Note From The Curator
Here are the top 3 stories in this issue of Elon Musk News:
- Tesla Makes Offer to Acquire SolarCity
- Elon Musk has been thinking about consolidating his companies for a while, SpaceX could be next
- SpaceX discusses progress toward human missions of Dragon/Falcon 9
It's been an eventful few days in the world of Elon Musk. The biggest story by far is Tesla's offer to acquire SolarCity. For Musk it's a no brainer - it would make Tesla the world’s only vertically integrated energy company.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy issue 19!
Sincerely,
Zachary K.D.
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Featured Quote
"The exit rate of cells from Gigafactory will be faster than bullets from a machine gun."
— Elon Musk
Quote from Electrek | Photo from Heisenberg Media
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Elon Musk News
The Tesla-SolarCity deal explained through some amazing quotes by Elon Musk
Elon Musk held a conference call and explained how the merging of the two companies will create an interesting offering on the product side. Tesla’s CEO said that the company needs to integrate the required hardware for a solar installation into its home battery pack solutions in order to get the cost down by avoiding the duplication of hardware. The company would need to partner with solar installers to make that happen, but since Musk is also a shareholder of SolarCity, the US’ largest solar installer, Tesla can’t be seen as giving the company special treatment.
“If we give a special deal to SolarCity and SolarCity is not part of Tesla… then why are we doing that?” By acquiring the company, Tesla would become vertically integrated in terms of solar & storage solutions and it wouldn’t need a deal with a solar installer. “It makes the execution a lot easier, and cleaner, and more effective.”
He added that Tesla will become the perfect example of an energy company in a sustainable energy future: “A sustainable energy future will be primarily solar (on the energy production side) and virtually entirely electric vehicles (on the energy consumption side).”
Read the full article | Photo from Wikimedia
SpaceX
Elon Musk has been thinking about consolidating his companies for a while, SpaceX could be next
A reader pointed us to an obscure comment made by Elon years ago about creating a holding corporation for his companies. In an online Q&A back in 2012, Musk answered a question about the movement of capital between Tesla and SpaceX:
“They are separate corporations, so capital cannot be moved between them. Am starting to consider whether it would make sense to create a parent corporation that would own the stock, which would make that easier. Not sure if that is feasible or sensible, but am thinking about it."
The offer on SolarCity is contingent on a vote from the shareholders and Musk will abstain from voting his shares due to his vested interest in the deal. Depending on how smoothly it proceeds, Musk could evaluate doing something similar with SpaceX.
Read the full article | Photo from SpaceX
SpaceX discusses progress toward human missions of Dragon/Falcon 9
[SpaceX is] using the propulsive landings as a way to practically and physically test landing systems in a near-Mars atmospheric environment. “Earth’s upper atmosphere is also a really good analogue for Mars’ atmosphere,” noted Reisman [theDirector of Space Operations for SpaceX]. “When you get up high enough, the density and consistency of the atmosphere is very similar to what you face during Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) on Mars.
“So every time we land, we take one of these rockets and we perform hypersonic retrograde propulsion, the data from which we’re sharing with JPL because it’s the first time this has ever been demonstrated on a major scale.” To this end, Reisman pointed out that the Falcon 9 first stage landings are really serving as test beds for the EDL systems of eventual Mars missions.
While SpaceX continues to work on refining its Falcon 9 landing capabilities and the data that provides for EDL operations on Mars, the company is also progressing toward a series of several major upcoming milestones to enable human flights on Dragon.
Read the full article | Photo from SpaceX
SpaceX Shares Photos of Crew Dragon, the Capsule That Will Carry Astronauts
In 2017, SpaceX hopes to prove itself and release NASA from its reliance on the Russian Space program with its first-ever crewed flight to the International Space Station aboard the company’s Crew Dragon vessel, which is a passenger-carrying version of the upgraded Dragon 2 spacecraft.
This week, Elon Musk’s company shared photos of the crew capsule undergoing testing, giving us the latest glimpse at how humans will travel to space in the coming years. The photo shows the first of two “test articles” undergoing structural load tests, which are designed to mimic the forces and pressures felt during launch and reentry. “When we transport astronauts on Crew Dragon to the International Space Station next year, it will be within one of these pressure vessels that over the coming months will turn into a fully functional spacecraft,” SpaceX explained.
This article also includes a great video of the Crew Dragon interior.
Read the full article | Photo from SpaceX
Pancaked SpaceX Falcon Pulls into Port After Trio of Spectacular Landings
The pancaked leftovers of a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage from last week’s successful commercial launch but hard landing at sea, pulled silently and without fanfare into its home port over the weekend. The booster basically crashed on the drone ship because it descended too quickly due to insufficient thrust from the descent engines. The rocket apparently ran out of fuel in the final moments before droneship touchdown. “Looks like early liquid oxygen depletion caused engine shutdown just above the deck,” Musk explained via a twitter post.
Read the full article | Photo from USLaunchReport
Tesla
Tesla Makes Offer to Acquire SolarCity
The following is part of a blog post written by Tesla Motors.
Tesla’s mission has always been tied to sustainability. We seek to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transportation by offering increasingly affordable electric vehicles. And in March 2015, we launched Tesla Energy, which through the Powerwall and Powerpack allow homeowners, business owners and utilities to benefit from renewable energy storage.
It’s now time to complete the picture. Tesla customers can drive clean cars and they can use our battery packs to help consume energy more efficiently, but they still need access to the most sustainable energy source that’s available: the sun.
The SolarCity team has built its company into the clear solar industry leader in the residential, commercial and industrial markets, with significant scale and growing customer penetration. They have made it easy for customers to switch to clean energy while still providing the best customer experience. We’ve seen this all firsthand through our partnership with SolarCity on a variety of use cases, including those where SolarCity uses Tesla battery packs as part of its solar projects.
So, we’re excited to announce that Tesla today has made an offer to acquire SolarCity.
Read the full article | Photo from electrek
Elon Musk sees Tesla (TSLA) becoming a trillion dollar market cap company with the SolarCity (SCTY) merger
During a conference call discussing the rationale surrounding Tesla’s (TSLA) offer to acquire SolarCity (SCTY) this morning, Elon Musk made a bold claim, something not unusual for the billionaire entrepreneur, he said that he sees potential for Tesla to become a trillion-dollar market cap company – which would be a first.
As of yesterday’s market close, Tesla was valued at $32 billion and the deal to buy SolarCity is valued at about $2.9 billion. Based on the current outstanding share count, the stock would be valued at ~$6,843 per share versus the last closing price of $219. It’s not the first time that Musk suggested that Tesla could become the most valuable company in the world. Apple is currently the biggest public company by market cap with $525 billion and last year, Tesla’s CEO said that the automaker could surpass Apple’s market cap sometime in the next decade.
Read the full article | Photo from Maurizio Pesce
New Tesla Model 3 prototype pictures with rare shot of the interior
Earlier this week, we got to see what was likely the first Tesla Model 3 prototype testing on public roads in Palo Alto, near Tesla’s headquarters, and new we get now pictures of the vehicle with a rare look at the interior just a few days later.
While Tesla agreed to loan a prototype to Motor Trend earlier this year, the automaker refused the publication access to shoot the interior of the vehicle, which is expected to change significantly in the production version. Tesla’s own promotional pictures never featured the interior.
Read the full article | Photo from Electrek
Tesla's New Gigafactory: 10 Mind-Boggling Stats in the Construction Permits
BuildZoom, a construction contractor marketplace, has done the legwork on Tesla’s building permits for the Gigafactory, and the results are absolutely ridiculous. BuildZoom combed through all 84 of the individual permits issued to Tesla to build stuff (like giant refrigerator rooms and earthquake-proof foundations), and put out a report on the factory, which has some pretty stunning information.
Hyperloop
The Hyperloop may be heading to Moscow, thanks to a mysterious Russian billionaire
Hyperloop One, an LA-based startup working to realize Elon Musk's dream of 760-mph tube-based transportation, announced today that it struck a partnership with the city of Moscow thanks to the support of a mysterious Russian oligarch. The startup and the Summa Group, a Russian port and oil business owned by billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov, says it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Moscow to explore connecting the city's transportation grid to the Hyperloop. It's also further evidence that the first Hyperloop is likely to be built in a country other than the US.
The agreement was signed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. It's Hyperloop One's first MOU with a foreign government, bringing it up to speed with its main rival, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which last March signed an agreement with the government of Slovakia. The startup now has feasibility studies underway in Finland and Sweden, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Dubai, the Port of Los Angeles, and the UK.
On June 16th, Pishevar (Hyperloop One co-founder) posted a photo from a meeting he attended with over a dozen wealthy Russian investors and President Vladimir Putin, whom Pishevar noted was particularly enamored with the Hyperloop. "Putin called on me as last word to talk and then responded," Pishevar wrote. "Spoke on Sherpa, Uber and Hyperloop One. Putin said Hyperloop will fundamentally change the global economy."
OpenAI
Why OpenAI Wants to Teach Robots to Do Your Chores
OpenAI, a nonprofit created by Elon Musk and other tech entrepreneurs to make fundamental breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, has said that one of its big goals will be teaching robots to do the laundry and other household chores. OpenAI doesn’t want to make robot hardware itself but, rather, to supply the brains for off-the-shelf bots.
You might think that learning to fold underpants is a modest goal, but such dexterity and adaptability is one of the grand challenges of robotics. It also fits with the organization’s stated objective to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole.” Applying the sort of machine-learning techniques OpenAI is working on to robotics should, in fact, have huge practical benefits, and it will be a necessary component of any more general form of artificial intelligence.
Read the full article | Photo from Boston Dynamics
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