When reading a post with a keyboard, you can type the keys , and . to move backwards and forward between posts! You can also press 'return' to read through posts one at a time. There's freedom in Shrewd'm!
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 19
Apple has increasingly shifted to a BYD partnership across China, Vietnam, and India. BYD currently has roughly 100,000 employees and 10,000 engineers dedicated to the Apple supply chain — roughly 1/9th of their total employees and 1/12th of their engineers. This isn’t just assembly, but also developing much of the technology within Apple devices and producing a large share of the components. If you own a recent Apple device, much of it is likely from BYD.
BYD also partnered with Apple to develop its cancelled EV. And BYD is partnering to develop Apple’s anticipated next-generation smart home products, as the exclusive manufacturer of the HomePod. Those smart home systems offer the potential to significantly reduce residential energy consumption.
But maybe you don’t like Apple? BYD is also a major supplier of Samsung (who briefly owned part of the company). They also produce phones for Huawei and have an ADAS partnership. BYD also makes Xiaomi phones and supplies technology in the SU7. They also partner with Oppo on devices and vehicle integration. And they are partnering with NVIDIA to develop Ai-enabled industrial robots….
When people realize that China now educates as many degreed engineers in a little over a year as the entire US engineering workforce, many get scared. BYD’s R&D engineering workforce alone is easily more than all US-based automakers combined. A multitude of skilled technicians and other professionals also contribute to the effort. All with a focus on the disruptive clean technology that also scares many people.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/12/06/byd-is-pushin...US auto industry seems destined to go the way of the US steel industry. They will need those tariffs to survive.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Some early info starting to leak out on the Cybercab:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZFO_QSNXsThis will also be available to the public for about 30K. Great profit margin at that price.
Pennies per mile to fuel this vehicle. Probably last for a million miles with very low maintenance costs. No driver needed. Built by robots. They're going to open factories around the world to produce it.
Even with 100K engineers, BYD can't build this. Why would you invest in the company that builds one of BYD's vehicles instead of this? I don't get it.
Now, if you want one of the new Jags I completely understand that.😃
No. of Recommendations: 1
Even with 100K engineers, BYD can't build this.
Why couldn't they make one with 100k engineers? Or even 10k engineers?
No. of Recommendations: 2
No. of Recommendations: 0
And the Buffett Indicator for China is 62%. So, maybe a fertile ground for stock selection. Perhaps even BYD.
Aussi
No. of Recommendations: 2
BYD New Hybrid Cars: Ultra-Long 2,000 km Range For Under $14,000
Smart move to avoid import tariffs. But, electric will win in the end.
I have a lot of respect for BYD. I owned shares for a long time. Great CEO. I got badly burned when the USG seized my Russian securities. (Gotta say I didn't see THAT coming.) Biotech and enemies of the USA aren't on my play list until the bad taste leaves my mouth.
No. of Recommendations: 13
Some early info starting to leak out on the Cybercab:
...
Even with 100K engineers, BYD can't build this.
I dunno
How many engineers does it take to realize that a cab needs more than two seats?*
I just assume the "cybercab" is a show car like the old Morotama days.
Jim
* Three. Two to sit in the first car, and one to sit in the one following it.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Damn, I thought that Elon had designed the perfect car for you. Slender, so it fits on Monaco's narrow streets. Comfortable, spacious, and easy for you and Muffy to get in and out of when gaming at the casino. (We know how she loves her full length evening dresses and four inch heels.) No need to park or hire a driver for the trip back up the mountain after a few glasses of champagne. Best of all, it already comes in gold, so, no need to have it customized.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Even with 100K engineers, BYD can't build this.
Why couldn't they make one with 100k engineers? Or even 10k engineers?
It's the hardest problem man has ever solved. Requires artificial general intelligence. But more than that, it requires tens of billions in investment for the latest chips, hundreds of billions of investment in cars outfitted with inference computers, cameras and over-the-air connections. You need to have the ability to produce the best lowest cost electric vehicles and distribute and service them around the world. You need the world's best engineers (not the most). And then when the problem is solved, you need to push hard to produce tens of millions of these vehicles to blanket the world with a dense network that no competitor can breech. At the same time, you continue to improve the product and expand it to buses and semis.
Why won't other car companies eventually catch up? Same reason StarLink won't be caught. You need the network to make it work. (Who wants to spend hundreds of Billions to try and catch them? Good luck to Bezos, he's going to need it.) The cars talk to each other. Learn how to drive from each other. Lone wolf or part of a pack? And when the pack dominates an area they don't let others gain a foothold.
There was a point where Apple went from tech company to consumer product company with a great product protected by a great moat. I submit that the Cybercab is one of those revolutionary products protected by a great network and not just another car. It's not obvious yet, but people are starting to figure it out.
No. of Recommendations: 6
mungo:
I dunno
How many engineers does it take to realize that a cab needs more than two seats?*
I guess it takes more engineers to realize this than I happen to have sitting in front of my terminal right now :)
It's engineers thinking like that that resulted in the F-35. THe cab/plane must be all things to all people. That drives up its size and its cost and that gets carried with it to every mission it takes, including the ones that could have been done by a cheaper car/plane.
Let me be clearer.
A LOT of cab rides are for only 1 or 2 passengers. Obviously (I hope) these are served more economically by a 2-seater cab than by a larger cab.
Some cab rides are for more than 2 passengers. Possibly these are served more economically by a larger cab, but not if the usage of larger cabs for larger passenger groups is less intense than the average for small cabs. That is, a small cab utilized 90% of the time it is on the road and a larger cab utilized FOR LARGER GROUPS only 50% of the time it is on the road, it may well be that serving larger groups is cheaper with only small cabs deployed.
HOW MUCH cheaper would having equally well utilized larger cabs for larger groups than using multiple smaller cabs? Well, whatever that number is, it becomes less favorable with auto-taxis vs real taxis since the overall cost of operations of cabs has gone down, so the "waste" in using two small cabs for a larger group is reduced over the current case.
SO WHY do the vast majority of companies use larger cabs now? I'm going to guess, tell me if you think I'm nuts, it is because the driver is the most expensive input into the cab ride. SO relative to driverless cabs, the amount you should be willing to spend to minimize the number of drivers is higher now than it will be when cabs are driverless.
If you were going to dip your toe in to this new market what might be a reasonable way? How about: design the minimum cost vehicle that will be successful in that market. If it only takes 2 passengers are we being stupid? Well, if the cab is successful, given the incredibly large number of rides that are 1 or 2 persons only, and the likelihood that those go UP as a proportion of all rides as the cost to provide them goes down, it could be years before Tesla was able to saturate the market with 2 passenger cabs. And what, exactly, stops them from developing additional vehicles to fill in the niches (groups of 3 or 4 for example) more effectively as the market develops?
But surely the fact that Tesla hasn't thought of that is a bad sign? Well actually this was explicitly Tesla's style of thinking in starting with the Roadster, than a large expensive sedan, then a large expensive SUV, then a smaller sedan, then a smaller SUV. And what high price did Tesla pay for this strategy? Considering they sold every car they could make and averaged about 50% a year in production volume increases, I'm going to say they were right.
My apologies if I seem to have taken your post too seriously.
R:)
No. of Recommendations: 1
Agree with your reasoning, RalphCramden.
SO WHY do the vast majority of companies use larger cabs now?
How about... no one makes taxis, companies make cars, most of which are bought by regular people who for obvious reasons want a back seat. So that's what taxi-drivers buy. And then on top of that, many taxis are used by the taxi driver as their regular car, when they are not working. And then, there is the tradition of sitting in the back seat, when you take a taxi with a driver in the front seat. There are a few cars that come without a back seat, but then, when you have a driver driving them, that means only 1 spot left for the passenger, and while 3 passengers or more at the same time is fairly unusual, having 2 passengers at a time is quite common. So a 2-seater with just one seat for the passenger would mean the driver would have to turn down a lot of rides.
But it seems to me the major problem with the idea of a cybercab is that we may still be a long way away from having the software ready to use it. What would be your over/under on the time frame when these things could be functional? I haven't followed the latest news about full self driving, but my impression was that many experts still think we are a decade away.
dtb
No. of Recommendations: 6
How about... no one makes taxis, companies make cars, most of which are bought by regular people who for obvious reasons want a back seat. So that's what taxi-drivers buy.
That's not entirely true. The TX4 (London Black Cab) is a purpose-built taxi in use in London and many cities throughout the world. The Toyota Comfort and Nissan Crew are also primarily designed as taxis. Even the venerable Crown Vic which was not primarily designed as a taxi (as far as I know) but has a factory taxi configuration which beefed up suspension, interior dividers, etc.
I could well be as you seem to suggest that most cab rides are two or fewer passengers, so therefore a Robotaxi could sacrifice two seats and two doors in exchange for lower production costs. If you have a group of three you just take two cabs.
But I'm skeptical this is happening in the near future. Tesla doesn't even appear to be the leader in autonomous driving, and even the leaders don't appear to be very close.
