German Leaders at Odds with Industry Over Electric Cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/german-government-at-odds-with-industry-over-electric-cars-a-1123436.html <comment><USER2> German here. My Problem with the German Car Industry is that they still see the car as a product, not as a platform. A car is a major investment and one that sticks to me for a while. I must rely on the car manufactures to continuously push updates and improve the lane-keeping assistant etc. (Maybe even the style of the UI?). I don't see this happening, at all. The lane keeping assistants get shipped and then forgotten, everybody is working on a new integration that is maybe coming out in years (crazy to think about if your only used to software-cycles). I don't want to be in the situation that i can't pair my smartphone with my car next year because mercedes doesn't bother updating it's software. Tesla does OTA updates and sees it's car as a platform, at least in my perspective. Software is all i know and they don't understand software yet. Softwares lives, unsupported software is dead.

I don't think that they are completely missing the electric car trend. They are being cautious, but everybody is at least getting it's feet wet. I hope they can then "just" scale their production. I don't think this is enough, but i hope they can turn around quickly enough when this gets serious.

But overall the future doesn't look too good.

Besides, i don't have the money right now to buy a car (also i don't want to).

<comment><USER3> As someone who worked at one of the OEMs in the german automotive industry I can second this. However the big problem is that the complete engineering process that many of those companies have does not allow for any updates and a car platform. The process is mostly: You write dozens of specifications for specific components of a car and then get contracts with external suppliers that develop and produce those. After the development cycle for a specific model is over (~3-4years) all these components have been integrated into a complete car that gets sold. When the next development cycle starts basically everything is done from the beginning, since the components may be developed and produced by completely different suppliers. So no chance to update anything, since the component might have not only different hardware, but also completely different software - even though it might look the same from user perspective. One way to solve this would be to develop more software and components in-house in order to continuously improve them. But as this is against the established engineering process it will only be very slowly introduced - if at all. In addition to that these companies mostly don't understand software (and software development), so the results won't be great in the beginning.

<comment><USER4> BMW has a subsidiary in Ulm (BMW Car-IT) working on the next head unit. This will be designed and engineered in-house, at least to a large extent. Any opinion on that? The current head unit generation is apparently sourced from a 3rd party. I interviewed there once, it was almost funny how much they stressed that they're a software company, not a car company, kind of like self-hypnosis. (Disclosure: I didn't get the job, neither wanted it after seeing the situation on-site; didn't fit into their culture.) (Fun fact: Company is full of ex-Nokians who they apparently scooped up when the local Nokia subsidiary had layoffs.)

<comment><USER2> A bit off-topic. I recently had to endure an azure evangelist telling me on literally every slide that they are now open (they had a big blue "open"-rectangle on the upper-right edge). A moment later i got very, very frustrated because a feature i had to use didn't work with the java-library ([https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for- java/issues/465](https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-java/issues/465) open since February!), the node.js library and the Rest interface lacked critical features so i was unable to authenticate programmatically (i think). Since i am working on a Mac and don't have windows, i couldn't use the C# library because it required dlls. In the end I had to code a simple proxy server in C# in a text-editor on my mac and then push it to a azure server running windows, compile it there and run it, just to get the data to my program. It was really a horrible experience. Since then i just assume that somebody that really has to stress something has in reality big problems/deficits in dealing with it.

<comment><USER5> Huh? But you can use C# on a Mac... I should know, I just came home from doing that all day at work. .NET Core works great on Mac, and imports many dlls just fine.

That being said if it was quite an old dll, and never compiled under PCL or netstandard, maybe not. There's still Mono, but, well, I can definitely understand reluctance in this case, and indeed would choose a different way in a different language myself, if that was my only option left that way.

<comment><USER2> if i remember correctly the DLL was responsible for the library to not be portable. It might be that i don't remember this correctly, but some crucial part was not available so i could not use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I worked together with many Japanese CE companies during the transition to MP3. At first I was surprised why they were so slow to adapt and were happy to work with the music industry who tried to ban unprotected MP3s and planned to sell MP3s for $5. It went against everything that consumers wanted at the time.

But... once you saw that these companies employed so many terrific engineers who could build tiny miniaturized drives for tape decks, laser pickups that could withstand vibrations, etc... it was understandable. All these engineers, of which many were in their 50s were about to lose their value and their expertise. The company tried to retrain quite a few of them to S/W engineering. It was heartbreaking how ashamed many of them were about their struggles.

The German ethos is quite similar to Japan. A prime responsibility is employment and valuing their workforce. That is why they are so fearful of a change in the entire eco-system of the internal combustion engine.

<comment><USER7> German here and no offense taken, but: What are your grounds for assuming that it is a nation's work ethos that is keeping companies from innovating? How is a multinational's German work ethos keeping it's Indian or US-American employees from innovating? Why aren't German Ford-Workers failing in Germany because of their american work ethos?

It is a rather cajoling prejudice. But in my experience of working in big multinational companies (DAX or DJI enterprises) change isn't prohibited by management's guilt or a society's taboo of layoffs. Instead it's the sheer number of employees, responsibilities and added layers of business-structure.

What's adding to the complexity of business structure is that with every country it operates in, new regulations and country specifics are to be dealt with. No new merger or acquisition will result in equilibrium of efficiency. You may have to - out of the most ridiculous reasons - work with a team that's located in another company, city or time-zone - or complete different culture, which means more overhead.

I think this work ethos cliche stems from a misconception. Yes, in Japan as in Germany old employees are guarded like infants. But that's often due to the old contracts that they got [1]. Those were granted seldomly since. Instead most of these companies (or rather their work pipelines) are filled with temp staff, external contractors and suppliers. There is no "ethos" protecting those people from being fired immediately.

[1] Contracts of war-torn countries. Contracts of countries that just years before believed that they would rule the world and now had to beg for glimpses of sovereignty. Rebuilding the economy was more than about jobs. It was about the gaining back sovereignty. That's why firing those 50 year olds is more expensive than keeping them. And thats why the companies at the same time try to dodge the necessity of having to employ someone just because some external market demand.

<comment><USER8> Forget the ethos part and read the first two paragraphs. He's saying that there are a bunch of older people who know one domain and they aren't ready for the transition to the next.

Then he says that he sees a parallel in where Germany is today. Frankly, so do I. VW bet on diesel and gamed the system. It's not the cheating that is the big problem, it's the investment in diesel when cities are full of smog and the world is moving to electric.

In 10 years, heck, maybe in a year or two, that is going to look like a really really bad idea.

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, Daimler is pretty well established in autonomous driving (specifically trucks). I don't think any of the German car makers are incapable of providing a good electric car but I think Tesla is way ahead of all of them due to their culture and "software mindset" for lack of a better word.

From my outsider looking in perspective I'd say BMW is the furthest along the engineering-software spectrum as they are very active in Usability/UX and some other areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been around for long enough to see how the German car industry reacted to safety belts, crash safety requirements, catalytic filters and tighter emission rules. Every time they claimed that it would hurt business and cost jobs. But they did perfectly fine or even used the new features as selling point eventually.

It's pretty safe to ignore objections from industry. Most of the time they just don't want to adapt and keep doing business as usual.

<comment><USER11> Um, the Germans invented and pioneered all those safety things. Mercedes had crumple zones and collapsible steering columns in the 1960s. They were among the first with seat belts as standard, ditto airbags. They probably did object to the emissions stuff because that reduced performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Quite interesting -- German government wants to keep the valuable parts of future manufacturing processes in Germany whereas the companies don't care where their future manufacturing value comes from and will remain more interested in optimizing for their current revenue stream for some amount of time in terms of how they deal with the German governments. That revenue will eventually disappear though ... I wonder if they could put a hefty tax on the gas powered cars but offer a rebate for that tax for every electric car sold that is proportionate to the amount of the electric car value that was domestically produced. Investment in domestic electric car production would then become a direct mechanism for preserving their existing revenue stream while forcing them to set themselves up for domestic production of electric cars in the future ...

<comment><USER13> I am pretty sure that would violate a lot of international trade agreements.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately China seems to be engaged in exactly the same sort of behaviour. 1 in 7 cars has to be electric (fair enough), but the electric car has to be manufactured by a company owned by Chinese citizens. It's a pity that Donald Trump is going to dismantle the multilateral attempts to make China play by the same rules as everyone else.

<comment><USER15> If that's all the TPP were about, it wouldn't be so dreadful or maligned by so many people.

That would be something I could support.

<comment><USER14> Yes, fair enough, there were a lot of problems with it. The issue is I think Trump is opposed not just to the detail of the proposed deal, but to multilateral deals in general, presumably because he feels it means the US is bound by globalist institutions. But the US or Europe, or Japan, or any of the other countries involved in these deals, cannot accomplish a goal of preventing something like this on their own. They have to join together, and joining together means being bound by jointly created rules. In order to meet these goals, the US has to accept a role not just as a leader but also as one member among many (a role commensurate with a population and economy perhaps 15-30% of the total rather than as a hegemon talking to a minor ally).

<comment><USER8> I'm from the midwest (originally). The problem with any trade deal is that the middle class was told that it was going to be good for them and it wasn't. Yes, you can say they should have thought about it and they could have seen that trade deals even out labor costs but nobody told them that.

So today, any trade deal is viewed as "here we go again" no matter what the actual content says.

<comment><USER14> I think that's a fair point. There needs to be a lot more thought put into how trade deals can benefit the whole of society, and what social and political structures you need to help ordinary people prosper under those circumstances. Worth pointing out that there are also a lot of benefits for them as well. And I'm not sure we have a choice, global trade is clearly more efficient, individually countries will just be routed around if they isolate themselves, and if we managed a global shift towards protectionism we would serve to reduce global growth and probably increase conflict as more people struggle (in our own countries as well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> VW made a bad bet on bad Diesel technology, and Toyota is making a bad bet on hydrogen technology. (The Toyota Mirai hydrogen-powered car, at California Toyota dealers now.[1] As of September 29, 2016, 641 cars have been sold. $57,500, including three years of liquid hydrogen.)

The German car companies have a problem. They have all that investment in the technology of making precision power machinery. But electric motors just aren't that complicated mechanically. Their edge over China disappears.

GM seems to get it. Chevrolet is shipping Chevy Bolts to dealers right now.

[1] [https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html](https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html)

<comment><USER17> > GM seems to get it. Chevrolet is shipping Chevy Bolts to dealers right now.

All the German car makers are also shipping electric versions of their cars, just no one wants an electric Golf or up!.

> They have all that investment in the technology of making precision power > machinery. But electric motors just aren't that complicated mechanically. > Their edge over China disappears.

This is something that can be combined with a lot of other tech – there's so much technology that can be precision-produced.

<comment><USER18> > just no one wants an electric Golf

Speak for yourself. I have 28k miles on my e-Golf and I think it's a great car!

The problem is most people are shocked SHOCKED, when I tell that it's fully electric. They've never heard of such a thing until I told them because VW doesn't actually want people to buy the e-Golf, not the other way around. I still have yet to see an extensive tv or billboard campaign for the e-Golf. It's a compliance car and VW is only selling it because they have to.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my perfectly capable and affordable electric car.

<comment><USER17> It's what, 20%? 30%? 40%? more expensive than the normal version. I'm not sure that the market for that exists.

<comment><USER18> That's really comparing apples and oranges, but the se and sel gas models are $26k and $28k respectively.

The sel egolf is $35k with $10k in discounts. So technically you get more for less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ever wondered why electric cars from established manufacturers are all ugly? that's why: they develop the technology but they don't want people to buy them yet. They are too good for the customer and they would not be able to make money off of them, after the initial sale.

<comment><USER20> Teslas Model X is ugly? The BMW i8 is ugly? I'd be very curious to see what a none ugly car is in your opinion.

<comment><USER19> BMW i3. Just look at that line under the window of the rear door. It's like the designer forgot how to draw for a split second and he never reviewed the design.

Oh, and I never understood why you have to change the design for an electric car? Just use the same design. The electric motor and batteries save space, they don't need more.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/BM...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/BMW_i3_\(19939421151\).jpg/220px- BMW_i3_\(19939421151\).jpg)

<comment><USER21> I agree with the GP and parent, and yes the i3 is awful (i3 driver here), but there are many EVs now that look like normal cars: Fiat 500e, VW Golf, Kia Soul, various Fords.

<comment><USER22> They look like normal versions of not- _that_ -normal looking cars (I mean, the Kia Soul is pretty far from normal in my book).

I'd like to see EVs that just blend in with the average midsize sedans like Camrys and Accords.

But obviously these EV designs have to meet some divergent design requirements from those, so maybe it can't be done (cheaply enough?) yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The key to electric vehicles is a shift to buy-by-the-ride (since you can get one that will take you wherever you want without worrying about range issues). That shift is also bad for most of the existing car manufacturers

<comment><USER24> This assumes most people don't want car ownership.

<comment><USER25> The comment you replied to is the typical "city-dweller" POV. What few people realize is that there are millions of people that live in rural areas where the taxi/uber/shared asset model just does not work.

<comment><USER26> Why do people pretend that rural people are a majority or even close to it. In the US it's 20% of the population.

Edit:

No these services aren't suitable for everyone but they're suitable for a huge and growing amount of people, urbanization and civilization are the same thing. ICEs filling cities like Beijing carrying 1-2 people is literally killing people.

<comment><USER15> Rural people are incredibly important to the other 80%.

<comment><USER27> The combine harvester is incredibly important for everybody, yet nobody considers them a mainstream mode of transport.

<comment><USER23> This was down voted so I upvoted it. It sounds flip but is insightful.

<comment><USER23> Huh, minus 3 for this comment as well. Are the differing needs of rural people really not important to the average HN commenter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's interesting that the article implies that the German manufactures are so intent on keeping the 'value add' from the internal combustion motors. For the electric vehicles, value add is shifting, and if you look at Elon Musks strategies with Tesla, he's made a bet that it's shifting a significant portion to the power generation, and batteries.

<comment><USER29> "It's interesting that the article implies that the German manufactures are so intent on keeping the 'value add' from the internal combustion motors."

Enjoy that. Enjoy that _right into the grave_.

I bought two successive Audi A8s ... and then I saw a car that had derived AWD from two different motors and had a ridiculously low center of gravity due to the "skateboard design" and had faster acceleration than a supercar.

Since that moment, German auto manufacturers have missed 2 new car (flagship cars, even) sales from this consumer, and counting ...

<comment><USER22> Your anecdotal experience doesn't really mean much.

I'm sure short term Audi is of the opinion that if you'd settle for a Tesla's definition of luxury and refinement from their flagship, you weren't really their target to begin with.

Longer term they probably realize they can't depend on Teslas never getting better and will need to compete or other luxury brands will eat up the segment (and probably wish they had just "done it right" for luxury EVs first)

Audi also probably comes from the school of thought if someone wants supercar acceleration, they'll get a supercar (or a proper S-line)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > "counting on the idea that the government has no interest in creating a > crisis"

Yeah, that's what they've been doing with the software cheats in VW cars (aka Dieselgate).

It's a total shame for the undeniably brilliant German engineering, and they're handling it - collectively - by pretending it did not happen.

The silence is deafening. I doubt it will profit them in the long range.

<comment><USER31> Well at least they got busted for it overseas. I won't be buying a VW anytime soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if anyone has thoroughly considered the impact of tens of thousands of gas stations closing their doors as the demand for petroleum goes down.

<comment><USER32> That may not happen. According to various sources fuel sales are not where gas stations make their money. On average they are only bringing in 3 cents of profit on a gallon of fuel. They sell fuel primarily to attract customers and then make their profits on sales of snacks, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and the like. Disrupting the cycle of impulse buys by individuals lured to the store to buy fuel is likely to have a measurable impact on business, but it is unclear if this would drive any/some/most/all convenience stores out of business.

<comment><USER25> The gas gets them in the door. People are a lot less likely to stop if they don't have to. Since electric cars take a lot longer to charge, they don't mesh well with the convenience store model. More like restaurants.

I think convenience stores will go through quite a huge change in the next 20 years. Small mom and pop gas stations without much of a "store" to speak of will probably disappear entirely.

<comment><USER33> I honestly can't think of the last time I've seen a gas station that only sells gas or diesel. At least around here, they just don't exist. The "gas station" _is_ the convenience store around here. I doubt their patronage would drop off much if they stopped selling gas.

Gas stations around here sell anything from the usual cigaretter, pop & snacks to really good "home made" food. I can think of one that had a small, very good, Mexican restaurant in the back and another that made gyros, falafel, etc. to order. I would go out of my way to stop at those.

But gas only? I simply can't remember seeing one in the last 10 years. The closest is the ones that are service stations that happen to have a few gas pumps.

<comment><USER34> "Mostly" gas only pumps started reappearing in the last 10 years as a part of big supermarket chains. From one point of view they are mostly just gas pump islands floating in a sea of parking, but from the other point of view the nearby supermarket is simply an absurdly large convenience store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Problem I think is still range. Tesla model S is no doubt a great, albeit very expensive, car, but it's real world range on European motorways, is still pathetic. At 100 mph, range is is measly 100 miles, my BMW 535d does 500 miles at this speed, even in the UK averaging 110 mph is quite common, when not too busy. In Germany one regularly sees cars travelling at 140+ mph for long stretches, which would be impossible for a Tesla.

<comment><USER36> _At 100 mph, range is is measly 100 miles_

Where did you get those numbers? Tesla's range calculator claims different[1]. Can you also point to a similar calculator from BMW? All I found is for electric; why is there not one for gas fueled cars?

EDIT: forgot the link[1] [https://www.tesla.com/en_EU/models?redirect=no#range- calcula...](https://www.tesla.com/en_EU/models?redirect=no#range-calculator)

<comment><USER17> The calculator doesn't even allow setting the value to 100mph, so it can't claim different?

<comment><USER36> Good point. I just discovered it doesn't allow you to go more than 120km, and at 100km/h the speed to range ratio is 4.5 whereas at +20km/h ratio drops to 2.9 on the 75 model, and to 3.76 on the P100D model.

So, the 160km/h to 160km makes more sense now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I know HN has a large fanbase of Tesla and Elon Musk, but yet I'm still surprised to see no one address the problem of the supply side of renewables before moving towards a larger consumer base of electric cars.

I would be a very happy man to be able to own a Tesla Model S, but gasoline just has some advantages, especially so if we still are powering the majority of our grid with fossil fuels: 1) it has extremely high energy density relative to lithium ion batteries, 2) IC technology is very well-developed, 3) it is low cost in the near-term, and 4) no energy loss through transmission over the grid.

Depending on where you live, most of the juice you put in your Tesla (or other EV) is generated by fossil fuels, anyways. It seems to me that we're putting the cart before the horse. We need to solve the problem of powering our grid with renewables first before we should pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium.

<comment><USER38> How about people with both an electric car and solar panels? How about people who pay for carbon offsets and own an electric car? Or people who voted for renewables minimums and own an electric car?

I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic equilibrium"? Are you referring to the economic equilibrium with negative externalities paid for? California started down the path of encouraging electric cars because of smog, which has a large negative effect on LA and the SF Bay area.

<comment><USER37> Like I said, I would be very proud to own a Tesla, and to have resources to send funds towards renewable energy resources. However, while that is great to be able to make those purchases, let's not conflate 2 separate economic choices. I can obviously buy renewable energy certificates without buying an electric car, and I can buy an electric car without buying RECs. The question I posed was: should we get more renewable energy on the grid before forcing EVs onto the market? That is in the context of the article which discusses government influencing public policy -- if made those aforementioned individual choices that's great, I think well of you for doing that.

> I'm also unsure what you mean by "pressure the car makers out of economic > equilibrium"?

No worries. Here is the Wikipedia definition:

> In economics, economic equilibrium is a state where economic forces such as > supply and demand are balanced and in the absence of external influences the > values of economic variables will not change

So take that and put it in the context of the article. From the article:

> The government in Berlin fears that German automobile companies are lagging > behind as electric cars pick up speed around the world

> The Chancellery and the Economics Ministry have spent years trying to > persuade German manufacturers to establish their own joint battery-cell > manufacturing facility.

Does that make sense?

Since the German car manufacturers are for-profit corporations who exist to make profit, their profit-maximizing strategy is to produce at market equilibrium the products which consumers demand. What the article discusses is that they are "lagging behind." You should place your null hypothesis on their products as responding to market forces, not that successful corporations do not produce what their markets demand.

You bring up negative externalities, which are a prudent factor to account for, and is a reason why free markets don't always lead to optimal outcomes. So that's a perfect example of a reason to have a government which can effectively regulate, if you care about human welfare and economic prosperity.

In this case, is it the right call for the government to force electric cars into the market? There are pros and cons, and it depends on a number of given factors. If our effort is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, do we produce less or more by switching to electric cars? It's a complex question, but if renewable energy production remains constant, the increased load on the grid will come from fossil fuels, so the answer could actually be more. Counter intiuitive, but generating and transmitting electricity over the grid and storing it in relatively very heavy batteries that most be moved with the vehicle all create inefficiencies.

It's not such a simple yes or no question, either. Like you pointed out, residents of LA and SF may wish to effectively relocate their pollution from their respective urban centers to remote areas where energy generation occurs, and that appears to make sense: less people live in remote areas.

<comment><USER38> No, what you say doesn't make sense.

I will point out one thing that requires renewables and electric cars to be encouraged together: electric cars that charge when solar or wind energy is available can help smooth consumption to match output. This works easiest when cars are long-range (i.e. don't have to charge every day) and can plug in at both the solar peak and wind peak (day and night, respectively.)

<comment><USER37> Well if something doesn't make sense, I'd appreciate if you were able to point out exactly what it is that doesn't, since I took the time to write you a detailed response. Otherwise it just comes across as dismissive and honestly a little bit insulting.

What you are talking about here is what is called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) load balancing. That is actually a technology that is really interesting and exciting possibility for the future, but is just that. So I guess that irony is that you're requirement that these two things be encouraged together is the one thing I can see that doesn't make sense at the moment - V2G is still honestly in development. There is a lot of scepticism about how practical it will be in practice, i.e. IIRC the efficiency of each grid->car->grid cycle is only about 60%.

<comment><USER38> I am not talking about grid->car->grid, I'm talking about a slightly more advanced version of time-of-day charging for cars: grid->car. That's a smartphone app, not rocket science. Tesla's API is already capable of supporting it.

All studies of "what happens when electric cars are a significant % of electricity consumption?" involve this. It's super-useful because it's storage with no cost: it only cycles batteries that would have been cycled already, just at a different time of day or day of week. The key thing is that a long- range car doesn't have to be charged to 100% by morning, every morning.

As for your complaint that I didn't respond to your entire rant, sorry. You started by claiming that "no one" was doing something, which really isn't true except for some bizarre combination of things that appears to only exist for you. You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for having a mandate. Next time that you think that "no one" is doing the right thing, consider that you don't agree with most people about what the right thing is.

<comment><USER37> Your misdirection of this topic to discuss a moot point (renewables and EVs being encouraged together) is interesting. I don't think anyone is arguing that both aren't good, but it doesn't have much to say about the question I posed..?

It's great if you're willing to charge your vehicle at off-peak. That's not much of a game-changer, though.

The rest of your post is unnecessarily inflammatory, i.e. dismissing my explanation as a rant. I'm not sure what your problem is but you haven't addressed what at all was incorrect, and all you've done is ignore the question raised and as for a matter of fact, rant on a tangent about something we already agree on.

Your final argument makes no sense. Here was my problem: > no one address the problem of the supply side of renewables before moving towards a larger consumer base of electric cars.

You don't think increasing renewable energy production is an issue, at all? Oh wait, but you just did! In fact, you actually tried to argue with me about something to do with renewables and EVs being encouraged together. Why..?

The fact is you're clearly confused and going in circles, which doesn't add anything to the conversation. All you've accomplished in this post is to show that you're disagreeable in terms of facts and attitude -- you've posted blatantly wrong information (some nonsense about Tesla's battery production, which many corrected you on immediately), and you write this crap with a condescending attitude.

> You seem to think that the German government is wrong for pointing out to > German car-makers that it's stupid to ignore California's mandate, even > though you admit that California has a reasonable smog-based reason for > having a mandate.

Are you sure you are thinking clearly right now? What I said had to do with localized pollution, and do you see the irony in your post -- you're accusing me of being naive for disagreeing with what (ostensibly, at best) "most people" think is the right thing, yet you're over, and over again suggesting that you know better than the German automakers how to run their business. Further, you're not taking the time to think about what it is I am addressing as a problem: it's not that EVs are bad, but that we need renewables capacity to support EVs (again, why did you seem to want to argue with me on this???). I don't think you really read what I wrote -- I think you skimmed it and some words aroused your emotions and you are responding emotionally.

Anyways, since you didn't respond to my question, I have another one for you: Why do you need to respond like such a smug jerk? Not just here, but in your post history as well. My favourites are the smug hints that you own a Tesla.

The fact is you can disagree with someone without insulting them, and I don't think you even took the time to read what I wrote and understand where I'm coming from (afterall, there are a great number of economists saying these same very things, you can start reading here: [http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/12/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist- explains/2014/12/economist-explains-18)).

<comment><USER38> I can't answer why you think calling me names is going to help, sorry. Maybe you've mistaken HN for a different kind of forum?

<comment><USER37> Any sane and unbiased person can freely read what is written here and draw their own conclusions. I never called you any names. Everyone here is free to see that you wrote some unnecessarily inflammatory and condescending comments yourself. Bring your negativity elsewhere, like I said, it's possible that you can disagree with someone without insulting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The article makes it sound like electric cars are everywhere and manufacturers are still making gas vehicles.

<comment><USER40> I liken it to the time period when Kodak had made the first digital camera, but allowed other companies to surpass them and eat their breakfast, and now Kodak is bankrupt.

The german (and american) auto companies will either need to drastically alter their composition or other companies will take their place.

<comment><USER41> I think it's a somewhat apt comparison in that if the ICE money-making portion does not use those profits to develop good EV alternatives, newcomers can leapfrog them.

On the other hand, Kodak was a little different, they feared selling digital would eat into their "film" business. But EV does not eat into the manufacturers' "petro" business because most MFG are not selling fuels. So it's not like they have a perverse incentive is what I'm saying and Kodak suffered from perverse incentives.

<comment><USER42> It's not about perverse incentives, it's about "the secret sauce".

Traditional car manufacturers perfected the ICE and dealership network, while the "secret sauce" of electric cars is batteries and network of charging stations.

Practically, GM is right now at a disadvantage relative to Tesla

<comment><USER41> I don't see much disadvantage. It's not like Tesla is designing and manufacturing the batteries they use all by themselves. Sure, they have input --as Boeing has input w/re GE engines.

Given that Tesla will be charging for their networks, it's not an advantage over other charging networks, so overall it'll be a non-issue. Having dealerships does grant the traditional MFGs some advantage but that may erode in the future if dealerships become less necessary in helping the sales of cars (ie. become more on-demand fleets). ICE car MFGs also have _capacity_. Tesla does not have the capacity right now.

<comment><USER38> Tesla designs and manufactures battery packs. GM is on record saying that it took them a long time and a lot of money to develop the battery pack for the Bolt.

<comment><USER43> GM didn't develop the battery pack for the Bolt. The battery cells, battery pack, charging systems, motors, computers and infotainment systems in the Bolt are all designed and manufactured by LG Chem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Too big to compete.

</comment><comment><USER45> Subsidies in the US will probably vanish next year as well, but I think the benefits still make them viable.

<comment><USER38> Subsidies for fossil fuels will vanish?! Bold prediction. /s

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Are there any German start-ups building an electric car?

<comment><USER17> No startups, but there's other companies that have never been involved with cars before that are now building electric vehicles.

Deutsche Post DHL (Germany's federal mail service) is now building their delivery vehicles themselves, so they can get electric ones quickly.

[http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/deutsche-post-baut-elektro- aut...](http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/deutsche-post-baut-elektro-auto-blamage- fuer-die-deutschen-autobauer-a-1107782.html)</comment></comment>


Speculation About a 'MacBook Touch' Builds - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/25/speculation-about-a-macbook-touch-builds/

<comment><USER2> Why would you post this on hacker news?

</comment><comment><USER3> This just in: Speculation about a 'MacBook Touch' builds when rumor sites post articles with titles like "Speculation About a 'MacBook Touch' Builds"

</comment><comment><USER4> All I had to read was the url: macRUMOURS.com. They get traffic based on such speculation. Skewed incentives?

<comment><USER5> In fact that URL will not get you anywhere ;)</comment></comment>


How Twitter monitors millions of time series - <AUTHOR> http://strata.oreilly.com/2013/09/how-twitter-monitors-millions-of-time-series.html

<comment><USER2> Highlights the benefit of using a common framework for your service infrastructure. If I see another pointless node app for some backend service that isn't even high concurrency just cause the dev wanted to play with a new language... _grumble grumble_

</comment><comment><USER3> Link to the original instead of this blog spam: [https://blog.twitter.com/2013/observability-at- twitter](https://blog.twitter.com/2013/observability-at-twitter)

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazing stuff. The scale and data the guys at Twitter are working with are simply jaw-dropping.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hmm, I certainly don't follow Twitter engineering very closely, but I was surprised not to see any mention of Storm here.

Why wouldn't it be involved? Maybe I'm misunderstanding some of this or Storm.

<comment><USER6> While I see activity on the github repo, version 0.9 seems to be forever a work-in-progress. I had high hopes, but I am starting to wonder about the momentum behind the project.</comment></comment>


Events that will change everything (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=interactive-12-events

<comment><USER2> i like how the author thinks that discovering a new dimension is more likely than global nuclear war.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wishful thinking?

I hope that we are further away from nuclear war now, than we have been in the last 30 years or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When having alot of text - use fonts with serifs. A sharper type of antialising might be a good idea also.

</comment><comment><USER4> using chrome, is this broken for anyone else?

</comment><comment><USER5> Terrible UI. Couldn't read more than 2, and those I just glossed over. This would be interesting, but that thing is just painful to use.</comment>


Show HN: I'm renting a truck to make buying and selling furniture easier - <AUTHOR> http://thedealtruck.com/?hn <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I built this with the team at Fobo.net. It's just a quick experiment I put together during the week.

The idea is to rent a truck and drive around the city picking up anything you want to sell. Furniture, appliances, etc. – anything of value that fits on a moving truck, as long as it isn't broken, in poor condition, or something you'd typically donate.

At pickup, we photograph your items, put them on the truck, ask for minimum selling prices, and notify SF folks of the deal. Highest bidder after 90 mins gets the item delivered. We have 100's of interested buyers in SF so far.

Would love feedback. To cover the cost of delivery and movers I ask that you split the final price 50/50 on large items. Happy to wave the cost on more high-end items for now, just ask.

<comment><USER3> I like this idea quite a bit. Both selling and buying furniture on CL is a nightmare. I moved to the city 3 years ago from across the country and was forced to sell furnishings for a 3 bedroom house. I don't expect you will have much trouble on the supply side because CL sucks:

1\. CL interface is abysmal. No way to tell people stuff already sold or to automatically repost. 2\. Dealing with humans was trouble. From time to time, someone would show up and offer a fraction of the asking price. 3\. People can't move big stuff. 4\. We were particularly time sensitive. We like sleeping on a bed, but we also don't want to be stuck with one. 5\. People come by at random times, or don't show at all, or schedule a pickup a 10 days in advance. It would have been great to just load everything at once and be done with it.

I understand you don't want to rent a warehouse, but a 90 minute auction is too short.

On another note, this business model reminds me of modcloth. When they first started, I think they used to travel around and buy up vintage clothes to sell on ebay. Much later, demand outstripped supply so they started contracting out to small shops to make replicas.

<comment><USER4> CL = Craigslist, for those who don't know. [http://sfbay.craigslist.org](http://sfbay.craigslist.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A number of random thoughts come to mind. Apologies if this comes across as negative. I like the idea because it makes selling a hassle-free experience, but the way I am imagining it feels inefficient to me. "Free delivery" == $150 for a $300 couch? Or am I missing something? Does your truck sit for 90 mins during the auction? or are you making more pickups? If multitasking, isn't a truck a FILO storage for a FIFO process? Couldn't I sell on CL, get a bigger audience and hire a delivery/mover service _if_ the buyer doesn't have a friend with a pickup truck? If a mover service is more expensive than you, then why? A quick search looks like I can hire a two man moving crew for $75 an hour.

<comment><USER6> It's an interesting point - cheaper items are not worth the time to the company to drive to pick up and subsequently to deliver, and more expensive items are not worth the cut for the seller, who can get cheaper pickup elsewhere.

<comment><USER7> Wait, I thought he was advocating that for more expensive items, its more expensive to find a someone to deliver/come pickup? In which, OP's idea works better only for expensive items.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love this idea, but I'd love it even more if you donated stuff if it didn't sell so I didn't have to. Having access to a truck is hard when you live in a city and mostly don't use cars.

And you might want to flesh out a bit more on being a mobile consignment shop. I mean - the problem you're really solving is "I want to buy something on Craigslist, but neither the buyer nor seller have time to move it". No reason that should come with the restrictions of 90 minutes for moving.

<comment><USER9> If they were unscrupulous, they could just claim none of your stuff sold, sell it, and keep 100%. Returning the unsold items keeps them honest.

Not in any way claiming they are, this just makes sense as a policy to build trust with sellers.

<comment><USER10> They're holding an auction for each item. Presumably the auction will be listed somewhere on their site so you could easily see if anyone bid or not.

<comment><USER11>
        int getBids(){
          //return bids;
          return 0;
        }

<comment><USER12> /@random_buyer: "Hey I tried to buy this closet but the website didn't accept my bid!" \- 256 retweets

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing I notice is that when I hover over the buttons they get shorter. Rather an off-putting hover state to me.

<comment><USER14> seriously? that's all you have to add to the conversation?

<comment><USER15> It's an incredibly important point for the firm, considering that design decision flies in the face of good design, presumably has been viewed/interacted with by multiple people at the firm, and is somehow still in place in the live site.

Details matter and you either get this, or you don't.

<comment><USER14> while I agree that details matter in design, a. it's not a big deal and b. mentioning it doesn't really add to the conversation at hand. I thought HN was all about trying to ensure that comments were useful to the topic?

<comment><USER16> I think it's a useful bit of feedback.

<comment><USER17> this is HN, this kind of feedback and observations by pros are why I'm here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems any old idea is great in San Francisco.

For what it's worth, 90 minutes is a very short for an auction, and only getting 50% is daylight robbery

<comment><USER19> If they do a lot of business, and buy more trucks and get more employees - <USER2> if not them, the competition after people discover that this is a viable business model - the 50% might lower with economies of scale giving them more room to take a reasonable profit.

Depends on how fast they can keep those trucks moving. I'd start investing in some math and software implementing that math in order to optimize those routes. You could tie it right into the auction website and give all the drivers webapps feeding them their next pickup/dropoff points. You would be able to charge based on distance/size calculated on the fly. I see room for making this really cheap. If you wrote good software for it, you could license the platform and not even actually do the business - this is a natural franchise.

Sorry, just rambling. I think this idea is great if done well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In general, it seems as if there might be a market for people who want to get rid of stuff but want to expend near-zero effort doing so even if it means significantly sub-optimizing the revenue received (I raise hand for most any item under $100 or that is a pain to ship/offload.)

I'm fine with getting 50% for stuff that would otherwise sit in my attic or garage. That said, I suspect that this is a tough business. From what I can gather, most of the eBay-based versions of this have pretty much died out.

Edit: And I should add that, for anything that's bulky or a pain to deal with, I want it gone. I guess I'd be OK with smaller consignment items being returned but not furniture.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like the idea that the truck is the warehouse. Of course it's an issue to get an item out if it's buried, but that's just a limitation on how tight you can pack the truck.

Putting things on pallets might let you slide them around and manage the space better. Also, I don't know the weather in SF, but I'd never trust the floor of a box truck to stay dry in the Midwest, and pallets keep things off the floor.

A make-or-break will be how much unsold stuff you end up driving around. I wonder if there's some way you can discourage stratospheric speculative pricing, by offering a better commission if the seller lets you set the starting price.

<comment><USER22> Regarding buried goods - it depends on the truck. I don't know about the US, but in the UK curtain-sided lorries aren't uncommon, making it relatively easy to access pretty much ever part of the trailer.

<comment><USER21> I'm beginning to see those in the US, maybe within the past five years. Mostly tractor/trailer rigs rather than smaller trucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If I am a seller, what is my motivation to use your product? I could easily post my things on CL, tell the buyers to come pick up, and I get full price for my stuff. Where do you add value to the seller where CL doesn't?

<comment><USER24> Selling on CL is a huge annoyance. I've tried to sell a number of things there, and mostly get flaky "buyers" who never respond back after their initial "I'm interested" message. Then you have the problem of giving your home address to a stranger. I'd be open to trying this service if they ever expand out to the East Bay. I've got a bunch of stuff in my garage I'd love to sell, but the existing channels (CL, eBay, etc.) are total pains in the ass.

<comment><USER25> And from the other point of view, I've sent reasonable offers (based on local market rates) to sellers that "Had to have it gone by the end of the month!", gotten a "No way, I paid $X for this new just 12 months ago!" only to see it relisted the next month.

This system makes that "Get it gone now!" constraint real.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> You'll have quite a bit of competition!: [https://www.moveloot.com/](https://www.moveloot.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I think you may run into issues of too many items not selling if you allow the owners to set the minimum. Perhaps you could offer a lower percentage cut if the owner agrees to a no minimum auction.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wish you luck, but I don't see how this is sustainably profitable. People think their junk is worth way more than it is, and "minimum price" will wreck this.

<comment><USER28> I think an easy answer would be a "stocking fee" if the item doesn't sell.

That will encourage people to pick a price others might jump at. Some fine- tuning would of course be required.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not sure if anyone's tried this (probably tons have), but what would be even better for sellers, would be some kind of a mobile pawn shop, that shows up at your door, cleans out your garage of all the crap you'd otherwise toss away or donate, but would rather have a few bucks for, and then re-sells it all on their own time. I'd choose that any day over holding a "traditional" garage sale.

<comment><USER29> I think 1-800-GOT-JUNK does that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is actually a nice idea. Lots of potential. Congrats on building a MVP! Few things that come to my mind \- 50/50 split seems pricey! \- How about you do it differently ? pick up only those that have guaranteed buyer and you take a commision from both seller and buyer

</comment><comment><USER31> On a side note, how is the bed bug situation in SF? Is it typically safe to buy used furniture?

When I used to live in San Jose, it was common knowledge to not buy any furniture from the downtown area since it almost always brought in bed bugs.

<comment><USER32> I can't answer your question, but you could quarantine the furniture for 6 months at high temperature (100-120f), like in a typical attic in summer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can see it working maybe, but still, it seems like you could just put something up on CL just as easy, and nobody is going to pick up your stuff and return it, they will just pick it up when they buy it.

<comment><USER34> Having recently sold some furniture on CL, the number one problem buyers said was "I want this but can you deliver?" Nobody has transportation for big furniture. It's a source of friction between buyers and sellers for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Wish list:

\- Make the list of items available online without signup

\- At the minimum, don't require a phone#, ask for email instead if you don't want list to be public for some reason

No way giving away my phone# even if you promise no spams.

</comment><comment><USER36> Fix the hover effect on the buttons. The click too. Don't remove the border, make it white. Or if you remove it, put a margin that is the same height as the border was.

</comment><comment><USER37> Why do I need to provide a password to change stuff later? Couldn't you do it just with a text confirmation?

</comment><comment><USER38> I love the idea, I get that its an experiment and I'm interested in seeing what happens. Good luck!!

</comment><comment><USER39> This should create a niche market within the used furniture market with comfortable ease.

</comment><comment><USER40> Didn't moveloot a YC company from the last class already starting doing this...

<comment><USER41> They don't accept Mattresses or Appliances which is probably a big market by itself. Half of the CL ads (in my area) in furniture are beds and mattresses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The thing that really stands out is comprehensive and liability insurance? What happens if someone is injured moving a someone's stuff, or if the truck has an accident and its content are damaged, or even stolen?

You put a incredible amount of liability on yourself with this idea.

</comment><comment><USER43> eBay also provides a similar service. How is this any different ?

[http://sellforme.ebay.com/](http://sellforme.ebay.com/)

<comment><USER44> On that page I readily see significant differences between the two. I'd prefer The Deal Truck if it were in my area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> What happens if no bids meet the minimum price?

</comment><comment> enahs-sf no HTTPS on the signup page :/

</comment><comment><USER46> Because screw bernal, amirite?</comment>


The Fundamentals, Primitives and History of HTML5 - <AUTHOR> http://paulirish.com/2011/primitives-html5-video/ <comment><USER2> Allowing to omit closing tags is a bad idea. It doesn't add to clarity. In fact, it makes _complex_ HTML much harder to read. And if you want to write your own simple parser - good luck dealing with all those special cases. Where is the benefit?

If you want minimalism, true minimalism, you should come up with a simpler model, rather than introducing a myriad of special cases to an already complicated model.

</comment><comment><USER3> If CSS selector behaviour and the DOM elude you— _especially_ if you use them in production and they still elude you—this is a must watch: it's relatively short[1], no nonsense, and though not definitive, it's a nice way to get up to speed with what's behind HTML5 and why all the buzz.

[1]: Definitely shorter than what I'd suggest as an alternative—Mark Pilgrim's history of HTML5 <[http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html>](http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html>).

(PS - @DanielRibeiro: what a small world, a friend of mine works at the company you used to be CTO of!)

<comment><USER4> Small note: wrapping URLs in <> confuses the URL parser.

<comment><AUTHOR> More precisely, the url is:

<http://diveintohtml5.info/past.html>

PS @rufibarbatus : It sure is! I still keep in touch with them (some of them are here on hacker news: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3192719>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I loved this presentation. But just out of curiosity, why aren't these techniques (not closing tags or quoting attributes) used in HTML5 Boilerplate?

</comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome. I love the minified markup. To think what I could have been doing with all the time I've spent closing tags and quoting attributes.

<comment><USER7> Beware: The browser may handle unclosed tags just fine, but many times your markup goes through a library first, and libraries vary in their support. For example, I found I had to close my tags when writing HTML in jQuery templates, and I found a bug in Zepto the other day with creating HTML from a string containing multiple self-closing tags (a similar practice).

After being bit those few times, I've gone back to closing all my tags (even when the w3 spec says unclosed is more correct). If I'm going to have to do it sometimes, I'd rather be consistent and do it all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How much of this stuff will doom you if any of your users are still stuck on IE? (unclosed tags, new more concise doctypes, simpler document structure, utf8 element values and text, other cool HTML5 standard markup)

Is this a preview of the web we might be able to write in fifteen years when Microsoft allows us to catch up?

<comment><USER9> If your question is whether HTML5 is backward-compatible with IE6, then the answer is yes (as much as possible). It should be noted that much of the parsing complexity and looser validation are simply observations from IE6's behavior. The new elements and attributes are mostly just ignored in IE6 (article, input type=url, etc.) As for unclosed tags and unquoted attributes, they have been around since HTML 1.0[1], so I don't think you can blame HTML5 for introducing them.

[1]: [http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/M...](http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Tags.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Playing the role of a "jack of all trades" in a self-funded  startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I equally use both sides of my brain: from the initial concept + Web Design to coding the apps using PHP. I manage to do everything on my own, even customer care and marketing on social media platforms. I'm passionate about doing everything on my own! :)
My first startup was http://mybiz.lk & to be honest it was a failure since I didn't have a proper business model at that time. (the site is still functioning though :)
That being said, I'm now about to start off a new venture after learning from the mistakes. I'll be following the Lean Startup methodology as explained by Eric Ries.
URL: http://hireme.lk
So far I have been able to plan and launch the "magic page" for my new startup on my own. For this time also I'm thinking of following a learn-as-you-go-along approach. This has granted me a lot of freedom to take my own decisions and plan the way I want my startup to be in the future.
What are your thoughts on this approach? Will my approach have negative effects for the future of my startup?
Cheers!
PS:
* Please note that I'm not trying to do a self-promotion for my startups here, just wanted to let you know what I've been up to so far. <comment><USER2> Your image logo dude looks pixelated.

 _So far I have been able to plan and launch the "magic page" for my new startup on my own._

Magic page as in LaunchRock? I have no clue what you mean here. I also have no clue how to answer your question in regards to your approach as it basically doesn't say anything. Its super vague.

As for _can't afford to partner up with another co-founder_ , that also makes no sense. If you partner with someone, why would you need to pay them. Why would your bootstrapped money earned from 99designs matter? Unless you were talking about "hiring" someone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply.

"Your image logo dude looks pixelated." It seems that LaunchRock has automatically reduced the image quality :(

"Magic page" yes, it's the LaunchRock page (I was referring to Eric Ries's term)

Well, I was expecting to get some advise for when doing a "1 member team" startup, learn the risks etc. Appreciate if someone can suggest similar startups that have done well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There have been numerous solo founder startups funded by YC. Some of them were successful.

I've been making a living doing what you describe (idea -> design&code -> customer support&marketing) on my own for most of my life... I was 14 when I launched my first profitable website, I'm 27 now and support some 100k users myself.

If you're aiming to be a world-changing business, you'll eventually be hiring other people. I'm satisfied dealing with my couple hundred new customers a month, which I can support on my own, and who support my lifestyle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply. I launched my first website when I was 15 but it was a failure! I'm 22 now. Would you mind sharing what resources (books, methodologies, strategies etc) you referred to when making a profitable website with 100k users? Wow!

"you'll eventually be hiring other people" True. But I don't think It's the right moment now.

Cheers!

<comment><USER3> I wasn't even aware of the concept of a "startup" or what was going on in Silicon Valley when I started making most of my apps. I didn't have any books or strategies. I just made things I was interested in and thought other people would want to use, and some of those things stuck.

I make stuff and if I can get a couple active users, I'll never shut it down. Nothing happened overnight -- W3Counter has around 52000 users but that's after 7 years. I'm still hosting website guestbooks people created with one of my sites in 1996. I don't make much money from that site, but 15 years of accumulated inbound links and authority mean it'll always have traffic and PR I can leverage for kickstarting other sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a one man shop and I'm into 2 startups. I have no staff and until yesterday I didn't even have any techie friends that I could count on to even advise me or do me small favors or even network. I'm one year in and my first startup is growing tremendously. Now with my second one I'm in the same position as you - just starting it.

So yes, you can do just fine on your own. The question is should you? Employees cost money and should probably be out of the question until you see some traction. If you really need some help I would say either get a partner (someone who is in it with you whose income depends on his work just as much as yours. No fixed salary, he gets the same deal as you with some revenue sharing deal - that's one difference between an employee and a partner) or you outsource any work you can't do yourself or need quicker.

Other than that you really don't need a second person if you don't want one. I can tell you from experience that working solo can really suck. I just closed out my first year and I know that if I had a partner or some other support that I could have grown the business exponentially. Having other people around pushes you, motivates you, let's you blow off steam, destress, etc. it's always nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of. They can be very valuable and get you thinking in ways you wouldn't have before.

Flying solo is hard but there's no reason you can't. Having people to work with can be a valuable luxury but don't be fooled by what everyone says, flying solo is not a recipe for failure. Not even close.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for sharing your story. I don't feel like I'm alone now :)

I think I've reached the peak of self-confidence & self-motivation now after reading many books and watching many videos on YouTube. Everything is set to embark on the journey!

Cheers! good luck with your venture!

<comment><USER4> Thanks! And be careful with all the self confidence. I'm sure you're experienced enough to know already but I know for myself that all the motivation and self confidence you go into a project with is fragile and can easily turn into self doubt and procrastination. But that just means you're probably working hard enough to get something done right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Widening freeways: Don't - <AUTHOR> http://cityobservatory.org/what-dallas-houston-louisville-rochester-can-teach-us-about-widening-freeways/ <comment><USER2> I'm suspicious of the "fundamental law of road congestion".

I suspect what the law reflects is that freeways don't get widened until it's so overdue that the widened version is already over-capacity.

If someone complained that their web server was overloaded, and they tried increasing capacity but it was still overloaded so there's no point, you might say "was this at Friendster?"

<comment><USER3> I believe your objection is that widening heavily congested roads doesn't help, and that only widening lightly congested or non-congested roads improves traffic conditions, yes?

In that case, the linked-to report gives tepid support for that possibility, saying:

> This (admittedly weak) trend downward suggests the conjecture that more > roadway can lead to a more than proportional increase in traffic when roads > are not congested. Alternatively, it may be that the most useful highway > segments are developed earlier and receive more traffic. This second > conjecture is consistent with John G. Fernald's (1999) conclusion that the > productivity effects of the US interstate system show a marked decline over > time.

Do note that the concerned cities are already congested, so your objection is neither here nor there.

The economics model is not complicated. People are willing to spend a certain amount of money to commute. If the cost of travel goes down, they are more likely to travel longer distances because they can use the extra money on, say, a larger house. The question is, what is the shape of the demand curve? The linked-to paper tries to tease out those numbers, and show that increasing capacity doesn't meet the increased demand.

I'll try to extend it to your web server analogy. People are willing to wait 0.5 seconds for information, and it's not linear. That is, people don't care if it takes 0.01 or 0.4 or 0.5 seconds, but they do care if it takes 1 second and really care if it takes over 10 seconds.

(See [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response- times-3-important-...](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response- times-3-important-limits/) )

If you increase the capacity of the system which can respond in 0.5 seconds, then you can give a response in 0.3 seconds. Or, you can add more functionality and data in the same 0.5 seconds.

Thus, it's possible that adding more capacity results in saturating the new capacity.

(This isn't a great analogy. What makes it worse is that most people don't expect to pay for, say, Facebook. While the roads are paid for mostly by the users of the roads, through taxes.)

In any case, what is your interpretation of the increased congestion of the 23-lane Katy Freeway after widening? "But no matter how wide it gets, added capacity just induces further flung development and more peak hour driving, with the result that the freeway is even slower today than it was when it was widened just a few years ago." I think you are suggesting it should be widened again? No other city needs such a wide freeway.

BTW, when you write "I'm suspicious of ..." and present a conjecture about why a blog written by expert in the field, backed by a scholarly paper in the field, is incorrect, well, I can't help but wonder why you think your untrained intuition should carry any weight for other HN readers, or why you decided to not read the supporting documents.</comment></comment>


Why Data Nerds Struggle to Gain Power at Hedge Funds - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-15/point72-shows-how-firms-face-culture-clash-on-road-to-quantland <comment> castle-bravo I'd like some perspective on this. Are "data nerds" (i.e. scientists) marginalized in finance because of cultural differences with the incumbent traders, because expectations are unreasonably high, or because most quants' models aren't significantly better than the trained intuition of their bosses? Why is it so hard to get trading firms to put engineering high on their list of priorities?

<comment><USER2> My guess is the last reason.

It's the same reason stastical models aren't used heavily in sports recruiting/trading.

<comment><USER3> aren't they used heavily in sports, though? That was my impression of the NBA/MLB, at least.

<comment><USER2> Yes, sort of. They are used like they are in finance.

They can make lots of cheap, low precision decisions, but at the end of the day, humans make important decisions about other humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not surprising at all. What's needed are quants that can or understand trade. A rare breed. And even they sometimes throw in the towel like NN Taleb in 2003. When I started to use quant algos in prop trading I was first met with ridicule, then curiosity, then respect and finally with fear. Not always fun.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've noticed this issue firsthand - not just at hedge funds but also at big banks and smaller financial firms. For all the talk and chatter about blockchain, electronic payments, robo-advisors... technology still has long ways to go to revolutionize and democratize access to markets, data, trading, etc..</comment>


Show HN: Spotify Wrapped for GitHub- Relive your 2018 in code - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/yearincode <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

We thought that the idea behind Spotify Wrapped was extremely fun- it's amazing to look back on your year of music and see how your tastes have changed (that is, if they changed at all)

But we thought it would be great to have the same thing for Github. Wouldn't it be amazing to see how your coding has developed over the year? How many repos you've made, what your best repos were, what your favorite repos were?

That's why we made YearInCode! You can now look back on your year of programming and see how you've grown.

This project was made over the last 2 days, and everything is open source, so, as two aspiring 16 y/o devs, we'd really appreciate any feedback and more importantly, any contributions!</comment>


Show HN: my side project, MileageBrain.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.mileagebrain.com/

<comment><USER2> I input airports "Ohare", "O'hare", and "Midway" none of which worked. It returned "Sorry, I've never heard of ohare. Try another airport". It only works if you know the short abbreviation in this case "ORD". Cool concept though.</comment>


Here's How Windows 10 Plans to Hit 1B Devices in 3 Years - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3045720/fast-feed/heres-how-windows-10-plans-to-hit-1-billion-devices-in-3-years <comment><USER2> Nice move. But, isn't the competition (OS X) too tough to beat for now? Can't back this up but this seems to be what's happening.</comment>