Elon Musk's epic bacon adventures

What kind of a weird fecking name is Elon anyway. Sounds like a fabric. I bet he's flammable too.
 
nickm said:
Don't get this weird trolling. There's a middle ground here.

Tesla proved there was a market for high performance electric cars. If it was so obvious why did it take an independent manufacturer to make it happen, rather than the big auto companies?

Similarly, SpaceX. They've massively lowered the cost of getting into orbit (which is an enormous achievement frankly) and proven the benefits of private companies competing with state entities. It's easy to dismiss this all as obvious but the space shuttle was supposed to do that and was a huge failure in that regard. It's the doing it that is the point. I'm sure that when Starship is routinely ferrying cargo, habitats and manufacturing gear between earth /earth orbit and beyond that will be dismissed as obvious too.

Regarding Mars, he's not saving humanity, but going there is a big challenge and it seems to me that's something worthwhile. It is not a choice between water in Africa and going to the moon or mars, it is possible to do both.

Musk is a twat but he's also rather more than that.
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I don't think Tesla proved there was a market for high performance electric cars, it's just a fact that electric cars are the next step in motor vehicles when you consider the changing climate and the finite amount of oil. It really was (and is) such an obvious next step.

Routinely ferrying cargo, habitats and manufacturing gear between Earth/Earth orbit and beyond as a next step is obvious, because it's in at least 70 years worth of sci-fi novels. It's not an original idea that Musk has developed, nor is the technology. He's just the one to have heavily invested in it.

I’m not saying he’s not more, nor am I saying he hasn’t made huge accomplishments as he clearly has, he's the second richest man in the world. I’m saying he’s not a genius and he's very rich, so it's easy for him to create and invest in these companies. If you asked him about the science behind the Neuralink tech or the SpaceX tech, I guarantee you he will only be able to explain it in the most basic of terms; however he would like you to believe he understands it in and out.
 
nickm said:
Don't get this weird trolling. There's a middle ground here.

Tesla proved there was a market for high performance electric cars. If it was so obvious why did it take an independent manufacturer to make it happen, rather than the big auto companies?

Similarly, SpaceX. They've massively lowered the cost of getting into orbit (which is an enormous achievement frankly) and proven the benefits of private companies competing with state entities. It's easy to dismiss this all as obvious but the space shuttle was supposed to do that and was a huge failure in that regard. It's the doing it that is the point. I'm sure that when Starship is routinely ferrying cargo, habitats and manufacturing gear between earth /earth orbit and beyond that will be dismissed as obvious too.

Regarding Mars, he's not saving humanity, but going there is a big challenge and it seems to me that's something worthwhile. It is not a choice between water in Africa and going to the moon or mars, it is possible to do both.

Musk is a twat but he's also rather more than that.
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Yes, there’s definitely a middle ground between criticizing and deifying him. He seems to have a pretty good knack for having audacious ideas and turning them into tangible outcomes, which shouldn’t be casually brushed off just because he has an annoying social media persona.
 
That'sHernandez said:
I don't think Tesla proved there was a market for high performance electric cars, it's just a fact that electric cars are the next step in motor vehicles when you consider the changing climate and the finite amount of oil. It really was (and is) such an obvious next step.

Routinely ferrying cargo, habitats and manufacturing gear between Earth/Earth orbit and beyond as a next step is obvious, because it's in at least 70 years worth of sci-fi novels. It's not an original idea that Musk has developed, nor is the technology. He's just the one to have heavily invested in it.

I’m not saying he’s not more, nor am I saying he hasn’t made huge accomplishments as he clearly has, he's the second richest man in the world. I’m saying he’s not a genius and he's very rich, so it's easy for him to create and invest in these companies. If you asked him about the science behind the Neuralink tech or the SpaceX tech, I guarantee you he will only be able to explain it in the most basic of terms; however he would like you to believe he understands it in and out.
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Ideas are for amateurs. Execution is for pros.
 
That'sHernandez said:
I don't think Tesla proved there was a market for high performance electric cars, it's just a fact that electric cars are the next step in motor vehicles when you consider the changing climate and the finite amount of oil. It really was (and is) such an obvious next step..
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Exactly. And let’s be honest, even with all the help in the world. He is nowhere near meeting the demand for electric cars. Neither are Tesla’s affordable nor are they quickly available. All his internet antics are sideshows that provide a nice distraction for the media and the muskcucks.
 
entropy said:
Exactly. And let’s be honest, even with all the help in the world. He is nowhere near meeting the demand for electric cars. Neither are Tesla’s affordable nor are they quickly available. All his internet antics are sideshows that provide a nice distraction for the media and the muskcucks.
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Tesla proved there was a market by selling cars into one that hadn't existed previously. That is what proving a market means.
 
nickm said:
Tesla proved there was a market by selling cars into one that hadn't existed previously. That is what proving a market means.
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They're murdering the competition at the moment with the Model 3, which is easily the #1 EV in the US and the #1 car sold in the UK at the moment. Once Musk puts out the new rumored cheap Tesla (25k in the US) then he will have full control of the global EV market.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Who rumoured it? Elon? I’d take that with a pinch of salt.
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In fairness to Musk he created the Model 3, which is significantly more affordable than the S and increased Tesla's overall market share by some distance. They are now at about 28% of the EV market and growing, so releasing a cheaper EV model would only grow the market share further.
 
Raoul said:
In fairness to Musk he created the Model 3, which is significantly more affordable than the S and increased Tesla's overall market share by some distance. They are now at about 28% of the EV market and growing, so releasing a cheaper EV model would only grow the market share further.
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Of course it would, I mean right now he’s been blitzed in Europe by the crappy wee Zoe*, but so would selling the 35k model 3 that was promised years back and was never actually remotely viable for the company.

So I as say, pinch of salt.

*The VW iD wasn’t even on sale for a large part of 2020 but gained massively on the Model 3.
 
Raoul said:
It was at one point in 2020. Not sure where things stand now with pandemic inventories in flux.
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According to this source, they didn't end up in the top 10 for 2020.

I'm actually surprised at the absence of electric vehicles in that list. Further down there's also a breakdown that shows that 90% of newly sold cars in 2020 were fossil fuelled. In Norway more than half were fully electric, and I think almost all of the top 10 most sold cars were as well.

Since we're in the Musk thread, I might as well point out that the most sold was not a Tesla, but the Audi e-tron. And given how much we loved the eGolf (which is apparently being discontinued since half the sales were in Norway), I'm not convinced Telsa is going to manage to stay ahead of the new Volkswagen ID.3 either.

Raoul said:
They are now at about 28% of the EV market and growing, so releasing a cheaper EV model would only grow the market share further.
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Don't you have this backwards? As far as I know, Tesla's share of the EV market is shrinking, even in the US where it is still dominant.
 
nimic said:
According to this source, they didn't end up in the top 10 for 2020.

I'm actually surprised at the absence of electric vehicles in that list. Further down there's also a breakdown that shows that 90% of newly sold cars in 2020 were fossil fuelled. In Norway more than half were fully electric, and I think almost all of the top 10 most sold cars were as well.

Since we're in the Musk thread, I might as well point out that the most sold was not a Tesla, but the Audi e-tron. And given how much we loved the eGolf (which is apparently being discontinued since half the sales were in Norway), I'm not convinced Telsa is going to manage to stay ahead of the new Volkswagen ID.3 either.
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I was looking at this and this. There were apparently several months in 2020 where it was the #1 seller across all categories.
nimic said:
Don't you have this backwards? As far as I know, Tesla's share of the EV market is shrinking, even in the US where it is still dominant.
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Its correct imo, since the only demographic who are currently priced out of EVs are people on the lower end of the buying spectrum. This would fix that, just as releasing the Model 3 fixed Tesla's absence in the mid tier luxury (~$40-55k) range.
 
New tech is expensive, and "rare". That's the norm. EVs are still in its infancy. Supercomputers of the 60s (making that up, 80s?) are now in your hand in form of phones. Best GPUs today cost 1000s of USD. In a few years that tech will be relatively cheap and most will afford them. Musk and Tesla, or SpaceX/neuralink. Or Amazon. Take your pick. Are not to blame for that. It being expensive. They will however be the reason EVs overtake fosil fueled cars by 2030 instead of 2050.
 
That'sHernandez said:
I don't think Tesla proved there was a market for high performance electric cars, it's just a fact that electric cars are the next step in motor vehicles when you consider the changing climate and the finite amount of oil. It really was (and is) such an obvious next step.

Routinely ferrying cargo, habitats and manufacturing gear between Earth/Earth orbit and beyond as a next step is obvious, because it's in at least 70 years worth of sci-fi novels. It's not an original idea that Musk has developed, nor is the technology. He's just the one to have heavily invested in it.

I’m not saying he’s not more, nor am I saying he hasn’t made huge accomplishments as he clearly has, he's the second richest man in the world. I’m saying he’s not a genius and he's very rich, so it's easy for him to create and invest in these companies. If you asked him about the science behind the Neuralink tech or the SpaceX tech, I guarantee you he will only be able to explain it in the most basic of terms; however he would like you to believe he understands it in and out.
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I think you can argue Tesla, but what Space X are achieving is quite revolutionary. Musk obviously isn't the head engineer making the technical decisions but it becomes a coincidence when you happen to find the right people with Tesla, Space X and Paypal. He may a complete idiot but he's got something which at the very least allows him to identify the right people in his businesses.

Bezos has been trying for years to compete with Space X with Blue Origin who were actually founded before Space X. They're nowhere near at the moment and the likes of Nasa will never be as efficient (for very different reasons to be fair)

Blue Origin’s massive New Glenn rocket is delayed for years. What went wrong? | Ars Technica
 
Also worth remembering he has the face of a fecking idiot. That has to matter most in this debate.
 
Balljy said:
I think you can argue Tesla, but what Space X are achieving is quite revolutionary. Musk obviously isn't the head engineer making the technical decisions but it becomes a coincidence when you happen to find the right people with Tesla, Space X and Paypal. He may a complete idiot but he's got something which at the very least allows him to identify the right people in his businesses.

Bezos has been trying for years to compete with Space X with Blue Origin who were actually founded before Space X. They're nowhere near at the moment and the likes of Nasa will never be as efficient (for very different reasons to be fair)

Blue Origin’s massive New Glenn rocket is delayed for years. What went wrong? | Ars Technica
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I think Musks influence on the engineering approach is probably much greater than just hiring a bunch of great people although obvs that’s part of it (the engine guy being key as I recall). The iterative, prototype driven way Spacex develops its craft is meaningfully different to NASAs.The approach to reusability and cost. The way each previous generation of rocket becomes the platform for the next. The decision to make Starship out of steel ( let alone the decision to make Starship at all). Those are all strategic decisions with major impacts on engineering that it is fair to assume he is in large part responsible for. (I think he does formally hold the title of chief engineer at SpaceX). Realistically few good engineers would work for him if he couldn’t hold his own to some extent in engineering conversations.
 
nickm said:
I think Musks influence on the engineering approach is probably much greater than just hiring a bunch of great people although obvs that’s part of it (the engine guy being key as I recall). The iterative, prototype driven way Spacex develops its craft is meaningfully different to NASAs.The approach to reusability and cost. The way each previous generation of rocket becomes the platform for the next. The decision to make Starship out of steel ( let alone the decision to make Starship at all). Those are all strategic decisions with major impacts on engineering that it is fair to assume he is in large part responsible for. (I think he does formally hold the title of chief engineer at SpaceX). Realistically few good engineers would work for him if he couldn’t hold his own to some extent in engineering conversations.
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what??
 
I don’t know why so many people seem to need him to be stupid, so they can hate him even more. I’d say there’s an excellent chance he is well capable of holding his own in technical discussions with his team. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary that would be a reasonable assumption to make. Doesn’t make him any less of an asshole.
 
nickm said:
I think Musks influence on the engineering approach is probably much greater than just hiring a bunch of great people although obvs that’s part of it (the engine guy being key as I recall). The iterative, prototype driven way Spacex develops its craft is different to NASAs The approach to reusability. The way each previous generation of rocket becomes the platform for the next. The decision to make Starship out of steel ( let alone the decision to make Starship at all). The focus on cost. Those are all strategic decisions with major impacts on engineering that it is fair to assume he is in large part responsible for. (I think he does formally hold the title of chief engineer at SpaceX).
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Christ. The guy's a hobby engineer with a degree in computer science. The times he's tried talking about engineering in public, he's made an ass of himself. His title is Chief Technology Officer at SpaceX, and by all accounts his job is 'overseeing' things. Despite what he'd like you to think, there's nothing to suggest he's involved with any of the actual design and engineering.
 
Halftrack said:
Christ. The guy's a hobby engineer with a degree in computer science. The times he's tried talking about engineering in public, he's made an ass of himself. His title is Chief Technology Officer at SpaceX, and by all accounts his job is 'overseeing' things. Despite what he'd like you to think, there's nothing to suggest he's involved with any of the actual design and engineering.
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He's the last of the Trumpites
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don’t know why so many people seem to need him to be stupid, so they can hate him even more. I’d say there’s an excellent chance he is well capable of holding his own in technical discussions with his team. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary that would be a reasonable assumption to make. Doesn’t make him any less of an asshole.
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If I were an expert in my field and had someone who was clearly less qualified than me trying to tell me what can and cannot be done, I think I'd be fairly offended (not that he does that, who knows). There's absolutely nothing wrong with him not knowing the principles of rocketry and aerodynamics, he just shouldn't pretend that he does. I don't need him to be stupid, and he's obviously not stupid; he's just proficient in making himself look stupid.
 
nimic said:
That seems like a huge exaggeration.

Edit: Actually, this next seems just wrong?
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Yeah in the UK we have reliable data reported from the SMMT, and the December report / YTD summary is at the bottom of this link.

It's not even close to the top American car in the UK never mind overall, Ford sells twice as many Fiestas and the Focus and Puma made it in the top 10 last year too, Tesla didn't.

It was the #1 car brand almost by default during lockdown, because online delivery was the only way to get cars and Tesla bookings were made months before that were then delivered in April-June. The UK's car industry was among the worst hit, so that really isn't a big achievement: in April Tesla was the #1 seller with 658 cars, in May they managed 852 cars, then when things re-opened and volumes started reaching the usual 5,000+ in July it was back to Ford, VW and Vauxhall.

Tesla's losing ground in Europe too, and right at the time when they're matching up to China and moving further ahead of the US as the biggest EV market. The early signals are that European countries prefer the European EVs.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don’t know why so many people seem to need him to be stupid, so they can hate him even more. I’d say there’s an excellent chance he is well capable of holding his own in technical discussions with his team. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary that would be a reasonable assumption to make. Doesn’t make him any less of an asshole.
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Does he actually have technical discussions with people below him all that often though? For the most part he's probably more of a figurehead who'll delegate what he wants done to one or two senior employees, and it'll then feed down and so on.
 
That'sHernandez said:
If I were an expert in my field and had someone who was clearly less qualified than me trying to tell me what can and cannot be done, I think I'd be fairly offended (not that he does that, who knows). There's absolutely nothing wrong with him not knowing the principles of rocketry and aerodynamics, he just shouldn't pretend that he does. I don't need him to be stupid, and he's obviously not stupid; he's just proficient in making himself look stupid.
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He seems to be a massive douche-bag so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he picks arguments on Twitter with people better qualified than he is. But he’s obviously equally capable of knowing his place and letting legitimate experts do their thing. Hence he’s overseen some fairly impressive technological achievements.

Just like all of these stupid culture wars online, everyone seems to need their villains to be rotten to the core. Not just a bit of a prat, they need him to be a fraud and a shyster, who has no clue what he’s talking about. And they’ll argue the toss about this until they’re blue in the face. Despite knowing almost nothing about what the guy is actually like to work with. It’s weird and kind of childish IMO.
 
Cheesy said:
Does he actually have technical discussions with people below him all that often though? For the most part he's probably more of a figurehead who'll delegate what he wants done to one or two senior employees, and it'll then feed down and so on.
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Isn’t he CTO of one on his companies? Even a CEO needs a decent grasp of the technology they’re monetising. They have to. A CTO would be even more involved.
 
Brwned said:
Yeah in the UK we have reliable data reported from the SMMT, and the December report / YTD summary is at the bottom of this link.

It's not even close to the top American car in the UK never mind overall, Ford sells twice as many Fiestas and the Focus and Puma made it in the top 10 last year too, Tesla didn't.

It was the #1 car brand almost by default during lockdown, because online delivery was the only way to get cars and Tesla bookings were made months before that were then delivered in April-June. The UK's car industry was among the worst hit, so that really isn't a big achievement: in April Tesla was the #1 seller with 658 cars, in May they managed 852 cars, then when things re-opened and volumes started reaching the usual 5,000+ in July it was back to Ford, VW and Vauxhall.

Tesla's losing ground in Europe too, and right at the time when they're matching up to China and moving further ahead of the US as the biggest EV market. The early signals are that European countries prefer the European EVs.
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Its bound to lose ground given that it was pretty much the only show in town for years. Other companies are therefore going to gradually cut into its market share. Its still the leading EV maker in the world by a wide distance and I wouldn't expect that to change for a long time.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Who rumoured it? Elon? I’d take that with a pinch of salt.
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That car, as also the model 3 has been planned by them for years. Anyone that thinks they only initially ever meant to make supercars is being very short sighted.


Anyway I find this thread rather strange. Elon Musk is obviously a pretty capable human being
 
Cheesy said:
Does he actually have technical discussions with people below him all that often though? For the most part he's probably more of a figurehead who'll delegate what he wants done to one or two senior employees, and it'll then feed down and so on.
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I dont buy that, Musk isn’t the type. I bet he is all over the key detail, like a Bezos, Gates or Jobs.
 
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