Hurricane evacation and electric vehicles

[JSH]

Originally Posted by hamsterpower

It's pretty clear to me Elon is not trying to be profitable. He is gaming the stock market to build what HE wants, regardless. And willing to "bet it all" to do so.

Musk is betting with other people’s money.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

GM tried to kill the electric car or at least delay it in the 1990s

GM didn’t do anything different then the other manufacturers. When CARB’s EV mandate went away they stopped making EVs. They took back and crushed every leased EV1 because it would be cost prohibitive to supply parts for them for the mandated 10 years.

It was business decision, nothing more.

[Xist]

That's what they want you to believe!

In unrelated news, I use heavy duty aluminum foil. Only the best for my head!

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

GM tried to kill the electric car or at least delay it in the 1990s.

GM was the only (or at least the major) manufacturer even putting money into electric cars in the 90's. They did nothing to actively kill electric cars. If they aren't profitable, they aren't profitable. Evolution applies to products as well as living organisms. The fittest tend survive.

Originally Posted by JSH

Musk is betting with other people’s money.

Bullshine. He put $70 million of his own into Tesla. He put $100 M of his own money into Space X. Other people aren't forced to invest their money into Musk's companies, they do so voluntarily hoping to capture a tiny portion of Musk's success, and perhaps to advance the technologies these companies employ.

I'm no fan of Musk's Tweets and arrogance, but we can dislike him for that rather than conjure up a false narrative about him being an evil overlord.

[freebeard]

I'm no fan of Musk's Tweets and arrogance, but we can dislike him for that rather than conjure up a false narrative about him being an evil overlord.

Maybe he was right about why the guy was in Thailand? Makes no difference anyway.

This 'arrogance' of which they speak put Starman into Solar orbit with 'Don't Panic' on the dashboard.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

GM was the only (or at least the major) manufacturer even putting money into electric cars in the 90's. They did nothing to actively kill electric cars. If they aren't profitable, they aren't profitable. Evolution applies to products as well as living organisms. The fittest tend survive.



Bullshine. He put $70 million of his own into Tesla. He put $100 M of his own money into Space X. Other people aren't forced to invest their money into Musk's companies, they do so voluntarily hoping to capture a tiny portion of Musk's success, and perhaps to advance the technologies these companies employ.

I'm no fan of Musk's Tweets and arrogance, but we can dislike him for that rather than conjure up a false narrative about him being an evil overlord.

$70 million is peanuts compared to the $10.6 billion that Tesla owes.

Pretty much everyone but Musk agrees that Telsa will need at least $2 billion in additional capital in the next 6 months. Musk is worth somewhere between $25 to $30 billion dollars. If he wanted to he could take less than 10% of his net worth and prop up Tesla for another year. He will not do that. Instead he will direct Tesla to take additional loans at less favorable rates and put the company even further in debt. Just like he did when he used Tesla to bail out his other falling company Solar City.

Now I get it. If I could get people to give me billions to pursue a pet project I would take the money. However, there is no reason to go overboard and claim that Musk is "betting it all" on Tesla. Whether Tesla succeeds or fails Musk will still be a billionaire.

[oil pan 4]

Tesla has been in the negative billions of dollars the last 2 years. That is a pretty good indication of how much money electric vehicles can make.

[Xist]

Would you rather that people bought hundreds of thousands of gas-powered Mercedes?

[oil pan 4]

Currently it probably makes the most sense to mass produce non plug in hybrids with tiny NiMH batteries, kind of like the first gen prius.
At least NiMH batteries can be easily recycled.
In the US if we try to sell even 1% of new vehicles with large batteries the battery materials producers can't handle it and raw material costs go crazy.

[Xist]

That sounds logical. Do we have a consensus?

Do we ever have one?