The recently released book “Power Play” begins with some detailed accounts of Tesla’s rocky beginnings. The book is said to showcase behind-the-scenes anecdotes and allow readers to get an exact account of just how unusual Elon Musk is.
Musk also appeared to respond to various media activity related to the book, and accounts of his alleged behavior, via Twitter, confirming that Walter Isaacson will be penning his biography.
In his tweet, he said “If you’re curious about Tesla, SpaceX & my general goings on, @WalterIsaacson is writing a biography”. Isaacson is responsible for writing biographies on Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, Henry Kissinger, as well as Steve Jobs.
If you’re curious about Tesla, SpaceX & my general goings on, @WalterIsaacson is writing a biography
Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century
Author and WSJ tech and author reporter Tim Higgins pens the inside story of Musk, which includes some already leaked controversial stories.
Back in the good ole days, aka as the 2000’s, fast, sexy (s3xy) electric vehicles were a new concept, a novelty, one that lead to the rise of Tesla and Elon Musk’s colossal fortunes. For more check out “Power Play“.
”Holy Grail” believed to be impossible before at least 2025 might now be on the way thanks to battery design improvements
Tesla has proven already that a well designed and engineered EV has many superior qualities compared to an equivalent ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle. Teslas have shown that they can last up to one million miles with far less maintenance.
While doing that they also have other features; silence, speed and acceleration, an on board computer with eventual over-the-air upgrades to full self-driving capabilities. Although the cars themselves, with no internal combustion engine parts to replace and no oil change every five thousand miles, are already able to run for a million miles, the battery, which is currently very expensive to replace, can not, as yet, last that long. The current lifespan for a Tesla Model 3 battery is 300,000 to 500,000 miles.
Model 3 drive unit & body is designed like a commercial truck for a million mile life. Current battery modules should last 300k to 500k miles (1500 cycles). Replacing modules (not pack) will only cost $5k to $7k.
While the initial cost for EV batteries has gone down a lot – from $1100 per kilowatt hour in 2010 to $156 per kWh in 2019 which is 87% less. In spite of this amazing drop – the elusive cost parity with ICE vehicles has been said to only be achievable when batteries reach $100 per kWh, the so-called Holy Grail of EVs.
Based on information gathered by Reuters from “people familiar with the matter” that is all about to be a quest of the past with the reality of an $80 per kWh “million mile battery” already being developed.
We’re going to have to push out the date or attendance will be very low. Maybe do in two parts: webcast next month & in-person event a few months later?
Battery will be the product of a 3-way Joint Venture with contributors from Tesla, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (China) and Jeff Dahn based at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia
The new low-cost long life battery will first be used for the Model 3 version manufactured for the Chinese market. The plan, according to sources that spoke anonymously to Reuters, is for an initial roll-out in China and later for the low cost Model 3 to be introduced into other markets, such as North America, for example.
The “million mile” moniker is an illustration of the long lasting life span of the battery design. Less obvious, however, are the potentially ground breaking application as a resource that can be used via Tesla Energy in energy storage products. With highly reliable battery packs lasting potentially up to three decades it will be possible for small for homeowners to have a backup source during outages, or a hybrid solution with solar panels combining with power from the grid as needed.
Battery stored solar generated energy can reduce costs or even be an income source when excess is sold back to public utilities. And, of course a complete off grid, solar and wind powered, fully sustainable system could be employed in large and small settings. A massive version of such a system is already in place at the Nevada gigafactory itself.
Power grid sized installations, such as a recent Hornsdale Power Reserve installation in Australia point toward the industrial solutions of the breakthrough technology.
These twin benefits of significant cost reduction and longer life, along with possible “re-purposing” for use in backs-up for the electric power grid are a combination that points toward a transformation of Tesla’s business model into that of a sustainable power company first and car company second.
Such a leap forward would put the company into the position of an energy provider such as PGE, with eventual added benefits to the planet once sustainable sources are ramped up.
As if all of this is not enough, the upcoming Starlink internet service, power via satellites being launched by Elon Musk’s “other” venture SpaceX, could provide internet connectivity at such an off-grid compound. Once these options are available, a highly functioning sustainable powered, globally connected living compound could be built virtually anywhere in the world.
The many features of such an independent energy and satellite communications option could create a truly decentralized dwelling system, further reducing survival and luxury costs.
Challenges remain yet the upcoming announcement nevertheless changes the outlook considerably
This highly ambitious project and these blockbuster potentials require many desperate elements to come together for this dream to be realized. One is the new, groundbreaking battery design which is the bombshell news being hinted at by Reuter’s unnamed sources.
Based on low-cobalt and cobalt-free battery chemistries, and the use of chemical additives, materials and coatings, the new design is projected to enable batteries to store more energy for longer periods, sources said. Additionally, nano-engineered materials are said to be a contributing factor in creating more bruise resistant and less damage prone due to rapid charging stresses. These improvements are said to make the “million mile” claim for the replacement cycle a reality.
Ramping up battery production methods will be necessary, both for reducing the costs via economies of scale and to keep up with the virtually unlimited demand for a Tesla EV with a million mile lifespan before the cost of battery replacement at a price point on par with or even below current ICE vehicles.
According to “hints” leaked by Musk in April, this will be achieved through new truly massive, highly automated “terafactories”. Based on the “gigafactory” concept which already has three in operation, in Nevada, New York State and Shanghai, China, with a fourth in Berlin, Germany, being built, the new battery manufacturing locations are planned to be thirty times larger than the current gigafactory in Nevada, which, at completion, was the largest factory ever built by square footage and second by volume.
As virtually everyone is aware by now the second biggest story of the week (third?) has been the literal deluge of shopping crowds converging on grocery and big-box stores buying large quantities of water, paper products, disinfectants and, more recently, food staples and whatever else is not nailed down.
Interviews with company presidents that manufacture paper products have shown that this is truly panic buying as the apparent shortages are based not on a lack of supply or the ability to produce more, but on the logistical difficulty in getting the shelves stocked fast enough.
“There is not some big underground warehouse like in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ where there is all this toilet paper sitting around in case it is needed”
Dan Clarahan, president of United Converting,quoted in the NY Times
Instead people are literally filling their closets with excess paper, more than they can use in a year, all due to psychological reactions to the uncertainty of the overall situation. We as humans are notoriously bad at calculating needs and usage of supplies and making time based buying decisions.
Paper aisle of a discount store today in Los Angeles. Photo / Lynxotic
Case in point: the box of tin-foil above, which is admittedly a 500 ft roll meant for restaurant use (bought at Costco) is, for all intents and purposes, an antique. I bought it for around $15 in 2012. It’s not gone yet.
I am not, as you can see, an industrial grade user of tin-foil. However, this box has been used several times a week for various household refrigerator storage tasks for 8 Years!
Without getting into the fine mathematics of how long, per person, a roll of toilet paper should last (including all the minutia such as the length of the roll and how many “layers of comfort” are included) grabbing shopping carts full is likely not a necessity, even if practicing social distancing for a month or two.
“Empty” shelves at Los Angeles discount store – Photo / Lynxotic
And then what about food? This photo is of “shockingly empty” shelves in the meat section of a discount store in Los Angeles, today. What’s the first thing you see? What I see is just how many great things to eat are readily available, still, on these empty shelves.
So, all in all, I guess its called “panic” for a reason. Because it’s not about “reason” but rather that lack thereof. Just as with paper products food supplies are not in any huge danger of total collapse. You just might have to choose a different entrée for a time or two. Shelves are being restocked as fast as the stores can muster, but the speed, and in particular the amount per person, of the buying is making it impossible to physically get the goods into place soon enough.
Teleconferencing, Cloud apps, Work-from-home and the carbon conundrum
And, while on the subject of what’s not-as-bad as it seems, interestingly many common behaviors that were considered necessary, up until the coronavirus became a danger when combined with those practices, such as the 4oz limit on liquids taken on to an aircraft are being phased out. When people were allowed, starting recently, to take 12oz bottles of hand sanitizer onto flights, literally nothing bad happened.
And what about working from home, as has been almost universally adopted by major tech companies such as Amazon, Twitter, Apple, etc. Many are saying this could, and should, be a permanent change and that the don’t think that the practice of commuting to work will ever be the norm again.
Wait… what? So, along with having oil shoved down our throats (or at lest into our gas tanks) by the fossil fuel industry for half a century longer than technologically necessary, we have been commuting and destroying the planet for no reason at all?
Surprisingly positive and even optimistic signs are already appearing like this everywhere – green shoots of the new season of change. Ands change, radical change, is the common denominator.
Electric cars were driving around London as early as 1884, but it took Elon Musk and Tesla to finally take the idea of owning one to the mainstream. A car with an internal combustion engine created in 1934 got over 30 MPG, could reach speeds upwards of 90 mph and could seat 11. It’s no accident that these technologies were stifled for all these years. Ask Putin and MBS.
Living in a Box might help us to think Outside the Box
So, without putting too fine a point on it, a lot of good things are already potentially coming out of the massive changes underfoot – not just our fight to escape the worst of the coronaviruses potential, but the economic fallout, which is only partially related, and the coming shift in thinking about, well, everything.
The reality is, from Climate Change and carbon overload to corruption in government and big business, the biggest changes needed are possible if the old ways just disappear, or are swept away, in order for existing technological potential to be realized. And what better time for that to happen than now?
Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you
We are all so often lost. Feeling lost and wondering what to do. We run to the stores and try to race against one another for the chance to hoard things we don’t really need. But, perhaps, just as toilet paper won’t protect you from the novel coronavirus, even bigger issues such as climate change can only begin to be solved once we find a way to live in a totally different way.
”Well…You know, so much of the time we’re just lost. We say, “Please, God, tell us what is right. Tell us what is true.”
I mean there is no justice. The rich win; the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time we become dead, a little dead.
“The Verdict”
What way? That is unknown. Big changes are coming, like it or not. But changes don’t always mean worsening circumstances. We might have the solutions right under our noses. That tin-foil might last longer than we expected. Accepting, even embracing change might reveal a chance for better things to come. Learning not to burn fossilized plant matter to go to an office to work on a computer that you also have at home. Believing in our ability as humans to find solutions, and for those solutions to be brought into the light of day, without being obstructed or suppressed for greedy, stupid reasons.
…But today you are the law. You are the law, not some book, not the lawyers, not a marble statue, or the trappings of the court. See, those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are, in fact, a prayer, I mean a fervent and a frightened prayer.
The next big challenge, which we as a planet are clearly not yet prepared to face, is climate change and the environmental damage wrought by “man”. What if interconnected human communications, enhanced by software and the internet, can play a roll in changing the way we live – and by doing that changing the equation that has been a negative one for over a century? That could be a building block toward not just survival but to a new way to prevail and prosper.
In my religion, they say, “Act as if you had faith; faith will be given to you.”
If we are to have faith in justice we need only to believe in ourselves and act with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts.”
Words by David Mamet – Performed by Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet’s, ‘The Verdict
The most talked about car in 2019 has been Tesla’s Model 3, an electric vehicle from Tesla that is sleek, modern looking, and highly desirable. In Tesla’s latest quarter alone, the company has sold nearly 80,000 Model 3s, sustaining it as the most popular EV on the market. This is not Tesla’s only achievement for the year. The company’s Cybertruck and Semi have received copious attention; its Model X and Model S continue to be popular; and consumers are eagerly awaiting 2020’s releases of the Model Y and Roadster.
Click to Buy “Dark Towers” and at the same time help Lynxotic and All Independent Local Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon .
Based on its title, David Enrich’s new book “Dark Towers” might sound like an appendix to the nine part horror-fantasy series that Stephen King wrote between 1982 and 2012. In reality, though, Enrich’s book is a true story of financial corruption, with the full title “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and an Epic Trail of Destruction.”
Nevertheless, the tale is just as riveting as any novel, and is perhaps even darker than any work of fiction.
Isn’t it odd that everyone on the internet either seems to hate or love Elon Musk and Tesla? One theory behind why this may be the case, was put forth in a recent article by John Mayo-Smith published on Medium.com called Elon vs. The Alligators. In a nutshell, the article is a list, with a nice graphic in part II, of vested interests that would stand to lose from Tesla’s success and, conversely, benefit from its demise.
This Is Not A New Development and Elon is Not Alone
Fans of the 2006 documentary, “Who Killed The Electric Car” would be well aware of the “conspiracy” against the proliferation of electric cars. The rise of Tesla, by definition, signals the failure of those entrenched interests that previously banded together to try and stop the emergence of this essential technology in the transition away from deadly fossil fuels.
Musk and Tesla represent an initial sign that these kinds of cabals to suppress technological development may be losing their strangle-hold on our world. Meanwhile, overwhelmingly obvious facts, once seen as “conspiracy theories”, are beginning to be recognized for what they are: simple facts of history.
Take, for example, the video below “Why The US Has No High Speed Rail”, released on May 7th, 2019, by none other than that “underground, subversive organization” CNBC. This short documentary clip has already garnered more than 4.5 million views.
The video shows the highly evolved, generally safe, and amazingly comfortable high speed rail systems across the globe: China, Japan, France, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia and so on. And while more countries develop low emission, luxurious, high speed transport, the US still has no high speed rail.
Meanwhile, overwhelmingly obvious facts, once seen as “conspiracy theories”, are beginning to be recognized for what they are: simple facts of history.
The clip goes on to trace the history of the transportation infrastructure and show how it was dominated and controlled in the US by Big Oil, government road building subsidies and the Auto Industry. It follows the clear path of these forces, and how they systematically prevented any rise of non-automotive transportation.
As the Media Slowly Comes Around, the Dollars Still Twist the Story
Perhaps, even ten years ago, this video would have likely been systematically attacked, in the same way as previous stories, for daring to sing the virtues of highly efficient, low pollution transportation, and for the very same reasons.
Today, after a Sea change, it appears that it is not so easy to squelch access to information that lays out plain truths about the past. Information is no longer so easy to suppress. While we, as a species, face possible extinction from climate change / global warming, brought about at least partially by the precise “conspiracy” of corruption that is the reason the US still has no rail infrastructure, the need to face these kinds of facts is undeniable.
Could the large viewership, unchallenged, indicate that it is no longer possible to bully the citizenry into silence, simply by disparaging the source of information, be it journalistic or otherwise?
It doesn’t take an eagle eye to notice, that when it comes to auto fatalities, Tesla and Musk are held to a very different standard than any other car company. Doing any search of a general grouping of news reports pertaining to fatal auto collisions, instantly, a stark pattern emerges. Ford is not mentioned. Chevy? Nope. Neither is Toyota, or Nissan nor Chrysler or Subaru. Mercedes Benz? Never. This list could go on and on, but any casual observer can see the pattern.
Although there are almost 40,000 auto accident fatalities per year in the US, and a very tiny fraction of those involve any electric car, nevertheless, the name Tesla comes up again and again, as the headline of stories about car crashes, with or without fatalities.
Titles like: “5 killed on way to Funeral” or “His 6th DUI Proved Fatal” are common. But it appears that any crash, of any kind, that involves a Tesla is “news”. This is but one of endless examples that could be cited, and corroborated, showing a pattern of negative stories aimed at one car company above all others. Coincidence?
The Story of Suppression of Design Innovation, Particularly when that Innovation Threatens the Status Quo is, Unfortunately, a Long One
A little known episode in this long history is that of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion car. Featured prominently at the 1933-34 World’s Fair in Chicago, it had an amazing fuel efficiency, with approximately 30 mpg, and at 20ft in length, could transport 8-11 passengers at up to 70 mph.
However, after a local Chicago politician (Chicago South Park Commissioner) ran his own vehicle into the first prototype, killing the driver of the Dymaxion, the whole episode was used, in bogus press reports, to bury not only public interest in the car itself, but any chance of the advances in gas milage and overall efficiency that it represented. Gas mileage in the 30 mpg range would then be delayed for decades.
Photo Credit / Medium.com
Headlines in New York and Chicago read: “Freak car rolls over – killing famous driver – injuring international passengers“. In a subsequent investigation the Dymaxion was cleared of any fault, and the politician and his car were found to have been illegally removed from the scene before any reporters arrived. To this day, the average fuel economy in the US is less than 30 MPG. Even after over 80 years, articles can still be found that smear the history of the car with lies and baseless inferences, the same ones propagated in 1933.
A Trillion Gallons of Gasoline Wasted by Intentionally Inefficient Cars
If suppression of inventions that could have reduced carbon emissions, the same polluting substances that, eventually, could destroy the earth, is not pure evil, it’s hard to say what is. And yet, those same forces and corrupt powers remain with us today. “Tump Loves Coal“.
It would be interesting to speculate why 4.5 million would want to know the answer to the question: “Why the US Has No High Speed Rail”. And what about the “Alligators” that are out to get Tesla and Elon Musk? Are they going to succeed? Or will 400 million decide that the alligator’s time, like the dinosaurs they resemble, is finally over.
