Tesla's website to check the battery warranty?!