uk_grenada

More fuel efficient in what way? The a380 will be in service for a long time, it does represent the max efficiency for specific routes but in some parts of the world the current requirement is for more local flights. Its production is slowing but EADS are also working on the a380-1200 which is bigger because there is a market... There are several a380’s per hour between lhr and jfk and thats great, but if you need flights from 20 regional airports to jfk that market needs smaller planes.

Beoz

A380-1200 - got any info on that? It seems the last hope for the A380 was Emirates and it looks like they've gone elsewhere.

Emirates’ ‘six star hotel in the sky’, and a US$15 billion aircraft order - Travelweek

OK there may be several LHR-JFK A380 flights (any US carriers by chance?) but that's a tiny amount and on such a busy route, where slots are non existent at either airport, you are going to put on the big plane.

Beoz

Nah. It just demonstrates if no one is spending the money that tech (the big boy of the skies) doesn't see progress. Apply the same principle to your theory on automation.

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room is rearing its head again. Lots of little probing stories about interest rates and levels of debt.

Australian economy news 2017: Recession, depression predicted

Its a pretty glossy story, but we still haven't addressed our global debt problems.

Forget automation, the elephant is back.

GarryP

Tesla finally got around to announcing their new EV truck. Not only are they said to be cheaper to run than a diesel truck, they are also said to be able to drive in formation, making them cheaper than rail transport. That will make a mess of US cargo transport, where they use a lot of rail.


And then he announced their new Roadster - 1.9s 0-60mph, 1000km range. The Bugatti Chiron takes 2.4s to do 0-60 ...

Both with self-drive, of course.

Shard

Guess those truck drivers better start re-training, eh. Maybe become biotech engineers or some other new fangled career which automation moves them on to.

GarryP

Well, even until they can get the law changed, it will make their jobs easier. No more stirring the gearbox, autopilot to keep it in lane and a constant distance from the truck in front. More grunt to get up hills.

Of course, once the self drive is legal, they will be the first to lose their jobs as owners switch over to autonomous operation.

That roadster is a beast though - it will out accelerate virtually everything on the road, with twice the range of the existing EVs. It's well into supercar territory.

Beoz

Maybe they should check with the farmers or the textile workers. They should be able to guide them in the right direction.

Shard

What direction is that?

Beoz

Cheaper than rail because they drive in formation? How do you figure that out?

That's like a train that has a driver and engine every carriage or 2.

Beoz

You know, the mass unemployment that occured when we made all the farm hands and textile workers jobless. They can provide a shoulder to cry on.

GarryP

That's what was reported at the launch, cost per tonne rate.

Shard

Oh yeah, forgot about history repeating itself with perfect accuracy. We'll have to remind the many governments starting to show concern about technological employment that their fears are misplaced. It will all work out in the end, it always has to date.

Beoz

The idea is they will travel autonomously behind one another. Kind of works on a motorway but fails in the urban areas with traffic lights and other broken patterns. Still need the driver and engine.

Tesla has a lot of "vapour" product at the moment. Nothing delivered. No wonder the stock price over the past year has come up then dropped back sharply.

Beoz

Of course it does. People need to survive. People find a way when they need to. This is why when the millions started to come off the land we didn't see the end of the world. This is exactly the reason why the UBI experiments are important. The Dutch experiment has a variety of options to see whether UBI breeds laziness or not.

GarryP

Well formations are only really useful for economy over intercity distances, that's the point. When they get to a city they would split up to service multiple delivery points. And chances are that will be autonomously once the laws are sorted. Even before that point however you can see truck drivers being like ship pilots, picked up on the outskirts of town to man the trucks on local roads, with autonomous operation on the interstates. Cuts the number of drivers along with their hours.

Nothing delivered?

The model S, model X and original roadster are all out there. They have issues with mass production on the 3, but that will get fixed, and they were taking orders on the Truck last night, Roadster 2 is due 2020, with model Y crossover due 2019.

In the end they are in a pretty good place I'd suggest, once they have the production issues sorted. The various vehicles are basically a kit of parts, lots of similarity, lots of scope for sales.