[computerex]

> What he's doing is nothing short of amazing. He's doing things people keep saying can't be done. Re-usable rockets that land? Electric cars? Cars that drive themselves? I'm willing to tolerate a little shenanigans in exchange for this kind of innovation.

Respectfully, I disagree. True, he has I think caused the spaceflight industry to think about re-usability again in a meaningful way. And arguably he has also generated a lot of hype for the battery electric car industry.

Having said that, his accomplishments often tend to be inflated by his followers. Tesla ultimately failed to deliver a $35k mass market affordable vehicle. Even Model 3, is out of reach for most people in U.S when the median household annual income is only $56k. At ~$40k, Model 3 essentially remains a luxury vehicle for most. Whereas the competition is quickly catching up. Arguably the Chinese electric vehicle market is now the global leader in electric vehicle market.

SpaceX still has yet to do a crewed launch to LEO. Rocket re-usability is great, but what we really need is a man rated launch vehicle. With the recent DM-2 anomaly, SpaceX won't be launching any people to orbit for at least a year.

Also, whilst propulsive landing looks very cool, it's been done before. SpaceX wasn't the first to do it successfully. Electric cars have been decades. Autonomous driving has also been conceptualized a long time ago, and hell, Tesla isn't even close to the leader in autonomous driving right now in terms of technology.

[jefft255]

Your biggest point for me is Tesla's failure to deliver an affordable electric car. I can buy a brand new Corolla for significantly less than 20k CAD, while realistically I won't get a model 3 for less than 50k CAD, except maybe in Quebec where big incentives are still in action (not for long).

I don't care that I get a better car for my money! When Tesla is saying that they have the best selling car in its class, you see the Mercedes C-class and the BMW 3-series in the chart. How can they seriously call it a mass-market affordable car when these are the cars that they are competing against?

[mjamesaustin]

SpaceX hasn't just caused the spaceflight industry to "think about re-usability". They are utterly crushing all competition in terms of price and launch cadence.

And while other companies are trying to play catch-up with them, they're testing their Raptor engine for a new rocket that will be dramatically larger than Falcon 9 but with a similar launch cost.

Name anyone who can do propulsive landing the way SpaceX does. They land their rockets on floating platforms in the ocean with amazing precision. Nobody else is remotely close to that kind of engineering feat.

[computerex]

You are making some really silly assumptions that are common amongst laymen in spaceflight.

> They are utterly crushing all competition in terms of price and launch cadence.

Launch market is not the entirety of the spaceflight industry.

"The share of launch vehicles is as small as 4 percent of the overall market of space services." - Dmitry Rogozin

And Blue Origin can do propulsive landing like SpaceX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNRs2gMyLLk

Propulsive landing has been around for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39cjZTCay24

Whilst it seems (and is!) very cool to see the boosters land, it seems to impress the laymen a lot more than the true technical worth of the feat. Here's an addon to the Orbiter spaceflight simulator with recoverable falcon 9 stages: https://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=7091

More or less requires college level kinematics at the core of the control/guidance.

Also with the recent DM-2 anomaly, SpaceX is playing catch up with Blue Origin, not the other way round.

[ChickeNES]

>Also with the recent DM-2 anomaly, SpaceX is playing catch up with Blue Origin, not the other way round.

Do you mean DM-1? Anyway, I don't see how SpaceX is playing catch up to BO when BO hasn't even built an orbital rocket or man-rated capsule yet...

[_ea1k]

You can buy a model 3 today for $35k US, and the car is better than what was promised. The sedan that Tesla released in 2012 has more range than any electric car produced by any competitor since then.

You are right that people overstate their accomplishments, but excessively downplaying them is actually the worse behavior.

[richardknop]

If you know the secret handshake. You need to call and spend couple hours on the phone with Tesla trying to upsell you to a more expensive model. Then, perhaps, if you are lucky, you will manage to order it. They don't even show it on their website.

[computerex]

Refer to the company website, cheapest configuration available is $39,500 USD. Not sure what you're on about.

[nradov]

Average new car price in the US is $37K. A $40K vehicle isn't a luxury car in any meaningful way.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-car-prices-more-1-110...

These price levels do seem high relative to median income and many buyers are overextending themselves. But the market is what it is.

[ghettoimp]

It seems completely crazy.

I spent $18k on what I still regard as a really nice car a couple years back, and it felt like a completely over the top extravagance.

I can't imagine what would compel me to spend 37k on a car...