Stop Pretending And Start Delivering.”, page-33

As I said, he was innovative in marketing. When they first came out, I too was swept along by the Musk genius claims and thought the cars were great - I still do, but the company is looking pretty shaky atm. When his personality flaws started to emerge (he acknowledges he’s bipolar) I wondered exactly what his genius was based on. Apparently, as you think, it was battery development. But I couldn’t find any evidence of this. Teslas use standard Panasonic 18650 batteries. Motor? No. Control unit? Basically a 1990’s design. Even the much vaunted automated production lines have had to be augmented by extra tent factories and manual assembly to meet production targets. Management techniques? Huge NO.

So, what’s innovative about the car? I looked into converting a small car to electric in the 80’s, but it really didn’t stack up back then on the cost/range factors - so nothing has changed. Well, not true I suppose, Li batteries replacing lead acid probably makes the cost/range equation better as the batteries last longer and can cycle to empty, rather than down to 80%. But in terms of cost and CO2 emissions, a Commodore Diesel wagon (only available in Europe, Australian govts. of all colours have never been interested in reducing emissions, and that includes the greens) at 55mpg is still comparable to the Tesla, at a third the price.

Definitely an AGW sceptic, although I was an enthusiastic contributor to the greenhouse effect in the ‘70s, buying one to help grow veggies in the ice age that the Anglian Climate Research Unit told us was inevitable. Everyone was doing it, they were popping up everywhere.

There isn’t enough data for any model to be meaningful. Undersea volcanic activity is almost totally unknown. Existing models actually ignore significant categories of undersea volcanic activity even when they have data! If the AGW’ists are that sloppy with known knowns and known unknowns, they haven’t proven their point and every other aspect of their work needs questioning too.