I think this sums it up more or less.

 

Money and regulations are the short answer. Tons of companies are leaving California. Toyota has been long gone.

 

there's similarites between elon musk and steve jobs. both dreaming and pushing for big things both erratic and prickly i think musk is running the real risk of legal trouble between crypto comments and policy changes roiling the markets, product changes, bogus announcements and claims, etc.

apple almost went bankrupt under jobs, they kicked him out, the company had ups and downs, and then when he came back, humbled, the iphone made the company skyrocket of course. now under the quieter and low key (but no less determined) tim cook, apple is a much, much, much better run (and MUCH bigger) company.

it's a truism that the energy and actions that many founders being to make their companies succeed are often the same things that cause their downfall or ouster. spacex is a much bigger achievement than tesla and i wouldn't be surprised if the competition and challenges of running a car company (notably a very low profit margin business) will become of waning interest to musk.

either way, i want tesla to continue to be successful! what they've accomplished is amazing, even if i'm not a fan of all the decisions.

thanks!

 

I think on the balance though the contributions people like Musk and Jobs make to the world outweigh any short term or procedural issues their personalities might create. When you look back at these visionaries these types of personality traits are very common. A far less modern example of this is Walt Disney.

And when Jobs came back to Apple he was NOT humbled. Apple came to him, not the other way around and he had been successful in other areas (most notably at Pixar). He was vindicated and emboldened.

 

In summary making the fastest production car in history is not good enough, Elon has failed.

 

The regular Plaid is still on its way, says Musk

Source

 

so that's all tesla is about? musk has been quite clear he wants to make the EV market mainstream and has even said he doesn't really care if tesla survives... the speed stuff is just the frosting on a much bigger cake.

 

i completely agree! their contributions are enormous and profound. same with jeff bezos, bill gates, and on and on.

i don't recall it that way. first off, he came back part time, unpaid, for a looooong time. pixar was certainly innovative, but really wasn't that successful until disney bought them. and easily forgotten now was his NeXT computer computer, very cool, but a complete failure.

and the apple he came back to was radically different from the one he left. he wasn't the same person either, although his self-confidence certainly wasn't lacking. he was so self-confident he believed that if he didn't think his pancreatic cancer was real it would just go away. he refused all modern medical help until it was far too late. we all know what happened.

 

No he is not. Musk is out to make a buck just like everyone else.

 

You should read some of his biographies, hes somebody I find really fascinating and I've read a lot about him.

The Apple he came back to was radically different, but it needed him. He brought the heart to the company that it had been lacking since he had left. The end result, well we all know. He came back at their request and refused to be paid and refused to commit to any sort of a formal agreement or long term agreement for a long time. That was 100% him, he wanted to stay elusive and keep them wanting him around. His crazy attitude at Apple after he came back so was much the same as it was when he started Apple, obsessing over minutiae nobody would ever see, design, ignoring of timelines and development budgets. But no, absolutely zero "humbling" of Steve Jobs when he returned to Apple. He saved Apple, and he knew it.

Pixar was successful long before Disney bought them. They had a bunch of hit movies and partnered with Disney for a long time before Disney actually bought them. Disney's acquisition of Pixar was mostly because THEY needed Pixar, not the other way around. You forget that Jobs' involvement in Pixar was actually the development of their CGI engine computer, that was why Pixar was originally founded.

 

He isn't out to amass wealth to live a comfortable life. Read his interviews and what he's done in the past. He was fabulously wealthy when he sold Paypal and personally funded every last of his money to Tesla who was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2010. If Tesla failed at that point, Musk would have been penniless but he believed in his vision and the company and risked it all. Read his plans about what he plans to do with his current wealth...not really about living lavishly. He plans to use most of his personal wealth to fund exploration and colonization of Mars. He is far from just everyone else.

 

If you see documentaries about Disney and the management decision to buy Pixar, they were DESPERATE to buy Pixar as their internal IP was lacking at that point. Iger even pointed it out in one of his interviews. Of course Jobs wasn't the reason Pixar was successful but he did see how innovative they were and funded them with his personal wealth.

 

Musk is well beyond being out there to "make a buck" lol. Hes made his bucks many times over.

 

That's what this thread is about, or did you forget.
That's not an accurate representation of what Elon has said (many times) he wants to transition humanity to sustainable energy and make us an interplanetary species it is not just about cars. Tesla is just as much an energy and software company as they are a car company.

 

yeah, my cruise control is set at around 100 MPH when I drive.... so my (and many others) range on highway is not 400 miles, it is 180 miles. As you wrote, consider it from 80% to some 10%-15%.
So I assume that is what people would like - not 550 miles at city speeds, but 300 miles at European highway speeds.

As Elon doing what Elon does, sure. It is how he rolls, still does not make it ok.