Tech guru Elon Musk delivered on his 2017 promise to mass produce a marketable flamethrower, but there’s only one problem — it shoots out a very underwhelming flame.
Musk argues the flamethrower is harmless and wouldn’t hurt a fly. The United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allows any flamethrower with a flame shorter than 10 feet, Musk told CNBC Monday, adding that he would be “way more scared of a steak knife.”
Tesla has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller News Foundation about The Boring Company’s new flamethrower.
But videos posted on Instagram and other social media sites indicate the flamethrower shoots a flame of no further than four or five feet — not quite long enough to eradicate the living dead during a “zombie apocalypse,” as Musk suggested Saturday on Twitter.
The flamethrower starts shipping in spring and is slated to cost around $500 or more depending on whether a customer decides to include an overly expensive fire extinguisher with their purchase, according to The Boring Company’s website.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said Monday that The Boring Company had sold 7,000 flamethrowers, that amounts to at least $3.5 million worth of its new product. The California billionaire might need the extra cash, too.
Tesla entered the junk-bond market late in 2017, a decision that further battered the company’s financial image. The move was meant to help buttress Musk’s supposedly inexpensive Model 3.
He predicted in July that Tesla would be able to produce more than 20,000 Model 3s a month before the beginning of 2018. He argued the affordable sedan would help Tesla sell more than 500,000 cars a year — Musk’s prediction ran headlong into reality.
Tesla hopes the Model 3, which debuted at the end of July, becomes a trendsetting and profitable vehicle capable of rocketing the Silicon Valley company atop the electric vehicle industry for years to come. Pre-orders for the small sedan have already surpassed half a million, even as customers have started bailing on the vehicle.
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