Earlier today, I mentioned a car becoming a brick, but another place where this phenomenon is playing out is with solar power. Solar companies have had a tough time lately, as have many businesses in the face of rising interest rates. The unexpected consequence is that people who own solar panels can’t get the hardware maintained.
Thankfully, many of these systems are built to work when the power is off and Internet connectivity is impossible. However, some of the more advanced solar panels I’ve considered for my home include numerous IoT or connected features that need the power of backend services to function properly.
Maybe companies that offer connected devices or warranties should be required to save money to fund these systems in their untimely demise?
What Happens to Those Solar Panels When Solar Companies Shut Down
“We pretty much have a $70,000 roof ornament at this point”
Almost any device you buy today is a connected device that is essentially bricked without servers and the Internet. I’ve mentioned the pain this can cause when businesses fail and instantly your speakers, home automation, or other products just stop working.
As our toys get bigger, the stakes of what this means get higher. Take the recent bankruptcy of EV car maker Fisker. Some of the car’s features need access to online services to work, and some features require OTA (over-the-air) updates to get enabled. While cars from old, non-existent brands like Saturn can run today with no issues, a Fisker and other connected cars have much more complex software that stands to limit what’s possible when and if the company shuts down its services.
It’s not uncommon for today’s cars to respond to recalls by releasing software updates that fix issues. Fisker has made it clear that it can and will not provide any updates beyond its recently released version 2.1 update. That has to be a hard pill to swallow after spending $70k on a car that is now valued for 14k.
Fisker asks bankruptcy court to sell its EVs at average of $14,000 each | TechCrunch
Fisker has a willing buyer for its remaining inventory of all-electric Ocean SUVs, and has asked the Delaware Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing its
Howdy 👋🏾. No matter how often I make rice, I need a reminder of the different water-to-rice ratios for different types of rice grains. A Basmati is just a bit different than a Jasmine rice, and as a New Orleanian, serving bad rice is a sin. For years and years, I would do a quick […]
Howdy👋🏾, On Sunday, a close friend and I pitched tents at Shenandoah National Park. As we drove up the mountain, my service dropped from full coverage to zero bars, and all of my notifications, emails, and text messages went silent. As someone who is often directly jacked into the Internet, the silence initially caused a […]
Howdy 👋🏾, when Google released its new AI Search Overviews at Google I/O, I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of SEO specialists and content creators suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened. AI Search Overviews provide summaries or direct answers to users’ […]
Howdy, I hope you had a fantastic Memorial Day. Long weekends like these are great for reflection, and that reflection can lead to transformation, which is the theme of this week’s newsletter. My daughter graduated high school this weekend and will soon start her college journey! If you looked in a dictionary for the words […]
Howdy 👋🏾, last week, I fixated so much on the OpenAI Spring Event, Google I/O, and Apple’s upcoming WWDC event that I somehow forgot to mention Microsoft and its Build conference, which kicked off this week. Microsoft has openly embraced AI, and all indications suggest that the company is fully committed to making AI a […]
Howdy👋🏾, this was a busy week for AI. Monday started with OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT 4o at its Sprint event, which Sam Altman described on X as “magical.” Google I/O 2024 kicked off Tuesday with tons of new AI releases, a hint at the return of Google Glass, and AI-powered search. This is all happening […]
Howdy 👋🏾, since Meta dropped Llama 3, their latest open-source language model, I’ve been head down exploring the new model and kicking the tires to see how capable it is. One thing I love about Meta’s open approach to AI is the flourishing ecosystem that’s developing around it and other open AI models like Mixtral, a […]
Howdy 👋🏾, last week I briefly mentioned Ezra Klein’s excellent episodes on AI, all worth a listen. Over and over, Ezra mentioned Kindroids and his experience with them, and I kept thinking, what the heck is a Kindroid, and how did I miss that new AI model? Well, folks, Kindroid is an AI-powered app that […]
I test-drove many EVs before deciding on getting a Tesla Model 3, and the deciding factor was unquestionably the supercharger network. It is the best in the US and a huge differentiator for Tesla.
Even if the supercharger network diverted resources from the company’s core goals, there were better alternatives. Selling or, better yet, spinning off as a JV could have preserved the invaluable institutional knowledge of the 500-person team.
Keep in mind that this is the same team that just convinced every US car maker to make NACS the Tesla Charging standard the de facto US standard. In doing that, they opened the company to receive cash from Biden’s NEVI program. They’re getting free cash from us and the US government to expand this network.
If you see something I’m missing, please let me know in the comments, but this single move seems like the best way to destroy one of the company’s best competitive advantages.
Tesla conducting more layoffs, including entire Supercharger team
The newest round includes Tesla’s policy team, director of new products, and the entire group responsible for Supercharger rollout.
Howdy 👋🏾, in this year’s growing list of finallys – Humane released their AI pin, and reviews have been brutal. The gist is that the device has wonderfully designed hardware that feels great and software that way under delivers. My pin is still on order, so I’ll get a chance to confirm the reviews in […]
Howdy👋🏾, Tesla’s Q1 earnings missed the mark, so the company’s offering everyone a free 30-day trial of its $15,000 beta full self-driving mode. If you read my newsletter, you know I own a Tesla. I’ve documented my experience facing range anxiety driving from Baltimore to Winston-Salem, NC, and shared my thoughts sitting in the backseat […]
Howdy👋🏾 , Increasingly, deep fakes are becoming a concern. In the last two weeks, my coworker Dean sent me an article about a Baltimore County Principal whose comments were possibly faked by AI-generated audio, and a fake Biden asked people not to vote. This whole thing got me wondering how easily I could deep fake […]
Howdy Bob, every once in a while, a new AI tool pops on the scene that is so good and so amazing that you have to pick your jaw off the floor after using it. I caught wind of a new music generation tool named Suno AI from an article on TechCrunch. I helped produce […]
Howdy👋🏾, as I move into my second month with the Apple Vision Pro, I wanted to revisit my review and share some additional thoughts. I still love the device, but I must admit that I don’t use it on a daily basis. However, over the past two months, I’ve demonstrated the app to over 50 […]
Howdy 👋🏾, last month, Tyler Perry announced he was pulling back from his $800 million investment in a new film studio in Atlanta. This decision came after he laid eyes on OpenAI’s new AI diffusion model, Sora, which can create video from a text prompt. If you haven’t already, check out Sora’s videos; they’re amazing. […]
Howdy 👋🏾, I joined a panel on AI’s ethical and unintended consequences last week at the Maryland Technology Council’s Technology Transformation Conference. Matt Puglisi, co-founder of Netrias, moderated the panel, which featured me along with Dr. Balaji Padmanabhan, Dean of Decisions at the University of Maryland Smith School, and Gregory Stone, Partner of Intellectual Property […]
