[timmyd]

Elon Musk is without doubt one the best entrepreneurs around - far less celebrated than many of the other 'uber' entrepreneurs around but with such ridiculously awesome companies.

268 Miles (or slightly less according to the article) is just amazing - less C02, less environmental impact wrapped in a high performance car which - will no doubt - have some detractors as a first iteration against well establish models (comparing it to BMW and Mercedes who have been around for almost 90+ years is a big ask!)

None the less - it's ridiculously exciting at what's been achieved and what will be achieved in the next few years in this space. I give it no more than 3-4 years until these cars will be doing 400-500 miles or more.

[rdl]

I think the next big innovation after EV (+ diesel for long haul, and maybe diesel/hybrid), will be self-driving cars. If you keep cars for 10 years, it's reasonable that a car bought today could be your last without a self-driving mode, even if that self driving mode only covers certain driving regimes (auto-park, which the Japanese prius did a few years ago; highway close-follow road-train mode, auto-braking (which we have now in some high end luxury cars), etc.

[ChuckMcM]

I think your 10 year estimate is optimistic, but it is certainly coming to the point where the cars drive themselves. One of the interesting things about being driven, as opposed to driving, is that passengers rarely suffer from 'road rage.' That is a big win.

Perhaps more interesting will be the transition time, that point where half the cars are self driving and half are manually driven. Will manual drivers become more aggressive because they "know" the robo-cars will get out of their way? I expect it will be less fun before it is more fun.

[simba-hiiipower]

"Perhaps more interesting will be the transition time, that point where half the cars are self driving and half are manually driven. Will manual drivers become more aggressive because they "know" the robo-cars will get out of their way?"

that would be quite interesting to see. i could certainly see myself becoming more aggressive if i knew others around me would adjust without incident; though that would depend on if self-driving cars are clearly labeled as such (i.e. with special plates)

[weaksauce]

Actually, someone was saying that they saw a google bubble when they witnessed the self driving car in traffic. As the google car tried to keep a safe distance people kept cutting in that space and making the google car slow down even further to get the required space.

[rogerbinns]

The irony is that could lead to reduced congestion. See the experiments with following distances at http://trafficwaves.org/

[guimarin]

I actually expect major pushback to automated cars for just this reason. and suspect that ultimately we will have to legislate that all cars be automated.

[Flenser]

until the first self driving car-bomb and then they'll be banned.

[rdl]

Who (in the past 20-30 years) is celebrated more than Elon Musk is today? Other than Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Maybe tied with Jeff Bezos?

I don't think "many".

[clarky07]

Maybe in the tech community on Hacker News, but ask your mom if she knows who Elon Musk is. Then ask her about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. My guess is that you get a no idea for the first.

[drzaiusapelord]

If I asked my wife today, I'm certain she's knows Jobs and Gates, maybe Bezos (and that's a big maybe) but no way would she know who Musk is. Lets not mistake our echo chamber for the world.

[rdl]

The only people I'd expect a 30-40 year old "smart, but not tech industry" person to know are Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg -- younger people wouldn't be as likely to know Bill Gates, except maybe for his philanthropy or due to references in classic rap music to "Bill Gates money". Sean Parker might be higher in the mass market than expected due to his colorful portrayal in the movie. Then probably Trump, Ellison, and Branson for their non-tech accomplishments (TV, racing/living, and airlines/music/etc.), and then probably rappers (Jay-Z, 50 Cent, etc. are all clearly entrepreneurs as much as musicians), and maybe Oprah.

The only person I'd expect everyone to know is Steve Jobs. I wonder if that will be true of people who are 5-10 years old today, in a decade.

I'd assume Musk is more popular than tech entrepreneurs overall due to rockets and cars; even in tech no one knows about Zip2 and "one of the many founders of PayPal" is kind of a stretch (outside HN/VC, who knows Keith Rabois or David Sacks?)

Even the most successful business/tech entrepreneurs are less famous than a B or C list media celebrity.

[hpvic03]

I'm sure Elon will get his due. It's just a matter of time before the rest of the world finds out about his accomplishments.

E.g., I don't think many of us here on HN were surprised to see Drew Houston on the cover of Forbes.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

You'd be surprised. I've been hanging around here for a few years and I have no idea who he is. Although a little voice in the back of my mind says he might be the Dropbox guy.

[r00fus]

In the startup world, more folks cite Zuckerberg and Dorsey. Hell, even Mason and Pincus get more press than Musk (though probably for the wrong reasons).

[ryanhuff]

He isn't quite (yet) the household name of those people that you mentioned, in addition to a host of others.

[elviejo]

I think Elon Musk is over celebrated...

He was fired from Pay-Pal He didn't start Tesla Motors (that was Martin Eberhard) He didn't start spaceX

He is good at marketing though...

[trafficlight]

Elon Musk was a co-founder who had at least $70 million of his own money in Tesla. And he did found SpaceX in 2002 and has over $100 million of his own invested in the company.

[elviejo]

Investor != Cofounder.

Cofounder is someone that is there from day 1. Tesla Roadster existed before Musks's involvement. Martin Eberheard searched for Ventura Capital, one of his leads was Elon Musk.

See my other reply for the links.

[joey89y]

Tesla was really started by a small company called AC propulsion. They made the prototype roadster. Elon and Martin both approached AC separately to take the car to Mass Market but they wern't interested, so Elon and Martin teamed up. Elon financed the company and Martin ran it. However in 2008, after a series of massive mistakes, Elon had to recap the company with every penny he had and Martin was fired.

Lesson is. Corporate history is a lot like hotdogs. They have equal claim co-founder status.

[is74]

While he was fired from Pay pal, the other two claims are factually false.

[elviejo]

I stand corrected on SpaceX... yes it seems Musk founded it.

But on Tesla Motors the fact of the matter is that it was started by engineers (Eberheard and Tarpenning) and control was taken away by an investor (Musk)

Some facts: 1. The first wikipedia page review on Tesla Motors from Jue 12, 2006 [1]: "The firm was started in 2003 by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.... Tesla has also managed to secure initial funding from prominent investors, such as PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page."

RedHerring Article July 8 2006[2]:

"Tesla Motors said earlier this month that it has raised a $40-million Series C round of financing led by VantagePoint Venture Partners and Elon Musk"

Finally from Eberheard himself [3]: "Mr. Musk was one of the leads I followed."

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tesla_Motors&o...

[2]http://web.archive.org/web/20060708071455/http://www.redherr...

[3] http://fora.tv/2011/05/22/Martin_Eberhard_Learn_by_Doing

[samstave]

Why was he fired from PayPal? I'm not familiar with the story...

[jdvh]

From what I remember from The Paypal Wars (highly recommended):

There was a culture clash when X got bought by Paypal. Elon was in charge of X and became the CEO of the combined company (as Peter Thiel took a leave of abscence) and wanted to switch from Unix to Windows. Max Levchin, the main tech guy at Paypal hated that idea. Elon initially got his way, and Max got marginalized. He then started looking into fraud cases and discovered that fraud, although low as a percentage of revenue, was growing rapidly. Max then persuaded people that the #1 priority should be to fix the fraud issue before it would kill them, and that they didn't have the time to worry about the technology stack. Elon Musk got kicked out, Peter Thiel came back to Paypal as CEO and Max managed to squash the fraud problem. Their competitors either failed to get traction or got crushed by fraud. With Paypal as the last one standing they won and got bought by Ebay.

http://www.amazon.com/The-PayPal-Wars-Battles-Planet/dp/0974...

[colmvp]

Indeed. I wish I could downvote that comment for inaccurate info.

[elviejo]

I've retracted my comments on SpaceX (it seems he did start that)

The Pay Pal Story is well known and documented.

As for Tesla Motors... I still claim he didn't found the company.

Here are my sources: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4441480

[justinhj]

A similar resume to the late Steve Jobs