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Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

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Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#121

Post by gnulinux »

davinic wrote: post #115
admiralspoo wrote: post #2

What are actually Elon Musk's engineering talents? It seems he is not much more than a marketeer. It's not even clear his visions of reusable rockets and electric cars were original...he is known to take credit for subordinate's ideas and achievements.

Musk wasn't even the founder of Tesla, he rewrote the history in order to call himself that.

> Tesla was founded in July 2003, by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, under the name Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to engineer Nikola Tesla. In early Series A funding, Tesla Motors was joined by Elon Musk, J. B. Straubel and Ian Wright, all of whom are retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders of the company.

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#122

Post by jshowa3 »

jdsully wrote: post #81
jshowa3 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

Tesla was the first to show that electric cars could look good and be performant. Before this the prototypes were excessively aerodynamic and underpowered (probably because of range anxiety). Unfortunately for the environment good aerodynamics make for ugly cars.

I'd argue it was because of battery technology. There was a substantial advance at around 2004 by decreasing the diameter of lithium iron phosphate particles. This increased the capacity significantly of LIB's. Then you have a couple of years of commercialization, then you bring it to market at high cost, then manufacturing process improvements drive the cost lower.

Other improvements drive the capacity even higher through packaging innovations and possible manufacturing improvements as well.

I highly doubt it was due to range anxiety. Even the early Tesla roadster could, at most, go 200 miles. That's nothing on a gasoline engine.

The Nissan Leaf does not look that ugly. It looked like your standard hatchback for the time.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#123

Post by mrnobody_67 »

btilly wrote: post #107
Reedx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have on my bookshelf a book from 20 years ago, which includes a feasibility study commissioned by a major auto company, that concluded that mass market electric cars would not be economically feasible until around 2020, but after that would wipe out the existing ICE industry. The public may have thought that electric cars were all but dead. But smart people knew that their time had not yet come. Oh, and look! Excep…

Tons of environmental consequences for mining lithium and cobalt that are swept under the rug, not to mention battery disposal costs, when talking about electric cars -- https://www.engineering.com/ElectronicsDesign/ElectronicsDes...

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#124

Post by mlyle »

srumino wrote: post #113
jayd16 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the guy that thought he could build a leading electric car and space company and then did that. You don't think Musk believes he can do anything? He always over-promises but that's not exactly the same as a con artist.

Do I think that Musk actually believes Tesla will have a fully self-driving car by the end of 2020? No.

He might believe that (which is rather questionable), but extending that to robotaxis at scale... no, I don't believe he believes that. I hope he doesn't believe that.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#125

Post by davinic »

gnulinux wrote: post #121
davinic wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk wasn't even the founder of Tesla, he rewrote the history in order to call himself that.

> Tesla was founded in July 2003, by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, under the name Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to engineer Nikola Tesla. In early Series A funding, Tesla Motors was joined by Elon Musk, J. B. Straubel and Ian Wright, all of whom are retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders of the company. from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc .

Yes, "retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders".

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#126

Post by CamperBob2 »

jdsully wrote: post #108
CamperBob2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is, Enron didn't build any cars, manufacture any solar panels, or launch any rockets. Anyone buying into Musk's vision understands that they're buying into all of it, for better or worse. Either that, or they're too dumb to be entrusted with large amounts of money, and markets have a way of handling that situation quickly and efficiently.

Your right, they built Power Plants [1] and fibre optic networks instead [2]. Enron was at its core an infrastructure company. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabhol_Power_Station [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2002/01/01/b... They are only remembered for their financial "innovations" which was ultimately their downfall. But to suggest they didn't make anything tangible is false. They even had…

They financed them. They moved money around, they didn't build anything. I've never seen an "Enron" logo on any actual products.

Enron accomplished nothing that wouldn't have happened without them, in one form or another. Agree with him or not, Musk tackles things that either wouldn't happen at all without him, or that would happen too slowly to matter.

The reality is, we need both kinds of companies, but we also need them to behave ethically.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#128

Post by dragontamer »

Traster wrote: post #82
navigatesol wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lawsuit alleges a lot more. For instance,that Musk was aware of and didn't make known the fact the the SEC was looking at Solar City's liquidity position, and that the whole Solar Shingle reveal was a fake to sway the shareholder vote,since the product doesn't exist,two years on.

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 behind. SolarCity, as a company, has been milked and discarded.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#129

Post by jdsully »

jshowa3 wrote: post #122
jdsully wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla was the first to show that electric cars could look good and be performant. Before this the prototypes were excessively aerodynamic and underpowered (probably because of range anxiety). Unfortunately for the environment good aerodynamics make for ugly cars.

I'd argue it was because of battery technology. There was a substantial advance at around 2004 by decreasing the diameter of lithium iron phosphate particles. This increased the capacity significantly of LIB's. Then you have a couple of years of commercialization, then you bring it to market at high cost, then manufacturing process improvements drive the cost lower. Other improvements drive the capacity even higher t…

I’m arguing that Tesla ignored range anxiety and traded range for power and style. The other manufacturers weren’t willing to do it.

Batteries did improve but its not like Tesla had access to better batteries than GM (at least in their early days).

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#130

Post by gamblor956 »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #102

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…

It took them two years to set up a department that sells their first product (besides gas and electricity): an outdated EV charger, from a company they bought that stopped innovating after acquisition and is now lagging behind competition. Not a car, just the charger.

Two years to set up the business structure isn't that much time in the scheme of multinational conglomerates. Especially when the market isn't yet that big and none of the other players are making meaningful profits.

On a separate note, SolarCity stopped innovating after it was acquired and went from being #1 worldwide for solar panel installations to a very distant #8 in the US (and not meaningfully ranked on a global scale).

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