Progress, or the march of time
I spent the day pawing through huge piles of stuff in search of the two things that will make my life complete.
Well OK, that's an overstatement.
Actually I spent the day at surplus sellers, looking for the two parts that will:
let me build the dynomometer...
to test the motorcycles....
to find the problems...
to fix the problems...
to finish finishing the design...
so we can order parts...
to let us start production...
so we can sell bikes...
so we can make a little money someday...
to let me go on vacation.
See, there is happiness at the end of the road, me sipping margaritas on the beach. But it sure seems like a long and complicated way to get there.
Actually the news is good, because there is happiness at each step. I'm really enjoying the electric motorcycle project. It's a very cool project, and there are lots of really great people working on it every day. Very exciting. Each step along the way has its own rewards, and opens the door to the next challenge.
But that was a digression, I was going to tell you about this surplus place. Picture a very large warehouse, nearly the biggest building you've ever been in. Now remember that you drove past several identical warehouses on the way to this one. You go inside, and the place is wall-to-wall machine parts. Everything from robots and machines taller than I am, to drawers full of nuts and bolts. And it's all for sale really cheap. It's like the world's biggest candy store for mechanical geeks, or people who want to equip a factory on the cheap. Very cool, eh?
Now here is the other side of the coin. All this equipment is removed from automobile industry factories that have recently been shut down or downsized. There are thousands of tons of it. Row after row, aisle after aisle, even building after building. Those once-busy factories are closed now, dark, and all the good stuff has been sent to this warehouse.
As we walk down an aisle our friendly salesperson says "it's a really good time to buy a robot right now". Here they are, never-used robots waiting to be put in production, available for pennies on the dollar. The prices of the brand new ones at the robot factories have fallen tremendously since nobody is building anything anymore. So the prices of these barely-used ones have had to fall even farther. And hey, if you think that's cheap, I wonder what the price will be in a few months? Nobody knows.
It's rather sad and amazing at the same time. All this productive stuff, sitting idle, surplus. As we drove in we went past "Michigan Works!" which is the place where the surplus people go, the ones who used to work with this surplus machinery. What a waste. A waste of time, talent, human lives, productivity, any way you want to measure it.
This is capitalism at its finest, right? Pretty gloomy stuff. But at the same time, here we are. A couple of upstarts with a new idea about making electric vehicles. Something the auto companies have not been willing or able to do. So here we are, benefiting from their failure, buying their un-used equipment, hiring some of their best people. We have high hopes for the future. I hope we can do better than the old auto companies did.
Well OK, that's an overstatement.
Actually I spent the day at surplus sellers, looking for the two parts that will:
let me build the dynomometer...
to test the motorcycles....
to find the problems...
to fix the problems...
to finish finishing the design...
so we can order parts...
to let us start production...
so we can sell bikes...
so we can make a little money someday...
to let me go on vacation.
See, there is happiness at the end of the road, me sipping margaritas on the beach. But it sure seems like a long and complicated way to get there.
Actually the news is good, because there is happiness at each step. I'm really enjoying the electric motorcycle project. It's a very cool project, and there are lots of really great people working on it every day. Very exciting. Each step along the way has its own rewards, and opens the door to the next challenge.
But that was a digression, I was going to tell you about this surplus place. Picture a very large warehouse, nearly the biggest building you've ever been in. Now remember that you drove past several identical warehouses on the way to this one. You go inside, and the place is wall-to-wall machine parts. Everything from robots and machines taller than I am, to drawers full of nuts and bolts. And it's all for sale really cheap. It's like the world's biggest candy store for mechanical geeks, or people who want to equip a factory on the cheap. Very cool, eh?
Now here is the other side of the coin. All this equipment is removed from automobile industry factories that have recently been shut down or downsized. There are thousands of tons of it. Row after row, aisle after aisle, even building after building. Those once-busy factories are closed now, dark, and all the good stuff has been sent to this warehouse.
As we walk down an aisle our friendly salesperson says "it's a really good time to buy a robot right now". Here they are, never-used robots waiting to be put in production, available for pennies on the dollar. The prices of the brand new ones at the robot factories have fallen tremendously since nobody is building anything anymore. So the prices of these barely-used ones have had to fall even farther. And hey, if you think that's cheap, I wonder what the price will be in a few months? Nobody knows.
It's rather sad and amazing at the same time. All this productive stuff, sitting idle, surplus. As we drove in we went past "Michigan Works!" which is the place where the surplus people go, the ones who used to work with this surplus machinery. What a waste. A waste of time, talent, human lives, productivity, any way you want to measure it.
This is capitalism at its finest, right? Pretty gloomy stuff. But at the same time, here we are. A couple of upstarts with a new idea about making electric vehicles. Something the auto companies have not been willing or able to do. So here we are, benefiting from their failure, buying their un-used equipment, hiring some of their best people. We have high hopes for the future. I hope we can do better than the old auto companies did.