5 times Elon Musk has over-promised and under-delivered
Elon Musk is like Narendra Modi in more ways than one. They both aren't driven by money or power, they just want to leave a legacy. Like Modi is the face of BJP and hence the centerpiece of all adulation and criticism, the same is true for Musk for Tesla, SpaceX or even electric vehicles in general. And, when you expect, you are hurt if they don't deliver. Here are 5 such cases when Musk over-promised and under-delivered.
Tesla's electric vehicles are an engineering marvel. There, I said it. Now read this: 4 years back, Musk said in 2 years, 98% of US will be covered by Tesla Supercharging stations; in 2015, he claimed Tesla cars would reach 620 miles on a single charge, they will be "fully autonomous" in 3 years. And, so on and so forth. Reality: 100; Musk: 0.
Musk has received a lot of flak about Model 3, and most of it is justified. When it was launched at $35,000, it was touted as the car that would make electric vehicles mainstream. That never happened. Production issues aside, the prices have abruptly been increased to $60,000+. Musk tweeted, "Shipping [minimum] cost Model 3 right away [would] cause Tesla to lose money & die." And, while we are at it, will India launch happen even in 2020?
In Feb'17, it was told that SpaceX was planning to send two private citizens around the moon aboard SpaceX's Dragon 2 spacecraft, sometime "next year". On August 3rd 2017, the founder Elon Musk himself confirmed that he is looking forward to sending humans to space. As always, the details were missing, and as always, we were excited. Cut to 2018, Musk said that the company would delay "such endeavours in favor of developing a larger rocket."
It is one thing to create buzz around your dreams, but it is downright cruel if you LIE about it on your website. On its website, Tesla claims that all vehicles "have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver." But, it has no evidence to back up that claim. We all are mindful that self-driving cars is an awfully tough engineering problem to solve, but this lie is still cruel.
With Musk nothing is "a small step for man". He just doesn't want to go to Mars, he wants to colonize it. To save humanity. In 10 years. Now, close your eyes, imagine Matt Damon in 'The Martian' and take a ride with Musk. Can you smell the potatoes Damon grew? Not quite yet? Me neither. Because, by now, we know Musk breaks his promises and our hearts, too often.
