
Elon Musk's Promises and Goals for Tesla, SpaceX, and More - uptown
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/
======
simonsarris
5% cute and 95% terrible to navigate.

Worth noting that unlike other delays, The Model 3's target date was
originally December and then pushed up. July is 5 months _ahead_ of the
original schedule!

Model 3 Launch

ANNOUNCED: MAR 31, 2016

TARGET DUE DATE: DEC 31, 2017

REVISED DUE DATE: JUL 31, 2017

I'm very excited. Electric transportation is one of the most moral
technologies we can work on to get out of oil's malthusian trap. I have a lot
of respect for Musk pushing the envelope as much as he can.

~~~
shuntress
>Electric transportation is one of the most moral technologies we can work on
to get out of oil's malthusian trap

While I agree with the sentiment and can't wait for good mainstream electric
vehicles, I would like to be pedantic and point out the possibility of
generation of the electricity to run an electric vehicle being very dirty. As
well as the (not current, but theoretical) possibility of using clean energy
to synthesize combustion fuels for engines that efficiently clean all outputs.

A transport being electric does not automatically make it better.

~~~
grinich
Electricity is fungible in the sense that it can come from many sources. Oil
is not-- it really only comes out of the ground. (Biofuels also have the same
problem.)

You can think about making cars electric as removing a tight coupling between
transportation and fuel. It creates a more generic interface, which will
create more flexible implementations. For example: wind, solar, and using
charged car battery fleets to balance the electric grid at peak times.

It's hard to see how combustion can ever be better than electric. Even in
situations where you completely offset the carbon by synthesizing fuels with
clean energy, you still have huge issues around air quality in dense urban
cities.

Electric motors are also massively easier to maintain, have fewer moving
parts, are quieter, etc etc.

~~~
shuntress
The seemingly constant point of contention is the 'battery technology'.

I'm sure you have heard some form of: "Electric cars will become dominant once
battery technology catches up"

I feel like we don't often consider the thought that hydrocarbons may be the
best 'battery' technology.

Edit: I don't really think they can be, outside of back-up generators. Power
stations supported by The Grid should be far better than gas stations
supported by pipelines/trucks.

~~~
greglindahl
There have been billions of $ spent on synthetic hydrocarbons research, so I
think "we" have considered it.

~~~
shuntress
'We' in this context intended to mean 'people discussing alternative energy'
not 'humanity overall'

I don't often see it brought up, even in discussions of energy storage support
for inconsistent energy sources.

~~~
greglindahl
3 technologies I've seen discussed extensively in the alternative energy
context:

* Methanol from food sources * Methanol from non-food sources (switchgrass) * Biofuels for aircraft (military and civilian)

I can totally believe you didn't see these talked about. But you can find
articles in the New York Times on all 3 technologies in the past couple of
years.

~~~
shuntress
I guess we are pretty much at the peak of synthetic oil and it is a dead end
in terms of energy storage.

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kayoone
Somehow all of his projects tie together to build a full Mars infrastructure
including solar energy, solar mobility, high speed tunnels, space travel and
even that satellite network he planned to beam internet to earth from LEO. If
he manages to do that in his life time and Mars becomes a popular alternative
to Earth, his wealth (or that of his descendants) will exceed anything there
ever was. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and JPMorgan in one person. Of
course, it's highly unlikely and just a though experiment at this point.

 _edit_ a word

~~~
badsock
I thought the Boring company was the most "obviously for Mars" project. One of
the cheapest ways to create pressurized, radiation-sheltered spaces is to dig.

~~~
rezistik
Don't discount the self-sustaining Gigafactory.

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nkoren
Usually I'm kind of annoyed by the HN peanut gallery when they mostly ignore
the content of a really interesting page to complain about the typeface or how
it looks with Javascript disabled, or whatever.

But ye gods -- this is probably the worst UI/UX I've encountered this decade.
What the hell were they thinking?

~~~
westoncb
Seems to me that it's partly an art project + joke. I thought it was amusing
and actually pretty efficient at conveying its information—once I figured out
the basic model for navigation. In any case, it's clearly not an attempt at
strictly optimizing usability.

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westoncb
Here's a guess at the motivation for the... eccentric, design: it's a weird
contrast to see something so trivial and incompetent looking displaying
information about Musk's very non-trivial, competent work.

I found it amusing personally.

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sqeaky
It seems like this page is trying to show a bunch of Musk's "failures", and
really its showing how ambitious he is. He is succeeding at many things not
just any one thing.

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gerbal
Am I the only one that finds the Boring Company the most interesting of Musk's
current projects?

If he can pull off fastish, cheapish tunnelling under major cities we could
see a renaissance in new subway construction in American cities.

~~~
amackera
The actual boring of the tunnels in cities is the smallest part of the
problem. Still a lot of work to get there! But maybe someday :)

~~~
foota
Tell that to Seattle

~~~
whicks
Isn't it a main goal of the Boring Company to reduce the cost of projects like
what is happening in Seattle?

~~~
vermontdevil
Thought the same thing. And be able to go in different directions than being
limited. See Big Bertha being stuck for two years.

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loco5niner
Wow, this is a horrible interface

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swalsh
Wow so much wrong with this UI. From the floating head to the weird use of
space. I just can't parse any interesting info from here, which is a shame
because I think there is something to be gained.

~~~
aninhumer
It feels way too competent in other respects to not be intentional. I think
someone had a lot of fun making this, and I'm having a lot of fun exploring
it...

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leemac
The UI here is fascinating. I'm so lost, yet I'm so intrigued to keep clicking
around.

~~~
2474
It's interesting Bloomberg with with a brutalist approach to the aesthetic.
I'm not sure it lends itself that well with the content they were presenting.

~~~
leemac
I was surprised as well. This is also on the front page which is interesting
given the target audience. In a strange way I find it fun, though a bit
unusable.

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scblock
Didn't make it past the "click to enter" splash page. Who thought this type of
web design was a good idea?

~~~
pikachuaintcool
I think it's cool.

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raleighm
Found the designer's personal page:
[http://jamespants.com/](http://jamespants.com/)

~~~
sixQuarks
well... I guess you can say he has his own "style"

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shmerl
Reminds me of the blinking Web of the '90s.

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kiernanmcgowan
Looks like the designer took some inspiration from Homer Simpson

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azl5jxcXCZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azl5jxcXCZk)

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ceejayoz
This is some very confusing UI.

~~~
agumonkey
Funny, I think it's part of a semi serious "brutalist" trend I've seen pop up
these days. Taken to the extreme there.

~~~
shuntress
My understanding of Brutalism (as it related to buildings) is that it is
supposed to feel daunting, uniform, and unashamedly utilitarian while being
(almost surprisingly) highly usable and subtly beautiful (to certain tastes).

So I would say a 'brutal' web page would be a plain Apache file index.
Basically the opposite of what we see here.

~~~
agumonkey
Architecturally that's right, but people have been using this term for the
kind of bare, high contrast, blueprintish genre. I don't advocate the accuracy
here :)

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MR4D
This page makes my eyes bleed!

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pavlakoos
who created this UI?

~~~
vermontdevil
Created on FrontPage

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wand3r
Model Y before 2020. Then electric will finally be S3XY

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csours
I wonder if in 300 years Musk will be mentioned in the same sentences as
Genghis Khan...

I've been continually amazed at how Musk has been able to generate buzz, and
then eventually execute on that buzz.

For instance the Price to Earnings ratios for traditional automakers are
better now than they've ever been, but Tesla has surpassed Ford and GM in
market cap; but Tesla has negative P/E!

Musk has done so many things his own way, and he's been successful...
eventually.

But there have been expensive lessons: the Falcon wing doors probably adds
$20k and 6 months to the launch of the Model X.

Failing to use lean manufacturing principles drives up the cost of Tesla's
vehicles, and probably reduces quality; from the stories I've heard of the
number of people at the end of the production line, it sounds like old GM
methods.

The turbo pump failure ground SpaceX launches to a halt.

Will his enterprises be successful in the end? Who knows!

Disclaimer: I work for a Tesla competitor.

~~~
shuntress
I don't have information to validate or dispute this but the argument a co-
worker of mine always makes is that Tesla (and Musk) are 'propped up' by
government money and never should have made it this far.

I would be interested to get your take on this assessment.

~~~
danjoc
>'propped up' by government money

It's pretty well documented,

[http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-
subsidies-2015...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-
subsidies-20150531-story.html)

