It’s Wednesday and Jennifer and her friend Patte have returned from a Town Hall in Bremerton Washington with our local Congressional representative, Derek Kilmer. I stayed home and followed Elon Musk’s latest report on Tesla, then had dinner with them at the Great Wok in Port Orchard WA. Later, at home, I watched Robert Reich’s recent talk at Google.
The Town Hall was attended by an SRO (Standing Room Only) crowd and was worth the drive according to the ladies.
Robert Bernard Reich is an American political commentator, professor, and author. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. (Google)
Politics is part of the whole, and we have, in my opinion, a mad man at the helm of the ship of state, hardly a good thing. I just finished watching a new post to YouTube, “Preparing Our Economy for the Impact of Automation & AI“, by Robert Reich speaking at Google Talks, a man whose advice many of my friends are predisposed to heed, I believe, and for good reason—he is honest, wise, and vastly experienced in government and the crafting of policy. Strongly recommend you listen to it. Reich has many good ideas and recommends “Indivisible” which is already familiar to our local group of activists.
Also spent time online with Mr. Musk as he continued reporting progress on his vision, in a more orderly fashion than of late, SpaceX having launched another rocket in the past week that sent supplies to the ISS and which sent its first stage back to Cape Kennedy to a successful landing for use again and maybe again and again … as part of his dream of creating a Mars colony, by making it at least an order of magnitude cheaper than it would be with big one time use disposable rockets. Speaking of which, have you seen any strange strangers lately, if so they may have technology to make the 39 light year jump from TRAPPIST-1, a dwarf star with four earth like planets recently announced by NASA, and perhaps one of them sent us The Donald. But seriously, read all about this star in the constellation of Aquarius (The Dawning of?) and its planets in this Futurism post.
The most encouraging news out of Tesla Inc (formerly Tesla Motors) relates to the continuing integration of Tesla with SolarCity and another firm, Grohmann Engineering, that leads the world in highly-automated methods of manufacturing. The result of this integration will make it easy to step into a Tesla store (also available online) and order an electric vehicle, the solar roof to fuel it, and the home battery packs (Powerwall) which will power the home when power is down due to weather or other causes. The price needs to come down before this will make the difference needed to curtail the outrageous planet rape that is underway. Remember, Musk sees the cost of his vehicles, batteries and solar panels continuing to drop in price due to economies of scale, improvements in battery design, and fine-tuned factory automation that will make Tesla products become a rapidly growing agent that ultimately will make a great deal of difference in reducing global warming.
Tesla’s Gigafactory 2, in Buffalo NY, is now hiring according to The Buffalo News.
Instead of lagging in preparation for the launch of his mid-range priced Tesla Model 3 it sounds like the company is coming down the center of the runway for an initial start of assembly in July and ramping up to 5,000 vehicles/week through the following months of this year towards the goal of 10,000/week sometime in 2018. Remember that Tesla already has about 4,000 pre-orders booked with $1000 deposits. The batteries for it are already coming off the assembly line at the Gigafactory 1 in Nevada, ahead of schedule. Also announced today are plans to double the number of Supercharger stations from 5,000 to 10,000 in America for long distance driving in 2017.
The Gigafactory 2 is the solar panel and roofing factory in Buffalo, now mostly complete and already hiring for the beginning of major production this year. Plans are underway for three more Gigafactories, at least 2 more in N. America. Tesla has his designers and engineers working on plans for Tesla trucks and a possible cross-over SUV on the Model 3 frame.
Musk’s role in job creation has had a deep impact on thousands of lives, and on a global
scale. Between all of his companies, Musk employs over 35,000 employees globally,
of which 30,000+ are in the US, according to teslarati.
This week my best fortune cookie said “Beware of Wall Vendors – We Bought Great Wall – Mongols Still Have Not Paid”
Cheers!
Ron