Comment by grey-area

There’s no way this will ever directly make back the salaries and time spent on it so far. It’s not a way to make money for Tesla.

So no, Musk is trying to prepare the ground for a merger with spacex and distract from Tesla’s worsening fundamentals and the flop of cyber truck, the decade late delivery of roadster etc etc.

It's not the actual car that will be sold but apparently another prototype.

Actually, title of the submission should be changed to "Tesla Roadster new prototype".

For the record, previous prototype was in 2017 and the real deal was supposed to ship in 2020

Ok I looked this up because I found it very strange.

Inconel would not be a good choice for an automobile frame. Not only is it expensive and heavy it also can be pretty brittle. You want a frame that's strong but ductile so that it will absorb impact energy.

From what I've been able to find, Tesla uses inconel in some battery components. This makes sense because the thing inconel is really good at is staying strong even when very hot. This is why it's used in turbines and jet engines.

This thread points out that inconel is not unused in the automotive world, high-end ICE cars have used it for their exhaust systems. Another advantage of inconel in this application is that it's highly corrosion resistant:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/inconel.50251/

So in summary: Tesla uses inconel where it makes sense to use it (to deal with high heat) and so do other automobile manufactures.

I checked a few sources (including grok) for your inconel in struts claim as it seemed unlikely. They all said it was false.

Certainly there has been crossover in both directions, most famously in Musk forcing SpaceX to buy Tesla cybertrucks (18% of production at one point).

I can’t see any documentation of income ever being used on an S.

Given that it costs 10x more than aluminum, it is highly unlikely to be useful as a material in a production car.

The frame breaking the NHSTA story is correct but is just well-designed aluminum.

I’m happy to be shown a reference I’m wrong.

This was a "the cybertruck will be a boat" style claim.

Clearly some time between 2018 and now he decided he'd have to actually have it done and ordered his people to make a stunt car with thrusters.

Wasn’t aware of that detail thanks, it’s such a bizarre idea.

I disagree that it couldn’t come out of thinking of how to justify merging spacex and Tesla which he’s wanted to do for a long time.

This isn’t a cool car, it’s a gimmick. It will never be road-worthy, would lose money, and I doubt they’ll ever even sell it to customers.

As to why he’s going this dog and pony show now, we can only speculate, but I can’t think of any reasons that are good for Tesla (vs Musk personally) can you?

I don't know what stoped him just designing and building the roadster by now or any update or upgrade to it.

Musk also said production was starting on the Roadster in 2020. It turns out that things Musk says don't mean much.

And it can still be a distraction. The fact that they went through all this effort for a fantastically unreasonable thing just to wow for a company that is off the rails is...pretty telling. Have you never worked with someone who is late for everything, always overpromising and underdelivering, and as it becomes more apparently their promises get more exaggerated and unreasonable? That's Musk. Like "look you can play games on your screen", which absolutely no one asked for in a car, and for which it does much shittier than a $200 pad.

For that matter it's Trump too, and they're both cut from the same cloth -- don't like the dumb arch? Well now it has snipers and drones! And also it will eliminate the debt, deficit, income taxes, and...

So instead of just starting production of a vehicle 8 years behind schedule, look, new distraction! Amazeballs! Don't worry coming real soon now. Just put in those deposits!

I mean, the one part of this story that is unclear and no one seems to be asking hard questions is the compressor status -- there are vague, handwavy (oh we'll build a compressor claims, but I have huge doubts). A 5000 psi to 10000 psi compressor in the real world today is enormous. It's industrial equipment that generates enormous amounts of heat, is hilariously loud, and takes enormous power. While I am 100% certain this dog and pony show had their tanks filled by external massive compressors out of sight, I am pretty skeptical Tesla has any magic innovation in that field.

Maybe it could be sold as a safety feature.

Suppose you accidentally drive your car off a cliff. Accelerometers and other sensors (cameras) could detect the fall and activate the cold gas thrusters to rotate the car into a safe orientation and bring it to a soft landing.

It should even be possible to use the thrusters as an emergency braking system in case of loss of traction, rollovers, departing the roadway, etc, to avoid or reduce impact damage and injuries.

I don't think any 'evil' person sees themselves as 'evil'.

But pushing himself onto the President, manipulating democracy and being responsible for killing kids as a billionair makes his actions nefarious.

His antics vis-à-vis propping up the far-right in Europe or calling people he doesn't like NPCs don't persuade you otherwise?

His Nazi salute doesn't bother you in the least? That's not "socially awkward".

Stop anthropomorphizing billionaires.

Those are not at all mutually exclusive. In fact, both of those characteristics make up most of the Silicon Valley oligarchy.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Are you not aware of his blatant Nazi salutes or his DOGE attempt to dismantle oversight/regulation of his business concerns or him cancelling USAID (700,000 deaths and counting) or his interference in UK/European politics to promote far right violence and riots?

If you had that amount of money and power, you could be anyone you wanted, so why on earth does Musk choose to be as he is?

He recently shut down Starlink for Ukrainians, thus contributing to Putin's genocide. Have you not been reading the news? Calling Musk a "nerd" is the wrong term here. That is deliberate support of a genocide.

The Musk invective in HN is just wild to me. No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute (unless Biden, and Hillary and Obama are all Nazis too having made the same motion). No, he hasn’t cut Ukraine’s internet. All of these are lies, repeated over and over and over. He’s just a Republican accelerationist and unapologetic about his race. His companies create legitimately awesome products that millions use daily. Shocking that today that’s enough to breed such extraordinary hate from the left.