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Tesla and SpaceX Share More Than Musk
- SubiculumCode 9y agoDidn't see an example where SpaceX engineers reached out to Tesla. :)
- loceng 9y agoMartian vehicles will be in Elon's next top secret 10-year plan.
- softbuilder 9y agoThe first thing I thought of was the Dragon 2 capsule.
- greglindahl 9y agoFriction stir welding has been mentioned as a technology that was transferred from SpaceX to Tesla.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- SubiculumCode 9y agoI see Tesla, SpaceX, Boring, Solar companies as being quite synergistic over the medium term...and especially in application in space.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoGoing to need some pretty advanced AI to prefab human living spaces and life support as well. Not only would 480k ms ping be murder on anyone trying to drive ground vehicles but if you're going to be trying to build deep underground autonomous would probably be easier than laying cable.
- clickbyclick 9y agoIf you can send a building into space, land it on a postage stamp floating in an ocean... I have high-confidence you can solve production line scaling challenges.
- rsynnott 9y agoYes, that's why the Soviet Union's lead on space in the early 60s translated into abundant production of consumer goods. Ladas all over the place. Making a spacecraft work and making a production line work are completely different problems, and there's little reason to think that an organisation good at one is necessarily good at the other. I'm not saying Tesla WON'T sort out their production difficulties, necessarily, just that it doesn't follow from SpaceX being good at space launch.
- dogma1138 9y agoUSSRs problems weren't that they couldn't make production lines work they were extremely good at manufacturing at scale. The problem was that they were really bad at figuring out what needed to be made and at what amounts because of the worst kind of planned economy you can imagine (take aby soviet era product hammer, clock, lock, radio w/e and you'll see a very peculiar thing a physical price tag embedded on it, if you were a factory you were basically told you are making X now, price, profits and all economic decisions were taken out of your hands). If anything their problem was that they produced way too much of pretty much everything on a whim. Additionally there was all the wrong kinds of competition in which the establishment was the selective force rather than the market. These aren't the problems Tesla is facing.
- vkou 9y agoThe Khrushchev and Brezhnev-era USSR had a fantastic understanding of what needed to be made. Refrigerators, radios, televisions, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and automobiles. Things that the public very clearly wanted, and that politicians were very clear about the public getting. All of those things were consistently under-produced, and never met their quantity, or quality quotas.
- jedberg 9y agoSo when I told my daughter the Tesla X is a rocket ship car, I wasn't entirely lying?
- aroman 9y agoI wonder if all of Musk's enterprises (all of which seem in some way synergistic) will be formally grouped together a la an "Alphabet". What are the pros/cons of doing this from a financial/legal/organizational perspective?
- tw04 9y agoI doubt it, they all face far too big of a risk from a financial downside perspective with little to gain other than slashing "corporate overhead" - read redundant positions in things like HR and accounting. On the flip side, if Space-X has a couple of failed launches and loses one or two contracts, their debt would crush Tesla. And vice versa if the 3 doesn't take off like Tesla is hoping. There's almost no risk to them sharing IP between the two companies. And given how tightly they're intertwined from an ownership perspective, I would imagine that will continue indefinitely.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoAll his holdings provide a crucial aspect of living on mars, I doubt he lets any of them go under for any reason.
- sukilot 9y agoThat's not what "a la Alphabet" is. https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/04/google-parent-alphabet-forms-holding-company-xxvi-to-complete-2015-corporate-reorganization/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/04/google-parent-alphabet-for...
- night815 9y agoSpaceX cannot hire non-US Citizens because of ITAR. http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html http://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html
- krasin 9y agoThis is not exactly correct. They can also hire permanent residents (aka green card holders).
- rw2 9y agoI think the quality of engineering talent at Space X is probably higher. Having lived with and met a couple of Tesla Engineers, they seem to optimize for ability to work insane hours and accept lower salaries. The result is that Tesla does not have as many people from top engineering schools. This probably doesn't apply to early Tesla employees who seems much more qualified. I'm sure there is a reason for this and it might be a better approach for scaling production.
- nicolashahn 9y agoI only know one Space X engineer (who went to UC Irvine), but I from what I know from him they're also paid lower than market rate as well as expected to work >40 hour weeks regularly. edit: he went to Irvine, not Davis, edited original text.
- lutorm 9y agoIt is my impression that things have been changing at SpaceX over the past couple of years. No doubt they are demanding to work for, especially if you are in the direct path of launch deadlines, but as the company's grown they also seem to be paying more attention to things like work-life balance.
- 0xbear 9y agoI wish I was this cynical to ride people hard at a 20% pay cut and in exchange offer them the privilege of making me another billion dollars. It's good to be the king.
- yahna 9y agoJust convince them it's world changing super important work that they should do for lower pay. Don't actually take lower pay yourself tho.
- tankerdude 9y agoI think it's more accurate to say it's >60, easy. Every week. Young and a lot of energy.
- codeisawesome 9y agoI'm as big a fan as the next guy, but did anyone find the breathless tone progressively harder to tolerate? Whatever happened to just stating the facts.
- tw1010 9y agoI'm kind of of the philosophy that you aught to train yourself to extract the facts on your own. You're unlikely to change the trend and it's a good ability to have in situations other than reading the news, like in conversations.
- smpetrey 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Holdings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Holdings
- juiyout 9y agoMy uncle, being in Mitsubishi car manufacturing, he is specifically responsible for sheet metal and paneling. Heard him mentioned ways for non-destructive damage detection, with Ultrasound, X-ray, and good'ol knock-and-listen being the prominent choices, I am quite surprised to hear Tesla needing to call in rocket scientists. I guess it must've be that specific context that prevented them seeing the solution.
- aedron 9y agoIt's marketing. "Tesla, made by rocket scientists" is the message they want to implant. Musk does a lot of that kind of thing, like the mock 3D gesture controlled CAD rig [1], or the Jetsons manned rocket [2]. It's smart and good salesmanship: Figure out the coolest announcement you could make, then work backwards from there and make it happen. [1]: https://venturebeat.com/2013/09/06/this-is-how-elon-musk-designs-rocket-in-immersive-3d-virtual-reality/ https://venturebeat.com/2013/09/06/this-is-how-elon-musk-des... [2]: https://www.engadget.com/2015/09/11/spacex-crew-dragon-first-look/#/ https://www.engadget.com/2015/09/11/spacex-crew-dragon-first...
- juiyout 9y agoI understand the line of reasoning you presented. It reminds me of Stephen Covey's 2nd habit: begin with the end in mind. Now to me personally this incident docked some points off of Tesla. I guess it is not the end they meant to justify.
- dmix 9y agoThis is largely the product of talent attracting talent more than anything. Having access to capital and connections also helps. It's not quite a repeatable model for other companies as these business book style articles like to believe.
- Animats 9y agoThat crossover really showed up in the interior of the Dragon spacecraft.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjSb_b4TtxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjSb_b4TtxI
- pg_is_a_butt 9y agoi only know one tesla engineer... lots of stuff that looks like it works, but is a completely broken hack when viewed under a microscope. you're all idiots.
- smegel 9y agoI wonder if this happens between other companies even less related. Would two companies that did not compete in any way be willing to help each other other out because there CEO's were old-time buddies? Say some chemicals engineers from a big oil company going to help solve a problem faced by a baby food manufacturer?
- lafar6502 9y agoAnother portion of meaningless revelations. Just shut up and do your work Tesla , your bragging about trivial stuff is an insult to normal business and engineering
- altern8tif 9y agoI wonder if this happens for Square + Twitter as well.
- kote_gegeshidze 9y agoGreat news