Tesla's Model S, coming to market in mid-2012, holds up to 7 passengers.
Two Tesla Motors stories surfaced this morning: GeekWire reports that Tesla will be opening a “store” at the Bellevue Square Mall, “on the second level, just north of Center Court.” That will double Tesla’s Seattle-area tireprint–they opened their South Lake Union show room in late 2009.
In contrast, Fortune‘s Alex Taylor III wonders whether Tesla isn’t simply running on fumes at this point. This weekend, Tesla Motors will test drive its all-electric four-door Model S flavors for an eager audience of “reservation holders.” While the price tag for the Roadster ranged from $110,000 to $155,000, the Model S is designed for the masses of less-well-to-do tech titans. The Model S base is supposed to be $57,400 (less a $7,500 tax credit).
Taylor is critical of Tesla’s business plan because of the car maker’s relatively tiny sales goals (20,000 Model S per year), the losses the company has incurred (over $300 million from 2009 to mid-2011), and the challenge it has set itself in producing cars built from the ground up at a faster pace than when Lotus was supplying the chassis.
Still, the “running on fumes” comment displays a mindset that isn’t asking in what ways Tesla isn’t like Detroit. When I picked up my iPad 2, I had a choice between 16GB, 22GB, and 64GB, just as Tesla buyers can choose between batteries with driving ranges of 160, 230, and 300 miles.
Did I really think it cost Apple $100 to add each 16GB of flash memory? Do Tesla buyers really think the extended-range batteries cost Tesla $10,000 or $20,000 to insert? Tesla’s Elon Musk points to the battery options as one of the areas that he hopes to make the Model S profit margin rise to about 25 percent.
Tesla remains a gamble, of course, but when driving range is akin to RAM, this is not your father’s Oldsmobile. Imagine taking your car into the shop and driving back out with a car that goes 60 or 120 miles more per “tank.” That’s fairly disruptive technology.
Screenshot of recent small quakes--yellow and blue dots--from the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network
In the wake of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, I got in touch with Carol Dunn, who works for Bellevue’s Office of Emergency Management, to talk about the job of convincing the community in and around Bellevue to pay attention to the earthquake threat the region faces.
I’ve talked about earthquakes here before, and have a blog about various quakes in the Northwest, but the March 11 disaster brought a new sense of how scary things will get here and on the coast if the Northwest’s subduction zone ruptures in the same way that Japan’s did.
Japan’s disaster has receded from the headlines, and when it comes up it’s mostly in the guise of talk about Fukushima Daiichi, but the example of March 11 still sits as an ominous warning: the question is whether we will heed it. With this in mind, here’s what Carol had to say about the Eastside and why tech companies there need to get ready for temblors.
How do you expect Bellevue and the Eastside to fare in a sizable quake? Will it be helped by its newer buildings built to tougher codes? How will the floating bridges do?
Bellevue and the Eastside have gotten lucky on a number of counts—there is far less ground prone to liquefaction than south King County and Seattle. Most of the building started after the unreinforced masonry period of the 19th century (the type of building found in Pioneer Square and Capitol Hill)—and most high-rises went up after the mid-seventies fashion of building non-ductile concrete structures that don’t handle earthquakes well.
Bellevue does sit right on top of the Seattle Fault Zone, on a section that has broken the surface and thrust itself upward. As such, the area has experienced repeated very intense shaking, much larger than any of the earthquakes we’ve had since the city was founded. Are Eastside buildings ready for that earthquake? It is worth taking the time to work out how well the buildings you occupy handle quakes: Were they built with earthquakes in mind? We have a number of buildings that are up on posts to provide parking underneath. These types of buildings aren’t allowed in California unless they are specifically braced to handle shaking: That isn’t the case here.
An interesting aspect of the floating bridges is that they are designed to handle a lot more movement than more conventional bridges are—they already get pushed and pulled by our huge windstorms. But we didn’t build them with earthquakes in mind. In fact, there are some aspects of the 520 bridge that really aren’t expected to do well in earthquakes—and I-90 runs right along a Seattle Fault Zone strand. Not every bad thing that can happen will happen in an earthquake, but it is pretty likely that we will be losing the ability to use the bridges.
Where are the weakest soils in and around Bellevue: Which areas are most vulnerable to liquefaction and amplification of seismic waves?
Because of our area’s rich seismic history we have very little bedrock, so our whole area shakes a bit more than other parts of the country. It’s been described as a bowl of jello before. Lucky for us, during the ice age we had massive glaciers that super-compressed the soil in most places. That’s why gardening can be so fun—you try to dig, and the ground is like concrete. Don’t knock it: That is a saving grace for us regarding earthquakes in many ways. Not all of our ground matches this type of soil though: Areas where water has flowed frequently have built up layers of looser sediment that is waterlogged. These are the areas that are likely to experience liquefaction. During shaking, the looser sediment layers move around independently, so the dirt acts like a liquid not a solid. Heavy objects on ground prone to liquefaction can sink into the ground, sewer pipes and wires can float up. Buildings built on ground prone to liquefaction are likely to experience more intense ground motion.
How does the Eastside’s high-tech economy relate to the earthquake threat? Are the tech companies more attentive about preparedness? Has this changed after the Japan earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis?
In my experience, the larger high tech companies take the earthquake threat very seriously, and have worked quite hard to build resiliency. Not only that, companies like Microsoft reach out to help the community get ready as well. They’ve been working with our local Red Cross to get their staff trained in disaster response, but also to discuss ways that they can support the area after severe storms and earthquakes. I’ve found that successful companies build risk identification and reduction into the way they do business. It makes sense—identify what can go wrong in your life, and take steps to make it not happen. Each thing you keep from going wrong is one less thing that goes wrong—success becomes much easier. That is what personal disaster preparedness is about as well. I do think the situation in Japan has been a wake-up call for most companies. These worst-case scenario earthquakes we try not to think about do happen: It really is important to identify and reduce as many risks as we can while we have the chance.
What kinds of impacts do you think a big local quake or a subduction zone quake would have on this area’s manufacturing and tech industries? It seems that Boeing in particular would be very impaired by damage to its local factories and the loss of transport networks.
If we have a local surface earthquake from the Seattle or Whidbey Island Fault Zones, it isn’t going to be fun, but I suspect recovery will come pretty quickly—we will be having help come from all sides the moment word gets out that there was a major earthquake. When we experience the next subduction zone quake—the type Japan just experienced, and Chile before that, help is going to take a lot longer to reach us. The locations that would normally be rushing to our aid will have also just experienced a massive earthquake. We need to be ready to reach out and help each other. We will be our own rescuers, we will have to be.
Companies do need to have a plan for how to recover if they face large scale disruption—this is true for any company located anywhere. We have our risk of earthquakes, other areas have tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, and human caused problems as well. The more companies can do to increase their ability to function when things are difficult, the better the entire community will fare. Being able to get the population back to work is so important—both psychologically and economically.
And, would King County be looking at similar types of losses of water supply, gas, heat, power, even food, that we’ve seen in Northeast Japan for over two months now?
I read that after the earthquake in Kobe, Japan in 1995, the water pipes were broken every 1,000 feet. Seattle has a map of all of the water supply problems created by the moderate size quakes that we’ve experienced. A large quake would definitely cause more leaks.
Because we can predict what can go wrong means that we can build ways to reduce the impact of it going wrong. We know that we will probably not be able to get water from the pipes—have back up water saved. If you have a water heater, learn how to turn it off, and know what you need to do to get water from it in an emergency.
One of the more compelling responses to Mike Daisey‘s hilarious, blistering monologue, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (at Seattle Rep through May 22; tickets), comes from a surprising source: the “forgotten” Apple genius, Steve Wozniak.
The Woz told the New York Times: “I will never be the same after seeing that show.” Saying he was brought to tears, Wozniak offered this thumbnail review: “Mike was living the pain of what he was describing as he told it.”
There are (at least) two seamy underbellies that Daisey exposes in Agony, though one, questionable tech labor practices is easier for media to encapsulate, and thus shine their little light on.
Daisey’s latest work grew out of his fanboy curiosity to see how how his Apple products are made–nothing simpler, right? Apple encourages obsessive attention to its details, and Daisey provides his bona fides by timing how long it takes him to field-strip his Mac laptop.
But no, a visit to the Foxconn plant, which has had a problem with employee suicides credited to stress and overwork (the initial problem being a refusal to recognize the problem), is anything but simple as Daisey learned. If you’re Wired, you get a chaperoned walk-through by Burson-Marsteller, who specialize in the immaculate conceptions of synthetic grassroots movements.
Rookie citizen journalist that he is, Daisey went to China anyway and parked himself outside the gates of multiple factories for weeks to see what he could see. He told City Art’s Mark Baumgarten (in the authoritative interview on Agony): “The first two hours of my first day, I met 14-, 13- and 12-year-old children who work at the fucking plant, so it doesn’t fucking take much.”
Daisey, who speaks extemporaneously, working only from an outline, can deliver jokes like a stand-up comic, inform like your favorite teacher, and weigh perspectives as if he’s got the Nicomachean Ethics in his hip pocket. What makes him inimitable is the facility with which he weaves all three modes together. A large part of that tapestry-work is courtesy of his long-time director, collaborator, and wife, Jean-Michele Gregory.
He explains to the Rep that “generally where a monologue emerges is where two obsessions are colliding,” and in Agony, the other obsession is…obsession. There’s Daisey’s, with Apple (and gadgetry in general), there’s Steve Jobs’ with Apple (and design domination), and there’s our work culture’s, with its celebration of “laser-like focus.”
As an ethicist, Daisey first paints a glowing picture of obsession’s gifts, before speaking up for the niggling doubt, and here he enjoys himself contrasting Apple’s advances and sophistication with its laggard, Borg-like competitors. This also is where the Woz enters the narrative, and where Daisey starts to count the cost of a singular, overriding priority (it’s a point he’s made earlier with an investigation of WalMart’s “always low prices”). Given Wozniak’s treatment as Jobs becomes Apple’s avatar of amazement, the working conditions at Foxconn look like ramification of a founder’s principles, not an accident.
Daisey and Gregory’s gamble is that live theatre can be an adequate container for the emotional and cognitive dissonance he’s stoking–he doesn’t offer catharsis, as such. He’s circumspect about keeping the outrage his outrage, it’s never assumed. Maybe you share in his upset, maybe you don’t. But in an ironic way, the show recapitulates Apple’s “1984” ad: a lone figure disrupts the carefully produced image, and–though you don’t think of this at first–the audience is left with the sharp slivers of what used to be belief in the way things are.
Brrr! The cold spring hasn’t done much for plants–our asparagus is just coming in from the fields, finally–and it hasn’t improved moods either. UW Meteorologist Cliff Mass says he’s been hearing two questions over and over:
Are springs getting worse? Is this the worst spring on record? Looking at the data one might argue that the answer to both of these is yes.
But online, things are springing up all over. Eater Seattle, part of a national network, has launched and formerly-of-Seattlest editor Allecia Vermillion writes to say:
At Eater Seattle, we’ll dig deep for original reporting; offer user-generated tips, rants and raves; and curate a daily roundup of what the rest of the restaurant and food media around town—and on the national level—are talking about. No, you won’t find recipes, reviews, or food porn herein, but Eater Seattle promises a daily dose of restaurant news fresher than a basket of foraged fiddlehead ferns.
Which is weird because I just had to ask someone what a fiddlehead was last night. A companion online property–you can tell from the design–is the real-estate and lifestyle site, Curbed Seattle.
From the ins and outs of the real estate scene, to adventures in urban planning and architecture, to local oddities, for Curbed Seattle, it all comes back to real estate, rent, and the neighborhoods we inhabit.
Curbed Seattle joins the growing Curbed Network of sites including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and DC, not to mention our National Mothership.
That one’s helmed by Federal Way native Kelly Skahan.
I found out about Urbandipity by reading Queen Anne View’s post on the Queen Anne start-up. Urbandipity’s premise is that you post about something you’d like to do (heading to Discovery Park, a wine tasting, catching a Mariners–ha ha! No, I couldn’t get through that last one) and then Seattle’s famously stand-offish population looks over your e-shoulder and decides if they want to join you. Presumably they can monetize the site with offers to go do things that cost money.
Lastly, you’ve probably heard about GeekWire (the new indie offshoot of the PSBJ’s TechFlash, starring John Cook and Todd Bishop). If you’re interested in Seattle tech and its fleece-vest lifestyle, this is what you need to read. Coming soon will be an interview with Cook, as soon as I can find the time to pester him about it.
