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This is a general product lesson. I read someone comment the other day that if you build a flying car, people will still complain about the door handles and tri

This is a general product lesson. I read someone comment the other day that if you build a flying car, people will still complain about the door handles and trim. Tesla has revolutionized a technology, like an unimaginably odds beating underdog that changes the economics of human civilization. But the business, the function that decides whether they survive to affect the change they've proven is possible is really a question of, are they building a better car? As someone bootstrapping a product, (and of course I think my product is the flying car game changer of my market) during the final painful trade offs before MVP, it's the scores of "details" like this I'm taking on water to resolve before showing it. Personally, I think you can only get way with breaking rules if you've demonstrated you know them first, and quality/experience issues cannot be sins of omission. Where I'm confident I've developed a technology that will change the economics of a market, the moment someone puts their faith in it and lets it into a relationship they have with their stakeholders and it burns a bridge for them, for me to exclaim, "but, but, flying car!" means nothing. These are not details and corner cases, they are the existential aspects of the business. I think where Tesla is acceptable is that they are still in a market with legacies like Land Rover, Jaguar, and used supercars, where people tolerate bizarre diseconomies that would seem laughable to Toyota, Mercedes, and even KIA owners. However, there is a chasm for them to cross fully where they are no longer a revolutionary technology, but actually a good car company. The lesson I take from articles like this is that what I think of as details as a technologist are in fact the differentiators in a business.

MBCook 9y ago
> However, there is a chasm for them to cross fully where they are no longer a revolutionary technology, but actually a good car company. This kind of stuff made sense when they were making the original Roadster and hand assembled them (?). But the model S is now 6 years old and this is still happening. Fine, it was their first ‘real’ car. The Roadster was very low volume. But the X has the same problem. And now the 3. At what point does Tesla start acting like a ‘real’ company and decide these kinds of defects aren’t acceptable? The stuff I hear about Tesla’s process for this stuff sounds like the descriptions of GM factories in The Machine That Changed The World. Just make the cars, fix the worst of it at the end of the line, let service centers do more after delivery to the customer.
- na85 9y ago
  >At what point does Tesla start acting like a ‘real’ company and decide these kinds of defects aren’t acceptable? Just as soon as people stop lining up to buy their cars. edit: downvote if you please, but they're selling cars faster than they can make them. Tesla has zero financial incentive to start focusing on stopping those defects until the pre-orders dry up and people start voting with their wallets. Corporations understand exactly one thing.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    The problem with that strategy is the instant the line disappears they’re screwed. At that point they have to compete with all the normal cars plus all the new electric cars that manufacturers are trying to release. Their quality doesn’t seem to be able to stand up, and their service reputation is terrible. Where as if they learn to fix these kind of quality control issues years ago on the model S (the way they should’ve) we wouldn’t even be talking about this right now and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about when the pre-orders stop. Of course they wouldn’t HAVE pre-orders except the only reason THAT is going on is because they don’t seem to be able to build the cars at a volume close to what they claimed. So the question is: are they doing the best they can on quality and that’s slowing down their production, or are they going as fast as they can and ignoring quality? Neither one of those would be a good answer.
- dlwdlw 9y ago
  6 years is really long for many fields e.g. software. It may be really short for cars though, especially if you are up against incumbents. The massive demand probably doesn't help either. It's not like it's intentional... It's simply the best there is currently and it's competing against idealized thoughtforms. Of course reality can't match the perfection of what can be thought.
  - selectodude 9y ago
    The incumbents aren’t going into their factories and sabotaging their build quality. Tesla is just not making it a priority either via ignorance of how to do it, or willfully not spending what it costs to do the job correctly.
maxerickson 9y ago
The Bolt sort of shows that Tesla isn't all that revolutionary. The Model 3 beats in on a bunch of measures, but they are all modest wins, a bit better range, a little faster acceleration, etc. And quite a few of the major automakers have electric vehicles that they put small batteries in and sell for a lot less than $40,000.

MBCook 9y ago

> However, there is a chasm for them to cross fully where they are no longer a revolutionary technology, but actually a good car company. This kind of stuff made sense when they were making the original Roadster and hand assembled them (?). But the model S is now 6 years old and this is still happening. Fine, it was their first ‘real’ car. The Roadster was very low volume. But the X has the same problem. And now the 3. At what point does Tesla start acting like a ‘real’ company and decide these kinds of defects aren’t acceptable? The stuff I hear about Tesla’s process for this stuff sounds like the descriptions of GM factories in The Machine That Changed The World. Just make the cars, fix the worst of it at the end of the line, let service centers do more after delivery to the customer.

na85 9y ago
>At what point does Tesla start acting like a ‘real’ company and decide these kinds of defects aren’t acceptable? Just as soon as people stop lining up to buy their cars. edit: downvote if you please, but they're selling cars faster than they can make them. Tesla has zero financial incentive to start focusing on stopping those defects until the pre-orders dry up and people start voting with their wallets. Corporations understand exactly one thing.
- MBCook 9y ago
  The problem with that strategy is the instant the line disappears they’re screwed. At that point they have to compete with all the normal cars plus all the new electric cars that manufacturers are trying to release. Their quality doesn’t seem to be able to stand up, and their service reputation is terrible. Where as if they learn to fix these kind of quality control issues years ago on the model S (the way they should’ve) we wouldn’t even be talking about this right now and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about when the pre-orders stop. Of course they wouldn’t HAVE pre-orders except the only reason THAT is going on is because they don’t seem to be able to build the cars at a volume close to what they claimed. So the question is: are they doing the best they can on quality and that’s slowing down their production, or are they going as fast as they can and ignoring quality? Neither one of those would be a good answer.
dlwdlw 9y ago
6 years is really long for many fields e.g. software. It may be really short for cars though, especially if you are up against incumbents. The massive demand probably doesn't help either. It's not like it's intentional... It's simply the best there is currently and it's competing against idealized thoughtforms. Of course reality can't match the perfection of what can be thought.
- selectodude 9y ago
  The incumbents aren’t going into their factories and sabotaging their build quality. Tesla is just not making it a priority either via ignorance of how to do it, or willfully not spending what it costs to do the job correctly.

maxerickson 9y ago

The Bolt sort of shows that Tesla isn't all that revolutionary. The Model 3 beats in on a bunch of measures, but they are all modest wins, a bit better range, a little faster acceleration, etc. And quite a few of the major automakers have electric vehicles that they put small batteries in and sell for a lot less than $40,000.