Fins, he's also supplying energy in Australia among other things. Then he's got the rockets, how much will the US pay to send a rocket somewhere? ...Those sweet $500 flame throwers that he sold out of, the charging centers for the vehicles.... He's making solar shingles that are friggin' awesome...So, it's not just the cars.  Tesla has their hands in a ton of stuff.

And he's got a sh!tload of great quotes...Like this one..."Apple—where Tesla designers go to die".   You've gotta love it.


It's true, I've got a bit of a man crush on this dude. 

I think Musk is a genius and a shyster. Clearly he is a tech genius. And he is a genius at figuring out how to get other people to bankroll him. But in my opinion, I think he is more concerned about funneling off money into his own pocket than making his creation profitable.

As for building charging infrastructure, I had an interesting cnversation with a professor the other day while waiting on my truck to be serviced. He had two Volts and had an issue with the radio in one of them. The way he explained it, the power companies are doing more to make that happen. Apparently along with building the stations they have created a payment system that charges the cost to your home electric bill no matter where you are recharging.

No matter what, it seems that Tesla’s stock has been inflated from people expecting too much too quickly.

I think the space program is where his passion is really at. And, you can get the government to pay about anything to put stuff into space. But I question if he will use that money to float the car company since he really wants to get to Mars. I do have high expectations though for his satellite internet network he is supposed to start building out this year.

Spaceman in the Roadster, traveling thru our solar system right now, doesn't give you a clue :)

No, not really. It’s a great publicity stunt, but it doesn’t mean he will take billions from the rocket program to keep the car company going.

Doesn't mean he won't either.

Depending on what you read, Amazon did not show a profit for it's first 10 years.
Look at it now.
So, if Tesla has not shown a profit yet, these companies seem to find ways to continue untill one day they are flying high and everyone wishes they had stock.

One of my favorite Tesla conspiracy theories is that the space suit in the car he sent to the stars has a old enemy's body in it. I don't believe it but that is one hell of a cover up if it is true.

To bad it wasn't Hillary.

Put Rick Perry, Jeff Sessions and Scott Pruitt in that car too

How about an entire fleet of buses, large enough to hold every politician on the planet…

exactly


Most people see him as an electric car guy. I don't think that is true. He did not start Tesla, he bought it ,IMHO, as a means to an end.

The minute you realize his real goal is a Martian colony and that the difficulty isn't in sending people into space (Humans have done that for decades) or getting a ship to Mars (we have been doing it for a while as well) but surviving once there, it all makes sense.

Mars has no air so you need to recycle air, water is questionable so you need to recycle it as well. That means you need tech that runs 24/7 and that means electricity 24/7. Coal/Natural gas (any fossil fuel) is out of the question since they would need a constant supply of the stuff to burn. Hydro and tidal is impossible, geothermal might be possible but that would be generations later, wind probably would not work (air density on Mars is 1% of earth), atomic might be possible but it needs a lot of water (+ radioactive material). The best way is solar but Mars, like earth, has more or less a 24h day with a good chunk of it night.

So, if I am not mistaken, the only way to have a Martian Colony is to have solar power that charges a light (we need to send it to Mars) battery that can hold enough power to run the colony 24/7 for a couple of weeks (dust storms or other issues could mean that they solar collectors might not be able to charge the battery every day.)


If people agree with what I said so far, I can get to the point.

Is it easier to convince people (venture capital, consumers and government) to put in the money needed to fund better batteries because one day in the very distant future we might want to send some people to Mars?
or
-is it easier to convince people & government to over pay for an electric car because it helps the environment ?
- Is it easier to Convince the venture capitalist to give money for a car company that makes a lot of money on electric cars but that the money needs to go back into battery research so that the range, charging time can improve and make the electric car more viable with bigger market shares?
- Is it easier to convince Australians to over pay for a huge backup battery that will make their grid more stable?

The way I see it He needs Tesla to help with his ultimate goal of reaching Mars so , if needed, I can see him funneling more money into Tesla over Space X. After all the rockets to Mars are only needed once there is a way to power Mars.

Very good points Anthony.

Tesla himself is in that suit

I’m not sure that he still needs Tesla to accomplish that goal. He needed Tesla to get to a point in battery tech. Now he has the Powerwall battery for home power. That probably will do more powering a colony