Corporation/Company
I hate that people are glazing a billionaire for the work of engineers.
I am well aware this is a crazy cool feat of engineering, however everyone keeps praising Elon Musk for it. Such a stunt probably took a team of some of the smartest engineers in the automotive industry, yet this stunt has Elons name in every post and article talking about it. The guy couldn’t even make a paper airplane glide if he tried.
I really don't think this has anything to do with "this is going to be for sale" or even "this is useful on a road", to me it just seems like it's comparable to a concept car.
While it's primarily for marketing purposes, things like this can also be used to test some limits of what they can do (even if it's completely useless). Playing around doing dumb shit can sometimes help people learn about some actually useful things.
I'd imagine many engineers would love working on stuff like this, so doing wild stunts can even help keep workers happy.
If they've actually stated that they're planning to install those on a car that is both on sale and drivable on a public road, I want to see where this was said lol.
My first reaction when seeing this was "this would probably be used as part of a crash/rollover technology to stop the car sooner or less catastrophically." And then I remembered that this is just a stunt by a huge company endorsed by a billionaire for publicity akin to the office people having a hotdog/burger party outside to celebrate the company in a "team building" exercise.
It's still pretty cool as a spectacle though fwiw. That said, I still ain't buying that shit lol
Musks goal is to fool dumb people into thinking he cares about Mars.
He knows he's not getting to Mars in his lifetime. It's a grift, just like everything else. As long as he keeps selling it, and you keep buying it - He's never going to quit.
The point of that it's just to make a WOW effect. You know, convince a bunch of shareholders that you are doing something revolutionary, maybe make some idiots believe in that flying car bullcrap and never mention it again.
Tesla’s business model is essentially to make a big splash every year or so with some crazy new impractical “innovation,” tout it as the future of technology, and this keeps shareholders and customers confident in the company’s abilities, enough to distract from how mediocre their cars are.
But once the expo is over they just kind of drop it. Do you remember the CyberTaxi? or the Hyperloop? Or those supposedly autonomous robots that were just being controlled backstage? The goal is just to make the company look as innovative as possible, not make anything that anyone will ever use.
Of course, sometimes they do go ahead with these incredibly impractical designs, which is how we get something like the cybertruck.
There are like 700 of those operating today in Austin
the Hyperloop?
Pipedream (literally)
those supposedly autonomous robots that were just being controlled backstage?
Apparently they've made 10,000 of them so far. Also they're not the only company making humanoid robots. There's even companies who have popped up specifically just to make equipment for people to wear while working at a factory or doing things like cleaning tables so that they can acquire training data.
I think that over a million cars struggle with staying on the road in high winds, slick roads, and steep inclines, and other severe weather conditions every year.
Assuming that the car sticks to the wall using some sort of fans, that could be a potentially valuable avenue of research in lowering that massive number.
The only place such a mechanism has any hope of functioning is on a racetrack. Neither the suction nor the jets will ever be used on public roads, they are both far too unsafe and too useless on regular roads.
The only thing I could see this as being useful for is accident avoidance, and even then it would be difficult to implement. I mean, imagine your stopped in traffic and a semi truck loses its breaks while heading straight at you and your car just yeets itself to safety. Or another car is heading at you head on and your car just hops over them as they zoom under you.
Would be shocking as hell, but when you roll away without a scratch, you might really thank that type of system. If it could work like that.
The only thing I could imagine it being used for is if you are in a horrible roll-over accident and maybe preventing the roll from actually occurring, assuming all the mechanical parts are still intact and working.
People forget that Elon didnt even create tesla lol. It was founded by two completely unrelated people and later was financed and bought by Elon (a humble multi-millionaire at the time). He was the "fuck-off" money guy while dozens and dozens of actually smart engineers stayed behind the curtains.
Im not saying that financing is bad, im saying that taking credit for the creative process while you were a sponsor is bad.
Steve Jobs made actually impactful decisions that pulled Apple away from bankruptcy. It’s undeniable that Apple wouldn’t have succeeded if it wasn’t for Jobs.
As someone who has worked on a vintage Macintosh, I really don't like what Steve Jobs did to Apple. Anything he touched after Woz left was just an unrepairable un-upgradable piece of shit with an artsy design and massive price tag.
It was like watching a company sell its soul in real time, from pirates with a dream of making computing more accessible for everyone turned into a designer branded walled garden with profit margins that would make the devil blush.
Not necessarily. Engineers still need good management and apparently (this is pure hearsay) Steve had a good sense for how to put his reality distortion field into effect and get tight deadlines in to get engineers to deliver. There might be something to it given the pedigree of engineers who ended up at Apple
And Tesla wouldnt be where it is today had Musk not come in and poured cash and direction into it. Still doesn't make him an engineer just like it never made Jobs an engineer. They were good sales people and monstrous managers who knew when their people were broken and ready to be replaced.
I say this as a Silicon Valley guy who works in devices but hates CEOs… Jobs was genuinely a product visionary. He had a lot of misses along the way, but he really nailed the direction of where things were going, and the engineers stepped in and executed it. It was complementary.
The difference here is that the product vision is outlandish and completely useless. It’s just an engineering exercise.
Unironically relatable, guns are so fucking cool. If there's one thing I want to do in my life, going to an airsoft arena and gun range is definitely on that list, along with rifle hunting.
That's me upon hearing that Trump's go-to order at mcdonalds is over 2000 calories. I hate the guy but I thought to myself "fuck I wish I could eat like that at 80"
Its clear that they referred to the part where they said the car is cool, many ppl on this site will never admit anything thats is associated with elon might be cool.
Well most people just say they hate everything he does and its all going to fail. Like especially for SpaceX saying all his rockets explode and its a failure and the like. When obviously that's not true and its insanely impressive.
People especially on reddit do this for anyone unpopular.
This is how I feel when I can’t openly enjoy a movie with a shitty director (or anything similar). Like, the actors, makeup artists, even lighting engineers and boom mic operators can do a great job but because of some allegations on the person getting credit people will judge you for saying the end product is enjoyable or impressive.
Of course I still can’t contribute to the hype of tesla/spaceX because as long as it’s successful, government officials and such will take it as a sign to keep throwing (our) money at the douche instead of replacing him of giving jobs to their workers at a company without shitpiss leadership. There’s few ways to communicate that message without full boycotting.
Funny how this is the second roadster reveal for the second Tesla Roadster, after the first one was a miserable death trap (battery fires, they didn't even think to check for that until they were drunk and at a party and felt like it), sure they have one there, could call it the Roadster 3. They had a Roadster 2 back in 2018, we were meant to get it at some point, I can guarantee this'll go the exact same way. Predicting the fourth roadster design for 2032
It’s also just a repurposing of SpaceX landing/ recovering thrusters like falcon and star ship. It’s impressive but thats what they did. The really hard engineering was already done. They could do this with any object you can mount those thrusters too. Cool stunt.
This is a ground breaking inovation for 2 reasons.
If we are capable of doing this random ass stunt, we are capable of making a system that when car crashes and goes flying, the system can rebalance the car not to hit the ground too hard, at bad angle or other stuff..
And the second one being is a proof that we can somehow make cars fly.
Edit: We are still MILES away from those, this is going to be absolutely illegal to drive on roads. It´s just a step closer that shows us what is possible in modern engineering
Neither of those are groundbreaking. For your first point gyroscopic correctional systems, which is really all this is, have been a thing for years. The issue is implementing in a car without the car costing boat load of money which was not shown here. To your second point, the main issue with flying cars isn't the propulsion, its having enough fuel for lomg distance travel using the propulsion which again this did not move the needle on. Now if the car was relatively cheap or could fly for more then a few minutes then that would be groundbreaking but this isn't anything novel.
You say that as if it isn't, in fact, a random ass stunt and as if 'we' includes us the lower-than-eight-figures crowd. A trillionaire having the means of rigging this setup tells me nothing I didn't already know.
They really think this car is not basically a super-light shell that could never function as a real car, and that it would be at all practical to have a bunch of cars just carrying around super-pressurized air. Any country with any sense of self-preservation would make this shit illegal, even if it were ever commercially used and not just an investor stunt (which this is).
I thought this image of him colapsed when he started his stupid behavior and expressed right wing opinions. Apparently some people still believe he is a genious
Its not even that cool. Its like a prop you'd use for a movie. Thats a bit of an exageration but this car is probably gutted *as hell* and ultimately is just, compressed air. We've been able to use compressed air to rocket things for a long time. I'm fairly confident this will *never* make it to market.
The flip car and the ramp car are two different props, with the flip car not having the vacuum seal equipment the ramp car supposedly has, and neither having anywhere near the weight of an actual tesla.
It reminds me of how a lot of low quality vfx/cgi scenes in movies are purposely set at night so that the darkness can hide all the props and inconsistencies.
How is that thing ever going to get a safety celarance? Currently there is no license that allows for handling such a vehicle on public roads. It would also be a PR nightmare the first time an owner ejects himself into a building, train or a crowd of people. This thing will never see the light of day.
It's not. If it were any other company people would understand this is a publicity stunt. I mean, I expect most people do understand that, even a lot of the Musk fans.
Is it a cool feat of engineering? It's a cool stunt that's about it. This has no real world application. It's so bad Elon actually could've had the idea. A brick with thrusters. Looks like scifi but will never work.
For starters, there’s no way I’m using a flying feature on my daily drive to work. It’s useless. Second, I’m damn sure that thing is just an empty chassis. Third, that shit is gonna be a major safety hazard. Imagine a drunk driver with that car careening into a skyscraper to recreate 9/11 on a mini scale.
It basically is useless now, but that’s how innovation works. Now just improve on it and make it into something that can be useful for science or the general public.
What engineering was done here? This is nothing different than a prop car for a movie and that kind of thing has been done for literal decades. No one deserves praise for this in any way.
Yep, and people who have absolutely no sense of whimsy or wonder, policing others on how they should feel about this, and being offended if people find it cool, because at the very least in a vacuum, its cool as hell.
I guess those engineers should have just gotten together, decided what to do, set goals, and pooled their money all on their own so they would get sole credit.
I’m certain there were managers who did the goal setting and overall planning that weren’t the guy who “runs” 8 companies and shitposts all day on twitter
Because Musk is paying for all of it, that's why he's getting credit. Being an engineer is cool and all, but without money you aren't building anything.
No. SpaceX and Tesla paid for it. See how you’re doing exactly what the post is talking about? Attributing the feats of incredible people to the incompetent, morbidly obese figure head who does nothing and has accomplished nothing.
Your annoyance is valid, but beyond that...why the fuck should any of us care about this to begin with.
The dude funding a fascist party takeover in our country is throwing money at needless spectacle and the pigs are eating it up.
Someone has to bring those engineers together, give them the space to create, and give them the tools and the capital to make crazy shit like this happen. I don’t think anyone believes that Elon made this car… but he was a huge part of making it happen regardless. This whole “they don’t contribute anything” schtick has gotta end. Just outing yourself for not understanding everything else that goes into creating a thing beyond actually creating the thing. This is super cool stuff… and no, it’s not practical, but pretty awesome nonetheless. A lot of people out here trying to make innovative shit like this impossible… which is exactly where attitude’s like OP’s leads.
What’s funny is that if Tesla becomes bankrupt tomorrow nobody will be blaming the engineers. The CEOs are the face of the company idk why people are confuse by this.
Bringing people together and actually contributing to the work is not the same thing, and that should never have to be explained to anyone. Elon Musk did not contribute any research or long work nights to this. He did not have physically go into the lab and work with other scientists to figure this out.
So no he was not a huge part of this at all, the only involvement he had was being the boss that gets all the credit. Without using Google and only using your memory can you name 3 of the engineers? Can you say what their role was in the development of the car?
Are we really here pretending that Elon isn't using this to pump Teslas stocks? As if this is going to go anywhere? Are we really pretending that he has the track record to dispute that?
I'm so happy I didn't get on that gravy train in 2021, I'd be humiliated to be part of this nearly-literal shark jumping episode.
It’s no doubt impressive but a flying car is a useless invention. This whole thing is just a stunt to get those cattle aka investors hyped for another Elon vanity project
Also, there is no shape or form in which this utility will not ultimately kill other people if used in the wild. It's a wild stunt to pull, but completely impractical. it's like they're convinced that people will need this instead of just having better road safety through licenses and training.
Also I hate that I've seen this shitty viral ad going around more than the fact that elon musk is nearly funding Donald Trump's mid term election on his own by the tune of $125+ mill, and I don't see people getting angry enough about the idea of a trillionaire turning america and it's people into a joke.
Convenient he released this after urging Trump to throttle and kill Starshield in Ukraine. Almost like it's a distraction for all the deaths he is directly responsible for.
Is it neat? Okay. Is it a waste of money stock pump that will produce 0 results like every other Roadster? You tell me. Im sure it will have full self driving and bulletproof glass, just like the Cybertruck does.
Seeing the Tesla roadster fly was just like watching that Spider-Man animatronic at Disney. Impressive? Sure. Real? Hell no. It was a performance, a cool one at that but that’s all it is
It's also the stupidest goddamn thing. It probably costs a bazillion dollars to burn fossil fuels to make his dumbshit cars do cirque du Soleil gay sex in mid air shit
just like you are praising engineers and are forgetting about the very often exploited workers that are necessary for any car like that to be built (Cobalt digging, nickel smelting, graphite mining, copper extraction... )
"The guy couldn’t even make a paper airplane glide if he tried."
yeah and an average Tesla engineer would not last a day working in often dangerous, unhealthy, tiring and low paying conditions that these laborers work in
I hate that people are ripping apart the work of engineers for the sake of rich and powerful politicians that hate the billionaire funding the engineers.
It's not even impressive, the technology to do this has existed forever. They're just showing this to get people excited about a brand that has nothing new to offer on its lines of overpriced, underbuilt garbage.
Not to mention that is 1,000,000,000,000% not a production model, but a MEGA lightweight version just to show this tech.
There is a -1,000,000,000,000% chance that a full weight 3,700lb production street legal version will be able to do this. It absolutely is not possible.
Fun fact to keep in mind whenever you see headlines glazing him: Elon Musk is directly responsible for the deaths of over 700,000 of the world's poorest people!
If Elon Musk had not cut USAID funding, over 700,000 people who relied on USAID-funded programs would still be alive. It's simplistic because it was a very simple (and easily predictable) outcome to a stupid goddamn decision.
It's not even that crazy cool, it can fly for like two minutes and would take hours to recompress the air for the thrusters. It was impressive when SpaceX did it with rockets -- this is just that same technology applied to something silly and pointless.
It’s not cool to put thrusters on a car and flip and jump it? It’s ducking awesome man. Elon sucks but like this is a cool feet of engineering and that cases real engineer talent. You can still think musk sucks but also think it’s awesome what they made.
No one has done it before because it's stupid. Its like when he released roofing touches as flame throwers. He may be one of the best BS artist to do it. I'll give him that
well, actually - the car is self filling for the thrusters. they're using compressed air - not any actual fuel for it. it has a built in compressor as well. I think its awesome honestly.
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u/IudexJudy 7h ago
Wait you're telling me musk didn't build this with his bare hands??