This is entirely unclear and to the extent it is true, it has much more to do with the broader vision, as opposed to anything that gives him the ability to run Tesla well. Keep in mind, no one has reason to outwardly show any disrespect for Elon Musk - whatever people think of him, he's both powerful and vengeful - no tech leader is incentivized to come out saying bad things about Musk. For a long time, no one in the tech world had anything bad to say about Elizabeth Holmes either. I'm not saying Musk is on that level, but generally speaking, people in power avoid saying obviously bad things about famous, powerful people unless they have something very specific to gain.

Right, so why did you either omit the source of the quote or more likely, not even try to find out where that came from?

I think EVs are pretty cool, also I think climate change is a big deal, and I'm also short tsla, hope that's all ok

Not that my opinion matters, but I have no problem with this.

I've even read about Musk himself saying the stock was overpriced (I don't know if that actually happened, or if it did, when that was or what the stock price was at the time).

Btw, I'm not a short-seller and if I were to start a position in TSLA, it would be long, not short, as I don't really trade short-term and short-selling necessarily requires, at the least, more active management. I also work in technology, and I'm very excited about both electrification and self-driving technology but none of these needs TSLA to succeed. Also, what's unusual about how TSLA is talked about on the internet is not shorts spreading misinformation - people being skeptical about specific stocks is incredibly common and for any given stock at any point in time, you'd see people being skeptical about the company's long-term future or valuation or whatever. You saw this with MSFT, AAPL, GOOG, AMZN, FB, before they shot up 400% or whatever. What's unusual to me is the degree of cheerleading involving fantastical stories about the groundbreaking new technologies TSLA is about to introduce and how mainstream conspiracy theories involving the short-sellers, other car companies, the media, whatever, have become among the investors. It doesn't make any sense - if you think the stock is underpriced, and the price goes down, it shouldn't affect you - if you're a long-term net buyer, you should want the price to go down so that you can add to the position. This paranoia surrounding the stock among investors should be quite concerning if you're a rational investor - generally speaking, the more secure you feel about the valuation, the less you should be concerned about short-term price movements. This level of paranoia suggests to me that TSLA investors don't feel confident about their investment either.

A lot of your post is totally reasonable imo, but I don't care about it affecting me. I'm talking about its effects on companies.

If the stock price declines, can it not affect the company's ability to raise additional capital and debt? And also the terms on which it is able to do so?

If so, it would have immediate implications for the viability of the business, and the distribution of ownership and control. This could rate limit development of the business, or even cause failure in some scenarios.

Hypothetical: you're raising $[x] at valuation [y], during the negotiation there's no material change in the business operations, but there's a PR disaster, the stock tanks, the investors decide they want to reduce [y] by 50%, so now the company is raising less $ or giving away more equity for the same $. With less $ in hand you can't do as much to drive the business to profitability. With less equity, you can't raise more $, and you might lose control.

you should write an email and explain this concept to the ceo of tesla and ask him, why he raised at $250 in may instead of $350 last year.

I love that despacito is validating the bear view that Musk was either unable to raise or an incompetent loser CEO (hurting his own shareholders and company for no good reason) not raising when he could/should have.

Tesla dying would be a very positive change for the world, for the economy, for the environment. They've wasted vast sums of capital, including billions in taxpayer money that could have gone to basic battery or fusion research, bringing toxic overbuilt performance sports cars to rich people.

For example, building hybrids is a FAR better use of scarce resources and reduces CO2 a lot more. It is better on every single metric.

Of course, level one dickheads like yourself fall for simplistic thinking and claims. The actual reality is that Tesla are an environmental and financial disaster and the sooner they are shut down, the better for the planet, for taxpayers, for green energy, for CO2 emissions, and so on.

This article assumes the transition will be slow due to scarce battery production in the future.

Do you believe the scarcity assumptions are valid? Why?

Large scale utility power production is often more emissions efficient than modular local sources, despite some transmission loss.

More importantly: they don't even mention the possibility that the upstream electricity production is increasingly coming from renewable sources. Or the fact that superchargers are converting to solar and disconnecting from the grid.

So gasoline produces less emissions than utility solar or solar + batteries now does it? That's a good one! I like it.

Abuse and personal attacks are the last refuges of the incompetent.

Disappointing and sad.

that's not all that great.

i was told to have zero doubt they would build 10.000 cars a week by december last year.

EVs are of dubious value now environmentally. I agree with that.

But with a fleet of EVs on the road, it’s infinitely easier to switch to cleaner sources. A small nuclear power plant producing 1GW can power hundreds of thousands of EVs (depending on assumption of daily mileage) with virtually zero carbon emissions. As long as source electricity isn’t generated by coal, were probably okay.

Too bad a lot of our power is still generated by coal.

This is comical man. You've been caught in so many Musk lies. Solar can't power superchargers. Do you have any idea how much power a supercharger pulls?? Learn some basic physics before holding forth on stuff you're embarrassingly ignorant about. Musk relies on credulous cretins like you to get away with his lies.

Tesla superchargers pull 150 kW per car. Solar panels give you about 150W per square meter under optimal conditions (full overhead sun in the middle of the day in summer). For a typical five car supercharger, you need 5000 m^2 of panels to power the station. That's the area of an entire football field. And that's only for the middle of a day. You would need a massive expensive battery pack and probably triple that amount of panels (15,000 sq meters) to power a single normally busy supercharger overnight. The cost would be insane. And the inefficiency of installing all of that, adding a high voltage high amperage inverter, etc, would make it an environmental mess and far less desirable than simply using coal.

I love it. Musk frequently gets into insulting rages at his employees and managers. He even (falsely) called a stranger a pedophile multiple times, with zero evidence, which is probably the ultimate nasty and unfounded personal attack.

According to your logic, Musk is therefore "incompetent" and you find him "disappointing and sad".

You're basically arguing all of the bear case with your clownish intellectual incompetence. It's funny and appreciated.

Oh and this is the gigafactory, which the liar and fraud Musk also claimed would be powered solely by solar power:



Might I remind you that he owns (and had Tesla bail out his cousins who owned) a solar panel company. Yet the rooftop space on top of his "gigafactory" - the perfect location for solar in the Nevada desert if there ever was one - has only a few panels on it 5+ years after construction started.

Yet you think his superchargers are going to be solar powered? Please be less of a gullible idiot if you can. Conmen like Musk rely on credulous people like you, despacito, to believe their lies. Musk wastes vast amounts of taxpayer money and does serious environmental damage for his own selfish wealth creation and fame. He's not helping the environment or moving forward green energy or cars. Tesla is a pure massive waste of money and resources if you care about electric cars mainstreaming, or the environment.

Checkmate, TS! If those superchargers aren't entirely solar powered why is there a roof over them?!? EXPLAIN THAT SUCKA!

You can't quite see it in these photos unfortunately, but there's actually a football field on top of the roof. Just the right size.

It's true that the power density of solar is much lower than non-renewable sources of energy. 150W seems high, I'd expect typical densities to be lower even in good conditions. On the other hand, solar has no fuel cost, and lower O&M and retirement costs.

Nevertheless, it is definitely possible to power a supercharger with solar by building installations locally, with batteries. Cost might be an issue but we'll see in time, it depends on cost curves.

I'm not convinced local solar installations are the gto approach though. I'd rather see it solved at the utility scale. As grizy pointed out, it does not necessarily have to be solar, it needs to be non-emitting. It could be nuclear, wind, etc.

Unless you quantify the cost and accurately predict future costs (you have done neither) this is not a meaningful discussion.

The LCOE of solar for new generating capacity is lower than for new coal in some locations. That's likely not the case for a solar installation of that size; but for bigger solar farms.

Tesla is attempting to solve the battery cost problem. So are others. Seems hard but idk.

You can't prove the allegation was false. At best, you could prove that Musk made the allegation without having evidence. Claiming otherwise suggests you don't understand basic logic.

What are you basing your perception of the culture on? News? Or do you have reliable sources and insight?

I've heard his expectations are extremely high. If true, many people can't handle that. It's also an excruciatingly tough business and a young company with a lot of growing pains. But have also heard it was exciting, challenging, fun, cool, etc from people who worked there. So I don't know.

Regardless it's totally ridiculous to label someone as incompetent just because they are not perfect.

Using batteries to charge batteries sounds really environmentally friendly and totally not wasteful

sounds like something a company designed to burn investor money would do

Any misinformation campaign has a limited shelf life because the company has a lot of control over the information flow and the truth comes out periodically. Not having control over this reflects poorly on the management. More specifically, Musk being caught lying on Twitter likely hurt their capital raise because this is likely causing the investors to discount information coming from Tesla and its management and hurt their ability to counter misinformation.

Any additional capital raise also necessarily requires considerable disclosure, which makes the rumors less important. There's nothing anyone can do to persistently depress stock prices and since companies can choose to raise capital whenever they want and at the price that's acceptable to them, this is not an issue. Again, this is asymmetric - Tesla can counter misinformation coming from short-sellers with facts, while short-sellers can't counter misinformation coming from Tesla or other investors with anything. The whole situation massively favors Tesla, yet all the complaints seem to be coming from Tesla fanboys.

If the bank won't lend you any more money and you might have to declare bankruptcy, that's not on anyone but you. Nobody owes them any money. There are ways to run the company such that you're not subject to the whims of the credit/equity markets. If no one wants to invest in Tesla, that's on Tesla, no one else. Somehow all other companies manage this just fine.

It's also possible to power a supercharger by midget wrestling teams working shifts. Unless you can quantify the cost and accurately predict future costs of superchargers powered by midget wresting teams wrestling around the clock in shifts attached to generators (you have done neither), this is not a meaningful discussion.

Come on man. Powering superchargers by local solar is stupid on every level - economically, environmentally, developmentally (5 football fields of often prime real estate used up in a city is dumb/often impossible). Yet here you are, claiming pure bull**** that Musk the conman has downloaded deep into your uncritical, gullible mind:
Do you see what's happening here? Your cultdaddy lied to you - claiming that all superchargers are going to be powered by local solar - and you uncritically took it on, when it is in fact pure bull****. Do you see how that works? This is a little microcosm of how Musk the conman has ****ed your mind in 100 different ways. I mean, ITT you claim that $420 funding secured fraud which massively hurt longs and the company might not be a bad thing long term. After calling out minor anonymous personal abuse, you sophist for Musk baselessly calling someone a pedophile. Musk is your cultdaddy and you apologize for him over and over, like a good little cult inductee. It's like talking to Scientologists about Ron Hubbard.
Of course I can prove the allegation is false. Once again you hold forth with zero clue about anything.
There are multiple false and defamatory statements in here. For example, Vern first went to Thailand 7 years ago. He met a 40 year old Thai nail salon owner in London 8 years ago, who is his long term girlfriend, and she took him to Thailand for the first time to show him her country. They always traveled to Thailand together. He's not a "single guy" nor has he been "traveling or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years" nor does he has a "child bride" who's 12 years old (he has a 40 year old London based Thai girlfriend). There are multiple other lies in Musk's defamatory email as well, but you get the point.

First you claim that personal attacks are the "last refuge of the incompetent" and that it's "disappointing and sad" - then you defend a guy who called a cave diver a pedophile to 22 million followers with ZERO evidence and made up heinous provable lies about him, forever smearing him in one of the most cowardly acts of a "personal attack" that's possible.

WTF is wrong with you? Why are you such a piece of **** that you'd defend such vile personal attacks from your cultdaddy through some low-rent philosophical sophistry, particularly after calling personal attacks "disappointing and sad" and "the last refuge of the incompetent"?

We don't know the future of the cost curve, so we'll have to wait and see. Same for batteries. Depends on R&D and other factors. But it's irrelevant (see my next point).

I'm not accepting anything uncritically. You're blatantly misstating my position.

As I said, I don't believe small-scale solar near a supercharger is optimal. Everything you wrote assumes I think it's an amazing idea. NOT TRUE!

I'm agnostic as to the energy source, providing it solves the important problems (including emissions). It does not have to be solar PV. It can be anything that works. And if it is solar PV, utility scale at a remote location with HDVC cables is usually more economic.

Not only that. I am agnostic as to which companies successfully solve these problems. I hope another company ships viable fusion tomorrow, even if Tesla goes bankrupt as a result, because the net gain for the world from having effectively infinite clean power would be so immense. That's an extreme example, but you can extrapolate from that back to more moderate cases.

It might help you to read and understand what I wrote before responding with an apoplectic diatribe against something I did not say.


Nothing could be further from the truth.

For you to prove the guy is not a pedophile, you'd have to provide an objective and unbroken account of his entire life (after he obtained the age of majority). Clearly it is impossible for you to do that.

At best you could provide evidence that shows Musk made the allegation without sufficient evidence to support it.

You're confusing discrediting the allegation with positively proving the alleged perpetrator has never done a specific act. Two very different things.

I do not support the making of that allegation. You have misconstrued my complaint about your logic as as me supporting Musk in making that allegation.

If Musk had evidence that a crime had been committed, he should have notified authorities and let justice run its course imo. Defamation is serious. It's never okay to make baseless accusations like that, because it ruins reputations and lives, and also muddies the waters when prosecuting actual offenders.

I hope you can experience a sense of peace and equanimity and move past the anger you feel towards me, and towards the truth.

Maybe meditation would help. Or some sunshine! Not only is it a great source of renewable energy, it's good for the body and mind.

Namaste.

Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1033494277643481089

So the claim is: 100% renewable powered by the end of 2019.

It is mid-2019.

Bit early to be calling this a lie, don't you think?

Did he say 100% solar powered? Or 100% renewable powered?

I'm sure you appreciate these are not the same thing, given your powerful grasp on the laws of physics.

Challenge accepted!

Q: How much land is required for the US to generate all electricity with solar?

Assumptions:

• solar pv generates 15W per square m
• the US generated 12.5 Quad of electricity in 2017 (source: LLNL, see image)
• for comparison, total cropland = 4,060,000 sq km
• rooftop solar requires less land but for this calc that is ignored

A: Land required = 28,000 square km (less than 1% of total cropland).

Q: How much land is required for the US to produce all energy with solar

Assumptions:

• solar pv generates 10W per square m (not 15W because spread out more for efficient consumption at point of use)
• total energy needs = 31.1 Quad

A: 104,046 sq km (about 2.6% of total cropland.)

Corrections welcome!