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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • I’d like to think that I have a reasonably decent understanding of economics for a laymen, but in this case I’m a bit stumped.

    Seems to me that for 5 billion dollar (+however much VW spent on their own software) you should be able to develop a good operating system for your own cars. But I guess VW somehow failed and now would rather license Rivians through this joint venture?

    Is a car OS really that expensive and complex to develop? Especially when android auto and Apple car play will do a lot of the heavy lifting for most people.

    Even with losses of nearly $40,000 for every vehicle it delivers, Rivian has been on a steadier footing than other EV makers that have been forced to slash prices to stimulate demand or file for bankruptcy protection.

    Rivian’s cash and short-term investments fell by about $1.5 billion in the first quarter to just under $8 billion.

    Nearly 40k loss per vehicle? That seems insane. How has that company been going on until now? They also say that they even before this deal they had enough reserves to last until their next models release and things were moving up, but still that is seems like an absurd rate to burn cash.

    I get that it sometimes makes sense for companies to burn through heaps of cash to scaley capture market share or drive out competition, but is the car manufacturing market at this point in time one where this play still makes any sense?


  • Didn’t they actually vote against the compensation package when it was originally proposed? I’d really like to hear a more indepth reason on why they changed their vote now.

    There is no way he is worth this kind of money for the future, so the only reason to vote yes imo is if they’d expect a court to uphold it, if denied, and that legal fights would be to costly. But with this sum at stake I’d take those chances.



  • golli@lemm.eetoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldLets test the theory
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    27 days ago

    He could also take higher risks, since he knew that there was a security net to catch him. Much easier to make high risk/reward decisions, if the risk (e.g. going broke) isn’t actually real. He presumably also had an above average education and many other benefits. This is also why many rich people might end up building successful businesses. The average person might get one shot and either makes it or goes broke. The rich person can roll the dice multiple times (and might have learned something from the last try).

    Also disregarding everything even, if he had succeded: That would still only have been a sample size of one. I doubt anyone is saying that you can’t under any circumstances pull yourself out of poverty, but on average the cards are just stacked against you in many ways.

    Also i doubt that reselling second hand stuff is a viable business model for a larger group. Like sure in a large city a few people might be able to carve out a niche for themself, but the more people do it or the smaller the market, the less it works.



  • golli@lemm.eetoAndroid@lemdro.idSony Xperia 1 VI review
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    1 month ago

    Yeah, slightly better now, but still lackluster in a phone of this class.

    Especially considering that eventually every phone in the EU starting June 2025 will be required to offer at least 5 year updates. You’d think that they could offer that level of support slightly earlier to someone willing to drop well over 1k€ on their phone. Unless of course they plan to pull out of the european market at that point.