12 ms·

A lot of people want to trash Musk and Tesla, but I look at it this way: - Sure the CEO might be too active on twitter and at times say or do things typically

A lot of people want to trash Musk and Tesla, but I look at it this way: - Sure the CEO might be too active on twitter and at times say or do things typically considered inappropriate CEO behavior. - Musk often makes bold claims and sometimes misses his projected dates. However: - Musk also is often right. - He delivered amazing things with the model s. The Audi e-tron looks quite nice and I think competition is nice, but it still doesn't match the 2012 model s specs. - He wanted the model 3 entry price to be $35k. Lots of peopple doubted he could do it, and many projected it wouldn't be available until 2020 or later. It looks like the base model 3 I can order is about $39k and with tax credit brings you downt to $35k and change. - He promised autonomous driving 2 years from 2016, and honestly many people thought he was nuts. And his prediction was overly optimistic here, but there have been a steady stream of amazing incremental improvements to auto-pilot. On freeways, the tesla can now determine when to change lanes and does it. It can follow navigation within freeways, and it can warn you if a stoplight or stopsign is approaching. They demoed true autonomy, and I believe it's actually getting quite close. Given 1 or 2 more years of incremental improvements, your tesla would be capable of driving you most places I would think. He didn't make his 2 year prediction, but his team at tesla is still doing amazing innovation in this space. - Part of what makes a great innovator is being able to fail sometimes. Musk will continue to make bold claims, sometimes he will fail to fulfill it, but many times he will deliver. What he's doing is nothing short of amazing. He's doing things people keep saying can't be done. Re-usable rockets that land? Electric cars? Cars that drive themselves? I'm willing to tolerate a little shenanigans in exchange for this kind of innovation.

codeulike 7y ago
Agreed, Musk/Tesla/SpaceX set very ambitious targets and then scramble like mad to meet them or almost meet them. This means they're always pushing the limit, and hence you get an endless parade of 'Tesla are going to go bankrupt' stories. In a way they are kind of right, Musk is pushing Tesla so hard that they teeter on the edge of disaster quite often. I wouldn't quite say bankruptcy, but they teeter on the edge of a serious loss of confidence quite often. I think this is kinda deliberate, a tactic of shoot for the stars or just dont bother. I wouldn't invest, but its great to watch whats being acheived from the sidelines. I think people have forgotten what innovation looks like. Innovation, from the outside, looks like a huge gamble, and thats because it is. Tesla is a series of huge gambles, and the people pointing out 'hey what Tesla are doing could go terribly wrong' have a point. But they are also missing the point. Thankfully I think Tesla have enough cars on the road now that if they do strike disaster, there will be enough momentum to have some sort of Tesla remnant to keep the fleet running. But the progress would stop.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Nothing wrong with innovation. But innovation on one front, in Tesla's case EVs, doesn't mean you have to innovate on other fronts like manufacturing and production. And the last thing is what might be killing Tesla at the moment. When "we always did it that way" is a big corp disease, "we are doing it differently because we innovate" is just the start-up version of it. Tesla had, and still has, a great opportunity to disrupt the automotive industry. But not if they execute a lot worse then incumbents.
  - codeulike 7y ago
    There is an interview somewhere where Musk admits that their 100% automation plan was a bad idea. And the interviewer says 'well everyone told you it was a bad idea'. And Musk says (something like) 'everyone tells us everything we do is a bad idea'. edit: interview is here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-13/-the-last-bet-the-company-situation-q-amp-a-with-elon-musk https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-13/-the-last... 100% automation was a gamble that didn't pay off. They scrabbled around a bit, and got to more-or-less where they needed to be via a different route.
    - Aromasin 7y ago
      From watching some videos on the workings of their factory, it still seems like they've automated significantly more than their competitors. They reached for the stars and fell short, but that short is still ground-breaking.
      - hef19898 7y ago
        And resulted in production hell, didn't it?
        Aromasin 7y ago
        This is only going off of what I've read from private interviews with Tesla employees (I'm sure there are some lurking on HN that can give a better idea), but it seems the production hell came mostly from the constant product updates that were rolling through. A connector on a wire harness becomes obsolete, and all of a sudden your camera that picks out that connector from a bucket needs updating, the arm that grips it needs changing, the milling machine that machines the hole for the connector needs changing etc. One up-issue knocks on to the entire production process. This isn't an issue with humans. You tell them the new part they need to use and that's it.
_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
"and always misses his projected dates." Fixed that for you.
- heartofgold 7y ago
  In 2016 when you could pre-order a model 3, Musk said first deliveries of model 3 would begin in late 2017. About 2,500 to 3,000 model 3 had been delivered by the end of 2017, and over 200,000 have been delivered to date. https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/31/11335272/tesla-model-3-announced-price-release-date-specs-preorder https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/31/11335272/tesla-model-3-an...
  - dragontamer 7y ago
    In 2016 when you could pre-order a Model 3, Elon Musk promised a $35,000 car with a $7500 tax credit. The tax-credit is gone, never to return... and the $35,000 car is no where to be found. > 200,000 have been delivered to date. Elon Musk promised 20,000 Model 3 Cars created / month in 2017. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 In Q1 2019, the company created 50,900 Model 3 over three months, or 17000 Cars/month on the average. This 20,000 / month number is important, it is estimated that 20k/month is roughly the profitability point for Tesla. Elon Musk is over a year late, the profits haven't come in yet, and they can't sustainably create cars at the promised rate. ----------- I understand your optimism here. But this $1.5 Billion raise is more debt to a company that never has seen a yearly profit. It HAS to make money to survive, and Elon Musk has been wrong on every financial metric worth a damn. If Tesla doesn't make a profit, it will run out of money, eventually. It can't just keep borrowing $1.5 Billion in loans every couple of years when they are late on these kinds of targets.
    - magnetic 7y ago
      > The tax-credit is gone, never to return... and the $35,000 car is no where to be found. Where I live (CA), both Fed & CA tax credits are still valid. Go to tesla.com and configure your M3. I just did and it comes out as $33,250 (after tax credits) + $1,200 dest/doc fee = $34,450. The above doesn't include the debatable "gas savings".
na85 7y ago
> Given 1 or 2 more years of incremental improvements, your tesla would be capable of driving you most places I would think. Except for anywhere in snow or rain.
- bsaul 7y ago
  i don't know why you got downvoted. The engineer in charge at the latest autopilot meeting explicitely mentionned snow as not beeing specifically adressed yet. He did also mentioned that the autopilot performed quite well under snow right now, but that was indeed very surprising to hear that snow condition wasn't been specifically addressed yet, and yet they talk about robotaxi for next year.
  - natch 7y ago
    They probably got downvoted for wrongly assuming the technology doesn't deal with rain or snow, and then presenting that assumption as fact. It works great in rain. Snow, I have less experience with, but it seemed OK during a winter vacation with snow. With neural nets, a lot of things just get learned. You don't have to specifically address them to get great progress. I'm not saying snow is 100% solved, and yes specifically addressing aspects like snow in the future will help make it even better, but autopilot has worked pretty great so far.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mft_ 7y ago
    was indeed very surprising to hear that snow condition wasn't been specifically addressed yet, and yet they talk about robotaxi for next year. I've never yet seen a city with a taxi service which is reliable in heavy snow - things usually fall completely apart. (Not to mention buses, trains, planes, etc...) Even if the robotaxis are shown to not be able to operate in snow, it's not necessarily an indictment of the whole robotaxi concept. If they can work in snow-free conditions, it's still covering the majority of time, in the majority of potential markets.
    - 7y ago
LiquidSky 7y ago
>Sure the CEO might be too active on twitter and at times say or do things typically considered inappropriate CEO behavior. The problem is he's saying or doing things that are typically considered crimes, like securities fraud. >Musk often makes bold claims and sometimes misses his projected dates. Or, to use normal language, he's a serial liar. >Part of what makes a great innovator is being able to fail sometimes. Musk will continue to make bold claims, sometimes he will fail to fulfill it, but many times he will deliver. Being willing to fail and being dishonest aren't the same thing. It's bizarre how the Musk Cult contorts itself to avoid any possibility of criticizing the Great Leader.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kaiju0 7y ago
  I'm not a cultist but certainly a fan boy. You try innovating and putting a time box on it. You need to be optimistic and a little crazy to think you know better.
- toddmorey 7y ago
  A projection is always a messy mix of what you know at the time combined with your own emotional temperament and wiring. I think the big debate on Elon is if he's a serial liar or a serial optimist who's often wrong.
  - Gpetrium 7y ago
    At some point, people realize that they are underestimating their projections and that leads them to re-calibrate expectations with stakeholders. In this case, there is no re-calibration, which leads "non-believers" to think he is a serial liar. The answer is likely in-between, he knows he underestimates it and he is aware that if he doesn't do so, there wont be enough pressure on the employees and the money would likely dry up fast.
    - LiquidSky 7y ago
shawabawa3 7y ago
> He promised autonomous driving 2 years from 2016... Given 1 or 2 more years of incremental improvements, your tesla would be capable of driving you most places I would think I think it's way further off than that, like, 10+, and almost certainly not without extra hardware being added to Teslas As of today, Tesla's autopilot page says "All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time." This claim imo is at best overly optimistic, and at worst outright fraud. I'd be surprised if they don't get sued at some point over this. (their website used to be much more explicit about promising full self-driving too) Full self-driving is 90% edge cases. Adaptive cruise control is not a few incremental steps away from full self-driving
- natch 7y ago
  >I think it's way further off than that, like, 10+, and almost certainly not without extra hardware being added to Teslas Doubting like this is a pretty common view outside of Tesla, and we've heard it repeated many times here. They clearly disagree. >Full self-driving is 90% edge cases. Adaptive cruise control is not a few incremental steps away from full self-driving This they would completely agree with, as you can see from watching their recent autonomy day presentations. And they have an overwhelming lead in collecting edge case data, so... they're in good shape with that.
ckastner 7y ago
> A lot of people want to trash Musk and Tesla A lot of people also seem to forget that it is in the very nature of outrageous statements to be challenged and criticized. Musk was right with his predictions a few times, but the same could be said about his challengers.
- xeromal 7y ago
  Literally no one on this earth has a Falcon Heavy except Elon Musk. His few right times are way bigger than your standard innovator BS like food delivery.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
natch 7y ago
>It looks like the base model 3 I can order is about $39k You can also order the $35k model which is distinct from the $39k model. Yes, it takes a phone call, but it is available.
- rohit2412 7y ago
  What exactly is your point? You do understand that they have made it tougher to buy 35k$ model 3 only because they can't make profit off it? According to Tesla they have the cheapest batteries, the best AI chips, the most automated factories, the most advanced self driving technology, have a driverless taxi coming soon etc. But after all these advantages they don't sell these technologies individually. They only sell cars with shitty interior and paint, panel, and quality problems at luxury prices. And even though they have a fanatic fanbase, and a lot of positive PR, they still make a loss on luxury priced shitty cars.
  - natch 7y ago
    He said $39k was the lowest. My point was that $35k is the lowest.
everdev 7y ago
His companies are exciting and I think we're all rooting for him to succeed. I'm glad he's doing it privately though. If the government was spending the same amount of money (yeah, yeah, if the government was really doing it it would be 10x more expensive, slower, never gonna happen, etc.) and producing the same results I'm sure they would have pulled the plug already. These companies could dramatically change the world and I'm glad he has the persistence and commitment to keep doubling down on these moonshots (or Mars shots).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
partiallypro 7y ago
I'm a fan of Musk and his projects, but I also understand finance... And Tesla's cash burn is unsustainable... He uses tactics to keep his stock over a certain value in order to protect company debts. I can like what the man is doing in terms of innovation and also see that he's gaming the system in a way that could end in ruin. He's playing a dangerous game and it's he has a lot of shareholder money on the line. He can afford the losses, others can't.
- jwlake 7y ago
  An equity holder by definition signs up for that risk, and all it entails. Musk is playing a dangerous game but anyone that doesn't like it can just get out of the equity. He also has a responsibility to employees, but I'm guessing he has a very high approval rate internally.
  - stevievee 7y ago
    The problem is the purposeful deceit that causes retail investors to incorrectly assess risk. It's common in investor/public relations so I don't mind that Tesla and Musk do it better than everyone else.
  - partiallypro 7y ago
    You could have said the same thing about Enron. Some people have Tesla stock and don't even know it, because of their mutual funds and pensions.
    - mobilefriendly 7y ago
      Portfolio theory largely eliminates specific-company risk by having funds hold many companies.
    - c0vfefe 7y ago
      Those who own so little Tesla stock as to not be aware of it will also not be noticeably impacted by their failure. One could say that's the whole point of diversification.
drb91 7y ago
Meh, most of it’s just having capital.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  Indeed, inert stacks of cash are widely known for being innovative.
  - 6jwfhfture 7y ago
    No, just for being simultaneously (a) the means of innovation and (b) the goal of innovation.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - drb91 7y ago
    Actually yea, the modern sense of innovation exists as an idea to serve capital. See: Joseph Schumpeter. The non-capital bound version is simply invention.
    - dwaltrip 7y ago
      Hmm, I took the parent to be implying that capital is the main ingredient in innovation. It sounds like you are saying something different. Capital is necessary but not sufficient for innovation.
      - drb91 7y ago
        > Capital is necessary but not sufficient for innovation. Yes, this is true. My point was more that innovative products are profitable, not necessarily the novel tool we need. See: smartphones and walled garden app stores. Innovative for sure, but an objectively shittier scenario than one built around the tool people want to use. I don't see innovation (as in, using market forces to push forward technology) as playing any role in collective problems. The regulated market's popular hope for fighting global emissions with market effects, the carbon tax, will do very little to slow emissions on a global scale. We need to think outside the market to have any optimism.
azinman2 7y ago
Full complete autonomy is very far off. Don’t let the salesmen fool you. The problem is that of an infinitely long tail — no one is close.
- natch 7y ago
  The long tail is exactly where Tesla's strength is btw. Things that are improving exponentially seem far off when you look at them with intuitions developed on linear growth. Autonomy may be far off... or it may be closer than we think. I don't trust my own judgement to know the answer, but I suspect the people at Tesla have a better handle on it than you or I. I'm sure they see things in their long tail data that we would probably never think of. Even top experts at other self driving tech companies don't know all of what Tesla is seeing in its long tail data... so I think Tesla has a few more clues than the rest of us.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  The problem is that of an infinitely long tail — no one is close. The long tail can't be truly infinite. It is some very large quantity driven by the combination of many, many factors. Just that amount of analysis gives us some actionable insight. It would be very easy to miss out on some of the factors, and be off by many orders of magnitude in either direction. The actionable insight, is that the analysis needs to be pinned down and made concrete. You'd better be damned right about it, or you're very likely going to be very, very wrong. With regards to Elon Musk, the question is, how good do you think the analysis is. They got it spot on with rockets at SpaceX. They got batteries and motors in EVs right at Tesla. What about Tesla scaling production, automation, and AI? I'm less sure about that last one.
golfer 7y ago
Here's my take on Tesla. It's an 18 year old company that has never been profitable on an annual basis. It's had 4 profitable quarters out of 72 tries. It has over $9 billion in debt. The future is bleak with these financials. Musk has accomplished a lot, absolutely. But as a thriving business, it's a failure. And lately, Musk's ego has really shown, and not in a good way.
grecy 7y ago
Thanks for this comment. The Internet in general, and HN lately, have become extraordinarily negative places full of comments trashing people who try to do things that are bold. I wish people would have a little optimism, or at least just say things like "wow, I personally don't think it's possible, but damn it's going to be exciting to watch them try". We need people who are working hard to build a better future, so lets not bury them in a pile of hate and negativity.
- yourapostasy 7y ago
  > ...and HN lately, have become extraordinarily negative places full of comments trashing people... Considering that one of the tenets of good engineering cultures is blame-free environments, this negativity around ambitious engineering goals astounds me.
  - grecy 7y ago
    Me too. It's really sad, to be honest. HN used to be a place to come and learn really cool stuff, and I enjoyed the comments section much more than the articles themselves. Now, the comments are hardly worth a glance.
- olivermarks 7y ago
  why is Tesla's public face almost exclusively Musk? There are hundreds of talented people there taking huge risks, I personally find Musk as annoying as Donald Trump. There are a lot of people at Tesla risking a lot to do something bold. I'd like to hear a lot more from them and a lot less from Musk.
- martythemaniak 7y ago
  I too am sick and tired of this zeitgeist and I hope it passes soon, because otherwise I think people will just tune out until every only community is nothing but a hateful cesspool. Musk and Tesla attract more than the average share of hate, but this sentiment feeds on itself and grows like cancer. Yesterday's thread on Eric Schmidt leaving Google was dozens of people competing to see who could trash him better. Apart from the bad effects of negativity itself, it is also supremely boring. HN's comments are slowly going from being able to find tons of interesting ideas/reactions/perspectives to finding only different ways of trashing the same person/company/idea.
hellllllllooo 7y ago
I like what he has done for electric cars and without him we wouldn't have the shift towards them that is happening today. He made them cool and they are an important step forward which I respect. What he has been saying about autonomy defies what anyone who works in the area knows about the state of the technology and is genuinely dangerous. People have died because he oversold autopilot. https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash-that-killed-ap-1834453661 https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash... I wish he would just focus on building and selling great electric cars instead of pushing truth in areas where people's live are at stake.
- tim333 7y ago
  The guy in that story had had autopilot malfunction several times on the same intersection so it seems unlikely he wasn't paying attention just because Musk oversold autopilot.
  - hellllllllooo 7y ago
    > The guy in that story had had autopilot malfunction several times on the same intersection My point stands
grwthckrmstr 7y ago
This! Thank you for writing such a crisp response covering all the right points. I feel most people just piss on Musk/Tesla and his daring moves - actually IDK why but I don't care. What I care about is trying to understand the other party. Where they come from. Why are they doing this. What are the risks involved. And in the long term, where are they headed. Your post answers all of this. More power to Elon Musk. We need more bold entrepreneurs like him who aren't afraid to be themselves and take world changing risks.
notabee 7y ago
It's really funny how all of the "failures" demonstrate more innovation successes than the impacted industries have had for decades. It's also apparent from the swarms of histrionic, doomsaying sponsored content out there (i.e. most contemporary "journalism", sadly) that the established companies have been very disrupted and are choosing to wage a media war. The fact that so many resources have been directed to making a furor over every Tesla crash (as if people don't literally die every day in fiery car crashes, often due to faults that necessitate recalls when the settlements get too expensive) and missed deadline does not necessarily mean that the other car makers won't also expend resources to catch up in actual material competition, but the sheer scope of it indicates that strategically they are in a panic. If you think you can directly compete with someone, you do so. If you cannot, then sow FUD.
badloginagain 7y ago
> Re-usable rockets that land? Electric cars? Cars that drive themselves? I'm willing to tolerate a little shenanigans in exchange for this kind of innovation. The only problem with little shenanigans is that its market manipulation- even if it appears to be legitimately accidental.
_ph_ 7y ago
The base model listed on the website is indeed $39, but when you go to a store or call Tesla you suposedly can downgrade it to the base model that does cost $35k - the model on the website includes autopilot and a larger range than the $35k model.
computerex 7y ago
> What he's doing is nothing short of amazing. He's doing things people keep saying can't be done. Re-usable rockets that land? Electric cars? Cars that drive themselves? I'm willing to tolerate a little shenanigans in exchange for this kind of innovation. Respectfully, I disagree. True, he has I think caused the spaceflight industry to think about re-usability again in a meaningful way. And arguably he has also generated a lot of hype for the battery electric car industry. Having said that, his accomplishments often tend to be inflated by his followers. Tesla ultimately failed to deliver a $35k mass market affordable vehicle. Even Model 3, is out of reach for most people in U.S when the median household annual income is only $56k. At ~$40k, Model 3 essentially remains a luxury vehicle for most. Whereas the competition is quickly catching up. Arguably the Chinese electric vehicle market is now the global leader in electric vehicle market. SpaceX still has yet to do a crewed launch to LEO. Rocket re-usability is great, but what we really need is a man rated launch vehicle. With the recent DM-2 anomaly, SpaceX won't be launching any people to orbit for at least a year. Also, whilst propulsive landing looks very cool, it's been done before. SpaceX wasn't the first to do it successfully. Electric cars have been decades. Autonomous driving has also been conceptualized a long time ago, and hell, Tesla isn't even close to the leader in autonomous driving right now in terms of technology.
- jefft255 7y ago
  Your biggest point for me is Tesla's failure to deliver an affordable electric car. I can buy a brand new Corolla for significantly less than 20k CAD, while realistically I won't get a model 3 for less than 50k CAD, except maybe in Quebec where big incentives are still in action (not for long). I don't care that I get a better car for my money! When Tesla is saying that they have the best selling car in its class, you see the Mercedes C-class and the BMW 3-series in the chart. How can they seriously call it a mass-market affordable car when these are the cars that they are competing against?
- mjamesaustin 7y ago
  SpaceX hasn't just caused the spaceflight industry to "think about re-usability". They are utterly crushing all competition in terms of price and launch cadence. And while other companies are trying to play catch-up with them, they're testing their Raptor engine for a new rocket that will be dramatically larger than Falcon 9 but with a similar launch cost. Name anyone who can do propulsive landing the way SpaceX does. They land their rockets on floating platforms in the ocean with amazing precision. Nobody else is remotely close to that kind of engineering feat.
Judgmentality 7y ago
> They demoed true autonomy, and I believe it's actually getting quite close. No. No no no. Elon Musk has done some amazing things, but I am adamant his stance on Autopilot has led to unnecessary deaths and when anyone takes his side that they are actually close to true autonomy, you are undermining how dangerous it is to rely on Autopilot as anything other than advanced cruise control. As more time goes on, we find out more evidence about how Autopilot has been misrepresented, and while the NHTSA study being flawed cannot currently be directly tied to Tesla I cannot imagine that a governing body could be so incompetent without a corrupting influence from Tesla [1]. Elon Musk himself talks about how Autopilot requires driver attention when asked by critics, however when demonstrating the technology himself on national television he has his hands off the wheel and regularly is not watching the road [2]. He goes to great lengths to hide any negative data against Autopilot, as already referenced in [1] where it took 2 years to overcome the legal blockade just to get the data provided in a publicly released study, as well as getting Twitter to suspend someone's account for providing this spreadsheet of problems (including deaths) with Autopilot [3]. I absolutely believe an investigation, at the bare minimum for false advertising and personally I believe negligent homicide, should be brought against him because of it (I am not saying he is guilty, but there is certainly a need to find out). How many people may have died because Elizabeth Holmes misrepresented (and in that case, quite obviously committed fraud) the capability of their product? I am not saying Musk and Holmes are the same, but people would not stop talking about how amazing she was until they found out she was just lying about everything. Elon Musk is absolutely wrong about Autopilot. When lives are at risk, it is not okay to suspend disbelief just because of the hype. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-safety-study-unmasked https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimmcpherson/2018/12/11/in-his-60-minutes-appearance-elon-musk-was-not-on-the-levels/#3ba306885fa9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimmcpherson/2018/12/11/in-his-... [3] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6EGF7YOMuv0XV-ROXTYIazTs/htmlview#gid=26425775 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6...
- mjamesaustin 7y ago
  Tesla released their accident statistics, and their cars have a significantly lower rate of accidents when Autopilot is engaged. To me, that seems to indicate Autopilot is a net safety gain, despite not being perfect.
xkjkls 7y ago
> - Sure the CEO might be too active on twitter and at times say or do things typically considered inappropriate CEO behavior. > - Musk often makes bold claims and sometimes misses his projected dates. This strikes me as some serious euphemising for someone who lied about his company having a buy out offer and randomly accused a hero of terrible tragedy of being a pedophile. We should not excuse the complete lack of maturity.

codeulike 7y ago

Agreed, Musk/Tesla/SpaceX set very ambitious targets and then scramble like mad to meet them or almost meet them. This means they're always pushing the limit, and hence you get an endless parade of 'Tesla are going to go bankrupt' stories. In a way they are kind of right, Musk is pushing Tesla so hard that they teeter on the edge of disaster quite often. I wouldn't quite say bankruptcy, but they teeter on the edge of a serious loss of confidence quite often. I think this is kinda deliberate, a tactic of shoot for the stars or just dont bother. I wouldn't invest, but its great to watch whats being acheived from the sidelines. I think people have forgotten what innovation looks like. Innovation, from the outside, looks like a huge gamble, and thats because it is. Tesla is a series of huge gambles, and the people pointing out 'hey what Tesla are doing could go terribly wrong' have a point. But they are also missing the point. Thankfully I think Tesla have enough cars on the road now that if they do strike disaster, there will be enough momentum to have some sort of Tesla remnant to keep the fleet running. But the progress would stop.

hef19898 7y ago
Nothing wrong with innovation. But innovation on one front, in Tesla's case EVs, doesn't mean you have to innovate on other fronts like manufacturing and production. And the last thing is what might be killing Tesla at the moment. When "we always did it that way" is a big corp disease, "we are doing it differently because we innovate" is just the start-up version of it. Tesla had, and still has, a great opportunity to disrupt the automotive industry. But not if they execute a lot worse then incumbents.
- codeulike 7y ago
  There is an interview somewhere where Musk admits that their 100% automation plan was a bad idea. And the interviewer says 'well everyone told you it was a bad idea'. And Musk says (something like) 'everyone tells us everything we do is a bad idea'. edit: interview is here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-13/-the-last-bet-the-company-situation-q-amp-a-with-elon-musk https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-13/-the-last... 100% automation was a gamble that didn't pay off. They scrabbled around a bit, and got to more-or-less where they needed to be via a different route.
  - Aromasin 7y ago
    From watching some videos on the workings of their factory, it still seems like they've automated significantly more than their competitors. They reached for the stars and fell short, but that short is still ground-breaking.
    - hef19898 7y ago
      And resulted in production hell, didn't it?
      - Aromasin 7y ago
        This is only going off of what I've read from private interviews with Tesla employees (I'm sure there are some lurking on HN that can give a better idea), but it seems the production hell came mostly from the constant product updates that were rolling through. A connector on a wire harness becomes obsolete, and all of a sudden your camera that picks out that connector from a bucket needs updating, the arm that grips it needs changing, the milling machine that machines the hole for the connector needs changing etc. One up-issue knocks on to the entire production process. This isn't an issue with humans. You tell them the new part they need to use and that's it.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago

"and always misses his projected dates." Fixed that for you.

heartofgold 7y ago
In 2016 when you could pre-order a model 3, Musk said first deliveries of model 3 would begin in late 2017. About 2,500 to 3,000 model 3 had been delivered by the end of 2017, and over 200,000 have been delivered to date. https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/31/11335272/tesla-model-3-announced-price-release-date-specs-preorder https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/31/11335272/tesla-model-3-an...
- dragontamer 7y ago
  In 2016 when you could pre-order a Model 3, Elon Musk promised a $35,000 car with a $7500 tax credit. The tax-credit is gone, never to return... and the $35,000 car is no where to be found. > 200,000 have been delivered to date. Elon Musk promised 20,000 Model 3 Cars created / month in 2017. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/881757617416056832 In Q1 2019, the company created 50,900 Model 3 over three months, or 17000 Cars/month on the average. This 20,000 / month number is important, it is estimated that 20k/month is roughly the profitability point for Tesla. Elon Musk is over a year late, the profits haven't come in yet, and they can't sustainably create cars at the promised rate. ----------- I understand your optimism here. But this $1.5 Billion raise is more debt to a company that never has seen a yearly profit. It HAS to make money to survive, and Elon Musk has been wrong on every financial metric worth a damn. If Tesla doesn't make a profit, it will run out of money, eventually. It can't just keep borrowing $1.5 Billion in loans every couple of years when they are late on these kinds of targets.
  - magnetic 7y ago
    > The tax-credit is gone, never to return... and the $35,000 car is no where to be found. Where I live (CA), both Fed & CA tax credits are still valid. Go to tesla.com and configure your M3. I just did and it comes out as $33,250 (after tax credits) + $1,200 dest/doc fee = $34,450. The above doesn't include the debatable "gas savings".

na85 7y ago

> Given 1 or 2 more years of incremental improvements, your tesla would be capable of driving you most places I would think. Except for anywhere in snow or rain.

bsaul 7y ago
i don't know why you got downvoted. The engineer in charge at the latest autopilot meeting explicitely mentionned snow as not beeing specifically adressed yet. He did also mentioned that the autopilot performed quite well under snow right now, but that was indeed very surprising to hear that snow condition wasn't been specifically addressed yet, and yet they talk about robotaxi for next year.
- natch 7y ago
  They probably got downvoted for wrongly assuming the technology doesn't deal with rain or snow, and then presenting that assumption as fact. It works great in rain. Snow, I have less experience with, but it seemed OK during a winter vacation with snow. With neural nets, a lot of things just get learned. You don't have to specifically address them to get great progress. I'm not saying snow is 100% solved, and yes specifically addressing aspects like snow in the future will help make it even better, but autopilot has worked pretty great so far.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mft_ 7y ago
  was indeed very surprising to hear that snow condition wasn't been specifically addressed yet, and yet they talk about robotaxi for next year. I've never yet seen a city with a taxi service which is reliable in heavy snow - things usually fall completely apart. (Not to mention buses, trains, planes, etc...) Even if the robotaxis are shown to not be able to operate in snow, it's not necessarily an indictment of the whole robotaxi concept. If they can work in snow-free conditions, it's still covering the majority of time, in the majority of potential markets.
  - 7y ago

LiquidSky 7y ago

>Sure the CEO might be too active on twitter and at times say or do things typically considered inappropriate CEO behavior. The problem is he's saying or doing things that are typically considered crimes, like securities fraud. >Musk often makes bold claims and sometimes misses his projected dates. Or, to use normal language, he's a serial liar. >Part of what makes a great innovator is being able to fail sometimes. Musk will continue to make bold claims, sometimes he will fail to fulfill it, but many times he will deliver. Being willing to fail and being dishonest aren't the same thing. It's bizarre how the Musk Cult contorts itself to avoid any possibility of criticizing the Great Leader.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kaiju0 7y ago
I'm not a cultist but certainly a fan boy. You try innovating and putting a time box on it. You need to be optimistic and a little crazy to think you know better.
toddmorey 7y ago
A projection is always a messy mix of what you know at the time combined with your own emotional temperament and wiring. I think the big debate on Elon is if he's a serial liar or a serial optimist who's often wrong.
- Gpetrium 7y ago
  At some point, people realize that they are underestimating their projections and that leads them to re-calibrate expectations with stakeholders. In this case, there is no re-calibration, which leads "non-believers" to think he is a serial liar. The answer is likely in-between, he knows he underestimates it and he is aware that if he doesn't do so, there wont be enough pressure on the employees and the money would likely dry up fast.
  - LiquidSky 7y ago

shawabawa3 7y ago

> He promised autonomous driving 2 years from 2016... Given 1 or 2 more years of incremental improvements, your tesla would be capable of driving you most places I would think I think it's way further off than that, like, 10+, and almost certainly not without extra hardware being added to Teslas As of today, Tesla's autopilot page says "All new Tesla cars come standard with advanced hardware capable of providing Autopilot features today, and full self-driving capabilities in the future—through software updates designed to improve functionality over time." This claim imo is at best overly optimistic, and at worst outright fraud. I'd be surprised if they don't get sued at some point over this. (their website used to be much more explicit about promising full self-driving too) Full self-driving is 90% edge cases. Adaptive cruise control is not a few incremental steps away from full self-driving

natch 7y ago
>I think it's way further off than that, like, 10+, and almost certainly not without extra hardware being added to Teslas Doubting like this is a pretty common view outside of Tesla, and we've heard it repeated many times here. They clearly disagree. >Full self-driving is 90% edge cases. Adaptive cruise control is not a few incremental steps away from full self-driving This they would completely agree with, as you can see from watching their recent autonomy day presentations. And they have an overwhelming lead in collecting edge case data, so... they're in good shape with that.

ckastner 7y ago

> A lot of people want to trash Musk and Tesla A lot of people also seem to forget that it is in the very nature of outrageous statements to be challenged and criticized. Musk was right with his predictions a few times, but the same could be said about his challengers.

xeromal 7y ago
Literally no one on this earth has a Falcon Heavy except Elon Musk. His few right times are way bigger than your standard innovator BS like food delivery.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

natch 7y ago

>It looks like the base model 3 I can order is about $39k You can also order the $35k model which is distinct from the $39k model. Yes, it takes a phone call, but it is available.

rohit2412 7y ago
What exactly is your point? You do understand that they have made it tougher to buy 35k$ model 3 only because they can't make profit off it? According to Tesla they have the cheapest batteries, the best AI chips, the most automated factories, the most advanced self driving technology, have a driverless taxi coming soon etc. But after all these advantages they don't sell these technologies individually. They only sell cars with shitty interior and paint, panel, and quality problems at luxury prices. And even though they have a fanatic fanbase, and a lot of positive PR, they still make a loss on luxury priced shitty cars.
- natch 7y ago
  He said $39k was the lowest. My point was that $35k is the lowest.

everdev 7y ago

His companies are exciting and I think we're all rooting for him to succeed. I'm glad he's doing it privately though. If the government was spending the same amount of money (yeah, yeah, if the government was really doing it it would be 10x more expensive, slower, never gonna happen, etc.) and producing the same results I'm sure they would have pulled the plug already. These companies could dramatically change the world and I'm glad he has the persistence and commitment to keep doubling down on these moonshots (or Mars shots).

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

partiallypro 7y ago

I'm a fan of Musk and his projects, but I also understand finance... And Tesla's cash burn is unsustainable... He uses tactics to keep his stock over a certain value in order to protect company debts. I can like what the man is doing in terms of innovation and also see that he's gaming the system in a way that could end in ruin. He's playing a dangerous game and it's he has a lot of shareholder money on the line. He can afford the losses, others can't.

jwlake 7y ago
An equity holder by definition signs up for that risk, and all it entails. Musk is playing a dangerous game but anyone that doesn't like it can just get out of the equity. He also has a responsibility to employees, but I'm guessing he has a very high approval rate internally.
- stevievee 7y ago
  The problem is the purposeful deceit that causes retail investors to incorrectly assess risk. It's common in investor/public relations so I don't mind that Tesla and Musk do it better than everyone else.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  You could have said the same thing about Enron. Some people have Tesla stock and don't even know it, because of their mutual funds and pensions.
  - mobilefriendly 7y ago
    Portfolio theory largely eliminates specific-company risk by having funds hold many companies.
  - c0vfefe 7y ago
    Those who own so little Tesla stock as to not be aware of it will also not be noticeably impacted by their failure. One could say that's the whole point of diversification.

drb91 7y ago

Meh, most of it’s just having capital.

dwaltrip 7y ago
Indeed, inert stacks of cash are widely known for being innovative.
- 6jwfhfture 7y ago
  No, just for being simultaneously (a) the means of innovation and (b) the goal of innovation.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- drb91 7y ago
  Actually yea, the modern sense of innovation exists as an idea to serve capital. See: Joseph Schumpeter. The non-capital bound version is simply invention.
  - dwaltrip 7y ago
    Hmm, I took the parent to be implying that capital is the main ingredient in innovation. It sounds like you are saying something different. Capital is necessary but not sufficient for innovation.
    - drb91 7y ago
      > Capital is necessary but not sufficient for innovation. Yes, this is true. My point was more that innovative products are profitable, not necessarily the novel tool we need. See: smartphones and walled garden app stores. Innovative for sure, but an objectively shittier scenario than one built around the tool people want to use. I don't see innovation (as in, using market forces to push forward technology) as playing any role in collective problems. The regulated market's popular hope for fighting global emissions with market effects, the carbon tax, will do very little to slow emissions on a global scale. We need to think outside the market to have any optimism.

azinman2 7y ago

Full complete autonomy is very far off. Don’t let the salesmen fool you. The problem is that of an infinitely long tail — no one is close.

natch 7y ago
The long tail is exactly where Tesla's strength is btw. Things that are improving exponentially seem far off when you look at them with intuitions developed on linear growth. Autonomy may be far off... or it may be closer than we think. I don't trust my own judgement to know the answer, but I suspect the people at Tesla have a better handle on it than you or I. I'm sure they see things in their long tail data that we would probably never think of. Even top experts at other self driving tech companies don't know all of what Tesla is seeing in its long tail data... so I think Tesla has a few more clues than the rest of us.
stcredzero 7y ago
The problem is that of an infinitely long tail — no one is close. The long tail can't be truly infinite. It is some very large quantity driven by the combination of many, many factors. Just that amount of analysis gives us some actionable insight. It would be very easy to miss out on some of the factors, and be off by many orders of magnitude in either direction. The actionable insight, is that the analysis needs to be pinned down and made concrete. You'd better be damned right about it, or you're very likely going to be very, very wrong. With regards to Elon Musk, the question is, how good do you think the analysis is. They got it spot on with rockets at SpaceX. They got batteries and motors in EVs right at Tesla. What about Tesla scaling production, automation, and AI? I'm less sure about that last one.

golfer 7y ago

Here's my take on Tesla. It's an 18 year old company that has never been profitable on an annual basis. It's had 4 profitable quarters out of 72 tries. It has over $9 billion in debt. The future is bleak with these financials. Musk has accomplished a lot, absolutely. But as a thriving business, it's a failure. And lately, Musk's ego has really shown, and not in a good way.

grecy 7y ago

Thanks for this comment. The Internet in general, and HN lately, have become extraordinarily negative places full of comments trashing people who try to do things that are bold. I wish people would have a little optimism, or at least just say things like "wow, I personally don't think it's possible, but damn it's going to be exciting to watch them try". We need people who are working hard to build a better future, so lets not bury them in a pile of hate and negativity.

yourapostasy 7y ago
> ...and HN lately, have become extraordinarily negative places full of comments trashing people... Considering that one of the tenets of good engineering cultures is blame-free environments, this negativity around ambitious engineering goals astounds me.
- grecy 7y ago
  Me too. It's really sad, to be honest. HN used to be a place to come and learn really cool stuff, and I enjoyed the comments section much more than the articles themselves. Now, the comments are hardly worth a glance.
olivermarks 7y ago
why is Tesla's public face almost exclusively Musk? There are hundreds of talented people there taking huge risks, I personally find Musk as annoying as Donald Trump. There are a lot of people at Tesla risking a lot to do something bold. I'd like to hear a lot more from them and a lot less from Musk.
martythemaniak 7y ago
I too am sick and tired of this zeitgeist and I hope it passes soon, because otherwise I think people will just tune out until every only community is nothing but a hateful cesspool. Musk and Tesla attract more than the average share of hate, but this sentiment feeds on itself and grows like cancer. Yesterday's thread on Eric Schmidt leaving Google was dozens of people competing to see who could trash him better. Apart from the bad effects of negativity itself, it is also supremely boring. HN's comments are slowly going from being able to find tons of interesting ideas/reactions/perspectives to finding only different ways of trashing the same person/company/idea.

hellllllllooo 7y ago

I like what he has done for electric cars and without him we wouldn't have the shift towards them that is happening today. He made them cool and they are an important step forward which I respect. What he has been saying about autonomy defies what anyone who works in the area knows about the state of the technology and is genuinely dangerous. People have died because he oversold autopilot. https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash-that-killed-ap-1834453661 https://gizmodo.com/tesla-autopilot-malfunction-caused-crash... I wish he would just focus on building and selling great electric cars instead of pushing truth in areas where people's live are at stake.

tim333 7y ago
The guy in that story had had autopilot malfunction several times on the same intersection so it seems unlikely he wasn't paying attention just because Musk oversold autopilot.
- hellllllllooo 7y ago
  > The guy in that story had had autopilot malfunction several times on the same intersection My point stands

grwthckrmstr 7y ago

This! Thank you for writing such a crisp response covering all the right points. I feel most people just piss on Musk/Tesla and his daring moves - actually IDK why but I don't care. What I care about is trying to understand the other party. Where they come from. Why are they doing this. What are the risks involved. And in the long term, where are they headed. Your post answers all of this. More power to Elon Musk. We need more bold entrepreneurs like him who aren't afraid to be themselves and take world changing risks.

notabee 7y ago

It's really funny how all of the "failures" demonstrate more innovation successes than the impacted industries have had for decades. It's also apparent from the swarms of histrionic, doomsaying sponsored content out there (i.e. most contemporary "journalism", sadly) that the established companies have been very disrupted and are choosing to wage a media war. The fact that so many resources have been directed to making a furor over every Tesla crash (as if people don't literally die every day in fiery car crashes, often due to faults that necessitate recalls when the settlements get too expensive) and missed deadline does not necessarily mean that the other car makers won't also expend resources to catch up in actual material competition, but the sheer scope of it indicates that strategically they are in a panic. If you think you can directly compete with someone, you do so. If you cannot, then sow FUD.

badloginagain 7y ago

> Re-usable rockets that land? Electric cars? Cars that drive themselves? I'm willing to tolerate a little shenanigans in exchange for this kind of innovation. The only problem with little shenanigans is that its market manipulation- even if it appears to be legitimately accidental.

_ph_ 7y ago

The base model listed on the website is indeed $39, but when you go to a store or call Tesla you suposedly can downgrade it to the base model that does cost $35k - the model on the website includes autopilot and a larger range than the $35k model.

computerex 7y ago

> What he's doing is nothing short of amazing. He's doing things people keep saying can't be done. Re-usable rockets that land? Electric cars? Cars that drive themselves? I'm willing to tolerate a little shenanigans in exchange for this kind of innovation. Respectfully, I disagree. True, he has I think caused the spaceflight industry to think about re-usability again in a meaningful way. And arguably he has also generated a lot of hype for the battery electric car industry. Having said that, his accomplishments often tend to be inflated by his followers. Tesla ultimately failed to deliver a $35k mass market affordable vehicle. Even Model 3, is out of reach for most people in U.S when the median household annual income is only $56k. At ~$40k, Model 3 essentially remains a luxury vehicle for most. Whereas the competition is quickly catching up. Arguably the Chinese electric vehicle market is now the global leader in electric vehicle market. SpaceX still has yet to do a crewed launch to LEO. Rocket re-usability is great, but what we really need is a man rated launch vehicle. With the recent DM-2 anomaly, SpaceX won't be launching any people to orbit for at least a year. Also, whilst propulsive landing looks very cool, it's been done before. SpaceX wasn't the first to do it successfully. Electric cars have been decades. Autonomous driving has also been conceptualized a long time ago, and hell, Tesla isn't even close to the leader in autonomous driving right now in terms of technology.

jefft255 7y ago
Your biggest point for me is Tesla's failure to deliver an affordable electric car. I can buy a brand new Corolla for significantly less than 20k CAD, while realistically I won't get a model 3 for less than 50k CAD, except maybe in Quebec where big incentives are still in action (not for long). I don't care that I get a better car for my money! When Tesla is saying that they have the best selling car in its class, you see the Mercedes C-class and the BMW 3-series in the chart. How can they seriously call it a mass-market affordable car when these are the cars that they are competing against?
mjamesaustin 7y ago
SpaceX hasn't just caused the spaceflight industry to "think about re-usability". They are utterly crushing all competition in terms of price and launch cadence. And while other companies are trying to play catch-up with them, they're testing their Raptor engine for a new rocket that will be dramatically larger than Falcon 9 but with a similar launch cost. Name anyone who can do propulsive landing the way SpaceX does. They land their rockets on floating platforms in the ocean with amazing precision. Nobody else is remotely close to that kind of engineering feat.

Judgmentality 7y ago

> They demoed true autonomy, and I believe it's actually getting quite close. No. No no no. Elon Musk has done some amazing things, but I am adamant his stance on Autopilot has led to unnecessary deaths and when anyone takes his side that they are actually close to true autonomy, you are undermining how dangerous it is to rely on Autopilot as anything other than advanced cruise control. As more time goes on, we find out more evidence about how Autopilot has been misrepresented, and while the NHTSA study being flawed cannot currently be directly tied to Tesla I cannot imagine that a governing body could be so incompetent without a corrupting influence from Tesla [1]. Elon Musk himself talks about how Autopilot requires driver attention when asked by critics, however when demonstrating the technology himself on national television he has his hands off the wheel and regularly is not watching the road [2]. He goes to great lengths to hide any negative data against Autopilot, as already referenced in [1] where it took 2 years to overcome the legal blockade just to get the data provided in a publicly released study, as well as getting Twitter to suspend someone's account for providing this spreadsheet of problems (including deaths) with Autopilot [3]. I absolutely believe an investigation, at the bare minimum for false advertising and personally I believe negligent homicide, should be brought against him because of it (I am not saying he is guilty, but there is certainly a need to find out). How many people may have died because Elizabeth Holmes misrepresented (and in that case, quite obviously committed fraud) the capability of their product? I am not saying Musk and Holmes are the same, but people would not stop talking about how amazing she was until they found out she was just lying about everything. Elon Musk is absolutely wrong about Autopilot. When lives are at risk, it is not okay to suspend disbelief just because of the hype. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-safety-study-unmasked https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimmcpherson/2018/12/11/in-his-60-minutes-appearance-elon-musk-was-not-on-the-levels/#3ba306885fa9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimmcpherson/2018/12/11/in-his-... [3] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6EGF7YOMuv0XV-ROXTYIazTs/htmlview#gid=26425775 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ESnyJ4b7m96OCjs3GSQ6...

mjamesaustin 7y ago
Tesla released their accident statistics, and their cars have a significantly lower rate of accidents when Autopilot is engaged. To me, that seems to indicate Autopilot is a net safety gain, despite not being perfect.

xkjkls 7y ago

> - Sure the CEO might be too active on twitter and at times say or do things typically considered inappropriate CEO behavior. > - Musk often makes bold claims and sometimes misses his projected dates. This strikes me as some serious euphemising for someone who lied about his company having a buy out offer and randomly accused a hero of terrible tragedy of being a pedophile. We should not excuse the complete lack of maturity.