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Popular Mechanics Defends Elon Musk -- While He Tweets About Fortnite (popularmechanics.com)

The November issue of Popular Mechanics includes a message from its editors that Elon Musk is "under attack," arguing that while some criticisms have merit, "much of it is myopic and small-brained, from sideline observers gleefully salivating at the opportunity to take him down a peg." But what have these stock analysts and pontificators done for humanity? Elon Musk is an engineer at heart, a tinkerer, a problem-solver -- the kind of person Popular Mechanics has always championed -- and the problems he's trying to solve are hard. Really hard. He could find better ways to spend his money, that's for sure. And yet there he is, trying to build gasless cars and build reusable rockets and build tunnels that make traffic go away. For all his faults and unpredictability, we need him out there doing that. We need people who have ideas. We need people who take risks.

We need people who try.

The magazine includes statements from 12 high-profile supporters, including investor Mark Cuban, who writes "When you invest in a company run by an entrepreneur like Elon, you are investing in the mindset and approach that an entrepreneur brings to the table as much as you are valuing the net present value of future cash flows. That is not typical for public companies that are overwhelmingly run by hired CEOs. My advice for Elon is simple: Be yourself. Be true to your mission. Respect your investors. Ignore your critics."

Meanwhile, in a Friday post on Twitter, Musk jokingly claimed that he'd purchased and then deleted the game of Fortnite, posting a doctored Marketwatch article quoting him as saying "I had to save these kids from eternal virginity."

"Had to been done," tweeted Musk, adding "ur welcome".

54 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. I fully agree by fferreres · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I feel exactly that way about Elon Musk. I don't care about his defects shown so far. They are absolutely expected. I'd buy his company stock in small amounts just to stand where I speak. And if any goes bankrupt, I'd gladly share the weight of what I put. But to try to make him step down, feels like s*****d Apple when they fired Jobs for a "stable proven guy"...nothing got invented. Actually, Apple is still riding Jobs' waves and has done very little if nothing to invent anything that will change how we live or work, otehr than what was already started.

    --
    unfinished: (adj.)
    1. Re:I fully agree by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

      Yup. We need people like Musk. He might need a better PR person though...

      Also happy to invest in Musk.

    2. Re:I fully agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And it's not like he's wrong about Fortnite.

    3. Re:I fully agree by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If he makes good, innovative products for which there is a clear demand, and at some point manages to turn a profit, then I should be happy to invest in his companies and let him call other people whatever he wants. I'm not one of those douchebags who thinks just because someone is a public figure they are not allowed to have a temper, or a bad day. I'll take authenticity over carefully groomed but deeply fake media personae any time, even if the person in question is sometimes behaving like an authentic douche.

      With that said, all my money is in real estate...

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    4. Re:I fully agree by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My wife asked me the other day whether I thought Kanye West might not be right in his head. This is what I said to her: West is a talented, intelligent, driven individual who rose from comfortable but modest beginnings to astonishing levels of professional success. Life experience has not taught him to be humble, hasn't even shown him the need for it.

      There's a word for that, it's called "arrogance", but a lot of people who have it are really extremely capable people. Until fate gets around to humbling them, if it ever does, what reason would they ever have to doubt themselves? Naturally people like that sound a little unhinged; they're living in a different reality than you or me.

      I think Musk fits this mold. If a bus were to hit him tomorrow he'd go down in the history books as the most significant tech entrepreneur of our age; where as Bill Gates made a fortune catching the PC wave, Musk actually drove change in a way that Gates never did. Why wouldn't Musk believe he can do anything just through sheer force of will? If he weren't a bit of an egotist he'd never have tried any of the things he's known for.

      But his overblown reaction to the Thai cave rescue operation not needing him, personally, exposed Musk as, well, kind of a dick. But be honest: you'd probably be a dick too.

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      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:I fully agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Short investors are bottom feeders.

      Short investors who actually work to cause companies to fail to make their shorts pay off are plagues on society and deserve to go to the circle of hell reserved for people who talk in movie theaters and destroy the innocence of children.

      Musk screwed up, but his motives were honest in my opinion, which was to stick it to the short investors. In a decent society making money in this way would be illegal.

    6. Re:I fully agree by hey! · · Score: 1

      Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    7. Re:I fully agree by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      think Musk fits this mold. If a bus were to hit him tomorrow he'd go down in the history books as the most significant tech entrepreneur of our age; where as Bill Gates made a fortune catching the PC wave, Musk actually drove change in a way that Gates never did.

      Yes, the tax breaks that drove Tesla and Solar City and the shift to commercial services that drove SpaceX have nothing to do with anything. Seriously, Musk caught waves too. He didn't force change, he latched onto circumstance.

    8. Re: I fully agree by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Jobs would be the first to admit that the firing and subsequent failure at NeXT was a lesson that had to be learned in order to achieve what he did later in life.

      You can't look at the successes of his return to Apple without him going away.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    9. Re:I fully agree by Mr.+Dollar+Ton · · Score: 1

      On the contrary, short sellers are the people who work hard to find out which companies are abusing the stock markets to defraud investors. They are knowledgeable, they do a lot of research, they are a strong pressure for better governance and less cheating from the management. They are a partial solution to the principal-agent problem. And, if one is an investor, they should readily see the obvious. Musk's big screw up not tweeting to "squeeze the shorts". His big screw up is that he failed to squeeze the shorts the only way that matters - by failing to make Tesla a sound business, which can sustain itself.

  2. inventors are supposed to fail sometimes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And stock analysis are supposed to be reliable and infallible.

    But reality has switched things around. And I end up with mutual funds managed by idiots, and there are people who invent big things who are criticized for perceived mistakes that have not even occurred.

  3. Shaw. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

        - George Bernard Shaw

  4. Fortnite is free to play by MatthiasF · · Score: 1

    So what exactly did he buy?

    I feel like this guy jumps on any bandwagon he sees as popular and then tries to capitalize as much as possible from it.

    1. Re:Fortnite is free to play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      He bought the joke, put it into a SpaceX rocket, and launched it into LEO above your head.

    2. Re:Fortnite is free to play by mentil · · Score: 1

      I had to read that a couple times to get it. That is, he joked about buying ownership of the IP/studio/control over the game's operation... and then shutting it all down. Fortnite makes so much money he might not actually be able to afford to do that, although if he did the players would go back to Minecraft or PUBG or something. Some kind of "how to not scream racial slurs at strangers 101" workshop would do more for their virginity than shutting down a game, though.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    3. Re: Fortnite is free to play by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      You know there is a difference between owning a license to use the software, and owning the software (copyrights), right?

      That difference is, of course, a primary factor in understanding the joke.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    4. Re: Fortnite is free to play by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      For some reason, Forbes wrote an article doing the math. Epic Games is privately held, but figured to be worth somewhere around 8 to 10 billion. So if Musk wanted to liquidate half his Tesla holdings to make a videogame go away he could, but it would be a massive waste of resources.

      I'd rather he use that money to make Twitter go away. He (and everyone else) would actually get some benefit on that investment.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  5. Re:Taxpayer funded by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He seems to be getting there. SpaceX is doing reasonably well, arguably on government money but coming from government contracts rather than subsidies, and offering a real value: Uncle Sam is saving money on those contracts. As for EV's... I don't think that market - meaning all auto makers, not just Tesla - would be where it is today if it wasn't for those tax breaks. Perhaps tax breaks are necessary to kick-start certain markets... I'm all for that, as long as those subsidies are doled out equally, and end at some point.

    Here's hoping that Tesla can get over the financial hump, they've pulled out all the stops to meet important targets, but next 2 quarters are going to be make or break, and Musk will have to show that they can not only reach the current production (and distribution) levels, but sustain them as well, while turning to a positive cash flow.

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  6. They call me a fanboi. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It is an American car company giving run for their money to the Germans. Audi and BMW and MB are beaten in their performance car game.

    He failed to deliver on his promises. True. The goal was so over the top, what he did deliver is way above other car companies delivered.

    He showed what a no compromise electric car can do, how it will drive, how it would feel and how great it would be. That genie is out of the bottle. No body can put it back in. No ICEV can compete with a EV.

    And the party is just starting. The batteries are getting cheaper, energy density is getting higher. While ICE is fully optimized and there is nothing more you could squeeze out of an internal combustion engine.

    In an EV, you can have two or four motors mechanically decoupled and electronically controlled. What such a car can do, no way an ICE can do.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:They call me a fanboi. by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      The big auto makers only starting doing so because Musk was eating their lunch. And for all the crying about Tesla missing production targets, they are still dominating the market. Other brands are starting to get wise to the fact that people want normal looking EVs with some range to them, and only now are we seeing some models like that hit the market. In numbers that are nowhere near Tesla's current production volume, I might add.

      Am I a fan? Hell yes. I still ordered a Hyundai Kona EV instead of a Model 3, just thought it'd be a better car for me... but the waiting list for the Kona is longer than for the 3 now, due to the fact that they only make a handful of them.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:They call me a fanboi. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
      He is making a profit. The first German tear down put the cost of Model 3 to be 28K in parts and labor at 10K/week production rate. That shocked the industry.

      The Monroe teardown is pricing it at 33,500$ for the 49K car. Monroe is very critical, it says any other car company making the body using traditional methods would make it 2000$ cheaper. He says, despite squandering 2000$ on inefficient body design, Tesla is so far ahead on the electronics part, and the battery part, it is enjoying a positive gross margin of nearly 30%. He says the 35K version also will be profitable.

      Tesla is also paying down enormous R&D cost, factory depreciation and loan payments. So the net margin is negative and the company is making loss because of that. But people casually say, "Tesla is losing money on every sale" indicating a negative gross margin. That is not true. All the cars, S, X and the 3 have positive gross margins.

      I got mine for 50K. It is not a toy for the rich. It is a nice car for the moderately affluent. The median new car price is 35K. 50K is probably 80th percentile. 20% of all new car buyers can afford a Tesla model 3. He may not make too many 35 K model 3s. He will deliver enough for the original reservation holders. But the car being so hot, as long as people are willing to pay a premium he will, and he should sell the higher end versions.

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      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    3. Re:They call me a fanboi. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The big automakers were waiting for Tesla to die so that can continue business as usual. They terribly underestimated the potential of the electric car.

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      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    4. Re:They call me a fanboi. by theskipper · · Score: 2

      Hmm.

      "Some service employees said they were surprised to learn that when they sent mechanics to help out with "bursts" to build new vehicles in the Fremont factory, their time was billed either to "training" or "research and development," rather than service or vehicle assembly. "

      https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/1...

    5. Re:They call me a fanboi. by iggymanz · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, Tesla is not making a profit. The financials are public, look at them.

      2018 Q2, $520 million loss on revenue of 4 billion.

      You Musk/Tesla shills are unbelievable, denying reality.

    6. Re:They call me a fanboi. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The Germans will produce cars that make the Tesla look like a joke, as soon as it is sensible to do so from the standpoint of profitability.

      Yes, we know that. It doesn't matter to them if the whole planet is a polluted wreck of burnt oil, other car manufacturers will make electric cars when *they* decide it is profitable. Thanks.

    7. Re:They call me a fanboi. by strikethree · · Score: 1

      No, Tesla is not making a profit. The financials are public, look at them.

      2018 Q2, $520 million loss on revenue of 4 billion.

      You Musk/Tesla shills are unbelievable, denying reality.

      You Musk/Tesla haters are unbelievable, denying reality AND twisting words.

      The mother fucker said Tesla was not losing money on the materials and labor for producing the car and then held up that Tesla needed to pay for depreciation/R&D/etc.

      I am unsure how you take what he said and then run off at the mouth saying that Tesla is an unprofitable company. His statement had nothing to do with your statement... and then you have the nerve to call him a shill. Dumbass. YOU are the shill. A negative one, but a shill nevertheless.

      I have seen you on Slashdot for many years. At no point in time have you ever come directly into my spotlight. You just did. Are you angry at Musk or are you just being contrary to be contrary? I don't get it. You are not a sockpuppet, so why the irrational hate? Why bring up an argument nobody was having? The person you were responding to was talking about per unit prices and profit, not company-wide. Why bring it up as a refutation to his claims when your claim does not actually refute his claim? What is twisting your brain so far out of order that you are provoked into using faulty logic like that?

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    8. Re:They call me a fanboi. by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Read the first words of his post "He is making a profit."

      No, Tesla and Musk are not, that is the fact.

      You are the one in denial of reality and needing basic reading comprehension.

      Again, no profit is being made, Tesla won't and can't make a profit.

    9. Re:They call me a fanboi. by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Sorry fanboi but the business world has a concise and clear definition of "profit", which is what Tesla is not making.

    10. Re:They call me a fanboi. by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      That is not making a profit. Take a basic bookkeeping class and learn definitions. Tesla is not profitable, cars are not made at a profit. All car manufacturers have R&D and expenses.

    11. Re:They call me a fanboi. by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      No, Tesla is not making a profit. The financials are public, look at them.

      2018 Q2, $520 million loss on revenue of 4 billion.

      You Musk/Tesla shills are unbelievable, denying reality.

      Yes, Tesla is making a profit. The financials are public, look at them.

      2018 Q3, $312 million profit on revenue of $6.8 billion.

      You gas guzzler shills are unbelievable, denying reality.

    12. Re:They call me a fanboi. by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      The big automakers were waiting for Tesla to die so that can continue business as usual. They terribly underestimated the potential of the electric car.

      The big automakers were actively working to kill Tesla, paying for FUD in the press at least as much as the shortsellers and WERE some of the shortsellers themselves, since they're so old and so big they've been characterized as "a finance company with an auto business on the side". They didn't underestimate the potential of the electric car. They just failed to react appropriately.

      They reacted with fear and tried to quash it, instead of embracing a new product category. If they had seen the writing on the wall, they actually could have crushed Tesla as the FUD has been saying for years. But they didn't. They didn't budge, and now the FUD has collapsed, with current estimates that they're at least 3 years and as many as 7 years behind Tesla in implementing their own electric cars. Now that Tesla is profitable, with a 3-7 year lead, they will establish an unassailable position for themselves in the automotive industry. It's too late for the big automakers to eliminate them, by FUD or by competing.

      They saw it coming. They just thought they could make Tesla fail.

  7. Fake news about fortnite... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    All my normie roommates who play fortnite incessantly fuck a lot.

  8. ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I, for one, think that it is ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE some people keep trying hard to discredit & take down Musk/Tesla!

    I, for one, can clearly see that, everytime a Tesla car taken apart (for reverse engineering?), what found is innovation after innovation!

    Tesla cars keep getting highest safety ratings ever & W/O CHEATING!!!
    Why others count as cheating, at least to me, is because all gasoline cars are always tested for safety w/ EMPTY GAS TANK!
    Is that really a realistic test? Traffic accidents in the real world ever happen w/ empty gas tanks?
    & what do you think would happen to the safety ratings of all gasoline cars, if they were collision tested w/ full gas tanks?

    Don't you think that, quite a significant percentage of people who die in traffic accidents, are actually not dying from the collision,
    but really dying afterwards, by BURNING TO DEATH ALIVE!!!

    Why do you think, public never knows/hears about, what percentage of people burning to death alive, in all traffic accidents w/ deaths?
    Do you seriously think gasoline car companies would want public to learn that?
    (Realize that, a big percentage of advertising revenue of all mass media outlets are always coming from car companies!)

    Now many gasoline car companies are keep pushing hard for hydrogen cars, instead of electric.
    Why do you think that is?

    Could it be because, switching gasoline car factories to produce hydrogen cars would be a lot cheaper,
    compared to switching to produce electric cars?
    (Realize that, technologically, the difference between, a gasoline car and hydrogen car, is a lot smaller than, the difference between a gasoline car and electric car!)

    But the problem is, if, gasoline cars, replaced by hydrogen cars,
    then we would be actually replacing extreme fire hazards (during collisions) w/ MOVING BOMBS, quite literally!
    (But of course, that is not really a problem for the car companies themselves; that is a problem for the public, right?)

    (And also think about, how much danger to the public would be, if whole world covered w/ hydrogen transport/storage infrastructure?!)

    So again, it is ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE (at least to me), some people keep trying hard to discredit & take down Musk/Tesla!!!

    1. Re: ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE!!! by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 1

      I, for one, can clearly see that, everytime a Tesla car taken apart (for reverse engineering?), what found is innovation after innovation!

      Design quirk after design quirk. What else would you expect when a bunch of SV Web developers set out to design a car? Some small fraction of whats thrown up at the wall won't slide off.

  9. One thing I've noticed by nightfire-unique · · Score: 1

    One thing I've noticed is that many Elon Musk haters are "losers." I don't mean the popular/insulting version of the word, but rather the basic noun - loser, one who loses.

    I've had quite a few debates with haters, and all of the ones I spoke to had some sad story about stock shorts that didn't work out, relatives that lost their jobs on the oil rigs, or friends who owned automotive garages. No amount of "times change" really helped.

    I honestly kinda feel sorry for people that really, really want the world to stop turning. :(

    --
    A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
    1. Re: One thing I've noticed by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 2

      You are't having a debate if you start out by calling them 'haters.' You're simply engaging in cult-belief reinforcement activities. To be fair, the people you are 'debating' with might also be in a cult.

    2. Re:One thing I've noticed by nightfire-unique · · Score: 1

      If they're bothering to have serious debates with you they're definitely losers.

      That's .. a little harsh.

      They did have legitimate points, and I certainly did understand where they were coming from. Just wanting to discuss it doesn't make them losers.

      --
      A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
  10. Legacy car maker vs Cell phone makers. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The traditional car making is a very stable business. All major efficiency breakthroughs have been achieved already. All the manufacturing improvements are mostly done. Prices are stable. Metrics are stable. Power/weight ratio of ICE, MPG vs curb weight, ... all are stable and the improvemens are coming at the rate of a percent of two per year. They are used to 4 years cycles of design. One year of tooling. 5 years from drawing board to production. No unexpected breakthroughs expected in the five years.

    Cell phones, laptops, Tesla are operating where you cant design for today's metrics. You need to predict the processor speed 18 months from now and design the phone. You need to anticipate the bandwidth increase expected in 12 months.

    An EV's most critical metrics are energy density Kg/kWh of the battery and price $/kWh of the battery. Elon, in his famour 2006 "secret" master plan calculated a 7 year half life for these two critical metrics. The energy density will double, and the price wil halve every seven years. Sort of like Moore's law of batteries. Tesla is designing, building and pricing the cars based on that model. In 2012 for the Tesla Roadster, the battery cost was 270 $/kWh. Model 3, battery is 130 $/kWh (Tesla's claim) 140$/kWh Monroe's tear down. It is following the expected path. Tesla says it is going to hit 100 $/kWh sometime in 2019. That is the figure when the EV and ICEV will cost the same off the dealer's lot. Battery + motor cost = engine+transmission+emission control+fuel tank cost.

    The legacy car makers are not used to engine manufacturing cost going down by 50% in 7 years. Nor the weight of the power train falling by 50% between drawing board and production.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Legacy car maker vs Cell phone makers. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2
      All the safety standards, anti lock brakes, backup camera, airbags are mandatory for the EV too. Only break they get is in the emission controls. Because they dont emit pollution where the car is used. You can argue they merely outsource pollution to a distant location. On the other hand utilities are better equipped to handle pollution mitigation and you dont really have lug the anti-pollution devices around in your car.

      We will not give any break and reduction in pollution standards. If ICE can't meet it, it can die. It is no big loss. Getting rid of diesel and gasoline vehicles will do wonders top world peace. We will stop pumping a trillion dollars to the middle east. Once the money is gone, they will calm down and sort it out in some fashion among themselves. Even if they, don't we dont have to care. That alone is reason enough to kill the ICE vehicles. Even if it costs more to use battery vehicles.

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      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    2. Re:Legacy car maker vs Cell phone makers. by sinij · · Score: 2

      We will not give any break and reduction in pollution standards. If ICE can't meet it, it can die.

      This approach is idiotic, considering that emission standards for passenger cars are well into diminishing returns and they are not even near top polluters. More so, additional emission control equipment on cars results in cars that have larger lifetime emissions due to added weight and additional manufacturing.

      It is no big loss. Getting rid of diesel and gasoline vehicles will do wonders top world peace. We will stop pumping a trillion dollars to the middle east. Once the money is gone, they will calm down and sort it out in some fashion among themselves.

      This is just magical thinking on your part. There is absolutely no reason to expect that middle east will become peaceful once petrodollars stop flowing.

      More so, you are not thinking what it would take to switch to all-electric. We will need to completely rebuild power grid, we will have to drastically increase power generation capacity (probably natural gas or coal).

    3. Re:Legacy car maker vs Cell phone makers. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      More so, you are not thinking what it would take to switch to all-electric. We will need to completely rebuild power grid, we will have to drastically increase power generation capacity (probably natural gas or coal).

      The base load on the grid is 33% of the peak capacity. The peak usage is around 900 GW. The base load, the lowest usage happens at night between 10 PM and 6 AM. The usage is 300 GW. There is 600 GW of unused capacity available at night. Let us take out the peaker plants that are started and stopped on demand, these gas turbine power plants out. Using high efficiency steam turbines usually fired by coal or natural gas, they have about 400 GW of capacity unused at night. The electric cars are going to be charged at night. We have the grid capacity to charge even if ALL the cars become electric tomorrow.

      An average car puts on about 12,000 miles a year. 1000 miles a month. 35 miles a day. Tesla gives 4 miles /kWh. Bolt, Leaf are more efficient. 9 kWh per car per night. Charging two cars per household is like running an electric coil stove (3 kW) for six hours per night. USA has the grid capacity. All homes have the service connection capacity that can take the load. Airconditioners are more powerful than 3kW. They run for more than six hours during summer afternoons. All the homes in a service area run their A/C simultaneously on summer afternoons. And the grid generation and distribution can take it.

      The claim "We dont have the grid capacity to do it" is misinformation. We can disagree on unknowables. But this is simple basic fact. See if you can accept this. If we cant even agree on facts, we are wasting our time talking about other things.

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      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    4. Re:Legacy car maker vs Cell phone makers. by sinij · · Score: 1

      We have the grid capacity to charge even if ALL the cars become electric tomorrow.

      Citation required.

    5. Re:Legacy car maker vs Cell phone makers. by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      We have the grid capacity to charge even if ALL the cars become electric tomorrow.

      Citation required.

      He showed his work. Here's (some of) the basis for the 33% number. The link is for New England only, in 2011, but the numbers only look better for the rest of the country which uses more peak power for air conditioning than New England does, not less.

      The numbers are actually getting dramatically better for available daytime capacity thanks to the ongoing installation of solar panels. The grid is so overpowered now that in two regions (California and New England), wholesale electricity prices go negative during the day. -$2.65 in the cited article is a vast oversupply. It is not a daily occurrence. Yet. It will become one, and sooner than you'd think. Seven years ago, it never happened in New England. Now it does occasionally. As time goes by, and solar installations continue, it will become more and more frequent.

      Considering the grid is already heavily oversupplied today, during the day, in some parts of the country, the idea that if all cars magically become electric overnight and could still be recharged is not very farfetched. It was possible with only night time oversupply. Now that there is also daytime oversupply, it's down right easy.

  11. Re:He isn't an engineer by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

    Yeah but he did start SpaceX. Also to a large degree what you see in the Model S or X was because of his guidance. Both the good and the bad.

  12. Re:Taxpayer funded by Tokolosh · · Score: 1

    So you think tax breaks should be offered by the government, but that nobody should take them?

    Boeing called, they want to give the SLS money back.

    --
    Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
  13. He's nothing special by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    He just tries really hard. :)

    --
    [($)]
  14. Re: Taxpayer funded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't believe you. I bought Tesla stock a couple years ago, and made a bunch. It'd be difficult not to. If you're interested in transitioning to EV's, power grid changes, and/or American manufacturing, then you would understand that there is very good reason for grants. Grants are earned by doing important things - and if he pursued them, then the incentives did there job (but that wasn't the point to him - since if you'd even just read his biography, you'd know he was already talking about the importance of electric vehicles while doing his physics undergrad in Canada). SpaceX's money comes largely from contracts to do jobs that are needed - just business.. and they do it far more cheaply than the competition. Your position strains credulity.

  15. Talented creative assholes... by EricTDuckman1414 · · Score: 2

    Talented creative assholes are still assholes.

    1. Re:Talented creative assholes... by ooshna · · Score: 2

      But Musk for the most part seems to be a pretty good guy.

    2. Re: Talented creative assholes... by ooshna · · Score: 1

      That compared to all the non asshole things he has done really isn't too bad.

    3. Re: Talented creative assholes... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      So because he was privately accusing someone of being a pedophile, it's suddenly ok?

      That's some DNC-level equivocation right there. Just because it wasn't meant to be public means it's fine?

      Yes, the journalist is an asshole and his justification of "I didn't agree to it being off the record" is amazingly unethical, but that doesn't dismiss Musk from also being an asshole. Stop being an apologist.

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      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  16. Re:Taxpayer funded by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    The main problem he has with Tesla is that it's selling products to the public, so when he tweets something a lot of people take it as a promise or at least a reasonably reliable statement. Then when Tesla doesn't deliver for years they get upset.

    Most companies have a PR department for that reason, and don't let the CEO tweet. Well, at least now Musk will have to have his tweets vetted so maybe it will get better.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  17. Re: the soft bigotry of low expectations by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

    On the contrary, I expect most people with those kinds of resources available to them to be insufferable giant bags of douche, mostly because it just doesn't matter on any significant level to them. At the end of the day he has the ability to live life in a level of luxury unlike just about anybody else, and calling someone a "pedo guy" on Twatter won't change that in the slightest.

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    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  18. Re: It's mine & WHY? It's me... apk by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

    I'm starting to think these posts come from some shifty AI that just can't grasp language, and needs an adjustment to it's learning algorithm.

    This is just words that do not add up to anything but nonsense.

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    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.