Category Archives: Elon Musk

Tesla has patented a new battery cell with a tabless electrode that Elon Musk hypes as way more important than it sounds.

In the new patent application published today, Tesla explains constraints with current battery cells:

Current cells use a jelly-roll design in which the cathode, anode, and separators are rolled together and have a cathode tab and an anode tab to connect to the positive and negative terminals of the cell can. The path of the current necessarily travels through these tabs to connectors on the outside of the battery cell. However, ohmic resistance is increased with distance when current must travel all the way along the cathode or anode to the tab and out of the cell. Furthermore, because the tabs are additional components, they increase costs and present manufacturing challenges.

The new patent called Cell with a Tabless Electrode describes a new way to build cells in order to avoid this issue.

Tesla wrote in the patent application:

A cell of an energy storage device with at least one electrode that is tabless, and methods of forming thereof, are described. The cell includes a first substrate having a first coating disposed thereon, wherein a second portion of the first substrate at a proximal end along the width of the first substrate comprises a conductive material. An inner separator is disposed over the first substrate. A second substrate is disposed over the inner separator. The second substrate has a second coating disposed thereon. The first substrate, the inner separator, and the second substrate in a successive manner, the first substrate, the inner separator, and the second substrate are rolled about a central axis.

Here are several drawings that Tesla released in the patent application:

Recently, Tesla has been applying for a lot of intellectual property related to battery cells, like a new electrode for its 1-million-mile battery.

As we previously reported,Electrekrevealed that Tesla is working on an internalsecret Roadrunner project.

The goal is for Tesla to produce its own battery cells using technologies developed by Teslas internal teams, including work from Dahns team, and new technologies recently acquired through the acquisition of Maxwell, on a massive scale and at a cost below $100 per kWh.

For this particular new tabless electrode, CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that this technology is way more important than it sounds without explaining more.

More is expected to be announced at Teslas battery day in a few weeks.

Heres the patent application in full:

While I normally like to highlight that companies, like Tesla, will often patent technology that they dont necessarily plan on commercializing, I think its fair to say that its not necessary in this case if Elon points out that it is important.

I am not sure what he means by that, but I think it might have to do with his recent comments about the possibility of Tesla moving to a battery pack without module. Going from cells to pack would require some changes to cells.

If thats the case, it would be interesting to see what the manufacturing process of those would look like.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.

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Tesla patents a new battery cell that Elon Musk hypes as way more important than it sounds - Electrek

Life, death, addiction, trauma and the ethereal. Despite rarely publicising it herself, Grimes is an artist healing her own wounds through otherworldly soundscapes and visions. Throughout the last decade, Claire Boucher rose from the neuroscience labs of Montreals McGill University into an artistic circuit encompassing the greats, proving herself as a production powerhouse, artistic prodigy, and visionary.

However, following the third anniversary of her seminal recordArt Angels, a publicised relationship with Tesla-founder Elon saw her career thrust under the scorn of the mainstream public. Her decade-rich archive of vibrantmultimedia narratives was seen as comical, her nuanced creative choices were easy targets for meme culture. As happens to many female artists in high-profile relationships, her career was overshadowed by her partners reputation.

Photo: Charlotte Rutherford for Rolling Stone

Claire Boucher spent the last decade climbing; through the rankings of Montreals underground with 2010s GeidiPrimesandHalfaxa, through the metamorphosis of indie-pop with 2012s Visions, coming to rest in a rich virtual niche of alt-electro-pop with 2015sArt Angels.With GarageBand, a second-hand keyboard, and no musical experience, Boucher quickly discovered her talent for crafting alternate realities through production at the age of 23.

Layer on volumes of radiant imagination, gut-punching electro-beats, vocals which transform from angelic to piercing in milliseconds, and years of intense visual media co-ordination, and you have Grimes: an ethereal-being ravaged by a realm of gods, demons, and anthropomorphic trauma.

I engineered a popstar but I use myself. I directed all the videos, did all the album art, mixed and produced all the songs, Boucher noted about the project in a 2013 interview with Hunger TV.It was totally DIY, it started out with me finding tapes in the garbage, and a tape copier in the garbage and copying the tapes by hand.

It is her completely hands-on approach that brings so much virtuosity to her work, something that is no more evident than in her latest record Miss Anthropocene.Quoting that the album narrates apantheon of new gods,Boucher designed each of the records 11 tracks around a differentmeans of death, personal crisis, or modern feeling.The title itself, a play on the words misanthrope and Anthropocene, manifests the god of climate change.

I thought trying to give it a name or a face, for me, makes it a bit more digestible and a bit easier to consider on a daily basis, Boucher noted to triple j. I need[ed] to make this easier for me to consume and continue to engage with it because I cant just tap out right now, that was my goal.

The entire record boasts the immense weight of Bouchers arithmetic production, pausing for breath only during Delete Forever the Demon of Addiction. Palatial yet gentle, poignant yet imagined, the folk-esque track was penned about Bouchers experience with opioid addiction, an ailment which claimed the lives of six of her friends.

With an overwhelming subtly and honesty, Boucher transforms an all-too-known narrative into the sorrows of a cosmic empress, looking down upon her ruined kingdom. Flew into the sun, fucking heroin(e), I see everythingI did everything, cannot comprehend, lost so many men. Lately, all their ghosts turn into reasons,lyrics which equally traverse both realities, offering grief and sensitivity.

Despite the fact that her style of writing comes simply out of creative ease, employing alternate realities and identities as a canvas to mend personal wounds is a feat only achieved by musics most respected. Bowie, Prince, McCartney, and 2Pac all paved the way for what Boucher is currently achieving.

Grimes is the uncensored version, from an artistic standpoint, she noted to HungerTV. What Im doing with music, its stuff that I cant talk to people about. Like I cant say in front of my friends, I couldnt.

Thats the weird thing about this, is that its way more real but because its so surreal, to access such a huge number of people rather than a small number of people.

However, it isnt just her infinite creativity or narrative abilities which give the Grimes outfit its distinct expertise, rather her aptitude for sonic hyper-literacy. An entirely self-directed production allows Boucher the freedom to embed deeply rich symbolism and undercurrents throughout a single or album. Her largest song Oblivionis a poster child of this genius.

Radiating beats and celestial vocals, its an inherently upbeat tune. Yet, Grimes lyrics are a harrowing portrait of Bouchers own sexual assault, and the trauma which has haunted her since.I never walk about after dark, its my point of view. And someone could break your neck, coming up behind you, always coming and youd never have a clue, she sings. See you on a dark night.

Instead of paintingOblivionwithin an alternate universe like her other works, Boucher does the complete opposite. She goes to a motor-cross event, a football final, and a mens change room. The music video is painfully mundane in the most powerful way. Images of her traversing a world dominated by the male gaze illuminate the poisoned reality which victims are forced to return to, and the normalising of rape culture in our everyday. The viewer is left in awe.

And yet, put Grimes name into Google right now and youll come up with this:

What you need to knowabout Grimes, the Canadian musician who just had a baby with techbillionaire Elon Musk.

Elon Musk and Grimes cant agree on how to pronounce their babys name.

What is an X A-12?

Claire Boucher is exercising musical wisdom well beyond her years as an artist. A polymath of production, she crafts songs into teaming universes of hallucinogenic realities and nocturnal soundscapes, full of symbolised agony and double meanings which blend the imagined with the excruciatingly real. All of which have been ignored in her tabloid-promoted persona as the eccentric girlfriend of the Twitter-addicted Tesla founder, and mother of their unconventionally-named baby.

In our hyper-commercialised society, it has become frighteningly easy for these media-circulated identities to plague artists. Once a meme, always a meme. Whilst many do recognise Grimes artistry, as seen in the staggering reception ofMiss Anthropocene, her well-documented relationship has undeniably dominated her public narrative. However, this certainly hasnt stopped Boucher from continuing to push her project and the bounds of creativity as far as it can reach.

People seem to assume that Im an air-head, that Im a druggy, weird and on Tumblr I think its hard for people to grasp that someone can produce and be a front person, maybe Boucher recalled back in 2013.

Its been really interesting for me to see how easy it is to actually create thisI dont want to say fantasy Im in the process of moulding reality.And coming to take great pleasure out of building this idea of what Grimes is, and controlling everything about it.

We have allowed so many under-appreciated artists slip through the cracks before because the world simply wasnt ready. Perhaps its about time we appreciate the cosmic talent that is Grimes.

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Is Grimes' relationship with Elon Musk distracting us from her musical brilliance? - Happy Mag

Elon Musk, (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa), South African-born American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm PayPal and formed SpaceX, maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft. He was also one of the first significant investors in, as well as chief executive officer of, the electric car manufacturer Tesla.

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Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971.

Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm PayPal and founded the spacecraft company SpaceX. He became chief executive officer of the electric-car maker Tesla.

Elon Musk founded SpaceX, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He became the chief executive officer and a major funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars.

Musk was born to a South African father and a Canadian mother. He displayed an early talent for computers and entrepreneurship. At age 12 he created a video game and sold it to a computer magazine. In 1988, after obtaining a Canadian passport, Musk left South Africa because he was unwilling to support apartheid through compulsory military service and because he sought the greater economic opportunities available in the United States.

Musk attended Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and in 1992 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he received bachelors degrees in physics and economics in 1995. He enrolled in graduate school in physics at Stanford University in California, but he left after only two days because he felt that the Internet had much more potential to change society than work in physics. That year he founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers. In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online. The online auction eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

Musk was long convinced that for life to survive, humanity has to become a multiplanet species. However, he was dissatisfied with the great expense of rocket launchers. In 2002 he founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to make more affordable rockets. Its first two rockets were the Falcon 1 (first launched in 2006) and the larger Falcon 9 (first launched in 2010), which were designed to cost much less than competing rockets. A third rocket, the Falcon Heavy (first launched in 2018), was designed to carry 117,000 pounds (53,000 kg) to orbit, nearly twice as much as its largest competitor, the Boeing Companys Delta IV Heavy, for one-third the cost. SpaceX also developed the Dragon spacecraft, which carries supplies to the International Space Station and is designed to carry as many as seven astronauts. Musk sought to reduce the expense of spaceflight by developing a fully reusable rocket that could lift off and return to the pad it launched from. Beginning in 2012, SpaceXs Grasshopper rocket made several short flights to test such technology. In addition to being CEO of SpaceX, Musk was also chief designer in building the Falcon rockets, Dragon, and Grasshopper.

Musk had long been interested in the possibilities of electric cars, and in 2004 he became one of the major funders of Tesla Motors (later renamed Tesla), an electric car company founded by entrepreneurs Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. In 2006 Tesla introduced its first car, the Roadster, which could travel 245 miles (394 km) on a single charge. Unlike most previous electric vehicles, which Musk thought were stodgy and uninteresting, it was a sports car that could go from 0 to 60 miles (97 km) per hour in less than four seconds. In 2010 the companys initial public offering raised about $226 million. Two years later Tesla introduced the Model S sedan, which was acclaimed by automotive critics for its performance and design. The company won further praise for its Model X luxury SUV, which went on the market in 2015. The Model 3, a less-expensive vehicle, went into production in 2017.

Musk expressed reservations about Tesla being publicly traded, and in August 2018 he made a series of tweets about taking the company private, noting that he had secured funding. The following month the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Musk for securities fraud, alleging that the tweets were false and misleading. Shortly thereafter Teslas board rejected the SECs proposed settlement, reportedly because Musk had threatened to resign. However, the news sent Tesla stock plummeting, and a harsher deal was ultimately accepted. Its terms included Musk stepping down as chairman for three years, though he was allowed to continue as CEO.

Dissatisfied with the projected cost ($68 billion) of a high-speed rail system in California, Musk in 2013 proposed an alternate faster system, the Hyperloop, a pneumatic tube in which a pod carrying 28 passengers would travel the 350 miles (560 km) between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes at a top speed of 760 miles (1,220 km) per hour, nearly the speed of sound. Musk claimed that the Hyperloop would cost only $6 billion and that, with the pods departing every two minutes on average, the system could accommodate the six million people who travel that route every year. However, he stated that, between running SpaceX and Tesla, he could not devote time to the Hyperloops development.

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Elon Musk | Biography & Facts | Britannica

Elon Musk leads Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), where he oversees the development and manufacturing of advanced rockets and spacecraft for missions to and beyond Earth orbit.

Founded in 2002, SpaceXs mission is to enable humans to become a spacefaring civilization and a multi-planet species by building a self-sustaining city on Mars. In 2008, SpaceXs Falcon 1 became the first privately developed liquid-fuel launch vehicle to orbit the Earth. Following that milestone, NASA awarded SpaceX with contracts to carry cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS). A global leader in commercial launch services, SpaceX is the first commercial provider to launch and recover a spacecraft from orbit, attach a commercial spacecraft to the ISS and successfully land an orbital-class rocket booster. By pioneering the development of fully and rapidly reusable rockets and spacecraft, SpaceX is dramatically reducing the cost of access to space, the first step in making life on Mars a reality in our lifetime.

Elon also leads Tesla, which makes electric cars, giant batteries and solar products.Previously, Elon co-founded and sold PayPal, the world's leading Internet payment system, and Zip2, one of the first internet maps and directions services, which helped bring major publishers, including the New York Times and Hearst, online.

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Elon Musk | SpaceX

Elon Musks other company, SpaceX, is building Starlink, a global communications constellation that could approach a staggering 42,000 satellites. And it could be all that stands between us and a fragmented world living in virtually and actually different realities.

How?

World War II can tell us the answer.

SpaceX Launches Starlink Mission from Florida

In the early 1940s a tyrannical power using fake news, hate speech, military might and hegemonic power controlled most of Europe: the Nazis. They controlled public life, news and local economies. Resistance groups dotted the European mainland, with one lifeline for non-official communication from free countries: radio.

As such, radios were contraband and confiscated. One of the activities the allies undertook to support resistance fighters was shipping in radios for communication and outside news.

Today, radios arent at risk of being confiscated.

But the internet is.

And as a cloud-delivered service, hijacking the internet happens largely out of public sight, in servers and routers that enable services like Netflix and the BBC and Facebook and Google.

Its called splinternet, and its the ongoing division of a worldwide interconnected internet into separate and isolatable fiefdoms, each of which can be controlled and managed so that governing powers can control what their populations see.

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Great Firewall of China is the most well-known example, but Iran, Syria and Vietnam also control significant portions of the internet for their populations. Russia just completed technology to wall off its internal networks, servers and internet users from the wider internet. And India, in its attempt to control unrest following its anti-Muslim citizenship law, has employed a particularly heavy-handed approach: simply blocking the internet entirely.

(One unintended result: contractors in India cant reach their employers in the U.S.)

Another country, United Arab Emirates, took a different approach: outlawing all messengers except one that it built a digital backdoor into: Totok.

However it happens, it allows governments to control what people see, read and hear from outside sources and censor what their own people say.

Starlink can change all of that.

Elon Musk recently revealed details about how people will access StarLink. It will be incredibly simple, and it will enable access to the relatively free global internet from anywhere on the planet.

Starlink Terminal has motors to self-adjust optimal angle to view sky. Instructions are simply: plug in socket, point at sky. These instructions work in either order. No training required.

What that means is that anyone can access the internet from anywhere. Chinese citizens will be able to access Google and information about Tiananmen Square. Russian citizens will be able to see external analysis of Putins financial dealings if even Russia blocks outside sources. Indian protesters cant be cut off from the internet.

Of course, governments will make the Starlink Terminal illegal.

But that in itself will be a victory.

Censorship works best when it is invisible: when people dont even know that there is alternate information, other understandings of reality. (Chinese teenage exchange students at a relatives house last year, for example, had never heard of Tiananmen Square, and refused to believe stories that, they felt, painted China in a negative light.)

But when a device to connect to the outside world becomes contraband, the glass walls become opaque. People realize that walls have been erected to prevent them from seeing other opinions.

And that is at least one step to maintaining a free, open and accessible internet globally, which should help combat fake news, propaganda and information deprivation aimed at controlling populations.

Getty

And its a step towards making the splinternet harder to achieve.

1,000 satellites will be enough to enable basic service, Musk has said. SpaceX just launched a third batch of 60 satellites, and is expected to continue launching that many every two weeks through the rest of 2020.

(For context, only about9,000satellites have been launched in all of space history, about 5,000 of which are still in orbit. And only 2,000 are actually still operational. So even at a quarter or a fifth of total capacity, Starlink is a ridiculously large satellite constellation and unprecedented in human history and astronomers have legitimate concerns about light pollution.)

While Musk has applied for launch permission for up to 42,000 satellites, hes unlikely to launch them all.

But at the current pace, a global and unblockable internet service should be available in less than a year.

This doesnt mean that all will instantly be rosy.

Governments, of course, can try to jam satellite signals. Thats unlikely to work or even be possible in all places and all times, however. Theyre also likely to continue to try to engage in false flag and other misinformation projects. And people seem to be pretty good at fooling themselves these days: locking themselves in reality bubbles that block dissenting narratives.

But any gaps in the emerging splinternet are opportunities for different perspectives and, hopefully, true facts to emerge.

Updated January 10: the story stated that SpaceX launches would be every 2-3 months; the company has actually said they will be every two weeks (with a few disclaimers).

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Elon Musks 42,000 StarLink Satellites Could Just Save The ...

Visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk is the co-founder of PayPal (PYPL), Tesla Motors (TSLA), and SolarCity (SCTY),and is the founder of SpaceX. His astounding success has given rise to comparisons of Musk andSteve Jobs, Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, and Bill Gates. Amid an often difficult childhood, Musk developed a relentless work ethic (he is known to work as many as 80 to 100 hours per week) and a tenacious single-minded vision.

On September 7, 2018 Musk appeared to be smoking marijuana while interviewing for a podcast. Coupled with the exit of Tesla's head of human resources and chief accounting officer, that news saw the stock drop in trade. This was just another addition to the string of bad news for the company, including a shareholder lawsuit against Musk and the company for his infamous tweet on August 7.Musk had tweetedthat he is considering taking Tesla private. The company later decided against the move.

We look at the early life and education of the man behind a string of companies that have disrupted multiple industries.

Elon Reeve Musk was born in 1971in Pretoria, one of South Africa's three capital cities. His father was an engineer and his mother was a model and nutritionist. He is the oldest of three children in an ambitious family. His brother Kimbal Musk is currently a venture capitalist and environmentalist. His sister Tosca Musk is an award-winning producer and director.

After his parents divorced when he was a child, Musk lived mostly with his father. Musk started school a year early, attending the private Waterkloof House Preparatory School and later graduating from Pretoria Boys High School. He read voraciously and was also an avid fan of comics. Self-described as a bookworm and something of a smart aleck, he was bullied in school and withdrew to his books at the expense of his social life.

At the age of 10, Musk was introduced to computers with the Commodore VIC-20. He quickly learned how to program and at the age of 12 sold a game called Blastar to Spectravideo for $500.

In one telling incident at that time, Musk, along with his brother, planned to open a video game arcade near their school. Ultimately, their parents nixed the plan. But apparently the only thing stopping them was the need for a city permit which had to be applied for by an adult.

Musks intellectual aptitude did him few favors as a child. He found few friends in the tough-minded Afrikaner culture he encountered in school.

"I had a terrible upbringing. I had a lot of adversity growing up. One thing I worry about with my kids is they don't face enough adversity," he would later say in an interview.

Musk attended the English-speaking Waterkloof House Preparatory School, and later graduated from Pretoria Boys High School. The years were lonely and brutal, from his descriptions.

They got my best friend to lure me out of hiding so they could beat me up. And that hurt, Musk said. For some reason they decided that I was it, and they were going to go after me nonstop. Thats what made growing up difficult. For a number of years there was no respite. You get chased around by gangs at school who tried to beat the (expletive) out of me, and then Id come home, and it would just be awful there as well.

If there was a point of bright escape for Musk; it was technology. When he was only 10, he became acquainted with programming via the Commodore VIC-20, an inexpensive home computer. Before long, he had become proficient enough to create Blastar a video game in the style of Space-Invaders. He sold the BASIC code for the game to a magazine called PC and Office Technology for $500.

At 17, Musk moved to Canada to avoid serving in the South African military, whose main duty in the late 1980s was enforcing apartheid. He would later obtain Canadian citizenship through his mother.

After emigrating to Canada, Muskenrolled inQueen's University in Kingston, Ontario. It was there that he met Justine Wilson, an aspiring writer. They would marry and have five sons together, twins and triplets, before divorcing in 2008.

After two years at Queen's University, Musk transferred to the University of Pennsylvania. He took on two majors, but his time there wasnt all work and no play. With a fellow student, he bought a 10-bedroom fraternity house, which they used as an ad hoc nightclub.

Musk graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physics, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from theWharton School. The two majors speak to the direction Musks career would take later, but it was physics that made the deepest impression on his thinking.

(Physics is) a good framework for thinking, hed later say. Boil things down to their fundamental truths and reason up from there.

Musk was 24 years old when he moved to California to pursue a PhD in applied physics at Stanford University. With the internet exploding and Silicon Valley booming, Musk had entrepreneurial visions dancing in his head. He left the PhD program after just two days.

In 1995, with $28,000 and his younger brother Kimbal at his side, Musk started Zip2, a web software company that would help newspapers develop online city guides. The company got bought out, and Musk used his Zip2buyout money to create X.com, which he intended to shape into the future of banking. X was merged with a company called Confinity and the resulting company came to be known as PayPal. Musk was then ousted from the company before it wasbought by eBay.

After PayPal slipped away, Musk helped generate funding for an electric car startupcalled Tesla. You probably know the rest.

His early interest in reading philosophy, science fiction, and fantasy novels is reflected in his sense of idealism and concern with human progress. He aims to work in the areas he has identified as crucial to our future, specifically the Internet, the transition to renewable energy sources, and space colonization. With his work with PayPal, Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX, he has defied critics and made advances in all three of these frontiers. (See also4 Real-Life Tony Starks.)

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How Elon Musk Became Elon Musk: Elon Musk's Early Years

What has happened to Elon Musk?

A highlight reel of the billionaire Tesla CEOs activities since early March includes his pooh-poohing the coronavirus panic as dumb; keeping his northern California factory open in defiance of local public health orders; falsely asserting that children are essentially immune from the virus; providing a giant platform to promoters of an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment; predicting (inaccurately) that the US would have no new cases of Covid-19 by the end of April; attempting to re-open the factory before the end of the local shelter-in-place order; and calling shelter-in-place orders fascist. (Lets not even get into the drama over whether the BiPap machines he donated to some hospitals count as ventilators.)

Musks dissemination of misinformation about the virus is not without consequences

Musks dissemination of misinformation about the virus is not without consequences. He has more than 33m followers on Twitter and a fan base that tends to exalt him as a cross between Tony Stark and God. A recent study published as a letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine linked his tweet about chloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that was subsequently touted as a potential Covid-19 treatment by Donald Trump, to a dramatic surge in online demand for the prescription medication. They werent aware of it, they werent interested in it they were trying to buy it, John Ayers, a UC San Diego professor of medicine and one of the studys authors, told the Guardian in an interview.

The chloroquine document that Musk shared was an example of what the infectious disease expert Carl Bergstrom has described as quantitative bullshit the use of statistics and data to persuade someone by overwhelming and intimidating them, without any allegiance to truth or accuracy. Last week, Musk was apparently taken in by another pair of coronavirus bullshit artists, this time a pair of doctors from Bakersfield, California.

Drs Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi held a press conference to promote the idea that Covid-19 is much more widespread and much less deadly than what ivory tower figures such as Dr Anthony Fauci have said. Docs make good points, Musk tweeted, with a link to a YouTube video of the 50-minute press conference. (YouTube removed the video for spreading misinformation, but not before it received millions of views; one of the doctors has gone on to make appearances on Fox News.)

The docs did not make good points. After opening his remarks by defining science like a high schooler writing a term paper (What is science? Essentially, its the study of the natural world through experiment, through observation, so thats what were doing) Erickson presented testing data from the chain of urgent care clinics they own. The clinics have performed 5,213 Covid-19 tests and had 340 positive results, which they claimed means that there is a 6.5% rate of infection in the local population. The pair performed the same math (positive tests divided by total tests) on the statewide numbers of 33,865 positive tests out of 280,900 total, to arrive at a 12% infection rate for the state. From there, they calculated that California has had a total of 4.7m infections and calculated that the death rate for people who contract Covid-19 in California is just 0.03% much lower than that of the seasonal flu.

None of this stands up to scrutiny. In order to assume that the rate of infection amongst a small number of people can apply to the entire population, you have to use a random and representative sample. But the people who are getting tested at urgent care clinics in California are neither random nor representative; they are people with severe symptoms or who are performing certain essential jobs. Figuring out the actual infection rate across the broader population will require careful sampling that avoids this selection bias.

The Bakersfield duo used their meaningless numbers to argue that shelter-in-place orders must be lifted a position that Musk clearly also holds. (In an extraordinary joint statement, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine jointly and emphatically condemn[ed] the pair, and suggested they were releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the publics health.)

The issue is not that Musk has staked out a contrarian stance on the coronavirus. There are difficult debates that need to be had over how and when to restart the economy in order to minimize long term economic harms and maximize public health. We can and should have that discussion, and we should do it without impugning the moral character of everyone who argues for a faster loosening of restrictions.

But its increasingly difficult to take Musk seriously when he makes his argument by cherry-picking numbers or relying on blatant misuse of data. Please, make your case, but make it using real facts, and not by playing fast and loose with numbers in an effort to mislead the public about what is actually happening. Otherwise you look and sound a lot less like the brilliant engineer and entrepreneur, and a lot more like just another used car salesman.

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Coronavirus has Elon Musk acting like just another used car salesman - The Guardian

A number of significant tidbits of information came forth from Teslas first quarter earnings report for 2020, which added together have confirmed just how far Tesla is ahead of the electric vehicle game.

Not least is the fact that the Californian auto maker has posted a modest but still positive $US16 million ($A24.5 million) profit, even amid the economic challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic which has seen Teslas Model 3 factory in Fremont, Alameda County, shut down by government order to help contain the spread of the highly contagious virus.

Musk is railing against the extension of closures, going so far as to call the stay-at-home measures fascist during the companys earnings call, but Tesla has fared better than fellow car makers Ford and GM and other auto makers have also faced factory closures, as noted by Giles Parkinson on Thursday.

Exactly

Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2020

While Musks opinions on how to get back to a flourishing economy as the pandemic seemingly comes under control in some US states have divided many, one thing is clear: following Musks vision, Tesla has already put itself in a position to ride the waves of the crisis.

And car makers are reportedly worried. CleanTechnica author Alex Voigt last Sunday shared on Twitter comments made by VW boss Herbert Diess in an internal meeting that Teslas autonomous driving systems was giving him a headache.

500,000 Teslas function as a neural network that continuously collects data and offers the customer a new driving experience every 14 days, with improved features,Diess was quoted as saying by Voigt.

No other automaker can do that today.

Diess showed his Top Managers a graph illustrating Tesla 2 times as high stock market valuation & explained Tesla did do that despite all the valuable brands like Porsche, Audi, Bentley..

Diess concluded his confidence Tesla to increase volumes

"We still have a long way to go."

Alex (@alex_avoigt) April 26, 2020

Tesla, which has just released its latest Full Self Driving feature the ability to detect and stop at traffic lights and stop signs will soon be collecting data from 1 billion intersections a month as the feature is rolled out across markets, giving the company access to far more valuable and voluminous information about autonomous driving as drivers effectively label objects for Tesla as they drive.

No wonder car makers are worried.

Autonomous driving aside, other developments shared by Musk during the Q1 2020 earnings call also reveal Teslas strong hand.

Learnings from the ramping of production of Teslas first mass-volume electric car, the Model 3, have afforded the car maker the opportunity to leapfrog ahead of its own production schedule for its next mass-volume vehicle, the Model Y.

First deliveries of the Model Y began a full three months ahead, and Musk reported that it is now Teslas first vehicle to become profitable in its first quarter of production, with more Model Ys produced in its first quarter than were Model 3s in its first two quarters.

Thus the Model Y ramp has been even faster than the Giga Shanghai ramp, said Musk. In other words, we are ahead of the schedule that we were ahead of already.

Both profits and Teslas ability to ramp production quickly can be attributed to the incremental efficiencies Musk has spoken about in past earnings calls, and which for the Model Y have been partially revealed by auto engineering expert Sandy Munro as he bit by bit tears down a Model Y to reveal cost cuts and improvements.

One significant improvement noted by Munro is the Model Ys octovalve (see video at the bottom of this article), a key component of the Model Ys heat pump which replaces the Model 3s resistive heating system.

We also introduced a revolutionary new heat pump which allows the [Model] Y to have better range, said Musk, adding that it makes the Model Ys driving range slightly better than Model 3 despite being a bigger car that weighs more.

Other efficiencies are in the works for the Model Y, says Musk, including a single piece casting for the rear third of the Model Y body that will also reduce the weight, cost and noise/vibration of the Model Y.

The Model 3 has not been left out of the picture, as Tesla continues to work towards localisation of parts in Shanghai, allowing it to drop the price of the made-in-China Model 3 to RMB291,800 ($A63,859 converted) so that Chinese drivers can access the countrys new energy vehicle subsidies.

Last but by no means least in the vehicle department came another announcement from Musk that the Model S is now capable of 400 miles (643km) driving range, although according to Musk the EPA scored its official rating at 391 miles due to user error.

The real Model S range is 400 miles, but when we took the last EPA test unfortunately the EPA left the car door open and the keys in car overnight so the car lost 2% range, he said.

To be clear, for the Model S for the past two months, the true range has been 400 miles.

Which leads to a final but possibly the most significant announcement from the Tesla Q1 2020 call: that with Battery Day is now slated for the third week of May, either in California or Texas depending on Covid-19 restrictions, and the latter location is a nod to an announcement expected in weeks around what may now be known as a Tera-factory.

There will be a lot of exciting news to tell, Musk said. It will be one of the most exciting days in Teslas history.

Bridie Schmidt is lead reporter for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She specialises in writing about new technology, and has a keen interest in the role that zero emissions transport has to play in sustainability.

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A lot of exciting news: Elon Musk reveals just how far ahead of the game Tesla is now - The Driven

Trevor Noahs Daily Social Distancing Show examined the new Apple feature that will attempt to overcome the inability of the phone to read a masked face.

Noah noted the feature, which calls for punching in a secret code, will take us back in time. Thats a time where theres no corona, and also gives him a second chance at a failed girlfriend.

Shifting his focus, Noah then turned to Elon Musk, who is being criticized for an expletive-laden rant on how the governments pandemic lockdown was breaking peoples freedoms. Musk claimed To say that they cannot leave their house is facist

Hes trying to stir up civil unrest, said Noah, saying that Musks long-standing contention that were living in a computer simulation is coming true.

Finally, if youve ever wondered whether President Trump pays attention to the replies on his Twitter rants, wonder no more. A random tweeter with 75 followers sent the President a note saying that he could supply ICU ventilators. Soon after, he had a $69 million contract with New York State, which was acting on the recommendation of the White House task force.

If someone tells you the price of anything is $69 million, it is a joke, said Noah.

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Trevor Noah Unlocks The Mysteries Of Apple Phones, Elon Musk, And Trumps Twitter - Deadline

Elon Musk has been one of the most vocal figures spouting coronavirus misinformation on Twitter. Hes touted unproven medications, falsely claimed kids are immune, over-promised on ventilators, and made wildly inaccurate prediction that new US cases would be probably close to zero by the end of this month. Now, the Telsa founder has doubled down on his coronavirus panic is dumb remarks in a series of anti-lockdown tweets.

Musks latest spree was focused on reopening the country, with the most recent tweet reading simply, FREE AMERICA NOW. He also shared stories about social distancing restrictions being lifted in Texas and Iowa, praising the moves and demanding governments Give people their freedom back!

He even agreed with a well-known Trump firster (someone who responds to Trumps tweets first to gain prominent placement in threads) who tweeted that the scariest thing about the crisis was seeing American so easily bow down & give up their blood bought freedom to corrupt politicians who promise them safety [sic].

Now, there are arguments to be made that the careful rolling back of restrictions in certain locales could be okay; even New York, the worldwide hot spot, is beginning to discuss it. At the same time, the very reason the infection and mortality rate hasnt been as bad as some projected is because those measures are in place, and removing them too quickly could easily cause a renewed spike in cases and deaths.

The fact that Musk, ostensibly a man of science and above-average intelligence, would promote such coronavirus truther theories without an appropriate level of nuance has set Twitter ablaze. For one, pop star Ariana Grandes mom wasnt shy about voicing her opinion on Musks careless words.

How incredibly irresponsible of you, Joan Grande tweeted. And you think you are a person of science and technology Youre a disgrace. and now I have to get ride of my TESLAs. (Yeah, we caught that pluralization there, Mama Grande. #HumbleBrag is back.)

As it has been since the start, the coronavirus pandemic is a very fluid situation, and the scientific community is learning new information daily. Even the numbers we do have are likely flawed due to a lack of accurate, widely available testing, especially when it comes to antibodies. While its true the curve has begun to flatten and its understandable workers are itching to get back to earning a living, theres a reason experts are called experts and Musk is called engineer, industrial designer, technology entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Some have even pointed out Musks own belief in this, posting screenshots of a November 2017 tweet he sent out quoting Mustafa Kemal Atatrk: If one day, my words are against science, choose science.

That said, Musk has tried to help, sending CPAP and BiPAP machines to hospitals (though the safety and effectiveness of the non-invasive ventilators without modifications has been questioned). Regardless, guidelines from the CDC and the White House caution against opening states back up too soon instructions a number of states are already ignoring.

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Elon Musk Demands COVID-19 Restrictions Be Lifted: Give People Their Freedom Back! - Consequence of Sound