B) Making cars fly wasn’t the hard part. Flying vehicles have been a thing for a long time. The hard part is integrating them into a society that struggles enough with land and sea vehicles.
is it really wasted dollars if the idiots and investors pour attention and money in, respectively. This whole thing was a stupid marketing stunt, but the average dumbass believes it was real, and the average Tesla investor isn't too much higher up the intelligence totem pole.
That's what I keep saying. The one strength Elon has going for him is that he's a good salesman/conman, as narcissists tend to be. People who see through his bullshit don't really matter for his success. What matters is the people who fall for it.
I don’t like Elon or Tesla, but I don’t see a big problem with this specifically. The big automakers have been making wild concepts for commercials and auto shows for decades that will never get put into production. It keeps their name in the news, draws attention, and makes good TV commercials.
I doubt he greenlights everything that the company does. Pretty sure most companies are set up in a way where they can function without the lead member of the board of directors. So you saying that he did is as much of an assumption as saying that he didn't do anything. But I am pretty sure he didn't do any of the engineering as that isn't his job.
Engineers are salaried positions. I can hire an engineer to design a line of breakfast machines, as long as I'm paying market rates, I'll find someone.
Building a flying car is a cool project, but the engineers creating the prototype aren't worried about marketability or profitability. That's not their concern. Their job is to make it work.
Don’t worry. After you use the thrusters once for 6 seconds it only takes 6-7 hours to refill the tank. No tradeoffs there, assuming you get the invite to buy one that may get delivered sometime.
You haven’t thought of the benefits to mankind though! What about all the times you backflipped your car off a cliff and JUST WISHED you had thrusters to flip your car over and land for you. Before now we had to do this the other way
If you want to see how people move in three dimensional space take up scuba diving and go on a group dive. There are people smashing into other people. Pulling off masks, kicking and elbowing because for the first real time they have to keep up with up and down.
I would guess that the goal with ‘flying cars’ is to make them autonomous. Like the drones that fly themselves. I still think it’s a stupid gimmick though.
Its not even that people dont know how to swim with the scuba example. Its a lack of awareness of their surroundings. People struggle driving a car to be aware of whats in front, to the sides, and behind them. Now add up and down and the average person cant do it. So they crash into each other because they dont realize someone is near them. Flying cars would have the same logistical problem even if you solve the issue of how to provide the propulsion. The pnly way it would ever work is if it was auto-piloted, not driven.
Not to mentuon this wasnt even really demonstrating as a flying car.
It's like the "flying squirrel" thing - what they REALLY are is more of a gliding squirrel. Maybe this thing CAN actually "fly" but what we really saw was it drive up a hyper grippy launch ramp and then safely(ish) maneuver back down to the ground level.
Nobody who has ever imagined a flying car is imagining this.
On its own this would be fine, even. Its cool! But calling it a flying car, it inevitably feels like just the most recent exmaple of Elon Musk over-promising and under delivering, which is one of the main beefs people have with him
Yes. But what people don’t realize is that governments have already been thinking about this for a while. Ohio already has an eVTOL-based Advanced Air Mobility Framework written up.
Also: tesla didnt really show a flying car. It showed a car that can alter its course while mid-air. Im not sure how that solves any problem. It looks cool, not gonna lie, thats probably the only reason it exists.
That system needs 600litre compressed gas. Thats a lot of extra weight that wont be used by anyone. And I cant find any source that says if or how long it could fly with this system. Add to that, that you cant just fill it up at a gas station.
Literally the only actual use I can think of, is that these thrusters can be used to accelerate the car. For that you can get a reduced system that only has thrusters in the back of the car and a smaller gas tank.
The hard part is integrating them into a society that struggles enough with land and sea vehicles.
Yup. As an ex flight instructor, people are generally really bad at flying even airplanes, which are specifically designed to be safe and easy to fly. Piloting a flying car would be even worse, so they're definitely gonna have to be 100% automated.
Next the infrastructure. Like how do you even begin? Roads, parking lots, and buildings aren't designed for landing at all. Something needs a complete overhaul to make that feasible. Not to mention obstacles and other hazards like light poles, power lines, birds, actual aircraft, weather, etc. Then there's safety of the people and property on the ground. How do you sufficiently protect that? Needs an absolutely unreal amount of redundancy is the only way I can imagine...
It really depends on what you think of as a "car" and "flying". It's not hard to make a normal car fly for a few seconds and it's not hard to make an airplane. But the energy demands to keep a Toyota Camry in the air for a significant portion of time without dynamic lift just don't make sense. So you either have to choose between a small wing and almost no actual vehicle, or a large wing, and then you're just talking about a plane or helicopter.
Even if you had perfect AI flying them, back to the Future. Flying cars are never going to be a thing.
You make 4 of them. Sell them at an insane markup to people with more money than sense. It won't move the needle on how much he has, but there are a few people that would definitely buy them.
There is a market where people can invest in Space X and drive up the value of the stock. What don't you understand about where Musk's wealth comes from? He performs stunts that bring attention to his publicly traded companies and the crypto he's invested in. Then people buy the stock and gets richer.
True but if anyone thinks this promotional prop could fly for anything much more than the amount of time it did, they're deluding themselves. Something something rocket equation...
Eh, he has as much hand in things as Obama did the ACA. You know what I mean? Maybe he’s not engineering but he’s probably leading the “this is what I want, make it happen”. He does have an engineering background and does know some thing, but no, he’s not the guys in the lab actually building prototypes and testing.
I don’t care for Elon but people just get crazy with the hate. If he’s so stupid, why aren’t any of the Einsteins of Reddit doing the same or more? If someone so stupid can do it, wouldn’t it be easier for a smart person?
If he’s so stupid, why doesn’t AOC do similar but instead of being evil, do good. AOC and Bernie could get together, build a multibillion dollar or trillion dollar company, pay tons of taxes for social programs, pay huge wages, etc. why don’t they do this? They’re way smarter than billionaires, no?
You literally said why doesn't she do the same thing but good. Did you conveniently ignore he does what does because he's reached trillionaire status. That doi g good at the level he does what he does would require equal resources. Something neither she or Sanders have. But pls tell me how you expect them to have those resources.
I literally said what to do, “build a multibillion dollar or trillion dollar company, pay tons of taxes for social programs, page huge wages, etc”
Has nothing to do with them being rich, it’s about building the company to provide the good. They can still be poor (well they aren’t anyways) and basically give every dollar of profit towards workers and community.
They would need to build the resources from the ground up, although, given their position and power already, they aren’t starting from the ground. But instead of evil, they do good, as mentioned.
They want things that cost money, instead of waiting for someone else to provide the money, they start building the revenue stream to fund it themselves.
So please continue to enlighten me on how to build that amount of wealth? Clearly you have some secret the rest of reddit cretins simple aren't bright enough to grasp.
You miss the connection, he didn’t start a billionaire… even inheriting money, AOC and Bernie are at the same point, if not further, than he is now. And they are much smarter, so they could do it? Or are the incapable of that kind of progress?
The system does not reward intelligence or hard work. In fact it punishes them. It rewards having millions of dollars to begin with, high level connections, and having a complete lack of empathy and morality. Elon started off with 400 million dollars from his family. Outside of the entertainment industry, there are no self made billionaires.
How did you come to that conclusion? Where did the $400m come from for musks family? I’ve heard millions but never anything near that. Using your opinion is not a good argument.
As CEO he is as responsible for the roadster as I am telling my spouse “Tacos sound good tonight here’s my credit card run down to the store get the stuff and cook it up please.” Am I partially responsible for the fact that we’re having tacos for dinner? Yes. Did I actually cook said tacos? Fuck no.
Not really when Elon’s entire persona is that he’s a fucking brilliant man that can invent just about anything. He’s a high dude with a big check book. He’s not inventing the flying car he’s writing the check for it. The fact that the man child can’t admit he’s not some crazy hyper nerdy inventor is always hilarious. But sure bend over backwards to justify his “brilliance”.
I didn’t say he had no hand in producing it. I said he had no hand in inventing it and therefore, it says little to nothing of his intelligence level. Owning a restaurant doesn’t make you a chef and owning a rocket company doesn’t make you a rocket scientist or inventor.
If I cook a really good steak for you, do you call my boss and thank them? No. They didn’t cook the steak. Sure, I only had the resources to make the steak because I have a job and my boss signs my checks but nobody would make that jump that they should give my boss the credit for something like that. I’m genuinely shocked that this is such a tough concept for y’all to get.
You're deflecting with a false analogy. If your boss built the grill, engineered the kitchen, and dictated the recipe, he gets the credit for the steak. Cooking a steak isn't inventing anything. You're using a strawman of a passive check-writer to ignore what an active product architect actually does.
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u/KendrickBlack502 7h ago
It’s hard explaining things to stupid people.
A) Elon had no hand in inventing that
B) Making cars fly wasn’t the hard part. Flying vehicles have been a thing for a long time. The hard part is integrating them into a society that struggles enough with land and sea vehicles.