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Tesla opens the Model 3 reservation floodgates

100 points by sidcool 8y ago

melling 8y ago
Tesla has had an extremely difficult time ramping up production of the Model 3. Hopefully they to to 700 cars a day this week. However, getting to the 10,000 cars a week (another doubling) seems impossible unless they add another factory.
- xiphias 8y ago
  Adding other tents are probably easy, the hard part is slashing the cost of manufacturing to be profitable with $35000/car
  - melling 8y ago
    The tents are very manual and not efficient: https://www.rt.com/business/431118-tesla-tent-outdated-manufacturing/ https://www.rt.com/business/431118-tesla-tent-outdated-manuf...
    - tych0 8y ago
      They may very well be, but rt.com is perhaps not the best source.
      - compcoffee 8y ago
        Why? Because it has "Russia" in its name? Seriously,give it a try. Everything has bias,but RT does a better job covering global stories than most American cable networks. Attacking the source is the weakest form of argument.
        tych0 8y ago
        Because it is controlled and funded by the Russian government. There are currently multiple investigations ongoing about the Russian government's undue influence on western media and politics. As for my "argument", there is none. What's in the article may very well be true, I have no opinion on it.
        andygates 8y ago
        RT is solid propaganda trash, with some neutral stories to sucker useful idiots into thinking they're reputable, and high production values to make it all gleam. If the story is legit, other agencies will cover it too.
        danso 8y ago
        That entire article is a compilation of tweets from an anti-Tesla account. There is not even mention of doing a cursory attempt to ask Tesla for comment, or to further interview the Twitter user. And the article has no byline. That is what makes it poor quality journalism.
    - _ph_ 8y ago
      I am pretty sure the few random bits and pieces we see from the production do not deliver an accurate picture how production in the tent runs, especially I have seen at least one picture showing Tesla to set up robots along the tent production line.
- Brotkrumen 8y ago
  I wouldn't want to make that assumption without further information. If you are right, a lot of highly trained and paid people have made a grave mistake in their throughput estimates and might still be lying about it. On the other hand there could be bottlenecks they know how to solve but are waiting for the tooling to be done.
  - nabla9 8y ago
    Within last 1.5 years highly trained and paid people have made something like 5-7 large mistakes in their Model 3 throughput estimates in a row already. Few more is not that surprising. They are constantly facing bottlenecks that take them by surprise while they are learning to mass manufacture. Tesla is small volume luxury car maker that attempts to transfer into mass manufacturer with NIH attitude.
    - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
      Tesla has had an insane learning curve to climb. Making a car... just think of how many different subsystems exist. A lot of them could be offloaded to contractors but they chose to do as much in house as possible( which also aligns with Musk's character).
      - jcranmer 8y ago
        Tesla's only been making cars for a decade before they started on the Model 3. So it's understandable that they totally need to learn how to make a car, it's just so hard...
sschueller 8y ago
Someone tweeted this video[1] of the tent production line a over a week ago. It looks a lot less clean than the picture Elon tweeted thats in the article. I don't know if I would purchase a 35K+ car that was assembled outside in the open. Also it appears quite chaotic with chassis being transported around also in the open. [1] https://twitter.com/IspyTsla/status/1009134913881190400?s=19 https://twitter.com/IspyTsla/status/1009134913881190400?s=19
- rtcoolaid 8y ago
  Good point. I would buy a bmw and keep it locked under cover in my garage and definitely never open it
- ben_w 8y ago
  I have nothing to compare against, so if I was in the market for a $35k car [1] I’d probably be fine with this. [1] I’d prefer to invest most of the money and have a cheaper second hand car, and if I had enough spare that $35k was pocket change, I’d be more interested in a tiny aircraft or a small liveaboard boat.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    if I had enough spare that $35k was pocket change If that was the case you'd probably only be buying a Model 3 out of curiosity rather than as your main, every day car. Most people aren't in that position, and will be buying a Model 3 because they think it's the best car for their money. They'll be a lot less willing to accept defects.
  - compcoffee 8y ago
    >I'd prefer to invest most of the money Is "I don't own a car" the new "I don't own a TV" virtue signalling? Seriously, you are offering up your opinion on a product you admittedly have no knowledge of,and no interest in owning.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Everything humans do, including asking questions about virtue signalling, is virtue signaling. That said, although I don’t own a car, I didn’t actually say that in my previous post. I’m lucky that where I live, I don’t need to. That situation is likely to change, and I have no intention to build an identity of, or make a virtue out of, either having or not having a car. If that seems contradictory, consider it virtue signaling “flexibility”.
venning 8y ago
Last I read, Tesla is holding $985MM in customer deposits. [1] Now they are asking for, I'm assuming, full payment for cars starting at $48,000. However, the soonest one can be delivered is in "two to four months" and that's only for the trim that starts at $64,000. Plus there are now quite a few options costing in the thousands. For every 10,000 customers that place an order of the, likely, several hundred thousand current deposit holders, that's somewhere around $600 MM in additional customer money that Tesla would be holding. For every 10,000 customers. But that money won't deliver a physical product for months. Is this a play to make billions more in deposit money? Is this how they plan to take no more investment/debt this year? Is there anyone on the list looking to buy one that can confirm if this requires full payment? EDIT: Apparently, the ask is for an additional $2,500. [2] That would make $25MM per 10,000 customers that place an order. Putting forth the additional $2,500 also removes the ability for you receive a refund of the original $1,000 deposit if you do not cancel within three days. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/ [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/tesla-model-3-orders-cost-2500-more.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/tesla-model-3-orders-cost-25...
- greglindahl 8y ago
  The deposit for a Model 3 is $1,000.
  - venning 8y ago
    But the article isn't about offering deposits. It's about ordering.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      Yes, I read the article. It was extremely unclear what you were asking, and it's definitely not the case that a full payment is required.
    - kgwgk 8y ago
      The order requires a $2,500 payment, not the full price.
Gravityloss 8y ago
Too bad that as an european reader I just get redirected to some oath.com page instead of the article. If you can't show me the page without tracking me, then no thank you.
- icebraining 8y ago
  Just stop loading after you see the headline :)
- jokoon 8y ago
  What I often do with ublock origin, is right clicking on greyed background or div that hide the article, and keep adding rules until I can read the article. I use firefox containers, I disabled 3rd party cookies, and all of my cookies are cleared when I exit firefox. Not sure if doing this really escapes tracking though. I'm still wondering what the firefox tracking protection is really doing.
andy_ppp 8y ago
I think Tesla should offer a public bond on some kind of block chain that can earn interest and go towards a car automatically in 2-3 years. Effectively using an ICO for something with actual value. The point being you can sell your place in the queue (should your circumstances change) and also provide you with a secure saving scheme. Just a thought!
- Faaak 8y ago
  What would the blockchain offer that you can't do actually ? AFAIK, you can buy bonds, buy a Tesla reservation, and sell this reservation without the blockchain.
  - andy_ppp 8y ago
    Maybe you're correct - it's closer to a valid use of the technology than most other uses though. Maybe the reason to use this technology would be to decrease transaction costs and to allow people who want it now to pay a premium for someone else's space. Didn't realise you could sell the reservation so probably you're right centralisation is probably always better than blockchain.
    - umanwizard 8y ago
      > it's closer to a valid use of the technology than most other uses though. Why?
    - this_user 8y ago
      > decrease transaction costs How so? If you a decentralised system like that, you need some sort of consensus mechanism, and that is costly, especially when using like PoW. All this would do is to replace robust established mechanisms with expensive and fragile technological overkill that offers no advantage for the user.
agumonkey 8y ago
So the BFR won't be to save humanity from catastrophy but simply to save Elon from (catastrophic) debt.
Proven 8y ago
How long will this Ponzi confine
pg_bot 8y ago
I know then tent is getting a lot of criticism from the public but it is a smart move. The tent gives extra space to add more individual steps to the assembly line and humans are best suited for tasks that are rapidly changing. I think someone finally realized that you can have as many steps in the assembly line as you want so long as no single step exceeds your quota divided by the time per day. (i.e. need to make 1000 cars per day, no single step in your production process can last longer than 86.4 seconds; but you can have as many steps as you want) In order to make 5,000 cars a week you need to keep your slowest step in your manufacturing process to around 2 minutes. This should be doable.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Shouldn't they have been standing there with a stop watch right from the start? It's not exactly a subtle point that throughput is limited by, what's the cliché, the bottlenecks.
- std_throwaway 8y ago
  They probably made 1000 bets on how to do things and won 99% of them - the remaining 10 steps turned out to be manufacturing nightmares. If they knew beforehand what wouldn't work (and you never know that beforehand but afterwards it's easy to point out) they would have designed their manufacturing line differently. Now they lose a lot of time, need more space and workforce but probably will get there anyways if money doesn't run out in the meantime.
- 0xcafecafe 8y ago
  Aka the throughput vs latency discussion
- taway0623 8y ago
  1. Longer steps can be run in parallel. One step of 24 hours with 1000 in parallel allows 1000 cars per day. 2. If no parallel allowed, 86.4 seconds is the average not the maximum. Longer steps balanced by shorter steps.
std_throwaway 8y ago
Will my money be safe if they go bankrupt between payment and delivery?
- oblio 8y ago
  Besides that, are you sure you want a car from a company that goes bankrupt? A car needs maintenance, spare parts, in their case, software updates...
  - std_throwaway 8y ago
    That's a good point. Most critical parts would be Tesla exclusive without a 3rd party manufacturer for replacement parts that you have for the cheaper models of conventional cars.
- bjl 8y ago
  Of course not. You're giving an unsecured, interest-free loan, why would you expect that to be safe?
- jacquesm 8y ago
  No, in that case you'll be lining up with the rest of the creditors and I'd assume you will get back nothing at all or pennies on the dollar at best. You're playing bank. Hot tip: don't buy cars that are not in front of you and that you can walk around, only buy cars from manufacturers with long term stability to ensure that the vehicle you've bought will function during its economic life in your hands.
  - _ph_ 8y ago
    Technically speaking, aren't Tesla and Ford the only two American car companies, who haven't ever gone bankrupt? :)
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Ask me next year around this time.
jillesvangurp 8y ago
The way I see it, logistics aside, Tesla has awesome cars that are loved by those that manage to get one delivered, customers are actually lining up to buy them to the extent of paying just to get in line for that years ahead of time, and they are pretty much guaranteed to sell anything they ship for the foreseeable future. Better still most of their would be competitors are either not shipping at all right now, years away from shipping at scale, just plain not even bothering to compete, or shipping limited volumes of not so great products, and generally being vague about timelines, volumes, etc. On top of that they and are struggling with over production of vehicles based on legacy petrol/diesel technology. E.g. the Germans are doing a lot of hand waving around maybe shipping some electric cars in the next decade while the likes of BMW continue to ship seriously underwhelming electric cars. Ford just discontinued a lot of their petrol sedans. And diesel gate continues to impact most manufacturers involved with basically anything Diesel based. The way I see it, Tesla will be essentially unchallenged for the next 2-3 years. That's a lot of time to get on top of some simple logistics. And that's assuming the existing car manufacturers actually get their act together. IMHO, most of them are at far bigger risk of bankruptcy than Tesla since they'll be bogged down in demand issues, layoffs, and restructurings for the next few decades. I don't see the logistical situation as something that can't be resolved by Tesla. Kind of silly to short Tesla under the assumption that this won't be solved; cannot be solved; and that Tesla will perpetually be unable to solve this. The argument seems to be that it is simply impossible to produce the vehicles for Tesla. If the latest rumors are to be believed, they are pretty much close to the promised rate of 5K cars/week. At 50K price (conservative) that means 250M per week in revenue, or 1 Billion per month. That sounds like a decent business to me. I'm assuming they are not stopping at 5K per week.
- catherinezng 8y ago
  Tesla lost ~$2B last year, owes ~$10B in debt, and owes >$400M in interest payments per year alone. Moody’s downgraded Tesla’s bond rating because Tesla will need to raise more money this year, at least $2B (which is an extremely conservative figure), to avoid Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Elon Musk also owes >$600M in personal debt that he financed using Tesla stock as collateral. This means that if Tesla stock dips below around $233/share, Musk would face a margin call (sell Tesla stock, driving stock prices lower), or put down more Tesla stock as collateral to fund his debt. By the way, 90% of the Boring company’s funds come from Elon Musk himself, possibly funded by this personal debt. Other red flags are that shareholders sued Tesla board members for breaching their fiduciary duties by allowing Tesla to acquire Solar City, assuming an extra ~$3B in debt; and Tesla’s CFO Jason Wheeler left Tesla in 2017 with over half of his stock left to vest. The reason people are shorting Tesla is that beyond Elon Musk’s cult of personality, the numbers don’t add up. Tesla will need to raise more money this year to survive. Feel free to fact check all of this.
thisisit 8y ago
This is interesting. Lot of people complain when Tesla bad news are reported. The refrain being - this is clickbait and will media make a news out of this if it was another company or ICE car. But in this thread I see no complains about why this also not clickbait. How often do we see another companies car launches - electric, ICE or otherwise getting so much attention on HN? So, for Tesla fans I can only say this - you will live the sword you die by the sword. Tesla gets coverage irrespective of bad, good or neutral. So, next time there is a negative news let's try and have a healthy debate about Tesla issue rather than about "biased media".
- eganist 8y ago
  Hundreds of thousands of reservations where individual thousand dollar deposits were made are now able to be configured and redeemed, impacting many people with their own liquidity at stake. The news value comes from the scope of impact and the amount of change from the original state (hundreds of thousands of reservations effectively unable to move forward and commit delivery). Even if it's just basic reporting, the number of people with personally significant financial positions at stake justifies reporting. $1,000 might be nothing to you or me, but undoubtedly to many reservation holders considering the pricing of the car, $1,000 is a sum they had to actually debate spending, so there's a significant public interest. This is newsworthy. And yes, I'm one of the aforementioned complainers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17409396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17409396). I don't own a Tesla nor do I have any interest—or any interest—in the company.
- aae42 8y ago
  But do you see how all of the comments spin this to be bad news? "Tesla needs money, that's why they're opening the floodgates, they're hemorrhaging money!"
  - danso 8y ago
    Are you arguing that Tesla is not losing money? Just a couple weeks ago they had a 9% workforce reduction to “reduce costs and become profitable”. The company has only had 2 profitable quarters in its history, and had record losses in its most recent quarter.
jokoon 8y ago
I don't really care if Tesla's account balance is ok, as long as it's selling something big and new, it's an improvement. Making electric cars is not just a business, money and accounting doesn't matter at this point. The money side for large projects like this, is an abstraction you cannot focus on. Negative account books will always exist where innovation happens. Forget the money, and try to think what gets made. That's all that matters.
- danso 8y ago
  Tesla is a public company. Accounting is very much an important thing, or are you suggesting it’s OK for them to cook the books as long as they do it for a good cause?
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    I believe he's saying it's ok to operate at a loss as long as you are demonstrably making progress. In this case by building and selling new vehicles in volume.
baybal2 8y ago
In the meanwhile, Chinese electric cars have long broke the $30k barrier.
- BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
  Oh yes? How are their crash safety ratings?
  - baybal2 8y ago
    There are no mandatory crashworthiness rating requirements in China
jmull 8y ago
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If nothing else, Tesla customers are buying (or attempting to buy) a piece of history.
brightball 8y ago
In the electric space it seems like it's going to be Tesla and GM for the foreseeable future. None of Tesla's other competitors are putting out anything remotely close to the Volt and Bolt.
- KallDrexx 8y ago
  What about Nissan? The Leaf seems to be doing well even though it gets ignored in these conversations.
  - brightball 8y ago
    It's because the range has always been so low that it wasn't a practical option except as a 2nd car. It does look like they had a big jump in range this year to get it up to 151 miles, so it's improving.
  - compton_effect 8y ago
    The issue with the leaf is the battery is not thermally managed at all. So you get a lot of battery degradation over years. After 5 years of ownership you can see a huge decrease in capacity compared to a climate controlled battery.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    Leaf owner here... The Leaf is mostly ignored because unlike the Model 3 and Bolt, it is a compromise due to it's limited range and it is not a true replacement for an ICE car. For normal usage it's fine but exceptions like mid-day doctor appointments or spontaneous errands after work are sometimes impossible. The first generation Leafs had a 24kWh battery with an EPA MPGe range rating of 84 miles. The second generation 2018 model has a 40kWh battery with an EPA MPGe rage rating of 151 miles. The first generation base models of the Tesla Model 3 and Chevy Bolt have EPA MPGe ranges of 220 and 238 miles respectively. That might not seem like a big deal and an 84 mile range should be fine for most people most of the time. The problem is that the 84 mile range is not entirely accurate. My Leaf typically reports my range as 90+ miles and my 25 mile commute can use anywhere from 28-42 miles of that reported range. So if I drive to work and back without charging in between then my remaining range is 8-34 miles. That's ok unless I get home from work and my kid needs to go to the music store 5 miles away to buy a replacement reed for their oboe. Additionally Nissan recommends not charging above 80% or letting the battery fall below 20% to increase the longevity of the battery as over/under charging can degrade the Lithium Ion Cells. So basically they're telling you not to charge your car past 80% and to stop driving when you hit 20% which means they recommend you only ever use 60% of your battery (50 miles). In comparison, Chevy and Tesla both have built-in buffer capacity in their batteries that's unavailable to you. This buffer prevents you from over/under charging your battery. Because of this buffer you're able to utilize the full advertised range of the vehicles without fear of battery degradation.

100 points by sidcool 8y ago

Tesla has had an extremely difficult time ramping up production of the Model 3. Hopefully they to to 700 cars a day this week. However, getting to the 10,000 cars a week (another doubling) seems impossible unless they add another factory.

xiphias 8y ago
Adding other tents are probably easy, the hard part is slashing the cost of manufacturing to be profitable with $35000/car
- melling 8y ago
  The tents are very manual and not efficient: https://www.rt.com/business/431118-tesla-tent-outdated-manufacturing/ https://www.rt.com/business/431118-tesla-tent-outdated-manuf...
  - tych0 8y ago
    They may very well be, but rt.com is perhaps not the best source.
    - compcoffee 8y ago
      Why? Because it has "Russia" in its name? Seriously,give it a try. Everything has bias,but RT does a better job covering global stories than most American cable networks. Attacking the source is the weakest form of argument.
      - tych0 8y ago
        Because it is controlled and funded by the Russian government. There are currently multiple investigations ongoing about the Russian government's undue influence on western media and politics. As for my "argument", there is none. What's in the article may very well be true, I have no opinion on it.
      - andygates 8y ago
        RT is solid propaganda trash, with some neutral stories to sucker useful idiots into thinking they're reputable, and high production values to make it all gleam. If the story is legit, other agencies will cover it too.
      - danso 8y ago
        That entire article is a compilation of tweets from an anti-Tesla account. There is not even mention of doing a cursory attempt to ask Tesla for comment, or to further interview the Twitter user. And the article has no byline. That is what makes it poor quality journalism.
  - _ph_ 8y ago
    I am pretty sure the few random bits and pieces we see from the production do not deliver an accurate picture how production in the tent runs, especially I have seen at least one picture showing Tesla to set up robots along the tent production line.
Brotkrumen 8y ago
I wouldn't want to make that assumption without further information. If you are right, a lot of highly trained and paid people have made a grave mistake in their throughput estimates and might still be lying about it. On the other hand there could be bottlenecks they know how to solve but are waiting for the tooling to be done.
- nabla9 8y ago
  Within last 1.5 years highly trained and paid people have made something like 5-7 large mistakes in their Model 3 throughput estimates in a row already. Few more is not that surprising. They are constantly facing bottlenecks that take them by surprise while they are learning to mass manufacture. Tesla is small volume luxury car maker that attempts to transfer into mass manufacturer with NIH attitude.
  - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
    Tesla has had an insane learning curve to climb. Making a car... just think of how many different subsystems exist. A lot of them could be offloaded to contractors but they chose to do as much in house as possible( which also aligns with Musk's character).
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      Tesla's only been making cars for a decade before they started on the Model 3. So it's understandable that they totally need to learn how to make a car, it's just so hard...

sschueller 8y ago

Someone tweeted this video[1] of the tent production line a over a week ago. It looks a lot less clean than the picture Elon tweeted thats in the article. I don't know if I would purchase a 35K+ car that was assembled outside in the open. Also it appears quite chaotic with chassis being transported around also in the open. [1] https://twitter.com/IspyTsla/status/1009134913881190400?s=19 https://twitter.com/IspyTsla/status/1009134913881190400?s=19

rtcoolaid 8y ago
Good point. I would buy a bmw and keep it locked under cover in my garage and definitely never open it
ben_w 8y ago
I have nothing to compare against, so if I was in the market for a $35k car [1] I’d probably be fine with this. [1] I’d prefer to invest most of the money and have a cheaper second hand car, and if I had enough spare that $35k was pocket change, I’d be more interested in a tiny aircraft or a small liveaboard boat.
- onion2k 8y ago
  if I had enough spare that $35k was pocket change If that was the case you'd probably only be buying a Model 3 out of curiosity rather than as your main, every day car. Most people aren't in that position, and will be buying a Model 3 because they think it's the best car for their money. They'll be a lot less willing to accept defects.
- compcoffee 8y ago
  >I'd prefer to invest most of the money Is "I don't own a car" the new "I don't own a TV" virtue signalling? Seriously, you are offering up your opinion on a product you admittedly have no knowledge of,and no interest in owning.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Everything humans do, including asking questions about virtue signalling, is virtue signaling. That said, although I don’t own a car, I didn’t actually say that in my previous post. I’m lucky that where I live, I don’t need to. That situation is likely to change, and I have no intention to build an identity of, or make a virtue out of, either having or not having a car. If that seems contradictory, consider it virtue signaling “flexibility”.

venning 8y ago

Last I read, Tesla is holding $985MM in customer deposits. [1] Now they are asking for, I'm assuming, full payment for cars starting at $48,000. However, the soonest one can be delivered is in "two to four months" and that's only for the trim that starts at $64,000. Plus there are now quite a few options costing in the thousands. For every 10,000 customers that place an order of the, likely, several hundred thousand current deposit holders, that's somewhere around $600 MM in additional customer money that Tesla would be holding. For every 10,000 customers. But that money won't deliver a physical product for months. Is this a play to make billions more in deposit money? Is this how they plan to take no more investment/debt this year? Is there anyone on the list looking to buy one that can confirm if this requires full payment? EDIT: Apparently, the ask is for an additional $2,500. [2] That would make $25MM per 10,000 customers that place an order. Putting forth the additional $2,500 also removes the ability for you receive a refund of the original $1,000 deposit if you do not cancel within three days. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash/ [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/tesla-model-3-orders-cost-2500-more.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/tesla-model-3-orders-cost-25...

greglindahl 8y ago
The deposit for a Model 3 is $1,000.
- venning 8y ago
  But the article isn't about offering deposits. It's about ordering.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    Yes, I read the article. It was extremely unclear what you were asking, and it's definitely not the case that a full payment is required.
  - kgwgk 8y ago
    The order requires a $2,500 payment, not the full price.

Gravityloss 8y ago

Too bad that as an european reader I just get redirected to some oath.com page instead of the article. If you can't show me the page without tracking me, then no thank you.

icebraining 8y ago
Just stop loading after you see the headline :)
jokoon 8y ago
What I often do with ublock origin, is right clicking on greyed background or div that hide the article, and keep adding rules until I can read the article. I use firefox containers, I disabled 3rd party cookies, and all of my cookies are cleared when I exit firefox. Not sure if doing this really escapes tracking though. I'm still wondering what the firefox tracking protection is really doing.

andy_ppp 8y ago

I think Tesla should offer a public bond on some kind of block chain that can earn interest and go towards a car automatically in 2-3 years. Effectively using an ICO for something with actual value. The point being you can sell your place in the queue (should your circumstances change) and also provide you with a secure saving scheme. Just a thought!

Faaak 8y ago
What would the blockchain offer that you can't do actually ? AFAIK, you can buy bonds, buy a Tesla reservation, and sell this reservation without the blockchain.
- andy_ppp 8y ago
  Maybe you're correct - it's closer to a valid use of the technology than most other uses though. Maybe the reason to use this technology would be to decrease transaction costs and to allow people who want it now to pay a premium for someone else's space. Didn't realise you could sell the reservation so probably you're right centralisation is probably always better than blockchain.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    > it's closer to a valid use of the technology than most other uses though. Why?
  - this_user 8y ago
    > decrease transaction costs How so? If you a decentralised system like that, you need some sort of consensus mechanism, and that is costly, especially when using like PoW. All this would do is to replace robust established mechanisms with expensive and fragile technological overkill that offers no advantage for the user.

agumonkey 8y ago

So the BFR won't be to save humanity from catastrophy but simply to save Elon from (catastrophic) debt.

Proven 8y ago

How long will this Ponzi confine

pg_bot 8y ago

I know then tent is getting a lot of criticism from the public but it is a smart move. The tent gives extra space to add more individual steps to the assembly line and humans are best suited for tasks that are rapidly changing. I think someone finally realized that you can have as many steps in the assembly line as you want so long as no single step exceeds your quota divided by the time per day. (i.e. need to make 1000 cars per day, no single step in your production process can last longer than 86.4 seconds; but you can have as many steps as you want) In order to make 5,000 cars a week you need to keep your slowest step in your manufacturing process to around 2 minutes. This should be doable.

maxerickson 8y ago
Shouldn't they have been standing there with a stop watch right from the start? It's not exactly a subtle point that throughput is limited by, what's the cliché, the bottlenecks.
std_throwaway 8y ago
They probably made 1000 bets on how to do things and won 99% of them - the remaining 10 steps turned out to be manufacturing nightmares. If they knew beforehand what wouldn't work (and you never know that beforehand but afterwards it's easy to point out) they would have designed their manufacturing line differently. Now they lose a lot of time, need more space and workforce but probably will get there anyways if money doesn't run out in the meantime.
0xcafecafe 8y ago
Aka the throughput vs latency discussion
taway0623 8y ago
1. Longer steps can be run in parallel. One step of 24 hours with 1000 in parallel allows 1000 cars per day. 2. If no parallel allowed, 86.4 seconds is the average not the maximum. Longer steps balanced by shorter steps.

std_throwaway 8y ago

Will my money be safe if they go bankrupt between payment and delivery?

oblio 8y ago
Besides that, are you sure you want a car from a company that goes bankrupt? A car needs maintenance, spare parts, in their case, software updates...
- std_throwaway 8y ago
  That's a good point. Most critical parts would be Tesla exclusive without a 3rd party manufacturer for replacement parts that you have for the cheaper models of conventional cars.
bjl 8y ago
Of course not. You're giving an unsecured, interest-free loan, why would you expect that to be safe?
jacquesm 8y ago
No, in that case you'll be lining up with the rest of the creditors and I'd assume you will get back nothing at all or pennies on the dollar at best. You're playing bank. Hot tip: don't buy cars that are not in front of you and that you can walk around, only buy cars from manufacturers with long term stability to ensure that the vehicle you've bought will function during its economic life in your hands.
- _ph_ 8y ago
  Technically speaking, aren't Tesla and Ford the only two American car companies, who haven't ever gone bankrupt? :)
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Ask me next year around this time.

jillesvangurp 8y ago

The way I see it, logistics aside, Tesla has awesome cars that are loved by those that manage to get one delivered, customers are actually lining up to buy them to the extent of paying just to get in line for that years ahead of time, and they are pretty much guaranteed to sell anything they ship for the foreseeable future. Better still most of their would be competitors are either not shipping at all right now, years away from shipping at scale, just plain not even bothering to compete, or shipping limited volumes of not so great products, and generally being vague about timelines, volumes, etc. On top of that they and are struggling with over production of vehicles based on legacy petrol/diesel technology. E.g. the Germans are doing a lot of hand waving around maybe shipping some electric cars in the next decade while the likes of BMW continue to ship seriously underwhelming electric cars. Ford just discontinued a lot of their petrol sedans. And diesel gate continues to impact most manufacturers involved with basically anything Diesel based. The way I see it, Tesla will be essentially unchallenged for the next 2-3 years. That's a lot of time to get on top of some simple logistics. And that's assuming the existing car manufacturers actually get their act together. IMHO, most of them are at far bigger risk of bankruptcy than Tesla since they'll be bogged down in demand issues, layoffs, and restructurings for the next few decades. I don't see the logistical situation as something that can't be resolved by Tesla. Kind of silly to short Tesla under the assumption that this won't be solved; cannot be solved; and that Tesla will perpetually be unable to solve this. The argument seems to be that it is simply impossible to produce the vehicles for Tesla. If the latest rumors are to be believed, they are pretty much close to the promised rate of 5K cars/week. At 50K price (conservative) that means 250M per week in revenue, or 1 Billion per month. That sounds like a decent business to me. I'm assuming they are not stopping at 5K per week.

catherinezng 8y ago
Tesla lost ~$2B last year, owes ~$10B in debt, and owes >$400M in interest payments per year alone. Moody’s downgraded Tesla’s bond rating because Tesla will need to raise more money this year, at least $2B (which is an extremely conservative figure), to avoid Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Elon Musk also owes >$600M in personal debt that he financed using Tesla stock as collateral. This means that if Tesla stock dips below around $233/share, Musk would face a margin call (sell Tesla stock, driving stock prices lower), or put down more Tesla stock as collateral to fund his debt. By the way, 90% of the Boring company’s funds come from Elon Musk himself, possibly funded by this personal debt. Other red flags are that shareholders sued Tesla board members for breaching their fiduciary duties by allowing Tesla to acquire Solar City, assuming an extra ~$3B in debt; and Tesla’s CFO Jason Wheeler left Tesla in 2017 with over half of his stock left to vest. The reason people are shorting Tesla is that beyond Elon Musk’s cult of personality, the numbers don’t add up. Tesla will need to raise more money this year to survive. Feel free to fact check all of this.

thisisit 8y ago

This is interesting. Lot of people complain when Tesla bad news are reported. The refrain being - this is clickbait and will media make a news out of this if it was another company or ICE car. But in this thread I see no complains about why this also not clickbait. How often do we see another companies car launches - electric, ICE or otherwise getting so much attention on HN? So, for Tesla fans I can only say this - you will live the sword you die by the sword. Tesla gets coverage irrespective of bad, good or neutral. So, next time there is a negative news let's try and have a healthy debate about Tesla issue rather than about "biased media".

eganist 8y ago
Hundreds of thousands of reservations where individual thousand dollar deposits were made are now able to be configured and redeemed, impacting many people with their own liquidity at stake. The news value comes from the scope of impact and the amount of change from the original state (hundreds of thousands of reservations effectively unable to move forward and commit delivery). Even if it's just basic reporting, the number of people with personally significant financial positions at stake justifies reporting. $1,000 might be nothing to you or me, but undoubtedly to many reservation holders considering the pricing of the car, $1,000 is a sum they had to actually debate spending, so there's a significant public interest. This is newsworthy. And yes, I'm one of the aforementioned complainers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17409396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17409396). I don't own a Tesla nor do I have any interest—or any interest—in the company.
aae42 8y ago
But do you see how all of the comments spin this to be bad news? "Tesla needs money, that's why they're opening the floodgates, they're hemorrhaging money!"
- danso 8y ago
  Are you arguing that Tesla is not losing money? Just a couple weeks ago they had a 9% workforce reduction to “reduce costs and become profitable”. The company has only had 2 profitable quarters in its history, and had record losses in its most recent quarter.

jokoon 8y ago

I don't really care if Tesla's account balance is ok, as long as it's selling something big and new, it's an improvement. Making electric cars is not just a business, money and accounting doesn't matter at this point. The money side for large projects like this, is an abstraction you cannot focus on. Negative account books will always exist where innovation happens. Forget the money, and try to think what gets made. That's all that matters.

danso 8y ago
Tesla is a public company. Accounting is very much an important thing, or are you suggesting it’s OK for them to cook the books as long as they do it for a good cause?
- cptskippy 8y ago
  I believe he's saying it's ok to operate at a loss as long as you are demonstrably making progress. In this case by building and selling new vehicles in volume.

baybal2 8y ago

In the meanwhile, Chinese electric cars have long broke the $30k barrier.

BugsJustFindMe 8y ago
Oh yes? How are their crash safety ratings?
- baybal2 8y ago
  There are no mandatory crashworthiness rating requirements in China

jmull 8y ago

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If nothing else, Tesla customers are buying (or attempting to buy) a piece of history.

brightball 8y ago

In the electric space it seems like it's going to be Tesla and GM for the foreseeable future. None of Tesla's other competitors are putting out anything remotely close to the Volt and Bolt.

KallDrexx 8y ago
What about Nissan? The Leaf seems to be doing well even though it gets ignored in these conversations.
- brightball 8y ago
  It's because the range has always been so low that it wasn't a practical option except as a 2nd car. It does look like they had a big jump in range this year to get it up to 151 miles, so it's improving.
- compton_effect 8y ago
  The issue with the leaf is the battery is not thermally managed at all. So you get a lot of battery degradation over years. After 5 years of ownership you can see a huge decrease in capacity compared to a climate controlled battery.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Leaf owner here... The Leaf is mostly ignored because unlike the Model 3 and Bolt, it is a compromise due to it's limited range and it is not a true replacement for an ICE car. For normal usage it's fine but exceptions like mid-day doctor appointments or spontaneous errands after work are sometimes impossible. The first generation Leafs had a 24kWh battery with an EPA MPGe range rating of 84 miles. The second generation 2018 model has a 40kWh battery with an EPA MPGe rage rating of 151 miles. The first generation base models of the Tesla Model 3 and Chevy Bolt have EPA MPGe ranges of 220 and 238 miles respectively. That might not seem like a big deal and an 84 mile range should be fine for most people most of the time. The problem is that the 84 mile range is not entirely accurate. My Leaf typically reports my range as 90+ miles and my 25 mile commute can use anywhere from 28-42 miles of that reported range. So if I drive to work and back without charging in between then my remaining range is 8-34 miles. That's ok unless I get home from work and my kid needs to go to the music store 5 miles away to buy a replacement reed for their oboe. Additionally Nissan recommends not charging above 80% or letting the battery fall below 20% to increase the longevity of the battery as over/under charging can degrade the Lithium Ion Cells. So basically they're telling you not to charge your car past 80% and to stop driving when you hit 20% which means they recommend you only ever use 60% of your battery (50 miles). In comparison, Chevy and Tesla both have built-in buffer capacity in their batteries that's unavailable to you. This buffer prevents you from over/under charging your battery. Because of this buffer you're able to utilize the full advertised range of the vehicles without fear of battery degradation.