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Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

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Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#61

Post by whatok »

Retric wrote: post #54
whatok wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please describe how this selection bias filter works.

Failure is more interesting. The Model 3’s novel UI was extremely risky, but seems to have been acceptable so it’s rarely mentioned. In the end he takes a lot of risks, but it’s only by looking at both successes and failures that you can judge his approach is reasonable.

The number and magnitude of the failures are larger now than there were in the past. Similarly, look at the old SolarCity acquisition thread linked below. The sentiment is completely different.

No one cares about a great UI if people's roofs are catching fire. With all the positives and negatives weighed and accounted for, there is simply more negative things going on with the company right now than positive.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#63

Post by Reedx »

jshowa3 wrote: post #55
martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as…

Nobodies perfect. Not even Musk. So I suggest accepting both the faults and successes of the man as a complete package. Tesla is one of the many cases of Silicon Valley syndrome where you run a company at negative profit forever while claiming to make all these substantial advances (some laudable, others stupid) in an attempt to disrupt something that's been working for decades for specific reasons. There's a reason…

It's not really one of those cases though. Electric cars were all but dead. They were considered a joke ("golf carts") until Telsa challenged the status quo and changed the industry. Many seem to have already forgotten this.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#64

Post by olau »

danso wrote: post #57
martythemaniak wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more of a meta comment on which stories surface up on Hacker News and other media. The selection of content you get exposed to can matter more than the exact content you consume. I went for dinner to my in-laws a few months ago and my mother-in-law asked if I had heard about the Tesla that caught fire in Shanghai. I said, yeah but did you hear about all the combustion cars that had combusted that day. She had no…

Genuinely curious: how did you identify this story as being low value? The Shanghai anecdote to me seems self-evidently low value (since the incidence of car fires is still rare, and individual incidents have low impact). But this story's headline (on the article page) alleges serious misconduct, as well as financial problems/shortfalls that unavoidably impact Tesla.

Red flags for me were language and sources. The writer didn't try to test her assumptions, as far as I can tell.

I think it's true that Musk went in and tried to save SolarCity by assuming control and changing the course. That was news at the time where it happened. He did the same to Tesla, actually. It's also true that he's always talking about visions.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#65

Post by standyro »

boyadjian wrote: post #56

Tesla is a Ponzi scheme.

Ponzi schemes don't produce anything of value, like amazing supercars that cost By that same logic, any Y Combinator "unicorn" startup is a ponzi scheme. Overvalued, unrealistic investor expectations.

Granted, this SolarCity deal was definitely not in Tesla's best interest... having chatted with a former engineer there who left because of their dysfunction.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#66

Post by tigershark »

jshowa3 wrote: post #55
martythemaniak wrote: post #36

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as…

Nobodies perfect. Not even Musk. So I suggest accepting both the faults and successes of the man as a complete package. Tesla is one of the many cases of Silicon Valley syndrome where you run a company at negative profit forever while claiming to make all these substantial advances (some laudable, others stupid) in an attempt to disrupt something that's been working for decades for specific reasons. There's a reason…

All the talented people that you mentioned were laughing when he proposed reusable rockets, and we all know how it ended.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#67

Post by jshowa3 »

Reedx wrote: post #63
jshowa3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobodies perfect. Not even Musk. So I suggest accepting both the faults and successes of the man as a complete package. Tesla is one of the many cases of Silicon Valley syndrome where you run a company at negative profit forever while claiming to make all these substantial advances (some laudable, others stupid) in an attempt to disrupt something that's been working for decades for specific reasons. There's a reason…

It's not really one of those cases though. Electric cars were all but dead. They were considered a joke ("golf carts") until Telsa challenged the status quo and changed the industry. Many seem to have already forgotten this.

Electric cars were not all but dead. They've actually been quite prevalent, it was just done largely pre-WWW so you didn't see a lot of the hype. It also wasn't that feasible because of the lack of technology.

And since companies were actually trying to make money, and cars were becoming more fuel efficient, there wasn't the demand. In fact, there still isn't that high of a demand for electric cars these days.

I'm not discounting that Tesla made some innovations. But people make it out like Tesla radically changed the functionality of the electric car when it's still largely the same technology, just more advanced.

To give an example, the Nissan Leaf was out well before people even heard of Tesla, and that was one of the most popular and widely sold electric vehicles. At the time, Tesla only had the 100k Roadster.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#68

Post by jshowa3 »

tigershark wrote: post #66
jshowa3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobodies perfect. Not even Musk. So I suggest accepting both the faults and successes of the man as a complete package. Tesla is one of the many cases of Silicon Valley syndrome where you run a company at negative profit forever while claiming to make all these substantial advances (some laudable, others stupid) in an attempt to disrupt something that's been working for decades for specific reasons. There's a reason…

All the talented people that you mentioned were laughing when he proposed reusable rockets, and we all know how it ended.

Reusable rockets have existed for decades. The space shuttle program used reusable rockets. The DCX was a rocket that controlled similar to the falcon 9 in the 90's. The problem is, both programs were shelved in favor of cheaper, unmanned, probe vehicles.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#69

Post by pastor_elm »

smacktoward wrote: post #9

This bit seems pretty damning: > As SolarCity struggled to raise money from institutional investors, it began offering individuals a chance to buy what it called Solar Bonds. (“Now you can get paid while driving the solar revolution,” the marketing material said.) But there were few takers—so other parts of the Musk empire took up the slack. According to the shareholder lawsuit, SpaceX acquired $255 million of the bo…

They offered a decent return (IIRC, at least 4%).

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#70

Post by jcampbell1 »

docker_up wrote: post #18

The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did and it has dire consequences for Tesla the car company. Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk because he did not do this in the best interest of his shareholders, it's in the best interest of his cousin. Co-mingling all parts of his companies (SpaceX buying SolarCity Bonds) is a huge red flag that reeks of corporate malfea…

Using his concept of "first principles" Solar City isn't a long term viable business. Residential solar only makes sense as a sort of a green washing stepping stone to grid solar. I'm glad we did it and got the public excited about green energy, but solar panels should be installed in fields except in very exceptional cases.
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