> Elon is trying to reinvent public transportation without a shred of understanding
Given Elon's enviable track record of proving the doubters wrong, I'd be hesitant to make such a claim.
Given Elon's enviable track record of proving the doubters wrong, I'd be hesitant to make such a claim.
That being said, I do think what the parent commenter is missing is that those other modes require significant investment. With cars you get profit and can scale one by one. So less up front investment. Should do nicely in all sorts of cities.
Elon is an expert at overturning conventional wisdom of what can be done in high risk enterprises. And transportation is one of his enterprises.
Did you just invent a field so you can win an argument? Does it mean you revolutionized the field of inventing fields to win an argument?
What about his less successful ventures like the Boring Company or Solar City?
The world is full of one or two hit wonders thinking they have some insight on everything.
Very few are two hit. Three is incredibly rare (Steve Jobs).
Let's look at his hits:
1. Paypal
2. Tesla
3. SpaceX
4. Starlink
5. xAI
6. Neuralink (looking promising)
7. X (looking promising)
8. Boring (successful, but not a breakout success)
9. Solar City (less successful, now part of Tesla)
BTW, Jobs had his failure too - Next
By any objective measure, Musk's business success is incredible.
I'm not just making an argument. I invested in his companies, and am enjoying the returns.
What's so sad is how others dismiss it all with "you didn't build that" and other nonsense.
You really think that's a valid argument? Or is this just being an Elon fan wrapped in additional language.
What you made up is not what I argued.
There's a large gap between that and "without a shred of understanding".
The fact that you disagree with my argument does not make it not an "actual" argument.
But he also started the tunnel company that went nowhere, claimed we'd have fully autonomous self-driving by now, and for some reason lied about being good at video games.
I wish we'd see some nuance in this figure, and realize he's more self-serving than benevolent.
Really, the electric car revolution, such as it is, was largely driven by battery tech; lithium ion batteries crossed a threshold from not good enough (there were electric cars based on such batteries, notably some weird VW Golfs, but they did not sell well) to good enough.
The rocket thing was more business case than tech; both the US and Soviet Union studied reusable rockets from at least the 70s, but the economics wasn’t compelling.
What could be more compelling than reducing launch costs by 90%? "Studying" something and "delivering" something are very different things.
> was largely driven by battery tech
Regenerative braking was a crucial enabling technology.
> The first practical lithium ion battery car was either the Nissan Leaf or a weird Renault
Too bad they didn't take the world by storm like Tesla did. Tesla got the formula right, the others did not. The success of the Tesla speaks volumes.
You, ah, might be overselling that a bit. An Ariane 5 (20 tonnes to LEO) launch cost about 150 million at the time it was discontinued (launch costs for the new ones are murky as they've only launched a couple of payloads so far). A Proton launch (similar size) costs $65m. Atlas V Heavy (18 tonnes) costs $110-$190m. A Falcon 9 reusable launch (17 tonnes) costs $70m.
Like, it's _cheaper_, but nowhere even remotely close to 90%.
> Regenerative braking was a crucial enabling technology.
Indeed! Given that it was invented in 1886, tho, I'm not sure what it has to do with Tesla. Apparently the first electric car with automatic regenerative braking was in 1967. The first really successful mass-market example would probably be the Toyota Prius (at least for cars; it's shown up in trams for a long, long time). The Leaf, of course, also had regenerative braking.
> Too bad they didn't take the world by storm like Tesla did.
Again, you're _really_ mostly talking about America. They're a little under 10% of the BEV market in Europe, about 5% in China. They were the best selling manufacturer in Europe for a couple of years, but were never enormously dominant.
https://www.technowize.com/how-much-does-a-spacex-rocket-cos...
The Falcon 9 is clearly not 90% cheaper than launch vehicles of a similar role, ie ~20 tonne commercial launchers.
Again, 10% of the cost.
He also didn't "demonstrate" the first "viable" electric car, either. There were other electric cars before Tesla that were "viable" (and I don't really care where your goalposts are for that word). He bought his way into Tesla, so it wasn't even his idea - Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.
Got anything else?
But electric cars are mainstream, he lands reusable rockets, and has a private space company that reaches orbit. People doubted that it will succeed, and he proved them wrong, I guess.
It doesn't mean that everything he does will be successful, or that whatever he does is worth doing, or the right thing to do, but he did achieve these things (using his wealth and power).
You should stop assuming someone's tone from a single internet comment, especially when you're making up the tone in your own head. It completely derails the comment thread, because now we have to talk about how you're misreading things and trying to scold someone based on your own assumptions. But maybe your whole intention with your comment was to troll me?
Nothing in your comment is really changing any minds.
Have a nice day!
When Musk bought Tesla, Tesla was an office with no design and no car and no money. Technically, Musk did not found Tesla. In any practical sense, he did found it.
The Boring Company has had unexpected success in digging tunnels for cables and other city infrastructure.
I'm wondering what track record you could talk about, because I believe this guy should be in jail forever but you will surely prove me wrong.