The defining feature of vaporware is that the product gets announced and then either isn't released or isn't released for a very long time. The term has nothing to do with the amount of resources being poured into it.
One of the most famous examples of vaporware was the game Duke Nukem Forever, which started development in 1996, was announced in 1997, and wasn't released until 2011. I believe it was in nearly continuous development during that time. The size of the team working on it shrank and grew, but over time that seems like a massive investment. It doesn't change the fact that it was vaporware though.
I guess you have to use your own common sense to determine if a product is moving forward or not. DNF is a great example of something that obviously was not moving forward. CyberTruck obviously is.
In what way is the cybertruck moving forward? You still can't buy one and if you put money down on one, you're still not getting your cybertruck.
Reminds me of my Starlink experience: pay $100 to get on the waiting list, wait a while, pay an additional $500 to get the downlink terminal, wait, wait some more, try to figure out who I know who still works at SpaceX because there's no support contact info for people who have paid for a terminal but haven't gotten anything, send emails to about 10 people inside SpaceX until someone responds with an offer to refund $450, then take the offer, then wait for the refund, and wait for the refund and finally get the refund 3 months later. So I'm only out $150 from trying to subscribe to Starlink.
Building factories and qualification testing is literal progress.
Starlink has global availability right now though a laser backed network. The only place you can’t get it are overloaded cells and countries that have not given landing rights.
I’m sorry for your anecdotal issue, but the system has over a million users so I think it’s fine. Starships first use will be to put up the 2nd gen network.
It’s funny how people cry about high speed low latency internet in remote places that wasn’t even possible a few years ago.
> Building factories and qualification testing is literal progress.
I get ~monthly emails about the progress being made manufacturing a chair I backed on a crowdfunding platform years ago. They constantly show great progress being made ("we finally have a factory lined up", "here's the final version of the legs", "we've begun mass production"). It feels like every one of these emails has a message about how they're going to start shipping chairs out to backers in the next couple months. This has been the case for several years now. I'm pretty skeptical I'll ever get the chair, as is basically everyone else who ordered it.
I imagine the Cybertruck will eventually be released, but it sounds like it's now almost two years behind the originally announced release date. I think it matches the spirit of vaporware currently, just as Duke Nukem Forever did for over a decade.
I think it's understandable that people would describe a delayed release from Tesla/Musk as vaporware given how their promises of "full self driving" have been going.
The CyberTruck is Vapor. It was announced, blew through it's original release date. Blew through it's updated release date. They claim they're going to do a prototype run of something like 1000 this summer. I'll believe it when I see it.
I don’t know why it’s absurd to compare the Cybertruck (promised, delayed, not released yet) to that kickstarter (promised, delayed, not released yet). They’ve even been announced for similar lengths of time.
As for “full self driving”, those cars are still not fully autonomous. That’s the whole problem that people object to. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but it’s certainly not fully self driving yet. They still routinely fuck up. Also, as I pointed out earlier, being released eventually does not mean it wasn’t right to consider something vaporware at some point (hence the example of Duke Nukem Forever).
You've always been able to get Hughes service, but it was expensive and high latency. What I cry about is some huckster who claims to have intarwebs service but really doesn't.
And yet Duke Nukem Forever has shipped, and Cybertruck has not. So right now, today, at this moment, DNF is not vaporware, and Cybertruck is. This is true regardless of how one feels about it.
I made no such comments, but OK, sure, whatever you say. Bottom line is, if you cannot buy it, it doesn't exist to the public. You can't drive .jpegs of cars.
If you give me $100 I will put you first in line for my new electric "xracy-truck" when it launches in 2027. We have a perfect track record of hitting our target deliveries for all of our projects.
NOTE: You aren't actually getting the truck, I'm just giving you a spot in line to buy the truck. The truck still costs $80k
Good idea, you won’t get any money which will prove my point that people can tell bullshit from an actual product. Well not you, but most other people.
What about the hyperloop? Was supposed to be a vacuum-sealed tube with driverless pods that go 600 mph. -> tunnel with driverless cars that go 60mph -> tunnel with driver cars that go 30 mph... for a bit... until they hit traffic.
Edit: How do you feel about the California High-Speed-Rail Project?
It’s very strange how anti innovation people are here on hacker news. Tesla does a lot of things, they’re not all going to be winners, why hold that against them, instead of celebrating their drive to do new ideas and not just what’s safe.
They built a test hyper loop in California, boring company is actively building in Vegas and hardware to hold pressure in a tunnel was tested in Texas. It’s not like they say things and don’t follow up. Maybe it doesn’t happen at the speed you like, but there is a plan being executed on slowly but surely.
Tesla has delivered more than enough, but people here will never be happy. Just like Bitcoin, I guarantee you the day it hits 100k people here will still be complaining about it
Having a perfect track record is a pretty high bar. Lots of entrepreneurs have failed with some of their businesses. We usually consider them successful if one works out really well, much less two.
Err, First completely private crew to go to space... Is that actually something we're considering a first? Can you really tell the difference between a person who works for the gov't and a person who doesn't well enough for that to be meaningful?
If you have to explain in the accolade what it means, then it's not much of an accolade.
Who cares about first of anything. It’s all about operationalization.
Dragon and Dragon 2 are rediculously successful programs that most people said was not possible. Most notably Boeing which is years behind sending crew to orbit even though receiving billions more from NASA.
US astronauts would be depending on Russia right now to get to the ISS if not for SpaceX. Which means in this political climate there’s the good chance the IIS would be dead right now.
You remind me of the people who laughed about reusable rockets, starlink, private crew, and every tesla model.
They laugh right up to the point it is released, and then they move the goal posts to the next product.