Posted on 07/21/2018 11:40:05 PM PDT by deek69
The issue of Musk's reliance on government handouts is irrelevant to my initial assertion that Musk isn't the engineering brains behind Tesla or SpaceX.
I'm not sure you could identify a single person that would be Musk's Wozniak, but his brother Kimbal might be a possibility. The point is that Jobs alone didn't create Apple, nor did Wozniak. The combination of Jobs as the promoter and Wozniak as the designer made Apple a success in its earliest days.
Self promotion is the key to Musk’s business model.
People perceive that Tesla or SpaceX or Boring is likely to be the Next Big Thing, so they will front massive amounts of money to be in early. They believe these companies will succeed because of Elon Musk.
That is why Tesla is “worth more” than GM, even though GM builds a thousand times more cars, and has thousands of engineers more talented than Elon Musk. But is is too late to get in on the ground floor at GM, and nobody sees them as the Next Big Thing.
But people believe in Musk, and are willing to risk money to speculate that he might succeed. But the success of the venture is completely dependent on people’s perception of one man. That is how a single tweet can be worth $2,000,000,000.
“I don’t even let other people behind the wheel when I’m in a car, so it will be a very cold day in hell before I get in a vehicle that’s driving without me behind the wheel.”
Me too, and besides, driving is one of life’s pleasures for me. The other day, I watched a segment of Jay Leno’s Garage where he was up at Sonoma Raceway driving, then being driven by a self-driving Audi on the racetrack. The f*cking thing did lap after lap with annoying accuracy and nearly identical lap times. Leno did manage to beat it’s time for one lap, but the car “won.” How boring! Imagine the Indy 500 with no drivers. Who would pay to watch that? Worse still if the cars were electric and made no sound.
I suspect- drugs.
There’s the real issue. And this “genius” would be dumpster diving (or maybe bagging groceries) if he didn’t have the benefit of a huge government subsidy because our “betters” believe in the idiotic fantasy of electric cars.
Yes, self-driving cars are a nightmare. As bad as the traffic is in certain areas, self driving cars will make it worse.
The only benefits I see with the concept thus far is (1) drunk people can get a ride home without driving; (2) adequately healthy, elderly people and disabled people who cannot drive any longer may be able to maintain their independence. But the discussion is not in these areas, but in delivery services and normal people not driving anymore.
Am I in an alternative universe. Musk and Tesla exist in the Obama universe of economics and science. The technology of operating advanced machinery with stored energy is advanced now, but to expense.
There is no after market for these cars because the teplacement bstteries are 20 to 40000k
Things he’s pushing mot related to cars. Traveling to other planets, massive tunnel boring machine, not a flame thrower flame thrower, etc.
He’s a con building fancy golf carts for the rich and enviromentally challenged.
While selling trips to Mars.
I rather doubt it. You and steel_resolve ought to start a business.
Call it “We_Can’t”.
now, now, he was a little testy. the billionaire’s govt welfare check was late this month.
Musk’s lying about his car company is going to get him in jail—securities fraud.
You heard it here first.
Correct
You can have a vision for something you can not spec.
You can spec something that can not be designed.
You can design something that can not be built.
You can build something that can not be manufactured.
You can manufacture something that has no market.
A mis-step in any of these is failure.
The parasite-on-taxpayer-money isn’t a “total” fraud...just “mostly” a fraud.
Quite possible. Things that are designed for robotic assembly turn out to be fabulous for human assembly.
Remember the old IBM Pro-printer? It was assembled on a fully flexible robotic line. When demand exceeded the line capacity, they installed a temporary human assembly line. The human line output was 4 times greater than they had expected. Humans are amazing.
I had a program manager once that filled in all the check boxes on that list.
Best summation yet.
Tesla may be questionable, but SpaceX is not.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a27290/one-chart-spacex-dominate-rocket-launches/
But, that doesn’t mean he is a good businessman or capable of taking an idea from a startup to a profitable business endeavor. Actually, there’s a long list of people such as Musk who failed in making the leap.
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Musk co-founded and eventually sold Zip2 and made tens of millions of dollars. Musk then co-founded and eventually sold Paypal and made hundreds of millions of dollars. Musk then started SpaceX from scratch in 2002. He’s been running it since then. It now employs thousands and has an estimated private market value of $22 billion. Investors around the world are lined up to buy the stock if any becomes available. Musk bought his way into Tesla about the same time and he’s been running the company since then. Tesla employs around 45,000 people and has a market cap of $54 billion.
But what has Musk produced that any of us here find ourselves not wanting to do without?
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What kind of question is that about companies that operate in a capitalist economy? Musk’s companies have very enthusiastic customers.
As far as “corporate welfare” goes, mostly it’s state and local incentives that are offered in exchange for bringing jobs and economic activity into an area. It’s a competitive market like process.
“Complete understanding” sounds like Musk’s self-promotion. What he understands is that by assembling a team of talented engineers, success is possible (but by no means guaranteed). Without that team, and a force driving it from the top, Tesla and Space-X would never had happened.
Understanding engineering and doing engineering are two different things.
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He essentially manages thousands of engineers and makes many suggestions to them. Why don’t you find one who says Musk doesn’t understand engineering?
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