Featured Quote
"The probability of having an accident is 50% lower if you have Autopilot on… Even with this early version, it’s almost twice as good as a person."
— Elon Musk
Photo from Steve Jurvetson, Quote from Electrek
Elon Musk News
Inside OpenAI, Elon Musk’s Wild Plan to Set Artificial Intelligence Free
OpenAI is a billion-dollar effort to push AI as far as it will go. In both how the company came together and what it plans to do, you can see the next great wave of innovation forming. We’re a long way from knowing whether OpenAI itself becomes the main agent for that change. But the forces that drove the creation of this rather unusual startup show that the new breed of AI will not only remake technology, but remake the way we build technology.
Elon Musk is doing for executive compensation what he did for electric cars
Elon Musk is now getting a $37,584 salary, which he doesn’t accept, and no cash bonus.
Elon Musk's Vision for the Future
In this interview from 2015 Elon shares his predictions for artificial intelligence, renewable energy, space exploration, and more.
SpaceX
SpaceX breaks Boeing-Lockheed monopoly on military space launches
The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday awarded billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX an $83 million contract to launch a GPS satellite, breaking the monopoly that Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co have held on military space launches for more than a decade.
SpaceX’s Plan to Reach Mars by 2018 Is … Actually Not That Crazy
Launching a rocket is hard. But it is easy compared to landing a spacecraft on a planet... If you’ve kept up with SpaceX’s saga of landing rockets on barges, you’ll know that this is going to be hard. Although not impossible. Mars’ low gravity—about one-third that of Earth’s—will help. As will all the practice SpaceX is getting by crash-landing (and sometimes actual-landing) Falcon 9s on oceanic barges.
Tweet this | Photo from SpaceX
Tesla
Tesla’s Autopilot lowers probability of having an accident by 50% based on early data, says Musk
Elon Musk on Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system:
The probability of having an accident is 50% lower if you have Autopilot on. Even with our first version. So we can see basically what’s the average number of kilometers to an accident – accident defined by airbag deployment. Even with this early version, it’s almost twice as good as a person.
I think it’s going to be important in term of satisfying regulators and the public to show statistically with a large amount of data – with billions of kilometers of driving – to say that the safety level is definitively better, by a meaningful margin, if it’s autonomous versus non-autonomous.
Tweet this | Photo from Tesla
Elon Musk says Tesla’s next-gen Model 4 will be affordable for everyone
With something like the Model 3, it's designed such that roughly half the people can afford the car... With fourth generation and smaller cars and what not, we'll ultimately be in the position where almost everyone will be able to afford the car.
Tesla is opening another plant for Model 3 production and it will probably be in China
Tesla currently has a factory in California that can produce 600,000 vehicles a year, McNeill [Tesla's president of global sales] said in the interview. But Tesla is set on opening another factory specifically to ensure it's "ready to deliver the Model 3 on time." That plant "could very well be in China," he added.
Tweet this | Photo from DatCode
German automakers who once laughed off Elon Musk are now starting to worry
Tesla sold more electric cars in Germany last year than any other brand and proved to be a formidable competitor even before the launch of the Model 3, selling 1,582 Model S cars in Germany in 2015. That compares with sales of 1,051 BMW i3s, 1,161 all-electric Mercedes, 676 electric Smarts and 796 electric VW Golfs.
Hyperloop
Interview with Dirk Ahlborn, Hyperloop CEO, about building Hyperloop project in Slovakia
We have a cost estimate from America, which we assume it's going to be much cheaper in Europe actually. On the high end we estimate it's going to be $20 million a mile...