Will Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crash Land On Planet Trump?

In the case of Tesla, the Los Angeles Times calculated last year the upstart automaker had received $2.4 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies, mainly from California (where it is headquartered), Nevada (where it is building the biggest lithium-ion battery factory in the world), and the federal government. SolarCity, the Times calculated, had received $2.5 billion in subsidies — mainly in federal assistance for solar installations and New York state support for building the biggest solar-panel plant in the Western Hemisphere in Buffalo.

And then there is SpaceX, a supplier of launch services to NASA, the military and various commercial customers. SpaceX has not received much in the way of subsidies, but its survival depends very much on government contracts — over $6 billion in awards for resupplying the International Space Station, launching military satellites, and supporting various other missions. If all goes according to plan, SpaceX will begin lofting U.S. astronauts into orbit before the end of the decade, displacing Russian rockets that have been doing that since the Space Shuttle retired.

However, there is good reason to believe that all will not go according to plan — not just for SpaceX, but for the rest of Musk’s empire. In the case of Tesla and SolarCity, the fact that President-elect Trump has appointed a climate-change skeptic to lead his transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency speaks volumes about how federal priorities are likely to change on the energy front. Trump has pledged to cut off money for United Nations climate-change programs and lift regulations limiting exploration for fossil fuels.

With SolarCity already facing financial troubles, the disappearance of federal subsidies could prove fatal. Musk has moved to preempt a crisis by folding the solar-services provider into Tesla, but Tesla could soon be facing its own problems. So the second explosion of a SpaceX rocket in less than two years just as the general-election campaign was moving into high gear couldn’t have come at a worse time. SpaceX’s main U.S. competitor in the launch business, United Launch Alliance, hasn’t lost a single rocket since it was founded over ten years ago.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the co-owners of United Launch Alliance, both contribute to my think tank (Lockheed is a consulting client), so I’ve been getting an earful for the last few years about the risks of relying on low-cost launch providers to get into space. Those risks will become a lot more politically potent if SpaceX is allowed to begin lofting astronauts using a proposed fueling technique that would require the crew to be sitting on the rocket while the fuel is loaded. The spectacular explosion of a SpaceX rocket on September 1 occurred while the vehicle was being fueled.

Letter raises questions about SpaceX fueling plans and committee roles

“Independent advisory groups provide input on commercial crew safety considerations, among which the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel is the primary independent adviser for commercial crew activity,” the agency said. “The ISS Advisory Committee focuses on the International Space Station and international systems.”

The charter of the ISS Advisory Committee, approved and signed by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in September, states that the committee’s objective is to “provide advice and recommendations to NASA on all ISS aspects related to safety and operational readiness, utilization, and exploration.”

The description of duties for the ISS Advisory Committee, also stated in the charter, do not explicitly mention commercial crew systems. The charter does mention “program and project management, including spaceflight safety and mission assurance strategies” as part of its scope, but the only crew vehicle mentioned is the Soyuz.

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) does regularly review commercial crew vehicle development, and has included its assessment in its annual reports in the last several years. Minutes of the last five ASAP meetings, from December 2015 to October 2016, do not mention any discussion of the SpaceX fueling issue.

NASA, though, indicated in its statement that it would still address the ISS Advisory Committee’s letter despite it being beyond the strict scope of its activities. “Other groups, such as the ISS Advisory Committee, also seek information, and we treat all inquiries seriously,” it said.

Another Tesla Crash, What It Teaches Us

Tesla crashed on a test drive while AutoPilot engaged. Nobody got hurt. But the minor incident gives us a plenty to think about.

Earlier this week, I came across a report about a Tesla’s AutoPilot crash. It appeared on Tesla Motors Club’s site, posted by a Tesla fan planning to purchase a car.

The user’s post on the web site’s forum read:

I was on the last day of my 7-day deposit period. I was really excited about the car. So I took my friend to a local Tesla store and we went for a drive. AP [AutoPilot] was engaged. As we went up a hill, the car was NOT slowing down approaching a red light at 50 mph. The salesperson suggested that my friend not brake, letting the system do the work. It didn’t. The car in front of us had come to a complete stop. The salesperson then said, “brake!” Full braking didn’t stop the car in time and we rear-ended the car in front of us HARD. All airbags deployed. The car was totaled. I have heard from a number of AP owners that there are limitations to the system (of course) but, wow! The purpose of this post isn’t to assign blame, but I mention this for the obvious reason that AP isn’t autonomous and it makes sense to have new drivers use this system in very restricted circumstances before activating it in a busy urban area.

Thankfully, nobody got hurt. This post got no traction in the media. No reporter appears to be following it up (except for this publication). This could have been easily filed under the rubric, “minor accidents,” the sort of news we all ignore.

Tesla shares downshift into uncertainty after Republican sweep

Tesla stock is falling in the wake of Tuesday’s Republican victories.

Since their Election Day close, the electric carmaker’s shares had fallen as much as 7.5 percent by Thursday morning. They were trading just shy of $195 on Tuesday, but opened just below $187 on Wednesday morning.

Tesla shares ended the regular session on Thursday down about 2.5 percent.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told CNBC last Friday he did not expect the outcome of the election to affect Tesla’s business much; analysts aren’t yet sure how the election results will impact the company.

In a research note sent Wednesday, Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch and his colleagues said they “would not be surprised to see a Trump administration attempt to block federal support for for [electric vehicle] buyers, but could provide support for companies such as TSLA that are creating U.S. manufacturing jobs.”

Tesla is also trying to acquire a solar power company, and that industry could face new political headwinds in the years ahead.

Rusch, who didn’t mention SolarCity by name in his note, said “residential solar plays will see lower volumes on more challenging regulations/slower demand due to extended coal facility lifetimes.”

Elon Musk’s SpaceX May Lose Inmarsat Launch Order

LONDON— Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. may lose a spacecraft launch order from a major customer, Inmarsat PLC, even as the European satellite operator voiced confidence in the rocket company’s ability to return to flight this year.

SpaceX, as the rocket company is named, lost one of its Falcon 9 rockets in an explosion during a routine refueling exercise in September at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It destroyed an Israeli satellite Facebook Inc. planned to use to provide internet access to people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Investigators believe a refueling procedure led to the failure. Company officials hope to resume flights before year-end. Pentagon and industry officials said launch resumption before mid-January is doubtful.

Inmarsat Chief Executive Rupert Pearce said Thursday the launch of its fourth Global Xpress satellite due this year on a SpaceX rocket would be delayed until next year and that the company may shift a spacecraft due for launch next year to another rocket.

Overcoming SolarCity’s Language Barrier

As you know, elections breed a fair amount of cognitive dissonance.

Which brings us, naturally, to the other vote taking place this month: the decision on Tesla Motors Inc.’s acquisition of SolarCity Corp., scheduled for Nov. 17.

The latest ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ episode came on Friday morning. International Shareholder Services Inc. issued a report urging investors to vote for the deal and containing this gem of a line:

Tesla has — within the confines of its suboptimal governance structure — taken the requisite steps to reassure its shareholders…

Taking steps within confines is, of course, a ticklish task. Even Elon Musk seemed surprised at the outcome. Later that day, though, rival proxy-advisory firm Glass, Lewis & Co. took a somewhat different view:

Stripped from the pretense of creating a fully-integrated renewables retailer serving a loosely framed end-market, we believe non-affiliated Tesla investors should be concerned the proposed tie-up of Tesla and SolarCity mostly amounts to thinly veiled bailout plan (sic).

I have tended to hew more to that view (see here and here). The idea that SolarCity is a vital, healthy, must-have target is belied by the fact that it agreed to sell itself for a low-ball, all-stock offer that, as of early Monday afternoon, barely provides a premium to the undisturbed price:

Tesla’s own numbers show Autopilot has higher crash rate than human drivers

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Tesla’s claim that its Autopilot driver-assistance software is safer than a human driver.

After a fatal Autopilot crash last May, the company said the death was the first in 130 million miles of Autopilot driving—and noted that, “among all vehicles, in the U.S., there is a fatality every 94 million miles.”

The clear implication: Autopiloted Teslas are safer than human-piloted cars, and lives would be saved if every car had Autopilot.

But Tesla’s statistics are questionable at best. The small sample size—one crash—makes any calculation of Autopilot fatality rate almost meaningless.

Furthermore, Tesla compared its Autopilot crash rate to the overall U.S. traffic fatality rate—which includes bicyclists, pedestrians, buses, and 18-wheelers. This is not just apples-to-oranges. This is apples-to-aardvarks.

One statistician called Tesla’s comparison “ludicrous on the face of it.”

Stop Elon From Failing Again

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