College Grads Create Fake Tesla Commercial That Elon Musk Loves 100
cartechboy (2660665) writes "Two University of Southern California grads were looking to start a digital content company so they decided to roll the dice and create a home-made (but incredibly professional looking) television commercial for Tesla — just to see if they could get some attention for it. Well, apparently, mission accomplished. R.J. Collins and James Khabushani took $1,500 and created a 60-second Tesla 'faux-mercial' dubbed 'Modern Spaceship' that is well, pretty good. Elon Musk noticed, tweeted it and has helped the thing go viral."
Re:A toy for the 1%ers (Score:2, Interesting)
Surprised that in 2014 people still think that wealth has anything to do with hard work rather than innate talent, connections and lack of scruples.
(Son of multimillionaires and private school scholar here, so I'm not bitter - just saying it how it is.)
Lemme posit this... (Score:5, Interesting)
.
My answer: no.
This is an enjoyable commercial.
Question: why cannot the "professional" commercial makers do this sort of thing? Why are current car commercials always screaming at me?
Re:Nice viral video (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you mean now, or when they produced this commercial?
I don't have a problem with this particular ad, but I can see a problem. Commercial speech [wikipedia.org] is subject to more and different laws and restrictions than 'free speech'. I can see a situation arising when an unsolicited ad is produced by an independent group making unsubstantiated claims about some product. The FTC steps in, but can't touch the manufacturer because they didn't produce the ad or pay for it. The volunteers aren't subject to the same restrictions as the manufacturer or its agents, so broader free speech rules apply.
Watch to see if the amateur producers don't suddenly have Teslas parked in their garage.
Re:A toy for the 1%ers (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? I'm making under 100K in Canada and I'm driving one... Why? I don't have to line up at Costco for gas... It just goes. Ya, so it's more expensive up front compared to other cars, but it just works. I don't have to look at the gas gauge and try to figure out my next route to the gas station. I simply bypass the people making a right turn right onto the highway. Oh ya, and the carpool lanes also allow green cars... instead of being stuck in traffic going to work, I have a pass to ride the pool lane by myself to get to where I have to.
BTW my other car is an 2013 Odyssey, half the price, to go camping... It does about 15l/km fully loaded. So I get about 300km/tank... But I get there.
I eval'ed a Kia Rio 5 vs the Ody. On an unloaded trip up north, I got 5.9 on the Kia Rio (dealership let me try it for a few days) and 6.1 on the Ody (213Km trip). (I do contract work). The Telsa just blows everything away. I got pulled over on highway 12 a couple of times, because the OPP wanted to check out the car. Let's just put it this way. From requested tests, the Tesla can blow away anything for a fraction of the cost of the really beefy cars.
Re:A toy for the 1%ers (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like the Chinese have been able to undercut the price on SpaceX rockets?
Not saying that just because *one* of Musk's companies managed to make something (in the USA!) for less than the Chinese or Russians could manage means that *all* of his companies will have the same fortune, but there's a lot of engineering knowledge that goes into making a Tesla. Yeah, cheap knockoffs - things that don't have anywhere near the specs - will probably appear, but they won't have much penetration outside of Asia.
Tesla doesn't just "make electric luxury cars". They make electric cars that have both more range *and* more efficiency than anything which can reasonably be called a competitor (i.e highway-safe enclosed multi-passenger vehicle). I don't have a clue how they manage to beat the others so handily on efficiency, but it's a critical factor for an electric car. A gasoline car with low fuel economy can just use a bigger tank, but that strategy breaks down with batteries much earlier.