Elon Musk: Boeing 787 battery fundamentally unsafe

Post by niels_olson » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 5:31 AM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #93

commandar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unless there was something so obviously wrong with the design that a conclusion was inescapable Isn't that exactly what both Musk and Professor Sadoway are suggesting in the linked article?

I'd be very interested in what they are saying if --and only if-- they had access to Boeing and FAA design and test data. You have to remember that the FAA had to approve these subsystems as well. I don't have any first-hand experience on just how detailed (or not) this certification process might be. Once again, how could anyone say anything at all without looking at data. To make a really dumb analogy, it's like cl…

Post by venus » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 5:41 AM UTC

msandford wrote: post #75

robomartin wrote: post #68

While I can't dispute anything that is being said I think it is unfortunate that this is playing out the way it is. I can't dispute it because there's virtually no reliable publicly-available information on the design of this battery pack. I think it is unbecoming of an engineer or scientist, particularly of prominence, to voice such opinions without access to design data from the source. Before I could even begin to…

Even if the engineers at Boing are REALLY good (and that's not guaranteed by any means) then you've still go the subcontractor problem to deal with. Boeing didn't design, engineer, fabricate, test and qualify these batteries in-house. Saying that they have advanced degrees from prestigious institutions makes it less likely that they have made mistakes is a non-starter. There ARE PROBLEMS with the batteries FULL STOP.…

Post by gregcohn » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 5:47 AM UTC

Post by nigelsampson » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 5:58 AM UTC

amcaskill wrote: post #77

Osmium wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a very smart move by Musk from a PR point of view. This is an awful PR move if he's wrong. I hope he's sure.

It's a smart PR move in either scenario. It's unlikely this will matter if he is wrong. If he is correct, this will become an even larger main stream news story and there is a good chance that his prescience will be picked up and included in how it is reported. More importantly, if this becomes a major story, he has preempted the inevitable look at other products (tesla) which include li-ion batteries by describing t…

Post by daemin » Wed, Jan 30, 2013, 5:59 AM UTC

djloche wrote: post #33

Avitas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes me wonder what the next public and private PR moves should be for Boeing. My first guess is that their strategy should: A) Mention the tradeoffs involved with any engineering project B) Quickly accept blame instead of pushing it off to a supplier, a single employee and/or group (i.e., even if they have excellent reason and evidence for doing so) C) Make known their official stance on Elon's technical asses…

D) take EM's offer and source the batteries / solution to a joint boeing-spacex/tesla project and proudly proclaim that they're going to the world's experts on batteries, the same people that NASA trusts - SpaceX. This provides positive press for both companies and (provided they fix the problem) resolves any long term problems that might completely destroy their business (like having multiple planes catch fire or bl…