Can I already buy tickets for the 2018 Glowcon Europe in Rotterdam? (or Mechelen, Nurnberg, Nancy, or somewhere.)
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Oostkapelle is nice in the late summerā¦
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Hey folks. Letās be clear about what was promised in the current schedule: those dates are when they promised to [begin the] ship[ing process for] the Glowforges by those dates.
@dan has stated that their intention is to have them in customers hands by then, but that some international customers are at most risk of slipping.
They are, therefore, trying to over-deliver on their promise, but by the definitions of their terms (whether or not you like or agree that the terms can be used in that manner) they will meet the letter of their schedule if they send the emails by 10/31 or 11/30 depending on the category.
They will not meet their intention if the units are not delivered by then but thatās not what was promised.
And, for those of you who want to be informed early if they are going to slip again, @dan has already said that is a potential thing, especially for international deliveries.
They likely do not have a clear picture of how close they will be. They likely have a range of dates they can finish production that may well straddle their deadlines. We donāt know. And we donāt really have a business need to knowādefinitely a want to know!!
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Letās take a high profile company that takes pre-orders: Tesla. They are a publicly traded company and as such they must make certain disclosures to their stockholders.
The Tesla Model X was announced in 2012. A prototype was shown at a press and owners event. Tesla took refundable deposits of $5,000 for the car, or $40,000 for the first 1200 off the line (signature versions). They projected deliveries starting in 2013.
Through several delays, caused both by the phenomenal success of the Model S and the difficulty of building a car with too much new tech all at once.
By the time they started production in September of 2015, there were over 26,000 reservations. By January 2016 they had delivered fewer than 600.
Each Tesla is built to orderā¦but they are supply constrained. They invited groups of people to convert their reservations to orders (which made the deposit non-refundable) in batches even before there were cars available to test drive, or even sit in. Thousands did so. Thousands also deferred until they could see one at a Tesla Gallery, or perhaps see one being shown off by the early recipients.
Teslaās web site would show a vague indication that your car was āin productionā and a several-week range in which it might be finished. You would typically have only a few days notice that your car was ready to be delivered. It was at that time you needed to arrange financing or liquidate the cash to complete the purchase on a car worth between $80,000 to $140,000.
Participating in the forums from Spring 2015 there was about the same mix of people complaining about lack of transparency and those who where fascinated by watching the birth of a technological marvel. Elon Musk would tweet out teasers of information. Quarterly earnings calls and annual shareholder meetings would be scrutinized for any indication of progress.
Skip forward to March 31, 2016. That evening Elon would unveil the Tesla Model 3 to thousands of lucky invitees in person and via webcast. That morning, though, all around the world people stood in lines several hundred long for the chance to place a $1000 deposit for this more affordable ($35,000 base) car. Placing reservations online opened 30 minutes before the web cast. By the end of the webcast over 115,000 had been reserved. That number grew to 373,000 within the first week. The demand surprised Tesla so much that the accelerated their production volume plans by two years.
Tesla gave its employees first crack at ordering and they are receiving the first cars. No one believed Tesla would actually start production on time, but they are now in the self-described āproduction hellā of ramping production from zero to a planned 5000 cars per week in December and 10,000 per week sometime in 2018.
Again, the forums are clamoring for more information. People want to know when they can order their cars and when they will be delivered. Delivery dates matter to them financially as well, because sometime this year or next, Tesla will deliver their 200,000th car in the US, which starts a sunset clause on a $7,500 federal tax credit. Tesla has a page that will guesstimate when you might get your car based on the very limited option packages that have been announced. Want more choice, or certain higher performance versions? Itās a longer wait.
The board of directors is the only group that gets the details. Not the stockholders, not the customers.
And thatās for products much more expensive than a Glowforge, by a company that has slipped schedules many times.
So please forgive me if I consider the privilege displayed by those demanding to know every detail to be a bit excessive.
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But those buyers are rich so they can wait. And Elon is famous for overpromising and missing dates. And besides theyāre rich so they donāt need to worry about the tax credit disappearing. And itās not the same because Teslas were never said to be ready for shipment 3 months after sales opened up. No one was counting on them to open a Tesla Taxi Company. And besides, itās a Tesla (breathless sigh).
Oh, by the way, a real Model 3 with autonomous driving capability, etc is 55K not 35K - but thatās not really deceptive, everyone expects that of car dealers. Oh, and that $9,000 battery upgrade? Turns out itās software and they can just flip a switch in their servers and your car gets it (they turned it on for FL customers fleeing Irma so theyād have extended range). Same batteries get installed in all the cars, but you pay $9K for the switch to be set. Thatās not deceptive, thatās smart marketing.
<Is there a tongue in cheek emoji?>
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I know your reply is tongue and cheek but it brings something up that really gets to me whenever it is brought up. Maybe slightly off topic.
āOh you have X for a car, you must be rich so you can afford to fix it if someone dents it in a parking lot and doesnāt leave a noteā
Iāve got a nice car and nothing more than average cash flow. That (non-tongue and cheek) attitude is why I have a dent on drivers side that I canāt afford to fix without eating a 500 dollar deductible that I canāt afford 
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Torches me too. I have a nice car. Itās stupidly expensive but I donāt expect Iāll ever have to replace it so in the long run itās cheaper than 4 Chevys. Between my age and the carās build quality itās probably not an unfounded expectation. That doesnāt mean itās acceptable to scratch or dent it in the parking lot and leave. That scratch is gonna cost me a grand. (I have one Iām waiting to fix. 
)
I love how people make judgements of what I should be able to afford by making assumptions from what my job is - and not knowing if I have an elderly parents Iām paying to live in a decent assisted living facility or a brother that canāt work and hasnāt for 10 years and paid every dime for 4 kids to go to college because even āmeritā scholarships require financial need (why do you need my financial aid forms to determine merit based scholarships?). And because of taxes, every one of the million dollars Iāve spent on college cost me another dollar to give to various local, state and federal agents so I could give the other dollar to a college. Itās a crazy system 
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My observations in traffic, while not particularly scientific, tell me that the nicer the car (or larger the diesel pickup), the less likely it is to use itās blinkers when changing lanes, or come to a complete stop at an intersection, and the more likely it is to tailgate others on the freeway. This is not to say that all drivers of nicer cars/lifted diesel truck do this, but I am not the only one to notice the correlation.
This article:
Based on this paper:
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Not satisfied unless my Truck or SUV has a big scratch down the side. They are utilitarian not something I bought for my friends or neighbors. Wash them once every few months to reduce the mud weight.
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Depends on where you are driving. In Boston, the most likely to cut you off (successfully) is the beat-up carābecause they donāt care if it gets dented again 
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So basically Glowforge is Tesla, except that they arenāt reserving all the initial production models for themselves.
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Maybe, maybeā¦ I purposely didnāt mention being cut-off, short-stopped, or flipped off (ie, given the Boston Wave). I see that across the board. Shoot, being cut-off in Boston just counts as regular driving, if my experiences there are any indicator. I donāt know how my sister does itā¦ but then, she couldnāt understand how I drove in whiteout conditions in Colorado.
I had a friend who drove an old, slow car, on a road where people tended to drive really fast. She was rear-ended by someone tailgating her when she slowed for traffic around a corner. She was fine, but the back of her car looked really nasty. She didnāt have the money to fix it. At one point I asked if she wanted help just removing the sharp, twisted metal remainsā¦ she said no.
āNobody tailgates me anymore, it looks like I short-stop for insurance $$ā
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No, in the Tesla case, their employees are beta testers. Thatās why they are getting them first. In the Glowforge case, we should be getting a well-tested machine by the time they get to me. But since Glowoforge is software as a service weāll probably always be in beta.
Fortunately Iām not a wealthier class person - just a working stiff looking for the best TCO. 
No vacations in the islands (see āCollege for kidsā) or actually anywhere much at all in fact. But the kids have turned out great, we owe the pops some comfort in his old age and the deadbeat brotherās days are numbered (or not - we said weād make him fend for himself after we moved his father to the assisted memory care center but we relented 
- softer than we like to thing we are).
Besides Iām an ex-ambulance driver and a current motorcycle rider.
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āOrgan Donorā Sorry. That term is reserved for helmet-less ridersā¦
Iāve come off of three of them above 50 MPH. (Iām still here!) Mr. Hyde emerges with a throttle in my hand.
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moto riders are crazy.
See:
I knew I wouldnāt make it, but I tried anyway. Crazy.
What is the draw, I wonderā¦
Damn, I miss riding in the Rockies.
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I am
Iām an Iron Butt guy so ATGATT and long distances are the norm. No get-offs (yet).
Saw ugly bike accidents and ugly car wrecks (including one with multiple decapitations) but still ride & drive. Everything has risks and risk-free is an illusion of life.
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That was my favorite, but I wasnāt gettinā after it like you guys. I would just cruse the trail. Beats the s*#% out of the highway. The trees donāt take a right in front of you.
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Putting the status at the top of the page is a great step towards transparency and progress, but only if itās being updated. It does not appear to have been updated in more than a week, which suggests either a lack of transparency, a lack of progress, or both.
At the current rate of progress, it seems like there is no chance whatsoever that Glowforge will meet the shipping goal. Whatās going on? Why have so few units shipped so far? If @dan still remains confidents in the current dates, what makes him and the team think they have any chance of catching up? In 2 1/2 months since the Pro started shipping, Glowforge is still working on day 1 orders. Right now it feels like itās a matter of when, and not if Glowforge announces yet another round of shipping delays.
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If I remember correctly, they said it would be updated about once a week.