Elon Musk is a nice chap

[CatalinaWOW]

Musk may be delusional.  But his delusions have led to what many would agree is the best electric car on the planet.  And also to the only successful new car startup in North America in over 75 years.  And the most cost effective system to orbit by what is probably a factor of five, and definitely by a factor of two or more.  And got the US back into manned space virtually on schedule, and at least a year and a half ahead of a major legacy space company at significantly lower cost.  And is delivering the best internet to rural areas by far.

Maybe we should all be a bit delusional.  All of these things have defects, as does everything else in the world from the UN to the iPhone.  There is no arguing that they have positive aspects as well.

[Miyuki]

Musk may be delusional.  But his delusions have led to what many would agree is the best electric car on the planet.  And also to the only successful new car startup in North America in over 75 years.  And the most cost effective system to orbit by what is probably a factor of five, and definitely by a factor of two or more.  And got the US back into manned space virtually on schedule, and at least a year and a half ahead of a major legacy space company at significantly lower cost.  And is delivering the best internet to rural areas by far.

Maybe we should all be a bit delusional.  All of these things have defects, as does everything else in the world from the UN to the iPhone.  There is no arguing that they have positive aspects as well.

Their cost to orbit is on par with other companies
And US government donates them with contracts nicely (when paying many times more than market prices)
But have great PR and aggressive development

[EEVblog]

Musk may be delusional.  But his delusions have led to what many would agree is the best electric car on the planet.

His delusions have gone nowhere.
Hyperloop is 
The boring company and The Loop are 
What ever happened to the rocket hovering Tesla? 

Even his half decent ideas (not his idea actually, many have done it before) like Solar Roof Tiles ended up predictably too expensive to be practical.

You could argue that his Mars delusion and subsequent starting of a rocket company has lead to the enornmous success that is SpaceX, but those that give him contracts don't care one rats arse about his Mars fantasy. He gets the contracts because they have made cheap rockets that work, but even that was one failure away from the entire company failing at one point.

Tesla has nothing to do with delusion, it was just smart business, tenacity, muscling in on an existing company, and a bit of luck. Once again Tesla was very close to failure at one point.
The delusional ideas predictably fail, the standard practical business ideas have won.

Will SpaceX get to mars, probably, but a colony won't happen even if it's possible. NASA only has so much budget, and SpaceX will quicly go bankrupt if it tried that without sucking on the government teet.

[station240]

The other bidders on the contract have filed a formal complaint (which has stopped the funding), and in their written complaint  their argument is that SpaceX won because they underbid the contract, and they weren't given a chance to re-cost it.

Actually they are also complaining there wasn't two contracts awarded as promised, due solely to NASA budget cuts they only had to money to fund half of one.
SpaceX was the most promising for meeting the technical and timeline requirements, so NASA asked them to alter their pricing to match what little money NASA did have, so $2,941,394,557 ($3 billion) was the new price.

Blue Origin HLS contract would have $5.99 billion ($6 billion)
Dynetics HLS contract which was significantly higher than Blue Origin

So in addition to protesting about NASA awarding the only HLS "Option A" contact to SpaceX, the two other bidders have succeeded in getting the government to cough up an additional $10 billion.
I'm confused here, NASA said if they had the money they would award the second HLS "Option A" contact to Blue Origin, so where does the remaining $4 billion end up ?

https://spacepolicyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Senate-NASA-auth-amendment-May-12-2021.pdf
My understanding is the $10,032,000,000 is for general human landing system program costs, and includes funding for things like Artemis.

There is a HLS "Option B" contract that follows up, which is to take people to the moon, "Option A" is just a demonstration flight to prove the technology is safe, and no doubt includes taking cargo to the moon.

[Psi]

"Perseverance rover is projected to cost $2.7 billion dollars, of which $2.2 billion was for spacecraft development, $243 million for launch services, and approximately $300 million for operations and scientific analysis for its 2-year primary mission. The Ingenuity helicopter cost an additional $80 million to build and $5 million to operate during its 1-month mission."
https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-perseverance

Thinking we have the cash and technology to get people to Mars - seems delusional. There's no gold there, that we know of.

You can't compare NASA and SpaceX in terms of the price to get stuff done.
They use fundamentally different approaches for very different reasons.

NASA spend an absurd amount of money and an equally absurd amount of time planning, simulating and testing every tiny part beforehand so that the mission works first time. Every bolt, screw and nut has a corresponding 50+ page report someone was paid to create to prove that it will handle all the loading that it will be under at all points during the mission.
NASA do that because their funding comes from the government and from peoples taxes.  When a NASA rocket explodes the general public cry out that it's a waste of money and NASA's funding gets cut next year.
With NASA everything must be perfect first time and that is hideously expensive.
NASA is terrified of failures.

SpaceX however is totally different. They're approach is more 'trail and error'.
SpaceX throw a new rocket together in a month, sometimes built in a tent, and launch it to see what happens. When it explodes they look at why and update the future design to fix the issue.
This gives SpaceX something like a 10x faster development cycle for vastly less money.

It's actually ironic that NASA wastes so much money because, if they tried to save money, people would complain that they are wasting money.   

[Psi]

Tesla has nothing to do with delusion, it was just smart business, tenacity, muscling in on an existing company, and a bit of luck. Once again Tesla was very close to failure at one point.
The delusional ideas predictably fail, the standard practical business ideas have won.

Before Tesla, I'm sure lots of smart people were saying that it was delusional to build an electric car company and become worth more than the next top-6 car companies combined.

It's delusional until it's not.

[joseph nicholas]

I would like to compare him to Edison and Bill Gates.  His personality is winning and he can convince powerful people who control society that he can create a climate of hope even if the science says differently.  He has managed to get NASA on his side.  As far as the car thing goes, the Tesla has no innovative tech, the biggest fail is that the electric car is more efficient in warm places than cold climates due to the need to keep electrical systems at a stable operating temperature and the cabin hot and cold.  IT ALSO HAS NO FUCKING SPARE TIRE.

[sandalcandal]

People here keep saying Tesla cars were absolutely nothing new, do you even remember or know how EVs were designed before Tesla stepped up to the plate? Horrible, ugly, weak and slow little cars with poor range (sound like a familiar description of EVs?). They were cars that all but a select few would want for environmental reasons let alone practical reasons. EVs were B team projects done as throw away efforts to satisfy political/government pressure: see the EVs from legacy auto that came out in the 90s as a response to the California Air Resources Board's Zero-Emissions Vehicle Program starting 1990 (CARB ZEV). Most people probably don't even know the names of the battery electric vehicles which came out before Tesla hit the market. Look at battery electric vehicle (BEV) release dates:

Lead acid and Nickel Battery EVs:
CitiCar 1974
Sinclair C5 1985
Kewet Model 1 1991
Chrysler TEVan 1993*
GM EV1 1996*
Chevrolet S-10 Electric 1997*
Honda EV Plus 1997*
Toyota RAV4 EV 1997*
Ford Ranger EV 1998*
Global Electric Motorcars (neighbourhood EV) 1998

Lithium Ion BEVs:
Nissan Altra EV (first lithium ion production BEV, only ~200 made) 1998*
BYD F3DM, actually plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) but the first first mass produced PHEV 2008
Tesla Roadster 2008 (began dev in 2004)
Mitsubishi i-MiEV 2009
Nissan Leaf 2010
Chevrolet Volt 2011
Tesla Model S 2012
Renault Zoe 2012
BMW i3 2013
Kia Soul EV 2014
Tesla Model X 2015
Tesla Model 3 2016
Hyundai Ioniq Electric 2016
Nissan Leaf 2nd Gen 2017

*CARB ZEVs

Most of those CARB ZEVs were in production until the early 2000s when the CARB lost steam with a big pull pack in 1998 probably due to the shitty ZEVs legacy car makers came out with (and arguably sabotage of EVs that were popular). Come 2012 though, no doubt with the support of somewhat less shitty BEVs from Japanese makers and the popularity of Tesla, the ZEV program got a kick in the balls. No doubt parallels happened across the world in different markets/regulatory environments.

Articles about the CARB ZEV program:
Virginia McConnell, Benjamin Leard, and Fred Kardos "California’s Evolving Zero Emission Vehicle Program: Pulling New Technology into the Market", Resources for the Future, 2019, https://media.rff.org/documents/RFF_WP_Californias_Evolving_Zero_Emission_Vehicle_Program.pdf
Virginia McConnell and Benjamin Leard "The California ZEV Program: A Long and Bumpy Road, but Finally Some Success", Resources for the Future, 2019, https://www.resources.org/common-resources/california-zev-program-long-and-bumpy-road-finally-some-success/ (includes summary/review of the above RFF paper)
Edit: Also for a view of EVs in the pre-Tesla/Leaf and some CARB ZEV history (centred on GM EV1) see Who Killed The Electric Car? (2006), For people with Amazon Prime:https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0I9X71SI8UD8E3ZSA2ZFMXEYHK/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r and a cut down summary on youtube https://youtu.be/l3OnYjP4FTk

Look at this list of BEVs https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/blog/influential-evs-an-illustrated-history-of-electric-car-design.html and look at the spec and power of the EVs released at the same time as the Tesla vehicles. Tesla is successful as an EV maker because they had the vision and drive to make decent EVs that people actually want to drive and own against a great many challenges. Not toys or throwaway emissions regulation projects like other car makers.

So far as Telsa having zero innovative tech, have you never heard of the mega castings? have you seen/analysed the radically different battery pack construction and architecture? the tab-less battery design (not yet delivered)? not to mention the more controversial autonomous driving?

What kind of revisionist is "Tesla never did anything different"

Edit: To be clear, there was a lot of good work and products done by other mostly Asian car makers but particularly for the US market and regulation/politics in the US, Tesla has made a massive impact. Which is probably why there's so much marketing (propaganda) against Tesla.

[nctnico]

People here keep saying Tesla cars were absolutely nothing new, do you even remember or know how EVs were designed before Tesla stepped up to the plate? Horrible, ugly, weak and slow little cars with poor range (sound like a familiar description of EVs?). They were cars that all but a select few would want for environmental reasons let alone practical reasons. EVs were B team projects done as throw away efforts to satisfy political/government pressure: see

But very little can be attributed to Tesla (the car maker). Technology moves forward allowing all manufacturers to make better products. Just look at how mobile phones have evolved. And one very important electric car is missing from your list: the Toyota Prius. Toyota has already sold 10 million hybrid electric cars by 2017. So who is the most succesful electric car maker? It ain't Tesla, not by a long shot. Don't fall for the hype.

And as I wrote before: Tesla is much hyped. If people have a choice then they don't buy Teslas. In the Netherlands (one of the very few mature electric vehicle markets on the world) VW is outselling Tesla 4 to 1 nowadays. EV sales as a whole have risen but Tesla sales have plummeted.

[DrG]

"Perseverance rover is projected to cost $2.7 billion dollars, of which $2.2 billion was for spacecraft development, $243 million for launch services, and approximately $300 million for operations and scientific analysis for its 2-year primary mission. The Ingenuity helicopter cost an additional $80 million to build and $5 million to operate during its 1-month mission."
https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-perseverance

Thinking we have the cash and technology to get people to Mars - seems delusional. There's no gold there, that we know of.

You can't compare NASA and SpaceX in terms of the price to get stuff done.
They use fundamentally different approaches for very different reasons.

NASA spend an absurd amount of money and an equally absurd amount of time planning, simulating and testing every tiny part beforehand so that the mission works first time. Every bolt, screw and nut has a corresponding 50+ page report someone was paid to create to prove that it will handle all the loading that it will be under at all points during the mission.
NASA do that because their funding comes from the government and from peoples taxes.  When a NASA rocket explodes the general public cry out that it's a waste of money and NASA's funding gets cut next year.
With NASA everything must be perfect first time and that is hideously expensive.
NASA is terrified of failures.

SpaceX however is totally different. They're approach is more 'trail and error'.
SpaceX throw a new rocket together in a month, sometimes built in a tent, and launch it to see what happens. When it explodes they look at why and update the future design to fix the issue.
This gives SpaceX something like a 10x faster development cycle for vastly less money.

It's actually ironic that NASA wastes so much money because, if they tried to save money, people would complain that they are wasting money.   

To the point, NASA is not just funded by the US Gov, they are a US Gov agency (under the Dept. of the interior). The US Gov is NOT a for profit organization, by design.

SpaceX is a privately-funded rocket manufacturer and transport services company. They are a for profit company that is eligible to receive and does  receive US Gov. subsidies (~$900 million per a quick search).

Meaningful performance comparisons between the two, in view of qualitative differences, is problematic.

[sandalcandal]

People here keep saying Tesla cars were absolutely nothing new, do you even remember or know how EVs were designed before Tesla stepped up to the plate? Horrible, ugly, weak and slow little cars with poor range (sound like a familiar description of EVs?). They were cars that all but a select few would want for environmental reasons let alone practical reasons. EVs were B team projects done as throw away efforts to satisfy political/government pressure: see

But very little can be attributed to Tesla (the car maker). Technology moves forward allowing all manufacturers to make better products. Just look at how mobile phones have evolved. And one very important electric car is missing from your list: the Toyota Prius. Toyota has already sold 10 million hybrid electric cars by 2017. So who is the most succesful electric car maker? It ain't Tesla, not by a long shot. Don't fall for the hype.

And as I wrote before: Tesla is much hyped. If people have a choice then they don't buy Teslas. In the Netherlands (one of the very few mature electric vehicle markets on the world) VW is outselling Tesla 4 to 1 nowadays. EV sales as a whole have risen but Tesla sales have plummeted.

A Toyota Prius is a "low emission" vehicle but it isn't a ZEV. It isn't even a PHEV. It's relies on burning fossil fuel to function, it can't even partially use renewable electricity like a PHEV. Don't even try and tell me BS like lifetime emissions for hybrid are better than EVs.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change
https://streets.mn/2020/01/06/it-takes-66379-miles-for-an-electric-car-to-have-lower-emissions-than-hybrid/

As for Tesla sales plummeting Edit: if you just mean the NL then fair enough, I'd agree Tesla isn't the unequivocally best EV outside the US but Tesla as a company does not have plummeting sales.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/502208/tesla-quarterly-vehicle-deliveries/

Where on earth are you getting your information from? Do you have an agenda to spread misinformation?

[bdunham7]

So far as Telsa having zero innovative tech, have you never heard of the mega castings? have you seen/analysed the radically different battery pack construction and architecture? the tab-less battery design (not yet delivered)? not to mention the more controversial autonomous driving?

I'm not the one saying that Tesla hasn't innovated, although I would say that their hype-to-innovation ratio is pretty high.  However, the case you make is a pretty mixed bag.  Tesla didn't invent large die-castings nor the 'Giga-Press', rather they bought a customized version of an existing product and used it to make a somewhat larger portion of the car than others had previously.  Other cars have used very large subframe castings, just not quite as large or comprehensive.  Yes, their battery packs are configured differently than others, but IMHO their only real distinction is that they appear to have an advantage in battery chemistry, probably due to hiring Jeff Dahn.  As for the rest, your  phrase "not yet delivered" seems to best characterize most of Tesla's hype.  FSD is a long con where success is always just around the next bend.

Tesla is successful as an EV maker because they had the vision and drive to make decent EVs that people actually want to drive and own against a great many challenges.

You are correct here.  Teslas are a status symbol, a performance (in straight lines) car, a fashion statement.  They took sales away from BMW and Maserati, not Ford and Honda.  Many Teslarites are willing to overlook their glaring deficiencies, or at least tolerate them, in order to get ridiculous acceleration, faux self-driving and Falcon-wing doors.

[sandalcandal]

I'm not the one saying that Tesla hasn't innovated, although I would say that their hype-to-innovation ratio is pretty high.  However, the case you make is a pretty mixed bag.  Tesla didn't invent large die-castings nor the 'Giga-Press', rather they bought a customized version of an existing product and used it to make a somewhat larger portion of the car than others had previously.  Other cars have used very large subframe castings, just not quite as large or comprehensive.  Yes, their battery packs are configured differently than others, but IMHO their only real distinction is that they appear to have an advantage in battery chemistry, probably due to hiring Jeff Dahn.  As for the rest, your  phrase "not yet delivered" seems to best characterize most of Tesla's hype.  FSD is a long con where success is always just around the next bend.

The one saying Tesla has no tech is:

I would like to compare him to Edison and Bill Gates.  His personality is winning and he can convince powerful people who control society that he can create a climate of hope even if the science says differently.  He has managed to get NASA on his side.  As far as the car thing goes, the Tesla has no innovative tech, the biggest fail is that the electric car is more efficient in warm places than cold climates due to the need to keep electrical systems at a stable operating temperature and the cabin hot and cold.  IT ALSO HAS NO FUCKING SPARE TIRE.

As for other cars using subframe castings, care to give examples? Innovation isn't just being the one to actually invent the earliest form of a technology, its also being able to apply it to commercial success (usually requiring changes/improvements). To actually see new and different ways of doing things and adopt them rather than just sticking to what has been and the status quo is a risky move to pull off which deserves credit. But if you have a different definition of "innovation" more akin to first-stage invention then fair enough, I'm guessing you think Apple is also a rip-off, no innovation company. Did Apple steal the concept of a "smart phone" from someone else or did they create the modern concept of a "smart phone"?

Edit: Elon Musk talking about megacastings with a mechanical engineer (@17:10)

[bdunham7]

A Toyota Prius is a "low emission" vehicle but it isn't a ZEV. It isn't even a PHEV.

Well, it is a PHEV if you buy the PHEV.  https://www.toyota.com/priusprime/

As for Tesla sales plummeting
Where on earth are you getting your information from? Do you have an agenda to spread misinformation?

It seems pretty clear to me that he was referring to NL not worldwide.  I'm not big on predictions, but it will be interesting to see how Tesla does in the future as the competition starts to hit them directly.  Up until now, they were sufficiently differentiated--mostly on the range issue--that they didn't have direct competitors.

Now you have:

Volvo XC40 Recharge
Ford Mach E
VW ID.4

and more coming. 

[bdunham7]

As for other cars using subframe castings, care to give examples?

First one I remember was Chrysler in their minivans starting in 1996. 

Innovation isn't just being the one to actually invent the earliest form of a technology, its also being able to apply it to commercial success (usually requiring changes/improvements)..... Did Apple steal the concept of a "smart phone" from someone else or did they create the modern concept of a "smart phone"?

Jobs stole a lot of stuff--like the mouse--but I would give him and Apple credit for combining the concepts of a cell phone and a PDA and then selling it to the public.  And even more credit for making it work fairly well.

Blah blah blah.  Castings will 'potato chip' if you don't cool them properly.  Who knew?     This is just two self-styled fame whores having a mutual ....  session.

[joseph nicholas]

Musk better stop the interviews with that infuriatingly obtuse Sandy dude and continue getting drunk with Joe Rogan on the air.

As far as autopilot goes, the computer tech involved, lane guidance etc, is pretty conventional, the innovation is coming up with the guts to put it in a inherently dangerous commercial product like a car.  On the other hand, there is a you tube video showing a pyrotechnic fuse used in newer Tesla's to prevent the batteries from catching fire in case of accident.  It is a replacement at the request of gov agencies from a more convention one.  Interesting video.

 

[sandalcandal]

A Toyota Prius is a "low emission" vehicle but it isn't a ZEV. It isn't even a PHEV.

Well, it is a PHEV if you buy the PHEV.  https://www.toyota.com/priusprime/

As for Tesla sales plummeting
Where on earth are you getting your information from? Do you have an agenda to spread misinformation?

It seems pretty clear to me that he was referring to NL not worldwide.  I'm not big on predictions, but it will be interesting to see how Tesla does in the future as the competition starts to hit them directly.  Up until now, they were sufficiently differentiated--mostly on the range issue--that they didn't have direct competitors.

Were the "10 million hybrid electric cars by 2017" PHEVs?? According to https://www.electrive.com/2020/02/26/zsw-analysis-shows-global-number-of-evs-at-7-9-million/ (and Wikipedia where I found the stat) the total Prius PHEV sales were only 209k by 2019 To be honest, the Prius isn't sold as a PHEV in Australia so I had not known it was available as a PHEV.

Fair enough if you read it as sales in NL plummeting last year compared to 2019 but 2019 might be an outlier.

Edit: The cumulative sales graph is probably more enlightening on how popular Teslas actually are in NL but nctnico lives in NL so he's probably entitled to his own observations of how popular Teslas are there.

https://eu-evs.com/bestSellersCharts/NL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Quarters

Also fair that lots of great new EVs are coming out but the point of the post was about the previous, historical EV market and Tesla's historical impact on the EV market not sales in the last year in one geographic region. My issue is the revisionist BS people are posting NOT that EVs are getting better in general and so are other automakers.

I get the feeling all these misinformed people do is read headlines from "news" outlets with agendas without knowing the actual data.

[nctnico]

A Toyota Prius is a "low emission" vehicle but it isn't a ZEV. It isn't even a PHEV.

Well, it is a PHEV if you buy the PHEV.  https://www.toyota.com/priusprime/

As for Tesla sales plummeting
Where on earth are you getting your information from? Do you have an agenda to spread misinformation?

It seems pretty clear to me that he was referring to NL not worldwide.  I'm not big on predictions, but it will be interesting to see how Tesla does in the future as the competition starts to hit them directly.  Up until now, they were sufficiently differentiated--mostly on the range issue--that they didn't have direct competitors.

Now you have:

Volvo XC40 Recharge
Ford Mach E
VW ID.4

and more coming.

Yes. And the newcomers are eating away Tesla's share in the NL. Anyone following the EV news a bit knows that the NL (along with Norway) is a proving ground for many companies to introduce new EVs.

@sandalcandal: the graphs you posted underline what I wrote 100%! This website (in Dutch) https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/ allows to look at sales numbers at a very detailed level.

[Alex Eisenhut]

CitiCars are great, wish I had one for my inner child...



Also note cat licking its business in the corner 

[sandalcandal]

Yes. And the newcomers are eating away Tesla's share in the NL. Anyone following the EV news a bit knows that the NL (along with Norway) is a proving ground for many companies to introduce new EVs.

@sandalcandal: the graphs you posted underline what I wrote 100%! This website (in Dutch) https://www.autoweek.nl/verkoopcijfers/ allows to look at sales numbers at a very detailed level.

Yeah great news for consumers and the EV market! What does that have to do with the point I was making about Tesla's historical impact?

[bdunham7]

Were the "10 million hybrid electric cars by 2017" PHEVs??

I didn't say they were.  But I would say that the Prius of any flavor is actually an EV, just not an exclusive BEV.  It is electric drive and just happens to be partly or mostly powered by a gasoline generator.  Deleting the gas part and installing a ton of batteries would not really be all that innovative and Toyota has explained in detail why they didn't choose to go that route.  In short, given the limited supply of batteries, they could have made 10 million economically priced very-low-emission hybrids or maybe 500K very expensive "zero-emissions" BEVs.  Tesla's main achievement here is coming up with a large supply of batteries.

Fair enough if you read it as sales in NL plummeting last year compared to 2019 but 2019 might be an outlier. Edit: The cumulative sales graph is probably more enlightening on how popular Teslas actually are in NL but nctnico lives in NL so he's probably entitled to his own observations of how popular Teslas are there.

Those graphs are actually astoundingly clear and should tell you three things.  First, there is a big spike in EV sales in Q4 of each year, probably due to tax purposes.  Second, Tesla captured the 2019 spike and VW captured the 2020 spike.  Third, the graph tells you how popular Tesla was when they didn't have significant competition vs now when they do have competition.  I don't know how supply issues factor in, I would be curious to know if someone who wants a Tesla in NL can get one right now. I guess we will have to wait for the Berlin factory to open and for Q4 2021 sales results.

I think one thing is clear:  There are many people who would buy an EV but don't want a Tesla for various reasons.  I'm in that camp.  We own a non-Tesla EV that is not horrible, ugly, weak or slow and just barely predates the Model S.  It is admittedly low range and low volume and it was quite specifically engineered to appear and drive just like a 'normal' car.  People have ridden in it and not realized that is was electric.  Cars are a mature technology and there are a lot of potential customers that really don't want it reinvented or revolutionized.

[bdunham7]

Yeah great news for consumers and the EV market! What does that have to do with the point I was making about Tesla's historical impact?

I don't think anyone here is denying the impact of Tesla.  In fact some might predict that the financial crater that they will eventually leave will be a major historical event.

[rdl]

Mars, not cars.

[CatalinaWOW]

Musk may be delusional.  But his delusions have led to what many would agree is the best electric car on the planet.

His delusions have gone nowhere.
Hyperloop is 
The boring company and The Loop are 
What ever happened to the rocket hovering Tesla? 

Even his half decent ideas (not his idea actually, many have done it before) like Solar Roof Tiles ended up predictably too expensive to be practical.

You could argue that his Mars delusion and subsequent starting of a rocket company has lead to the enornmous success that is SpaceX, but those that give him contracts don't care one rats arse about his Mars fantasy. He gets the contracts because they have made cheap rockets that work, but even that was one failure away from the entire company failing at one point.

Tesla has nothing to do with delusion, it was just smart business, tenacity, muscling in on an existing company, and a bit of luck. Once again Tesla was very close to failure at one point.
The delusional ideas predictably fail, the standard practical business ideas have won.

Will SpaceX get to mars, probably, but a colony won't happen even if it's possible. NASA only has so much budget, and SpaceX will quicly go bankrupt if it tried that without sucking on the government teet.

Technically I agree with you.  He has bad ideas along with good ones.  He discards many of the bad ideas right away, but persists too long on others. 

I guess my disagreement lies with the tenor of this thread which seems to be that Musk is an idiot, who does little or nothing right and is strictly a flim flam man.  The power of Musk is that he is willing to go all in on ideas that others have said are too risky or whatever.  His electric car came from a commitment to make a good electric car, when the major car makers were too busy listening to the interior designers and market analysts.  The majors just washed their hands on the support infrastructure for EVs, but Musk attacked that problem head on.  Once he demonstrated that a good electric car was possible the major makers are diving in with all their resources and in many cases are delivering what appears to be a car as good or better than Tesla.  SpaceX didn't invent the idea of a re-usable rocket.  But they persisted and perfected the idea.  Only the fringe people like Blue Origen, Rotron and several others who have totally failed tried with him.  Now that SpaceX has demonstrated the viability of the concept the majors (Arianespace, ULA, Boeing, Long March and the Russian company) are jumping on the bandwagon.

You could take these as examples of persisting on a bad idea until it is good.  Starship probably will make money on orbital delivery and possibly anti-podal transport which will make it a good idea even if Mars turns out to be a total bust.  And may also make sense for asteroid mining which isn't as fanciful as Mars colonization.  Starlink appears to be on the road to success, although in Musk's own words, there is a huge cash flow chasm to cross before profitability.  These seem to be two more bad ideas that are on the cusp of being good.

[sandalcandal]

Were the "10 million hybrid electric cars by 2017" PHEVs??

I didn't say they were.  But I would say that the Prius of any flavor is actually an EV, just not an exclusive BEV.  It is electric drive and just happens to be partly or mostly powered by a gasoline generator.  Deleting the gas part and installing a ton of batteries would not really be all that innovative and Toyota has explained in detail why they didn't choose to go that route.  In short, given the limited supply of batteries, they could have made 10 million economically priced very-low-emission hybrids or maybe 500K very expensive "zero-emissions" BEVs.  Tesla's main achievement here is coming up with a large supply of batteries.

Fair enough if you read it as sales in NL plummeting last year compared to 2019 but 2019 might be an outlier. Edit: The cumulative sales graph is probably more enlightening on how popular Teslas actually are in NL but nctnico lives in NL so he's probably entitled to his own observations of how popular Teslas are there.

Those graphs are actually astoundingly clear and should tell you three things.  First, there is a big spike in EV sales in Q4 of each year, probably due to tax purposes.  Second, Tesla captured the 2019 spike and VW captured the 2020 spike.  Third, the graph tells you how popular Tesla was when they didn't have significant competition vs now when they do have competition.  I don't know how supply issues factor in, I would be curious to know if someone who wants a Tesla in NL can get one right now. I guess we will have to wait for the Berlin factory to open and for Q4 2021 sales results.

I think one thing is clear:  There are many people who would buy an EV but don't want a Tesla for various reasons.  I'm in that camp.  We own a non-Tesla EV that is not horrible, ugly, weak or slow and just barely predates the Model S.  It is admittedly low range and low volume and it was quite specifically engineered to appear and drive just like a 'normal' car.  People have ridden in it and not realized that is was electric.  Cars are a mature technology and there are a lot of potential customers that really don't want it reinvented or revolutionized.

With the added caveat that the Toyota Prius to this day uses NiMH batteries although some tiers have lithium ion since 2015 (which is a point to make in terms of successful technology adoption). Deleting the gasoline generator and adding more batteries isn't trivial but I could stretch to agree it at least doesn't require extensive "innovation". Tesla has made significant in roads to global battery production capacity. Looking up the reasons given by Toyota for their lack of BEV offering I didn't see much that looked very convincing, do you have a source you can share?

You are also entirely entitled to choose your own car based on your own judgement. I can certainly see non-Tesla EVs being the objectively better choice for many people. I can only hope you make your purchasing decisions with intellectual honesty.