Comments on: Elon Musk: Gas should cost $10 per gallon

The Tesla Motors founder sounded off at the Wired Business Conference as to why he thinks the Prius isn't good enough, why auto CEOs shouldn't be finance guys, and that he wants to get a bigger toehold in Detroit.

[dargon19888]

Elon Musk is a bit biased, don't you think?
At $10.00 a gallon, it would make the price for his electric toys seem more reasonable.

The biggest problem is that no one seems to have any reliable data of how these electric vehicles will handle when the weather goes sub zero before wind chill. And we're talking Fahrenheit !

[snesich]

Musk said. "I really am kind of against having a two-class system where you've got the workers and the management sort of like the nobles and peasants."

Really? I have some news for Mr. Musk: None of the "peasants" asked to be in that position. When today's nobels---you know, those upper management folks who make literally 300 times the annual wages of a "peasant"---are closer in income and wealth to those "peasants" who actually make the products and create the wealth, then maybe we won't need those pesky unions.

Mr. Musk: If you don't like the idea of workers (peasants) and owners/executives (nobels) being so contentious, why don't you advocate a significantly smaller gap between their respective earnings? It might be easier to then see yourself as part of one big, happy family or team.

[beijingruud]

$10 a gallon is maybe a bit much to swallow in one go but setting a higher price would help the long term process needed to increase renewables in our energy mix:
- people to become more aware of their consumprion
- help create better business cases for alternative energy (do not even need to subsidise)
- use taxes to develop supporting infrastructure and support the switch to renewables
- it will bring back local production / creating local jobs lost due to low transporation cost

Oil/gas are (basically) finite resources so lets not use it up for the future generation.

[phoobarid]

I used to live in a tourist trap (or as I call it...the 9th Circle) along the Colorado River. All I ever hear about is how cars are doing this...cars are doing that. What about the boats and PWC's that people use? Let's see...they use gigantic vehicles to pull their toys around. Clogging the roads & coming onto the roads at the end of the day usually drunk. Of course...they have to have at least 2 ice chests full of beverages and food...so that ends up along the river or a landfill (if we're lucky) as well.

For whatever reason...cars aren't the thing which bothers me...but it's their idiotic toys and the people with more money & few brains who use them which do.

[richard_schumacher]

Musk is quite right about the external costs of gasoline. $10 per gallon is about enough to make his cars economically attractive, but $5 or $6 per gallon is enough to cover the costs of making artificial carbon-neutral gasoline from non-fossil carbon and non-fossil energy sources; for example:
http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/12554
I kinda wish that Musk would stick to his launcher business instead. Earth needs space-based Solar power as part of its ultimate energy solution. That will be much easier with reliable lower-cost launchers. Musk is on the right track but there is much yet to be done.
http://spacex.com/

[mattie121]

WOW! What a load of crap in most of the comments. $10 gas would hurt, if done right away, but not if done slowly... FWIW, Europe has much higher gas prices, and what happens there? Gee, bit surprise, people STILL go to work. Maybe lots of people who wouldn't know a "cost of ownership" study if it hit them on the head would stop buying huge heavy, inefficient vehicles and instead get something that got better gas mileage... Not only that they could afford to buy, but that they could afford to own.

The notion that gas prices are set by the market and is therefor an optimal price is just BS. Like others point out, we pay basically the direct cost of gas as delivered to the pump. We don't pay for economic exposure, national security issues, military protection of places like the Straights of Hormuz... The list of things that aren't included in the cost of gas at the pump is nearly infinite. People who actually understand economics (instead of most of the BS parroting of half-baked ideas in the comments) recognize that markets with large external costs (or benefits) BY DEFINITION will arrive at the wrong price. This is made even worse by the fact that the energy market bears almost no resemblance to a true free market.

Musk may sound a bit flip in his comments, but don't just shoot the messanger and ignore the message.

[PJB0222]

So, where can we rate this self serving garbage for what it truely is? Note that not one electric car brought to market has a lower overall CO2 and environmental impact than that of a "gas guzzler." Them large batteries are real bad for the environment.

Oh, can we get him to pay the social cost of everything else he wants to purchase as well? I doubt it.

[TX-Sunset]

If any car manufacturers really cared, they would build carbon scrubbers into their vehicles so they would help clean the air even as they pollute it..

[mattie121]

The cost of one carbon scrubber per car is a very high percentage of vehicle costs. And then you have to compress the CO2 and carry it around till you dump it. This is not only energy intensive, it's heavy as well. On the other hand, putting a carbon scrubber at a point of large scale electricity generation may be expensive, but you don't have to carry it around!

[Gromit801]

The Tesla is no more eco friendly than a gasoline engined car. Batteries, charging the production of electrical power, etc. Musk is a hypocrite just looking to line his pockets.

What we really need, is an efficient and economical way to produce hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, from something other than fossil fuels (like natural gas). A car like the Honda Clarity is one of the few really eco friendly cars out there.

[mattie121]

There are "well to wheel" analysis of energy efficiency, and if any of the naysayers here would care to become informed they'd learn that on average, you get about a 2x improvement in work available with electric drivetrains. This takes into account the efficiency of generation, grid transport, AC/DC conversion and back again, and propulsioin with the electric motor. This is compared to the equivalent cycle for ICE engines.

What Musk is is someone who saw a way to start a company that took advantage of a need (reduced light vehicle fleet carbon footprint and increased overall energy efficiency) that could be profitable as well. At least that's the hope.... Anyway, isn't this the entrepenurial spirit that we're all supposed to celebrate?

First I hear that all this stuff is stopped by conspiricies of oil producers and big auto. Now that it's happening, all I hear is that it's a rip off and we really ought to just stick with the last set of corporate deamons! Geeze...

Matt

[Gromit801]

I think Musk saw a get rich idea using available technology and a Lotus chassis. If he were truly interested, he'd be researching the production of hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles, in stead of adding to the problem.

[willdryden]

There is no economical way to produce, compress and store hydogen. Because of the molecular size of h2, it can not be done. That does not even take into account the cost of the fuel cell stack. You could drive 1000 mile on the electricity required to produce enough hydrogen to drive 100 miles.

[cosuna]

"Great companies are built on great products," he said, and when those products take a turn for the worse, so does the company"... hey... did Bill Gates heard that, 'cause Microsoft have had it's share of bad products lately.

Maybe Steve Ballmer did pass thru CFO or Marketing to become CEO.

[shredder123]

The Tesla car is junk. the founder is stupid all he wants is to raise gas prices to try (yes I said try to sell his junk cars) and sell more cars! They are slow, inpractical, over priced, and cost a small fortune to replace, why don't you tell us about the cost of your batteries, instead of $10 gas. Greed is the problem with this Country.

[galeso]

Gas should be $10 and kids should be $10,000 for the first on, $100,000 for the second one, $1,000,000 for the third one.

[HotPilot]

Mr. Musk, with all due respect. When shall you hire me?

JAMES MARK MULVANEY
1206 Grandview Drive
Catlettsburg, Kentucky 41129
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1997-Present: American Airlines, Boston, Massachusetts.
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1988-1993 National Spokesman for Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceutical Company (Now
Novartis)
1986-1988 Pilot/First Officer for a Conglomerate Flight Department including:
King Air 90A, Conquest 2, Cheyenne, Cheyenne 4A.
1984-1986 Taught Army Helicopter Pilots to transition into fixed wing aircraft,
Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
Education:

2009 Clinical Pathologist, Member of the American Society of Clinical Pathologist
2008 M.Ac. in Acupuncture, Los Angeles, California
2003 Ph.D. Medical Research, Major field of study Addiction.
1993 M.S. Medical Masso Therapy, Institute for Psycho-Physiologic Studies,
Lebanon, Ohio
1988 B.S. Aerospace, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia
1983 B.A. Graphic Design, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky
1979 General Studies Diploma, Holy Family High School, Ashland, Kentucky

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