351–360 of 396 posts
They should also sack the execs who made the shitty decision to hire these guys, being approached by salesmen ruins any shopping experience IMHO and the whole debacle has probably lowered Tesla's image even more in the eyes of most people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understood the fanboyism on HN. Tesla builds electric cars with a subpar autopilot. They are nice cars but it's far from revolutionary. Tesla is not SpaceX. Tesla is not Apple, the car industry is not Nokia. Many people on HN seem to be confused here. I do think SpaceX should be renamed Tesla though, it would help selling Tesla cars.
I actually think the Apple comparison is quite apt; it's the novel application and extension of existing technologies into desirable consumer-level products. Not an Apple product/feature announcement goes by without a chorus of people shouting about how it's not really an invention because some other company already has it buried in their product. Can't the same be said about virtually everything Tesla is doing in th…
The argument against Tesla isn't about their products, it is about the economic valuation of the company making the products.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why does Tesla/SpaceX generate so much sophomoric positivity? Watching those boosters land literally gave me goosebumps. I just thought, holy shit, this guy is the real deal.
Recovering a booster for reuse, something the Space Shuttle program did literally hundreds of times? That gave you shivers? Really?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are not in financial trouble. Most people are only skeptical if they can do it without raising capital. I agree, they are not in financial trouble. Being dependent on a near-term capital raise, however, is financially perilous. Lots of companies were waiting for the fall fundraising season when Lehman went bankrupt.
Elon said in the last meeting that this is not required.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So what matters is the wishful thinking, not the pioneering work SpaceX’s competitors actually accomplished? Another way to look at it is that what matters is the pioneering work that SpaceX has actually accomplished (and stands to accomplish) that none of their competitors has (primarily, drastically lowering the cost of reaching space while achieving high and increasing launch rates). > What matters is that Tesla…
So...you're comparing reducing the costs of getting into space with the achievement of developing the technology that actually made it possible to get into space? The latter is a revolution. The former is just an incremental evolution. Laudable, but nowhere close to the same level of accomplishment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Elon said in the last meeting that this is not required.
Elon has said many things that weren't true and the balance sheet doesn't lie. Tesla is going to need to raise capital.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe because people think space is cool and there's been close to zero progress for decades before they came along? Or maybe because the goal is something more than just making money, something that clearly set them apart from the other entities in the field, at least when they started.
>Or maybe because the goal is something more than just making money Maybe they view their payoff date in a longer term fashion, maybe the way they will make their money is 'cool' but Space X isn't more charitable than any other company.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why does Tesla/SpaceX generate so much sophomoric positivity? Watching those boosters land literally gave me goosebumps. I just thought, holy shit, this guy is the real deal.
Recovering a booster for reuse, something the Space Shuttle program did literally hundreds of times? That gave you shivers? Really?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly, I see this from the exact opposite view. I'm surprised it's taken this long for the rubber to meet the road. Tesla sells the most electric vehicles, but it's hardly the sort of delta you describe ("extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do"). Nissan and Tesla both hit the 300,000 car mark in January/February of 2018. And let's not forget the recent NTSB report, which revealed that "A…
why does Tesla/SpaceX generate so much sophomoric positivity? Watching those boosters land literally gave me goosebumps. I just thought, holy shit, this guy is the real deal.
There are a lot of smart people in the world who, with the same backing that Musk received, could lead a company to achieve those goals. Without spreading themselves so thin that they make mistakes affecting thousands of people. Our tendency to elevate and idolize people who are aggressive and self-promoting leaves little room for those blessed by the absence of those traits.
It's ridiculous that on a day when thousands face unemployment that there are excited stories about flamethrowers being shipped.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recovering a booster for reuse, something the Space Shuttle program did literally hundreds of times? That gave you shivers? Really?
Watch the video of them landing themselves - it was truly unprecedented
Space-X have done great work in making landed-recovery practical and reliable but they're again building on top of work originally done by the DoD-contractor model.