So the door panels are questionable. But the other two are huge red flags, no? These are two supposedly moonshot-type projects that have turned out to be outright lies:
- Hyperloop was a sort of snake-oil to squash High-Speed Rail
- The robot as a guy in a suit dancing on a stage ... I've no idea where he was trying to with that. I see there's been some movement on their robot since it was "launched", but why on earth did they start off with the weird dancing suit guy?
Seriously? The robot dancing was an obvious joke. He was not trying to pass it off as a real robot and literally no one thought he was. Tesla is actually working on the real thing and they’ve demoed admirable progress 1 year after the initial announcement.
The hypertunnel reference seems to be conflating two (related) things: the Hyperloop concept and the Boring Company.
The Hyperloop thing is definitely questionable, but to steelman it: he truly believes the High Speed Rail is a waste of money and we should be more forward thinking with something like the Hyperloop, even if he didn’t personally intend to build it.
After all, if it was entirely fraud and then what did he have to gain from killing the High Speed Rail? I guess a small fraction of the taxes he pays not going to something he didn’t like?
Also, the origin story suggests it was not concocted as a means to kill the High Speed Rail:
“The recent plans for a version of vacuum train called Hyperloop emerged from a conversation between Elon Musk and Iranian-American Silicon Valley investor Shervin Pishevar when they were flying together to Cuba on a humanitarian mission in January 2012. Pishevar asked Musk to elaborate on his hyperloop idea, which the industrialist had been mulling over for some time. Pishevar suggested using it for cargo, an idea Musk hadn't considered, but he did say he was considering open-sourcing the concept because he was too busy running SpaceX and Tesla. Pishevar pushed Musk to publish his ideas about the hyperloop, so that Pishevar could study them.”
> After all, if it was entirely fraud and then what did he have to gain from killing the High Speed Rail? I guess a small fraction of the taxes he pays not going to something he didn’t like?
He’s a car salesman. He wants you to commute in a Tesla and opposes remote work.
I find it a bit hard to believe you’re really that naive, but I’ll go ahead and respond.
> One-off projects like the High Speed Rail won’t make a noticeable dent in global sales.
You’re comparing now with several years ago when California was by far Tesla’s biggest market.
> And he opposed remote work at his own companies because he believes (rightly or wrongly) it leads to decreased productivity.
It’s called a hidden agenda.
The man is a sociopath and chronic liar, one would be a fool to take anything he says at face value. Instead we must judge Musk by his actions and past behavior, not his words.
- Hyperloop was a sort of snake-oil to squash High-Speed Rail
- The robot as a guy in a suit dancing on a stage ... I've no idea where he was trying to with that. I see there's been some movement on their robot since it was "launched", but why on earth did they start off with the weird dancing suit guy?