I just drove from TX to NY last week in a Model Y with no range/charging problems.
I stopped about every 2.5 hours which may be a bit shorter than the average person's leg in an ICE car but is about as long as I personally want to remain sitting down.
The Tesla charger network is incredibly reliable, the Model Y's cold weather range is pretty darn good relatively, and I had zero charger wait times the whole way.
I'm glad to hear Tesla is opening up its charger network to others and am looking forward to the V4 chargers with longer cables. My only wish is that other EVs had the same connector because the Tesla one is so much slimmer.
This is phrased as if it is some bombshell, when it seems this was obvious from the beginning. Elon's been a critic of the CA High Speed Rail project for nearly a decade! [0] The literal whitepaper that announced the Hyperloop concept contrasts itself to the CA Rail project on the damn first page! [1] He's basically been screaming for everyone to aim higher instead of accepting mediocrity even relative to what already exists across the pond.
The Hyperloop project itself was proposed clearly and explicitly to contrast with the CA rail project, suggesting "maybe this is what we could do if only we tried!" In practically all the public appearances about this project (and in explanations for why he founded SpaceX) he's been clear and repetitive in stating that he wants to see inspiring things get built, if for no other reason than for us to want to get out of bed in the morning.
Of course Musk desired the CA rail project not to be built. And of course he didn't intend to build the Hyperloop himself. He'd been plenty explicit about that as well -- it's the explanation for why this was a paper and not a 5th company he's CEO of today.
At this point it seems most internet dwellers under the age of 35 subscribe to the sentiments of /r/FuckCars [0] but just yelling about the problem on Reddit and Vox isn't going to accomplish much. You basically need cities redesigned, which is going to take a long time. For those who are so passionate about the problem their best bet is probably to get involved in local politics or urban development than pointing out how Elon's tunnel project is dumb for the 100th time.
This is incorrect. Inspiration4 sent astronauts they trained. This was largely true for the Axiom mission as well, and will be for the Polaris missions.
I wouldn't say so. If anything his companies are doing better than ever. Tesla is doubling revenue / deliveries YoY with insane gross margins and just opened 2 new factories on 2 continents. SpaceX is sending a new batch of Starlink satellites is going up literally every week, and they've sent over 20 people to LEO and back (could you imagine if we had to rely on Russia for this today?!).
Not to mention that the autopilot program is full of a ton of really smart & hard working people who put their soul into their work, because the lives saved by bringing the product to fruition will be astronomical. They are making real practical progress on AI systems -- better than can be said of much of academia & industry.
My only 2c is that the WFH vs office conversation often seems to pretend that there aren't a ton of businesses with desk workers where many of their colleagues can't feasibly work from home -- manufacturing for example. It's not even only the people physically building the products who obviously have to be there, but even mechanical engineers have a reason to.
My job is to build software to make the lives of the people building our product better. I'd prefer myself and my team to be there with them frequently, instead of considering ourselves to be part of some class of special people that have the luxury of working at home most of the time.
That said, I do appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home for house maintenance, deliveries, family stuff, etc.
Beyond all that, going into the office (or factory really) is energizing. Too much time at home and I get reminded of CGP Grey's "spaceship you" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck
1) The subreddit of my alma mater has been full of posts venting anxiety, depression, trouble with financial aid, trouble making friends, frustration with administration, etc for years now, exacerbated by COVID. While that may not be representative of the whole undergrad population, I can't help but be reminded of Thiel's line from Zero to One "Why are we doing this to ourselves?"
2) I'm now seeing not only friends without bachelors degrees get well-paying CS jobs with "engineer" titles & equity comp, but even some in mechanical engineering!
3) When I was in undergrad, half of my upper div classes were so abysmal that I figured the staff who cared enough to keep the enterprise going were fighting a losing battle. A complete rewrite would be better than an in place one. "Death is the best invention of life" and we should try the creative destruction of capitalism/evolution instead of holding the oldest institutions in the highest regard.
I don't have much of a clue what the future will look like by the time I have kids of college age, but I do not think particularly highly of what we've got now.