Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of electric car giant Tesla, has thrown down a challenge to the South Australian and federal governments, saying he can solve the state's energy woes within 100 days – or he'll deliver the 100MW battery storage system for free.
On Thursday, Lyndon Rive, Tesla's vice-president for energy products, told the AFR the company could install the 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage that would be required to prevent the power shortages that have been causing price spikes and blackouts in the state.
Thanks to stepped-up production out of Tesla's new Gigafactory in Nevada, he said it could be achieved within 100 days.
Mike Cannon-Brookes, the Australian co-founder of Silicon Valley startup Atlassian, on Friday tweeted Elon Musk, asking if Tesla was serious about being able to install the capacity.
Musk replied that the company could do it in 100 days of the contract being signed, or else provide it free, adding: "That serious enough for you?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Dunbal on Friday March 10 2017, @11:02PM (38 children)
I'm sure you've achieved much more than he has. You see a man with balls and all you can say is he has a big mouth. Where's your electric car, your re-usable rocket, your solar energy company and your payment service? He may be right. He may be spectacularly wrong. But he's much better than those who just throw criticism at him from the back row because he dreamed big.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by charon on Friday March 10 2017, @11:37PM (27 children)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 10 2017, @11:49PM (3 children)
What's the point of having a gigafactory if you can't sling batteries every which way?
And as a matter of fact, Tesla already sells a non-car battery product, the Powerwall.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by charon on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:00AM (1 child)
That's just shifting the point. I'm saying the batteries were not just spoken for, but in the case of the ones for the cars, already purchased by the end user. And some guy on the floor of the giga-factory is going to have to tell some guy at the car plant, "Sorry, Elon had another hair-brained idea and used the next three months supply."
Sure they're his toys to play with. But this is the first time I recall seeing him doing something that actively harms the company in order to burnish his reputation. [NB, I am not a Elon-watcher, or Musk-rat or whatever those people call themselves, so maybe this happens all the time.]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @05:16AM
> I'm saying the batteries were not just spoken for, but in the case of the ones for the cars, already purchased by the end user.
Or maybe Elon already knows that the Model 3 production date is slipping and he's going to have a sh**load of batteries sitting around waiting for cars to be completed. In which case, getting rid of a few months of early battery production to a stationary power source customer would be a great idea. It's also possible that he knows these early cells from Gigafactory aren't really quite as good as they should be for the cars, but are plenty good enough for a power utility (where power/weight ratio is a minor concern).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @06:22PM
Powerwall production is currently on a 1-3 year waiting list. My uncle was apparently trying to order one at least a year ago and those are the lead times currently in place for them due to car and non-powerwall demands.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:01AM (8 children)
where the CEO is bouncing around tweeting wild-ass ideas and promising the moon
And delivering. But for some reason people seem to prefer the other kind, that sells you shit and tells you it's the moon. I'm looking at Apple for no particular reason.
I see Musk as a modern day Howard Hughes. He has a lot of ideas. Some good. Some not so good. But by god don't get in his way because he's going to try to make them real. I don't see how that makes the world a WORSE place. And there's a chance it could make it a better one.
(Score: 1) by charon on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:17AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:25AM (1 child)
A good general is one who knows what his men are capable of. I can't answer that, except by saying that he's made it THIS far...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:36AM
> I can't answer that, except by saying that he's made it THIS far...
The question is, as with all successful people, is how much of that is luck and how much of that is skill.
You get enough people making bets, somebody's going to win.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:16AM
Actually, this happens every day, all around the world. Seriously, it really does. I've seen that kind of thing in construction, transportation, and manufacturing. I suppose it also happens in retail, and any other major industry.
In our own plant, our talking head bragged to Corporate that we can make anything - send us your biggest mold, send us anything you've got, and we'll make the parts. Well, we're making those wheels for corporate, but I would hate to add up the cost. We've spent at least a million in cooling systems, we spent nearly a million on robots, we had to re-engineer the mold itself to make it work in our machine - and the WORST PART IS, the machine that powers the whole process is still a POS. (750 ton Cincinnati Milacron, dates from about 25 years ago, runs on SysV software, ancient hydraulics, poorly designed from the start - I could go on about this POS) And, as you say, other portions of our operation were put on hold, and even cannibalized to make this one project work.
All of this would have made sense, had our boss planned on purchasing a new machine with which to make these wheels, and engineered the whole process from scratch. But building the whole thing around a nearly worn out machine was just a terrible fucking brain fart.
Every industry has these brain farts. Witness the F-35, LMAO!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:46AM (2 children)
At the end of the day though, he fucked over union workers in Northern California and brought in Eastern European wage slaves to do it for cheaper.
I'd prefer a CEO that puts humanity first, then his dreams, ambitions, and profit second. I, like you, believe we are better off for the Elon Musks in the world, but that doesn't mean that they are harmless, or even mostly beneficial to the average lowly worker that ol' Elon's dreams depend on.
How does he achieve his dream of humans on mars if we aren't healthy enough to play with him and his toys? THAT is what modern day CEOs cannot figure out if their lives depended on it. Specifically, that their lives depend on ours. Not the other way around.
He may the best of the best, but that bar is pretty damn low. Based on what I've seen so far, the first Martians will have a slum lord that makes sure they are in debt up to their eyeballs and taking his shitty work offers.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:11PM (1 child)
Yes, yes, he fucked over union workers who were cooling their heels for infinity waiting for the next casino-building boom to sweep Reno.
The Gigafactory is being built in a part of the country where there's hardly ever anything going on, big construction project-wise. There's an occasional school or highway project, and that's about it. The Gigafactory was a boon to those people, and the union guys fucked it up by getting greedy. They were hoping to milk it for double or triple so they could go back to smoking meth in their trailers for the next decade afterward.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @12:01AM
If it wasn't for unions, wages in the USA would be ZERO, because then The Ownership Class would know that they can get away with that.
.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk can't even make up his mind where his national loyalty is. [google.com]
His only loyalty appears to be to personal profit.
He reminds me of Donnie Tiny Hands who continues to shout U-S-A, U-S-A while hiring [google.com] foreigners [google.com]--illegals, apparently. [google.com]
Hell, he married someone who violated the terms of her tourist visa [google.com] by working.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday March 11 2017, @08:43AM
...He has a lot of ideas. ... I don't see how that makes the world a WORSE place. And there's a chance it could make it a better one.
That really depends on who gets to foot the bill.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:01AM (11 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:06AM (9 children)
You mean the guy who has kicked the stock market up 15% and cut illegal immigration 40% just by tweeting and talking and not actually passing any sort of effective legislation? Give me more of those guys.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:28AM (1 child)
Yes, it's all because of Trump that the stock market has risen, just like everything good that happened when Obama was president was all his doing. Correlation is causation, always.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:41AM
Just look at a chart, and look at the dates on the chart. It's not Trump, and yet it IS Trump. But thanks for trying to explain an emotionally driven market with "logic". Please continue to expect the stock market to behave rationally.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:46AM
> You mean the guy who has kicked the stock market up 15%
No, not "the stock market" - certain market indexes weighted with specific companies like Goldman Sachs which is single-handedly responsible [fortune.com] for 21% of the DJIA increase since the election. Surely that has nothing to do with all the GS executtives he's installed in his s̶w̶a̶m̶p̶ cabinet.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:22AM (5 children)
Actually - the illegal aliens have been cut by a lot more than 40%. Every article I've read indicates that the numbers of border hoppers has INCREASED every year at this time. Border hopping has NOT increased this year, instead, decreasing. Let's wait until the end of the year, and compare the annual numbers to the past 20 years. I suspect that the cut will be closer to 75% than to 40%.
Of course, any decrease is a good thing, with larger decreases being better.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @10:22AM (3 children)
Every article I've read indicates that the numbers of border hoppers has INCREASED every year at this time
You REALLY should give up on Breitbart.
Mexico-US illegal migration has been at zero for 8 years, and other eye-opening facts [boingboing.net]
IOW, more are headed south than north.
.
This one doesn't bear on the revelation of your ignorance in this (meta)thread, but I'm sure if you haven't already spouted some related ignorance, you soon will.
Same deal here.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:35PM (2 children)
Wow - you know how to load a manure spreader!! I suspect you have a New Holland parked on your property - http://www.ironsearch.com/Manure-Spreader/New-Holland/185/2914933/Detail.aspx?SK=MS-NH [ironsearch.com]
No crime in Latino neighborhoods - despite the fact that many of them BROKE THE LAWS to get here? Oh - sorry - you don't count border hopping as a crime, because - uhhh - whatever. I mean, it's agains the law, but it doesn't count as a crime, and - uhhhh - it's racist to point out that breaking laws are ILLEGAL!!
Migration has been at zero? Really? Zero, you say. For eight years, right? Hmmm - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/unaccompanied-minors-immigrants-central-america_us_581c99b4e4b0d9ce6fbb3dba [huffingtonpost.com] Alright, those aren't all Mexicans - BUT THEY CAME THROUGH MEXICO!!
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/08/517561046/how-americas-idea-of-illegal-immigration-doesnt-always-match-reality [npr.org]
"That is to say, Mexican immigrants are a shrinking majority of the population living in the country through illegal immigration.
Of people living in the U.S. illegally, more than half are from Mexico. The population from that one country far outnumbers the population from entire continents.
You can see the trend lines clearly if you look just at people arriving in the U.S. illegally, instead of the millions who live here. The percentage arriving from Mexico has dropped markedly, while more immigrants are coming from Africa, Central America and Asia."
More on that 8 year nonsense: http://cis.org/New-Data-Immigration-Surged-in-2014-and-2015 [cis.org]
Now, if you're attempting to say that fewer illegals have been apprehended during the O'Bummer years, this helps to explain that - http://cis.org/ICE-Illegal-Immigrant-Deportations [cis.org]
Oh - let me apologize. You didn't make that manure up all by yourself. Cory Doctorow? Blogger, journalist, and Sci-Fi author? He knows illegal aliens, how? Oh - his daddy is an Azerbaijanni, making Cory a second gen immigrant. In Canada, mind you. And THEN, Cory immigrated to England. He probably has some sense of kinship to immigrants, because he are one. "I'm an immigrant, and I can tell you, IMMIGRANTS ARE GOOD!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow [wikipedia.org]
Got any more citations?
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday March 11 2017, @08:03PM (1 child)
- Breaking News Consumer's Handbook: Migration Edition (At Home) [wnyc.org]
I suppose you think NPR is biased as well, but that is the source Cory cited.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:37AM
Biased? Of course - they are all biased. But NPR is still a fairly decent source. Indivicuals at NPR may be more or less left-minded, but overall, their reporting is less "deplorable" than some of the other news sources.
And, that does bring me back to my oft-repeated refrain. Every president, and every congress, for the past fifty years has FAILED TO ADDRESS IMMIGRATION!! They have a crappy, broken system that is proven not to work, but only a very small handful of individuals have really worked to fix the system. Politics get in the way, and the broken system remains.
If any one congress had actually rolled up their sleeves, and got to work on the issue, me might have any number of variations on a "just" law. But, we don't have anything that can even claim to be a "just" law.
For instance - that anchor baby thing. Bear with me, alright?
I insist that the amendment had a very specific purpose, and was intended for a specific group of people, that being freed slaves, and the children of former slaves. Any black person born in America automatically became a citizen when freed from slavery, and all of his/her descendants were also citizens.
Today, we see foreigners using that loophole to bestow US citizenship upon their children, and getting around any and all naturalization requirements. The Chinese are doing it, the Mexicans are doing it, and everyone else is doing it to far lesser degrees.
Congress has never addressed the issue. It would be so very simple for them to pass a law, amend the law, strengthen the law, or whatever.
IF CONGRESS were to flat out state that congress approves of the current practice of dropping an anchor baby to secure permanent residency in the US, and the President signed off on it, then it would be the "law of the land". I wouldn't like it, but it would be the law, and it would deprive me of my stance that it is illegal. I could still argue that it was "wrong", but it would obviously be "legal".
If, on the other hand, congress clearly stated that it was never the intent to bestow citizenship upon every baby accidentally (or otherwise) born on US soil - then the practice would stop. Congress could clearly state that a Chinese citizen woman naturally gives birth to a Chinese citizen woman, and a Mexican citizen woman gives birth to a Mexican citizen baby - and it doesn't matter where they give birth.
All in all, our government has failed to govern. And, that is my biggest single complaint. All my other arguments regarding immigration, citizenship, and related issues would become moot, if only congress would do it's job.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 11 2017, @01:28PM
So maybe many illegal aliens cancelled their visits to home, for fearing they could not return? That certainly would reduce border hopping.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:06AM
Hey now, that wall will be TREMENDOUS! Awesome stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @04:16AM
the CEO is bouncing around tweeting wild-ass ideas and promising the moon
We call him "the President*" now.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 11 2017, @06:30AM
Imagine being a front line employee of a company where the CEO is bouncing around tweeting wild-ass ideas and promising the moon -- and you're the guy who has to fulfill the promises...
So long as it's rockets and not flashy GUIs it sounds like my dream job!
(Score: 2) by n1 on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:12AM (8 children)
he dreams big and there is apparently many people willing to keep letting him burn billions of dollars on negative cash flow businesses with no end in sight.... most people who dream big do not have access to that kind of financing, nor will anyone believe a business model that's always so close to becoming profitable, until the next big idea that needs another funding round.
and as charon said, it's not elon that has to deliver these things, it's the engineers and suppliers involved. other elements of his businesses do suffer with all these distractions and new gimmicks.
musk is building a cult of personality and filling the void of Steve jobs, but also appeals to a bigger audience due to the technology he's implementing.
his history in fintech should not be forgotten either, that's what this is all really about... becoming part of the infrastructure, too big to fail, more finacialisation of energy and transport despite a decentralised approach.
dreaming big is great, but the details matter too. we can all dream big but not many have opportunity to replicate his 'success' ... he's an innovator and disruptor in the most amenable way possible to the industries he's in. big business in energy, space and auto industries may envy him, but they do not feel threatened by his big ideas, it's right in their ball park.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Saturday March 11 2017, @12:39AM (4 children)
it's not elon that has to deliver these things, it's the engineers and suppliers involved.
Sounds like just an excuse for a cop out, setting yourself up for failure and mediocrity. It's Elon's job to PUSH his engineers. And at the end of the day if it fails, not one single engineer has his name in the newspaper. It's egg on Elon's face, not the engineers. It's up to Elon to judge the risk of making such statements. So far he's done ok. Oh wait are you another one of these TSLA will never amount to anything they'll never be able to deliver lol electric cars people? If it wasn't for TSLA I doubt very much GM, Toyota and others would be putting ANY R&D dollars into electric vehicles. Even if he doesn't ultimately succeed, he's moved the electric vehicle market further forward in 10 years than it has in the past 50. And Jeff Bezos says he can make a better, cheaper rocket than Musk. GOOD! If Musk wasn't around I doubt Bezos would even be bothering.
When exactly did it become wrong to try to make things happen?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:39AM (2 children)
And at the end of the day if it fails, not one single engineer has his name in the newspaper. It's egg on Elon's face, not the engineers.
At least you can eat eggs.
If it fails, Elon's still going to have millions in the bank.
Those engineers will be out of a job, with mortgages and college tuitions to pay.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:12AM (1 child)
Those engineers will be out of a job, with mortgages and college tuitions to pay.
Failing to deliver batteries to Australia will put those engineers out of a job? I think you're being a little dramatic. Would they have more job security working at GM? Are you trying to say that innovation be damned, jobs come FIRST? Whatever you do, don't risk today's job? If that was the case, we would still be spending 100% of our time as hunter-gatherers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @05:21AM
Yet another disingenuous restatement.
We aren't just talking about one specific gamble.
We are talking about Tesla as a going concern. See n1's post up thread about fintech, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:49AM
When exactly did it become wrong to try to make things happen?
Ugh. That's one of those shitty, kelly-anne conway style disenguous restatements of the premise that indicate you don't give a damn about honest discussion, you just want to cheer for your team. If your goal was to prove that nobody should take anything you say about Musk seriously, then you've succeeded in spades.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 11 2017, @03:36AM
See my response to Charon, above, please.
People in all industries do the same thing. Other corporations in other industries are far less visible than Musk, and his endeavors. No one notices when a plant in Iowa, or Maine, or even Los Angeles folds, due to a CEO's crap decisions. It's just another failed business venture, and a handful of investors lose whatever they invested.
With Elon Musk, there are a lot of investors, and a lot of people have high expectations. If Musk fails at something, a lot more people are disappointed. Ehhh - it happens. Remember the Titanic, and her sister ship, the Britannic.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 11 2017, @02:30PM (1 child)
That's one way to view the impact of Elon's vision on the engineers and suppliers, but there's another way, too. It could be that those engineers and suppliers are exasperated and exhausted trying to fulfill on that vision thing of his, but don't you think that there might be a good deal of pride and excitement that they're literally building the future with a guy who's literally reaching for the stars?
My brother is an engineer at Ford. For years he has felt like shooting himself in the head every day rather than go in and work for Ford management. Finally after years of angling for it he got into the R&D division. Is he happy now that he's doing cutting edge stuff? No, because he still has to deal with Ford management. The move to R&D is just a stepping stone to go work for Tesla, which is doing really cool, exciting stuff. That's his dream job.
There will always be tension between leadership and fulfillment. But in Tesla's case you get that incredibly rare opportunity to work for a manager who's an engineer, too, and who has some idea, based in reality, of what's possible and what isn't.
No? Then why is Mercedes, as reported on Soylent, suddenly scrambling to come up with their own luxury EV after Tesla's Model S displaced its cars as the luxury sedan segment leader? Why is nearly every major brand now rushing to switch their production lines from ICEs to EVs? On the energy front, why are fossil fuel companies being downgraded by debt rating agencies?
They are threatened by his big ideas, but trying to paper things over with PR campaigns and pay-offs to politicians while they scramble behind the scenes. But if the inside baseball stuff my brother tells me about his company are indicative, they will not get there in time before Tesla has seized a huge share of several markets.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @08:18PM
100% correct. Established corporations have become lazy and visionless due to the way they are managed. When all that matters is showing a bit of growth and return every quarter, all you get is more of the same, with minute incremental improvements, and cut backs. Real progress never happens because it's too risky.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:45AM
(Not that AC)
I don't have a problem with Elon, really. I do take issue with his fanboys, though.
For instance, could we just take this story for what it is? Elon Musk is not promising to fix South Australia's Power Network. A pretty large battery producer say he can fill a huge order in relatively little time. And he is not even talking about the price, or who is going to pay for it (barring the case that he doesn't know how much his own factories can produce).
How large of an order? Well, right here on my desk, I have two 18650s each sporting slightly above 10Wh nominal capacity. I bought the pair for slightly below 10$ incl. shipping, retail price. It's hard to figure out from the article what capacity we're actually talking about, but it appears to be somewhere on the order of 10.000.000 times that much, or a production of 100.000 pairs of batteries a day, or an order worth some $100M (not including any discount for volume, but, admittedly, also ignoring the components surrounding the bare batteries). Impressive production numbers, yes, but not exactly earth-shaking. Also the bet is just a tiny bit above what most of us would be willing to put at stake, but not exactly the equivalent of gambling all of Elon's possessions. Or in other words: Yes, that's pretty cool. But the public awe he's getting for it does seem a bit out of proportion, this time around.