Post: #51

(11-17-2017 05:24 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 04:01 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  Go listen to their last quarterly conference call. He reminds me of an awkward high school kid winging a class presentation. He also had a month to prepare for that presentation by the way.

Well he is a nerd. Many articles have said that he can be awkward and thus he's become an anti-hero of sorts to the typical Harvard-groomed WASPy CEO.

It's inaccurate to say he had 1 month to prepare for it. He's running 2 billion dollar companies. If you've ever been a team leader or manager before you know it's fucking hard managing 5 people and there's not enough time in a day to do that to accomplish your objectives. Imagine doing that to two billion dollar companies.

It's very accurate. He knew what the company was going to report end of September. He had an entire month to come up with some good excuses for questions he had to know would come up and had some really weak and jumbled answers. I'm sure he spends lots of time in the car or on a plane going between each place. If he can't prepare for a simple call should we not be concerned about his preparation ability in other areas? And why would you see it as a positive that he is running multiple companies at once? Better yet, you mean to tell me none of his staff could come up with any good excuses for the poor performance either?

Post: #52

(11-17-2017 05:26 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-16-2017 09:24 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  Electric semis... hahahah!

This is America, not the EU! Our semis run on diesel and run to the moon and back!

The issue is efficiency, and thus cost.

The most efficient gasoline combustion engines only covert 40% of gas into usable energy. Most average around 15-20%

My understanding is that electric vehicles convert around 80% of that.

This all translates to dollars and cents, and will eventually bring down the real cost of goods since transportation is a major component of all pricing.

You are forgetting per gallon taxes on diesel and gas sales, you lose those taxes it has to be made up in other ways. Batteries in a semi are extremely heavy, and outside of very short haul work it is doubtful it will ever be economical in current form unless the battery chemistry changes. Trucks have a max allowable load of 80k pounds. If the super heavy battery is eating up a good chunk of what would otherwise be the useful load it can't be economical over diesel. You can't haul the same size loads you could in a diesel truck. That doesn't even get into the issues with the fast charging of a semi battery itself or if a replacement of the battery was needed during the life of the truck. Demand for rare earth metals that go into the batteries can alter the profitability equation as battery powered vehicles increase as a share of the market.

Post: #53

I wonder if Musk has a God complex as if he feels he alone can "save' the Earth. He seems the stretch himself very thin with Telsa, SpaceX (going to Mars), Solar City, The Boring Company, and now getting more directly involved with the Hyperloop stuff. He has stated in the past that he works 100 hours a week. He has FIVE sons from his first wife and he probably rarely sees them or spends time with them.

Post: #54

(11-17-2017 06:06 PM)Long Haired Samson Wrote:  I wonder if Musk has a God complex as if he feels he alone can "save' the Earth. He seems the stretch himself very thin with Telsa, SpaceX (going to Mars), Solar City, The Boring Company, and now getting more directly involved with the Hyperloop stuff. He has stated in the past that he works 100 hours a week. He has FIVE sons from his first wife and he probably rarely sees them or spends time with them.

If he's not completely hands on with everything the mystique that so many are duped by goes away. They would all just become another company then. That's an element to the game he is playing.

Post: #55

(11-16-2017 10:10 PM)gework Wrote:  The guy is thought to have had quite a bit of work done on his body. He was balding badly in his 20s and not from high T:



Pretty certain he's done something with his hair.

Damn. I didn't recognize him, he was awesome in that Super Mario Brothers movie.



(Yeah, OK, that's cheap. It's Friday.)

Post: #56

(11-17-2017 05:30 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  It's inaccurate to say he had 1 month to prepare for it. He's running 2 billion dollar companies. If you've ever been a team leader or manager before you know it's fucking hard managing 5 people and there's not enough time in a day to do that to accomplish your objectives. Imagine doing that to two billion dollar companies.


It's very accurate. He knew what the company was going to report end of September. He had an entire month to come up with some good excuses for questions he had to know would come up and had some really weak and jumbled answers. I'm sure he spends lots of time in the car or on a plane going between each place. If he can't prepare for a simple call should we not be concerned about his preparation ability in other areas? And why would you see it as a positive that he is running multiple companies at once? Better yet, you mean to tell me none of his staff could come up with any good excuses for the poor performance either?

I have heard Musk speak several times and he's always a little bumbled and excited. I have not listened to the conference call. Please provide an explanation on what his replies were and why they were unsatisfactory.

Post: #57

(11-17-2017 05:40 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 05:26 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-16-2017 09:24 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  Electric semis... hahahah!

This is America, not the EU! Our semis run on diesel and run to the moon and back!

The issue is efficiency, and thus cost.

The most efficient gasoline combustion engines only covert 40% of gas into usable energy. Most average around 15-20%

My understanding is that electric vehicles convert around 80% of that.

This all translates to dollars and cents, and will eventually bring down the real cost of goods since transportation is a major component of all pricing.

You are forgetting per gallon taxes on diesel and gas sales, you lose those taxes it has to be made up in other ways. Batteries in a semi are extremely heavy, and outside of very short haul work it is doubtful it will ever be economical in current form unless the battery chemistry changes. Trucks have a max allowable load of 80k pounds. If the super heavy battery is eating up a good chunk of what would otherwise be the useful load it can't be economical over diesel. You can't haul the same size loads you could in a diesel truck. That doesn't even get into the issues with the fast charging of a semi battery itself or if a replacement of the battery was needed during the life of the truck. Demand for rare earth metals that go into the batteries can alter the profitability equation as battery powered vehicles increase as a share of the market.

Do you have hard data on how much weight the Tesla Semi batteries will weigh in comparison to a regular semi engine?

Semis won't take a load greater than 40k lbs. That means if the max allowable weight is 80k, the current semi trailer and cab weigh 40. What are the weight specs in comparison for the Tesla Semi?

If a Tesla semi weighs more than the 40k lbs of a convention diesel semi, are you able to produce data that shows that a diesel operating at 45% energy efficiency still saves cost over an electric engine operating at 80% efficiency? That's about 1/2 of the efficiency which translates to a lot of money.

Ultimately in not more than 10 years truck drivers will all be laid off in favor of self-driving semis. Right now you're paying $3/mile for a semi, which includes the depreciation, fuel and driver time. Imagine being able to reduce that by 33% by virtue of a semi being driverless, and another 33% by virtue of increased efficiency, and another 15% because of greater capacity (self-driving semis would NOT be subject to the 12 hour drive time limit of drivers). That would equal humongous savings and lower prices on all your goods and products that you buy.

Post: #58

(11-17-2017 06:42 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 05:40 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 05:26 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-16-2017 09:24 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  Electric semis... hahahah!

This is America, not the EU! Our semis run on diesel and run to the moon and back!

The issue is efficiency, and thus cost.

The most efficient gasoline combustion engines only covert 40% of gas into usable energy. Most average around 15-20%

My understanding is that electric vehicles convert around 80% of that.

This all translates to dollars and cents, and will eventually bring down the real cost of goods since transportation is a major component of all pricing.

You are forgetting per gallon taxes on diesel and gas sales, you lose those taxes it has to be made up in other ways. Batteries in a semi are extremely heavy, and outside of very short haul work it is doubtful it will ever be economical in current form unless the battery chemistry changes. Trucks have a max allowable load of 80k pounds. If the super heavy battery is eating up a good chunk of what would otherwise be the useful load it can't be economical over diesel. You can't haul the same size loads you could in a diesel truck. That doesn't even get into the issues with the fast charging of a semi battery itself or if a replacement of the battery was needed during the life of the truck. Demand for rare earth metals that go into the batteries can alter the profitability equation as battery powered vehicles increase as a share of the market.

Do you have hard data on how much weight the Tesla Semi batteries will weigh in comparison to a regular semi engine?

Semis won't take a load greater than 40k lbs. That means if the max allowable weight is 80k, the current semi trailer and cab weigh 40. What are the weight specs in comparison for the Tesla Semi?

If a Tesla semi weighs more than the 40k lbs of a convention diesel semi, are you able to produce data that shows that a diesel operating at 45% energy efficiency still saves cost over an electric engine operating at 80% efficiency? That's about 1/2 of the efficiency which translates to a lot of money.

Ultimately in not more than 10 years truck drivers will all be laid off in favor of self-driving semis. Right now you're paying $3/mile for a semi, which includes the depreciation, fuel and driver time. Imagine being able to reduce that by 33% by virtue of a semi being driverless, and another 33% by virtue of increased efficiency, and another 15% because of greater capacity (self-driving semis would NOT be subject to the 12 hour drive time limit of drivers). That would equal humongous savings and lower prices on all your goods and products that you buy.

The autonomous tech is not limited to electric semis or vehicles. There already are autonomous diesel semis on the roads today in a limited capacity. Btw by all indications Tesla is far behind the competition now on autonomous tech. Waymo already has a driverless taxi fleet they are rolling out in the Phoenix area. Daimler rolled out a self driving semi truck in Nevada in 2015. GM has a special self-driving event set for November 28 which I would not be surprised if it shows advances over anything Tesla is offering. The Tesla autopilot is not full self driving, you have to keep your hands on the wheel while the car is in operation. Their current autopilot is really no better than cruise control because you have to still pay attention to the road to take control if the autopilot deactivates or fails to recognize an obstacle. The leftist media just glorifies everything Tesla does as if they are doing things no one else has done when plenty of companies have, they just don't run to the media every single time they do. Has to do with the fact they are actually profitable and not dependent on continued capital raises to survive so they don't need to generate massive hype.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/gms-cr...vember-28/

We can't make those calculations because they didn't provide any specs or hard data that would be useful for calculating the economic viability vs the diesel semi. All they said was a semi with 80k lb of gross weight the truck had "x" range. A truck cannot have a gross weight higher than 80k lb without being an oversize load which changes the operating procedures. In typical Tesla fashion, they make it impossible to do any calculation about useful load the truck can actually carry without knowing anything about the rest of the truck. I agree that hypothetically speaking there could be benefits for some applications, but to just take Musk at his word at this point is nuts. The company has a tendency to over promise and under deliver and also cover up anything that could paint its products in a negative light.

Let's be real here - if there was an obvious economic benefit to this semi they wouldn't be able to stop talking about it, and would've had a detailed comparison with all the specs ready to show how their truck blows diesel semis away.

Post: #59

Razor seems upset Tesla hired someone else instead of him. hahaha

Post: #60

(11-17-2017 08:06 PM)monster Wrote:  Razor seems upset Tesla hired someone else instead of him. hahaha

I'll just drop the mic instead of lowering myself to your level

Post: #61

The assumptions you've based your posts on are not strong or supportable, sorry.

"Oh if Tesla's semi was so great they'd be bragging about it." It was just released yesterday. If they were bragging about it you'd go, "They're bragging about it too much, they're never going to pull that off." It's catch 22 with you and no win if there did not brag about or if they did brag out it for you. Amirite?

In regards to your claim that Tesla's autonomous driving is way behind Waymo and others: actually Tesla's self-driving is the only mass-market one on the road today. Fully autonomous cars are not even allowed on the road except in a few places here and there. Tesla has such a mass amount of driving data and resources from this sheer fact alone, not to mention that it is bold and presumptuous to claim that the only self-driving car that anyone can see on the road is so far behind everyone else's technology.

Futhermore, you're overlooking the incestuous relationships behind the all these tech behemoths and the talent they share. So while one is front of other at this particular point in time, next year it will be reversed, and reversed again the year after that until ten years from now they all license certain technologies to each other that there's no one winner and they're all the same. Honda will be licensing from Waymo, Waymo will be licensing from Apple, Apple will be licensing from Honda, ad infinitum.

Post: #62

(11-17-2017 08:20 PM)monster Wrote:  The assumptions you've based your posts on are not strong or supportable, sorry.

"Oh if Tesla's semi was so great they'd be bragging about it." It was just released yesterday. If they were bragging about it you'd go, "They're bragging about it too much, they're never going to pull that off." It's catch 22 with you and no win if there did not brag about or if they did brag out it for you. Amirite?

In regards to your claim that Tesla's autonomous driving is way behind Waymo and others: actually Tesla's self-driving is the only mass-market one on the road today. Fully autonomous cars are not even allowed on the road except in a few places here and there. Tesla has such a mass amount of driving data and resources from this sheer fact alone, not to mention that it is bold and presumptuous to claim that the only self-driving car that anyone can see on the road is so far behind everyone else's technology.

Futhermore, you're overlooking the incestuous relationships behind the all these tech behemoths and the talent they share. So while one is front of other at this particular point in time, next year it will be reversed, and reversed again the year after that until ten years from now they all license certain technologies to each other that there's no one winner and they're all the same. Honda will be licensing from Waymo, Waymo will be licensing from Apple, Apple will be licensing from Honda, ad infinitum.

Why are you directly quoting me with words I didn't actually say?

I said they failed to provide the useful load a fully loaded 80k gross vehicle weight semi could carry which makes an evaluation of any economic benefit impossible. Which, if you are familiar with the company, is a tactic they use to let the imaginations of the faithful run wild to create scenarios in their minds that will allow them to justify dumping ever increasing amounts of money over time into this unprofitable business via capital raises.

Nothing was presumptuous. I stated facts, Tesla does not have the money to win in this space because they have never made a profit on anything they have ever produced. They don't have money to continue dumping massive amounts of cap ex into autonomous driving when they can't even figure out how to build a production line. None of this discussion even matters if the company can't figure out how to make money on the model 3, which is what you should be concerned with if you are invested in this company, which is obvious at this point given your emotional reaction.

If you want to have a different opinion that's fine, but the facts don't support an investment in Tesla stock. In fact it is one of the worst ones you could make in the market right now, given the current valuation. Faith alone may get you to your conclusions though.

Post: #63

For everyone complaining about the subsidies he receives, do you really think Boeing and Airbus operate with zero government support? Do you think BYD, China's answer to Tesla, is operating with zero subsidies and will compete completely fairly in third country markets? Do you think the rockets that China and Russia use to launch stuff into space are operating at 100% free market?

If we want to dominate the industries of the future, government has to play some role for industries with such gigantic capital and R&D costs. Libertarianism is no longer a core tenet of the alt-right. Instead, governments should strive for the economic benefit of their people, and if it means supporting domestic champions to gain an international monopoly, then so be it.

It's a completely separate argument if you think that Musk isn't the one to get us there, but can anyone point to other big personalities in the business world that have had major success in the past and are actually trying to do something to move humanity forward? Sundhar Pichai? Bill Gates? Lloyd Blankfein? Mark Zuckerburg? Jeff Besos? Yeah...I thought so.

Post: #64

(11-17-2017 08:45 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  Nothing was presumptuous. I stated facts, Tesla does not have the money to win in this space because they have never made a profit on anything they have ever produced. They don't have money to continue dumping massive amounts of cap ex into autonomous driving when they can't even figure out how to build a production line. None of this discussion even matters if the company can't figure out how to make money on the model 3, which is what you should be concerned with if you are invested in this company, which is obvious at this point given your emotional reaction.

This entire post is presumptuous. Nowhere were we ever discussing TSLA as a stock pick; we were discussing the pros/cons of electric vehicles and semis. I'm not sure where this assumption - like your other assumptions - came from but you're stating them as facts. There was one or two posts on the first page I think that mentioned TSLA as a stock but nowhere else.

Post: #65

(11-17-2017 09:58 PM)Arado Wrote:  For everyone complaining about the subsidies he receives, do you really think Boeing and Airbus operate with zero government support? Do you think BYD, China's answer to Tesla, is operating with zero subsidies and will compete completely fairly in third country markets? Do you think the rockets that China and Russia use to launch stuff into space are operating at 100% free market?

As the saying goes...don't gate the player hate the game.

Post: #66

(11-17-2017 09:58 PM)Arado Wrote:  For everyone complaining about the subsidies he receives, do you really think Boeing and Airbus operate with zero government support? Do you think BYD, China's answer to Tesla, is operating with zero subsidies and will compete completely fairly in third country markets? Do you think the rockets that China and Russia use to launch stuff into space are operating at 100% free market?

Boeing and Airbus require many of orders of magnitude more cap ex than a company like Tesla requires. The Boeing 787 alone cost $32 billion to develop to date and that is only for one aircraft. Implementing communist policies is not the answer to countries who attempt to circumvent fair trade. The reason the picture with trade has deteriorated is because Obama let China walk all over us for 8 years and steal intellectual property from companies that produce their products there with no repercussions. China has tariffs on US imports anyway. The common sense answer would be to slap the same tariffs on China that they impose on the U.S. But it won't happen because it wouldn't be good for the lobbyists and special interests who hold the lion's share of stocks that have long profited from cheap Chinese labor and production.

(11-17-2017 09:58 PM)Arado Wrote:  If we want to dominate the industries of the future, government has to play some role for industries with such gigantic capital and R&D costs. Libertarianism is no longer a core tenet of the alt-right. Instead, governments should strive for the economic benefit of their people, and if it means supporting domestic champions to gain an international monopoly, then so be it.

They already do though. The technology in question in this thread is being developed just fine without any need for government intervention. American companies are at the forefront of this tech. I see profitable car companies announcing large multi billion dollar investments in producing electric vehicles without any government support provided. There is nothing to suggest that the U.S. is behind in this regard so I'm not understanding why we should become a communist country just because China happens to be one.

Post: #67

(11-17-2017 10:57 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 08:45 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  Nothing was presumptuous. I stated facts, Tesla does not have the money to win in this space because they have never made a profit on anything they have ever produced. They don't have money to continue dumping massive amounts of cap ex into autonomous driving when they can't even figure out how to build a production line. None of this discussion even matters if the company can't figure out how to make money on the model 3, which is what you should be concerned with if you are invested in this company, which is obvious at this point given your emotional reaction.

This entire post is presumptuous. Nowhere were we ever discussing TSLA as a stock pick; we were discussing the pros/cons of electric vehicles and semis. I'm not sure where this assumption - like your other assumptions - came from but you're stating them as facts. There was one or two posts on the first page I think that mentioned TSLA as a stock but nowhere else.

If you can't offer more than a blanket dismissal I can't have a conversation with you. It's hard to have a conversation with someone who puts words into my mouth and then can't point out a specific problem with what I am saying and refute it with evidence. The original post was actually about Elon Musk and Tesla, so it logically makes sense that by extension we would talk about himself and his company in this thread, right? In all my discussions about Tesla in my life I have never had someone react emotionally to discussion of the company who was not invested in the stock. If you don't want to engage that way just withdraw and I'll stop replying to your posts.

Post: #68

(11-17-2017 08:46 AM)Arado Wrote:  Name another CEO in America that's at least doing SOMETHING to keep the US on the cutting edge of potential industries of the future.

These guys:





Google sold them to a Japanese company.

Post: #69

(11-17-2017 05:21 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 04:38 PM)Svoboda Wrote:  Also great way to get problems solved cheap
Claim there is a position available, get 20-40 people to come up with a solution for free.

No, not at all. They ask all candidates the exact same problem to answer.

It's a way to see how a person thinks through solving an issue. What they're interested in how the person thinks much more than if the answer is right or wrong.

It's also wrong to mock them for not questioning someone with 20 years experience. That's say like saying all 20 year military lifers are the same. Some are still at sergeant, most are in the middle of the pack, will the top are generals. Experience is a plus, but not all experience is equal.

My point is exactly that. I'm not saying they use this proces to get people working for them for free, I'm saying they could do that.
You get 20-40 people to individually come up with a solution and pick the ones that are most suitable. It's perfect for a problem that doesn't have a standard solution.

You worked 40 hours for free (regardless if they use it to test you, it's 40 hours down the drain).
They tried to get another member to disclose IP during an interview.

Can't you see the whole procedure is set up in a way to make you think you're damn lucky to come work for them (if you'd get it)?


How did you get to interview with them? Did you respond to an add, where you asked, recruiting agency?

Post: #70

(11-17-2017 04:59 PM)Razor Beast Wrote:  

(11-17-2017 10:23 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  I don't know a great deal about Elon Musk or his ventures, but FWIW, I've met a lot of high net worth guys over the last few years, to fundraise for my business - guys with £100m+ from their own successful ventures - and who are consistently successful investors. I'd say the proportion of them that own a Tesla, and rave about it, is about 60-70%. Make no mistake, these guys aren't just buying a toy. One of the common themes I've found amongst successful entrepreneurs is that they view their customers as investors. By buying into Tesla, they are backing the company, the product, and the future direction that it is looking to take.

That's a naive way of looking at it because automobile production is actually one of the worst industries you could invest in next to airlines. Very capital intensive and bankruptcies (strategic or not) are common. Tesla has already made too many mistakes to avoid a bankruptcy from what I can tell. It's not a tech company. Nearly all of their revenues can be tied to automobiles. They don't have any IP like a tech company would and they don't have access to any tech that other automakers can't easily duplicate. They are behind Waymo and maybe even GM now in autonomous driving. They don't have the money to continue making the necessary investments in this area. They created the appearance of being ahead of the competition by rolling out a product that wasn't adequately tested in the AP1 which was later scaled back after driver deaths. Their business appears to be structurally unprofitable. Solar City is a complete mess. The company may have legal issues in the near future with bailing out the Rives at Solar City which still has yet to make any meaningful financial contribution to Tesla's bottom line. They also have some very questionable accounting methods that the company conceals and refuses to clarify. Some very odd things there that don't make sense like losses increasing proportionally with increasing number of vehicles sold. It's possible they could be doing fraudulent things with the accounting. And we could go on all day about the misrepresentations to company has made related to production that have come up far short of estimates which will certainly bring on an avalanche of lawsuits once the stock begins to fall for good. They should also be worried about any misrepresentations they may have made prior to capital raises. Curiously the two largest underwriters for their prior capital raises (Goldman and Morgan Stanley) appear to have distanced themselves from investment in the stock. Over the last few quarters Morgan Stanley has sold out of about 95% of their original position. It makes you wonder if they saw something they didn't like in the company's internal books.

Elon Musk in a nutshell - a great visionary and stock salesman, unquestionably the worst CEO of any large cap stock in the market today when it comes to execution of the business, which will ultimately be the reason for his downfall.

Razor beast, would I be correct to venture that you are an engineer by training/profession? My impression is that you most likely are. I have employed a lot of engineers over the past few years, and they tend to conform to a type: brilliant, orderly, highly conscientious - great people and the backbone of any business looking to innovate.

However, ignoring the vanishingly rare exceptions like Dyson, there is probably no archetype more at odds with an entrepreneur than that of the engineer. The two are so different in temperament and approach to problem solving as to almost be divergent strains of humanity. Consequently, the one rarely understands the other and the relationship is often strained and uncomfortable despite the essential symbiosis.

All of what you say may be true - I haven't looked into Tesla in that kind of detail, and honestly the numbers would be one of the least interesting indicators of potential to me anyway. However, regardless of how much information may be extracted from your charts, in a sense it would be meaningless anyway, because in anything that is pushing the envelope of what is possible, conventional measures are of limited value. Stability, certainty, upwards trends, all the things that more conservative types (of which the engineer is archetypically one) look for and love, are inconsequential, and indeed perhaps undesirable, to a man trying to force back the boundaries of the possible.

Chaos, and the ability to survive whilst remaining in that chaos, are what the innovator tries to control for (oxymoronic as that may sound). Your trends, your positive correlations between sales and profits - these are of limited value when all the real work is still to be done, some of it quite far off in the future. All that matters to a guy like Musk when he wakes up in the morning is that he is still in the game, still working inexorably towards that idea of what's to come. The product at their current stage of development is pretty much irrelevant. It's a stepping stone, a means of making progress, and a necessary evil - a frustrating nod to our current limitations that must be engaged with before they can be surpassed.

Maybe Tesla do present a favourable impression of where they are currently, but a certain amount of smoke and mirrors is necessary when you are trying to innovate rather than replicate. First products will always be sub-optimal, the spectre of competition and annihilation will always be present, there'll never be enough money, you'll always be skirting disaster, pivoting to turn the latest failure into the next opportunity for success, and a disheartening number of people will always be rubbing their hands thinking it's almost their moment to say 'I told you so'. Through it all, one has to smile, maintain loyalty through successive failures, and continue to attract investment and customers from the world at large by maintaining the impression of competence and progress. It is quite astonishing what investors and customers will forgive when they have bought into you and the vision of progress you have shown them.

There is also a level of truthfulness, and a bond, between company and customer when one is pushing boundaries and the other is supporting that ideal financially. An innovative company's public facade is for people who currently have no skin in the game. It is a mistake to think it is to pull the wool over the eyes of existing investors and customers. An innovative company needs loyal customers and investors much more than an established company. This is because these investors and customers will be asked to endure much more than a business really has the right to ask of them - and they will be asked to pay for the privilege. The only way to retain these customers and investors is through honesty, and a shared understanding of what you are working towards together.

As an aside, I love that Elon Musk has final sign off on everyone he hires. That's something I've always wanted to maintain as my businesses grow. In my view there are few things better that a truly committed entrepreneur can do to invest in the longevity of his idea than to ensure that every single person who works for him is capable of meeting the standards he sets. Personally I see it as an excellent indication that he is a guy who has his priorities in order and is committed to the long term vision for the company. If you know you've hired good people then you can afford to let them just get on with what they are doing, you can take responsibility for their failures, and you can give them the funds, freedom, and just enough chaos to really fulfil their potential - without asking them to shoulder the full burden of chaos and uncertainty that you as the entrepreneur must carry.

Post: #71

(11-18-2017 06:47 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  The product at their current stage of development is pretty much irrelevant.

It's interesting to get more of a glimpse of the background of some posters beyond talking about red-pill.

At the risk of dropping my anonymity shield let me say that I've worked in dot coms for 20 years. My original plan was to enter showbiz. I only got sucked into tech via the first dot com boom. Right around that transition point I produced a documentary on a famous high-tech company. During those interviews, the mentality of engineers was explained to me and my life-experience since then has proven to me that it's true. It's also the same with artists, the saying goes that "no work of art is ever done, only abandoned".

But with engineers (and inventors are really part of that), the puzzle-solving aspect is what interests them. Once the development needs to stop and it has to shift over to manufacturing, then it is no longer interesting and their mind immediately pivots over to thinking about version 2 or version 3. (This is why Musk has had to frame manufacturing as yet another puzzle in need of innovation. He finds it impossible to simply execute using tried and true status quo best practices because it's simply too dull for him. It's a personality flaw.)

This leads to blowing deadlines and overdesign. The Model X is the poster-child for this with the motorized seats and the falcon-wing doors, but you can also see this over-reach in the Model 3 dashboard, trying to change too much for little more than novelty or gee-whiz value.


Engineers work best under strict constraints in time and budget. Usually in the early days there is more discipline along these lines, but if that first product is a success, the tendency is to go overboard on the next one. This is the "second system effect". The Model X was a victim of that.

Successful business need to balance out that relentless drive to innovate with the need to ship and sell product to subsidize the R&D, otherwise you just burn through cash until you hit a brick wall. This is what Tesla is doing. It's careening towards a financial brick wall because nobody in Tesla is concerned with bean-counting. They just feel they can infinitely raise capital on the backs of investor confidence, almost like printing their own fiat currency. Engineers HATE bean counters but you need someone there is a counter-balance. Startups in general work best with co-founders so that there's a yin and a yang. When there's only a dictator at the top then all they have are a bunch of yes-men at the table and they lose their ability to make smart decisions. It's the same with big name directors (George Lucas anyone?) or rock stars (Axl Rose, Chinese Democracy). Someone needs to be around them to tell them when they're going off the deep end.

Musk doesn't have that. Anytime anyone writes a negative piece they will be accused of being biased short-sellers. The only evidence of him correcting course was when people around him (shareholders?) insisted that he keep the Model Y on the Model 3 platform rather than making a whole new one.

But I just think people are plain wrong when they suggest that Musk has a firm grasp of sound business practice. He doesn't. He is a kid in a candy store. A company like this needs someone like him to keep the product line from getting stale, but it is a liability to have someone like him unilaterally calling all the shots. It works for SpaceX because that's a private company therefore he has to stock his own candy in his candy store.

Post: #72

(11-17-2017 12:05 AM)questor70 Wrote:  One thing I would not do if I were rich (and I come from the same damn beta nerd background as Musk) is not say the needy things he did during that interview. I might secretly feel that way. I might even confess that to a therapist or close friend, but I would never broadcast that to the world the way he did. To me, I would feel that I'd be flushing my SMV down the toilet. So I think he's in desperate need of a red-pill.

That's mostly what I was hoping people would comment on here, the contradiction between his alpha-like tendency to risk-take and work hard in business on the one hand vs. his pathetic approach to women on the other.

Yeah, but he could be selling a book, or writing a book. You have to keep in mind these interviews are all show, all dog and pony. He's building narrative about himself in the public eye, something he probably needs more of, and why not be in control of it in an interview, than have people leak information or trash him elsewhere to control his reputation. The millions he makes from one book could set up one of his kids for life or a family member, or shit, create another start up. And... its like a massive Tinder profile, women en masse swoon for this crap, and his SMV with most of his female fans probably just tripled. I would say he worked the press and played this interview quite well.

Post: #73

(11-17-2017 05:26 PM)monster Wrote:  

(11-16-2017 09:24 PM)Monty_Brogan Wrote:  Electric semis... hahahah!

This is America, not the EU! Our semis run on diesel and run to the moon and back!

The issue is efficiency, and thus cost.

The most efficient gasoline combustion engines only covert 40% of gas into usable energy. Most average around 15-20%

My understanding is that electric vehicles convert around 80% of that.

This all translates to dollars and cents, and will eventually bring down the real cost of goods since transportation is a major component of all pricing.

You're only looking at efficiency at the enduser level and ignoring transmission and distribution losses at the source, which are pretty high for electricity and virtually nil for gasoline. The reason we have been in an oil economy for the past century because it's the most portable, potent cheap and plentiful source of energy.

http://electrical-engineering-portal.com...on-lines-1





Of course transmission/grid losses much less of a problem for those burb/rural dwellers who have their own solar panels, but that's looking at the enduser level and ignoring the amount of energy it took to produce the batteries and panels, which blurs the picture at the macro level.

Post: #74

Not sure anyone wants to get into a protracted debate on this when it's really about Musk's alpha/beta frame, but thermodynamic / entropy is a lot more complicated than you think.

There's a lot of controversy over the effective EROEI of fossil fuels, especially considering that we're at a point where much of it is coming from increasingly difficult sources like ultra-deep water, tar-sands, shale, and requires a lot of refinement and ultimate delivery to the point of use. While gas is still cheap at the pump, the average EROEI of fossil fuels is getting progressively worse as we've already consumed most of the low-hanging-fruit. Since oil is a non-renewable resource, this situation is NOT solvable. Innovation in the oil sector does help in the short term (hence the shale boom) but it only kicks the can down the road.

Renewables may be intermittent (hence the need for battery storage) but they are the only reliable long-term energy source outside of pie-in-the-sky plans for next-gen nukes or fusion.

We're currently reaping the benfits of the can having been kicked but there are a lot of articles trying to determine how much time that's bought us and what the consequences are when it runs out. Some suggest we only have a few years before we wind up roughly where we were in the fall of 2008 with oil at $147/bbl. The best time to hedge bets on this and shift to EVs is now, not when we're panicking with $4+ prices at the pump and tens of millions of newly sold gas guzzlers on the road.

But let's just say women aren't the only ones who have difficulty with long-term planning.

Post: #75

Raazor sounds like he's coming from the perspective of a large bank making a secured loan vs H1N1 from the perspective of an investor. Apple's to oranges.