Mars crewed mission
target 2024CLAIMED
Crewed Mars mission by 2024.
REALITY
No crewed mission. Starship still in iterative orbital test campaign.
ACCURACY8
DELAY6 yrs
SECTION 05 / PROPHECY ARCHIVE
Technology Prophecy Archive
Old timelines, scored against reality. A public figure's credibility is the integral of their forecasts over time — we make it visible.
PREDICTION ACCURACY
41/100
integral of forecasts
AVG DELAY
4.3yrs
vs. stated target
FUTURE CREDIBILITY INDEX
28/100
accuracy − 3 × delay
TRACKED CLAIMS
12
05.A
ALTERNATE TIMELINE
each claim, scored
LIVE
Full Self-Driving
target 2018CLAIMED
Tesla cars will be fully autonomous (no driver needed) by 2018.
REALITY
Did not happen. As of 2026, FSD is highly capable but supervised; robotaxi rollout has begun in narrow geographies.
ACCURACY30
DELAY8 yrs
Boring tunnel cost
target 2022CLAIMED
10× cheaper tunneling than industry standard.
REALITY
Loop installed in Las Vegas; capacity claims revised downward; cost gap is real but well under 10×.
ACCURACY35
DELAY4 yrs
Robotaxi network
target 2020CLAIMED
1M robotaxis on the road by 2020.
REALITY
Did not happen. Robotaxi product launched mid-2020s in limited service areas; fleet measured in low thousands.
ACCURACY12
DELAY6 yrs
Neuralink human trial
target 2022CLAIMED
First human implant within ~2 years.
REALITY
First human implant achieved in 2024; ~2-year delay.
ACCURACY78
DELAY2 yrs
AI dangers
target ongoingCLAIMED
AI will be more dangerous than nukes.
REALITY
Qualitative; broadly endorsed by safety research community by 2025; quantitatively unsettled.
ACCURACY70
DELAY0 yrs
Solar Roof
target 2018-2020CLAIMED
Cheaper than a normal roof + electricity.
REALITY
Available but installations remain a small share of new-roof market; cost claims overstated.
ACCURACY38
DELAY5 yrs
Tesla Semi production
target 2020CLAIMED
High-volume Semi production by 2020.
REALITY
Limited deliveries began 2022; volume ramp ongoing in 2026.
ACCURACY35
DELAY5 yrs
Starship reusability
target 2022CLAIMED
Full and rapid reuse within a few years.
REALITY
Partial reuse demonstrated by mid-2020s; rapid reuse approached but not fully operational.
ACCURACY60
DELAY3 yrs
Battery prices
target 2018CLAIMED
Cell prices below $100/kWh.
REALITY
Achieved 2023-2024; multi-year delay but qualitatively correct trajectory.
ACCURACY72
DELAY5 yrs
Hyperloop
target 2022CLAIMED
Functional inter-city Hyperloop in <5 years.
REALITY
Did not happen. Concept abandoned by most developers; Boring Company shelved test loop.
ACCURACY5
DELAY6 yrs
X superapp
target 2024CLAIMED
X becomes a payments + finance + media superapp.
REALITY
Partial: payments integration begun in 2024-2025; superapp positioning incomplete.
ACCURACY45
DELAY1 yrs
05.B
CREDIBILITY OVER TIME
cumulative accuracy
LIVE
Cumulative accuracy decays in the late 2010s as more high-confidence consumer claims (FSD-2018, Robotaxi-2020) miss; it recovers slightly post-2023 as longer-horizon claims close out.
05.C
CLAIM TYPOLOGY
which categories survive?
LIVE
- rocket34
- ev40
- ai48
- tunnel20
- neural78
- energy38
Aerospace claims consistently outperform vehicle-autonomy and tunneling claims. Neural / human-interface claims have improved over time as the lab has stabilized.
ALTERNATE TIMELINE
What if every prediction had landed on time?
A crewed Mars sortie in 2024. A million-strong Robotaxi fleet in 2020. Solar-Roof at residential price-parity in 2018. The forecast is a portrait of a possible world the operator believed was within reach.
Markets would have priced Tesla 60–80% higher; aerospace ETFs would have repriced an order of magnitude; AI policy would have arrived four years earlier.
What actually happened: the claims operated as commitment devices and recruiting funnels long before they operated as engineering targets. The shortfall is the product.