Elon Musk – Evil Genius or Rockstar Billionaire?
Undoubtedly Rockstar, as far as we’re concerned.
The majority of the world knows Musk as the man behind the super successful Tesla cars, the man who seems to be on a one-man crusade to show just how clever new technologies in the automotive industry can be, and who does the occasional ‘walk-on’ in shows like The Big Bang Theory.
The fastest production car ever
It’s rare that a car manufacturer can make such a bold claim – ‘the fastest production car in the world’ and hope that it’s still relevant by the time it’s launched (quite literally in the case of Tesla), but Elon Musk can confidently say that and know for a fact that it won’t change in our lifetime.
On 1st December last year, Musk (perhaps the world’s greatest marketing guy) tweeted out that he’d be sending his Midnight Cherry Roadster into space via his SpaceX project with the Falcon Heavy rocket heading for Mars.
Most people thought that it was a marketing stunt, that Musk was just building up a little hype for the launch and that in reality, no one in their right mind could possibly do something like that. Just a few weeks later, Musk tweeted pictures of the Roadster being prepared for launch and all of a sudden it became very real.
More than a gimmick
Whilst it’s true that Tesla and SpaceX have received some great coverage (perhaps more so than if it was just a rocket a launch), there was some very real engineering principles behind it – most rockets have concrete ballast fitted for testing and in some cases flight, so why not replace the concrete with something a little more stylish?
And stylish it was. The Roadster has a ‘driver’ behind the wheel, all (space)suited and booted, arm casually hanging over the side of the door whilst David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ blasted out through the speakers (“surreal” would be another way of describing it).
Going above and beyond
The plan was for the rocket (and the Roadster) to reach Mars – around 35,000,000 miles away (the closest ever recorded was 34,900,000 miles), but on 6th February, Musk said that it had exceeded Mars orbit and was on its way to an asteroid belt.
We should remember that an asteroid belt isn’t necessarily as you’d see in a movie either, where the asteroids are virtually colliding with each other – there’s still plenty of space for the Falcon and the Tesla to carry on their journey without fear of being destroyed by an errant asteroid (although it could technically happen).
Musk is hoping that the Roadster will still be orbiting for a long time. When asked why he was doing it, he said that he loved the thought of one of his cars drifting through space for millions of years to come, and perhaps even being discovered by aliens.
The serious side of Tesla
There is no doubt that the SpaceX launch had an element of marketing show to it, but Tesla are consistently striding toward improvements in the automotive and autonomous driving sector. Currently, there is no other company that have produced the kind of technology that Tesla are known for and could actually compete with Musk.
There is no doubting that some of the tech giants (think Google for example) are trying to take on the might of Tesla with autonomous vehicles, but even with all their resource, they are definitely lagging behind.
Sure, Tesla have had some recent production problems which have caused some delays, but then which car manufacturer can honestly say they’ve never experienced technical problems? And most of them aren’t even at the cutting edge of technology.
The one biggest question that Elon Musk / SpaceX or Tesla will be asked now is simply: what’s next?