Posted on 03/30/2014 7:07:43 PM PDT by ckilmer
All true except that Musk is not currently risking any public dollars.
Musk being a major Obama fanboi also is an immense strike against him in my eyes.
And that erstwhile conservatives want us to celebrate a tax parasite who adores the radar eared dictator in making is distressing.
Musk already paid back the government loans years ahead of time. Musk is the good guy here, saving billions for tax payers
Musk is someone I respect, even though he’s a believer of global warming. He actually put his money where is mouth is and created 3 great American companies. If government is handing out money, you be a fool not to take it. I don’t fault Musk for taking it
SpaceX and Tesla are 2 great private companies. By constantly claiming its tax payers funded, you’re giving credit to those who claim government could allocate resources well
250 miles per charge, and how long to charge? How much weight and volume used by the batteries? How common are the materials, and how cleanly and cheaply can they be extracted?
Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to like about electric power trains. Electric motors are far lighter, need much less maintenance, provide effective torque over a much wider range of RPMs and hence need much simpler transmissions, but batteries simply aren’t ever going to power the bulk of vehicles.
If electric vehicles ever supply more than a few percent of ge vehicles on the road, they’ll be powered by fuel cells or capacitors, not by batteries.
His first one was Zip2
“Zip2[edit]
Musk started Zip2, a web software company, with his brother, Kimbal Musk. The company developed and marketed an Internet “city guide” for the newspaper publishing industry.[8] Musk obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune[17] and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with a company called CitySearch.[9] Compaq acquired Zip2 for US$307 million in cash and US$34 million in stock options in 1999.[19] Musk received 7% or $22 million from the sale”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Career
I’m with you. This guy is pretty impressive.
If Space X suceeds with propulsive landing and reuse of its boosters - they’re going to be able to really reduce lanuch costs.
I’ll give odds that this doesn’t stand a chance to pass the political logjam to get through Congress.. Between Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the unions, the lobbying and political ties will prevent it.. Too bad a $50 Billion savings isn’t small change.. :)
A person from an exurb could barely make it to work and home with stops at the store, the doctor and the kids play without getting close to a dead battery.
How long must he charge to get an effective round trip in? How much will his electric bill be spiked while owning this coal fired automobile?
Also how effective are they in a cold weather climate? How do they operate in real World subfreezing temperatures for two months straight in the winter in Fargo or Minneapolis?
These cars are cool. It is nice that someone made an effective vehicle that can be relatively reliable for those with the funds and the time to recharge every night. The are a long way from replacing or even competing with a vehicle that gets 350+ miles to a tank and can be refueled and on it's way again in ten minutes or less.
A visit to Cape Canaveral and the Apollo control center showed me the Government was not the main facilitator of putting men on the moon. They opened their check-book, Air Force bases and provided the mission and organization, but the real success was due to the technology and brainpower in companies like Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas, IBM, Sperry, etc...
Now that NASA has a typical government/bureaucratic monopoly - how likely is the USA to return men to the moon (or space, for that matter) in the next 10 years?
I don't really hate people who take my taxpayer dollars to give to the rich to subsidize their electric sports car purchases. What I really hate is people who add to my electric bill simply to pad their company's bottom line. The rooftop solar installations that he owns provide expensive and unreliable power and make no sense in my part of the country (Virginia).
Solar City is a complete scam.
Take a look at the picture at the beginning of this piece and maybe it will dawn on you.
Musk is crony capitalist, Obama-loving parasite, sucking down massive federal subsidies, grants and pay-offs for all three of his allegedly beneficial high-tech scams (Solar City, Tesla and SpaceX) and continually shooting off his rather large and uninformed mouth on many subjects about which he knows little or nothing.
Other than that, he's a peach.
Well, uh, yeah.
If Musk was speaking up for conservatism while at the same time accepting every bit of the subsidies for his space project that he currently is (subsidies that are far less than NASA's long time cuddle-buddies have received) he would be cheered to the skies (no pun intended) here on FR.
Heck, look at the Musk fanbois in this thread.
Now that NASA has a typical government/bureaucratic monopoly - how likely is the USA to return men to the moon (or space, for that matter) in the next 10 years?
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If you read the article above—you’ll notice that what musk does is make the return more likely because of his cost cutting.
If Space X suceeds with propulsive landing and reuse of its boosters - they’re going to be able to really reduce lanuch costs.
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agree. that’s the promise implied by the videos put out last summer of their rockets taking off and landing again.
I’ll give odds that this doesn’t stand a chance to pass the political logjam to get through Congress.. Between Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the unions, the lobbying and political ties will prevent it.. Too bad a $50 Billion savings isn’t small change.. :)
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I wouldn’t take that bet even with the odds. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the unions will do everything they can to kill any SpaceX finger dipping into their rice-bowl
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