7 ms·

Elon almost always overpromises and under delivers. The majority of his projects never really come to fruition.

by NotHim 5y ago

patrec 5y ago
I wish we had more people who under-deliver the way Elon Musk does.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  So far he's... - planning to dig tiny tunnels with no ventilation or emergency egress for cars instead of, you know, trains [1] - [edit](as if the only reason we have traffic is because lanes are uncovered? maybe just put a roof over the highway as a beta test?) - he's walked back the whole hyperloop thing almost entirely [2] - some electric cars where he tried to overthrow the government of Bolivia to source lithium [3] - at a company which produces a single digit percentage as many cars as say Toyota, but is valued at the entire rest of the car industry put together - [edit] and a publicly available beta of an autopilot system that seems hell-bent on murder (including having tried to off me, a few times - btw, super fun when it's not) - some very expensive space internet [4] cat heaters [5] (although after reading this article I assume the cats are being slowly roasted in some sort of bandwidth trial) - built rockets that aren't actually less expensive than competitors - they hope to be, but presently are not, and tbh, I don't see a path (but would be happily proven wrong) [6] - and tortured a bunch of monkeys to death. 11/10. Nailed it. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/review-of-elon-musks-dc-to-baltimore-loop-system-reveals-safety-concerns/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/review-of-elon-musks-dc-to... [2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-hyperloop-dreams-slam-into-cold-hard-reality https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-hyperloop-dreams-sla... [3] https://www.yahoo.com/video/elon-musk-becomes-twitter-laughingstock-214435631.html https://www.yahoo.com/video/elon-musk-becomes-twitter-laughi... [4] https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-new-premium-tier-is-fast-but-super-expensive https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-new-premium-tier-is-fas... [5] https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/cozy-kitties-spacexs-self-heating-starlink-satellite-dishes-attracting-cats/P65JOWFNRNDQTETOH3Q2UFKCXE/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/cozy-kitties-spacexs-sel... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxkE_oYrjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxkE_oYrjU
  - ovi256 5y ago
    I think that you'll learn that besides haters, nobody cares about the failures. Or hit rate. Only about the successes. And Elon's had such huge ones that he can keep trying for more.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      He made some electric cars. They're pretty cool when they're not trying to murder. And some low-orbit satellite internet that should help connect some remote areas. The successes are genuinely massively overstated. He's a marketer, and a good one. A P.T. Barnum type.
      - ericd 5y ago
        “Some” electric cars? They made roughly 1 million of them this past year, 80% more than the previous year.
        ashwagary 5y ago
        Wasn't most of the hard work done by the two actual founders of Tesla? They achieved something almost equivalent to the modern day Tesla before Elon contributed anything (funding excluded).
        ericd 5y ago
        No. They hadn’t even gotten the hand-built roadster working properly before he took over (iirc the two speed transmission was still shredding itself before they switched to single speed), let alone launching the Model S, X, 3, Y, and then scaling up the manufacturing (the real hard part). Credit to them for the idea and the initial prototypes - the idea that EVs could not only be decent cars that people could stomach, but actually lustworthy sports cars that hold their own with the best ICE cars was key to their success, and it was the founders’. But the company building and keeping it alive was solidly Musk.
ddalex 5y ago
A marketer's trick. But he has at least one big win - SpaceX.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Tesla is also one (a lot less so than SpaceX). They kinda reached their claims and stayed alive longer than expected.
- ahahahahah 5y ago
  Is SpaceX a win? So far they seem to only be able to spend many billions of dollars. Are they just doing something that is so expensive that it loses tons of money and that companies that need to make money are unwilling to do?
  - mft_ 5y ago
    Irrespective of one's feelings about Elon himself, SpaceX is pretty special, and few people who know about this sector would disagree. They've revolutionised launching things (now including humans) into space through building cheaper rockets and then pioneering landable and reusable rockets. They've done this for a relatively low cost and pretty quickly, vs. their competitors who spend more money and time doing less impressive things. They've probably reduced the cost to orbit per kg by ~10x. Regarding spending (and as with Tesla) don't confuse the cost of ongoing R&D with general running costs. Their launch business with Falcon 9/Heavy is profitable; but the R&D to get to where they are (with those reusable landing rockets, engine improvements, Dragon, Crew Dragon, drone ships, etc.) cost a lot. And they're now spending even more to develop Starship and a new generation of engines (Raptor) which will probably drop the cost to orbit by at least another order of magnitude.
Lanolderen 5y ago
I'm kinda biased since I like his balls but I find people kinda set Elon's bar way too high. From what I see he's just a workaholic chasing his interests/dreams although at times naively.
- sofixa 5y ago
  That doesn't excuse the generic assholenes he exudes ( remember the "pedo guy" insults?) nor the arrogance ( submarine for that cave?!) nor his tunnel vision ( let's build a lot of tunnels for my Teslas, that will fix traffic congestion!). He speaks too much, and way too often it's complete bullshit. If he didn't talk publicly, he'd be a commendable workaholic chasing wild dreams and achieving some of them.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- YaBomm 5y ago

Elon almost always overpromises and under delivers. The majority of his projects never really come to fruition.

by NotHim 5y ago

Elon almost always overpromises and under delivers. The majority of his projects never really come to fruition.

patrec 5y ago

I wish we had more people who under-deliver the way Elon Musk does.

arcticbull 5y ago
So far he's... - planning to dig tiny tunnels with no ventilation or emergency egress for cars instead of, you know, trains [1] - [edit](as if the only reason we have traffic is because lanes are uncovered? maybe just put a roof over the highway as a beta test?) - he's walked back the whole hyperloop thing almost entirely [2] - some electric cars where he tried to overthrow the government of Bolivia to source lithium [3] - at a company which produces a single digit percentage as many cars as say Toyota, but is valued at the entire rest of the car industry put together - [edit] and a publicly available beta of an autopilot system that seems hell-bent on murder (including having tried to off me, a few times - btw, super fun when it's not) - some very expensive space internet [4] cat heaters [5] (although after reading this article I assume the cats are being slowly roasted in some sort of bandwidth trial) - built rockets that aren't actually less expensive than competitors - they hope to be, but presently are not, and tbh, I don't see a path (but would be happily proven wrong) [6] - and tortured a bunch of monkeys to death. 11/10. Nailed it. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/review-of-elon-musks-dc-to-baltimore-loop-system-reveals-safety-concerns/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/22/review-of-elon-musks-dc-to... [2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-hyperloop-dreams-slam-into-cold-hard-reality https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-hyperloop-dreams-sla... [3] https://www.yahoo.com/video/elon-musk-becomes-twitter-laughingstock-214435631.html https://www.yahoo.com/video/elon-musk-becomes-twitter-laughi... [4] https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-new-premium-tier-is-fast-but-super-expensive https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-new-premium-tier-is-fas... [5] https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/cozy-kitties-spacexs-self-heating-starlink-satellite-dishes-attracting-cats/P65JOWFNRNDQTETOH3Q2UFKCXE/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/cozy-kitties-spacexs-sel... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxkE_oYrjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxkE_oYrjU
- ovi256 5y ago
  I think that you'll learn that besides haters, nobody cares about the failures. Or hit rate. Only about the successes. And Elon's had such huge ones that he can keep trying for more.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    He made some electric cars. They're pretty cool when they're not trying to murder. And some low-orbit satellite internet that should help connect some remote areas. The successes are genuinely massively overstated. He's a marketer, and a good one. A P.T. Barnum type.
    - ericd 5y ago
      “Some” electric cars? They made roughly 1 million of them this past year, 80% more than the previous year.
      - ashwagary 5y ago
        Wasn't most of the hard work done by the two actual founders of Tesla? They achieved something almost equivalent to the modern day Tesla before Elon contributed anything (funding excluded).
        ericd 5y ago
        No. They hadn’t even gotten the hand-built roadster working properly before he took over (iirc the two speed transmission was still shredding itself before they switched to single speed), let alone launching the Model S, X, 3, Y, and then scaling up the manufacturing (the real hard part). Credit to them for the idea and the initial prototypes - the idea that EVs could not only be decent cars that people could stomach, but actually lustworthy sports cars that hold their own with the best ICE cars was key to their success, and it was the founders’. But the company building and keeping it alive was solidly Musk.

ddalex 5y ago

A marketer's trick. But he has at least one big win - SpaceX.

agumonkey 5y ago
Tesla is also one (a lot less so than SpaceX). They kinda reached their claims and stayed alive longer than expected.
ahahahahah 5y ago
Is SpaceX a win? So far they seem to only be able to spend many billions of dollars. Are they just doing something that is so expensive that it loses tons of money and that companies that need to make money are unwilling to do?
- mft_ 5y ago
  Irrespective of one's feelings about Elon himself, SpaceX is pretty special, and few people who know about this sector would disagree. They've revolutionised launching things (now including humans) into space through building cheaper rockets and then pioneering landable and reusable rockets. They've done this for a relatively low cost and pretty quickly, vs. their competitors who spend more money and time doing less impressive things. They've probably reduced the cost to orbit per kg by ~10x. Regarding spending (and as with Tesla) don't confuse the cost of ongoing R&D with general running costs. Their launch business with Falcon 9/Heavy is profitable; but the R&D to get to where they are (with those reusable landing rockets, engine improvements, Dragon, Crew Dragon, drone ships, etc.) cost a lot. And they're now spending even more to develop Starship and a new generation of engines (Raptor) which will probably drop the cost to orbit by at least another order of magnitude.

Lanolderen 5y ago

I'm kinda biased since I like his balls but I find people kinda set Elon's bar way too high. From what I see he's just a workaholic chasing his interests/dreams although at times naively.

sofixa 5y ago
That doesn't excuse the generic assholenes he exudes ( remember the "pedo guy" insults?) nor the arrogance ( submarine for that cave?!) nor his tunnel vision ( let's build a lot of tunnels for my Teslas, that will fix traffic congestion!). He speaks too much, and way too often it's complete bullshit. If he didn't talk publicly, he'd be a commendable workaholic chasing wild dreams and achieving some of them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
YaBomm 5y ago