131–140 of 253 posts
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Your points are common sense. You can therefore assume that other men, including the men you are criticizing, know them. Given this, and given that they are speaking publicly, I would wager that they have more access to data than you presume.
Except common sense is not very common.
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You can drop a lit match into a bucket of gasoline. It needs to be aerosolized to be explosive.
You can indeed, and it ignites the gasoline. Gasoline vapors in air have relatively wide explosive limits which can be attained in a wide variety of ways, not only by aerosolization.
I'm not saying it can't happen, and I'm well aware that gasoline vapors are extremely dangerous. I'm just saying that the gas tank in your car isn't "10 times as easy to light up" as the newer, super-energy-dense lithium chemistry based batteries.
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>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…
This kind of walled garden horseshit is what ensures no transparency in government contracts.
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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.…
> There ARE PROBLEMS with the batteries FULL STOP Because Elon Musk says so? Do you base your trust in him on his degrees?
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Gasoline isn't dangerous? It's ten times as easy to light up a gas tank than a battery pack, and the energy release is instant.
You can drop a lit match into a bucket of gasoline. It needs to be aerosolized to be explosive.
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Sadoway is one of the world's leading geniuses in this field.
Mostly in jest: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in re…
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/kenolsen.asp
The quote attributed to Lord Kelvin is a significant paraphrasing of a letter he wrote in 1896:
This is a very smart move by Musk from a PR point of view. By accusing Boeing's batteries of being fundamentally unsafe, he garners the maximum amount of trust from people who are concerned about battery safety, so that, when he immediately follows up with an explanation of why this couldn't happen on a Tesla, those very people are already leaning towards believing him. This goes over much better than attempting to d…
A smart move would be waiting for the NTSB report instead if assuming that you can divine what is happening with a minimal set of facts. I've had my share of "experts" opine on their imagine root causes of problems based on whatever bullshit they made up while the incident response folks were figuring it out using real data. The problem is, the folks figuring this out aren't talking, because they aren't done. So now…
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Sadoway is one of the world's leading geniuses in this field.
Mostly in jest: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in re…
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Or they are inserting themselves into the news cycle on this story for purposes other than strictly engineering. I don't know if that's what is happening here, but it is certainly not an uncommon PR strategy.
You think Musk is grandstanding in hopes that consumers will demand SpaceX rockets for commercial airline travel instead of Boeing 787's? Well, duh, I'd take a ride in a rocket over another boring commercial flight any day.
But I will say on the PR angle, he does compete directly with the entrenched manufacturers in the space arena and all discredit and doubt cast would serve him well.
While I have enormous respect for Elon Musk, I would hope that Boeing engineers have just as thorough an understanding of the workings and safety implications of Lithium-ion batteries. Though Tesla's engineering is admittedly much more focused around battery technology, Boeing has decades of experience with aircraft electrical systems.
I shouldn't be surprised if there aren't several people within Boeing with exactly the right expertise. Whether they were identified and listened to by management is a separate question. If Musk is right (IANA Battery Guy), I would presume there are cost / design trade-offs involved. And some exec had to evaluate those against safety issues. Those are engineering decisions, they're also business decisions. If the exe…