Cont: Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla II

[dirtywick]

I don't care.

Tesla is selling blue sky and has been for a damn long time. Tesla is a car company promising to be a lot more. But is failing to produce much, but hot air. No doubt it is the best EV manufacturer in the auto industry. So what? It has 17% of the total worldwide BEV market share. But less than 2% of total passenger vehicle sales. I am not impressed by the fact that Tesla Semi is using the 4680 cell or 48 volt wiring.

A reckoning is coming for Tesla investors. You can only eat empty calories for so long before one discovers that they are starving to death.

Tesla Cybertruck Sales Were Inflated by a SpaceX Buying Spree

(Bloomberg) -- Sales of Tesla Inc.’s Cybertruck have been propped up in recent months by Elon Musk’s other companies, an unusual arrangement that further indicates the polarizing pickup is failing to appeal to everyday buyers.SpaceX, the Musk-led rocket and satellite maker, accounted for 1,279 —...

finance.yahoo.com

musk also inflates the numbers by having his other companies buy his products

 

[acbytesla]

Tesla Cybertruck Sales Were Inflated by a SpaceX Buying Spree

(Bloomberg) -- Sales of Tesla Inc.’s Cybertruck have been propped up in recent months by Elon Musk’s other companies, an unusual arrangement that further indicates the polarizing pickup is failing to appeal to everyday buyers.SpaceX, the Musk-led rocket and satellite maker, accounted for 1,279 —...

finance.yahoo.com

musk also inflates the numbers by having his other companies buy his products

Exactly. This really is fraud.

 

[theprestige]

Exactly. This really is fraud.

How is it fraud? Who is being defrauded?

 

[acbytesla]

How is it fraud? Who is being defrauded?

Maybe not in the legal definition. But it is definitely deceptive.

 

[theprestige]

Maybe not in the legal definition. But it is definitely deceptive.

In what way? Who is being deceived?

 

[acbytesla]

In what way? Who is being deceived?

Anyone who reads their sales totals. It's called inside dealing. Look how many Cybertrucks we sold! Nevermind we bought them ourselves. So we didn't actually sell anything.

 

[dirtywick]

investors would be the ones being deceived by false sales numbers, making it seem like there’s demand for their product when there’s not. it’s not much different than wash trading imo

 

[The Great Zaganza]

shareholders and investors are being defrauded.

 

[acbytesla]

I used to work for a computer hardware distributor in the 80s. We purchased various components in volume from many major companies. As a distributor, we had buy back and stock rotation agreements with them. So we could buy for example five hundred computer monitors, terminals or printers, but if they didn't sell, the manufacturers were obligated to buy them back. And since we usually were paying net 30 or net 45 on our purchases, it built in flexibility for ourselves and our suppliers. Frequently, some suppliers would pressure us to buy much more than we could sell so their sales numbers looked better to their stockholders.

This is why savvy investors will look closer at "distributor sales." Car manufacturers do the same thing with their dealers.

 

[arthwollipot]

Will SpaceX be able to fundamentally alter its approach to research, design and engineering to enable it to use its current experience to design and build the lander?

I was asking about Blue Origin, not SpaceX.

Unless they've moved pretty rapidly in the last six months, SpaceX's lunar lander is paper renderings of a long upright sausage shape with very few details.

It does not work with the conditions in which it will be used and will be a nightmare if even the slightest thing goes wrong. What you need in a lander is something low to the ground that's as easy as possible to get in and out of, not something you need to climb a twenty metre ladder to do so.

And where is Blue Origin in this time.

There's a full scale engineering mock up that was delivered to NASA in 2021. That's way more than anything SpaceX has done so far.

Ah. At last. So Blue Origin has a paper rendering too. Or is it papier-mâché?

 

[JayUtah]

Ah. At last. So Blue Origin has a paper rendering too. Or is it papier-mâché?

A full-scale engineering mockup is quite a bit more than a paper rendering.

 

[theprestige]

I have a copy of the Space Shuttle Operator's Handbook from the 1980s. It came with full-size foldouts of the control panels, so you could follow along with the checklists, finding and operating every button and switch that would be present on the real article. Even a paper mockup can be a faithful and effective training aid.

 

[JayUtah]

My long experience has shown that getting something—anything—into the customer's hands as soon as possible is the single most instructive design review exercise. You give the customer something so that they can tell you everything that's wrong with it. Even highly experienced customers recognize how much easier it is to say, "No, that's not quite what I want," than to try to imagine out of thin air what they do want. NASA is doing crew ops exercises with the Blue Origin mockup. That means Blue Origin is ahead on a major point.

 

[arthwollipot]

A full-scale engineering mockup is quite a bit more than a paper rendering.

And a basic testbed design that has actually launched is quite a bit more too. In fact I'd argue that it's more more, if you follow me.

 

[JayUtah]

And a basic testbed design that has actually launched is quite a bit more too. In fact I'd argue that it's more more, if you follow me.

Except it isn't. Starship is aimed at solo orbital flight, cargo deployment, and an atmospheric landing. It hasn't yet flown with a crew, nor does it display any evidence of design factors for a human crew. It has no provision for docking with another spacecraft. It has no provision for landing without an atmosphere. You're putting way too much emphasis on the notion that a tin can has flown in space (after many failed attempts) without its showing any evidence of design direction for a lunar landing mission. Having built and flown something else is not impressive.

Blue Origin has shown that it's thinking about these things and how to build them, and has taken industry-proven steps to engage with customer needs early in the design cycle. Its consortium partners include both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman come to the table with considerable experience in operational spacecraft including previous lunar landers.

 

[theprestige]

I'm not sure we can consider the previous experience of LockMart and NorGru as endorsements of the current iterations' competence.

 

[JayUtah]

I'm not sure we can consider the previous experience of LockMart and NorGru as endorsements of the current iterations' competence.

Why not?

 

[theprestige]

Why not?

For one thing, Grumman wasn't even a part of Northrop, the last time they did a lander.

For another, all those Grumman folks and their experience are probably long gone.

For yet another, look at the example of Boeing. All that vaunted institutional expertise pissed away by current management.

"Grumman did the LM, they've got this" isn't anything like a compelling argument to me.

 

[JayUtah]

For one thing, Grumman wasn't even a part of Northrop, the last time they did a lander.

Do you understand how mergers work?

For another, all those Grumman folks and their experience are probably long gone.

Many are, but that doesn't mean institutional knowledge is gone.

The local division of Northrop Grumman is one of my customers. Before they were Northrup Grumman they were Orbital ATK. Before that they were two separate companies: ATK and Orbital, both of whom were my customers. Before that, ATK was Morton Thiokol. Before that they were Thiokol.

One of my good friends was the principal engineer on the Orion launch escape system, which was based on the design originally designed and built by Thiokol. When I visited him in his ATK office, he had everything that Thiokol had on the original Apollo LES.

For yet another, look at the example of Boeing.

...who isn't involved.

All that vaunted institutional expertise pissed away by current management.

Because their management sucks and drove away everyone who had institutional knowledge. That's not true for every aerospace company and therefore a straw man.

"Grumman did the LM, they've got this" isn't anything like a compelling argument to me.

Cool story, bro

 

[dirtywick]

i mean, if we’re going to hold being mismanaged against a company, look at musks track record.

i know you guys are nerds and excited by space and ◊◊◊◊, but musk is not the guy. he’s just not