Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#161

Post by Animats » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

There are real "solar shingles", but not from Tesla/Solar City.[1] The big player is CertainTeed, which makes roof components. CertainTeed is for real; you can order those. The strange thing is CertainTeed makes both regular and solar shingles, but don't offer a matching set. DeSol has a product line of roof components, with solar, non-solar, and edge parts that all fit together. Theirs looks good, but may be vaporware.

Tesla does have some "solar shingle" installations, but few; they're more like demos than a production product.[2]

The big problem with "solar shingles", which are just solar panels mounted flush to the roof or as the roof surface, is cooling. Most solar panels have air space behind them. Without that, these things run very hot. Dow backed out of solar shingles several years ago because theirs kept overheating. So, no thin-film solar cells in that application.

Somebody should have gotten this right by now. These things have been around since 2013 or so, and they're still marginal.

[1] https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/04/the-latest-on-...

[2] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-solar-roof-long-term-review-...

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#162

Post by wfbarks » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #83

wfbarks wrote: post #80

He (and all the brilliant people at his companies who work so hard) are delivering to humanity, a future where we produce and consume energy sustainably, and are out in space exploring our solar system. Everyone at the companies is there because on some level they believe in this vision. So I (and many Tesla shareholders like me) am willing to look the other way with respect to his fiduciary responsibility. There are…

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…

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#163

Post by kiba » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

pmorais wrote: post #110

tigershark wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That’s revisionist nonsense.

Revisionist nonsense in what sense?

All I heard was comment of "SpaceX Steamroller" from industry insiders. The companies that could have invested in rocket reusability decided to sit by and do nothing. It's not like it's an impossible physical achievement either.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#164

Post by toast0 » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #142

seem_2211 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fanbo…

> The way out of his is to ignore him

And any thread that involves him; I'm not good at this, but I'm trying. The reason Elon Musk inspires such hate is because he is constantly PRing (generously) unverifiable claims, but rarely gets any consequences from it. If he would let his work speak for itself, there would be less haters; his companies are clearly doing some things well.

It's kind of a Steve Jobs thing, but Jobs rarely made forward looking claims -- sure his claims of invention were irritating to some, but they were about a product that existed at the time of the claim.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#165

Post by Animats » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #161

There are real "solar shingles", but not from Tesla/Solar City.[1] The big player is CertainTeed, which makes roof components. CertainTeed is for real; you can order those. The strange thing is CertainTeed makes both regular and solar shingles, but don't offer a matching set. DeSol has a product line of roof components, with solar, non-solar, and edge parts that all fit together. Theirs looks good, but may be vaporwa…

Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it. I sent them a message asking if the product existed yet. They sent back, from a GMail account, "Who are you". I replied that I'd signed my message with my name and sent it from my own domain, what more did they want? Asked "You're sending from GMail, who are you?" Got back "(HN does not do Unicode emoji)". So, not sure what to think of that outfit. They seem to have a good sense of aesthetics; no idea if they can make it work.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#166

Post by btilly » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #145

gamblor956 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

SpaceX's plans are to reduce the cost of a launch for their superheavy to $5 million per launch (assuming 100 launches with minimal maintenance). Each launch will be around 100,000 kg to LEO. That reduces the cost of transport to $50 per kg.

That's expensive, but not ridiculous if we are able to get some good composites out of it.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#167

Post by dragontamer » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

wfbarks wrote: post #162

dragontamer wrote: post #83

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…

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

There's nothing good about lying. Whatever plans Elon has, he could accomplish them better if he wasn't lying.

Look: SolarCity was systematically DESTROYED by Elon Musk, and his supporters continuously defend his behavior. Shouldn't we be asking:

* Where are the solar roofs?

* Why did production at Gigafactory 2 slow down?

* Why did Elon destroy the Home Depot contract?

* How are Tesla's shareholders benefiting from SolarCity being actively destroyed?

* How is anyone benefiting from this collapse of SolarCity?

No one wins when Walmart has 7+ roofs catch on fire due to bad SolarCity installs. This isn't "good vs perfect", we're at the point where SolarCity is actively hampering the name of solar power in the USA. Now people are worried about their roofs catching on fire due to their systematic mistakes.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#168

Post by whenchamenia » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

wfbarks wrote: post #138

If Elon Musk gets taken down, then humanity should probably just throw in the towel. We (humanity) are in a boat that is taking on water rapidly. The guy working the hardest to patch the leaks is Elon Musk and all those that work at his companies (they definitely aren't working there for the money or the lifestyle) Solar City is a part of this vision. Articles like this and the comments section here at hacker news ar…

If elon musk was anywhere near the best humanity has to offer, I would agree. Thankfully, the facts suggest otherwise.

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#169

Post by gpm » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #117

vkou wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Musk has learned the hard way not to trust third party suppliers that he doesn't control. 1. Does he mine, refine and smelt his own iron and titanium ore, too? Where exactly does that buck stop? 2. Does SpaceX have a sudden pressing need for all the parts, and the debt obligations of SolarCity that have nothing to do with manufacturing solar panels (That is, 100% of the company?) SolarCity doesn't make any of t…

As laid out in the article, at the time of the merger, Solar City was indeed trying to get into manufacturing solar panels. That it hasn't worked out doesn't mean that the attempt doesn't fit within SpaceX's goals. I'm sure that the Boring Company also has investments from SpaceX. As to mine, refine, etc, he has generally tried to go down to things that he can get off of mass markets. The thing he avoids is having a…

I thought that the boring company was SpaceX/a SpaceX subsidiary?

Re: Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

#170

Post by GhettoMaestro » Mon, Aug 26, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #165

Animats wrote: post #161

There are real "solar shingles", but not from Tesla/Solar City.[1] The big player is CertainTeed, which makes roof components. CertainTeed is for real; you can order those. The strange thing is CertainTeed makes both regular and solar shingles, but don't offer a matching set. DeSol has a product line of roof components, with solar, non-solar, and edge parts that all fit together. Theirs looks good, but may be vaporwa…

Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it. I sent them a message asking if the product existed yet. They sent back, from a GMail account, "Who are you". I replied that I'd signed my message with my name and sent it from my own domain, what more did they want? Asked "You're sending from GMail, who are you?" Got back "(HN does not do Unicode emoji)". So, not sure what to think of that outfit. The…

Let me save you effort - nah, they are dipshits. Next.