Tesla/Space X/Boring Co./Neuralink

[We vs us]

Originally Posted by ATX2030

Colorado River Connector Tunnel

The applicant is proposing private access tunnel along with associated improvements.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/public-s...rtyrsn=5940796

You gotta figure it was bound to happen. Though I'm interested to see what they actually use it for.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by mercury6

How is this related to Tesla/Boring/SpaceX development? Do forum moderators not moderate unrelated gossip?

Agreed. You could make the argument that the Twitter deal is related, but his relationship with his daughter is not.

If you want to comment on his personal life, there is a thread in the Current Events section of the forum for that.

[AustinYIMBY]

Originally Posted by We vs us

You gotta figure it was bound to happen. Though I'm interested to see what they actually use it for.

I can’t remember if I posted my guess on here or not, but when the news broke that they bought all that property on the other side of the river from the Gigafactory for a warehouse, I thought for sure they would be doing some kind of tunnel under the river to connect the 2 sides. I wonder if they are doing this to serve as a proof of concept type thing for Boring Co, because it seems like they have plenty of land on the parcels adjacent to the Gigafactory to build warehouses. Which would also be way more practical than tunneling under the river and have much better access to the highway. The current trip from the factory to that warehouse site on the other side of the river, by land (and the 130 bridge over the river) seems like it would be a pain and have to go out of the way quite a bit.

[AusTex]

Does a map exist of the current land parcels, in the Austin area, held by Mr. Musks associated companies.? I keep reading about the extensive holdings in Travis County along 130 and now across the Colorado River, but have not seen a complete map of them. Have I missed the posting?

[AustinYIMBY]

I don’t think there has ever been a map with the parcels on the other side of the river included but I remember seeing one of the parcels adjacent to Gigafactory. I’ll see if I can find.

[kingkirbythe....]

Musk’s Boring Company wants to build a tunnel under Tesla Gigafactory Texas

https://www.expressnews.com/business...y-17261117.php

Elon Musk wants to dig a tunnel beneath his Tesla Gigafactory Texas.

The Boring Co., Musk’s Texas-based tunneling company, filed an application to build a “private access tunnel with associated improvements” on Tesla Road — formerly Harold Green Road — in eastern Travis County. A permit application was filed Wednesday with the city of Austin for the project called Colorado River Connector Tunnel.

The applicant is Hunter Brauer, a senior civil engineer at The Boring Co., based in Austin. Brauer was not available for comment Thursday morning.

It comes as the company has been pitching plans for an apparent network of tunnels across the state.

[kingkirbythe....]

Elon Musk says he's worried about keeping Tesla out of bankruptcy

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/cars/...eat/index.html

Tesla faces billions of dollars in losses from its new plants, supply chain problems and Covid lockdowns — enough for CEO Elon Musk to mention the possibility of bankruptcy in a recent interview.

"The past two years have been an absolute nightmare of supply chain interruptions, one thing after another," Musk said in an interview with a Tesla owners group. "We're not out of it yet. That's overwhelmingly our concern is how do we keep the factories operating so we can pay people and not go bankrupt."
Musk engaged in hyperbole elsewhere in the interview, and he may have been doing so when mentioning the risk of bankruptcy. For example, he said that automakers in general "desperately want to go bankrupt," which falls in the category of colorful language rather than strict financial analysis.

[kingkirbythe....]

Elon Musk says Tesla's factories in Austin, Berlin are losing billons of dollars

https://www.statesman.com/story/busi...ns/7713389001/

Tesla's manufacturing facilities in Austin and Berlin are losing billions of dollars, according to CEO Elon Musk, who says supply chain issues and other problems are hampering the Austin-based company's plans to increase production.

In an interview filmed at the Austin facility and posted online this week, Musk told members of the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley Club that the two factories, which opened this year, "are gigantic money furnaces right now.”

“There should be like a giant roaring sound, which is the sound of money on fire,” Musk said.

The Austin factory "is losing insane money right now," Musk said.

[ATX2030]

Tesla files permit for Gigafactory Texas’ 500k-square-foot expansion

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-giga...nsion-permits/

[ATX2030]

The Boring Company connects its newest Loop to the Las Vegas Resorts World complex

https://www.teslarati.com/the-boring...resorts-world/

On June 30, Resorts World Las Vegas unveiled its underground station, connecting it to The Boring Company’s (TBC) Las Vegas Convention Center Loop (LVCC). Hours for the Resorts World station will vary depending on the events scheduled at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“Today marks a monumental moment not only for our resort, but for Las Vegas,” said Scott Sibella, president of Resorts World Las Vegas.

“Our passenger station will make a visit to our resort from the Las Vegas Convention Center easier than ever, and eventually connect us to key destinations throughout the city. Resorts World Las Vegas strives to transform the way people experience Las Vegas, and this offering does just that. We are proud to partner with The Boring Company on what we believe to be the future of travel,” Sibella said.

Steven Hill, the President and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), noted that the Resorts World station connecting to the LVCC Loop marked a significant step towards a “game-changing transportation solution in Las Vegas.” Hill was referring to The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop, which will connect the most popular destination spots in Sin City through one transportation system.

The Resorts World station is just one of more than 50 stops along the Vegas Loop. According to Resorts World, its TBC station will be connected to the expanded Vegas Loop system soon.

The Vegas Loop is expected to transport nearly 2,000 passengers per hour between the Resorts World station and the Las Vegas Convention Center, where the LVCC Loop operates. In May, a Resorts World representative told Teslarati that the opening date and details about the Vegas Loop station would be coming soon.

[sjk]

Secretive Elon Musk firm wants to build Austin-to-San Antonio tunnel loop for commuters

Since last summer, Elon Musk’s tunnel-digging company has been looking to collaborate with cities along the fast-growing Interstate 35 corridor to build an underground transportation loop connecting Austin and San Antonio. The series of projects would rely heavily on tax dollars — yet The Boring Co. has been working with local officials largely in secret.

https://www.expressnews.com/news/loc...d-17263481.php

[MBAus]

Originally Posted by sjk

The series of projects would rely heavily on tax dollars — yet The Boring Co. has been working with local officials largely in secret.

I'm a little skeptical of this statement. The Vegas project is almost fully privately funded with the exception of some of the entrance/exit stations that the city wanted. The government is only needed to grant right of way for the tunnels which mostly run under city/state roads. I'd expect any Texas projects to have a similar structure.

[GoldenBoot]

There is also the statute that one owns the ground underneath their property. Some sort of royalty might need to be paid to tunnel under private property in Texas.

[kingkirbythe....]

Lawsuit: At Tesla, racial discrimination is “standard operating procedure”

Tesla factory workers say they face "daily racist epithets" and other harassment.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ing-procedure/

Tesla is facing a new racial discrimination lawsuit filed by 15 factory employees who allege that Tesla's "standard operating procedures include blatant, open, and unmitigated race discrimination." Racial harassment and discrimination is "rampant" at Tesla, and the company has "done little to nothing to reasonably prevent or stop this toxic behavior and work environment," the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs include nine men and six women who work or worked at Tesla factories in California. About half of the plaintiffs were either fired or quit, while the rest still work at Tesla.

[kingkirbythe....]

Austin-based Tesla sees sales slump as it battles supply chain issues

https://www.statesman.com/story/busi...es/7806686001/

Austin-based Tesla saw sales fall to their lowest quarterly level since last fall, amid supply chain issues and COVID-19 related restrictions in China that slowed production of the company’s electric vehicles.

The company on Saturday disclosed it sold more than 254,000 cars and SUVs from April through June, an 18% drop from the first three months of this year and also well below the pace in last year's final quarter. The last time Tesla sold fewer vehicles globally was in the third quarter of 2021 when it delivered 241,000.

[kingkirbythe....]

Tesla deliveries drop by 18 percent in Q2 2022

The automaker blames supply chain issues and factory shutdowns.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07...nt-in-q2-2022/

After several quarters of impressive growth, Tesla is starting to feel the pinch. The US automaker announced on Saturday that, between April and June, it has produced only 258,580 electric vehicles and delivered only 254,695 cars.

By comparison, it was able to build 305,407 EVs and deliver 291,189 of them in the first three months of 2022. However, it claims that it produced more cars in June 2022 than any previous month in its history.

A detailed breakdown of this quarter's results is scheduled for July 20, which should shed light on CEO Elon Musk's claims that the company's new factories in Berlin and Texas are "gigantic money furnaces" costing Tesla billions.

For now, the company merely says that the 18 percent decline, quarter on quarter, was due to "ongoing supply chain challenges and factory shutdowns beyond our control." Unlike his fight with California's Alameda County in 2020, Musk did not quibble or take legal action when Chinese authorities imposed public health controls that shuttered the Tesla factory in Shanghai due to a rise in COVID-19 cases.

[kingkirbythe....]

‘It’s not going to be as sexy’: Boca Chica looks toward a SpaceX future less lofty than it’d hoped

https://www.expressnews.com/business...e-17282337.php

BOCA CHICA VILLAGE — Luis Garza and his wife, Mireida, drove five hours from Monterrey, Mexico, to be here Friday. They brought their son, Luis Jr., 3, and daughter, Miranda, 7, to Starbase as part of a family vacation.

They came for a glimpse of a Starship, to pose with it in the background. They came with hopes of seeing the first-ever orbital launch from South Texas.

“Thanks to Elon, I can see the rockets,” Garza said.

“I want to see the stars and the moon,” his daughter added.

Posing with the big SpaceX rockets was simple. Seeing an orbital launch may not be.

For years, Elon Musk has touted SpaceX’s compound in Boca Chica as the “Gateway to Mars” — the site from which his company would launch its massive Starship to carry astronauts to the moon and the red planet.

[kingkirbythe....]

A Tesla was in a junkyard for three weeks. Then it burst into flames.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/ar...n-17257470.php

A white Tesla Model S was sitting in a Rancho Cordova, Calif., wrecking yard earlier this month - having been severely damaged in a collision three weeks earlier - when it suddenly erupted in flames, according to the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.

When firefighters arrived, the electric car was totally engulfed. Every time the blaze was momentarily extinguished, the car's battery compartment reignited, the fire department wrote in an Instagram post. Firefighters and wrecking yard workers tried turning the car on its side to aim water directly onto the battery pack. But "the vehicle would still re-ignite due to the residual heat," the department wrote.

So they tried something else: They used a tractor to create a pit in the dirt, managed to get the car inside, then filled the hole with water. That allowed the firefighters to submerge the battery pack and ultimately extinguish the fire, which burned hotter than 3,000 degrees, Capt. Parker Wilbourn, a fire department spokesman, told The Washington Post.

[Riverranchdrone]

Originally Posted by kingkirbythe....

A Tesla was in a junkyard for three weeks. Then it burst into flames.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/ar...n-17257470.php

A white Tesla Model S was sitting in a Rancho Cordova, Calif., wrecking yard earlier this month - having been severely damaged in a collision three weeks earlier - when it suddenly erupted in flames, according to the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.

When firefighters arrived, the electric car was totally engulfed. Every time the blaze was momentarily extinguished, the car's battery compartment reignited, the fire department wrote in an Instagram post. Firefighters and wrecking yard workers tried turning the car on its side to aim water directly onto the battery pack. But "the vehicle would still re-ignite due to the residual heat," the department wrote.

So they tried something else: They used a tractor to create a pit in the dirt, managed to get the car inside, then filled the hole with water. That allowed the firefighters to submerge the battery pack and ultimately extinguish the fire, which burned hotter than 3,000 degrees, Capt. Parker Wilbourn, a fire department spokesman, told The Washington Post.

This happens alot with Lithium batteries. I have seen vape pen batteries explode in peoples pockets. Alot of drone operators keep their drone batteries in an ammo can for this very reasons and you have to put your drone batteries in a special fireproof bag when flying.

[dilliam]

"aim water directly onto the battery pack"? Something tells me that this isn't the best way to put out an electrical fire