“Elon Musk thinks his robot software can make Tesla Inc. worth as much as Apple Inc. He has the chance to prove it very soon,” Jeremy C. Owens reports for MarketWatch. “In three different facilities spread across America, Tesla’s robot-manufacturing prowess is about to show its worth. If Musk — who, to his credit, is building rockets that can land already — can accomplish his accelerated ambitions for automated manufacturing, Tesla would at least own a piece of the pipeline over Apple.”
“Musk said in 2015 that Tesla could achieve a $700 billion market cap in 10 years, and he prefaced his reiteration Wednesday with, ‘I may be completely delusional,'” Owens reports. “When an analyst asked Musk to update his bold statement in an earnings call, the CEO said it would ‘heavily involve Tesla going at the machine that builds the machine… Which involves, by the way, a tremendous amount of software,’ he explained. ‘This is not just a bunch of robots that are sitting there. It’s programming of the robots and how they interact. And it’s far more complex than the software in the car.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
“Apple has used contract manufacturing to build its massively popular iPhone, and contracts with suppliers for batteries, just like most of its other parts (and as Tesla does for its other car parts). Otherwise, the companies similarly own a large part of the experience, with styled retail locations that have repair stations and software that can be remotely updated,” Owens reports. “Apple, however, has a massive head start on Tesla. It has sold more than a billion iPhones, iPads and Macs in the last decade, while Tesla has yet to sell a million cars in its lifetime. Apple also has actual and very large profits. In fact, Apple’s quarterly profit, announced Tuesday, eclipsed Tesla’s full-year revenue in 2016.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Whatever lights a fire under Apple’s collective ass is fine by us.
The robots will come eventually. There are too many benefits. They don’t get tired. They don’t make mistakes. — MacDailyNews, December 5, 2014
SEE ALSO:
The depiction of robots in popular entertainment has destroyed our objectivity – April 25, 2017
Apple permit reveals self-driving car testers include NASA roboticists – April 24, 2017
Bill Gates wants to tax ‘job-killing’ robots – March 27, 2017
President Trump’s vision of massive U.S. Apple iPhone assembly hinges on robotics – March 17, 2017
Virginia becomes first U.S. state to legalize delivery robots – March 2, 2017
Chinese factory replaces 90% of human workers with robots; production rises by 250%, defects drop by 80% – February 7, 2017
Foxconn has 10 lights-out production lines, aims to fully automate entire factories – December 30, 2016
Apple iPhone production in the U.S.is actually straightforward and not expensive – November 24, 2016
Apple assembler Foxconn now has 40,000 ‘Foxbot’ robots working at factories in China – October 5, 2016
Apple supplier Foxconn replaces 60,000 factory workers with robots – May 25, 2016
Robot software that run robots that will makes things that no one will buy because there will be few jobs.
Yeah, ironic that all these silicon valley billionaires/liberals are putting the lower-class people out of work. They’ve already outsourced and H1-B’d the middle class to death, now it will be beggars and them. Awesome.
Wealthy corporates, the connected, and their legislators always want to find ways to fire poor people.
As completely automated industries can churn enough goods and services to meet the needs of the populace, universal basic income will become inevitable. Which poses its own set of challenges, however it will be that of or some kind of truly awful dystopia
Yes, and monkeys will fly out of my butt. Looking forward to that.
Not my butt, not my monkeys.
I like Elon, but, I always wonder about those CEOs who are always on to the “next thing” when they haven’t finished the previous thing.
Here’s to the misfits who don’t need the taxpayer to be forced to subsidize their he misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers who don’t have to steal other peoples money to build their dream. The round pegs who can do something great that is so good it makes money. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they want your money. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
There’s no “finished” in sight for the industries Musk is working on, though. SpaceX rockets and Tesla’s cars are still works in progress, successful as they have been so far. SolarCity has not yet proved itself, but has definite potential.
I think the claim about a $700B market cap in 10 years is a bit of CEO grandstanding, but unlike many others, he’s actually earned it, especially after acknowledging it may be totally delusional.
Yeah right!
That is a long shot Elon… Elon? Elon!? Elon!! Reboot!
When I was at school in the 60s and robots were all the rage and would be taking over all the jobs the big question was always so what do we all do to earn money and in light of that, who is going to be able to buy the products these robots produce unless that is solved. Well of course it never came about and was forgotten… till now. So in the mean time has anyone actually solved this potential problem yet? Because like it or not I can’t see any way that capitalism can actually produce one on its own which delightfully is going to piss off a lot on here.
Should robots or androids no longer need true humans, they can simply kill them off humans and sell the products they make to themselves with fake money, you know like right now, or use other media of exchange.
While I say this tongue-in-cheek, a colleague in Occupy LA is convinced that robots and androds is the future ideal. I completely disagree. I think that humans are here to develop their human capabilities for the goodness and morality of the commons.
Many think our best chance is to become cyborgs ourselves, and in fact, we are increasingly introducing more manufactured parts of the human body – to repair – and in time to augment our capabilities.
You don’t say what that that “best chance” is geared toward.
If it’s mere survival – but survival of what? – then I question its quality.
A corporation is already a person with many Constitutional guarantees. This could lead to a robot or android in that corporation to get full Constitutional guarantees should its creators make it look like a sympathetic human testifying before the Human Rights committee to give it full rights.
At that time, should it occur, I call on all my neo-Mongol friends to smash the machine.
Channeling / paraphrasing Bob Newhart. Image the day when one robot has to fire another robot, I imagine it might go something like this …
Funny how Apple seems to be able to only do one at a time and Elon can do several big things at once.