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> California state data shows 21 Solar Roof systems were connected by the state’s three investor-owned utilities as of Feb. 28. Only a few others were connected

> California state data shows 21 Solar Roof systems were connected by the state’s three investor-owned utilities as of Feb. 28. Only a few others were connected in the northeastern United States [...] Amazing that Solar Roof got so much news coverage for what, in the end, amounted to practically nil. I am frequently extremely critical of Elon Musk, but I cannot help but admire his marketing and promotion skills. I believe they are even above Steve Job's. And I'm not being sarcastic, I mean this sincerely. Every other car company needs a huge marketing budget; Tesla has consistently been getting front page press coverage for free, for more than a decade.

throwayEngineer 7y ago
Both what Musk and Jobs do, are bad for consumers. Both companies are extremely selective in what they say, and lie about their features, quality and accomplishments. Not every company does this and gets away with it. But Tesla and Apple manage. I wonder what demographic of people are okay with lies. Edit, would someone explain why lying to consumers is a good thing?
- zaroth 7y ago
  Apple and Tesla are two of the most loved companies in the world by their customers. Tesla actually just won the "Most Loved Brand" rating from Auto Trader [1]. Neither company is perfect, or makes perfect products. Turns out in this world perfect isn't a requirement. Companies can "get away" with failing to deliver 100% of what they promised, when they promised it, if the end result is still delightful. In short, both Apple and Tesla make delightful products. [1] - https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-most-loved-brand-auto-trader-2019-new-car-awards/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-most-loved-brand-auto-trader...
  - throwayEngineer 7y ago
    This comment is offtopic. The parent comment is discussing the ethics of lying and that customers accept it.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      You say the companies "lie". Perhaps a good example would be Elon's "funding secured" tweet? You asked why customers accept it? Customers accept that Elon lied on Twitter because they love the products the company makes more than they don't love Elon lying on Twitter. I would further posit that customers love Tesla because, by and large, Tesla does not lie about its products' capabilities, even if they ultimately fail to deliver the product they want to, or are overly ambitious on delivery dates, or overly optimistic of what's theoretically possible. You don't set off to build a mass market EV in 2006 without a great deal of starry-eyed optimism. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole with "throwayEngineer" but IMO Elon tweets a huge amount about his products, and the vast majority of those tweets are factual, exciting, and/or funny. OP says these companies "lie" as if it's the only thing they do, or that if a company "lies" how can that be a good thing? That's an obtuse question used as a rhetorical trick, and I think it's an uninteresting discussion. The reality is that all companies do a vast array of things, and yes, sometimes, they tell lies. Whether Apple and Tesla are more egregious examples of "companies that lie" than say Exxon or Boeing, I doubt it. I personally believe Apple and Tesla do not intentionally devise schemes on how to best lie to their customers, while I have much less of a problem imagining Exxon or Boeing doing exactly that. The reason for that disparity, is a more interesting topic. I think it's because I love Apple and Tesla products more than I love Exxon or Boeing products, and we treat the things we love differently than things we are ambivalent about, including painting over the flaws, and believing they have good intentions.
      - magduf 7y ago
        Personally, I'd say Elon is a lot more honest than Apple ever was. Remember, Apple is the one telling everyone they really don't want a headphone jack, even if they do. (Wireless headphones have significant downsides.) As for Exxon, that's apples and oranges. Exxon doesn't make any products. It produces oil, which is a fungible commodity, not a branded product that's different from competitors' products in real and significant ways. Boeing, too, is a pretty bad comparison. No one actually buys Boeing planes (except airline companies). As a consumer, you can try to choose non-Boeing planes to fly on when you book tickets, but that's about it. You're not their customer.
  - anthonybsd 7y ago
    >Tesla actually just won the "Most Loved Brand" rating from Auto Trader I suspect this rating will probably do a 180 soon. Tesla cars (all of them) aren't that old. Just wait until a lot of owners are thoroughly in the used bracket and problems like [1] and [2] start rearing their head. [1] - https://carbuzz.com/news/tesla-owners-are-furious-and-nothing-is-being-done https://carbuzz.com/news/tesla-owners-are-furious-and-nothin... [2] - https://www.thedrive.com/news/27945/a-single-component-can-brick-older-teslas-and-tesla-wont-fix-it https://www.thedrive.com/news/27945/a-single-component-can-b...
    - zaroth 7y ago
      One thing to keep in mind is that every Model S and X car is built to order. Whereas the Model 3 is mass produced up front. Parts availability for a mass produced car at a run rate of nearly 500k units/year (by the end of 2019) is going to be very different than parts availability for a made-to-order car selling 50k units / year. Tesla has to scale their service capacity tremendously. But they know this, and talk about it a lot with investors. At the end of 2016 they had made a cumulative 170k cars, by 2017 it was 272k, 2018 it was 526k, and by the end of 2019 it will be nearly 1 million. They have a technically sophisticated product which would ordinarily result in a tremendous number of service calls for things which aren't even technically repairs. I think the huge base of YouTube videos and forum posts helps saved them a lot in this regard, as I will turn to Google searches for answers before calling Tech Support. Tesla does have a very unique service model. They have entire states which legally bar them from operating service centers. They do mobile service in your driveway. They will text back and forth with you to help resolve an issue, and remote access your vehicle logs to diagnose a problem. The car will pre-order parts at your local service center if it detects certain anomalies. I am sure that a minority of owners will experience Tesla "service hell". But I doubt very much that the Model 3 will turn out to be a lemon. So I think the rating will stand the test of time, particularly with OTA updates continuously making the car better in many measurable ways on a practically monthly basis.
      - hef19898 7y ago
        So Tesla competes in the premium market segment and outsources support, partially, to Google search, YouTube and do it yourself-tutorials? Doesn't sound very premium to me. Cars the age of the average Tesla are supposed to run. And for that price tag customers can and do expect prompt service. But I have to admit, marketing vise Tesla and Musk are even better than VW. Which is an achievement.
  - magduf 7y ago
    The parent has a point: the fans/consumers of those brands are very willing to overlook the drawbacks, and to accept their marketing claims that are usually overblown, to a greater degree I think that people who are not fans of those brands.
    - rconti 7y ago
      Counterpoint: Wouldn't actual owners of these products know more about their advantages and drawbacks than forum trolls? Don't get me wrong, I can't STAND Tesla forums. But a (non-Tesla) car forum I'm on has a number of very vocal complainers who post EVERY negative blogpost they can find about Tesla in every thread about Tesla, because... reasons. I mean, everyone needs a hobby, but as someone who actually owns one Tesla and many Apple products, I see no need to spend all day digging up positive OR negative news about the companies. I can't fathom what would drive someone to be so angry about a company as to spend more time researching it than even the most rabid fanboy, but they're out there.
      - magduf 7y ago
        Some people have nothing better to do with their time than tear something else down. Not that this is always a bad thing: back at the height of their abusive monopoly, Microsoft definitely deserved all the bashing it got. But Tesla isn't anything like that, simply because they're a small player (by volume) and nowhere near a monopoly. If you don't like Teslas, it's simple, don't buy one. There's no shortage of other cars out there, including electric ones.
      - erikpukinskis 7y ago
        > I can't fathom what would drive someone to be so angry about a company as to spend more time researching it than even the most rabid fanboy I can. And it's not random. It doesn't have a lot to do with Tesla, it has to do with worlds changing. A lot of people grew up in a culture where men were respected, beef was the best food except maybe bacon, oil was a respectable professional and cars were a respectable hobby. Hitching up to someone you can have kids with would at least put you in position to have status in your community. And all the best people are mostly white, except in ethnic activities like cooking and basketball. Then the world said: - Men are the #1 threat to women's safety, even the men who are close to them - Men are taking advantage of women financially, and interfering with their work - Cars and gas are destroying the earth - Beef and bacon are toxic and toxic for the environment - Straight people are boring if not oppressive, fluid sexuality and queerness is the new symbol of vibrancy and virility - White people cheated their way to the top - Black people make the best art, Japanese people are the best engineers, women are the best CEOs, and gay people have the best parties It's a lot to deal with if you grew up in the first world and find yourself in the second. Especially if you're a meat eating straight man with a nice car. And yet, pretty much all of those bullet points are scientifically accurate. And the population overwhelmingly is accepting those ideas. So you have a group of people with status and power who is feeling it slipping from their fingers. So they look for any and all opportunities to chip away at the bullet points. Electric cars are a sham. Queer people are snowflakes who don't understand that gender is a thing. Etc. Frankly, I think the blame lies in the progressive world, which has left behind anyone considered regressive, trying to lionize marginalized identities rather than developing a true radically inclusive politics. Not that I am criticizing... I think it is somewhat intentional, the centering of marginal identities. It has powerful benefits for the people who are centered, which maybe outweigh the cost of marginalizing men, white people, straight people, etc. I guess I'm not saying those decisions were bad, so much as I'm saying someone does need to start a platform of radical inclusivity if they want to bring the incels and Tesla haters and Trump voters and all them back into the fold of liberal society.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    I think the argument here is that they achieve their popularity via similar tactics that are somewhat misleading to consumers.
- sremani 7y ago
  Lying is different from overly optimistic and promising ideas that did not pan out. It depends on where you come from, if you are skeptic, its lying. If you are a bit charitable towards Musk or Jobs, its just some idea that did not pan out. If we live long enough, you would find, success is an exception. So, the older I get I do not buy the hype, but I do not call people with a decent results track record as liars. They might have failed at delivering and thats about it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- willio58 7y ago
  Such a loaded and polarizing question there. As an Apple product user and a Tesla-owner hopeful, I see (saw in the case of Jobs) truly innovative people leading these two companies. I would rather take leaders of companies that go against the status quo than those who follow it. I like that musk doesn’t give a shit about the SEC when he tweets something. It’s the same thing that makes him want to send people to Mars. He’s crazy in a good way.
  - jeromegv 7y ago
    The SEC isn't there to protect the government. It is to protect investors from false statements that can mislead them. Ex: lying about the fact that he was bringing the company private. How can you be in favor of him doing that? Is that good governance having a CEO telling lies and mislead the public to increase in his own wealth?
    - hef19898 7y ago
      People forgot about Enron it seems. Governance is good, simply because rules have to apply to everyone to be fair. If you allow the presidence there is no way prevent everybody else from braking the rules as well.
- cmurf 7y ago
  Even a weakly convincing lie can give a person an easy out of cognitive dissonance. Question is, what about the truth is causing the discomfort that they want or even need the lies? There is a time limit for lies. I'd prefer they be discovered immediately, as deception and propaganda are a kind of fraud when money or any limited resource is on the line. But it can take a while for these lies to be discovered, quite a lot of the retrospectives use phrasing like "it was always a lie" and "the data was there, we just didn't want to see it" and so on. I notice many peers and people younger than me have a strong belief in "what comes around, goes around" which I think is provable nonsense, and it makes this problem worse by proposing some force (market or spiritual) will make things right if the offense is bad enough.
zaroth 7y ago
This is what launching early looks like. This is just following the mantra of, "if you're not totally embarrassed by your product on Day 1 you waited too long." They establish the demand and build anticipation in the product. Then they spend the millions/billions to create it to serve the demand. It seems like a smarter way to do business than the other way around. > Amazing that Solar Roof got so much news coverage for what, in the end, amounted to practically nil. What do you mean "in the end" -- do you think Tesla has or will abandon the solar roof project? Or is it more likely that they lost focus on Solar Roof during the Model 3 ramp, and that they are still doing the R&D to increase manufacturing yield and longevity of the tiles, and hope to ramp up production later this year?
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >It seems like a smarter way to do business than the other way around To the superfans everything Tesla does is "smarter". >What do you mean "in the end" -- do you think Tesla has or will abandon the solar roof project? Well, according to the financials they are winding down Solar City. So.. Yes?
- KirinDave 7y ago
  But if only 21 units were connected, doesn't that mean they failed to establish demand? Is there actually a waiting list miles long that they're just not filling?
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Yes, there are 10,000 people on a waiting list for the Solar Roof. It's not that people don't want to buy it, Tesla just isn't currently fulfilling orders. EDIT: 11,000 reservations through May 2018 according to Bloomberg, currently it’s $1,400 to reserve.
    - hef19898 7y ago
      Has there been a down payment associated with getting on the waiting list?
    - 7y ago
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> Every other car company needs a huge marketing budget; Tesla has consistently been getting front page press coverage for free, for more than a decade. Well, they built and sold the first successful electric car in the age where nobody believed this would be possible. They've attempted to and succeeded in forcing the market to accept fully-electric vehicles as the future of transportation. They also appeared sincere about helping to fight climate change throughout the whole thing. This was sure to generate interesting headlines. Honestly, I wouldn't mind to see more companies trying to force climate-change-mitigating solutions against the will of the market and actually succeeding at it.
- _Codemonkeyism 7y ago
  "Well, they built and sold the first successful electric car in the age where nobody believed this would be possible." I beg to differ, everyone thought it's possible but there is no mass market for electric car at a reasonable price point. Volkswagen had several working prototypes in the 1970s especially after the oil shock. I worked for eBay for some time. They could do most of the stuff that startups around them could do, they had the tech, the ideas, the money and the people. But startups can be net negative for some years, or be happy with $10M revenue, while a project at eBay being net negative would be killed and a $10M project would be thought as too small. Championing a $10M project at eBay for several years would be a career killing move. So selling 1000 cars a year is a success for a startup (Tesla) but nothing a large company like Volkswagen (11M cars per year) can sustain as a project. Large companies are just not structured in a way (would need to be structured like a VC fund, and some try, e.g. Alphabet) to handle this small but growing opportunities. They need to find the right moment to jump in.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Sure. Not saying big automakers wouldn't do it if they could, but they couldn't, so it took a different company with different structures and motivations. Ford, Toyota, and others are now entering the game, and if big automakers will mop the market floor with Tesla I wouldn't mind. (Hell, Musk wouldn't mind either; AFAIR he's on record saying that the whole point was to get electrification of transport going, regardless of who will be the dominant player in the end.)
JudgeWapner 7y ago
> I believe they are even above Steve Job's A practical, functional, and affordable electric car is definitely a more revolutionary offering than a smart phone. Smartphones are more ubiquitous and versatile, sure. But they aren't technologically as advanced as a self-driving car that directly competes with ICE vehicles and can be powered from completely renewable sources. Jobs gets tons of respect from me for giving a fuck about UX. And because of the smartphone revolution, he'll get most of the fame. But he didn't go up against an industry as established and conservative as the auto industry (that has entire laws prohibiting factory-direct sales just to prop up prices and keep sleazy dealers in business!) and actually win. (inb4 pedantic remarks about TSLA's balance sheet: I say Tesla "won" because the auto industry has to take them seriously now; I see their cars everywhere. They weren't just a startup that had "an idea" and sold a few demo models and quit). Smartphones are everywhere, but they were coming one way or another as manufacturing permitted lower power consumption, higher battery output, and faster CPU/more RAM. Jobs knocked it out of the park because he cared about the UX which is imperative for mobile.
mlindner 7y ago
> Amazing that Solar Roof got so much news coverage for what, in the end, amounted to practically nil. I know engineers who work on Solar Roof and it's definitely not "nil". It's still scaling up. Just give it more time. It's still going through revisions. Keep in mind that when they sell this it needs to last for 50 years on someone's roof. It can't be defective.
austhrow743 7y ago
If you're a fan of Musk as a promoter you'd probably be interested in giving this a read [0]. He's not good by evaluation as a public speaker, certainly not what I'd call charismatic, but manages to kill it anyway by just having a well structured presentation. As an autistic salesperson he's basically a role model of mine. [0] https://medium.com/firm-narrative/want-a-better-pitch-watch-this-328b95c2fd0b https://medium.com/firm-narrative/want-a-better-pitch-watch-...

throwayEngineer 7y ago

Both what Musk and Jobs do, are bad for consumers. Both companies are extremely selective in what they say, and lie about their features, quality and accomplishments. Not every company does this and gets away with it. But Tesla and Apple manage. I wonder what demographic of people are okay with lies. Edit, would someone explain why lying to consumers is a good thing?

zaroth 7y ago
Apple and Tesla are two of the most loved companies in the world by their customers. Tesla actually just won the "Most Loved Brand" rating from Auto Trader [1]. Neither company is perfect, or makes perfect products. Turns out in this world perfect isn't a requirement. Companies can "get away" with failing to deliver 100% of what they promised, when they promised it, if the end result is still delightful. In short, both Apple and Tesla make delightful products. [1] - https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-most-loved-brand-auto-trader-2019-new-car-awards/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-most-loved-brand-auto-trader...
- throwayEngineer 7y ago
  This comment is offtopic. The parent comment is discussing the ethics of lying and that customers accept it.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    You say the companies "lie". Perhaps a good example would be Elon's "funding secured" tweet? You asked why customers accept it? Customers accept that Elon lied on Twitter because they love the products the company makes more than they don't love Elon lying on Twitter. I would further posit that customers love Tesla because, by and large, Tesla does not lie about its products' capabilities, even if they ultimately fail to deliver the product they want to, or are overly ambitious on delivery dates, or overly optimistic of what's theoretically possible. You don't set off to build a mass market EV in 2006 without a great deal of starry-eyed optimism. I don't want to go down the rabbit hole with "throwayEngineer" but IMO Elon tweets a huge amount about his products, and the vast majority of those tweets are factual, exciting, and/or funny. OP says these companies "lie" as if it's the only thing they do, or that if a company "lies" how can that be a good thing? That's an obtuse question used as a rhetorical trick, and I think it's an uninteresting discussion. The reality is that all companies do a vast array of things, and yes, sometimes, they tell lies. Whether Apple and Tesla are more egregious examples of "companies that lie" than say Exxon or Boeing, I doubt it. I personally believe Apple and Tesla do not intentionally devise schemes on how to best lie to their customers, while I have much less of a problem imagining Exxon or Boeing doing exactly that. The reason for that disparity, is a more interesting topic. I think it's because I love Apple and Tesla products more than I love Exxon or Boeing products, and we treat the things we love differently than things we are ambivalent about, including painting over the flaws, and believing they have good intentions.
    - magduf 7y ago
      Personally, I'd say Elon is a lot more honest than Apple ever was. Remember, Apple is the one telling everyone they really don't want a headphone jack, even if they do. (Wireless headphones have significant downsides.) As for Exxon, that's apples and oranges. Exxon doesn't make any products. It produces oil, which is a fungible commodity, not a branded product that's different from competitors' products in real and significant ways. Boeing, too, is a pretty bad comparison. No one actually buys Boeing planes (except airline companies). As a consumer, you can try to choose non-Boeing planes to fly on when you book tickets, but that's about it. You're not their customer.
- anthonybsd 7y ago
  >Tesla actually just won the "Most Loved Brand" rating from Auto Trader I suspect this rating will probably do a 180 soon. Tesla cars (all of them) aren't that old. Just wait until a lot of owners are thoroughly in the used bracket and problems like [1] and [2] start rearing their head. [1] - https://carbuzz.com/news/tesla-owners-are-furious-and-nothing-is-being-done https://carbuzz.com/news/tesla-owners-are-furious-and-nothin... [2] - https://www.thedrive.com/news/27945/a-single-component-can-brick-older-teslas-and-tesla-wont-fix-it https://www.thedrive.com/news/27945/a-single-component-can-b...
  - zaroth 7y ago
    One thing to keep in mind is that every Model S and X car is built to order. Whereas the Model 3 is mass produced up front. Parts availability for a mass produced car at a run rate of nearly 500k units/year (by the end of 2019) is going to be very different than parts availability for a made-to-order car selling 50k units / year. Tesla has to scale their service capacity tremendously. But they know this, and talk about it a lot with investors. At the end of 2016 they had made a cumulative 170k cars, by 2017 it was 272k, 2018 it was 526k, and by the end of 2019 it will be nearly 1 million. They have a technically sophisticated product which would ordinarily result in a tremendous number of service calls for things which aren't even technically repairs. I think the huge base of YouTube videos and forum posts helps saved them a lot in this regard, as I will turn to Google searches for answers before calling Tech Support. Tesla does have a very unique service model. They have entire states which legally bar them from operating service centers. They do mobile service in your driveway. They will text back and forth with you to help resolve an issue, and remote access your vehicle logs to diagnose a problem. The car will pre-order parts at your local service center if it detects certain anomalies. I am sure that a minority of owners will experience Tesla "service hell". But I doubt very much that the Model 3 will turn out to be a lemon. So I think the rating will stand the test of time, particularly with OTA updates continuously making the car better in many measurable ways on a practically monthly basis.
    - hef19898 7y ago
      So Tesla competes in the premium market segment and outsources support, partially, to Google search, YouTube and do it yourself-tutorials? Doesn't sound very premium to me. Cars the age of the average Tesla are supposed to run. And for that price tag customers can and do expect prompt service. But I have to admit, marketing vise Tesla and Musk are even better than VW. Which is an achievement.
- magduf 7y ago
  The parent has a point: the fans/consumers of those brands are very willing to overlook the drawbacks, and to accept their marketing claims that are usually overblown, to a greater degree I think that people who are not fans of those brands.
  - rconti 7y ago
    Counterpoint: Wouldn't actual owners of these products know more about their advantages and drawbacks than forum trolls? Don't get me wrong, I can't STAND Tesla forums. But a (non-Tesla) car forum I'm on has a number of very vocal complainers who post EVERY negative blogpost they can find about Tesla in every thread about Tesla, because... reasons. I mean, everyone needs a hobby, but as someone who actually owns one Tesla and many Apple products, I see no need to spend all day digging up positive OR negative news about the companies. I can't fathom what would drive someone to be so angry about a company as to spend more time researching it than even the most rabid fanboy, but they're out there.
    - magduf 7y ago
      Some people have nothing better to do with their time than tear something else down. Not that this is always a bad thing: back at the height of their abusive monopoly, Microsoft definitely deserved all the bashing it got. But Tesla isn't anything like that, simply because they're a small player (by volume) and nowhere near a monopoly. If you don't like Teslas, it's simple, don't buy one. There's no shortage of other cars out there, including electric ones.
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      > I can't fathom what would drive someone to be so angry about a company as to spend more time researching it than even the most rabid fanboy I can. And it's not random. It doesn't have a lot to do with Tesla, it has to do with worlds changing. A lot of people grew up in a culture where men were respected, beef was the best food except maybe bacon, oil was a respectable professional and cars were a respectable hobby. Hitching up to someone you can have kids with would at least put you in position to have status in your community. And all the best people are mostly white, except in ethnic activities like cooking and basketball. Then the world said: - Men are the #1 threat to women's safety, even the men who are close to them - Men are taking advantage of women financially, and interfering with their work - Cars and gas are destroying the earth - Beef and bacon are toxic and toxic for the environment - Straight people are boring if not oppressive, fluid sexuality and queerness is the new symbol of vibrancy and virility - White people cheated their way to the top - Black people make the best art, Japanese people are the best engineers, women are the best CEOs, and gay people have the best parties It's a lot to deal with if you grew up in the first world and find yourself in the second. Especially if you're a meat eating straight man with a nice car. And yet, pretty much all of those bullet points are scientifically accurate. And the population overwhelmingly is accepting those ideas. So you have a group of people with status and power who is feeling it slipping from their fingers. So they look for any and all opportunities to chip away at the bullet points. Electric cars are a sham. Queer people are snowflakes who don't understand that gender is a thing. Etc. Frankly, I think the blame lies in the progressive world, which has left behind anyone considered regressive, trying to lionize marginalized identities rather than developing a true radically inclusive politics. Not that I am criticizing... I think it is somewhat intentional, the centering of marginal identities. It has powerful benefits for the people who are centered, which maybe outweigh the cost of marginalizing men, white people, straight people, etc. I guess I'm not saying those decisions were bad, so much as I'm saying someone does need to start a platform of radical inclusivity if they want to bring the incels and Tesla haters and Trump voters and all them back into the fold of liberal society.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- KirinDave 7y ago
  I think the argument here is that they achieve their popularity via similar tactics that are somewhat misleading to consumers.
sremani 7y ago
Lying is different from overly optimistic and promising ideas that did not pan out. It depends on where you come from, if you are skeptic, its lying. If you are a bit charitable towards Musk or Jobs, its just some idea that did not pan out. If we live long enough, you would find, success is an exception. So, the older I get I do not buy the hype, but I do not call people with a decent results track record as liars. They might have failed at delivering and thats about it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
willio58 7y ago
Such a loaded and polarizing question there. As an Apple product user and a Tesla-owner hopeful, I see (saw in the case of Jobs) truly innovative people leading these two companies. I would rather take leaders of companies that go against the status quo than those who follow it. I like that musk doesn’t give a shit about the SEC when he tweets something. It’s the same thing that makes him want to send people to Mars. He’s crazy in a good way.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  The SEC isn't there to protect the government. It is to protect investors from false statements that can mislead them. Ex: lying about the fact that he was bringing the company private. How can you be in favor of him doing that? Is that good governance having a CEO telling lies and mislead the public to increase in his own wealth?
  - hef19898 7y ago
    People forgot about Enron it seems. Governance is good, simply because rules have to apply to everyone to be fair. If you allow the presidence there is no way prevent everybody else from braking the rules as well.
cmurf 7y ago
Even a weakly convincing lie can give a person an easy out of cognitive dissonance. Question is, what about the truth is causing the discomfort that they want or even need the lies? There is a time limit for lies. I'd prefer they be discovered immediately, as deception and propaganda are a kind of fraud when money or any limited resource is on the line. But it can take a while for these lies to be discovered, quite a lot of the retrospectives use phrasing like "it was always a lie" and "the data was there, we just didn't want to see it" and so on. I notice many peers and people younger than me have a strong belief in "what comes around, goes around" which I think is provable nonsense, and it makes this problem worse by proposing some force (market or spiritual) will make things right if the offense is bad enough.

zaroth 7y ago

This is what launching early looks like. This is just following the mantra of, "if you're not totally embarrassed by your product on Day 1 you waited too long." They establish the demand and build anticipation in the product. Then they spend the millions/billions to create it to serve the demand. It seems like a smarter way to do business than the other way around. > Amazing that Solar Roof got so much news coverage for what, in the end, amounted to practically nil. What do you mean "in the end" -- do you think Tesla has or will abandon the solar roof project? Or is it more likely that they lost focus on Solar Roof during the Model 3 ramp, and that they are still doing the R&D to increase manufacturing yield and longevity of the tiles, and hope to ramp up production later this year?

navigatesol 7y ago
>It seems like a smarter way to do business than the other way around To the superfans everything Tesla does is "smarter". >What do you mean "in the end" -- do you think Tesla has or will abandon the solar roof project? Well, according to the financials they are winding down Solar City. So.. Yes?
KirinDave 7y ago
But if only 21 units were connected, doesn't that mean they failed to establish demand? Is there actually a waiting list miles long that they're just not filling?
- zaroth 7y ago
  Yes, there are 10,000 people on a waiting list for the Solar Roof. It's not that people don't want to buy it, Tesla just isn't currently fulfilling orders. EDIT: 11,000 reservations through May 2018 according to Bloomberg, currently it’s $1,400 to reserve.
  - hef19898 7y ago
    Has there been a down payment associated with getting on the waiting list?
  - 7y ago

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> Every other car company needs a huge marketing budget; Tesla has consistently been getting front page press coverage for free, for more than a decade. Well, they built and sold the first successful electric car in the age where nobody believed this would be possible. They've attempted to and succeeded in forcing the market to accept fully-electric vehicles as the future of transportation. They also appeared sincere about helping to fight climate change throughout the whole thing. This was sure to generate interesting headlines. Honestly, I wouldn't mind to see more companies trying to force climate-change-mitigating solutions against the will of the market and actually succeeding at it.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
"Well, they built and sold the first successful electric car in the age where nobody believed this would be possible." I beg to differ, everyone thought it's possible but there is no mass market for electric car at a reasonable price point. Volkswagen had several working prototypes in the 1970s especially after the oil shock. I worked for eBay for some time. They could do most of the stuff that startups around them could do, they had the tech, the ideas, the money and the people. But startups can be net negative for some years, or be happy with $10M revenue, while a project at eBay being net negative would be killed and a $10M project would be thought as too small. Championing a $10M project at eBay for several years would be a career killing move. So selling 1000 cars a year is a success for a startup (Tesla) but nothing a large company like Volkswagen (11M cars per year) can sustain as a project. Large companies are just not structured in a way (would need to be structured like a VC fund, and some try, e.g. Alphabet) to handle this small but growing opportunities. They need to find the right moment to jump in.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Sure. Not saying big automakers wouldn't do it if they could, but they couldn't, so it took a different company with different structures and motivations. Ford, Toyota, and others are now entering the game, and if big automakers will mop the market floor with Tesla I wouldn't mind. (Hell, Musk wouldn't mind either; AFAIR he's on record saying that the whole point was to get electrification of transport going, regardless of who will be the dominant player in the end.)

JudgeWapner 7y ago

> I believe they are even above Steve Job's A practical, functional, and affordable electric car is definitely a more revolutionary offering than a smart phone. Smartphones are more ubiquitous and versatile, sure. But they aren't technologically as advanced as a self-driving car that directly competes with ICE vehicles and can be powered from completely renewable sources. Jobs gets tons of respect from me for giving a fuck about UX. And because of the smartphone revolution, he'll get most of the fame. But he didn't go up against an industry as established and conservative as the auto industry (that has entire laws prohibiting factory-direct sales just to prop up prices and keep sleazy dealers in business!) and actually win. (inb4 pedantic remarks about TSLA's balance sheet: I say Tesla "won" because the auto industry has to take them seriously now; I see their cars everywhere. They weren't just a startup that had "an idea" and sold a few demo models and quit). Smartphones are everywhere, but they were coming one way or another as manufacturing permitted lower power consumption, higher battery output, and faster CPU/more RAM. Jobs knocked it out of the park because he cared about the UX which is imperative for mobile.

mlindner 7y ago

> Amazing that Solar Roof got so much news coverage for what, in the end, amounted to practically nil. I know engineers who work on Solar Roof and it's definitely not "nil". It's still scaling up. Just give it more time. It's still going through revisions. Keep in mind that when they sell this it needs to last for 50 years on someone's roof. It can't be defective.

austhrow743 7y ago

If you're a fan of Musk as a promoter you'd probably be interested in giving this a read [0]. He's not good by evaluation as a public speaker, certainly not what I'd call charismatic, but manages to kill it anyway by just having a well structured presentation. As an autistic salesperson he's basically a role model of mine. [0] https://medium.com/firm-narrative/want-a-better-pitch-watch-this-328b95c2fd0b https://medium.com/firm-narrative/want-a-better-pitch-watch-...