At a time when Tesla is struggling to make sales? I agree it's an impressive demo, but it has zero practical value. EVs were supposed to help the environment, not make very brief flights. Would this be under control of the driver? Should be part of the autopilot, maybe for collision avoidance?
This is in the same category as the Tesla flamethrower or the Teslaquila.
After Cybertruck and the LARPing as a humanoid-robotics company, I was genuinely unsure if Tesla still had top-tier engineering talent. This shows otherwise. Maybe some of these improvements will trickle down to the Models Y and 3.
(It also looks like a lot of SpaceX engineering. I could see folks there wanting to take a break, particularly if this happened while the pad was busted.)
Nobody would launch an actual payload on the initial flight, and they had to do 3 successful launches to satisfy the USAF´s NSSL requirements before they could launch very profitable payloads for them.
The Roadster was Musks personal vehicle, so Tesla didn't pay for that either.
Yeah, wouldn’t they rather be doing real impactful engineering work, like figuring out means to display even more ads on personal user devices, maximizing the number of hours kids spend doom-scrolling per day, or making robots that are deliberately designed to take jobs away from as many workers as possible?
But, imagine instead being an engineer of any kind today and you’re only getting paid to work on boring things like advanced automotive technology and building cars that can maneuver themselves in midair and might possibly fly in the future? Ridiculous.
(This message should not be taken as support for Musk or any of his views or business ventures.)
Imagine how boring the world would be if we refused every idea that didn't have an immediately practical purpose. Rocketry was probably overkill here but it did achieve at least one thing for the Tesla and SpaceX engineers: you can do things you did not believe were possible.
It does bring up the question of what’s left in car design.
RAM jets?
A car could get 10–30% better energy efficiency than a conventional car at the same speed. Initially, the air jets would reduce and then eliminate wheel drag, and then hold for safety maneuvers. At speed, off-wheel-lift would be generated aerodynamically, with the option to also spot redirect air pressure from the RAM jet, or the air jets.
Then 2.0 would be the fully redesigned one-eyed two-seated flying Tesla Bodywingster.
Was Google's 20 percent time a waste of its talent?
This looks like a genuinely fun project to have worked on. That can be the difference between a top engineer burning out and staying motivated.
At a time when Tesla is struggling to make sales? I agree it's an impressive demo, but it has zero practical value. EVs were supposed to help the environment, not make very brief flights. Would this be under control of the driver? Should be part of the autopilot, maybe for collision avoidance?
This is in the same category as the Tesla flamethrower or the Teslaquila.
> it has zero practical value
After Cybertruck and the LARPing as a humanoid-robotics company, I was genuinely unsure if Tesla still had top-tier engineering talent. This shows otherwise. Maybe some of these improvements will trickle down to the Models Y and 3.
(It also looks like a lot of SpaceX engineering. I could see folks there wanting to take a break, particularly if this happened while the pad was busted.)
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Tesla's marketing budget is something close to $0. Stuff like this is why.
A flying car is a lot more valuable to the Tesla brand than some Super Bowl ads
> Tesla's marketing budget is something close to $0.
Come on. They literally sent a car into space.
Nobody would launch an actual payload on the initial flight, and they had to do 3 successful launches to satisfy the USAF´s NSSL requirements before they could launch very profitable payloads for them.
The Roadster was Musks personal vehicle, so Tesla didn't pay for that either.
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Even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and accept your statement as true, who cares?
Telsa board doesn’t, they need moonshots to justify their valuation. Elon doesn’t care, the engineers sure as shit don’t.
Maybe a midline quality control and reliability person? That’s not likely where many of the engineers for this project came from though.
Yeah, wouldn’t they rather be doing real impactful engineering work, like figuring out means to display even more ads on personal user devices, maximizing the number of hours kids spend doom-scrolling per day, or making robots that are deliberately designed to take jobs away from as many workers as possible?
But, imagine instead being an engineer of any kind today and you’re only getting paid to work on boring things like advanced automotive technology and building cars that can maneuver themselves in midair and might possibly fly in the future? Ridiculous.
(This message should not be taken as support for Musk or any of his views or business ventures.)
the pursuit of perfection should not always require justification :)
I don't think so. The engineering behind an F1 car is not relevant to those buying consumer cars, but it helps sell them regardless.
Huh? F1 has always been meant and actively steered towards being a testing ground for consumer car tech.
You must be miserable in your job. All the good engineers I know would gladly take some pay cut to be able to do projects like this.
They learned a lot, and pushed their tools further, in ways that left them with new insights and possible engineering paths for more practical work.
“Play” “fun”, curiosity” and “challenge for challenges sake” are adaptive strategies for learning unexpectedly useful things.
Imagine how boring the world would be if we refused every idea that didn't have an immediately practical purpose. Rocketry was probably overkill here but it did achieve at least one thing for the Tesla and SpaceX engineers: you can do things you did not believe were possible.
It does bring up the question of what’s left in car design.
RAM jets?
A car could get 10–30% better energy efficiency than a conventional car at the same speed. Initially, the air jets would reduce and then eliminate wheel drag, and then hold for safety maneuvers. At speed, off-wheel-lift would be generated aerodynamically, with the option to also spot redirect air pressure from the RAM jet, or the air jets.
Then 2.0 would be the fully redesigned one-eyed two-seated flying Tesla Bodywingster.
All for the environment!
They learned a lot about technology fundamentally useless in cars.