Tesla Increases the Price of the Powerwall as Demand Greatly Outpaces Production
October 12th, 2018Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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I wrote a comment on Tesla and the Powerwall a few days ago:
I can’t personally speak to the quality of Tesla’s vehicles, but I’ve had a Powerwall 2 at home since the end of June and, as a working professional in the solar + storage industry, I can assure you that the Powerwall 2 lives up to the hype. From the physical build quality to the performance to the app integration, everything else looks stupid. My criticisms of the product (there are a few) are noise level relative to what it’s doing for us.
The media doesn’t focus much on storage, but Tesla could do vastly more business in that area if they had the cells to spare.
Via: Electrek:
When we talk about Tesla being production constrained, we most often talk about the company’s vehicles. But the Powerwall, Tesla’s home battery pack, might be its most production constrained product.
Now, the company has significantly increased Powerwall’s price just as it is expected to ramp up production.
Powerwall availability has been limited in many markets and many reservation holders have complained about the lack of communication about a timeline to get the energy storage device.
One of the greatest features of the Powerwall has been its price, which is significantly lower per kWh than the competition.
But now the automaker is increasing the price of the device by a significant amount.
Tesla updated the Powerwall page on its website today with a $1,200 price increase between the actual battery pack and the supporting hardware:
Powerwall went from $5,900 to $6,700
Supporting hardware went from $700 to $1,100
The price increase follows another smaller price increase earlier this year.
Richard Dolan on the Digital Strip Search – New Zealand
October 12th, 2018Via: Richard Dolan:
Boston Dynamics: Parkour Atlas
October 11th, 2018Via: Boston Dynamics:
Atlas does parkour. The control software uses the whole body including legs, arms and torso, to marshal the energy and strength for jumping over the log and leaping up the steps without breaking its pace. (Step height 40 cm.) Atlas uses computer vision to locate itself with respect to visible markers on the approach to hit the terrain accurately.
Wikileaks: Amazon Atlas
October 11th, 2018Via: WikiLeaks:
Today, 11 October 2018, WikiLeaks publishes a “Highly Confidential” internal document from the cloud computing provider Amazon. The document from late 2015 lists the addresses and some operational details of over one hundred data centers spread across fifteen cities in nine countries. To accompany this document, WikiLeaks also created a map showing where Amazon’s data centers are located.
U.S. Army 1983: “Be Intellectually Prepared to React to Possible Encounters with Intelligent, Non-Corporal Energy Forms When Time-Space Boundaries Are Exceeded”
October 10th, 2018This is a U.S. Army Intelligence document on Hemi-Sync and Itzhak Bentov’s Stalking the Wild Pendulum.
The source document is “Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process,” CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf, which you can find on CIA’s Electronic Reading room.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700210016-5
19 More ‘Fast Radio Bursts’ Found
October 10th, 2018Via: Space:
A huge haul of newfound fast radio bursts (FRBs) may help astronomers finally start to get a handle on these mysterious and powerful blasts from deep space.
A new study reports the detection of 19 previously undiscovered FRBs, including the closest one to Earth and the brightest one ever seen. The results boost the total tally significantly; just three dozen or so FRBs had been known previously, with the first detection coming in 2007.
FRBs are brief (millisecond-long) but intense emissions of radio light, which can pack as much energy as our own sun produces over the course of nearly a century. Their source is the topic of much discussion and debate. For example, some researchers have suggested that FRBs could be generated by advanced alien civilizations, though most astronomers favor natural explanations, such as fast-spinning neutron stars.
Air Force Awards Launch Vehicle Development Contracts to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, ULA
October 10th, 2018Via: SpaceNews:
The U.S. Air Force announced on Wednesday it is awarding three contracts collectively worth about $2 billion to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems and United Launch Alliance to develop launch system prototypes.
The funding is for the development of competing launch system prototypes geared toward launching national security payloads. Each company will receive an initial award of $181 million, $109 million of which are identified in the announcement as fiscal year 2018 funds.
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Asked why SpaceX did not make the cut, Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions, said the company is an “important member of our launch team” and can choose to bid again in phase 2.
“Not getting LSA funds does not prevent them from competing,” Roper told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He did not confirm whether SpaceX in fact submitted a bid for this OTA. “We only talk about the awardees,” he said. “We think all three awardees are going to be highly competitive to getting us to launch capability that meets national security space requirements ahead of the congressionally mandated 2022 date to get off the Russian RD-180 engine.”
Too Fat to Fight
October 10th, 2018Via: Army Times:
It’s well known at this point that just under 30 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 ? the prime age to join the Army ? aren’t eligible to join.
But beyond that, almost a third of those who sit down with a recruiter to take the first steps are immediately disqualified.
Why? Because of their weight.
“Out of all the reasons that we have future soldiers disqualify, the largest – 31 percent ? is obesity,” Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army Recruiting Command, said Wednesday at AUSA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
A freshly published study, “Unhealthy and Unprepared” concludes that America’s rising numbers of overweight youth are going to have real impacts on the military’s ability to maintain effectiveness.
GM Appoints Ex-CIA Deputy Director, Co-Vice Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations to Its Board
October 10th, 2018More connections than a switchboard, including an NSC role where, “She had oversight responsibility for covert action programs and special reconnaissance missions,” and In-Q-Tel.
Via: CNBC:
General Motors appointed a former deputy director of intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency to its board on Wednesday.
Jami Miscik is the chief executive and vice chair of Kissinger Associates, a political consulting firm founded by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. She has held various top roles at the firm since 2009. Before that, she worked at Lehman Brothers and Barclays.
“Jami is a seasoned leader with experience in assessing the geopolitical and macroeconomic climate,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra in a news release. “Her unique and extensive background in intelligence, security and risk analysis and mitigation will add significant insights to GM’s board and the company’s overall strategy.”
Miscik is also on the board of Morgan Stanley and is the co-vice chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.
Related: The Ascendancy of Black World Participants Continues at GM
Financial Accounts May Be “Modified” to Shield Classified Programs
October 9th, 2018Not a new policy: missingmoney.solari.com
Via: Federation of American Scientists:
In an apparent departure from “generally accepted accounting principles,” federal agencies will be permitted to publish financial statements that are altered so as to protect information on classified spending from disclosure.
The new policy was developed by the government’s Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) in response to concerns raised by the Department of Defense and others that a rigorous audit of agency financial statements could lead to unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
In order to prevent disclosure of classified information in a public financial statement, FASAB said that agencies may amend or obscure certain spending information. “An entity may modify information required by other [accounting] standards if the effect of the modification does not change the net results of operations or net position.”
Agencies may also shift accounts around in a potentially misleading way. “A component reporting entity is allowed to be excluded from one reporting entity and consolidated into another reporting entity. The effect of the modifications may change the net results of operations and/or net position.” See Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, FASAB, July 5, 2018 (final draft for sponsor review).
In response to an earlier draft of the new standard that was issued last December, most government agencies endorsed the move to permit modifying public financial statements.
“The protection of classified information and national security takes precedence over financial statements,” declared the Central Intelligence Agency in its comments (submitted discreetly under the guise of an “other government agency”).
“It is in the best interest of national security to allow for modification to the presentation of balances and reporting entity in the GPFFR [the publicly available General Purpose Federal Financial Report],” CIA wrote.
But in a sharply dissenting view, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General said the new approach was improper, unwise and unnecessary.
It “jeopardizes the financial statements’ usefulness and provides financial managers with an arbitrary method of reporting accounting information,” the DoD OIG said.
“We do not agree that incorporating summary-level dollar amounts in the overall statements will necessarily result in the release of classified information.”
