Is it me or does that Tesla look an awful lot like an F type coupe from the A pillars back? Different scale, but still...

 

He’s putting in an extraordinary amount of effort to be a con man! Building an entirely new auto manufacturer brand from scratch, one that uses a technology that isn’t mainstream or widely used, building out a charging network that spans a nation and has the established players looking over their shoulder and forcing them to innovate, transforming the way cars are sold to the public and disrupting the awful dealer network system. And it’s not as if he had any prior experience in the industry.

To do this with 1 business is impressive - the fact he is doing it with multiple is staggering.

how many people out there in the world could execute on even 10% of what he has done?

A con con man usually looks for an easy way to scam people out of money. I don’t imagine any of what he has achieved has been easy the stresses and pressure on him must be huge

 

I'm a big fan of Teslas. My boss' boss owned one of the first Roadsters. When the new one comes out I'll be hard pressed to decide on buying one vs retiring earlier :-p

 

I swear, every new sports car that comes out has a thread with this comment in it.

 

Shame on him for playing by the rules and taking advantage of a system better than anyone else! What a terrible con-man...

 

World is changing. Wasn't too long ago that Google, yelp, and yahoo meant something altogether different. Won't be too long before Tesla or something like it will change the game permanently, till the next wonder tech comes along. Thing is, technology and knowledge gains are happening in shorter increments of time. Fascinating, but can the average person keep up or afford it?

 

One of my favourite motoring journalists is Eric Peters (and yes, he is a Yank!).
Here is one of his articles about Tesla: https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2017...la-test-drive/

 

Lutz want on one of the business channels this weekend and stated the Tesla announcement was all BS.... smoke and mirrors. Added they are hemorrhaging cash, and predicts they will seek a buyout or major partner soon or they will be out of business.

 

Meanwhile, us (the actual U. S. taxpayer) will be on the hook for all these retarded charging stations that supposedly offer free super charges to Tesla owners... I guess only the "free energy" from pixie dust and unicorn farts, er, I mean windmills and solar panels, goes to all these charging stations.

The comments about this guy building a nationwide charging infrastructure just for his car are ridiculous... If Tesla was actually funding this type of infrastructure project it would cost ten's of billions and his company would be bankrupt in a week because no credible capital investors would loan him money. Of course the only way to fund such a ridiculous venture is to concoct a bogus global warming scare, get idiot millennials to swallow it hook, line and sinker, then get the funding from the only source where ten's of billions is a rounding error (US government) through crony corporate capitalism, all the while claiming your company is "green" and "saving the planet".

The con man aspect here would be if he is invested in or the charging station build companies are a subsidiary of his. That way he's creating an artificial demand for his own product and having taxpayers fund the project, while making money off the construction of said charging infrastructure.

Just food for thought...

 

I hope people know that Elon Musk has really never started a successful business.... he's been great at generating excitement and obtaining VC, but....

 

I hate the fact that if I should happen to leave it unlocked, if anyone knows anything about the car, they can see it from a quarter mile away.

 

Considering electric cars seem to be the future, maybe a little infrastructure to support them isn't a bad thing? At that point tax payers will probably be happy they are around since a majority will be using them; We'd be so far behind if it wasn't for this system, even thought that might be hard to admit.

 

I was just down at a restaurant near Fountain Valley. There was a Costco across the street, and a Tesla charging station right next to it. Had to be 30 bays there and every one was full of cars being charged. I think that is our future gents - especially when they can get charging down to a 10-20 minute event.

Or perhaps fuel cell cars, then we refuel with hydrogen, but that seems to be catching on more slowly.

 

This is the funniest thing I've read so far this week. If it were food for thought I'd get brain poison!

 

What fantasy world do you live in where zip2, which was sold for a ton of cash and Paypal were failures...?

 

Yep, Paypal. Not successful. Never heard of them.

 

Funny that crony capitalism exists or that taxpayers should just be expected to get raped via gun point with little to no actual input?

Forgot, liberal ideas so great they need to be mandated....

 

This generally is not a good place for political flaming. There are plenty of other places for that.

 

I'm not against "the future" and actually applaud the progress that electric vehicles have made. I actually concur that some form of gas/electric hybrid is the natural order of technological progress. However, as a free market believer, I do not embrace "progress" on the back of government corporatism (governments picking winners and losers). It's a terrible business model and leads to leaving taxpayers on the hook for pipe dreams (look at all the failed solar panel companies for instance).

Look, I'm under no delusion that crony capitalism is imbedded into every facet of business here (I'm talking U. S. only as I don't live overseas and cannot comment as I don't live there), and that is the problem. Again, when billions go missing and people in power just shrug shoulders as to where it went, that's a problem.

Does that make more sense?

 

I'm surprised to hear this much negativity about Elon. I was not aware he is doing any of what he is doing on the backs of US taxpayers. Citations?

To me he's a dreamer, a visionary. But he also actually gets results, which is the difference between a dreamer and a "doer". Perhaps he's a little over the top and ridiculous in some ways, but you can't deny he's broken more ground in a short time than ... anyone? I don't know who to compare to.

There's a lot more wrong in the US and perhaps with some aspects of capitalism, than Elon. Actually, I think Elon is the least of our problems here.