heads up: more roadblocks for Tesla

He's got 3 different "balls to the wall" projects going on right now with HUGE goals. Land on the moon style goals. I would love for some of these other rich guys to get involved with lofty projects like this but one man doing all of this is just... something is going to give.

sure does. he's just went otr about going to Mars by 2018
'
April 27 announcement from Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, that he intends to launch his first unmanned Mars mission in just two years and will beat NASA?s goal of putting astronauts on the surface in the 2030s by up to a decade.

Elon Musk's 2018 Mars Shot

sure is a warning sign

Why did they leave? Bigger paychecks elsewhere?

they aren't really saying. the latest, the top guy over production's excuse was along the lines of "taking a break". publically, he doesn't have a new gig lined up. i would imagine if the execs are being poached, it would come out. like with Apple's poaching.

pretty good article in Wired today:


Musk, apparently feeling his company isn?t under quite enough pressure, upped the ante during Wednesday?s call, saying he?ll deliver 100,000 cars by the end of 2017 and hit the half-million threshold in 2018.

It?s hard to understate the challenge ahead.

Yes, Tesla has enjoyed tremendous success with the Model S, and the Model X is undeniably cool. But that?s nickel-and-dime stuff compared to what Musk wants to do with the 3. ?It is an amazing achievement to engineer, build and market 50,000 examples of one model in a hotly competitive global market, as Tesla has done,? says Jack Nerad, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book. ?It is a far more difficult assignment to reach the 500,000-unit sales mark with a multi-vehicle line.?


Hitting the benchmarks Musk outlined demands moving like the old-school automakers Musk so joyously ridicules. Tesla must ramp up capacity, develop a reliable supply chain, and finish the enormous Gigafactory battery plant under construction in the desert east of Reno, Nevada.

No less importantly, Musk must kick his habit of blowing deadlines?although he always makes good on his word, he usually does so two years later than promised?and master the logistics of a market segment that operates on a vast scale and small margins.

Tesla Just Made Its Huge Model 3 Challenge Even Huger | WIRED

I'm continually amazed that Musk has been able to run this scam and enrich himself for so long.
As soon as the billions in subsidies runs out, so does his ability to run his scam.

Did space? The military? The USGS?

Some things have to be done for the good of the planet and/or society. Reigning carbon in, reducing dependence on other countries and reducing the damage a large producer of all sorts of pollution (air, water and land) sounds like a great place to start.

Reduced air quality (not counting climate related issues) has a tremendous cost in terms of dollars as well as life expectancy.

Add the Internet to that list. Modern computers as well.

The WWII era brought a swathe of new technologies to the world that were created by joint efforts of business, universities (government), and the military (government.)

apple has been doing a great deal of headhunting recently from Tesla.. with the upcoming 'icar' or whatever, probably something with that