7 ms·

Can Elon Musk and Tesla Reinvent the Way Cars Are Made?

38 points by _fizz_buzz_ 8y ago

melling 8y ago
Elon’s just turned 47. He slept at the factory last night. Hope he gets 700 Model 3’s off the line today.
- compcoffee 8y ago
  >Hope he gets 700 Model 3’s off the line today. Personally, I don't see the significance of putting all-hands-on-deck to reach an arbitrary production number that they themselves set. Quality is already a question, and I can't see that improving under such circumstances.
  - martin_bech 8y ago
    I dont know if you have been following Tesla closely, but they choosed to addreess quality in the beginnng, thats why the started with very very low production numbers.
    - dna_polymerase 8y ago
      I don't know if you have been following Tesla closely, but: https://twitter.com/bgluckman/status/965664986298306561 https://twitter.com/bgluckman/status/965664986298306561
      - martin_bech 8y ago
        That was actually my point! The tweet is from febuary, and there have been varius quality issues, acknowledged by Tesla. They haven taken it to heart, and waited to ramp production till now. (Not only because of quality issues)
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    At least part of the point is building/repairing credibility with the capital markets. Elon Musk has made numerous black-and-white promises to the capital markets and has come up (well) short on most of them. Having previously promised that they would become cash-flow positive and not need to raise further capital, it would be unfortunate if they came up short on that promise AND short on significant production number promises leading up to the next capital or debt raise. I suspect another significant motivation is more local leadership: set the tone of aggressive milestones for the company and then lead the company to achieve a goal that few thought was possible. Disclaimer: I generally admire Elon Musk and his achievements, most specifically Space-X, though I am short $TSLA right now as I don't see any way they're going to navigate positively through what's ahead of them in the next 8-12 months, and don't think that Tesla as a car company is worth more than GM or 1.4x Ford.
    - CaptainZapp 8y ago
      "At least part of the point is building/repairing credibility with the capital markets" In order to do that it would probably help to not cut off investors asking legitimate questions with snide comments to then devote significant parts of that call to answer questions by a fawning Youtube "personality" fan during an investor conference call.
  - pwaai 8y ago
    I think we will see record recalls for Tesla after frantic build up. These type of burst production rarely ever goes well when you are shipping large scale hardware with thousands of components that require proper QA. Musk thinks its like shipping software and wants to exit with a golden parachute. He doesn't care if ppl get killed by Model 3s or that they are putting down money for a junk and a lengthy recall process. He's a giant egomaniac with little regard for the safety of it's occupants.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    IMO Musk last bullet is to crank hard through this bottleneck enough to get enough air to have another shot at redesigning car production. Tesla cut jobs recently, removed some options (internet), opened the model 3 payment period. With the truck thing and other side money intakes I think he's just trying to cross the survival line investor agreed upon.
- jsalinas 8y ago
  Maybe he was "changing production processes on the fly"... as the article mentions. Really funny how being rich and powerful can make your failures look 'revolutionary'.
jpm_sd 8y ago
Betteridge's law would suggest that the answer is "no". In fact, they have already failed to reinvent it, and are reverting to standard practices in some sense.
- pwaai 8y ago
  This. too many Tesla cults shilling online. The fact of matter is experienced and established brands are coming out with superior quality EV. In fact Tesla is ill equipped to handle the flood of EV competition. Once Elon is forced to leave Tesla, it will be the end of the brand. There's just no way I would put down 70k for a Tesla when there are so many superior options coming down in the next 2 years. I'd even reckon Tesla won't be around within 5 years. The automotive market is filled with energetic visionaries who ultimately crushed by established automotive giants. Tesla is no exception in fact it will be far more crushing in that they basically paved a way forward for EV and other brands will fully reap the profit, not Tesla. Such is the cold reality of a saturated race to zero market. Tesla is not even a luxury brand like BMW or Lexus. It's steaming pile of shit that kills drivers on autopilot.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    And yet without them we probably wouldn't have EVs today.
    - dirkgently 8y ago
      Just like how, without Apple, we wouldn't have had rounded corners.
      - cowmix 8y ago
        Pretty much the only reason any car manufacturer has ANY EV program is because of the threat of Tesla. Bob Lutz said w/o Tesla my Volt (or now Bolt) would not exist.
        extra88 8y ago
Proven 8y ago
It seems genius Musk knows something we all don't (and that includes all of his competitors)
saudioger 8y ago
no
dirkgently 8y ago
They don't reinvent as much as keep the hype machine running well, and they are doing excellent job at that. This world runs on hype. Tesla's and Apples are good at it. After that, whatever they do is 'reinvention'.
niftich 8y ago
Orthodox automakers have reasons behind their methods that aren't legacy bullshit: they're the product of years of practical experience in production line design: a finely-honed way of cranking out lots of an identical product at a cost that should be recoverable from a normal rate of sales. There are still duds every year, when a particular make's particular model is clearly the worst-received out of a large field of dozens, but by and large this process works very well. Musk has thrown out the book entirely, and has taken the opposite step at almost every stage. This is a mistake, because some of those decisions have real consequences that will hurt later. For example, most carmakers make lots of an identical product, from the same batch of parts, for a particular run. If a part (or a manufacturing process) turns out to be defective, they know that all of that run could be compromised, so they recall a batch of VINs. While a portion of these cars is probably fine, recalling a broader set allows some vehicles to be checked and serviced before problems happen or people get injured. If Tesla tweaks the process very often, the cars instead become practically hand-made, to where there are barely some that are alike. This makes it much harder to proactively identify risks about production siblings.
SirensOfTitan 8y ago
This is offtopic insofar as it’s meta but: the HN attitude of telling me why everything won’t work is really depressing. If I took many of the top comments on here seriously: pretty much every new technology or breakthrough is nonsense. Surely doing things that are new and challenging mean some hyperbole, but it doesn’t make you sound smarter when you’re constantly telling me why things don’t work.
- compcoffee 8y ago
  >why everything won't work is depressing That's funny, because I find the Silicon Valley attitude of "no one knows how to do anything but us" equally depressing. Tesla is a great example of this hubris.
- Gargoyle 8y ago
  As far as I can tell, that's what the people running the site want it to be. It's been a problem for years and years now and no action has been taken to stop it.
  - s_kilk 8y ago
    Why should it be stopped?
  - JackCh 8y ago
    I prefer critical analysis to unthinking yes-men. To the extent that HN administration agrees with me, I appreciate them.
- syntaxing 8y ago
  I'm surprised how many people on HN has a problem with this ide...Engineers are trained to be pessimistic opportunists (for good reasons IMHO). The thought process is always This doesn't work > ask myself why it doesn't > prove my wrong and show me how it works. There are many foundational rules and laws that are easy to disprove especially when it comes to something mechanical. That's one of the beautiful thing of mechanical and manufacturing engineering. Knowledge from the past tend to be relevant for a good reason.
curtis 8y ago
There needs to be a corollary to Betteridge's law, to the effect of "It's a stupid question." Tesla is not trying to reinvent the way cars are made. Car manufacturing lines already rely heavily on automation. What's notable about Tesla is that they have been trying to automate production to a higher degree than is typical for the industry. Don't get me wrong here, this is a big deal, and it's caused Tesla some problems that they could have avoided. But "more automation" is not revolutionary and it's not reinvention.
aibrahem 8y ago
As someone who spent almost half his career as a software engineer in automotive companies and the other half in a couple of large tech companies, I could completely understand why there is a high chance of this happening. Most automotive companies are run like factories, including the hardware, software, and R&D departments, in a factory, the focus is more on the process than on achieving the “correct” results, which although might work great in a factory could be extremely hampering for innovation in development and technology teams. If you ever wonder why infotainment systems in most cars are stuck in the 90’s UI it’s because it would take weeks to change a single line of code where it would need to go through multiple code reviews, get approved by people who’ve been using the same development tools for the last 20 years and consider IBM RTC as cutting edge, document every single thought that went through the developers head and mindlessly test the crap out of every possible combination. The way tech companies operate is extremely data-driven, if it works and you have the data to back it up that is usually the end of the discussion. However, in process-oriented companies conformance to the established processes is what is usually valued, a statement that is usually echoed is that it’s more important to follow the process and produce incorrect results than not follow it and produce correct results. For the last decades, automotive OEM’s have been bringing manufacturing processes to software development, my hope is that any tech company (and Tesla being one of them) would be able to bring agile software development practices to manufacturing.

38 points by _fizz_buzz_ 8y ago

melling 8y ago

Elon’s just turned 47. He slept at the factory last night. Hope he gets 700 Model 3’s off the line today.

compcoffee 8y ago
>Hope he gets 700 Model 3’s off the line today. Personally, I don't see the significance of putting all-hands-on-deck to reach an arbitrary production number that they themselves set. Quality is already a question, and I can't see that improving under such circumstances.
- martin_bech 8y ago
  I dont know if you have been following Tesla closely, but they choosed to addreess quality in the beginnng, thats why the started with very very low production numbers.
  - dna_polymerase 8y ago
    I don't know if you have been following Tesla closely, but: https://twitter.com/bgluckman/status/965664986298306561 https://twitter.com/bgluckman/status/965664986298306561
    - martin_bech 8y ago
      That was actually my point! The tweet is from febuary, and there have been varius quality issues, acknowledged by Tesla. They haven taken it to heart, and waited to ramp production till now. (Not only because of quality issues)
- sokoloff 8y ago
  At least part of the point is building/repairing credibility with the capital markets. Elon Musk has made numerous black-and-white promises to the capital markets and has come up (well) short on most of them. Having previously promised that they would become cash-flow positive and not need to raise further capital, it would be unfortunate if they came up short on that promise AND short on significant production number promises leading up to the next capital or debt raise. I suspect another significant motivation is more local leadership: set the tone of aggressive milestones for the company and then lead the company to achieve a goal that few thought was possible. Disclaimer: I generally admire Elon Musk and his achievements, most specifically Space-X, though I am short $TSLA right now as I don't see any way they're going to navigate positively through what's ahead of them in the next 8-12 months, and don't think that Tesla as a car company is worth more than GM or 1.4x Ford.
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    "At least part of the point is building/repairing credibility with the capital markets" In order to do that it would probably help to not cut off investors asking legitimate questions with snide comments to then devote significant parts of that call to answer questions by a fawning Youtube "personality" fan during an investor conference call.
- pwaai 8y ago
  I think we will see record recalls for Tesla after frantic build up. These type of burst production rarely ever goes well when you are shipping large scale hardware with thousands of components that require proper QA. Musk thinks its like shipping software and wants to exit with a golden parachute. He doesn't care if ppl get killed by Model 3s or that they are putting down money for a junk and a lengthy recall process. He's a giant egomaniac with little regard for the safety of it's occupants.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- agumonkey 8y ago
  IMO Musk last bullet is to crank hard through this bottleneck enough to get enough air to have another shot at redesigning car production. Tesla cut jobs recently, removed some options (internet), opened the model 3 payment period. With the truck thing and other side money intakes I think he's just trying to cross the survival line investor agreed upon.
jsalinas 8y ago
Maybe he was "changing production processes on the fly"... as the article mentions. Really funny how being rich and powerful can make your failures look 'revolutionary'.

jpm_sd 8y ago

Betteridge's law would suggest that the answer is "no". In fact, they have already failed to reinvent it, and are reverting to standard practices in some sense.

pwaai 8y ago
This. too many Tesla cults shilling online. The fact of matter is experienced and established brands are coming out with superior quality EV. In fact Tesla is ill equipped to handle the flood of EV competition. Once Elon is forced to leave Tesla, it will be the end of the brand. There's just no way I would put down 70k for a Tesla when there are so many superior options coming down in the next 2 years. I'd even reckon Tesla won't be around within 5 years. The automotive market is filled with energetic visionaries who ultimately crushed by established automotive giants. Tesla is no exception in fact it will be far more crushing in that they basically paved a way forward for EV and other brands will fully reap the profit, not Tesla. Such is the cold reality of a saturated race to zero market. Tesla is not even a luxury brand like BMW or Lexus. It's steaming pile of shit that kills drivers on autopilot.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  And yet without them we probably wouldn't have EVs today.
  - dirkgently 8y ago
    Just like how, without Apple, we wouldn't have had rounded corners.
    - cowmix 8y ago
      Pretty much the only reason any car manufacturer has ANY EV program is because of the threat of Tesla. Bob Lutz said w/o Tesla my Volt (or now Bolt) would not exist.
      - extra88 8y ago

Proven 8y ago

It seems genius Musk knows something we all don't (and that includes all of his competitors)

saudioger 8y ago

dirkgently 8y ago

They don't reinvent as much as keep the hype machine running well, and they are doing excellent job at that. This world runs on hype. Tesla's and Apples are good at it. After that, whatever they do is 'reinvention'.

niftich 8y ago

Orthodox automakers have reasons behind their methods that aren't legacy bullshit: they're the product of years of practical experience in production line design: a finely-honed way of cranking out lots of an identical product at a cost that should be recoverable from a normal rate of sales. There are still duds every year, when a particular make's particular model is clearly the worst-received out of a large field of dozens, but by and large this process works very well. Musk has thrown out the book entirely, and has taken the opposite step at almost every stage. This is a mistake, because some of those decisions have real consequences that will hurt later. For example, most carmakers make lots of an identical product, from the same batch of parts, for a particular run. If a part (or a manufacturing process) turns out to be defective, they know that all of that run could be compromised, so they recall a batch of VINs. While a portion of these cars is probably fine, recalling a broader set allows some vehicles to be checked and serviced before problems happen or people get injured. If Tesla tweaks the process very often, the cars instead become practically hand-made, to where there are barely some that are alike. This makes it much harder to proactively identify risks about production siblings.

SirensOfTitan 8y ago

This is offtopic insofar as it’s meta but: the HN attitude of telling me why everything won’t work is really depressing. If I took many of the top comments on here seriously: pretty much every new technology or breakthrough is nonsense. Surely doing things that are new and challenging mean some hyperbole, but it doesn’t make you sound smarter when you’re constantly telling me why things don’t work.

compcoffee 8y ago
>why everything won't work is depressing That's funny, because I find the Silicon Valley attitude of "no one knows how to do anything but us" equally depressing. Tesla is a great example of this hubris.
Gargoyle 8y ago
As far as I can tell, that's what the people running the site want it to be. It's been a problem for years and years now and no action has been taken to stop it.
- s_kilk 8y ago
  Why should it be stopped?
- JackCh 8y ago
  I prefer critical analysis to unthinking yes-men. To the extent that HN administration agrees with me, I appreciate them.
syntaxing 8y ago
I'm surprised how many people on HN has a problem with this ide...Engineers are trained to be pessimistic opportunists (for good reasons IMHO). The thought process is always This doesn't work > ask myself why it doesn't > prove my wrong and show me how it works. There are many foundational rules and laws that are easy to disprove especially when it comes to something mechanical. That's one of the beautiful thing of mechanical and manufacturing engineering. Knowledge from the past tend to be relevant for a good reason.

curtis 8y ago

There needs to be a corollary to Betteridge's law, to the effect of "It's a stupid question." Tesla is not trying to reinvent the way cars are made. Car manufacturing lines already rely heavily on automation. What's notable about Tesla is that they have been trying to automate production to a higher degree than is typical for the industry. Don't get me wrong here, this is a big deal, and it's caused Tesla some problems that they could have avoided. But "more automation" is not revolutionary and it's not reinvention.

aibrahem 8y ago

As someone who spent almost half his career as a software engineer in automotive companies and the other half in a couple of large tech companies, I could completely understand why there is a high chance of this happening. Most automotive companies are run like factories, including the hardware, software, and R&D departments, in a factory, the focus is more on the process than on achieving the “correct” results, which although might work great in a factory could be extremely hampering for innovation in development and technology teams. If you ever wonder why infotainment systems in most cars are stuck in the 90’s UI it’s because it would take weeks to change a single line of code where it would need to go through multiple code reviews, get approved by people who’ve been using the same development tools for the last 20 years and consider IBM RTC as cutting edge, document every single thought that went through the developers head and mindlessly test the crap out of every possible combination. The way tech companies operate is extremely data-driven, if it works and you have the data to back it up that is usually the end of the discussion. However, in process-oriented companies conformance to the established processes is what is usually valued, a statement that is usually echoed is that it’s more important to follow the process and produce incorrect results than not follow it and produce correct results. For the last decades, automotive OEM’s have been bringing manufacturing processes to software development, my hope is that any tech company (and Tesla being one of them) would be able to bring agile software development practices to manufacturing.