How is this backtracking? Nothing has changed. He made it very clear from the beginning that this is an idea of his that he wants to release to the public, not work on it himself.
Somebody then had the audacity to pester him with Hyperloop on the earnings call for Tesla. It's like asking the president about his veggie garden while hes giving a press conference on the war on (whistleblowers|drugs|terror).
Apart from science, which robots can do however slowly, I see little value in "Going to Mars" - even if we were prepared, which we're not.
No air, no water, no plants or animals, no fuel, plenty of radiation (on the trip and while there) and dust and extreme cold. Other than very expensive chest-beating (for which the Moon is a closer dead body), reason suggests that continued support of robotic exploration will pay off better for science.
In the meantime we can invent new technologies which will greatly ease the burdens and dangers - once we have invented actual goals to make of such journeys worth the enormous investment.
Long-distance tube transport seems more than a little pipe-dreamish. Regional OTOH seems inevitable.
Well, while I probably wouldn't say "much more" than Tesla or Space X, I would think that hyperloop could be just as important as at least Tesla. It has the potential to eradicate most of the commercial airline industry.
With the NASA having troubles getting the budget it needs and seeing the slow-ish development elsewhere, I disagree about SpaceX potential.
With Tesla, on the other hand, I'm with you. I see Tesla like Luciano Pavarotti back in the day. Arguable the greatest in his field, but no matter how amazing he was, he did not end up changing everything we know about music. He started the huge change on how general public sees the opera, but he wasn't alone and it was just the beginning.
Now, Tesla might be the beginning of a big shift towards how we perceive electric cars, and it could even be the next Ford or General Motors, but it's not the next Benz Autowagen or the invention of the railroad, which Hyperloop clearly would have potential for.
Statements like this are exactly why Musk regrets talking about it. We don't even know what the idea is, and it's already more world-changing than two actual, amazing companies.
Musk has unquestionably changed the space transportation industry. It remains to be seen whether he's "revolutionized" the automotive industry.
With self driving cars on the horizon, it certainly feels like a revolution is looming, but Tesla doesn't seem to me to be nearly as singular of a force of change as SpaceX is to it's respective industry.
Self-driving may be a bigger revolution in the end, but getting everyone off oil is also a huge revolution on its own. Yes, I know they're not the only ones to have an electric car ever, but without Tesla everyone would be dragging their feet with this.
Heck, they are still doing that. Just look at BMW i3. BMW is still treating electric cars as some sort of "concept cars" for the mass market, rather than "real cars" for the mass market.
We could also say touchscreen smartphones would've inevitably arrived, too, since we already had PDA's with crappy resistive touchscreens, and LG Prada even launched before the iPhone in 2007. But how much slower would they have improved to reach they level they are now, if it wasn't for Apple? And how much worse would they be now?
The Leaf had been in development over the same period of time as the S, if not before. The difference is that Nissan was trying to hit a harder goal, selling to the everyday driver, selling a car most buyers could afford. Similar to the requirements of the Volt and other electrics.
The i3 is a special vehicle which has too many compromises to meet stupid laws in place by various governments, the worst being a requirement to qualify as an EV its range extender cannot provide more range than its batteries. The real eye opener from BMW is the i8. The i3 is more mass market than the S, its in the range of affordability of most car drivers.
The key difference in the markets between the S and the rest is, the S targeted consumers whose income levels usually results in large amounts of disposable income. Levels where having an extra car or two isn't unusual.
So, until they deliver on their 35k 200 mile range car, I am not going to go as far as you did in claims they are changing the game, they simply went for a more sure market.
Agreed. I think most of Tesla's appeal comes from branding and the Elon Musk appeal and not merely from the fact that it is an electric vehicle.
As an example: had Ford released the Model S and sold the exact same volume with the same revenue and profit/loss, would they have added $3 billion of market cap with yesterday's earnings report? I for one doubt it.
So as much as people like to compare the Model S to the iPhone, I don't think the analogy fits. The Model S is not really a revolutionary vehicle in the way the iPhone was a revolutionary phone. Six years after its launch, every phone on the market looks like an iPhone. Even though the auto market has much longer sales cycles (several years for most cars) so one shouldn't expect to see an immediate market saturation, I don't think Tesla has a real sustainable advantage over other auto manufacturers the way Apple had over Dell/Samsung/Motorola because plenty of car companies in Tesla's price range already have the cool factor and the product is not different enough today to take over the market.
All that said, I love what Elon Musk is doing and plenty of companies have been built on brand alone so I'm certainly not writing off Tesla. I'm just arguing that people should check their expectations. I think the company is severely overvalued at current stock prices.
>had Ford released the Model S and sold the exact same volume with the same revenue and profit/loss, would they have added $3 billion of market cap with yesterday's earnings report? I for one doubt it.
With all due respect Ford has been around a lot longer, and could produce a lot more , so could (potentially) sell a lot more. Tesla's selling those numbers because they're starting from scratch, and thus don't have the capacity to sell more.
I'm not quite sure if the Tesla is to electric cars as Apple is to smartphones analogy works just yet.
Perhaps it will, but I live in the US and have still never even seen a Tesla vehicle. I've seen Nissan Leafs and Chevrolet Volts. My town even has charging stations.
Maybe that's how things will shake out, but I don't think they're there yet.
It must be a local thing. Here in Seattle, I see a Model S on the road at least a few times a week. It's not just the same car, either - I've seen them in black, white, grey, and red. Two of my co-workers have them!
Apple only had 1 percent of the smartphone market in the first year (which was much smaller than it is now). It took a few years to become what it is now. And even now Apple only has 13 percent market share globally with the iPhone.
The car market is also much slower to change, since you don't buy a car every 1-2 years, but once every 10 years. Plus, they are much more expensive than phones. That's why we're talking about thousands of cards vs millions of smartphones.
Everyone else in detroit and japan are trying to catch up on the bandwagon of electric cars. That is revolutionary for the industry atleast. In the long run, weather he is able to revolutionize mobility is yet to be seen.
Space Travel (even after we have gone to mars) is relatively small industry / impact to the world and humans compared to replacing fossil fuel burning automobiles.
If you're interested in undrestanding ZEV credits and its impact on Tesla's bottom line ($5000/car) read bellow [1]
Also, worth noting other automakers are slowly catching up. Remember Tesla had a big start with their roadster, but expect fierce competition from Japanese and European automakers. Which is all good for consumers.
Patents can often be worked around. Almost all "real" patents can be worked around (BS "business method" patents are not "real" patents by my definition).
I also think Tesla has a bright future. But I hope they're relying on their brand value rather than transient advantages like patents. If I hear from Musk that he thinks their patents are going to be competitive advantage, I will be factor that (negatively) in my opinion of the company's prospects.
Title should remove backtracking. I don't think he ever said he'd build the hyperloop himself - though I don't personally trust anyone other than him to build it out successfully.
That's not too surprising; the Corvette's sales figures have plummeted in the last 10 years or so. That milestone is a little like outselling the PT Cruiser.
Commentors point out that Elon is not really backtracking, though I would still be curious what he means by shooting himself in the foot. The article says he regrets mentioning the Hyperloop. So despite his intentions to open up his designs, there must be some downsides he is considering, whether outstanding personal profit or otherwise.
Maybe the downside is that now everyone is watching him, waiting for the next update, speculating, criticizing, etc. Shooting himself in the foot may have been just talking about it prematurely.
> I would still be curious what he means by shooting himself in the foot.
I'd guess it's something to do with the fact on a Tesla earnings call, which has nothing to do with hyperloop, someone brought it up.
He is already doing a herculean feet with the work on SpaceX and Tesla, from an investors point of view you want to make sure he isn't going to ditch Tesla for this other transport project.
Given the context of the report I would imagine he's been fielding concerns from Tesla investors regarding burn-out or lack of focus. He's the very public driver (no pun intended) of the company so some might see talk of the Hyperloop as akin to Steve Jobs starting talking about a new found enthusiasm for swimming during a product launch.
In a conversation with Sal Khan he says (in regards to Hyperloop) he is "kind of strung out" with all he is doing now. So I'm guessing he does not want to initiate the project yet because he is a very busy boy. He also has kids.
I think it's sad that Musk doesn't have (public) plans to actually work on the hyperloop. As many here have said in the past, him being behind the project is what moves it from fantasy to actually having a shot in a lot of people's minds.
It's probably smart of him to not start it himself though, as it's risky, and a failed venture of that sort could bleed uncertainty into the minds of investors when regarding his other ventures.
It's more like he's trying to sell a car while publishing plans for a high speed people mover. You can just hope it won't displace the electric car in the inner city until Tesla become really profitable but you never know.
It's a risky move that could potentially affect Tesla later on.
From what has been said a Hyperloop is closer to vary high speed rail than inner city transport so if anything it complements the electric car. AKA who cares about range limitations if you never bother to drive 500+ miles for a trip.
Assuming boarding time was 30 min and your going 500MPH a 500mile hyperloop trip would take 1.5 hours vs 7+ by car. And presumably drop you closer to mass transit / the center of the city than an aircraft.
There's a hangout with Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson going on now; the host asked Elon about Hyperloop, and he spent nice 5 minutes avoiding to answer it :(. He only confirmed that it's a tube (but not evacuated), with little friction, and that you'll have to go a little bit faster than sound. He also said that details will be posted on-line.
That's not exactly "backtracking." Also, there's something strained about the structure of the article, like they were trying really hard to put as much negative spin in before they had to say "Tesla is doing well." They could have out and said: Tesla's doing well, but GAAP...etc, and left out 3 paragraphs.
They make it seem as if Tesla is doing shady accounting, but they explain in the very beginning of the shareholder letter:
In this letter and going forward, we will report our results on a GAAP basis as well as on a non-GAAP basis,
excluding lease accounting. We believe these non-GAAP financials are useful as they align with the underlying
cash flow activity and timing of vehicle deliveries, and because we use such information internally for operational
management and financial planning purposes.
Further, reporting non-GAAP figures alongside GAAP is fairly common practice. In some cases I view it as an increase in the honesty of the reporting. They're adding information here, reporting things they don't otherwise need to.
Somebody then had the audacity to pester him with Hyperloop on the earnings call for Tesla. It's like asking the president about his veggie garden while hes giving a press conference on the war on (whistleblowers|drugs|terror).