Split Thread Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla

[Ziggurat]

i think it's pretty obvious he gave away some free starlink and got deal where he massively rips off the department of defense or whatever agency is overpaying for it.

On what basis do you make the claim that the DoD is overpaying for it? Is that just what you expect because you think that's the way things work, or do you actually have insights into what it costs and what it's worth?

Because it's worth a **** ton of money, and nobody else including the US military is capable of providing that sort of bandwidth to Ukraine. Given how valuable it is, I'd bet they're getting a bargain.

 

[dirtywick]

it's on the basis that really good guys doing humanitarian work don't have a trillion extra dollars

 

[Dabop]

Begs the question, do light duty pickups require special licenses to operate in the UK?

The US is in a 'class of its own' when it comes to licencing...

The UK (and Australia) have total 'gross weight limits' (weight of the vehicle and its payload), the UK is anything over 3 tonnes (6613lbs), Australia is 4.5 tonnes (9920lbs) anything above that requires the appropriate licence (here in Australia, thats a LR (light rigid) truck licence or higher- note that depending on the motor and cab, a F150 weighs anywhere from 1.8 tonnes (4000lbs) to 2.6 tonnes (5900lbs) meaning your maximum payload in the UK would be 1 tonne (2200lbs) to a paltry 136kg/0.136 tonnes (300lbs) before you were 'overweight' on a car licence!!!

My old Toyota Dyna 200 (2 tonne/4400lb payload capacity) was literally 'right at the limit' on a car licence- with a 10ft pantech body on it... (it grossed at 4490kg- so 10kg under the limit for a car licence here, too big in the UK)

That's the second SMALLEST Dyna you could buy at the time... anything bigger than that needed a LR or higher... (the Dyna 100 (one tonne payload capacity) was the same truck, but lighter springs and only a single rear tyre instead of duals...)
(its interesting that in the US a F150 is considered a 'light truck', in Australia, it is one of the biggest utes around, the F100 was popular in the 70's and 80's before the Japanese took over the market, my old 84 Dyna shown above could drive three times further than the F150, with the same payload in it for the same fuel costs...)

Today, well US made utes are practically unknown outside the US- too big, too thirsty and in many places need a light truck licence to drive them (which costs more to get than a car licence and has added restrictions, like a alcohol level of 0.0 instead of 0.5 on a car licence- even one drink and you are over the limit- big fines and possible loss of your licence here in Australia)

The top 10 selling utes in Australia doesn't even have the F150 in it- in fact only the Ram comes in at all (at number 10- with 501 sold... outsold by not one but two Chinese utes- which are well known for their 'low quality'- says a lot about the Ram that it is below both of them in sales numbers...)

February 2023 top-sellers listed below:

Ford Ranger
Toyota Hilux
Isuzu UTE D-MAX
Mitsubishi Triton
Mazda BT-50
Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series
LDV T60
Great Wall Cannon
Nissan Navara
RAM 1500

from https://www.canstarblue.com.au/vehicles/best-selling-utes/

 

[Ziggurat]

it's on the basis that really good guys doing humanitarian work don't have a trillion extra dollars

You say that like it's impossible for someone to make a lot of money without ripping someone else off. But that's just stupid. It's entirely possible to turn a profit while also providing good value for the money.

But as I suspected, you have no actual basis for your opinion except your bias.

 

[dirtywick]

You say that like it's impossible for someone to make a lot of money without ripping someone else off. But that's just stupid. It's entirely possible to turn a profit while also providing good value for the money.

But as I suspected, you have no actual basis for your opinion except your bias.

it is kind of impossible to make that kind of money without ripping people off. he provided the service he agreed to, debatably, at the price they agreed to. which, like you said, was valuable, a **** ton of money. which is what he got for it. to have it at all is a bargain, right? like i said you can praise that. that's not how i feel about it. i wouldn't praise a guy for showing up with $20 water bottles after a hurricane anymore than this.

but i guess i see, now we're in favor of bloated defense contracts because we like the guy maybe? idk, you tell me. too biased to see it.

 

[Ziggurat]

it is kind of impossible to make that kind of money without ripping people off.

Not at all. First, let's define what ripping people off means. It means charging them more than the value of what you provide.

It's quite easy to make huge margins without ripping people off, if you manage to either do something significantly more efficiently than any of your competitors, or you manage to do something new and valuable that nobody else can do. In both cases, the value of what you provide can easily surpass your costs in providing it.

So, does SpaceX do something more efficiently than any of its competitors? Why yes, yes it does. Does SpaceX provide something that none of its competitors can provide? Why yes, yes it does.

he provided the service he agreed to, debatably, at the price they agreed to. which, like you said, was valuable, a **** ton of money. which is what he got for it. to have it at all is a bargain, right? like i said you can praise that. that's not how i feel about it. i wouldn't praise a guy for showing up with $20 water bottles after a hurricane anymore than this.

If nobody else is able to show up with water bottles at all, then praiseworthy or not, he's not ripping people off. Furthermore, implicit in your comparison is the idea that what's being provided is an ordinary commodity at an inflated price. But it's not. Starlink isn't an ordinary commodity. It isn't comparable to your home internet service, or to any other communications network available to Ukraine. The differences might not matter to your potential usage of the service, but they absolutely matter in Ukraine. They are militarily significant advantages.

And I never said that SpaceX selling their services was praiseworthy. I said providing it for free was. But selling it isn't ripping people off either.

but i guess i see, now we're in favor of bloated defense contracts because we like the guy maybe? idk, you tell me. too biased to see it.

What makes you say that the contract in question is bloated?

Oh, right, your bias, nothing more.

 

[dirtywick]

ok, well, think what you want to think about it. explaining the process of how a company can maximize their profits doesn't really address whether or not it's something i like or want to praise and you don't really seem to even have a problem with price gouging in principle, so there's no point in really discussing whether or not that's happening. i believe it is and his contract is incredibly lucrative, but why bother at that point. i don't really have anything else to say.

 

[Ziggurat]

ok, well, think what you want to think about it. explaining the process of how a company can maximize their profits doesn't really address whether or not it's something i like or want to praise

Whether you personally like or praise it is irrelevant to me. That wasn't the claim you made that I objected to.

and you don't really seem to even have a problem with price gouging in principle,

Speaking of thinking what you want to think, you haven't even defined price gouging (and thats a harder task than you think), let alone demonstrated that SpaceX engaged in it in Ukraine.

i believe it is

Based only on your biases, not on any actual knowledge.

his contract is incredibly lucrative

Is it? Do you have a dollar figure? No, you don't.

It may well be lucrative, but you don't actually know that. And even if it is (quite possible), that would not automatically make it price gouging. Do you understand the difference between marginal costs and net costs? Do you understand why that distinction matters here?

 

[dirtywick]

Whether you personally like or praise it is irrelevant to me. That wasn't the claim you made that I objected to.



Speaking of thinking what you want to think, you haven't even defined price gouging (and thats a harder task than you think), let alone demonstrated that SpaceX engaged in it in Ukraine.



Based only on your biases, not on any actual knowledge.



Is it? Do you have a dollar figure? No, you don't.

It may well be lucrative, but you don't actually know that. And even if it is (quite possible), that would not automatically make it price gouging. Do you understand the difference between marginal costs and net costs? Do you understand why that distinction matters here?

i mean, yeah you're most right here. it's my bias, he's a well documented liar and cheat and i don't give him infinite benefit of the doubt. i can't get a figure, it's a private company and he doesn't discuss the contract at all, despite openly talking numbers before it was signed. it's total speculation based on his character, how the dod typically operates, past actions, and actions since.

you can explain all that away easily enough, maybe it's an exceptional situation. i'm open to being wrong.

 

[Marcus]

Cybertruck coming out party yesterday here in Austin. The high end model, the cyberblast, comes in at 845 hp, 0-60 in 2.6 seconds, 11,000 lbs towing capacity, and a 100k price tag. I agree the thing looks weird but I'm not so sure it will be a flop.

 

[Roboramma]

i mean, yeah you're most right here. it's my bias, he's a well documented liar and cheat and i don't give him infinite benefit of the doubt. i can't get a figure, it's a private company and he doesn't discuss the contract at all, despite openly talking numbers before it was signed. it's total speculation based on his character, how the dod typically operates, past actions, and actions since.

you can explain all that away easily enough, maybe it's an exceptional situation. i'm open to being wrong.

You have no evidence of any wrong doing, but because it's Elon Musk and he has a contract with a government agency, he must be ripping people off.

Okay.

 

[tyr_13]

Cybertruck coming out party yesterday here in Austin. The high end model, the cyberblast, comes in at 845 hp, 0-60 in 2.6 seconds, 11,000 lbs towing capacity, and a 100k price tag. I agree the thing looks weird but I'm not so sure it will be a flop.

The base model is $60k, $20k more than the initial offer (and $10k more than inflation adjusted). For some reason, they list the price as $50k, but with the disclaimer that this includes three years of gas savings.

Range is also 350 miles instead of the promised 500.

Oh, and these are all still predicted numbers.

 

[dirtywick]

You have no evidence of any wrong doing, but because it's Elon Musk and he has a contract with a government agency, he must be ripping people off.

Okay.

i look at it differently. i'm explaing why i'm not praising a guy with a long history of ripping people off for making billions off of defense contracts.

 

[Marcus]

The base model is $60k, $20k more than the initial offer (and $10k more than inflation adjusted). For some reason, they list the price as $50k, but with the disclaimer that this includes three years of gas savings.

Range is also 350 miles instead of the promised 500.

Oh, and these are all still predicted numbers.

Cars are so expensive now that I don't think the price would put me off if I wanted one, but I don't.

• The Rear-Wheel Drive model, coming in 2025, starts at an estimated $60,990. It offers an estimated 250-mile range and a 6.5-second 0-60 time, and can tow 7,500 pounds.
• The All-Wheel Drive dual-motor version starts at $79,990. Its specs are more impressive, with 350 miles of range, 600 horsepower, a 4.1-second 0-60 sprint and 11,000 pounds of towing. It comes in 2024.
• Finally, the Cyberbeast also comes in 2024, with an estimated price tag of $99,990. With 845 horsepower, it will do 0-60 in 2.6 seconds on the way to a top speed of 130 miles per hour. Tesla estimates 320 miles for the Cyberbeast, and says it'll also tow 11,000 pounds.

 

[Ziggurat]

i mean, yeah you're most right here. it's my bias, he's a well documented liar and cheat and i don't give him infinite benefit of the doubt. i can't get a figure, it's a private company and he doesn't discuss the contract at all, despite openly talking numbers before it was signed. it's total speculation based on his character, how the dod typically operates, past actions, and actions since.

you can explain all that away easily enough, maybe it's an exceptional situation. i'm open to being wrong.

You say that like any of that needs explaining.

And yes, the situation is exceptional. As I already explained, SpaceX has both a cost AND capability advantage over all its competitors. Nobody else can do what they're doing, and even if they could, they couldn't do it as cheaply. SpaceX is in a position to make a lot of money while still providing good value for the money to customers where its advantages are important. That doesn't include the average internet user in an urban area, but it does include the Ukrainian military.

As for the DoD and bloat, most bloat doesn't come from "gouging", but from bad project management. But none of the typical drivers of defense contract bloat from mismanagement (such as changing specs mid-project, badly designed specs, political demands to distribute manufacturing to politically significant locations, etc) even apply here.

And lastly, SpaceX actually has good business reasons to offer the DoD a good deal on this. Remember me mentioning marginal costs? Well, the marginal cost for additional customers is low compared to the capital costs of launching the system in the first place. This means that net profits don't scale linearly with the number of customers. And you know who is an even bigger potential customer than the Ukrainian military? The United States military. If SpaceX provides good value for the money in Ukraine, that significantly increases the chances that the US military will sign up directly as a customer. And there's probably a lot more money to be made on providing service to the US military at non-gouging prices than there is to be made on providing service to Ukraine while gouging them.

Your entire thesis seems to be that Musk is greedy, and so he must be price gouging, but the latter claim doesn't actually follow from the former.

 

[Ziggurat]

i look at it differently. i'm explaing why i'm not praising a guy with a long history of ripping people off for making billions off of defense contracts.

SpaceX doesn't have a history of ripping people off. They have a history of delivering good value to customers.

 

[lobosrul5]

Cars are so expensive now that I don't think the price would put me off if I wanted one, but I don't.

• The Rear-Wheel Drive model, coming in 2025, starts at an estimated $60,990. It offers an estimated 250-mile range and a 6.5-second 0-60 time, and can tow 7,500 pounds.
• The All-Wheel Drive dual-motor version starts at $79,990. Its specs are more impressive, with 350 miles of range, 600 horsepower, a 4.1-second 0-60 sprint and 11,000 pounds of towing. It comes in 2024.
• Finally, the Cyberbeast also comes in 2024, with an estimated price tag of $99,990. With 845 horsepower, it will do 0-60 in 2.6 seconds on the way to a top speed of 130 miles per hour. Tesla estimates 320 miles for the Cyberbeast, and says it'll also tow 11,000 pounds.

If I needed a truck, to do truck stuff, I'm seeing low mileage used F-150's around 6 or 8 years old in the mid to high $20k range.

11,000 pounds of towing for $80k?! F-150's can tow 14,000.

The price/performance of the cybertruck is pitifully low. No one is going to buy them except Elon fanboys with more money than sense. And TBH he might have enough of them to make it profitable.

 

[Marcus]

If I needed a truck, to do truck stuff, I'm seeing low mileage used F-150's around 6 or 8 years old in the mid to high $20k range.

11,000 pounds of towing for $80k?! F-150's can tow 14,000.

The price/performance of the cybertruck is pitifully low. No one is going to buy them except Elon fanboys with more money than sense. And TBH he might have enough of them to make it profitable.

I agree in one respect, a person who is in the market for a used F-150 will not be buying a cybertruck. The same argument could be made against all Tesla models, but they seem to have sold a lot of them.


Perhaps the cybertruck will flop, I really don't know. I do know that in many parts of the world buying a vehicle isn't a political decision.

 

[Marcus]

This type of pickup is more common around here




https://www.maxwellford.com/invento...jAIu7tuyLaNIxHhbA_lEgQuKegKJjLvxoCkmEQAvD_BwE

 

[lobosrul5]

I agree in one respect, a person who is in the market for a used F-150 will not be buying a cybertruck. The same argument could be made against all Tesla models, but they seem to have sold a lot of them.


Perhaps the cybertruck will flop, I really don't know. I do know that in many parts of the world buying a vehicle isn't a political decision.

But theres a sizeable market for cool, fast, EV sedans, even if they cost more than a Toyota. Is there a market for this cybertruck? A truck that is less capable than other trucks that cost a fraction of its cost? I mean the answer is 100% yes. Is the market big enough to make it profitable? I doubt it. VERY few people will buy the Cybertruck for non-political reasons.