Elon Musk vs SEPTA

From the highways to the stars, Elon Musk has become a titan in the transportation industry. However, his interaction with SEPTA consultant Jarrett Walker two weeks ago paints a different picture, one of a dismissively arrogant elitist who can't be bothered to craft an informed response to expected accusations. 

"You're an idiot" is the way a tween shuts down a conversation on Tumblr. Deleting the comment is what that tween does after graduating to Twitter. Loose tweets sink fleets, and in 2017, two words and a conjunction can do a lot of damage. The juvenile retort was picked up by Inga Saffron at Philly.com, but not before it went global on Slate, The Guardian, and Fortune.

A week later, he clarified his Tweet: "Idiots can be very dangerous when they seem smart, but aren't (having 'PhD' in their bio is a dead giveaway), as some policy makers may get fooled." By doubling down on his statement, Musk solidified his attack on Walker, called all PhD holders potential idiots, and insinuated that city agencies can't understand why they value consultants and employees with advanced degrees. Musk's education isn't shy on impressive bachelor's degrees, but the fact that he dropped out of a PhD program at Stanford after only two days might explain his bias, and dare I say insecurity, around those more educated. 

While Elon Musk's ventures range from boring tunnels beneath the earth to hovering miles above it, his bread and butter is the Tesla. But Tesla's Model 3, designed to make his pricy electric platform affordable to a larger audience, has been plagued with problems, from poor quality resulting in large gaps between body panels to delayed delivery. As customers wait for Teslas that may or may not be worth what they'll pay for them, Musk is prepping to put a cherry red roadster into orbit around Mars. 

Elon Musk is beginning to sound like a dreamer who fell ass backwards into enough money to bankroll a product General Motors shelved twenty years ago, and borrow enough money against that to inflate his ever growing ego. He's the Liz Carmichael of the digital age, only instead of getting an immobile car featured on The Price is Right's Showcase Showdown, he's launching one into space. Instead of defiantly fighting an automotive industry bent on destroying any innovation not owned by the Big Three, he's working within a market that's largely given up. 

He's second wave technology, the tail end of the 21st Century's Industrial Revolution, a market not funded by great products and satisfied consumers, but by venture capitalists and promises of an exponentially altered future that may or may not come. Accusing a SEPTA consultant of fooling policy makers simply because Walker has a PhD is absurd, and infuriatingly hypocritical. The Boring Company, Musk's corporate arm aimed at building a pneumatic tube ferrying passengers between Washington, D.C. and New York City, has been granted conditional approval to dig beneath the Baltimore-Washington Parkway based on nothing more than Musk's own provenance. 

Jarrett Walker may be bogged down with the harsh realities of existing transportation systems, but his reputation precedes him. He understands cities, subways, and public transportation that can't simply be scrapped to start over. Musk's aim is two dimensional. He's playing SimCity while holding down on the fast forward button, and his impatience fails to recognize that cities continually need to function as they evolve. 

Walker's original tweet holds very real merit. Musk's dream of a megalopolis wherein pods deliver us directly from points A to B is only sustainable for the extremely wealthy. To entirely neglect or ignore public transportation in lieu of a Hyperloop and autonomous vehicles forgets about all the service employees who will never be able to, nor should want to, pay for his innovations, and it clogs our streets with more cars.

Those who embrace electric vehicles, car sharing apps, and automotive autonomy are decidedly progressive, and that doesn't jive too well with Musk's personal disdain for subways and buses. When we call for more bike lanes, that isn't meant to include more auto sharing and electric cars. We want the streets safe and clear of unnecessary traffic, something that can't happen without commuters vastly more willing to share trains and abandoning their unease over mass transportation. 

The dictionary defines "idiot" as "a stupid person." Jarrett Walker is a public transportation expert exercising that expertise to make cities work better, dynamically. Whether or not Musk is incapable of understanding that - what will make cities work - I can't say. But maligning a stranger for a degree he doesn't have, for criticizing someone's job done and done well, all while premier products sit on the assembly line as customers wait, that doesn't sound like a particularly smart person. While Jarrett Walker is vested in his job, in SEPTA, and the people of Philadelphia, Elon Musk is trolling Twitter like a teenager with way, way, way too much money for his own good.

Tesla: Pennsylvania is Open for Business

Since the first Tin Lizzies rolled off the assembly line in Highland Park, MI over a century ago, the American auto industry has hosted some of the nation's most nefarious backdoor deals and unethical political maneuvers. Once a competitive industry of Studebakers and Duesenbergs, a select group of choice brands emerged as the captains of the automotive industry.

The Big Three don't rule the American market by making better cars, they sustain themselves through powerful Washington lobbies and truckloads of subsidies. You don't have to make a better car to be an American car company, you just have to be Chrysler, Ford, or General Motors.

Some have learned the hard way, most notably Preston Tucker. The Tucker 48 was set to be one of the most advanced cars the world had seen, a feat accomplished by adding seatbelts and three headlights to a Studebaker. With no major American car company releasing a new model in more than five years, the American market was eager to drive the Tucker 48, until a baseless stock fraud claim and federal indictment led the media to shroud Tucker in a cloud of corruption. Only 51 Tucker 48s were ever produced and Preston Tucker died less than ten years later.

Tucker 48

Since then few new car companies have emerged, and when they have they've been absorbed under an umbrella of one of the Big Three. The American Motor Company was the last major American manufacturer to compete with the Big Three, but was absorbed into Chrysler in the 1980s. AMC's sedans were discontinued and Chrysler continues to manufacture AMC's Jeep brand.

Since 1987 the Big Three has been the Only Three. That is until Elon Musk, a dot com billionaire behind PayPal, took over the California based Tesla Motors. During the financial crisis, Musk was the Big Three's biggest nightmare. The Tesla is more than the motor company's sedan and roadster models, it's a profitable powertrain used by Mercedes and Toyota, a completely electric powertrain that can compete with the most powerful combustion engines.

Sales of the Tesla have put fire under the Big Three, evident in GM's release of the Chevy Volt. The American auto industry hasn't seriously dabbled in electric vehicles since GM's EV1, an electric car offered only as a lease in the late 90s. Despite the EV1's popularity among its drivers, GM cited poor profitability to recall and crush nearly every one of them.

Stacks of crushed GM EV1s

That decision remains controversial, with some conspiracy theorists even claiming that the American automobile lobbies pressured GM to discontinue its experimental program as the EV1 would potentially advance GM ahead of Ford and Chrysler.

So why the history lesson? Well, it would seem politics haven't changed since Preston Tucker engineered his Tucker 48 and Tesla Motors is throwing a little too much competitive innovation at the Big Three, and their lobbyists have been working overtime to keep Tesla Motors out of various markets, including the entire state of New Jersey.

The NJ Motor Vehicle Commission created a legislative loophole yesterday that all but ensures the only American cars available in NJ will be brought to you by the Big Three, and New York is considering similar prohibitions. Car manufacturers will no longer be allowed to directly sell their models in the Garden State, only resellers.

Why? Well it doesn't make any business sense. That's like forcing private bakers to sell their cupcakes through Wegman's.

What it does do is frustrate independent sellers like Tesla and other emerging automotive products at the behest of the giants. What lobbyists likely hope to do is isolate the major markets, and NJ and NY are two of the biggest, leading to one of a few potential outcomes, all benefitting the Big Three.

Tesla will need to find dealers capable of procuring licenses from a state openly trying to ban Teslas, dealers willing to open very expensive dealerships to sell Tesla's only two models.

The other outcome is that this legislation cripples Tesla Motors' sales, forcing the company to sell its soul to the Big Three, or worse, into bankruptcy. This is the more traditional M.O. of the Big Three lobby, but given Tesla's success overseas and its profitable powertrains, not a likely one. Basically, the NJ legislation just screws NJ consumers by giving preferential treatment to the Walmarts of car builders.

Tesla Model S

However if NY follows suit and finds its own way to ban Teslas from their car lots, it puts Pennsylvania in a uniquely lucrative situation. Nothing drives sales like mystique, and if NJ and NY residents want to drive a Tesla, PA is a nearby option. Let's take it a step further, not only selling Teslas in PA, but let's invite Elon Musk to manufacture one of America's most exciting new automobiles right in our own backyards.