Tesla Museum! It's Happening!

Basically, Matt Inman (Oatmeal comic guy) did a fundraiser to help buy Wardenclyffe, Tesla's laboratory, about a year ago. He recently made a comic about Tesla Motors Model S and in part two asked Elon Musk (Tesla Motor CEO and founder of Paypal and SpaceX) to help donate more than the 2.5k$ he donated to help save Wardenclyffe and donate the full 8 million dollars to build and run the museum to Nikola Tesla. It was either all posted yesterday or a few days ago.

Well, today he got a response from Elon Musk



http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/14/tesla-motors-elon-musk-will-help-fund-a-nikola-tesla-museum/?ncid=rss_truncated



Words cannot describe my happiness about this.

He hasn't said anything about the full $8m, but I expect he understands both the karmic and PR payoff of this. Nothing's in stone or anything, but this is certainly a great sign.

Also, have you driven a Tesla? Pretty much everything Inman says is spot on. It's like piloting a goddamned starship.

Aren't those Tesla Cars prone to explode occasionally?


Or just another smear campaign by Edison?

I wish. Scragg showed me his and gave me some of his opinions on the car, it's badass.

They were catching fire, there was a recall to fix the issue.

Odd, something Serj and I could both nerd out about, the world may be ending.

I'm pleased to hear this, Tesla was a great man with wonderful visions for the world.

I got to take a ride in one a few months ago and was seriously impressed. But, I would imagine if Tesla knew that his legacy in the eyes of most people would be a turret from a video game and a car that caught fire, he'd have hung up his top hat. It's seriously cool to see his laboratory finally getting some exposure.

Don't forget Hat Replicating Wizard played by David Bowie.

edit: half way beat me to it :p

*** Tesla Coils killin all my Tanyas.

Doesn't the government still have a lot of his work under lock and key?

I haven't driven one yet and probably won't for an extremely long time. Someday, someday.

IIRC there was an issue with the battery in some cars, they were recalled, etc. It wasn't a major safety issue as I recall. The battery was well shielded and protected and did not cause a direct safety risk a la an explosion as much as a breakdown like any other. Dangerous at the wrong time, but no more so than a faulty alternator or fuel pump leaving you on the side of the road waiting for service.

Down side, of course, is that AAA probably doesn't service Tesla batteries yet. :p

So there was an issue, which of course was blown out of proportion by someone.

*This is all based on what I recall from reading articles at the time of the issue. Apologies if it's somehow inaccurate.

Well, recalls aren't exactly uncommon. At VW, we had like 11 active recalls on the A5 platform before the damn things even came off the truck. Tesla's got a lot of exposure because they are viewed as experimental, much like Toyota got a ton of publicity because they are known for reliability. The batteries would heat up and cause some kind of failure, IDK if there was ever an actual fire, though.

Heat is going to be a big problem with fully electric cars for a long time, unless one can find a way to make them way more efficient, and cool them easily.

Read the actual comic by the artist here reviewing the car. He addresses the fire issue.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla_model_s#fires

Only real problem I have with the Tesla S, I could pay my rent and then some for 3+ years for the cost of one of those things...

I will say, that comic was a very interesting read.

Elon Musk Is a pretty awesome guy. He's pushing the boundaries for many things I'm interested in.

I hope one day to own a tesla, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon as they don't make a minivan model... ^^;

Nah, if you want a van that feels like you're piloting a starship, you'll need one of these:

Chevy Starcraft
Chevy Astro:
Because nothing says "outer space" like a Chevy van.

Is it bad when I saw this thread, I immediately thought of TEFRA?

>.>

http://www.teslamotors.com/modelx isn't suitable for your purposes?

It'd work, but not quite as well as I'd need as I drive one of these monsters:



I have 3 kids, 2 of which are in car seats right now and a double stroller is pretty hard to fit in anything else and still have room for anything else like groceries. Space is a pretty big issue. Now if someone gave me a choice to trade in my current one for one of these? *** yes, I'll cram them in the back ^^;