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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ashlee Vance
Read between
March 25 - March 27, 2025
June 2010, the Falcon 9 flew for the first time and orbited Earth successfully. In December
Dragon 2 will be able to land anywhere on Earth that SpaceX wants by using the SuperDraco engines and thrusters to come to a gentle stop on the ground. No more landings at sea.
Model S sedan. This all-electric luxury vehicle could go more than 300 miles on a single charge.
Made of lightweight aluminum, the car achieved the highest safety rating in history.
As Craig Venter, one of the earliest Model S owners and the famed scientist who first decoded man’s DNA, put it, “It changes everything about transportation. It’s a computer on wheels.”
handled like a sports car, drove as smoothly as a Rolls-Royce, held as much as a Chevy Equinox, and was more efficient than a Toyota Prius.
Several months later, Consumer Reports gave the Model S its highest car rating in history—99 out of 100—while proclaiming that it was likely the best car ever built.
America had not seen a successful car company since Chrysler emerged in 1925.
By reputation, Fisker had a flair for the dramatic and had produced some of the most stunning car designs over the past decade, not just for Aston Martin but also for special versions of BMW and Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
Tesla had in effect built an all-electric Mercedes CLS.
Musk said he wanted an aesthetic that borrowed from Aston Martin and Porsche and some
April 2010, Tesla and Toyota announced a partnership and transfer of the factory. Tesla agreed to pay $42 million for a large portion of the factory (once worth $1 billion), while Toyota invested $50 million in Tesla for a 2.5 percent stake in the company.
The Model X has what Musk coined as “falcon-wing doors.” They’re hinged versions of the gull-wing doors
“Anyone can make a car big on the outside. The trick is to make it big on the inside.” Musk went from one rival’s car to the next, illuminating the vehicles’ flaws for me and von Holzhausen. “It’s good to get a sense for just how bad the other cars are,” he said.
In October 2012, the presidential hopeful Mitt Romney dubbed Tesla “a loser,” while
Larry Page at Google.
Google would need to pay about $6 billion for the company.
A Model S can recharge 150 miles of range in 20 minutes at one of Tesla’s charging stations with DC power pumping straight into the batteries. By comparison, a Nissan Leaf that maxes out at 80 miles of range can take 8 hours to recharge.
