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Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

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Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#141
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, the shuttle rockets where expendable. The only reusable part was the shuttle itself and every launch was very expensive compared to SpaceX. Do you have any source for the reusable rockets used in the space shuttle?

They were not expendable (although they could be). They were refurbished. However, because of splashdown, the damage from corrosion and the need to refurbish the rocket because it wasn't tanked, caused the cost to not be feasible.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#142

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…

Pretty unsurprising really - sure, hating on Musk is popular, but it's mostly a reaction to the fawning uncritical gaze most people give him, and the way he's portrayed as this genius who is amazing at executing. Elon Musk is great at promising stuff, and then terrible at executing. For every promise he fulfills there are 20 that he doesn't. But sure, the guy who flies private everywhere and shitposts more than I do…

I have a buddy - amicable, smart, did great in a tough school, did even better career wise, responsible for dozens of people, etc - who nevertheless explodes with anger and hatred and goes on 15-minutes tirades if someones brings up Musk in any positive light whatsoever. It is quite a shocking sight.

"Reaction" is the key word here. The opposite of a fanboy is not a hater, it is the person who doesn't care. The fanboy and the hater are two sides of the same coin - they both develop an obsession with a person and define their personalities as a function of this person. Whether that function is love or hate is secondary.

The way out of his is to ignore him, or judge him by his work. He sells cars - really good cars. For example, they have the best range and are incredibly safe. Your emotional reaction won't make you car's range go down, or make you any less safe in a crash.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#143
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars". Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control. SpaceX's aspirational goal is to launch something Mars-wards in the 2022 window to identify where the base will be and have some resources. Then send several vehicles and a few people in 2025 to set up a miss…

Very interesting, but can you elaborate how we could benefit from colonizing Mars? Even more so - how could SpaceX be much more worth by being able to go to Mars, and how others wouldn't be able to achieve similar step sometime after them (depriving SpaceX from exclusivity of operation) Mars is much smaller than Earth with much more hostile environment. I heard some ideas of growing trees or putting air on Mars, but…

Most people will not want to move to Mars, just as very few Europeans wanted to move to the New World in the 1500s.

However while relatively few people want to move to Mars, it is a large absolute number. For example a few years ago when Mars One called for volunteers for a one way trip to Mars, they got 200,000 people volunteering. Even filtering for people whose education and skills would make them useful, they had a large number.

One estimate that I saw said that a viable colony would require about 100,000 people to move over a century. And a person leaving Earth can reasonably spend their life savings to do so. The value proposition is essentially sell your house, use the money to move to Mars. SpaceX is planning to make the trip barely above cost. But don't forget. They will be landing on a planet where basic infrastructure, starting with energy, oxygen and tunnels, are provided by SpaceX. That's going to be billions per year. Of course it will be a long time before that colony is self-sustaining. But when it is, those infrastructure basics will be worth a lot.

As for a second contender, developing a rocket that can compete with SpaceX takes over a decade, and many billions of dollars. And then when you try to travel to Mars, you're going to be landing on a place where the infrastructure is owned by SpaceX. Musk is likely to welcome the competition...and charge top dollar for fuel for a return trip. So you'll have to invest billions more. And once you've done so, you'll be competing against an established competitor who is charging thin margins. And you still won't be in that lucrative infrastructure business.

As for who owns it legally...I believe that the people who live there will claim the land that they settle. And will create their own laws. They would mostly come from the USA where legal tradition resolves all property disputes in favor of squatter's rights. There will be room for all for a long time, but guess who the first and biggest squatters would be?

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#144

For all the negativity here about Musk and his business decisions, there is something to be said for integrating transport and energy services in one great package. I consult for a large energy conglomerate that wants to get into this market from the energy suppliers side, but the problem is that they are completely clueless when it comes to expanding beyond their traditional business. In their vision, they'll supply…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#145
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars". Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control. SpaceX's aspirational goal is to launch something Mars-wards in the 2022 window to identify where the base will be and have some resources. Then send several vehicles and a few people in 2025 to set up a miss…

And if he succeeds, the Mars colony could come to be worth more to SpaceX than its satellite launch business. By a lot. While the concept of settling Mars is understandable from an academic perspective, what is the economic justification for claiming that Mars is valuable? Any Martian colony would require hundreds of billions of Earth investment just to become habitable for a few dozen people and there aren't any res…

I've always liked the idea of a low-gravity forge: mixing metals on Earth is difficult because the heavier metals separate from the lighter metals due to gravity. This wouldn't happen in low-gravity situations, so you can truly make "space metals" that cannot be manufactured on Earth.

However, this only calls for a LEO (low earth orbit) colony, not really a mars colony. Even then, shipping raw material up to LEO is still mindbogglingly expensive (let alone Mars). So no one has even attempted the experiment yet.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#146
post #98

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…

SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars". Being able to land and deploy solar panels at scale is essential to this goal. And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control. SpaceX's aspirational goal is to launch something Mars-wards in the 2022 window to identify where the base will be and have some resources. Then send several vehicles and a few people in 2025 to set up a miss…

>SpaceX's stated goal is "occupy Mars".

That does give them a fair amount of leeway when outsiders are trying to judge them on methods. Is also a hubris trap if not incredibly careful.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#147
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, imagine if Elon Musk announced a technology that could materially move his share price at strategically important points knowing that it was just vapor ware. That would be really bad, but fortunately we know he doesn't do that because we're all driving fully autonomous Teslas right now.

No need to look at "self-driving" as proof. Solar City itself came with a lie that Elon was pushing: Solar Shingles. Not only did Solar City fail to make Solar Shingles under the Tesla banner... Elon eradicated their contracts with Home Depot, fully destroying the future of SolarCity. It should be no surprise to anyone that SolarCity is no longer the top solar company in the USA, but has fallen further and further be…

Each solar shingle turned out to use a traditional connector underneath and not a high tech backplane. Each connector increases the odds of a connector fire, and every single solar shingle has one.

Doing it with traditional connectors was a big surprise that revealed the whole thing to be a charade.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#148
post #57

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.

I didn't say this particular one was, I was cautioning people against what I see as an instance of a very tight social media bubble.

My example may seem low-value, but I've seen lots of very long and detailed discussions around here about Tesla's "Executive Exodus", which fall into the exact same selection bias pitfall.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#149
post #8

If anyone is unfamiliar with the author, she was one of the first mainstream media authors to be critical on Enron and eventually wrote a book on Enron as well.

She wrote 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' subsequently made into an excellent film. I suspect we will be seeing 'Tesla: The Smartest Guys in the Room' soon. It still rankles me that Nicolai Tesla's name is associated with all this.

*Nikola

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably. Enron wasn't tackling space challenges, so I guess there's a slight difference there. Look: fraud is fraud. If someone is lying to the public, it is wrong on that basis alone. Elon Musk could have done everything the same and simply NOT lied about it, and things would have gone far smooth…

>So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably. What in heavens name are you talking about? Are you really claiming that Enron was in the business of replacing petroleum and natural gas with solar and wind energy?

Who cares what Enron was in the business of? Who cares what Musk is in the business of?

I admire Musk’s obvious engineering prowess (chiefly his ability to find and motivate top talent), and his showmanship, but let’s not pretend that by virtue of being on some holy crusade he’ll never need turn a profit.

It would be great if some sizable fraction of the government budget were used for fabulous projects. Personally, I would like to see our entire economy made fully sustainable, and upon transitioning to the only practical sustainable energy source, nuclear, we will be able to wind down much of our military operations, excepting, of course, Afghanistan.

But that isn’t the world we live in. Instead, we live in the world of two-thirds-of-every-tax-dollar-goes-to-the-healthcare-industry, and much-of-the-rest-to-defense-contractors, and hey-look-kiddies-don’t-you-want-a-literal-chip-in-your-brain (the disheveled homeless guy weeping softly in the corner; he tried to warn people but no one listened).

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