Elon Musk is a nice chap

[eti]

In the knowledge that this forum never seems to want to delete threads, I’ve change the title to reflect my opinion change over the last month or so. I’m not going to sit here and “Justify” or “Validate“ why I changed  my mind, but let’s just say that I think Elon musk is a very nice chap, and I hugely misjudged him, and the fact that he is very very anti-left liberal woke… That’s enough for me to like him.

[Bud]

The mystery of Musk's speech  impediments and other weirdnesses has now been solved - Musk has admitted he has Asperger's and is/was just fooling around.

Look I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but that's just how my brain works," he said.

https://www.dw.com/en/elon-musk-reveals-he-has-aspergers-syndrome/a-57473708

[Red Squirrel]

While I do agree it's delusional, back in the day when they were talking about going to the moon people thought the same thing, I think that's where the word "lunatic" comes from.   

So honestly I'm willing to give him the chance and see if he can really make it happen.  I don't think it will happen any time soon but I think we will live to see it.

That said, as much as it would be cool to see, I'm not a big fan of the idea of colonizing Mars though, I just feel all that effort should be used to save this planet from ourselves instead.  Carbon capture tech for example, better batteries to make even large ships or planes capable of being electric, and of course full green power grid with storage.   If we really want to fix the atmosphere we need large towers that can suck air down and then go through a carbon capture process.   Most of the ideas I've seen are doing it at ground level, that won't do anything for the upper atmosphere.  For the cost of colonizing mars several of these towers could probably be built.  Need to build them at both poles, and along the equator.   Anywhere else may be too much of a challenge due to centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation.

[Berni]

While I do agree it's delusional, back in the day when they were talking about going to the moon people thought the same thing, I think that's where the word "lunatic" comes from.   

So honestly I'm willing to give him the chance and see if he can really make it happen.  I don't think it will happen any time soon but I think we will live to see it.

That said, as much as it would be cool to see, I'm not a big fan of the idea of colonizing Mars though, I just feel all that effort should be used to save this planet from ourselves instead.  Carbon capture tech for example, better batteries to make even large ships or planes capable of being electric, and of course full green power grid with storage.   If we really want to fix the atmosphere we need large towers that can suck air down and then go through a carbon capture process.   Most of the ideas I've seen are doing it at ground level, that won't do anything for the upper atmosphere.  For the cost of colonizing mars several of these towers could probably be built.  Need to build them at both poles, and along the equator.   Anywhere else may be too much of a challenge due to centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation.

The problem with these things is that they are massive projects with no financial benefit while costing a lot to even run, let alone build. The reason most people are not driving electric cars (including me) is because an internal combustion car is cheaper over the cars whole lifecycle.

Musk has already made SpaceX turn profits on this whole rocketry shenanigans. There are costumers that pay big money to get there commercial satellite up there into orbit, or to deliver stuff to the space station. The reason they pick SpaceX to do it is because they developed the latest in rocket technology to make it more cost effective. They also use this new capability by launching a better satellite internet service called Starlink.

So they keep developing there rocket tech to also become the first commercial provider of interplanetary transport, and the most attractive first step is Mars.

It's only governments that can launch and run a non profitable project that benefits humankind as a whole. Commercial companies can't do that because they would eventually run out of money, at what point the banks stop giving paychecks to the people that work there and those people stop working for you.

[vk6zgo]

https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-plans-for-life-on-mars-a-dangerous-delusion-12243479

I’m glad other inhabitants of planet earth don’t have their heads in the clouds as most others  seem to!

Don't hold back eti, tell us what you really think!

[sandalcandal]

The reason most people are not driving electric cars (including me) is because an internal combustion car is cheaper over the cars whole lifecycle.

Might want to get a fact check on that https://www.beuc.eu/publications/electric-cars-already-cheapest-option-today-many-consumers-new-study-finds/html

I'm not even going to start trying to touch the manure pile of propaganda masquerading as "news" that is Sky News.

[2N3055]

The reason most people are not driving electric cars (including me) is because an internal combustion car is cheaper over the cars whole lifecycle.

Might want to get a fact check on that https://www.beuc.eu/publications/electric-cars-already-cheapest-option-today-many-consumers-new-study-finds/html

I'm not even going to start trying to touch the manure pile of propaganda masquerading as "news" that is Sky News.

That study is a pile of manure. It is a school example of finding specific exceptions to claim generalized solution works...
Majority of cars sold in EU are small cars, that are 5-10k€ less expensive than those they took into study. Scenarios are cherry picked.
And in EU (that is very urban) in all urban areas there is a charging problem. And charging is a problem. When you tell people that it is OK to replace 5min top up on a gas station with 8 hours of charging, they look at you like you're mad.. Because that is mad. It is a problem, and people don't want to be slaves of charging.
If you say all that is needed is some discipline, that is funny also. Is spoke once with a guy that works roadside assistance. Large percentage of his calls are bringing can of fuel to people forgetting to top up that 5 min refueling thing. While with electrics, it's a full car tow to charging station. And then few hours to reasonable charge.

Fact is, most of the people are not green activists. They don't want to spend their limited time and resources going out of their way to worry about when and where they will charge the car. They just ignore electric as a toy for rich and geeks and green loonies and zip along happy in their ICE cars that are simple and work... And are cheaper despite green propaganda.
As soon as there is a charging socket at EVERY parking spot in my city, and as soon as a small electric car that has 400km range will cost LESS than ICE car (to account for inconvenience) then people will probably start to switch at faster rate.
They can write all the studies they want, truth is people are not switching because it is NOT better for consumer (yet). So either you simply BAN all privately owned ICE cars and force it to be single choice, or make it really more affordable. People are clever, if it really was cheaper and really usable in real life, it would be more of them. It is not. Yet. Those that have it now already have their own facilities to charge (or have one available) and are willing to do the mindset change and are usually have another ICE car they can use in case electric is not ready.

[sandalcandal]

That study is a pile of manure. It is a school example of finding specific exceptions to claim generalized solution works...
Majority of cars sold in EU are small cars, that are 5-10k€ less expensive than those they took into study. Scenarios are cherry picked.
And in EU (that is very urban) in all urban areas there is a charging problem. And charging is a problem. When you tell people that it is OK to replace 5min top up on a gas station with 8 hours of charging, they look at you like you're mad.. Because that is mad. It is a problem, and people don't want to be slaves of charging.
If you say all that is needed is some discipline, that is funny also. Is spoke once with a guy that works roadside assistance. Large percentage of his calls are bringing can of fuel to people forgetting to top up that 5 min refueling thing. While with electrics, it's a full car tow to charging station. And then few hours to reasonable charge.

Fact is, most of the people are not green activists. They don't want to spend their limited time and resources going out of their way to worry about when and where they will charge the car. They just ignore electric as a toy for rich and geeks and green loonies and zip along happy in their ICE cars that are simple and work... And are cheaper despite green propaganda.
As soon as there is a charging socket at EVERY parking spot in my city, and as soon as a small electric car that has 400km range will cost LESS than ICE car (to account for inconvenience) then people will probably start to switch at faster rate.
They can write all the studies they want, truth is people are not switching because it is NOT better for consumer (yet). So either you simply BAN all privately owned ICE cars and force it to be single choice, or make it really more affordable. People are clever, if it really was cheaper and really usable in real life, it would be more of them. It is not. Yet. Those that have it now already have their own facilities to charge (or have one available) and are willing to do the mindset change and are usually have another ICE car they can use in case electric is not ready.

I picked that study because it was EU so hopefully more relevant to the person and very recent, there are other studies which also come to a similar conclusion. Fair to say I'm in Australia and don't have a first hand understanding of consumer needs in the EU. The study's headline is on medium cars but small cars are part of the investigation too with estimated cross over by 2024.


Some other studies have ownership costs of EVs higher by 8% mostly due to higher depreciation https://insideevs.com/news/394513/aaa-survey-depreciation-ev-concern/ depreciation costs don't really factor in for people that don't plan to sell i.e. buy it then drive it till it dies. There was some discussion about it on this forum here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1337-i-bought-an-electric-car/msg3284150/#msg3284150
And also my own research on it posted here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1337-i-bought-an-electric-car/msg3283448/#msg3283448

The service of flat EVs was has also been discussed on this forum here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1337-i-bought-an-electric-car/msg3278948/#msg3278948

“At the same time, consumer groups do not intend to gloss over the issues people face in the move to electric driving. For those that depend on a car, charging an electric vehicle must become as easy as fuelling a petrol one. That is why we advise the EU to push for more and better charging infrastructure, with easy payment methods and where the prices should also be easily comparable per kilowatt hour.”

The need for "public slow charging" infrastructure in order for majority adoption (particularly) in high density urban areas is real and something being worked on. Assume there was a commercial solution that allowed people without private parking to own an EV without having to think about charging e.g. charging subscription service that cost less than cost/km petrol would that mean people would adopt EVs sooner?

This is getting way off from the OP topic...

[tszaboo]

The study's headline is on medium cars but small cars are part of the investigation too with estimated cross over by 2024.

The graph probably had a secret "Used Toyota  Hybrid" on it, but it hides below the minimum 40000-60000 showed on the Y axis.

[sandalcandal]

The study's headline is on medium cars but small cars are part of the investigation too with estimated cross over by 2024.

The graph probably had a secret "Used Toyota  Hybrid" on it, but it hides below the minimum 40000-60000 showed on the Y axis.

That graph is explicitly for new vehicle TCO. The case for second and third hand owner is explicitly better.

While relatively more affluent first owners will on average be better off by switching to electric in 2025, second- and third-hand owners – who bear less of the car’s depreciation and benefit from low maintenance costs – will make savings for each electric car sold today once these cars arrive on the second-hand market. First owners driving many kilometres can already save money today by choosing electric.

[Ice-Tea]

Honnestly, that article is all over the place. Having people on Mars != Having a city on Mars != Having a million people on Mars != Having a billion people on Mars. You can't just bunch all of that together, and that's also clearly not what Neil and the Brittish Lors are doing.

[Berni]

Perhaps it works in places like Norway that have 0% tax on buying an electric car and dirt cheep registration, road tax etc... There electric cars are selling really well because in some cases they do actually make financial sense.

Here in Slovenia you get no such benefit, you pay everything just the same as a ICE car. So the only savings are on fuel. On top of that every car i ever bought was 2nd hand because i find a brand new car is too expensive. Not much in the way of good deals on used electric cars that are in perfect running order and its a question of how much life there is in the battery still, having to replace that costs as much as the car itself. So its really rare to see electric cars here.

Very few people care about the environment. They will simply buy a car that gets them from A to B cheaply and conveniently.

[sandalcandal]

Perhaps it works in places like Norway that have 0% tax on buying an electric car and dirt cheep registration, road tax etc... There electric cars are selling really well because in some cases they do actually make financial sense.

Here in Slovenia you get no such benefit, you pay everything just the same as a ICE car. So the only savings are on fuel. On top of that every car i ever bought was 2nd hand because i find a brand new car is too expensive. Not much in the way of good deals on used electric cars that are in perfect running order and its a question of how much life there is in the battery still, having to replace that costs as much as the car itself. So its really rare to see electric cars here.

Very few people care about the environment. They will simply buy a car that gets them from A to B cheaply and conveniently.

Fair enough. I think it's worth noting that costs of EVs aren't worse than ICE for everyone and in cases EVs are still more expensive, the difference is closing rapidly.

[Ice-Tea]

The "problem" with EV cost is that you pay more up front. So if you compare them at face value, EVs are more expensive. The fact that you win back during the lifetime of the vehicle is either not well understood or doesn't change the fact that people can't affor the higher up front cost.

[Berni]

Fair enough. I think it's worth noting that costs of EVs aren't worse than ICE for everyone and in cases EVs are still more expensive, the difference is closing rapidly.

Yep it is getting better. I think a handful of years down the road i will end up owning an electric car once the price balance tips over.

Eventually electric cars will become abundant enough on the used market that i will be able to get a reasonably good one that fits in the 4 digit price tag that i am looking to spend on a car purchase. We even have solar panels on the roof so we generate all our own power (Tho it might need an upgrade in the case of an electric car)

Over here the easy way to save on personal transportation costs is to buy a cheep gasoline engine car and have it modified to run on LPG for about 700 bucks. This saves you roughly 1/2 in fuel cost due to how cheep LPG is here. And it is better for the environment too if you care about that (burns cleaner and makes less CO2 since more of the energy is in the hydrogen atoms).

But in any case making electric cars is big business now. The number of cars in the world is no longer rising as quickly as it used to, but more and more of car sales are electric cars. So manufacturers better get there foot in that door early to make sure they have the best technology ready to go for when the electric cars start outselling ICEs. The whole mars thing is the same thing for Elon, he wants to be the first to get his foot trough the door of the interplanetary transport business before there is any competition. Being first can be a huge help sometimes, look at Microsoft Windows.

[Zero999]

Do we really need another discussion on electric cars? The topic has been done to death, several times over. 

Plenty of people have made, unrealistic, crazy predictions about the future: space tourism and colonialism are not a new concepts and belong in the same catagory as flying cars.

At the moment, there's a lot of hype around self-driving cars, which I'm very cynical about catching on, even though the technology is there to make them safer than human drivers. Technology often has very little to do with whether something is widely adopted. It's been possible to completely automate the railway system for over 35 years now, yet most trains still have drivers. Insurance will be a huge issue for driverless cars and the fact they will always err on the side of caution, which human drivers will take advantage of. Imagine being in a driverless car, waiting ages at a junction and the bloody car won't go, or everyone overtaking it on a motorway, because it wants to maintain a greater safe stopping distance, than everyone else.

[tszaboo]

The mystery of Musk's speech  impediments and other weirdnesses has now been solved - Musk has admitted he has Asperger's and is/was just fooling around.

Look I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but that's just how my brain works," he said.

https://www.dw.com/en/elon-musk-reveals-he-has-aspergers-syndrome/a-57473708

That explains a lot. Judging by the fact that employees are stressed out and work 80 hours a week, he probably has other mental health issues (dark triad), these things usually dont come alone.
It also explains how he can be that successful in some things, jumping on a topic like a pitbull and not letting go.

[joseph nicholas]

As our great intellectual and former gov of California says "Get your ass to Mars."

[stevelup]

I’m glad other inhabitants of planet earth don’t have their heads in the clouds as most others  seem to!

I wonder what, if anything, you have achieved compared to Musk?

Love him or hate him, it's just plain ridiculous to call him a moron.

[brabus]

Correction: Elon Musk is a billionaire delusional moron.

[Zero999]

I’m glad other inhabitants of planet earth don’t have their heads in the clouds as most others  seem to!

I wonder what, if anything, you have achieved compared to Musk?

Love him or hate him, it's just plain ridiculous to call him a moron.

I agree. He clearly isn't a moron. He'd definitely mentally ill, thanks to having a difficult childhood, but is no moron.

As far as achievements are concerned: Musk did come from a family with plenty of money, which made it easier for him to do better, than most.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The mystery of Musk's speech  impediments and other weirdnesses has now been solved - Musk has admitted he has Asperger's and is/was just fooling around.

Look I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but that's just how my brain works," he said.

https://www.dw.com/en/elon-musk-reveals-he-has-aspergers-syndrome/a-57473708

BS. Having Asperger's doesn't make you a dick. Musk may have Asperger's and he is a dick. The two aren't related.

[eti]

I’m glad other inhabitants of planet earth don’t have their heads in the clouds as most others  seem to!

I wonder what, if anything, you have achieved compared to Musk?

Love him or hate him, it's just plain ridiculous to call him a moron.

I’ve edited the opening post, since I felt I was unkind calling him a moron.

I don’t do comparison; comparison is a killer, haven’t you learnt that?

[M0HZH]

While I do agree it's delusional, back in the day when they were talking about going to the moon people thought the same thing, I think that's where the word "lunatic" comes from.   

So honestly I'm willing to give him the chance and see if he can really make it happen.  I don't think it will happen any time soon but I think we will live to see it.

That said, as much as it would be cool to see, I'm not a big fan of the idea of colonizing Mars though, I just feel all that effort should be used to save this planet from ourselves instead.  Carbon capture tech for example, better batteries to make even large ships or planes capable of being electric, and of course full green power grid with storage.   If we really want to fix the atmosphere we need large towers that can suck air down and then go through a carbon capture process.   Most of the ideas I've seen are doing it at ground level, that won't do anything for the upper atmosphere.  For the cost of colonizing mars several of these towers could probably be built.  Need to build them at both poles, and along the equator.   Anywhere else may be too much of a challenge due to centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation.

NASA is one of the largest inventors in all fields of technology. The space race has improved the life on Earth more than any single effort of human kind. See NASA Spinoff Technologies.

[floobydust]

BS. Having Asperger's doesn't make you a dick. Musk may have Asperger's and he is a dick. The two aren't related.

Engineering is full of people with high-functioning autism. It's a field they find challenging and social skills are not as important as is knowing the tech.
I've worked with many and have friends with it, as HFA and this Asperger's Syndrome that seems to be the latest fad excuse for being a dickhead.

I find they are highly intelligent, but not at all smart or practical. Example is one engineer made his own operating system as a fork from Linux. Yes intelligent and a good challenge but a stupid move for a hundred reasons. "Look at me, I made an operating system!".

Their Kryptonite is their ego and getting attention. They simply can't get enough attention and think they are the greatest. Smoke a joint during an interview, load up $1.5B on BitCoin... meanwhile Tesla's had a 12V lead-acid battery in them for many years lol.
Musk can launch a Tesla complete with mannequin "Starman" and try slingshot it to Mars but you have to admit, it's a complete waste and just corny.

They are almost sociopathic in their non-regard for other people's feelings, so I say they are dickheads due to genetics.
Zuckerburg could care less about your feelings/rights regarding privacy.
The ultimate CEO is a psychopath with their aggression and robot-like emotions, so I think Asperger's and HFA types are really going to keep thriving there.