Ch-ch-ch-changes

kabayiri

cells wrote: »

when i say pay kids 5p a car I mean pay Psychology graduates 5p a car to keep them off the dole

Difference between Science, Arts, and Psychology students :

Arts Lecturer walks into the room; says Good Morning.
The Arts students say Good Morning back.

Science Lecturer walks into the room; says Good Morning.
The Science students write this down.

Psychology Lecturer walks into the room; says Good Morning.
The Psychology students break up into small groups to discuss the greeting, and its implications

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

Thanks to Gen and Cells for threads like this.

It's easy to get lost in the bickering on other threads about Scotland or house prices.

Meanwhile, things continue to change all around us. There is no harm in speculating and projecting on these changes.

What is the state's role in all of this though? Do they sit idly by and pretend "market forces" do it's trick? Do they prod with various initiatives, but generally hands off?

It wasn't so long ago that the internet was a collection of interesting technologies with little more than promise. Now, on a commercial level, it's basically a handful of American megacorps with the rest feeding off scraps.

Will the same happen with transport?

A thought, apropos of nothing.

Microsoft very famously made PC manufacturers into commodity producers. So will Tesla make Toyota into a commodity producer or will Toyota use batteries like they use petrol currently.

Swap out batteries imply the latter, propitiatory one the former.

cells

kabayiri wrote: »

Thanks to Gen and Cells for threads like this.

It's easy to get lost in the bickering on other threads about Scotland or house prices.

Meanwhile, things continue to change all around us. There is no harm in speculating and projecting on these changes.

What is the state's role in all of this though? Do they sit idly by and pretend "market forces" do it's trick? Do they prod with various initiatives, but generally hands off?

It wasn't so long ago that the internet was a collection of interesting technologies with little more than promise. Now, on a commercial level, it's basically a handful of American megacorps with the rest feeding off scraps.

Will the same happen with transport?

in days gone by the state used to invest in bringing technology to market as the state was owner of industry and from time to time it went on big wars where money was no object and thrown at developing new things.

But post WW2 the state has taken a big step back in that regard and if anything its put blocks in place. The last big UK state lead innovations and industry support was probably the jet age and maybe arguably the gen2 AGR reactors.

the USA is special in that it has some megacorps with megabucks who seem to think its ok to spend a few percent of the profit on crazy ideas. There are also silicon valley funders who will fund crazy idea companies. None of that exists in the UK or anywhere else for that matter (maybe you could argue it exists in china to some extent via state direct or indirect)

So the USA will be the leader in self drive cars (google/tesla) and will continue to be the leader in software and be the leader in most things. The attitude of just do it is what allows america to be richer than Europe. Even the car manufacturers of europe or japan are going to the USA to test their stuff

michaels

Presumably the iCar will not do anything any existing car will do but cost 3x as much and you will only be able to buy extras like journeys from Apple at huge cost which will be open source and free with adverts from all other manufacturers and yet the apple version will be incredibly popular.

cells

michaels wrote: »

Presumably the iCar will not do anything any exiting car will do but cost 3x as much and you will only be able to buy extras like journeys from Apple at huge cost which will be open source and free with adverts from all other manufacturers and yet the apple version will be incredibly popular.

the success of apple is that their products are expensive and high margin but cheap enough that everyone can actually afford them. Fine a £15 per month mobile contract is cheaper than a £40 per month contract but both are affordable

That probably wont be the case with cars. A £20,000 standard car or a £80,000 apple car?

Of course, apple, google, tesla....they all see that a self drive taxi service would be extremely profitable and add >trillion dollars to their market cap

antrobus

cells wrote: »

...But post WW2 the state has taken a big step back in that regard and if anything its put blocks in place. The last big UK state lead innovations and industry support was probably the jet age and maybe arguably the gen2 AGR reactors....

That old chestnut. Which was the biggest waste of money; Concorde or AGR?

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

Presumably the iCar will not do anything any existing car will do but cost 3x as much and you will only be able to buy extras like journeys from Apple at huge cost which will be open source and free with adverts from all other manufacturers and yet the apple version will be incredibly popular.

Because it will look really cool.:)

P.S. I thought it was going to be the iMove rather than the iCar.

cells

antrobus wrote: »

That old chestnut. Which was the biggest waste of money; Concorde or AGR?

even private business fails more often than they succeed.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

A thought, apropos of nothing.

Microsoft very famously made PC manufacturers into commodity producers. So will Tesla make Toyota into a commodity producer or will Toyota use batteries like they use petrol currently.

Swap out batteries imply the latter, propitiatory one the former.

I've worked for Fleet Lease outfits, the bigger ones becoming part of US corporations.

The actual car wasn't that important to the US owners. It was just a physical thing to attach the financial contract to. Google out-microsofted Microsoft by making the Software platform free to acquire, and building in profit through dominance in the internet ad space. The hardware and software are commodity in this case.

Everything was centred on growth for US owners too, which gives a strong focus in markets which are emerging. Of course, when things turn down a notch like during the GFC it's bad news.

antrobus

cells wrote: »

even private business fails more often than they succeed.

Yes, but in 1976 the economist David Henderson described Concorde and AGR as being "two of the three worst civil investment decisions in the history of mankind". They were both massive failures that burnt up prodigously large amounts of cash.

P.S. If anyone is interested, the other worst civil investment decision was the Tupolev TU-144. Being, of course, the Soviet version of Concorde. Which it was, given that the Soviets stole the plans from the French in the first place. So it would be no surprise that it failed too.