All I see is a video from after IFT-3 that parrots SpaceX's post-hoc rationalization about the fact that their craft could not reach orbital velocity. If you look at the GAO report on Artemis, one of the big issues they mentioned is that Starship has not proven that it can reach orbit, and SpaceX is very interested in making sure that the narrative is that it can and did. It was only after the fact that they said that the never intended to reach an orbital trajectory with IFT-3.
And actually, people rely on drag to deorbit huge objects in space in a controlled manner all the time. It's the preferred way to do it, and is basically the only way it's done - any satellite with fuel left will just stay in orbit. They have it down to a science. Usually they aim for the middle of an ocean. Sometimes they miss and chunks fall in a backyard.
> All I see is a video from after IFT-3 that parrots SpaceX's post-hoc rationalization about the fact that their craft could not reach orbital velocity.
Given that the video was posted 4 days prior to that test, it is downright prescient that they are parroting a post-hoc rationalization.
Just watched it, I had my dates mixed up. The trajectory this guy drew on the map does not involve starship reaching orbital velocity anywhere on it, which is inconsistent with SpaceX's publications. SpaceX's claim was that IFT3 would enter an orbit and then leave it, not that it would follow a ballistic trajectory to the indian ocean.
It's possible that SpaceX made the mistake of using the words "orbital velocity" and this YouTuber is right, though.
> SpaceX's claim was that IFT3 would enter an orbit
You are claiming that, SpaceX never claimed that, only "orbital velocity" meaning "orbital speed" in this context. They wanted to test if the Starship is capable of reaching orbit, but w/o entering orbit for safety reasons. For that they wanted to achieve "orbital velocity" but of course not in an "orbital trajectory".
Excess deaths are likely related to the effects of lockdowns. The lack of exercise and mental stress suffered by the elderly over the course of the pandemic was huge.
Check out Sweden, they had limited/no lockdowns, very high vaccination rate and low post pandemic excess deaths.
Before the pandemic dad was a beast then he watched TV for 2 years and turned into a shuffling hunchback.
Tesla tried to get their charging standard adopted years ago from the outset of their business. The incumbents rejected the standard. Now they are adopting it.
As I understand it, it came with strings attached, and incumbents understandably rejected it. Now they really opened the system, that's what drove the adoption.
Another thing: Not the whole world adopted the Tesla connector, only North America (that's why it is called NACS). Europe uses CCS-2, including for Tesla cars. CCS-2 is better than CCS, and arguably better than NACS in Europe as it supports 3-phase AC.
North America uses CCS-1. CCS usually refers to the charging protocol.
Important change is that NACS is the Tesla connector with the open CCS protocol. That means can use dumb adapters for CCS-1. And chargers can change to better connector without changing electronics.
3 Phase is (normally, in Europe) 3x400V+N. Single phase is 230V.
AC chargers here (Belgium) are usually 11kW or 22kW capable (at least nominally). This is 16 or 32A. A normal household socket ciruict is 20A here, so this is not very abnormal wiring wise. Most homes are actually hooked up to three phase power, but just have a single phase meter, so an upgrade is usually affordable.
If you want to offer 11kW or 22kW single phase, you'd need 47A or 95A service, with massive cables etc. Hence why most single phase chargers are 7.4kW limited here (32A). Also: Almost no cars would even take that in on 1 phase as far as I know.
Higher amperage is what costs more in terms of losses and cables, so less amps is good.
3x230V also exists, but at least here, is being phased out.
Is there still a N needed for 3phase? The big selling point of triphased power is that you don't need a neutral line, which is obviously a big benefit for transport. Is there a benefit to add a neutral line for battery loading?
No on the distribution network (aka up to the transformer in the street usually, but for sure not on the xxx kV lines) because there the lines are balanced.
In your house, you do, because the voltage between 2 phases is 400V, but the voltage between 1 phase and N is 230V. So you have "low" voltage for "normal" appliances, but high-voltage (and thus high-power) available for high power applications. For example: EV charging, induction cooking, home heating / AC etc.
For an EV usually the N wouldn't be needed, if you always charged at a balanced power on all phases. But from my experience, the full 3 phase power is only used when the battery is empty. At some point the charger switches back to single phase to better modulate the current I guess.
Sidenote:
On a 3x230V net, you don't have an N, but that means you also don't have a non-power conducting wire either! Meaning: double pole switches and breakers are required to prevent shocks. This is why these are generally required in Belgium btw.
I think it's more, 3-phase+N can be converted to 1-phase whenever needed with simple wiring. So even in France, you might have 3+N coming to the breaker panel, and then 1-phase from there on.
The neutrals in either of these situations are used when you want to use some partial multiple of the power, instead of a full multiple for some or all of the load. For example, most US electric clothes dryers will use the full split phase 240V for the heating element, but 120V for the light and sometimes the motor. Same with US electric stoves. So they need a neutral to be able to do so.
If they don’t need that 120V (half the voltage), they can just use straight 240V, and no neutral.
Same with 3 phase - if connected in a delta configuration, you have three distinct loads, each connected phase to phase.
Same as in split phase, if you have two 120V phases, each connected to one half of the split.
When designing AC->DC rectifiers a key concern is ripple (aka how consistent the DC output voltage is per unit time). 120V half phase AC is particularly terrible for this, but a single phase of a 3 phase system will also be not great. You spend a lot of the cycle with no meaningful power available, and need to smooth out that very spikey output with capacitors or the like.
The ripple on three phase (if using all three phases) is going to be a lot lower, and power flow will be much more consistent, as you’ll have 3 waveform ‘peaks’ per cycle, unlike split phase which has 1, or tapping a single phase of 3 phase which has one. (Depending on your definition of peak - some would double the count as the negative voltage side of the waveform technically counts too!). That means with only minimal additional component count, you have a nearly perfect continuous flow of power.
At the type of power levels we’re talking about, the capacitors for smoothing out the ripple (assuming it’s needed when charging the batteries - I would assume so, but I’m no EE), will be enormous and expensive if using single phase.
I know for industrial motors, the smoother/more continuous waveforms are a huge help in making smoother and more powerful (for their size/weight) motors. Almost all industrial motors run on 3 phase AC, and it’s common for even small hobby machine shops to either get 3 phase pulled in, or use phase converters.
It's better in general because it can deliver continuous power rather than power at twice the line frequency. If you're going to convert AC->DC and want a constant current to the battery, there will need to be a rather large capacitor to smooth the 100Hz or 120Hz power coming in.
If an electric car can travel 70mph and beat it's EPA range then the manufacturer did a terrible job of designing the car.
Wind resistance should be the major determining factor with an EV. Low speed regenerative breaking is such an efficient process that if your car gets bad mileage in "stop and go" traffic it's probably designed by a committee of fools.
EPA range is a defined value based on published metrics and measurement principles.
The idea that a manufacturer should under report range is a bit strange. Are there examples of ICE manufacturers under reporting their gad mileage? I doubt it.
There are two different EPA test cycles. One is more generous than the other. Manufacturers can choose which one to use.
Additionally, the cars will typically have multiple driving profiles to select between more performance or more efficiency.
Porsche, for example, uses the least generous test cycle with the most performant (least efficient) car settings. It makes their EPA numbers look bad but they are honest numbers.
An underquote is more customer friendly than an overquote.
Because you get what you pay for and then some. With fairy tale numbers you don't get what you thought you were paying for.
How many numbers do you want them to quote? For the Porsche Taycan there's a 35% difference between the performance settings and the eco settings. It also depends on the wheels you choose. Smaller wheels are more efficient.
It isn't an artificially low range number. It's the worst case number.
Any retiree that bought shares in 2016 is living on a yacht with 1000+% gains. The company is literally one of the greatest engines of retail investor wealth creation in history.
So were Enron and Pets.com, until they weren’t. Healthy markets depend on accurate information so regulators care about whether you were knowingly misrepresenting the health of the company, not just whether there was a period afterwards where you could sell at a net profit. Their job is to avoid what happens when a popular stock craters, not worry about the good times.
Enron and Pets.com? 1) Enron misstated earnings 2) Pets.com did not commit wire fraud.
Tesla is one of the most financially healthy companies on Earth. Literally one of the(if not the) fastest growing manufacturing company years by revenue.
> Enron and Pets.com? 1) Enron misstated earnings 2) Pets.com did not commit wire fraud.
… but both illustrate in different ways that “number go up” is not sufficient to know about the health of a company. Both had cheerleaders saying exactly what you’re saying now the whole time.
In Tesla’s case, that’s important because their P/E has been wildly out of the norm for their industry but they don’t have much in the way of a competitive edge and the higher end market they’re relying on is getting tight. Similarly, they’re making a huge profit on their carbon credits but there is no reason to expect that to scale up or even last long term.
The whole play is predicated on turning into a tech company, and that’s why this matters: if they’re saying that high share price is justified because they’re going to sell self-driving cars it’s especially important that company officers are not misleading the public. That share price would collapse if it turned out that they knew they were behind and were dishonestly hyping the stock.
As a PhD Materials Scientist with a business degree, I don't think you understand the Tesla business case. I invite you to read Tesla's SEC filings carefully. I found the business case to be extremely compelling when I bought 3400 shares at 16$.
I still find deep value in the stock despite relentless negative sentiment from people who have no idea what an absolute juggernaut the company is. Comparing Tesla to Enron or pets.com is absurd. Tesla is on another planet in comparison.
The idea that Tesla investors have been duped is also absurd. I follow the company's developments closely and have driven FSD for years. They have an unassailable advantage in the coming networked renewable energy market and are on track to implement high margin recurring revenue digital services across their class leading hardware products, which include EVs, home storage, and grid scale storage. The latter two have just moved out of the Tesla Roadster era of development and are achieving scale just as solar and wind deployment reaches wide scale adoption.
Good luck to all who see promise in a renewable future. Sorry to those who don't get it.
I’m not saying they’ll go to zero but your rhetoric about things like “unassailable advantages” is a good illustration of the risk here. The renewable juggernaut is rolling but it’s not preordained that they will be the company leading it – they have plenty of competition – and their financials are good but don’t support the kind of stock price they’ve had over the last few years. More competition will tighten margins up, not expand them.
Calling Tesla Enron and pets.com is totally legit, but unassailable is rhetoric?
What competition are you talking about? What is their gross margin? SG&A expense as a % of revenue? If Tesla is so assailable there should be easily named competition with comparable financial performance and a compelling technology roadmap . There isn't one. I look every day.
Yes. But under most use cases that doesn't matter. Range is mostly a concern for long highway trips where the average speed is much higher.
At low speed drag and friction losses are much lower and range increases beyond the EPA number. Also cities have many charging locations so you never worry about running out.
In my personal case I can charge in my garage and almost never get below 50% charge (only charging to 80% overnight to maintain a 20000 charge cycle life of the battery).
The ruling invalidated the pay package because it said the board did not disclose that it wasn't independent enough. This is a technicality. Every investor in Tesla knew this at the time (except for the activist investor and legal team that wants to steal 5 Billion from Tesla).
The pay package was just and fair given the deliverables. Any CEO who promises to 10x a company's revenues and market cap could easily get the same deal from shareholders.
The fairness of the deal is underlined by the fact that 99.9% of observers scoffed at it ever coming true. As a long term investor in Tesla (3500 shares @16$) I have seen thousands of negative posts like yours (Tesla sentiment has been ~95% negative over that entire time). In 2018 the sentiment on the stock was lower than it is even today. Many people mocked us investors as cultists, morons, suckers, rubes etc. They were wrong. I'm absolutely going to vote in favour of the compensation package in fulfillment of the deal which made me a millionaire.
If you’re the one with $56b then you’re free to decide that. In this case though you’re not on the giving or receiving end of the deal; your opinion really doesn’t matter.
The contract was conditional on price. At the time, no one thought it possible to achieve such valuation. So they deemed the payout likely to be zero i.e. 99.9% that the payout was zero.
You understand?
This is a bonus, conditional on performance. This is not a simple payout. The legal case MUST come up at the time of initiation of the contract else it induces moral hazard.
All of Delaware is now off limits for everyone for ever now.
This is like an insurance contract being voided because it was "too good of a payout" but they only void it when you get injured, your houes burns down etc becaues "oh we didn't realize it until we had to pay". But they collected premium all those years and nobody challenged it.
This is incredibly immoral. It is literally moral hazard.
They deliberately selected a suborbital trajectory with a velocity that matched orbital reentry... See 1:20 of this video.
Everyone who actually follows SpaceX knows this. You are confidently and totally wrong.https://youtu.be/LOerY66mrPc?si=5FUAARFQ3Z98eqjb