5 ms·

Chairman Elon's Great Leap Forward

13 points by evo_9 10y ago

x2398dh1 10y ago
I am not a huge fan of Musk, and agree with some of the sentiments of the article, but I found the title quite offensive - to me saying, "Elon's Great Leap Forward," sounds like saying, "Elon's Final Solution."
- RangerScience 10y ago
  I think that's almost the point, but it's a China reference rather than a Nazi one.
- mmanfrin 10y ago
  That's the intention. The title is being facetious about Musk's denigrators.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    Referring to events that killed 10s of millions of people (by unnecessary famine, in the case of the Great Leap Forward) invokes a corollary to Godwin's Law. Not a smart rhetorical device.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward Referencing, also with the individual title, Chairman Mao.
simonbarker87 10y ago
I'm a big Musk fan and think the ambition of his current projects are incredible. But, my fear with Tesla is that the AutoPilot stuff derails and ultimately kills the company. Not because it lands up being more dangerous than conventional driving but because of the bad image the media could/will paint of the technology as the number of crashes increases. Pushing forward electric cars is important, autonomous driving is going to happen with or without Telsa driving it forward, I don't think electric cars will happen without them getting out the Model 3 and growing their market share appreciably - it would be a shame for that mission to fail because of a feature that is essentially a development of established car technology (cruise control -> cruise control+ -> autonomous). As an aside, if you've not read the articles on Wait But Why[1] on him then I highly recommend setting aside a few hours to do so as they give a clear (if biased) picture of what Musk has set out to do and why. [1] http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-m...
- Animats 10y ago
  Tesla's problem is Musk denying that they have a problem. That's not flying. Tesla needs to immediately issue an over the air update so that after 5 seconds of hands-off-wheel, the vehicle starts to slow down. That will keep the driver in the loop. Longer-term, the radar blind spot at windshield height has to be fixed. They need a vision system and control system which doesn't treat "unrangeable uniform surface" as "no obstacle". And the system should have a database of limited access highways and refuse to engage on anything else. What Tesla has is only good enough for freeway driving, and it needs to refuse to operate on anything else.
  - simonbarker87 10y ago
    Agreed, he's a great salesman vision wise but he is not good at crisis management with front line press - his press releases/blog posts are coming over very poorly at the moment. Which comes back to my point that they should be focussing on the electric car aspect, let Ford etc take the lead on consumer autonomous for now and come back once they've proved everyone wrong with electric cars.
    - Animats 10y ago
      Car companies can't "focus". Automotive manufacturing is about doing several hundred things simultaneously yet in a coordinated way. Most YC-type companies don't have that degree of operating complexity.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    What happens if slow down causes a crash? Aren't we back to the same spot we are now?
Animats 10y ago
Not much content there. Musk's companies have consistently been late with getting product out the door. (Or, alternatively, they have a problem with top management setting unreasonable schedules.) When he announced that he wanted the Model 3 shipping at 500K units a year in 18 months, his top two production people quit. The Model 3 will probably be late, and it will probably cost more than the presently announced price. But there's no reason it shouldn't ship.

13 points by evo_9 10y ago

I am not a huge fan of Musk, and agree with some of the sentiments of the article, but I found the title quite offensive - to me saying, "Elon's Great Leap Forward," sounds like saying, "Elon's Final Solution."

RangerScience 10y ago
I think that's almost the point, but it's a China reference rather than a Nazi one.
mmanfrin 10y ago
That's the intention. The title is being facetious about Musk's denigrators.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Referring to events that killed 10s of millions of people (by unnecessary famine, in the case of the Great Leap Forward) invokes a corollary to Godwin's Law. Not a smart rhetorical device.
Jtsummers 10y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward Referencing, also with the individual title, Chairman Mao.

simonbarker87 10y ago

I'm a big Musk fan and think the ambition of his current projects are incredible. But, my fear with Tesla is that the AutoPilot stuff derails and ultimately kills the company. Not because it lands up being more dangerous than conventional driving but because of the bad image the media could/will paint of the technology as the number of crashes increases. Pushing forward electric cars is important, autonomous driving is going to happen with or without Telsa driving it forward, I don't think electric cars will happen without them getting out the Model 3 and growing their market share appreciably - it would be a shame for that mission to fail because of a feature that is essentially a development of established car technology (cruise control -> cruise control+ -> autonomous). As an aside, if you've not read the articles on Wait But Why[1] on him then I highly recommend setting aside a few hours to do so as they give a clear (if biased) picture of what Musk has set out to do and why. [1] http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-m...

Animats 10y ago
Tesla's problem is Musk denying that they have a problem. That's not flying. Tesla needs to immediately issue an over the air update so that after 5 seconds of hands-off-wheel, the vehicle starts to slow down. That will keep the driver in the loop. Longer-term, the radar blind spot at windshield height has to be fixed. They need a vision system and control system which doesn't treat "unrangeable uniform surface" as "no obstacle". And the system should have a database of limited access highways and refuse to engage on anything else. What Tesla has is only good enough for freeway driving, and it needs to refuse to operate on anything else.
- simonbarker87 10y ago
  Agreed, he's a great salesman vision wise but he is not good at crisis management with front line press - his press releases/blog posts are coming over very poorly at the moment. Which comes back to my point that they should be focussing on the electric car aspect, let Ford etc take the lead on consumer autonomous for now and come back once they've proved everyone wrong with electric cars.
  - Animats 10y ago
    Car companies can't "focus". Automotive manufacturing is about doing several hundred things simultaneously yet in a coordinated way. Most YC-type companies don't have that degree of operating complexity.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  What happens if slow down causes a crash? Aren't we back to the same spot we are now?

Animats 10y ago

Not much content there. Musk's companies have consistently been late with getting product out the door. (Or, alternatively, they have a problem with top management setting unreasonable schedules.) When he announced that he wanted the Model 3 shipping at 500K units a year in 18 months, his top two production people quit. The Model 3 will probably be late, and it will probably cost more than the presently announced price. But there's no reason it shouldn't ship.