10 Ways Elon Musk Is Changing The World
10. SUPERSONIC TRAVEL
Unveiled by Musk in 2013, the super-fast Hyperloop
travel concept is potentially revolutionary.
The transportation system will apparently
blast passenger-packed 2 meter wide pods through
long tubes at about 1,220 km/h using energy
derived from the sun.
These pods would zoom through long tubes,
which would be mounted on pylons to minimize
construction costs, reduce earthquake risk
and ease right-of-way issues.
Musk believes the system will act as a cheaper,
faster alternative to California's proposed
$70 billion high-speed rail system, estimating
that a Hyperloop line could be built from
Los Angeles to San Francisco for $6 billion
or so.
Despite some scientists being skeptical about
whether the Hyperloop will work, it has the
potential to be completely world changing
for travel.
Take for instance the journey time from LA
to San Francisco, typically in a car it takes
6 hours, but via the Hyperloop it would take
just 30 minutes.
9. PRIVATE SPACEFLIGHT
Musk founded the private spaceflight firm
SpaceX in 2002, and currently serves as its
CEO and chief designer.
SpaceX has already made history, becoming
the first private company to deliver a spacecraft
to the International Space Station. The unmanned
Dragon capsule first visited the orbiting
lab on a demonstration mission in May 2012,
and has completed two cargo runs since.
The company holds a $1.6 billion contract
with NASA to make 12 such flights with Dragon
and its Falcon 9 rocket.
In 2017, Musk revealed proposals for one of
his most ambitious projects to date- intercontinental
rocket flights for passengers that will take
under half an hour and cost roughly the equivalent
of an economy flight on a passenger jet.
SpaceX claimed that it would be able to fly
from Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes,
New York to London in 29 minutes, and Sydney
to London in 51 minutes.
8. COLONIZING MARS
Beyond intercontinental rocket flights, in
the next 40 to 100 years, Elon Musk hopes
to build a one-million-strong population on
Mars for the long-term future of humanity.
The billionaire entrepreneur hopes SpaceX
can help get the ball rolling toward such
a settlement by ferrying explorers to the
Red Planet for perhaps $500,000 per trip.
Musk envisions 1,000 huge advanced carbon
fibre ITS spaceships sitting in orbit at any
one time - “kind of like Battlestar Galactica”.
They would be refuelled using propellant tankers,
and be capable of holding 100 crew - though
this number would ideally rise to 200.
Each ship is expected to have a lifespan of
30 years and 15 flights each.
If the crew number onboard stays at 100, 10,000
trips will be needed to populate Mars, said
Musk. Due to the time limitations on this,
his estimate came to a mission length of 40
to 100 years to reach the necessary population.
7. MAKING ELECTRIC CARS COOL
When many of us think of Elon Musk, we think
of Tesla, the company he founded in 2003 that
manufactures electric cars and the battery
packs that power them.
By creating models that were visually much
more desirable and affordable to the average
customer, Musk has helped change the way many
people view electric cars.
In 2015 and 2016, the company's Model S was
the world's best-selling plug-in electric
car and global sales of the car reached the
200,000 unit milestone during the fourth quarter
of 2017.
Tesla’s success pushed other major car manufacturers
towards developing their own electric vehicles,
such as the Renault ZOE, BMW i3 and Nissan
Leaf.
By 2040, analysts now say that 54 percent
of all cars sold on the planet will be electric.
And if things go the way they have in 2017,
those cars are more likely to be emblazoned
with a Tesla Inc. logo than BMW AG’s.
6. THE GIGAFACTORY
What do you do when your electric car company’s
business plan requires more lithium ion batteries
than the entire world produces?
If you’re Elon Musk, the answer is to create
a giant “Gigafactory” that meets your
own demands.
The estimated cost of the factory is five
billion dollars. Tesla is only worth just
over three billion. That’s a bit of a funding
gap.
Musk got around this problem by inciting a
bidding war between states who want to host
the Gigafactory, which is estimated to create
22,000 new jobs and bring 100 billion dollars
into the local economy over the next 20 years.
The state of Nevada won with its offer of
1.4 billion in incentives, plus free land
to build the Gigafactory on.
The Gigafactory is capable of making 10,000
solar panels a day, or one gigawatt of solar
capacity a year. It will be the largest solar
manufacturing plant in North America and one
of the biggest in the world, easily becoming
one of the biggest providers of alternative
energy sources.
5. PIONEERING E-COMMERCE
Most of you have probably bought something
online using PayPal. The payment system makes
it quick and easy to make a transaction, and
we have Musk to thank for its success in revolutionising
online payments.
The story goes that Elon Musk co-founded the
online financial services company X.com in
1999. A year later, X.com merged with Confinity,
which had developed an online payment system
called PayPal.
In 2001, the company was renamed PayPal and
dramatically grew in popularity, so much so
that it was acquired by eBay in October 2002
for a whopping $1.5 billion. Up until the
acquisition, eBay depended on physical cheques
as payment.
As of 2017, PayPal operates in 202 markets
and has 218 million active, registered accounts.
PayPal allows customers to send, receive and
hold funds in 25 currencies worldwide.
4. RENEWABLE ENERGY
By now you’ve probably realised Elon Musk
has a vested interest in the effects of climate
change, so it makes sense that he's involved
with a big renewable-energy venture.
Musk is the chairman of SolarCity, which designs
and installs clean-energy systems for households,
businesses, universities and other organizations.
SolarCity claims its carbon footprint per
unit of energy production is 95% lower than
that of fossil fuel power plants and the typical
SolarCity system starts delivering net carbon
reductions in less than a year.
The firm, which was founded in 2006, has thousands
of customers across 14 states, according to
its website.
Musk’s goal is to provide consumers with
an integrated fossil free future. His solar-powered
roof tiles eliminate the need for traditional
panels and have a longer-lasting home battery,
which Tesla calls the Powerwall.
3. THE FUTURE OF AI
When it comes to Artificial Intelligence,
Elon Musk is extremely worried about the potential
threat it could have on humanity.
In fact, he’s so worried that he pledged
$1 billion in 2015 to create a non-profit
organisation called OpenAI, which researches
ways that we can peacefully coexist with machines.
The Tesla founder fears international competition
for AI could lead to World War III, believing
that one of the AIs developed in the technological
arms race could actually launch the triggering
attack, if it determines for itself that doing
so is the best probably path towards becoming
the clear global leader.
However, despite his reluctance to get on
board with AI, in February 2018 Musk left
OpenAI’s board due to a conflict of interest
with Tesla’s own autonomous driving AI effort.
Nonetheless, he has stated that he will continue
to donate to and advise the organization to
pre-emptively safeguard the world from the
AI threat.
2. REUSABLE ROCKETS
If you’ve been keeping up with what Elon
Musk has been doing recently, you’ll know
that on February 6 2018, his aerospace company,
SpaceX, successfully launched his cherry-red
Tesla Roadster into space.
Of course it was the Tesla that grabbed the
headlines, but the real success of the publicity
stunt was the partially reusable Falcon Heavy
launch vehicle- which is essentially three
Falcon 9 rockets strapped together- that successfully
landed its two outer stages in beautiful synchronisation.
For years SpaceX has been creating reusable
booster rockets that once used up, can descend
to Earth in a controlled drop, before landing
vertically on land or sea, ready to be refuelled
and sent off in another flight.
Typical rockets break up when re-entering
the universe and are therefore very costly
to remake time and time again. In fact, Musk
claims that his reusable rockets will make
space access 100 times cheaper and more accessible.
1. SELF DRIVING CARS
What comes after electric cars? Self-driving
cars of course! Elon Musk has promised the
world that a completely automated Tesla will
be available by the end of 2018.
Tesla’s Model S already includes some self-drive
features, such as the ability to change lanes
automatically if there’s space and adjust
the cruise control speed whenever the car
passes a new speed limit sign.
But Musk plans to implement functionality
that would allow drivers to do things such
as summon their cars from the garage via their
phones, at least when they’re on private
property.
But how will self-driving cars like Tesla’s
change the world, apart from the ability to
nap on the road?
Well, thousands of lives would be saved each
year. According to a study by the Eno Center
for Transportation, if about 90% of cars on
American roads were autonomous, the number
of accidents would fall from six million a
year to 1.3 million.
So that’s 10 Ways Elon Musk Is Changing
The World, which of these do you think will
have the biggest impact on the world? Let
us know in the comments below. If you enjoyed
this video, check out 10 Obscure Companies
That Could Dominate The World In 10 Years.
