If the people who've made the singular successful US automobile manufacturer & US space travel company in decades are bullshit artists, yet still obviously the best we have going for us, then damn we in for a bleak future aren't we...

I think that may be false and you might just not like Elon though.

Boeing can't even get off the ground without checking the hardware clock, and Blue Origin has never made it to orbit. I hate people who discount the achievements of SpaceX/Tesla because they tend to make this look easy.

> If the people who've made the singular successful US automobile manufacturer

Tesla shipped 500,000 cars last year, Ford shipped 2 million[1]. I know Tesla's valuation is sky-high, but I think that is the bullshit OP is referring to. To call them the singular successful US automobile manufacturer is ridiculous.

[1] https://s23.q4cdn.com/799033206/files/doc_news/2021/1/06/For...

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I definitely didn't word my post very well.

I didn't mean they're the singular successful US auto manufacturer

I meant that they're the first (for production scale that is, sure there are a few here and there making models w/ <1000 to be ever made) created in quite some time that has been successful.

Wait, Tesla shipped 1/4 as many cars as Ford last year?

I had no idea they had grown so big compared to other car companies.

Bit less than 1/8 actually, the parent compared Tesla global sales against Ford U.S. sales. It's a surprising common mistake for some odd reason.

The above poster is comparing Tesla's worldwide sales to Ford's US sales.

There is a reason the evaluations are different:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E9FARebWUAYd5NI?format=jpg&name=...

Many of the production facilities that Ford uses, and huge sunk cost in things like engine production, are not an asset, but a cost in the long term.

Ford will not be making its own batteries, meaning somebody else will make a large part of the profit from each car.

Ford will not make its own self driving tech, so some other company will make that profit.

Ford will not sell its own cars, meaning they will lose large part of the margin on dealers.

Ford is massively invested in things that will be negative assets and has very, very little investment in the things that will matter in the next 5-10 years.

The Ford F-150 is the best-selling car in the US, selling more units than all of Tesla's models combined. Ford has already announced an electric version of the truck, due to come out next year I believe.

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that, by the end of the decade, the Ford F-150 could become the best-selling electric vehicle. (Nor, for that matter, is that anywhere near certain. I withhold judgement on whether or not it is probable). If that were to be true, then Tesla's valuation really doesn't make any sense.

In this world, Ford may

- Buy batteries from Tesla

- Buy FSD automation from Tesla

- License Electric drivetrain technology from Tesla

- Ford cars will charge at Tesla SuperChargers

Particularly with licensing it's possible that Tesla would make more profit on an electric F-150 than Ford!

I'm not sure how that disproves anything I said.

Just announcing a electric version and producing a million of them are quite different.

Even if the F-150 electric becomes the best selling electric vehicle, that doesn't change my point either.

There's "differences in valuation" and then there's Tesla's >300 PE ratio.

There's also significant difference in debt levels across the auto industry which also influences valuation. https://mobile.twitter.com/jpr007/status/1405525073218314248...

With 50% CAGR the PE ratio does not seem so crazy, if growth were to stop, then yes it is crazy.

Like a year ago people were 'omg Tesla PE ratio is 1000'. Its actually 174.87 now.

PE is literally the worst way to evaluate a company that is growing.

But seriously, that is one of the single worst ways to evaluate a company and instantly discredits anybody that uses it as their primary argument.

Ford had been buying batteries, but is now building its own battery plant in Romulus, MI.

I googled this for you: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+muc...

it’s a common mistake to extend expertise in one domain to other completely unrelated domains

A good example is Noam Chomsky and his political ramblings

This is true, but one should still consider that Musk tends to attract some of the best, brightest, and highly motivated engineers and scientists (despite those who would argue this is false, I think it's quite clear who is correct when looking at the ventures of Alumni of his companies and what his companies have produced so far...)

As well as a good amount of non-bureaucratically/red-tape-restricted financial backing.

Those conditions seem highly likely to be able to produce results compared to other companies in the space - but I guess only time will tell.

For a funnier and maybe slightly less related example like yours though...

There is a surviving Japanese company that made samurai swords for a few centuries or so - they now make nail clippers, and they're some of the best damn nail clippers one can buy on this planet.

They then ventured into making tweezers as well. You would expect that if they can make such amazing and highly acclaimed nail clippers, they can probably make damn good tweezers as well.

Their tweezers are absolutely awful and they've never revised them for as long as they've been selling them.

That’s a very good example)

As for “best and brightest” that won’t help as in terms of understanding cognition we are in pre-science stage, missing that qualitative jump from alchemy to chemistry so to speak.

all you need is a philosopher’ stone and a solid round of financing

Chomsky is just not as smart as effective as some other people.

Many people thought:

1. Elon Musk was a Silicon Valley software guy that couldn't possibly build electric cars or rockets.

2. The Wright brothers were a couple of bicycle mechanics that couldn't possibly build a real flying machine.

3. Steve Jobs was a right-place right-time washed up has-been that could not revive Apple and certainly could not make it the most valuable company on earth.

History is full of examples of smart and effective people transferring their abilities to new challenges.

>Carl Berry, a lecturer in robotics engineering at the UK’s University of Central Lancashire, put things to me in less uncertain terms: “[Calling it] horse shit sounds generous, frankly. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t be doing research like this, but it’s the usual overblown hype.”

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/20/22633958/tesla-bot-elon-m...

What do you consider bullshit about Tesla's use of AI?

The robot was pure BS. You can tell they haven't done anything or even thought much about it, there was just the slide and he didn't even know what to say about it during the presentation just "look, robot"

It is clearly a future product idea simply designed to inspire robotics experts to join the company. Not many other places (eg, Boston Dynamics) have access to custom designed ML hardware. So they are saying: if you want to build the robots of the future, this is the company to join.

I don't understand how that's "BS"? They're not marketing this to consumers.

It's a recruiting event. The same way they announced a 25k EV in China to recruit designers there. It doesn't mean it won't happen, but it's also a tactic.

It was a funny. Laugh.

false advertising, that “AI” literally doesn’t know what it’s doing

There are a lot of levels and definitions of AI. Elon and team clearly refer to their own products as "narrow" AI, which it literally is by definition.

I certainly don’t know what I’m doing, but many people have said I’m intelligent.

You know more than you realize, and your brain does more than you know

It’s been said that AI is surprisingly hard because a lot that’s happening is unconscious, and once you fall into the rabbit hole of chasing it AI becomes a perpetual “5 years away” goal