Reusable spaceship. Elon Musk at Ted.

[clifp]

I am unabashed admirer of the man, and a customer. I am anxiously awaiting my Tesla, and I am very likely to be a customer of Solar City. Oh and yes I use Paypal fairly often.

In this interview at TED, Elon covers lot of ground, but I found the video of the next generation Space X rocketship to be particularly inspiring.

Now, I am hoping to be a SpaceX customer before I die.

 

[Tyro]

Now, I am hoping to be a SpaceX customer before I die.

Packing your bags for a stay on a Bigelow 330?

 

[Midpack]

I also an Elon Musk fan, though not a customer yet. I enjoyed the TED video, thanks. Reuseable rockets, cool. Very clever way to finance solar, and though I want to believe in solar, AFAIK the economics don't work well in the short term (enabled partly by few adopters) and even less so for the long run (too many adopters). And looking forward to Tesla v3...

 

[TOOLMAN]

I am unabashed admirer of the man, and a customer. I am anxiously awaiting my Tesla, and I am very likely to be a customer of Solar City. .

We need more guys like this . I like his quote "I would like to die on Mars; just not on impact."

 

[clifp]

I also an Elon Musk fan, though not a customer yet. I enjoyed the TED video, thanks. Reuseable rockets, cool. Very clever way to finance solar, and though I want to believe in solar, AFAIK the economics don't work well in the short term (enabled partly by few adopters) and even less so for the long run (too many adopters). And looking forward to Tesla v3...

I got my quote from Solar City for a PV system.

$9,800 gets me enough electricity to power the house for 20 years, plus enough electricity to power the Tesla for 8-10,000 miles a year. At the end of 20 years I have the options to get rid of the PV system or buy it for roughly $3,000.

My electricity bill will drop from $2300 a year to $200 and my gasoline bill from $1200 to 0. So even at twice the price this is pretty much a no brainer for me. Now admittedly Hawaii is a special case both for electric vehicles with sky high electricity prices $.35/KWH for me and plenty of sunshine.

Right now solar wouldn't make sense outside of CA and HI without the tax credits, but it might in the future,if oil price continue to rise. On the other hand switching to cheap natural gas certainly makes the economics less promising.

 

[meierlde]

I got my quote from Solar City for a PV system.



Right now solar wouldn't make sense outside of CA and HI without the tax credits, but it might in the future,if oil price continue to rise. On the other hand switching to cheap natural gas certainly makes the economics less promising.

Having a house with a large south facing roof, I did some research on solar, But besides the 30% federal credit there are no incentives in Tx for solar. As a result its a 20-30 year payout, in particular if you size it to handle the summer ac load. It should be noted that at 8.6 cents/kwh it makes solar very difficult to justify on an economic basis.
One other area that solar makes sense is on any smaller caribbean island where diesel is used to make the power. (40 cents+/kwh)

 

[clifp]

Having a house with a large south facing roof, I did some research on solar, But besides the 30% federal credit there are no incentives in Tx for solar. As a result its a 20-30 year payout, in particular if you size it to handle the summer ac load. It should be noted that at 8.6 cents/kwh it makes solar very difficult to justify on an economic basis.
One other area that solar makes sense is on any smaller caribbean island where diesel is used to make the power. (40 cents+/kwh)

They are showing my total cost as 7.6 KWH for electricity, which completely ignores the time value of the $9,800 investment. So it is no surprise that with 8.6 KWH cheap electricity it makes no economic sense.

I'd argue that we'd be better off switching to cheap clean natural gas for most of the US, and I suspect that ecologically impact is less that way also.

But if Uncle Sam wants to subsidizes gadgets for well-to-do retirees living in Hawaii, who am I to turn them down.

 

[Midpack]

But if Uncle Sam wants to subsidizes gadgets for well-to-do retirees living in Hawaii, who am I to turn them down.

Not criticizing HI residents at all, but isn't that how most early adopter subsidies work? They benefit well to do potential customers, not the less fortunate (or whatever term you prefer). Lower/middle income folks aren't early adopters (when subsidies are usually in play) don't buy hybrids, PV cells or EVs do they?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...al-interests/2011/09/15/gIQAgdjcaK_story.html

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Elon Musk has been compared to the fictional Tony Stark or the all-too-real Leonardo Da Vinci. However, I believe he is more like Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison, namely, very good at gathering smart people around him and leveraging their talents (and perhaps taking credit for their inventions (e.g., like Nikola Tesla's, the namesake of his car?)).