Jason Cammisa gets it- these manufacturers maybe obsolete soon

Great video of the most important car ever made.

I get the importance of the Model S, but let's not forget the Model T.

Not only did it put America on wheels by making automobiles accessible to the middle class, it seeded the growth of the American roadway system (although Henry Ford declined to invest in it, preferring to let government take on the task), put F. W. Taylor's seminal theories of scientific management to their first real tests, spawned the widespread adoption of assembly line manufacturing, and (in tandem with Harvey Firestone, et al.) laid the foundations of vertical integration.
 
Not sure I would say "most important car ever made". I would cosign Jason C's assertion of "most important car of our lifetime". As @hmp10 has pointed out, Model T changed an entire society and pretty much invented the middle class through the growth of manufacturing in the US.
 
Not sure I would say "most important car ever made". I would cosign Jason C's assertion of "most important car of our lifetime". As @hmp10 has pointed out, Model T changed an entire society and pretty much invented the middle class through the growth of manufacturing in the US.
Agree, stand corrected!
 
I will hold judgement, but if 25 years all cars are EV then you can argue it's impact may be larger than the Model T on pure volume and pollution reduction. The Model T basically invented mass smog:)
 
Not sure I would say "most important car ever made". I would cosign Jason C's assertion of "most important car of our lifetime". As @hmp10 has pointed out, Model T changed an entire society and pretty much invented the middle class through the growth of manufacturing in the US.
Agree, stand corrected
 
This is a fascinating look at the car industry as well as a warning siren about the U.S.'s myopic and ultimately futile attempts to hang onto the fossil-fuel era. And I get why Cammisa chose to avoid the mention of individuals here. But the "Tesla" he constantly referred to is a legal entity that actually produced nothing. The Model S was produced by individuals. And one of the two most important individuals was Peter Rawlinson, the Chief Engineer of the Model S.

When Rawlinson was recruited to Tesla, he found a Model S in the works that he realized was unworkable. He then convinced Elon Musk that the project had to be started over. Musk reluctantly agreed, mandating only that Rawlinson work within the body shell design that was already locked in.

More than any other single individual, the original Model S is the work of Peter Rawlinson. Many of the things that so impressed Cammisa on his first drive -- the range, the power, the handling -- were the result of Peter Rawlinson's influence.

And they were the things that Rawlinson brought to Lucid and that formed the core of its identity. As far as I know, Rawlinson is the only person in automotive history whose first automobiles at two difference companies yielded Car of the Year awards upon debut.

And it should be noted that his second product, the Lucid Air, has wound up outselling the Model S as the most-sold luxury EV sedan in the world.
 
Hundred percent agree. People think Elon is an engineer, but he designs nothing.

He got wealthy from PayPal (and was fired) but has made his name providing funding, vision, and hiring great talent to achieve his goals. I am sure there are other behind-the-scenes figures at SpaceX, Tesla, xAI who are unsung but are the true geniuses. Tesla has been bleeding talent for years in the Bay Area, as insiders know, which is good for us, Lucid, and Rawlinson.

Unfortunately, Elon absorbs and now believes his PR persona of a "design genius" from media adoration and makes unwise self-involved decisions nowadays.

Just look at how Twitter stock has soared!
(with apologies to any of his fans on this forum)
 
has made his name providing funding, vision, and hiring great talent to achieve his goals.
Those are extremely rare and very noteworthy abilities...

I don't like his more recent, self-absorbed behavior either, but he is a truly brilliant human being who is fostering major accomplishments in areas he gets involved in...
 
Those are extremely rare and very noteworthy abilities...

I don't like his more recent, self-absorbed behavior either, but he is a truly brilliant human being who is fostering major accomplishments in areas he gets involved in...
You have summed it up nicely. Personality aside, he has changed the planet, for sure.
 
Those are extremely rare and very noteworthy abilities...
Maybe. He’s also thrown a lot of spaghetti at the walls and some of it has stuck; with enough at-bats, even a mediocre entrepreneur could build a big business or two. Elon is far from mediocre, but not all of efforts have been as Herculean as they seem at first glance.

And many of them have failed. I’m not dogging him for that, but it’s undeniably true. His secret is perseverance/determination combined with “saying yes” and trying many things, not a “brilliant engineering mind.”
 
Hundred percent agree. People think Elon is an engineer, but he designs nothing.

He got wealthy from PayPal (and was fired) but has made his name providing funding, vision, and hiring great talent to achieve his goals. I am sure there are other behind-the-scenes figures at SpaceX, Tesla, xAI who are unsung but are the true geniuses. Tesla has been bleeding talent for years in the Bay Area, as insiders know, which is good for us, Lucid, and Rawlinson.

Unfortunately, Elon absorbs and now believes his PR persona of a "design genius" from media adoration and makes unwise self-involved decisions nowadays.

Just look at how Twitter stock has soared!
(with apologies to any of his fans on this forum)
Exactly, he just pays the money, gets others to solve the problems, and takes credit. He is no genius in my book. And he lies all the time.
 
Exactly, he just pays the money, gets others to solve the problems, and takes credit. He is no genius in my book. And he lies all the time.
In all fairness to Elon Musk, you do have to be capable of providing vision and direction and discerning what is real and what is pie-in-the sky. Elon's visions have resulted in tasking a lot of what people would have considered pie-in-the-sky and making it reality. That requires recognizing talent that can make that happen and it requires being knowledgeable enough to understand what that talent is telling you. Politics aside.
 
In all fairness to Elon Musk, you do have to be capable of providing vision and direction and discerning what is real and what is pie-in-the sky. Elon's visions have resulted in tasking a lot of what people would have considered pie-in-the-sky and making it reality. That requires recognizing talent that can make that happen and it requires being knowledgeable enough to understand what that talent is telling you. Politics aside.
He wasn't the founder of Tesla ideology. But I will give him credit for Space X. Everything else is hogwash until proven. Even FSD is a lie as of now. He has been lying about it for almost a decade. Took up to 15k from his customers for FSD, banked the money, made interest of it and still kept it. Such unscrupulous actions do not warrant that much praise.

And he perfectly knew back in 2018 his cars didnt have the hardware necessary, he therefore lied. Or he is just plain stupid and got lucky. Either way you cut it, it was a scam.

You should listen to his recent earnings call, when asked about FSD...."urrrrr....ummmm....." is all you heard.

And actually it was Rawlinson who made it happen, not Musk genius.
 
He wasn't the founder of Tesla ideology. But I will give him credit for Space X. Everything else is hogwash until proven. Even FSD is a lie as of now. He has been lying about it for almost a decade. Took up to 15k from his customers for FSD, banked the money, made interest of it and still kept it. Such unscrupulous actions do not warrant that much praise.

And he perfectly knew back in 2018 his cars didnt have the hardware necessary, he therefore lied. Or he is just plain stupid and got lucky. Either way you cut it, it was a scam.

You should listen to his recent earnings call, when asked about FSD...."urrrrr....ummmm....." is all you heard.

And actually it was Rawlinson who made it happen, not Musk genius.
Cup half full: FSD is the best self-driving application available to owners of personal vehicles. Period. And it operates using only cameras, so to say that the hardware to make it work was not there in 2018 is just not true. There is a difference between being wrong and lying. Early on Musk and his team at Tesla assumed that ultrasonic sensors and possibly also Lidar were required to enable point-to-point navigation. The fact that FSD works as well as it does now with only cameras is amazing and would not have happened had Musk not pushed his teams to develop it.

Cup half empty: Musk's continuous promises that it would be available by <pick a date> only to get to the date and hear the resounding sound of crickets is very very annoying. But, again, I would categorize it as being wrong as opposed to lying. I am not apologizing for Musk. I don't even like him. But I'm not gonna let the idea that I don't like him position my opinions such as to not give him credit where it's due. He had to be smart enough to understand the camera only functionality and diligent enough to authorize taking the chance of developing the system and get results that surpass systems that also use ultrasonics and Lidar.

Assuming Rawlinson was the genius that cracked the solution (personally I think he was gone by the time Tesla figured it out), Musk had to be confident enough with Rawlinson's findings to give the green light for the change in direction. If Rawlinson was responsible for today's FSD functionality, why doesn't DDP have point-to-point capability, with or without ultrasonic and Lidar?
 
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