tesla’s dangerous sprint into the future - home energy storage

Jon Gerner November.
For Elon Musk's company, self-driving is a stop point on the road to a better planet. 2017.
Can it survive long enough to get there?
20 miles east of Reno, Nevada.
Here, a group of wild horses roam freely in the hot scenery, and the Tesla Ji Processing Plant No. 1 spreads near Interstate 80.
This is a destination for engineers from all over the world and any staff at Renault hotel can give you precision and can't-miss-it directions.
The Geely factory, which began construction in June 2014, is not only huge, but also becoming the largest manufacturing plant on earth.
Now that 30% has been completed, its square feet are equivalent to about 35 Costco stores, a small city of construction workers, machinery and storage containers is emerging around it.
Perhaps the only thing as impressive as its size is its secret cloak, which seems to be part of Tesla's growing tendency to be invisible, opaque or even paranoid.
When I visited in September, a guard at the door gave instructions on where to go for militarisation.
He turned to my Lyft driver and said seriously, "When you finish the descent --
You can't get off the bus.
In any case
Turn and leave. Immediately.
"Hearing Tesla executives tell it, Tesla is misunderstood because it is still seen as a car maker when its goals are more complex and far awayreaching.
But at least some have accepted these ambitious goals.
Shares of Tesla this summer
Market valuations are sometimes higher than Ford and GM, with a market capitalization of more than $60 billion.
For investors, the company has never earned annual profits, has missed production targets many times and is in dispute for its own reasons, which does not seem to matter
Driving "self-driving" technology, or Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, admits that he has about 22% of the company's value, "higher than what we are entitled.
"Tesla is a huge bet on the future, and the idea of a better world is a huge bet.
Its mysterious Gigabit factory is a complete arsenal-
A formal attack on the current power of cars and fossilsFuel industry.
The plant will help to verify Musk and his company's serious attitude towards leading humans to green technology, and the current vision includes solar roof tiles and battery packs for home and industrial use.
Most importantly, it involves the production of millions of Tesla cars and trucks, all of which will be stylish, electric and automaticdriving.
If only by ambition, Tesla will become a giant in the global auto industry.
But the rapid development of new technologies has also brought uncertainty.
Automakers face three factors of instability at the same time: automation, electrified and shared.
When they wake up, it is not obvious to determine which companies will be winners and losers.
In terms of self
Driving a car seems to be a long time
Established Company-
General Motors and Ford, as well as BMW and Audi
They will benefit from a lot of cash reserves and a wealth of manufacturing experience.
Because these automakers can invest heavily in research.
Buy start for hundreds of millions of dollars-ups)
They can continue to compete with companies that are less cautious, such as Tesla and Waymo, which are Google's own derivatives.
Drive the project.
Tesla's goal has always been to be green, not to create a driverless future. (
Its mission is printed on the walls of the factory: "accelerate the transition of the world to sustainable energy. ”)
However, with the consensus reached by the automotive industry,
Here's the car-
They promised to improve safety and help ride
For many Americans, sharing ownership of the replacement car drives their inevitability --
Tesla has found itself in a competition between the two.
For any company, this series of challenges should be enough, especially for a company led by the ceo, who, as the founder of rocket, was affected by other business commitments (SpaceX)
New tunneling operations (
Boring Company)
A company planning human resources
Computer Interface (Neuralink)
A non-profit organization focusing on the dangers of artificial intelligenceOpenAI).
But Tesla also gave itself something else.
The first is to completely transform the modern manufacturing process in Geely factory.
The other is to create the first quality-
Electric cars in the market.
At the same time, a company that has never made a profit needs to find a way to solve this problem --
That is, before financial losses and missed deadlines, any hopes that Tesla has inspired in its customers or shareholders are thrown into doubt.
400 possible locations in the western United States have been sent to this Nevada location.
I jumped into the Chevrolet suburb of Geely factory with several Tesla employees and looked around.
We drove through a spacious parking lot and climbed a steep hill so we could overlook the huge buildings and commotion below.
The gigabit factory is usually described as a factory, and Panasonic is a large tenant in the space, producing customized lithium-
Tesla then installed ion batteries in its products.
Such a huge factory allows for long production lines and economies of scale, which company engineers believe will help them reduce the price of batteries significantly and thus the price of electric vehicles.
The logic within Tesla is that only "scale up "--
Make billions of cheaper batteries for millions of cars
Will it have a real impact on our deteriorating pollution and the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
Musk pointed out at the opening ceremony on July 2016 that the Geely factory must be very large, "because the world is very big.
"But in fact, the utility of the plant is the sum of countless minor improvements.
A Tesla executive involved in the design told me that the goal here is not only to minimize the movement of materials such as lithium and cobalt, but also to shorten the path of each molecule passing through the plant.
"Because the farther a molecule needs to go, the higher its cost," he said.
We actually consider it from the perspective of molecular distance.
Still, Geely factory is far more than a battery factory: it is the physical embodiment of the company's various technological breakthroughs --
Just made 250 of its cars.
Trying to bring to its cars and energy --Storage system.
For example, Tesla is here to make cars for its new Model 3 car, and then transported by truck to the assembly plant in Fremont, California.
240 miles away.
As we went in, after a maze-like walk through the office and up and down the stairs, we arrived at a fast-moving automated factory production line where the battery was installed on the power wall and on the power supply
Residential and industrial units that store energy collected by solar panels (
Or any generator).
Later this month, equipment like this will be shipped to Puerto Rico, where Tesla rebuilt the Children's Hospital and the electricity infrastructure in southern Australia, which is involved in a huge public project, to support the country's power grid.
"We thought the building was a product because it was a product," my guide told me as we walked next to the production line.
Every machine is carefully checked, every inch is planned, and every efficiency is taken into account.
Tesla took very unusual steps to set up a separate entity with full control over the design, engineering and construction of the building, reflecting Tesla's D. I. Y.
To achieve the atmosphere of vertical ownership and quality control levels, its executives believe that otherwise this is out of reach.
The company even made its Tesla hybrid coffee near the cafeteria.
One executive told me: "If we can't get what we want from the world, then we have to do it ourselves.
"Tesla's ambitious plans in many ways depend on how much innovation the company can bring to the battery manufacturing process.
If the Geely factory successfully reduces costsone battery-
Sam Jaffe, head of Kane energy research consultancy, told me that he thought the company should be able to lower the battery price by 30%-
Tesla will receive a number of dividends.
Cheap batteries are more important than cheap cars.
This means that Tesla can put a larger battery pack into the car at the same cost, increasing the car's endurance, power and attractiveness compared to its competitors.
At the same time, they can make it home energy
The storage system is more efficient.
Tesla can also gain an advantage in the race to produce driverless cars. V. s.
Electric vehicles, electric vehicles. V.
Tesla wants zero emissions for driverless cars. If self-
For example, in the Uber and Lyft teams, driving cars can run 24-
There may be more cars on the road.
"One of the concerns about automation is that it will significantly increase the mileage we drive," Stephen Zoepf, executive director of the Stanford University automotive research center, told me.
"So if we expect to drive more cars as a society, we obviously want to mitigate the impact on the environment.
"In J. B.
Tesla founder and CTO Straubel tells the story of the origin of the factory.
At 2012, he madeof-the-
The envelope calculates and realizes that if Tesla sells 500,000 cars a year, it will require all the lithium production in the world.
Ion battery at that time.
"We realized, my God, that means we need a huge factory," he said . " "Because there is no way to do this simply by placing an order with some mobile phone companies and letting them ship again.
His prediction is not far away.
When we had a meeting on September, the order for Model 3 had already started production in mid-year and was promoted as the first mass production of the company
As of July, the market had sold about 455,000 vehicles, indicating demand for electric vehicles. V.
The United States is much bigger than traditional automakers think.
Straubel told me that in the future, Tesla plans to build more gigabit cars around the world, "actually much bigger than this "--
It will build these on its own.
"It's not just a big building full of equipment," he added . ".
"Here's the idea of making machines, which is true.
This place is the embodiment of it.
"I think, he wants me to make the impression that once Tesla makes this amazing machine buzz, it will become unstoppable when starting a smaller machine.
Perpetual motion-motion device.
At the same time, the company's executives urged potential customers not to look at every product of Tesla in isolation, but to see it as part of the ecosystem.
Tesla's customers will soon be able to use the Tesla Solar Roof Tile during the day to charge the Tesla power wall unit full of gigabit batteriesBattery-
In the evening, Powerwall can charge the Tesla sedan.
Maybe customers like driving very much?
In this case, he or she may occasionally stop at one of the hundreds of Tesla "Superchargers" stations in the city or on the highway.
Or, the owner doesn't like driving at all, and prefers self-driving.
Tesla will soon cross our special moment, when humans begin to take their hands off their machines.
Musk promised in early last October: "We believe that every car has been fully autonomous since August . ".
"The day after I visited the Geely factory, I visited Tesla's California headquarters in Palo Alto and saw Doug Field, an executive who was involved in Model 3.
Its price starts at $35,000 and you can get an average mileage of 220 miles in case of full battery;
Models with large battery packs (
310 miles)
Starting at $44,000.
Even so, for the company, prices have fallen sharply, and the most basic configuration of the company's other cars starts at about $70,000.
I drove a Tesla Model S worth about $145,000 from Renault to Palo Alto; it was a four-
40-hour itinerary not included
Parking at Tesla charging station in Vacaville, California
And the neck of the car-
Breaking the acceleration seems like the drive may take half of the time except for the speed limit.
As the company's flagship Model, the Model S is equipped with several large LED screens, but still has the feeling of a traditional luxury car.
The smaller Model 3 is a completely different machine-
Very serious and serious.
A big touch
The screen in the center of the dashboard basically controls all the driving and internal settings of the car, while also monitoring the battery charging.
When I arrived in early September, the first generation of Model 3 had just come off the assembly line, and Field was an engineer who worked at Apple for a long time, I met a metal blue model in front of the office.
He slid to the passenger side and invited me to drive.
He said: "I will give you a quick direction and then we will drive away.
Field showed me the controls very quickly.
Not much, except for a few dials on the steering wheel.
The screen on the right is the dashboard of the car.
"It's looking forward to an era of autonomy, but it's also simpler and easier to make," Field explained.
It also means cheaper, which is crucial: Tesla concludes that every dollar saved on the cost of making a car means that more than 100 families can be purchased a year.
As we drove through Palo Alto, the car was flexible, responsive and had the same jump acceleration as the S-model.
But, to accommodate my speed and self-driving settings, I took some time to check the screen on the right.
Field told me that his team has come to the conclusion that it will be natural and intuitive for the younger generation.
"It's fun when you put young people in the car," he said . ".
"This is the way all children use technology.
"Children may navigate or place car orders more than they drive.
Tesla's design director, Franz von holzassen, later told me that when designing the interior of the car, he was faced with making a car that was both affordable and stylish, but the problems of cars related to the future.
If Model 3 becomes truly autonomous, there is a heated debate within the company about what to do.
Von holzassen's team believes that the car will drive less and more over time.
Therefore, the decision to abandon dialing and control makes sense, because the demand for driver information will be reduced, and the central screen can mark the route and arrival time and double as an entertainment center.
These will be essential tools.
Or, as von holzassen says, "The screen then becomes the hero of the vehicle.
All Tesla cars, including Model 3, are equipped with cameras and sensors;
These sensors are small radar and ultrasonic devices located around the outside of the car, and if appropriate software is finally developed, they can make the car self-driving.
Because every Tesla car has a cellular connection,the-
The improvement of air allocated by the company is a regular function --
For example, the acceleration or braking capability is adjusted by the uploaded instruction.
Sometimes, even after years of their departure from the factory, the extent to which the company is able to improve or change the performance of its cars can be shocking or disturbing, just as Tesla temporarily extended the battery range of some drivers fleeing Hurricane Irma in Florida this summer. Self-
Driving assured me that the field will eventually pass the right software, and Musk has repeatedly promoted the software to investors and customers, which will make Teslas more important than them.
In the case of the Association of Automotive Engineers, it has quantified the ability of cars to be considered self-
Driving, the vehicle will approach Level 5.
This level represents a safe, fully autonomous car that can operate anywhere and under any conditions without a driver.
Teslas is currently at level 2.
Their cameras, sensors and software support a more gentle feature called "enhanced autopilot" that costs an extra $5,000 in new Model S or Model 3
In specific road and weather conditions, the car can adjust the speed and braking in the traffic, automatic steering, automatic lane change, automatic parallel parking.
According to some industry rankings, these features now help Teslas become one of the safest cars on the road.
But after a fatal crash involving a Model S driver using an autopilot in Florida in May 2016, the company reconfigured what the car allowed.
For example, when I try to auto-steer my Model S during driving from Renault to Palo Alto, when I remove my hand from the steering wheel for a few seconds, the car often makes a distress call and warns me via a dashboard notification.
I was told that if this happens three times, the car will completely slow down, Park and cancel my self-driving privileges.
I pushed it.
Obviously, this car
And Tesla-
Drivers are also needed.
Can Teslas's current fleet become. V.
S is not just a technical problem for the company;
This may prove critical as Tesla strives to become a major automaker.
When Musk began publicly expressing his desire for Tesla in 2006, he posted what he called the "master plan" on the company's blog ".
He wrote that Tesla will transition from making an expensive small electric sports car to building a luxury electric car, expanding its manufacturing capacity and market share before finally entering the electric mass market.
Funds for one project will be used to fund each successive project.
The bigger idea is not to sell cool cars, or even fast cars, but to speed up the transition from gasoline and diesel to electricity.
Steve Jurvetson, an early venture investor at Tesla who is now on the Tesla board, told me that there is not much talk about self.
Drive the future at the beginning.
"I don't remember anyone discussing that driverless cars and driving were part of Tesla's original," he said . ". “It was a big-
It is enough to prove the success of the electric train.
As he and Musk know, there is no beginning yet --
A successful American car company in nearly a century.
In the summer of 2016, Musk updated his vision for the company --
"Overall Plan, Deux section.
"In the decade since the first part, the acceptance of electric vehicles has grown to an unexpected point for some traditional automakers to start talking about an inevitable transition to an era where all models are batteriespowered.
The whole country (like China)
Huge marketLike California.
Also considering a final ban on internal
Internal combustion engine. As E. V.
Technology seems to be on the rise and various factors outside the automotive industry are creating real potential for self
Driving vehicles: great advances in computers
Processing power, cheaper hardware sensors, better mobile connectivity, advances in artificial intelligence and enhanced map software.
Musk said in his updated master plan that every Tesla now has its own
The application of driving ability and "team learning"
A change in machine learning
One day it will help the company deliver a car that is 10 times more self-safe.
Driving mode when controlled by people.
Musk also explained a new basic goal for the company.
Tesla wants to "make your car make money for you when you don't use it," he said.
"In other words, any new Tesla can be part of a shared network at the right time, being able to take a taxi around to strangers while the owner is working, sleeping or doing anything.
Most American cars are parked about 95% of the time.
Tesla won't.
Just as Tesla's electric train makes American cars more efficient, the Tesla Network will also make cars more efficient. App-
Car-sharing networks already exist: these companies
For example, Turo and Getaround-
Unlike Zipcar because they depend on their peersto-
Arrange peer communication for rental housing.
Essentially, their functionality is similar to mobile Airbnbs, which in some cases have caused user outrage after driver crashes and insurance issues.
Tesla's network will further drive the concept, possibly involving thousands or millions of cars, all of which are already connected to the Internet.
However, I was told by a Tesla executive that if Tesla's cars were fully autonomous, the business network would likely not be successful.
He believes that if self-driving is shown to be much safer than manual driving, any concerns about insurance and lending the car to a risky driver will disappear.
It is also important that Autonomy makes the problem of getting the car to where it is next needed irrelevant --
It can be sent to wherever needed via mobile app.
It is crucial here that if the Tesla Network works, it can pay for electric vehicles like Model 3, which is called Tesla's cheap car, but with multiple options, the price can easily exceed $50,000.
If your car makes money for you when you don't use it, it will actually become a tool to take advantage of the advantages of the car. V.
Promote the market application of e-commerce. V. s.
In a few months, I often ask people from Tesla, as well as people from other places who are engaged in autonomous technology, how far away they are from themselves.
This may be the case in the future.
In two to five years, no clear consensus was reached.
I tend to think that the schedule may be extended further, depending on how strict we are with the regulation of these vehicles and how we agree to define autonomy.
Does this mean interstate driving on sunny days?
Or driving in a dedicated area of a city street?
Is the heavy rain from Boston to Washington a Class 5 night trip?
On a crowded street, a driverless taxi is under partial construction --
Orange cone, background, chaos
Like a nightclub?
Part of the debate involves hardware, and whether the sensors now collected by automotive engineers are integrated into their. V.
The United States can collect enough data to build a fully autonomous car.
These sensors typically include expensive LiDAR, cameras, and Lidar.
Technology that Tesla has so far refused to use. Many other A. V.
The researchers think this is important.
Lidar uses radio waves instead of radio waves to map and "read" the map around the car.
Musk promised that by the end of this year, Tesla will drive itself to the Coast entirely through autopilot.
Many competitors
Waymo and General Motors in particular
The same ambitious goal seems to be coming soon.
However, it is worth noting that class 5 vehicles have never been deployed publicly, and may even exist; the coast-to-
Musk suggested that self-driving coastal travel would not yet be an example of a driver sleeping on the steering wheel.
More importantly, there is no class 4 car, the vehicle is automatic
Driving in certain weather and geographical conditions is also provided with regular service.
In fact, when the driver
Auxiliary tools like autonomous driving can greatly reduce the crash rate, and no company or researchers have proved that robotic cars are safer in daily life than cars with human drivers.
An executive close to Musk told me that his boss believed in creating a real. V.
Is a problem that can be solved, a problem that may be less difficult than other problems he encounters in various business activities --
For example, build cheap reusable rockets for his other major company, SpaceX, or push Tesla's Model S to such an unlikely success.
This may indeed be true.
However, unlike other technological innovations, the development of driverless cars cannot rely on Moore's law, which the company expects to double its computing power every once in a while, it also provides a clear window for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to come.
Based on conversations with engineers. V.
Front line, the most difficult problem is to manipulate the car with sensors and software that can take a rich, clear picture of each element in the surrounding environment
People, bicycles, signs, obstacles
Then arrange the future with algorithms.
For Tesla, the challenge is as daunting as any engineer who is committed to solving the problem.
However, the urgency of Tesla's business model adds another layer of complexity.
In order to achieve sustainable development goals and achieve profitability, the company must produce a large number of electric, moving and increasingly affordable cars;
At the same time, in order to prepare for the future, Tesla has to make cars that ultimately do not need us.
Some of the most experienced researchers are working onV.
The United States sees it as two separate, possibly irreconcilable ambitions, and it makes more sense to focus on pure driverless cars, even if it turns out to be a very expensive proposition in the first place, instead of following Tesla's progressive policy, this will include rolling out the software on a regular basis until fewer and fewer drivers end up doing nothing.
A Silicon Valley engineer says the second approach is "The market pressure that will be applied to these technologies means you won't climb the safety and reliability curve" to build a real. V.
Make the vehicle affordable and keep the vehicle nervous.
Musk's optimism alone cannot change that.
The first company to succeed in Company. V.
Technology may not necessarily capture the market as Facebook does on social media.
Tesla may have time to make its current strategy work, and what is more important in the short term may be the company's advantages in battery and electric vehicles (
Assuming it can manage the shift to the masses
Market production).
Jurvetson, an early Tesla investor, told me that he thought the company had the best Labor
Intelligent system will become the leading industry in the future.
But he didn't set a time frame for it and didn't see it as a winner --take-all prospect.
Vivek Wadhwa, a famous tech entrepreneur and Tesla enthusiast, told me that he believes Tesla's success has a place in the smartphone market.
"In five years, Tesla will be Apple in the industry," he predicts, based on the fact that it is best suited to take advantage of the potential mix of E. V. and A. V. technologies.
But Wadhwa pointed out that mobile phones that use Google's operating system instead of Apple's operating system are the ones that dominate the world.
"Musk will be where Tim Cook is," he said . ".
"Tesla will be the iPhone of the car --
More elegant, better design.
Maybe safer.
Musk declined my request for an interview in a few months.
By the beginning of November, the number of Model 3 cars coming out of the factory had been well below Musk's promise, and the company's share price had fallen
When diving, it seems that there is a serious software and robot failure at the Gigabit factory.
Musk is said to be too busy to speak, which is not always consistent with his social activities --
Media posts: jokes, poems, photos of the tunnels he dug, links to stories about the dangers of artificial intelligence, in an example, videos of camping on the roof of Geely's factory.
The company's escape and secrets extend to itself
Driving a car is a topic it is not willing to discuss in detail.
A Tesla engineer I interviewed working on autonomous driving systems insisted that the company's camera and sensory hardware would be enough for his team to reach the goal it wanted as a near
The word goal refers to a car that has itself.
Driving ability is twice that of human driving ability (
Instead of 10 times the second overall plan).
By November, Musk told investors that the real goal is to make the system comparable to human drivers, which may require a more powerful computer to be installed in the car, and Tesla will exchange it for free if necessary.
Some customers have already paid $3,000 for Tesla's "self-help"
Package (
In addition to the $5,000 "enhanced self-driving)
According to Musk's guarantee, the new car has all the necessary hardware. Once the regulations and functional software are established, the new car will drive automatically.
There is no clear indication of whether these efforts are going on, and several engineers in charge of Tesla's Autopilot system have left the company over the past year.
At the beginning of October, Scott Miller, an executive who participated in GM's self-management
He publicly accused Musk of claiming that his car could provide self-driving services, "full of garbage"
Their current hardware drivers.
His claims echo those of some of the other Tesla critics I 've interviewed: Without a LIDAR or more expensive hardware approach, Musk's cars could be at a clear disadvantage.
Indeed, several people familiar with Company. V.
From the work itself
Given that there is no exact way to predict how long it will take for Tesla to meet its commitment to its customers, the driving method is a dangerous one.
In the best case, ifI.
The software breakthrough eventually turned cars like Model 3 into autonomous driving.
Musk may pull down what seems impossible today while driving the car.
In the worst case scenario, thousands of car owners will have cars that will not reach true. V.
I can only hope that the shared network of the master plan will become a reality one day.
Musk pointed out in November that Tesla's frustration should not cover up the fact that when the company launched the T-car in early 1900, some measures had grown faster than Ford.
He thinks more about his business than analysts on Wall Street.
In a recent TED interview, discussing his plans for the city on Mars, he thought it was wrong to think technology would get better over time.
"It will not improve automatically," he insisted . "
"It will only improve if a lot of people try to make it better, and in fact, I think it will degrade itself.
He cited the pyramids of Egypt and the water pipes of Rome, and how the knowledge of building them was lost hundreds or even thousands of years later.
At a time when the federal government would rather subsidize the growth of coal and fossils, this correlation is striking --
The fuel industry is comparable to renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Long before someone thought Tesla was a legitimate player in the automotive industry, Musk understood that no veteran carmaker would take risks and that Tesla could be an innovative force to accelerate our slow and slow traffic.
Steve Jurvetson told me to imagine that Tesla does not exist.
"What will the world look like?
I suspect this is no different from 10 years ago.
A bunch of hybrid cars
A bunch of noise about hydrogen-fueled cars.
You know, I don't think the world will be like today.
The whole country is saying that we will stop producing gasoline cars.
Considering that Musk has put Tesla's success in the industry equivalent to the store, and lacks the resources of mature automakers, the company's impact, both real and potential, is even more surprising.
He uses customer revenue, his wealth, venture capital, bank and government loans, investments from other automakers, and the US stock and bond market to effectively generate billions of dollarsDollar researchand-
Development Project.
In this way, he led the industry into a new era.
Now, his company has been hampered by manufacturing bottlenecks and by the luxury of self-commitment.
Driving, ready to find out if he is taking too many risks while laying the foundation for the electric and autonomous future.
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Jon Gerner often writes for the journal Science and Technology.
His last article is about NASA's Grace climate satellite.