Elon Musk Unveils Something New Next Month. Let's Figure It Out Now
When you’ve already built the must-have luxury emissions-free vehicle, are sending rockets into space, are building a gigafactory to re-charge the battery industry and have proposed something called a hyperloop to whoosh people back-and-forth at 800 MPH, what can you possibly do to generate any excitement about your next crazy idea?
If you’re Elon Musk, you say you have a new idea, say it has nothing to do with cars and say it’s going to be a secret for 32 days.
Welcome to the world of #MuskGazing.
Since this is a story with zero journalistic parameters — not only can one be flamboyantly wrong, but it’s almost a prerequisite — I’m delighted to play along. So let’s run through some scenarios together, shall we?
The ground rules are simple. Musk never does anything small, so the idea has to almost be an incomprehensible challenge (like rocket science). That said, it can be a new twist on something mundane (batteries are boring unless you intend to make them so powerful that they might let you take your house off the grid).
Buckle up. Here we go:
Perpetual Motion
I’m just getting this one out of the way, since it’s impossible, even for Musk. But a nearly perfect replenishable energy source would make batteries look like caveman stuff. Tesla’s gigafactory does aspire to produce 20% more electricity that it needs. So maybe Musk has decided it’s time to disrupt those pesky first and second laws of thermodynamics.
A Motorcycle
Too obvious, and too cute (yeah, it’s not a car …). But, a two-wheeled EV that commands a premium price is just the sort of thing that Tesla could sell to the same kind of customer who pays $71,000 for a car and the spouses who let them. I just think this is boring. And that world would process it as boring and devalue #MuskGazing. Nobody wants that.
A Smart(er) Phone
Take that, Apple! Sick of talk that Tim Cook should buy him out (the nerve of some people), Musk tries to beat Apple at its own game. Audacious? Sure. But Apple had no reason to think it could crush the giants of mobile telephony, and it did. And how cool would it be to succeed where the world's other eccentric entrepreneur prince, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, failed?
A Vacuum Cleaner
This one is in a CNBC poll. I’m not seeing it, but maybe Musk thinks he needs to school James Dyson with something that didn’t take 5,127 prototypes. Or maybe he’s annoyed Dyson is touting his own progress towards “leaps in performance which current battery technology simply can't” with the acquisition of Sakti3.
A Space Hotel
Something nice between here and Mars for future colonists to decompress (literally) on the road. Sure, fellow space enthusiast Richard Branson is flying people out of orbit, but who's addressing the universe's hospitality market?! Musk is already working on Internet in space, and we all know that hotel room WiFi generates the biggest complaints by guests. This idea is hiding in plain sight. Not a "product line," you say? OK, a chain of hotels.
A Car … Service
Just let it roll off the tongue: The Tesla of Über.
*****
It’s fun to speculate, but the truth of these things is that actual tech is almost always way more exciting than stuff idle speculators like me can dream up.
I’m betting you’re better at this than I am. What do you think Musk is up to? Drop and idea in the comments or write your own post and mention it in the comments here and I'll call it out.
Doe dan!
9yI guess a 1000 Dollar foldable, hybrid house.
Entrepreneur / EMS Training Officer
9yI have heard about the batteries that store solar energy in the home. Very Interesting! Look forward to finding out.
Sr. Mobile Software Engineer at The Home Depot
9yMost likely since it is related to tesla and he has talked about integrating batteries into homes with solar power I would expect it is something along those lines.
Going there, doing that!
9yIt's not a car, so if it's Tesla who's producing it, I bet it's gonna fly, cause cars don't fly. A flying vehicle is my guess, but one htat is commercially viable with a touch of "Musk je ne sais quois".
CEO Smith River Industries
9yI'm gonna go with underwater cities. He seems to be pulling things out of last century's Science fiction/futurism we didn't have the money/immediate need/desire to build/create. Those ideas are still there for the picking.