Why does Elon Musk have such a big fan club?
"OMG HE IS SAVING TEH PLANET"
WHERE TO EVEN BEGIN
JESUS CHRIST
He's got a bigger cult of personality than Steve Jobs. I think it might be bigger than Kim Jong-Un.
I could write a BOOK on this stuff.
Do I dare elaborate?
SPACEX:
I think others put it best: your children will not remember or give a single fuck about the first time someone reused a first stage of a rocket.
It's hocus pocus that distracts from the fact spaceflight is still REALLY fucking expensive even with this hocus-pocus and SpaceX still has NO human-rated spacecraft.
They are still heavily backlogged with NASA's contracts.
So, there's that. They're another aerospace company trying to look fancy and put on airs.
@Elizafox even homehowners cannot necessarily afford the cost, or have the space or time to do it.
@awilfox SOLAR PANELS COST A FORTUNE.
Like
People don't seem to get it, people who rent don't understand.
It's $20k to fucking install them.
You will recoup your investment in 30 years even with selling power back.
Some places tax you for selling power back to the grid. Yeah that's shitty. Complain to your local representative.
HYPERLOOP:
Not happening soon. We don't have the technology to make vacuum chambers that large.
EVERYTHING ELSE:
Elon Musk's companies treat their workers like horse shit.
He is another corporate baron.
There are others more worthy of your admiration.
@Elizafox it bothers me that people have forgotten Elon Musk started his empire with Zip2 and X.com.
Nobody knows or remembers what X.com is.
It's fucking PayPal. http://fortune.com/2007/11/13/paypal-mafia/
Except he was so brandead he couldn't even hang on to PayPal. Peter Thiel kicked him out for saying they should bet the farm on migrating from Unix to Windows.
Everyone seems to conveniently forget that! 🤔
@Elizafox are you saying silicon valley...is a bubble?
@live I am saying people worship Elon Musk for no fucking reason.
AND HERE COME THE PEOPLE COMING TO DEFEND HIM.
I wish I had people who would defend everything I did.
@Elizafox but what about juicero
1) production for Model 3 will start this summer. It will be available for $35,000 before incentives. Naturally, customers who order the car with pricey options will be prioritized in the production queue (eg autopilot), so the average purchase price will be much higher than $35K at first. However, it's been shown that Tesla customers have lower revenues than customers from competitors in the same car segment (no gas expenses and lower maintenance cost)
@Elizafox by the end of 2017, "No one but someone with a six-figure salary can afford a Tesla" will be proven wrong. If production reach 300K units by end of 2018, this will be quite obvious.
> I don't know their real worth but it isn't "more than Ford."
The thing is, Tesla is entering multiple markets:
- auto: sedans, pickup trucks, SUV, semis, roadster
- consumer services: service station (announced yesterday)
- energy generation: solar panels, solar rooves
- home building: cf. solar roof
- energy storage: powerwalls, power packs
- utility services: end-to-end microgrids
@Elizafox
This can be considered market *potential* but the market estimates the value of an enterprise through its ability to generate future earnings. By capturing a few %s of these industries, it's easy to envision a company that weighs several times Ford Co.
> Converting your garage into a solar-powered charging station is not happening for people who 1) rent, or 2) live in an apartment. It's a distraction.
Did you read yesterday announcement? https://www.tesla.com/blog/charging-our-priority They're doubling their supercharging network in 8 months, and will start building stations within city centers.
@j Yeah those'll totally come to Oklahoma where big oil OWNS MY STATE.
@j Also doubling of zero is... zero... I don't think the turnpike concessions are gonna add them. Great in cities. We might even get a few more in Tulsa.
Some Uber drivers use leafs here. I salute them! It's a massive pain in the ass to do so.
But you get outside the city and you are screwed until you get to the next major island of civilisation. Which can be far out here.
@j Furthermore for people living in apts and rent houses where they aren't allowed to add solar stations (which is just shy of most people now), or those who can't afford it, they gotta plug into mains.
I mean if your power comes from mostly clean sources that's fine.
We have a lot of wind out here but it only meets like 3% of our needs and the farms are everywhere (it's just too inefficient).
@j NOTE: I am no oil baron. I don't like big oil. I hate fossil fuels.
I also know the conditions out here. Things are different in "flyover country." The place half the nation exists in.
What the issue with charging an EV with dirty sources? The electric motor is so efficient that even with coal as the main source, it's better for the environment to drive electric. And as a bonus, this pushes the pollution outside of the city center (where most people lives).
I recommend to separate the two issues because you can tackle them both simultaneously, without a chicken and egg dilemna.
@Elizafox Don't judge EV with the current line up. All the automanufacturers are investing big time in EV and this is just the beginning. If the Leaf can convince Uver drivers to go electric, wait til Nissan and Cos reach Tesla $/Kwh.
As for rural areas, 2 things matter: battery capacity (increasing fast) and charging time.
Check this out: https://electrek.co/2016/12/24/tesla-supercharger-v3-over-350-off-grid-solar-powerpack-elon-musk/
@Elizafox I quote:
> 6 minutes would give you 70kWh. That’s enough to drive for about 4 hours or 250 miles. Gas fuel pumps in the US pump 5-10 gallons per minute so add a 2 minute credit card transaction and you get about 20-40 gallons in the same time period. We’re now coming close to parity with gasoline.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
How long will it take for them to get there? Place your bet.
@j Oh, EV will get better and better.
I am fine with it as a technology. I've been following it for ages. I hope one day we find batteries as energy dense as gasoline (that's a major end goal believe it or not).
More charging stations are going to be needed and more state lobbying too. Lots of states esp Republican ones are very hostile to it atm and offer no incentives.
It's so bad we almost taxed wind energy extra. Yeah. This is what we're up against. It's bad.
@j (I didn't vote for the fucking idiots who thought the wind energy tax up, like who the hell thinks that, even if you don't "believe" in climate change you know coal isn't renewable, but hey)
@Elizafox big oil is losing more and more power and this will get even more obvious in the next few years. At some points in the near future, banks and politicians will switch and side with companies best positionned to lead the energy transition (for publicity at first, then for $$ and influence).
@Elizafox
I live in an appartment in one of the densest in the world. I'm a subscriber of a leading on-demand EV network (5000 EVs and as many charging points in one city), I can tell you it's become very easy to rely on EV in the regiob.
@Elizafox Here's what popping up in the streets of London https://framapiaf.org/media/YMV0k50-X4J95pg0IW0
This is the near future. I expect cities to subsidize the electricity to speed up the switch to clean transportation and fight air pollution.
@Elizafox I thought they only dragged you through the mud if you tried to hit them up for money after your accident.
@USBhumpDog Blamed them at all.
@USBhumpDog They release it to the press if you were at-fault.
They don't say shit if it was theirs.
Some pundits have made rebuttals but mostly amount to "THEY HAD TO" no they did not.
@Elizafox I mean, it's like asking who was the first man in space? only the nerds will care but it's none the less important
TESLA:
No one but someone with a six-figure salary can afford a Tesla. That's not likely to change anytime soon. They drag you through the mud if you get into an accident with autopilot and it's your fault.
The idea they are on paper worth more than Ford or GM is frankly *hilarious*. I don't know their real worth but it isn't "more than Ford."
Converting your garage into a solar-powered charging station is not happening for people who 1) rent, or 2) live in an apartment. It's a distraction.