I've always had a reflexive reaction to a lie. From the inside it suggested that everything was not so simple. And with Elon Musk's super technologies, my inner voice was annoyingly whispering to me. By the way, I do not argue at all with the fact that Musk is a genius. Only his genius is not quite that.
If you take it away, then he starts frantically looking for a new fulcrum, believing in something else.
This natural mechanism has long been noticed by large corporations and now the monetization of faith is the main way to stimulate marketing and sales.
It's a simple matter - with ridicule and lies, traditional competitors in robes are removed, who squeaked something about spirituality, development, the benefits of labor, and the like, and something brilliant, understandable, simple and cool is slipped in.
One of those exploiting this theme is the famous showman Ilon Petrikovich Mavrodi, in the original “Mask”.
Promotional video:
Around his show programs, a fairly dense sect of believers has formed who are technically illiterate (now they are called technologists - that is, those who are interested, but not in the subject), but are active in terms of advertising and PR. They have a certain fixed list of postulates - like “everything that Musk does is successful and high-tech” - which are not discussed critically. that's in general - that's why this sect has recently been taken to show signs of smacking. It's not hard because they are stupid.
Considering that people's memory has become very short now, I noticed that all the fantasies of the members of this circle revolve around several key topics - well, you can bring it all into one article. An indicative one - about how profitable to imitate high tech.
The PayPal myth
Brief summary: "One of Musk's successful projects is that he single-handedly created PayPal."
The facts, however, are much more prosaic.
PayPal was founded in December 1998, and it was then called Confinity. Initially, the company planned to write software for handhelds. The founders are our compatriot, Soviet Jew Max Levchin, as well as Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek and Ken Howery.
PayPal was invented inside Confinity in 1999 as a service for fast money transfers. For this idea, money was taken from an investor, BlueRun Ventures.
After a fat investor appears and on his advice, the purchase of similar startups begins (standard move). And one of these startups was X.com, which was unprofitable at the time, and wants to be an online bank. 10 million bucks were invested in X.com, but it sits at a loss, the business does not go. I. Mask works there. Musk comes to Confinity, paints dazzling prospects, and his startup gets bought among a bunch of others, and he is put in to do advertising and marketing.
Once again, they buy in bulk. This technique is well known - for example, the company Cisco works. So, Musk's firm is bought in bulk along with other trifles, and it is placed not in a technical, but in an advertising position. Now, you know, there is such a thing - the evangelization of technology - when a techie is replaced by a showman (there are, of course, exceptions, but they will die out naturally, i.e. they pay more for a show than for technology) - well, then such a term was not promoted but the essence is the same.
As a result, technologies from X.com are not used in the paper, but Musk has a share. The X.com brand itself is quickly overwhelmed, because after surveys it turns out that users associate it not with the bank, but with a porn resource.
And then, when PayPal rises and spins, eBay is already buying it at a high price (one and a half billion). And after all this, Musk sells his stake in PayPal. For a lot of money - well, the dot-com boom of the early 2000s and all that.
Now compare that with "Elon Musk single-handedly created PayPal from scratch, wow, what does it mean - genius, inventor, techie."
Let's move on from recent, but already history, to the present.
Tesla cars
The density of myths here dazzles the eyes - everything is “unique, high-tech, American, advanced, super-successful” and so on. Everything, of course, was invented and developed by Musk personally.
The reality is simpler.
Tesla Motors was founded in 2003 by two people - Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. They came up with the concept of an "electric sports car". There was no Musk nearby. Musk appeared later as one of the investor representatives. The product has already been developed at this point.
For 13 years (!!!) of evolution, Tesla has released several models that differ in design and interior.
The technical part does not change, Tesla does not carry out its own developments. Chinese 18650 cells are used as batteries, on which all Chinese electric vehicles run - from scooters to buses. These are standard 3.7V cells, visually similar to AA batteries. Batteries with the necessary parameters are recruited from them - for example, for scooters, these are blocks of 12 volts and 12 or 20 ampere-hours (for example, such). Tesla buys them in bulk from Panasonic and he places an order in China. Both Tesla and Panasonic do not have their own production. There are no “special secret battery modules” either, Tesla has no patents related to technical solutions in the part of the battery module. The controller for the battery pack was developed in Shenzhen - and, by the way, based on the same one for Chinese electric buses. In fact, Tesla just buys whatwhat the Chinese have invented and implemented, therefore, in terms of technology, Tesla is always catching up - she will have in the new model those batteries that a Chinese noodle seller has been working in a scooter for 1200 yuan for six months.
Motors for Tesla are also made in China - a separate rotor, a separate stator, Tesla simply puts his label on them (see here), “Fukuta Elec. & Mach. Co., Ltd. is the only Taiwanese supplier of the motor on the Model S featuring high-conductivity die-cast copper rotor for higher efficiency, lower power consumption, compact size and lighter weight”). This “complex” action is beneficial - it allows you to “honestly” place the production in the United States, and import motors at tariffs for components, and not for finished products (other duties). Often, by the way, the scheme used to simulate local production - the above-mentioned American company with the letter C “localized” the production of secure routers in Zelenograd - imported routers as components, and at the “place of production” inserted a module with Russian cryptography support into them,and all at once magically turned into “localized production of Russian routers”.
For almost a decade and a half, Tesla has made a bunch of patents, but all of them, if you look, are related to design or decoration solutions. Those. stories about “move science, what a capitalization, all due to unique technologies” in fact describe numerous patents “wing shape” and “plastic color at the retractable handle”. A comical story is connected with this - in 2014, in order to promote and PR, Musk said that he "gives the world all the unique Tesla technologies." The creative class shed a tear and left thousands of comments “Lord, how great he is, he is our god, what a happiness to live on the same planet with such a unique genius, he is already trembling to shiver”, and that was it.
Apparently, it was expected that “well, since such unique patents have been published, now the wave of Tesla analogs will begin”, because it was assumed that these were just some Unique Technical Patents - but nothing happened, because these patents, in fact, after publication gave anyone the opportunity to make the same trunk as Tesla, or the same upholstery in the cabin. In terms of technology, Tesla was both catching up and remained - she cannot patent a Chinese engine, nor can she develop her own. Such is the "technological breakthrough", yes, and "if their patents are valued in the billions, it means that they are geniuses." It only means that a certain auditor has estimated how much money a firm can theoretically lose if, due to the appearance of competitors, sales suddenly fall, for example, to zero. It turned out to be a huge (and purely theoretical) amount,this amount was attached to the patent “doorknob with a cool-shaped button”, and if someone wants to buy this patent, he must pay that amount. It's just that no one wants it, there is no sense at all. Therefore, there is the amount, the patent is, but what is technological, what is advanced - it does not apply at all, there is no connection at all - that this pen is estimated at 1 billion, which is 100 billion.
Let's move on to environmental issues.
Environmental friendliness is now such a thing that allows you to sell an unnecessary thing not just expensive, but very expensive.
In the variant with Tesla, this is also a reason to receive subsidies - moreover, from both sides at once, both for electricity for charging, and for cars. Simply put, when buying a liter of gasoline in countries where there is an electric car sponsorship program, you pay for charging someone else's Tesla.
The first myth about Tesla's environmental friendliness is that its charging is free, because "there are solar panels on the roofs of charging stations and therefore you can simply charge cars with the same energy." Musk has a point to “stick on any commercial for a wonderful new invention that exists only in the form of a 3D model, solar panels.
Having been invited to the local Hong Kong Tesla for the Model 3 presentation and test drive, I clarified this moment in detail. Everything turned out to be simple.
The supercharger, which charges the battery very quickly, consumes 120 kilowatts. There are 4 such superchargers per charge. This is half a megawatt. There are simply no solar panels to provide a round-the-clock ability to deliver such power (as well as batteries that can be charged and then powered by superchargers from which to charge cars) simply do not exist, and you can estimate how much area they would occupy. Tesla's chargers are connected to the regular city grid and pay decent money for the electricity they use. The scheme “we charge our batteries and then the cars from them” is not used on chargers, since it is unprofitable (!!! - hello to “Tesla's wall battery”,about which further) - the cost of solar cells plus batteries plus wear and tear plus maintenance plus losses on charging and discharging make this "environmentally friendly solar electricity" unprofitable even for Tesla herself.
Free charging is available with a bunch of reservations that make it not free at all. The top-end Model S, which costs more than $ 100K, has it, while it is necessary that the car be under full official service (with a non-acidic price per hour), so that it has never been in an accident (i.e. scratched - that's it), and the storage and transportation of the battery is also paid. A classic of the genre, in general. If you sit down and calculate the price of a car plus MOT, it turns out that the cost of a "free rechargeable" will be higher than that of conventional cars.
You can also charge without a supercharger, from an outlet. Charging asks for 400V at 32 amperes. Considering that in an ordinary apartment at the entrance, God forbid, there is a 32A machine, and the wiring is generally sharpened for 16-25, it will simply not work to charge from a "regular" 220V outlet - it will be super long. It is understood that such a charge will be in the cottage, where there will be a separate dashboard for this purpose, or a special charge in the parking lot at the house (again, for money). In the end, it doesn't smell of any particular environmental friendliness.
Tesla's second green myth is that electric cars reduce CO2 emissions. No, emissions are only increasing. The destruction of this myth is extremely dangerous for Tesla - firstly, in the study by reference it turns out that the power consumption in advertising is greatly underestimated (almost 2 times), and secondly, due to the fact that a lot of fuel is spent on creating the necessary electricity, the meaning is lost “Green” subsidies - and without them, the already unprofitable Tesla will feel really bad. Therefore, there is a massive campaign “oh yes, this is nonsense, what difference does it make the main thing that does not smoke? The fact that nearby at the same time smokes 3 times stronger than TPP is silent.
As a result, under the Tesla brand, we have a highly publicized Chinese electric machine, which is expensive to maintain.
The monetization scheme is “electric transport is a wow-exclusive for successful and extraordinary people, hence the markup of hundreds of percent for the brand and image”. Exclusivity, not inclusiveness, leads to the fact that a priori cheaper electric transport (it has trite fewer units and components) turns into a fetish and a prestigious thing. There is no development, no technical breakthroughs - the company is 13 years old, during this time nothing but a redesign has been done. The failure of 2014 with “the discovery of unique technologies to the world” clearly showed that a dusty empty closet was waiting for Buratino behind the luxurious door.
The financial side of the issue is even more bleak - despite state subsidies, despite benefits for electricity for charging, despite subsidies for car buyers, Tesla is unprofitable and works in the red, spending investors' money. Musk has failed to make a technological breakthrough or create a financially sound enterprise.
Let's move on to batteries.
The shine and poverty of batteries
A wall-mounted battery that “saves” or even “generates” electricity is perhaps the best detector for “technologists” in the humanities. Before it appeared, I was thinking - that's for whom this spam is sent, like “electricity economizer! just stick it in the cigarette lighter!”? It turns out that the typical consumer of such nonsense is the same “advanced technologist, fanatic of new technologies,” who has not mastered school physics.
In May 2015, just over a year ago, Musk gave a presentation of the wall-mounted battery. The essence of his idea was simple - a healthy uninterruptible power supply is hung on the wall, through which the whole house is powered. Generating power is added to the uninterruptible power supply - either a wind turbine or solar panels. They constantly recharge him, and he cunningly monitors the subscribers, and when necessary, he is fed from the general network, when not, he accumulates. It may even sell electricity back to the public grid. In principle, i.e. Yes maybe. Can buy electricity when it's cheaper, such as at night.
The presentation made a splash among greedy infantile elderly children from office blocks. So many "Well, now Gazprom is kapets" even when it really could be kapets.
What in fact?
The whole idea with a wall-mounted battery is an attempt at additional monetization of used batteries. That is, Tesla's battery module contains a bunch of 18650 cells.
They develop their resource in different ways - therefore it makes sense to somehow dismantle these units and put batteries somewhere, for example, half capacity (which lost their 20% after 2500 cycles, and then another 20%, for example). Since Tesla does not produce batteries, this is the only way to get a lot of cheap "almost working" 18650 cells from somewhere - the capacity of which is not very good for a car, but OK for a wall battery.
The advertisement said that two versions of the Powerwall battery would be produced - for 7 kilowatt-hours and for 10. At a price of 3 and 3.5 thousand US dollars. We also used the picture “Beautiful Tesla is beautifully charged from a wall-mounted battery, everything is so white and technological” - however, how to charge a car with a battery of 85 kilowatt-hours from a battery, in which 7 or 10 is a mystery that did not wait for its researcher.
The 85 kilowatt-hour machine is charged from one 7 kilowatt-hour battery. To drive around the corner and shoot yourself, I guess.
The battery promised to give 2 kilowatts constantly and up to 3 at its peak.
To illustrate the benefits, of course, signs of the form "This is how much the most expensive electricity costs, but how much is the cheapest at night, just imagine …" and other tinsel, which Ilf and Petrov described a century ago in the immortal "Citizens of New Vasyukov, nothing will spend! They will get it!”.
Well, immediately after the announcement (in which it was promised to start deliveries in a few months), having studied the technical characteristics, the following was found out - the entire declared scheme and the financial component were trite invented. Let's see why.
Specified technical parameters - what capacity, what - especially! - the output power does not give any opportunity to operate the battery as indicated in the advertisement. Indeed, if we assume that a hipster with a laptop lives in the apartment, then this power will be enough for a laptop, modem, light bulb and you can turn on the microwave. But there is no point in hanging a battery in the apartment, tk. there is nowhere to supply generating capacity, therefore the target audience is the owners of cottages. And there immediately another list of consumers - these are all sorts of pumps for water, security cameras, external and internal lighting, household appliances (refrigerator, washing machine, stove, a bunch of little things like a kettle, which, however, eats 1.5-2 kilowatts each), as well as air conditioners, possibly underfloor heating and heaters, and the entertainment part of computers, TVs, audio systems. All this, for a total of 2 kilowatts, will not fit in any way, and in peak one-time 3 - too.
If you hang several batteries, then this linearly increases the cost, and other questions arise.
For example, the issue of safety - how lithium batteries burn perfectly, detonate when damaged, you can see on YouTube - and estimate how a meter-sized battery pack will crash (depressurization is enough for detonation - i.e., for example, on the other side of the wall, someone will be careless drill). Therefore, the battery should be placed in a safe, well ventilated area (i.e. plus air conditioning plus costs). Further, its installation requires permission from the owner (in a mortgage house, for example, not everyone agrees to place such dangerous equipment - and whoever agrees will increase the cost of insurance to cover a new potential risk).
Installation itself, by the way, is a separate topic - in fact, it is necessary to redo the entire network at home so that all sockets and fixed consumers are connected to the battery (or battery pack), as well as add protection (RCDs are the same) and mount a new circuit with two inputs (from the general network and from the generating capacity). This operation, judging by the information on Tesla's website, was supposed to be done by some partners - as is clear, as a result, the price of all this from 3 thousand dollars goes very far.
Also, the losses on the inverter were not taken into account at all - for many believers in the Mask it was a revelation that there was an alternating current in the outlet, but not in the battery - and that a special device was needed that would do this transformation. And that this device has its own efficiency - and not very good (for example, you can look at power supplies for computers - there you will have to pay several times more for a power supply with an efficiency of 80+ or 90+ than for a regular one). And the battery has an efficiency - that is, on each charge-discharge from the general network there is a double loss - for the conversion of the current and for the charge-discharge of the battery with a non-100% efficiency. And all this heats up, and it needs to be cooled - and this is also a power consumption.
The interesting situation with a guarantee finishes everything - the battery has a 10-year warranty, but it is for the battery as a device, and not for battery modules. That is, the real resource in terms of the number of charge-discharge cycles is not indicated, and Tesla avoids direct questions about this. This is understandable - after all, inside the battery there are used 18650 modules from a car, their real life in cycles is not clear, and these batteries themselves are not covered by the warranty. A logical scheme - when you buy, for example, a TV, you get a remote control with it - but no one says that replacing the batteries in the remote control during the TV warranty period is free.
And, of course, generating capacity with the required parameters also costs money and needs maintenance and proper installation. To normally power such a battery, you will need to have an impressive area of solar panels or a windmill with blades of 4 meters at least - and all this needs a place on the site (it will be problematic to put such a windmill on a house due to vibration), and again pay, pay, pay … According to the behests of the spiritual father I. Mask - Comrade Mavrodi - the sucker must pay.
The result of all this is simple - if the stated technical characteristics are correct, then this can only be operated in a country house, moreover, you will need several batteries, in a separate room, you will need to order the alteration of the entire electrical network at home, plus the installation and installation of a wind turbine or solar panels, plus an inverter (and all this must be carried out by certified and authorized dealers, and the equipment - the same inverter - must be compatible with Powerwall), and as a result, the total consumption, in general, will only increase - after all, a new load will appear in the network in the form of a battery, which will discharge-charge with non-100% efficiency, and, therefore, waste.
The total amount of the event will not be 3 thousand dollars, but about 10 times more, plus there will be a support fee (replacement of battery cells, maintenance of the wind turbine). It is possible to recoup all this on the difference in pennies per day-night kilowatt in such a time that makes the whole event meaningless - well, either it is necessary to increase the consumption of electricity in order to accelerate the payback, but the wear of the battery will also accelerate - which the manufacturer tactfully keeps silent about, although this is an interesting point … Imagine, for example, that a kettle is turned on (normal, 2 kilowatts).
The battery switches to the "urgently give the maximum" mode. The kettle boils and turns off - the battery switches back to “background recharge”. Now the microwave - and again such a situation, sharp consumption for a minute, and then back. Cycles charge-discharge back and forth, the resource is ticking. And also security issues - you cannot install such a thing in an apartment building without the consent of your neighbors (who would want such a bomb on the other side of the wall?), And in a private one - without increasing the cost of insurance.
When all this was published (I made a detailed posting with about the same text), there were only tears as comments: “Mask is a genius, he will succeed - it's a pity that I cannot donate money for this battery in this country, however, thanks to Mask in six months there will be no Gazprom and no rashka, then such batteries will be presented to us by smiling American soldiers”. This is logical - there is nothing to say in essence. Moreover, it was not possible to give an example of a scenario in which this megabattery pays off. That is, if, for example, we assume that this is a large house with a plot - “solar panels can easily fit on the roof, plus there is always the sun”, then in this clearly equatorial or tropical place a large item of air conditioning costs will appear, i.e. the larger the house, the higher the cost of electricity for the systems that serve it. If the house is small, there is such a consumption that the difference in price per kilowatt will take a century to pay off.
Then the interesting things began.
Fuckers raced to order, proud of "so I will soon join the elite electricity … the battery includes such ordinary electricity, but it comes out so prestigious, with rounded corners, for successful people who deserve it." Musk collected the dough and first of all for some reason changed the technical parameters of the batteries - saying that the versions for 7 and 10 kilowatts will have different number of charging cycles, in particular, "the younger model will have about 500 cycles."
What's about 500 cycles? This means that by redoing the entire power supply system in the house, in six months you will be forced to buy a new battery. And even less. 500 cycles are the cheapest Chinese 18650s, which are not LiFePo4, but ordinary LiFe, they are on a scooter (which has 1-2 cycles per day, i.e. you drive it somewhere once and put it on charge overnight, everything is simple) you can kill in six months of regular operation.
The people were surprised, but continued to wait. After all, just about it will be possible to hang the battery on the wall and it will bring you money - so in advertising.
“Several months” have passed since May 2015.
It's 2016.
Silence.
In 2016, a reporter, using a drone for video filming, takes a panoramic view of the factory where the Powerwall batteries were supposed to be “produced”. The result is depressing - what was supposed to produce “a few months after May 2015, and the money can be leased out now” has not even fully acquired a roof yet.
State subsidies and investors' money have been mastered - but neither equipment in the shops, nor even a complete "box". As well as for some reason there are no ubiquitous solar panels from every presentation by Elon Musk. And in general, everything somehow looks lifeless. And this is February 2016, yes.
Against this background, other interesting questions begin: Study: A Tesla Powerwall pays for itself after nearly 40 years.
It turns out that in a certain “typical consumption” scenario, the total savings from a battery serving an entire home would be about 53 US cents per day.
As is clear, the costs of many thousands in such a scenario will never be recouped - the battery alone will be 3.5 thousand, and the recommended and certified SE7600A-USS inverter from SolarEdge's StorEdge will cost another 3.5 thousand dollars.
Even if we assume that the entire alteration of the electrical network is free, installation is free, solar panels and a wind turbine are free, then for 53 cents you can pay off 7 thousand dollars for about 14 thousand days - well, if there is zero wear, the efficiency of the battery does not decrease, nothing breaks, the battery is cooled from space, conversion power losses are zero, or even more. And this - if the difference between the day and night rates is almost 5 times. And if less …
This idiocy “our system saves money and electricity - so let's, for example, to emphasize the possible savings, increase the amount of electricity consumption, then we will save more”, by the way, it is absolutely familiar at the level of reflexes of a typical consumer - he was already explained that the more you spend on the card, the greater the discount, and he is already used to it - so don’t laugh, this is no longer idiocy, it’s already everyday life.
The situation is heating up, people ask “Well, where is our battery?”, And then Andy Tucker takes a train ticket, takes off his bowler hat, takes a wig out of the bag, changes clothes, and … but we don't have O. Henry, we have 2016, and that's it even cooler.
Musk says the Powerwall batteries are so dazzlingly successful that they are all sold out - well, those who donated money for the first version should just wait for the second, which will be in August! Lucky you friends!
People start to go nuts quietly. People are looking at pictures of the unfinished factory, where they were supposed to produce batteries last year. The people are interested, and which of the ordered received? People are wondering how it turns out that everyone signed up in the queue, and everything somehow unnoticed passed by. People are wondering how it all happened, if certified partners for the installation of Powerwall, so that they cannot be found with a history of successful installations. People are looking for reviews on the Internet who used Powerwall - well, think, there are no reviews. How is that? All this is swept aside with a laugh “See, everything will be even cooler, we are a dynamic company!”.
Tesla, in general, states that a certain batch of Powerwall was delivered, to some secret testers who were amazed at the genius and wisdom of the solution, but were so quietly amazed that nothing, silence, and wait for a new version.
In the letter to the shareholders, Tesla is pierced that “about 2500” Powerwalls have been delivered, moreover, you will go nuts! - supplied to another company Elon Musk, SolarCity, for a pilot project in California, 500 homes, funded from the state budget.
That is, there is no battery production, it has not yet been physically created. All terms are profane. Apparently, the declared technical parameters cannot be achieved. The next step is taken - the batteries are ordered externally (possibly in China), manually assembled in a small batch in the United States and one Musk company sells them to another Musk company - with zero leakage of actual performance and operating data. All this is part of the development of state funds of the rich state of California, i.e. the commercial side of the issue, any payback there and so on, is absent as a class, even the price of the contract is unknown. And the result is “yes, we have successfully made batteries, we won, we are doing well, wait for the second version”. And yet you say that Musk is a bad showman? Oh wey.
At the moment, more than a year has passed since the announcement and “in a few months we will change the world”. The situation has not changed - the plant “is about to be built”, batteries will be supplied to those who signed up and donated money “just about”. Two of my friends who live in California and ordered a Powerwall, on the day of this publication, received only a letter from Tesla advertising the second version of the battery.
An annoying buyer came for a miracle, and it turns out that a miracle has not yet been invented.
Yes, and one more thing - from the original two versions, for 7 and 10 kilowatt-hours, there is only one - smaller. The ten-kilowatt battery was quietly removed from the site, and the 7 battery became a 6.4 battery. Such actions, as it is understood, further encouraged the clients who made the advance payment more than a year ago.
Such a successful success in the resale of used Chinese 18650 cells in a beautiful case and with mandatory payment of subscription services from certified partners, yes. Another breakthrough, everything is so technological, so successful, the first in the list of battery advantages is “Beautifully Functional” - well, you get the idea - and what are the rounded corners and patented design, mmm …
Let's go further. On the table is a soup of seven …
Hyperloop
The magazine "Young Technician" was ahead of its time (I still remember there was such a Polish "Horizons of technology for children" - oh, times, times) so much that by copying ideas from it, you can ensure a comfortable existence.
One of these ideas is something like an enlarged pneumatic tube, only instead of a capsule with a letter - a train with people, and instead of air pressure - electromagnets.
The technical concept is beautiful, but it comes with a bunch of implementation issues. Maintaining a vacuum in a pipe with a diameter of several meters, moreover, with very strong vibration (a multi-ton colossus flies by at the speed of a bullet), over hundreds of kilometers, is not a trivial thing. Maglev, in principle, has already been implemented - but again the cost per kilometer is enormous. Safety issues (depressurization of the carriage and all the dead at once, as well as the slightest deviation from the trajectory and departure from the track), the organization of stations - there are many questions.
But this is for sad realist techies - and we're talking about a cheerful, dynamic, successful positive humanist with the female name Ilona.
Musk gets down to business excellently - in 2012 he announced that a new type of transport was about to be born. That will outshine the Concorde. Which can be used on Mars. Which will be (I understand that deja vu, yes) eco-friendly and cheap (???). And in 2013 it shows a video of a train-in-a-tube. All questions are answered with a wide smile “Don't be afraid, just give money”.
No one, in general, is afraid, everyone is interested in what will happen, since there is no method for solving the technical problems mentioned above.
Musk promises to make a demonstration and show everything. Years pass, the sect of believers in the Mask already believes that everything in secret laboratories has been working for a long time, and again it is waiting for the end of world energy (this time also for logistics). The secret labs are actually called Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) - and it's not a firm, it's about 500 part-time engineers who meet once a week via Skype to discuss thoughts and hypotheses about the future of Hyperloop. Those. let's be honest - it already shows that no one wants to invest seriously. In November 2015, at last (three years have passed since the beginning) the construction of the test line begins, which is scheduled for completion in 32 months. Test. Pipes. 32 months.
In the meantime, while it goes on, the public is shown a completely epic spectacle. It consists in the fact that a trolley rides along a piece of railroad tracks several hundred meters away. Everyone is applauding.
Apparently, the video shows some kind of top-secret breakthrough, finally giving explanations for questions like “how to maintain a vacuum in a tube for hundreds of kilometers” - maybe it just didn't get into the frame, the angle was unsuccessful.
However, this does not in any way prevent him from being active in cold calling potential customers, but in fact Musk is looking for someone who will fit into the topic - apparently, taking into account the development of the state budget and the corresponding personal interest, expressed in serious percent of the amount. Well, the idea is clear - not to use American taxpayers' money for “this train will be needed on Mars when trains are needed there!”, But to put on beads the Papuans from the colonies.
At the moment, the situation is stable - until the next demonstration of a trolley moving on a piece of rail is even more than a year, new drawings are drawn, new videos are being rendered, children's contests of the level of the Soviet Palace of Pioneers "How do you see the train of the future" are held, there is essentially no investment. By the way, solar panels have disappeared from presentations and drawings - an alarming symptom, because all of the Mask's fantasies have solar panels and the mantra “environmentally friendly, technologically advanced, free” are a mandatory component. The main financial secret “Like a tube with a vacuum, plus on a maglev, plus a train with the speed of sound, can cost less than a normal railroad per kilometer” remains a secret. Even an understandable leap towards the development of US state funds “We used to lag behind everyone in the field of railway transport, especially from China, but now we will immediately jump into the lead!”Calmed down - money was not given even for this“restoration of reputation”.
Reflections
American show business has gone through a long history - and at the moment it is the most important tool for educating the gray mass of the American people. The necessary films drive in, for example, an inferiority complex - that all successful heroes are not people, but either mutants, or some special by birth - an approach is formed “you yourself can not do anything, but if you were pecked by a cock and you would become a Human- Rooster, then … but while you sit and wait, Superman will fly in and save you."
The formation of the image “We are always, damn it, number one, we are not losers, we kick our asses off everyone and always save our asses” goes in parallel - so that an ordinary American would wave a flag, rejoice at the happiness of living in a “successful” country and not worry. Did not think.
You know the phrase - "well, what are you reflecting" - something like this, yes. “You just don’t know how fun we have here and you don’t have to think about anything,” as they wrote in “Predatory things of the century. So for everything to be exactly like this, you need a demonstrative successful showman, coming out in the light of spotlights to the screeching of a worshiping crowd. Paying for his participation in films (and this gives the result - I personally saw an adult from a large Moscow IT company who was sure that “Iron Man” is a documentary about Elon Musk) and pays for spreading rumors about himself.
And - what is key - collecting money from the audience for this spectacle and a feeling of Involvement in Haytekh.
American classics - "divine service" with dances and songs, after which you have to throw off a large bill for the needs of the church.
Well, everyone has their own ways of earning income. This does not in any way negate the fact that this religion of "glorification of high-tech idols and their fictional holy deeds", like any other, is the opposite of science and development, and slips a bright and noisy, but only imitation of progress - however, the average person needs bread and spectacle?
With this, everything is OK.
© Ruslan V. Karmanov
