Elon Musk is a nice chap

[sandalcandal]

However, that is NOT what is being said by bdunham7, a minority of "analysts" and some media outlets.

??   What did I say?  Was it about scaling? Scaling up is overrated, especially in an automotive company.  There are efficiency and cost gains up to a point (which Tesla is past, IMO) and then further expansions create management and supply chain headaches.  I don't think Tesla is going to 'fail' anytime soon, not because of their growth story, but because they are now in a position to survive a serious setback or two--although their stock price may crater in the process.  Their expansion actually increases their risk in my view.  Perhaps they ought to learn from companies like Volvo and Ferrari, which they more closely resemble despite their outsized market cap.  Operating on the level of VW, Ford or god help them, Toyota, is a whole 'nother ball game.
[...]

You said this:

...  Musk's ability to sell the growth story is another aspect that I think is problematic.  Scaling up isn't the answer to everything and once you reach a certain size and still aren't profitable--or profitable enough--then growth simply diverts attention from the fundamentals for a while.   And that's been working for them so far.

Were you not saying Tesla's business is fundamentally flawed (lacking profitability) and growth is being used as a coverup? Because that's what your quote of me is responding to.

As to your point on Tesla expanding further, do you have any evidence they lack the competence to manage operations past their current state? What is the "increased risk" Tesla has in expanding further? And is that risk not commensurate to the additional demand they stand to capture?

Also, do you acknowledge the previous point on: dilution based capital rising, particularly in the way Tesla has done it and the direction of market reaction, is perfectly "normal" and not particularly perverse in anyway?

*The level of market reaction was certainly normal not but probably due to other overriding factors which make it all the more rational for Tesla to have done the at-the-market raise.

[bdunham7]

One of the reasons people like Elon is that he spends time down on the factory floor to actually solve technical issues and improving processes. It's extremely uncommon for the CEO of a big company to get their hands dirty like that.

Many automotive CEO's have engineering backgrounds.  Mary Barra (GM) has a BSEE, for example.  I tend to doubt that Elon is 'liked' at all, let alone for his micromanagement skills. 

Elon:  Why is the line halted?

Manager: A supplier failed to deliver a part...

Elon:  You're fired!  You there, you're the new manager here!  Get this going now!

New Manager:  Um, we're out of....

Elon:  Get 'er done or go home!

New Manager:  Yes sir!

[sandalcandal]

[...]
Warren Buffet:  ...and be fearful when others are greedy.

Teslaratis: Buffet is an idiot!  Dogecoin to the moon!

[...]
Elon:  Why is the line halted?

Manager: A supplier failed to deliver a part...

Elon:  You're fired!  You there, you're the new manager here!  Get this going now!

New Manager:  Um, we're out of....

Elon:  Get 'er done or go home!

New Manager:  Yes sir!

Devolving into attacking a straw man now are we?  This is not the quality of discussion I wish to be involved in.

[bdunham7]

Were you not saying Tesla's business is fundamentally flawed (lacking profitability) and growth is being used as a coverup? Because that's what your quote of me is responding to.

As to your point on Tesla expanding further, do you have any evidence they lack the competence to manage operations past their current state? What is the "increased risk" Tesla has in expanding further? And is that risk not commensurate to the additional demand they stand to capture?

I don't have 'proof' that their business model is currently unprofitable (although it certainly doesn't support their valuation) nor do I know what the future holds.  However, expansion is always has risks--it increases your fixed costs and in Tesla's case, puts them at the mercy of additional government regulators that they can't predict or control.  California has been an ideal environment for them, the rest of the world may be tougher.  We'll see.

Also, do you acknowledge the previous point on: dilution based capital rising, particularly in the way Tesla has done it and the direction of market reaction, is perfectly "normal" and not particularly perverse in anyway?

Absolutely not.  The exceptions you cited prove the rule--those are all very recent examples in a very unusual environment.  It's not that Tesla's capital raise or the lack of a negative effect was unexpected given the current market conditions, but rather that current financial market conditions are very, very atypical from a historical perspective--and Tesla is a very unusual case in that unusual environment.   It's not 'perfectly normal' or anything close to it.  It's a complete freakshow.

[sandalcandal]

Also, do you acknowledge the previous point on: dilution based capital rising, particularly in the way Tesla has done it and the direction of market reaction, is perfectly "normal" and not particularly perverse in anyway?

Absolutely not.  The exceptions you cited prove the rule--those are all very recent examples in a very unusual environment.  It's not that Tesla's capital raise or the lack of a negative effect was unexpected given the current market conditions, but rather that current financial market conditions are very, very atypical from a historical perspective--and Tesla is a very unusual case in that unusual environment.   It's not 'perfectly normal' or anything close to it.  It's a complete freakshow.

28 Nov 2018 when Cromwell Property Group announced a >10% dilution equity raise, this that a "very recent example"? https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20181128/pdf/440q9nz4c5nw4s.pdf

That doesn't look anything like "cratering" to me. Source: https://www.marketindex.com.au/asx/cmw

1. $AU60M equity raise, Australian Finance Group, $AU708M MCAP, May 2020 https://themarketherald.com.au/australian-finance-group-asxafg-announces-60m-equity-raise-to-support-growth-2020-05-14/
2. $AU300M equity raise, Cromwell Property Group, $AU2.28B MCAP, Nov 2018 https://realassets.ipe.com/news/cromwell-property-seeks-up-to-aud300m-equity-raise-to-fund-growth/10028312.article
3. £150M equity raise, SIG plc, £600M MCAP, May 2020 https://www.insidermedia.com/news/yorkshire/sig-sets-out-plans-for-150m-equity-raise
4. $AU218.7M equity raise, Paladin Energy, $AU1.264B MCAP, March 2021 https://themarketherald.com.au/paladin-energy-asxpdn-looks-to-pocket-218-7m-for-capital-restructure-2021-03-17/

And "exceptions"? Are you saying I cherry picked examples? Those were the first results I got when I did the search which is probably why they are "recent". Four very different companies: financial services, construction real estate investment, building material supplier, mining company. They're not even tech companies and they're not even in the nutty silicon valley US financial market. They were probably mostly Australian because that's what the search engine gave me since I'm searching from Australia. If I searched further back then I don't doubt I could find more. Don't wait for me to convince you though maybe you should search for examples of companies that meet your criteria with the added point of the raise being done "for growth reasons" and show me the stock "cratering"

There's nothing unusual about Tesla's case or the environment/circumstances to allow it.

Edit:
Is 2015 old enough?
$110M equity raise, XERO, $3.2B MCAP, 25 Feb 2015 https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/24/xero-accel-matrix-111-million/

That's looks like an uptick to me.

Here's one that doesn't go up.
$AU80M equity raise, SERVCORP, $AU332M MCAP, 23 Oct 2009 https://www.smh.com.au/business/opportune-time-to-expand-servcorp-seeks-80m-through-equity-raising-20091012-gu0a.html

Is this that cratering? Looks like they might have been trying to take advantage of an over valuing. The actual slump is probably due to extremely poor profits "ServCorp was punished by the market after recording a 92 per cent drop in half-year profit in 2009, and it delivered a less than impressive result in the first half of 2010." - https://www.afr.com/companies/servcorp-srv-20100420-ivook Also looking into Servcorp they don't seem like the most successful company which is reflected in that fairly unchanged $332M market cap I guess.
Also note the overall "flat" curve more typical of a traditional business with limited growth unlike the exponential growth in Xero more typical of a successful tech company.

Honestly trying to find news of companies which meet all the criteria of >10yr IPO, >1B MCAP, publicly traded, doing a secondary offering for is hard enough, let alone ones that are doing it for growth reasons.

[nctnico]

As to your point on Tesla expanding further, do you have any evidence they lack the competence to manage operations past their current state? What is the "increased risk" Tesla has in expanding further? And is that risk not commensurate to the additional demand they stand to capture?

In my view the risk of Tesla expanding further is that they start to produce more cars than the market is willing to buy. Look at the sales situation in the Netherlands as an example where a little bit of competition (the VW ID.3 isn't even finished!) sinks Tesla's market share. If I look at the sales numbers of Tesla in the first 4 months of 2021 compared to 2020 their numbers went down by more than 75% where other manufacturers show much lower numbers or even see sales increase: VW shows -30%, Toyota -13% and Skoda +15% for example.

Devolving into attacking a straw man now are we?  This is not the quality of discussion I wish to be involved in.

Well, doing some googling after looking at the picture bdunham7 posted it appears that a number of model Y cars have been shipped from the Tesla factory with this wooden bodge.  That is just baffling; I wouldn't ship a one-off product to a customer with a bodge like that.

[sandalcandal]

As to your point on Tesla expanding further, do you have any evidence they lack the competence to manage operations past their current state? What is the "increased risk" Tesla has in expanding further? And is that risk not commensurate to the additional demand they stand to capture?

In my view the risk of Tesla expanding further is that they start to produce more cars than the market is willing to buy. Look at the sales situation in the Netherlands as an example where a little bit of competition (the VW ID.3 isn't even finished!) sinks Tesla's market share. If I look at the sales numbers of Tesla in the first 4 months of 2021 compared to 2020 their numbers went down by more than 75% where other manufacturers show much lower numbers or even see sales increase: VW shows -30%, Toyota -13% and Skoda +15% for example.

That seems reasonable. My only argument against that would be we would need to wait till the EU Tesla production from the Grünheide Gigafactory to gets into swing then the "real" difference in desirability with an "equal playing field" will show just how desirable Tesla is compared to the legacy EU automakers.

Edit: Another reason Tesla might continue to beat legacy automakers is their higher investment in battery production and vertical integration allowing greater and more consistent supply. Even when other automakers produce a competitive EV they will likely face the same problems as Tesla has previously faced and still faces with meeting demand, see the supply issues on the Mustang Mach-E
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/05/06/ford-mustang-mach-e-consumer-demand-far-outstrips-supply-in-usa/
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/3/22311594/ford-mustang-mach-e-delays-quality-free-charging-cash-back

[james_s]

In my view the risk of Tesla expanding further is that they start to produce more cars than the market is willing to buy. Look at the sales situation in the Netherlands as an example where a little bit of competition (the VW ID.3 isn't even finished!) sinks Tesla's market share. If I look at the sales numbers of Tesla in the first 4 months of 2021 compared to 2020 their numbers went down by more than 75% where other manufacturers show much lower numbers or even see sales increase: VW shows -30%, Toyota -13% and Skoda +15% for example.

That's unlikely to be a problem any time soon. Here in the USA at least they cannot keep up with demand, as recently as a year ago there was a waiting list of months of people who had paid a deposit. In addition to cars they are also producing batteries which also have a vast worldwide market, both for cars and for other purposes and that's only going to grow. Currently they're way out in the lead, eventually other manufactures will have some serious competition in the EV market but right now Tesla has the whole high end performance market locked up, nobody else is a serious player there at all.

[Bud]

So have they made a single Cybertruck since the announced it when, two years ago or something?  I have not seen on one the streets of Toronto.

[sandalcandal]

So have they made a single Cybertruck since the announced it when, two years ago or something?  I have not seen on one the streets of Toronto.

Yeah sort-of? There was one in NYC recently https://www.carscoops.com/2021/05/tesla-cybertruck-visits-new-york-city-as-elon-musk-appears-on-snl/
Edit: Never mind looks like the same one they used in the previous demonstrations.

[floobydust]

Tesla seems to have a magical unicorn bubble, reality and fantasy get blurred. Stock included.
Cybertruck pre-orders crowd-sourced estimate nearly 1 million. It was ~250,000 within a couple days of the product announcement 11/2019.

That Texas Gigafactory should probably get finished. Some people are cancelling their cybertruck pre-order because Elon backed out of Bitcoin and might be delusional lol.
Cybertruck owners club those forums are funny, enjoy the wait lol.
Meanwhile Ford F150 Lightning debut in 4 days, way ahead time-wise but likely behind exoskelton-wise.

[nctnico]

As to your point on Tesla expanding further, do you have any evidence they lack the competence to manage operations past their current state? What is the "increased risk" Tesla has in expanding further? And is that risk not commensurate to the additional demand they stand to capture?

In my view the risk of Tesla expanding further is that they start to produce more cars than the market is willing to buy. Look at the sales situation in the Netherlands as an example where a little bit of competition (the VW ID.3 isn't even finished!) sinks Tesla's market share. If I look at the sales numbers of Tesla in the first 4 months of 2021 compared to 2020 their numbers went down by more than 75% where other manufacturers show much lower numbers or even see sales increase: VW shows -30%, Toyota -13% and Skoda +15% for example.

That seems reasonable. My only argument against that would be we would need to wait till the EU Tesla production from the Grünheide Gigafactory to gets into swing then the "real" difference in desirability with an "equal playing field" will show just how desirable Tesla is compared to the legacy EU automakers.

So far Tesla has been importing half assembled cars into the EU to avoid import taxes. The real question is whether the quality level can be raised to European standards. Germany does have a good track record of being able to build good cars. Regardless the brand unless ofcourse US style management screws things up.... It is not uncommon for US companies to crash & burn in Europe because they underestimate the huge difference in culture.
Still, producing in Germany doesn't mean they can produce cheaper. Especially if a lot of parts need to come from the US.

Edit: Another reason Tesla might continue to beat legacy automakers is their higher investment in battery production and vertical integration allowing greater and more consistent supply. Even when other automakers produce a competitive EV they will likely face the same problems as Tesla has previously faced and still faces with meeting demand, see the supply issues on the Mustang Mach-E

I doubt that will be a long term problem. The EU is investing heavily in having battery production inside the EU in order to be independant of China. Random google find on the subject: https://www.pveurope.eu/energy-storage/green-economy-battery-manufacturing-coming-europe

Some people are cancelling their cybertruck pre-order

IMHO the cybertruck will never meet safety regulations. Tesla probably cancels all pre-orders at some point. It is a great way for Tesla to get an interest free, no strings attached loan though.

[sandalcandal]

Thanks nctnico, really useful to hear some EU perspectives.

The new SUV EV offerings from non-Tesla automakers coming out now are looking strong. Though its possible they might be cannibalising their own ICE sales rather than stealing BEV market share from Tesla. If the stats in terms of absolute (not percent) number of vehicles sold sees some dips (particularly in the US) then we might be able to confirm or refute that theory. However, due to the complications of current component supply chains those number might not be a 100% accurate gauge of consumer interest/preference. Instead sales/delivery numbers might be more a gauge of who has their supply chains in order and/or who is able to adapt best.

[nctnico]

Thanks nctnico, really useful to hear some EU perspectives.

The new SUV EV offerings from non-Tesla automakers coming out now are looking strong. Though its possible they might be cannibalising their own ICE sales rather than stealing BEV market share from Tesla.

In the EU most car manufacturers HAVE TO canibalise their ICE sales in favour of BEVs to make sure they meet average CO2 emission limits. Except for Toyota; they sell enough hybrids (*) already not to need BEVs at all in order to meet average CO2 emission limits. It wouldn't surprise me if it turns out BEVs from European manufacturers are sold at a very low profit margin (or no profit at all) just to avoid paying the fines.

* One interesting fact is that Toyota doesn't have any diesel passenger cars in their line-up on their Dutch website. Other manufacturers like Volkswagen, Peugot, Citroen and Ford still offer diesel engines.

[tszaboo]

Thanks nctnico, really useful to hear some EU perspectives.

The new SUV EV offerings from non-Tesla automakers coming out now are looking strong. Though its possible they might be cannibalising their own ICE sales rather than stealing BEV market share from Tesla.

In the EU most car manufacturers HAVE TO canibalise their ICE sales in favour of BEVs to make sure they meet average CO2 emission limits. Except for Toyota; they sell enough hybrids (*) already not to need BEVs at all in order to meet average CO2 emission limits. It wouldn't surprise me if it turns out BEVs from European manufacturers are sold at a very low profit margin (or no profit at all) just to avoid paying the fines.

* One interesting fact is that Toyota doesn't have any diesel passenger cars in their line-up on their Dutch website. Other manufacturers like Volkswagen, Peugot, Citroen and Ford still offer diesel engines.

Not just NL. They ended tractor-fuel engine production in 2018. Good riddance.

The real question is whether the quality level can be raised to European standards. Germany does have a good track record of being able to build good cars. Regardless the brand unless ofcourse US style management screws things up.... It is not uncommon for US companies to crash & burn in Europe because they underestimate the huge difference in culture.
Still, producing in Germany doesn't mean they can produce cheaper. Especially if a lot of parts need to come from the US.

When you look at a Tesla close by, and see the huge gaps between panels, that are often times not straight, the exposed bolts, the paint... But you know, it has a farting sound app.

[james_s]

When you look at a Tesla close by, and see the huge gaps between panels, that are often times not straight, the exposed bolts, the paint... But you know, it has a farting sound app.

Fit & finish is nowhere near as bad as you imply, it's true things like body panel gaps are not as nicely done as something like a Mercedes or BMW but they're not as bad as older American cars either. I've looked closely at several of them and the paint had no issues at all that I noticed. I don't know what exposed bolts you're referring to, I didn't see any exposed bolts. The farting sound toy is kind of silly but it's ridiculous to pretend that's the reason anyone buys one, that's just a freebie thrown into the software for fun. People buy them because they are so much fun to drive, very little else on the road can touch the performance, especially at the price. I also find them to be somewhat less hideously ugly than most other modern cars although I realize that's subjective and that bar is low. Around here with electricity around 8c/kWh they're also very economical to run, especially for a sports car.

[sandalcandal]

In the EU most car manufacturers HAVE TO canibalise their ICE sales in favour of BEVs to make sure they meet average CO2 emission limits. Except for Toyota; they sell enough hybrids (*) already not to need BEVs at all in order to meet average CO2 emission limits. It wouldn't surprise me if it turns out BEVs from European manufacturers are sold at a very low profit margin (or no profit at all) just to avoid paying the fines.

* One interesting fact is that Toyota doesn't have any diesel passenger cars in their line-up on their Dutch website. Other manufacturers like Volkswagen, Peugot, Citroen and Ford still offer diesel engines.

Then the 2030s ICE bans, are they reasonable or harmful to the consumer?

When you look at a Tesla close by, and see the huge gaps between panels, that are often times not straight, the exposed bolts, the paint... But you know, it has a farting sound app.

Oh yeah farting sound app, that's definitely the reason why people prefer to buy Teslas  or maybe that's the only reason you can think of considering how far your head is up your

[james_s]

Then the 2030s ICE bans, are they reasonable or harmful to the consumer?

Harmful, and totally unrealistic, EVs are not suitable for everyone's needs and probably never will be, and we don't want all of our eggs in one basket. I say that as a proponent of EVs, let the market decide, let people choose.

[BrianHG]

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!

Elon's StarShip is way too small to support 100 humans all the way to Mars.  I mean WAY too small, see here (I thought it was a lot bigger):



It would be as bad as packing sardines in a can.  Maybe, by pure luck, it might be able to send 10 people with something of a degree of safety margins.  I would say it's a suicide mission.

[sandalcandal]

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!

Elon's StarShip is way too small to support 100 humans all the way to Mars.  I mean WAY too small, see here (I thought it was a lot bigger):



It would be as bad as packing sardines in a can.  Maybe, by pure luck, it might be able to send 10 people with something of a degree of safety margins.  I would say it's a suicide mission.

That's a debunking of some youtuber's "fan" concept using a starship shaped shell not SpaceX nor Elon Musk's actual plans for a Mars starship or anything close as far as I know. Link to the fan video. It shouldn't surprise you that some fan video with cool visuals is popular but also not at all aligned with practical reality. It should also not surprise you that's not the actual plan.

Starship is not meant to be an escape vehicle for sending 100 peoeple to Mars in one go. No one sensible has that idea, especially not Elon Musk himself. If you want to hear what Elon Musk's actual ideas and plans for Mars colonisation are instead of attacks on a straw man are then watch this uncut interview/discussion directly with him.


Let me highlight some quotes directly debunking the notions Elon Musk's plan is for a "life boat" vehicle with self-sustenance on Mars before the next half centaury at least.

[5:13] It's not an escape vehicle [...] unless Mars is made self sustaining which will probably not happen in my life time [...] it's meaningless to have an escape [vehicle], life boat or an escape hatch if you are simply moving to another place where you will soon die out. That doesn't count, it's not much of a life boat really
[...]
[6:43]You first have to say what is the goal [...]  the goal is get enough tonnage to Mars and enough people to make Mars self sustaining as quickly as possible. So then you say ok let's back out the math on this. We're gonna need a lot of tonnage. Maybe, I don't know 100 000 tons may 1 000 000 tons? so then you can't be faf'ing around with these expandable rockets, they're a joke. They're absurd ... If you want to get let's say first order of approximation 1 million tons to to the surface of Mars inclusive of people [and cargo] that means something probably around 4 or 5 million useful tons of payload in low earth orbit [...] Let's put this into perspective, total global capacity to orbit of all expendable rockets is around 5 or 6 hundred tons [...] if you say the world's going to end then if you do not increase your capacity perhaps they could do 1000 tons. That's 1/5000th of what's needed. This is ridiculous. It's not even .1%
[...]
[9:15] Expendable rockets are just utterly stupid in my opinion, utterly stupid. They are a complete waste of time.
[...]
[10:12] You basically need to have something that in expendable form that would probably get about 4% of its [lift-off mass] to orbit such that you can spend about half of that 4% on reusability.
[...]
[11:20] You can't have a tiny rocket. As a tiny rocket you basically just end up carrying your electronic[avionics] to orbit. [...] trying to get even a 10 000kg rocket to orbit I think you would get bascially zero payload [...] [12:10]For big rockets you also get gauge [manufacturing minimum tolerance] advantages... [...]  [14:18][Falcon 9] with a 12ft or 3.6M diameter which is that size because of road transport limitations
[...]
[17:35] "Large size, twice the take off thrust of a Saturn-V but about the same payload but that gives you reusability much cheaper, in situ propellent, it all is coherent" - Dr. Robert Zubrin
[...]
[19:21] I'm trying to make sure that our rate innovation increases it does not decrease. This is really essential, in fact if we do not see something close to an exponential improvement in our rate of innovation we will not reach Mars.
[21:16] In so far as building a self sustaining city on Mars [...] you have to achieve full and rapid reusability. I emphasis full and rapid. Reusability is only relevant to the degree it is rapid and complete. You also have to do orbital refuelling, this is essential, as well. And then propellent production on Mars, this is also essential.
[22:05] In the absence of radical innovation we have no chance of meeting that goal [Mars colonisation]. If our goal was simply, you know, defeat Lockheed and Boeing or something like that we would probably achieve that goal [logarithmically].
[23:45] So let's not shoot for the Moon let's shoot for Mars. And then these competitive things are kind of small things along the way. Unless somebody else is shooting for Mars, they will not be competitive with something as pedestrian as launching a few satellites into Earth orbit.
[27:13] "How would you prioritise missions 2 thru 10? Are you going to focus on exploration, building up the infrastructure or science?" [open potential plans for order of missions to Mars]

The goal of the Starship system is not sardine can colonisation/escape vehicles. It is to give large enough to be efficient, reusable capacity to Mars with a goal of 5 to 1 LEO to Mars payload tonnage. The setting of Mars colonisation as a goal has the purpose of forcing innovation forward at the highest possible rate with the benefits of low cost satellites and Moon travel along the way. If you think setting a goal of actually making it to Mars is meaningless and deluded let me repeat the quote: "So let's not shoot for the Moon let's shoot for Mars. And then these competitive things are kind of small things along the way. Unless somebody else is shooting for Mars, they will not be competitive with something as pedestrian as launching a few satellites into Earth orbit." Seems to have worked very well for their business competitiveness recently (Artemis Program).

Can you really say SpaceX has poorer resource utilisation than NASA "inhouse", Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Blue Origin or any of the other competitors? Obviously their current achievement is only possible off the pioneering work of these other organisations but right now who is looking the best to be the leader in space tech?  Maybe a decade ago that speculation would be fair, but given all the success and accomplishment that has already happened by now in 2021 can you honestly say SpaceX's direction and vision is poor?

Also note plans change (this interview was Oct 2020 for reference) Elon Musk has shown a strong willingness to be proven wrong and change approaches provided good reasoning which is more than most leaders (particularly political ones but that's more the voter's fault).

I'm not going to waste time watching every video and "news" article "debunking" Mars colonisation but it feels to me like most of these Mars "debunkings" are trying to raise basic challenges for Mars colonisation as though they aren't being thought about when they clearly are. These "debunkings" set up a false narrative by making it seem as though the challenges are being ignored through omission.

I swear I could start a youtube channel debunking these "debunking" videos but I have better things to spend my time doing, like instead doing it through writing posts on a niche forum which barely anyone will ever read  (someone help me get this info out there please)

[Psi]

Elon's StarShip is way too small to support 100 humans all the way to Mars.  I mean WAY too small, see here (I thought it was a lot bigger):
It would be as bad as packing sardines in a can.  Maybe, by pure luck, it might be able to send 10 people with something of a degree of safety margins.  I would say it's a suicide mission.

Starship is not meant to be an escape vehicle for sending 100 peoeple to Mars in one go.

I think some of the '100 people to mars' confusion is due to the original starship design being bigger than the current design.
The design has change quite a bit from early plans to now.  From memory the original idea was 100 people on one big ship but it was scaled back because
- A production line for smaller ships is easer
- Sending multiple starships to mars is trivial once you have a production line producing them.
- Sending multiple starships to mars has more redundancy and safety if there are issues on the mission.
(I think most people would be totally ok at being crammed in like sardines on a starship if there was an emergency and the alternative was death)

[sandalcandal]

I think some of the '100 people to mars' confusion is due to the original starship design being bigger than the current design.
The design has change quite a bit from early plans to now.  From memory the original idea was 100 people on one big ship but it was scaled back because
- A production line for smaller ships is easer
- Sending many ships is trivial once you have a production line producing them.
- Sending many ships has more redundancy and safety if there are issues on the mission.
(I think most people would be totally ok being crammed in like sardines on a starship if there was an emergency and the alternative was death)

Current Artemis program Starship HLS is planned for only two astronauts AFAIK
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-artemis-moves-forward-nasa-picks-spacex-to-land-next-americans-on-moon

The constant and rapid pace of development and change in SpaceX plans (and Elon Musk plans in general) probably causes a lot of confusion to people not following closely and makes it easy for those interested in painting an unflattering picture to mislead a less informed audience. Taking a slower, more rigid plan which I guess government and "conservative" business people expect to would certainly kill their resource efficiency not to mention their pace of innovation and ability to compete.

[Psi]

The constant and rapid pace of development and change in SpaceX plans (and Elon Musk plans in general) probably causes a lot of confusion to people not following closely and makes it easy for those interested in painting an unflattering picture to mislead a less informed audience.

Agreed

[brabus]

Correction: Elon Musk is a billionaire delusional moron.

Depends on where the money comes from. A person who made it to a billionaire on his/her own can not be a moron. Actually Musk is quite smart to make lots of money from crappy products. Who likes Paypal? And if you look at car reliability / service level then Tesla is at the wrong end of the rankings. For an autistic person Musk seems to be able to understand how to hype stuff to people pretty well.

You understood the hidden point in my criptic sentence.
Many people criticize Musk for anything he does, but the truth is: he is one of the most influent individuals of our century. Calling him a "delusional moron" is just nonsense, given the achievements in all the companies he touched so far.
I admit I don't know much of Musk's background: he is still young and I am eager to see what future will bring with such a person in lead. Interesting times are coming!

[sandalcandal]

I admit I don't know much of Musk's background: he is still young and I am eager to see what future will bring with such a person in lead. Interesting times are coming!

Yes, fantastically young, full of energy and potentially at only 50 years of age Also if you're yet to actually learn about his background I should share this with you before you come in contact with misinformation disinformation

https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-musk-about-journalism

For the TLDR crowd, the upshot is that Errol has a story (that hasn’t been and likely can’t be corroborated) about an informal stake in a Zambian emerald deposit in the 80s. The deal had nothing to do with apartheid, and the lifetime income generated, depending which version of Errol’s story you believe, might pay for one or two Tesla Roadsters today. But any flow of emeralds had already ended by the time that Elon left South Africa at 17 with $2,000 in his pockets to begin some very lean years in Canada.

The more interesting story here though is less the myth itself and more how it came to be, and why this sort of thing keeps happening.

Author also has links in article to previous fact checking on that Thailand diver defamation suit. There are also comments with replies from the author below the article.