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>All three execs that left this week seem to be significant losses for Tesla, but it might be for the best if Tesla’s fast-paced, startup-like business environm
by RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
>All three execs that left this week seem to be significant losses for Tesla, but it might be for the best if Tesla’s fast-paced, startup-like business environment wasn’t for them.
But is a fast-paced, startup-like business environment the best environment for producing thousands of expensive, multi-ton, high speed vehicles that can seriously maim or kill their occupants or bystanders if something goes wrong?
- sawmurai 7y agoWell, Boeing on the other hand is having trouble building reliable planes.
- SilasX 7y agoTrouble building one of their new models to be reliable. They have several very mature lines that they have no trouble making reliable.
- calyth2018 7y agoIn terms of quality issues... https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/boeing-air-canada-jet-fuel-leak-1.5193550 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/boeing-air-canada-jet-fuel-... https://phys.org/news/2019-04-pentagon-boeing-tanker-deliveries-quality.html https://phys.org/news/2019-04-pentagon-boeing-tanker-deliver...
- Breza 7y agoThis is worth emphasizing. Tesla's detractors would likely give them the benefit of the doubt if Tesla had a track record like Boeing's.
- api 7y agoThe underlying cause of both companies' issues is the same, and it's not organizational size and style. It's complexity. Bugs and edge cases grow exponentially, not linearly, with complexity, and both Tesla's cars and the 737 MAX are far more complex than previous products. It's similar to the "featureitis" that causes complex software products and platforms to crumble and die over time. Part of why we keep rewriting the universe in software is the need to repeatedly start over to escape a mountain of accreted complexity in some old system. At some point the cost of rewriting the parts we need is lower than the cost of just maintaining the bloat.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoTesla's cars are a heck of a lot less complex than normal ICE vehicles considering that they lack a transmission and emissions system. Edit: Fanboys, this isn't an insult, it's a statement of fact. An EV simply doesn't have all the additional mechanical, electrical and software complexity that comes with those systems.
- rkoten 7y agoYou may be right in that regard, but I would argue that Tesla is bringing a new variable into the equation which is autopilot software. I'm no expert at mechanical engineering but knowing how every major car manufacturer has mastered their transmission and emission systems, and how none of them have a reasonably full-featured autopilot solution, it does look like that variable is (far?) more complex.
- x38iq84n 7y agoThey make it up with their level of electronics, sensors, software, battery technology etc.
- HarryHirsch 7y agoBut they don't have to add all that electronic hoohah and then construct it in a way that fails! Come on, a car that stops when syslog has exhausted available storage! A car with continuous touchscreen failures in 2019! My GPS was bought in 2008, it has a touchscreen and it spent all its life inside a car, and it is still working, despite GPS rollover! It's troubling that Tesla repeats mistakes that everyone else knows to avoid.
- pmiller2 7y agoThey’re mechanically less complex, but all of the complexity in a modern automobile is in the sensors and control systems. It’s the same with modern airplanes; they’re not mechanically much more complex than they were 40 years ago, but they have sophisticated fly by wire systems that didn’t exist back then.
- ab_c 7y agoBoeing's problems had little to do with being a fast-paced startup-like culture. They were outsourcing a lot of their work to India in an attempt to save money. They cared more about the short-term financial savings and cared less about the quality of work.
- mffnbs 7y agoI think the point was to cite an opposing case where massive corporations are having issues with production as well.
- pm90 7y agoWell the responders point was that Tesla isn't a massive corporation. Different scenario.
- Someone1234 7y ago> They were outsourcing a lot of their work to India in an attempt to save money. That Bloomberg article was highly misleading. The Indian team they cite did NOT work on MCAS and had no role to play in the accidents.
- wahern 7y agoFWIW, in another article thread a poster explained that Boeing wasn't strategically outsourcing work to India: > You have got it the other way around. TCS etc don't have that much power over Indian military contracts. Instead Boeing had to comply and open an Indian development center to win those contracts. > I talked to couple of people at the Indian center and they tell me because the center was created due a compulsion and not strategy the quality of work is terrible. Most of them are paid well but have no work to do. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20310924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20310924
- cco 7y ago…because Boeing stopped being the measured and conservative company it was and began to chase profits and cut corners in a bid to undercut competition. ^I think that addition is a more complete and fair sentence.
- magduf 7y agoIf you're talking about the 737MAX, there's no evidence to show that plane is unreliable at all. It will very reliably crash shortly after takeoff if there's a problem with the single sensor that controls the MCAS. The problem isn't reliability, it's a fundamental design flaw (the engines being too big for the obsolete airframe design) that was bandaged with a fundamentally flawed software hack that was specifically designed to not have any redundancy and to fail easily.
- jsight 7y agoIt seems to be going pretty well so far. Despite some serious missteps in body design, they've managed to build one of the world's safest passenger sedans. If they were good at their jobs too, it would have been even better. They've also managed to build out an entire supply chain for building more electric cars yearly than any of their competitors. That doesn't appear to be a feat that will be matched for at least a couple of years, even if Tesla were relatively stagnant. Instead Tesla is aiming to continue 50+% average annual growth for another couple of years at least. Continue? Yep, their growth story is faster than that of any American car company in the world's history. I'm not sure if there are any worldwide that would compare, but it seems doubtful. Of course, there are plenty of things wrong too, just as there were when the automotive industry was born and the Durant types ran the industry. But what they've done is absolutely remarkable.
- wlesieutre 7y agoThey've proven they can make a car, the part I'm most skeptical is Elon Musk's continued boasting on how far ahead they are with self driving.
- jsight 7y agoI agree with that. To me, the most worrying thing about Tesla this year has been their overemphasis on full self driving features. They do not appear to be close and I do not like the way they are using puffery around that to sell vehicles.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoSelf driving is to Tesla as StarLink is to SpaceX. Go where the margins are fat. The market for cars (which sit idle 90% of the time) is much smaller than that for total passenger transportation miles. The market for launches is much smaller than satellite broadband services.
- imtringued 7y agoCars sitting idle 90% of the time is a feature. If my car was utilized 100% of the time then it would wear out within a single year.
- airstrike 7y agoI'll play devil's advocate and say that every other Auto OEM has produced billions of "expensive, multi-ton, high speed vehicles that can seriously maim or kill their occupants or bystanders if something goes wrong"
- mrfredward 7y agoThe grandparent comment doesn't claim Tesla is unique for making "expensive, multi-ton, high speed vehicles that can seriously maim or kill their occupants." It claims Tesla is unique for approaching that age old problem with a "fast-paced, startup-like business environment." Put another way, is it appropriate to "move fast and break things" when human life is on the line?
- airstrike 7y agoI won't weigh in on whether it's appropriate or not, but the Europeans didn't reach America in the 1500s by waiting until they had a perfectly safe ship.
- bad-joke 7y agoPerfect example. The Europeans moved on the Americas before they understood disease pathology, resulting in the deaths of up to 90% of the indigenous population.
- bsaul 7y agoI’m stunned at the spin the article is trying to give to this news. Like a child who refuses to admit when something is wrong and prefers to keep hoping for some magic hypothesis. While they’re at it, why not go « maybe they left after 4 years because they realized how amazingly good tesla is and they didn’t want to hold the company on its way to guaranteed success ». The level of absurdity in this post is just outstanding.
- darkteflon 7y agoThat’s pretty standard for electrek.
- gwbas1c 7y agoAs much as I love my Model 3, it has quite a few quirks that a car from a traditional automaker wouldn't have: (nonstandard charging connector, snow falls off the rear windshield into the trunk, no power shades over the sunroof, no place to store sunglasses, ect.) And, as much as I want Tesla to succeed, they really need to figure out how to get some know-how from standard automakers. I never had a pile of snow fall into the back of my Leaf when I opened its trunk! It also had a sunglasses holder, and I didn't need to use a dongle to plug it into a standard charger.
- mauvehaus 7y ago2005 Honda Civic: Water drains from the trunk lid into the trunk when you open it in the rain. If you open the trunk when there's snow on the rear window, it gets jammed up between the trunk lid and the window. The traditional automakers aren't immune from this sort of thing.
- dahfizz 7y agoTurns out making a car is really complicated and full of tradeoffs. A car with no compromises is going to cost 6 figures at least.
- mauvehaus 7y agoYeah, I'm not asking for a perfect car; it isn't made by any automaker, traditional or not. Personally, I'm a great believer in the theory that character is the great redeemer in cars. I once owned an '86 Subaru BRAT. It had all manner of quirks, but character in spades. Loved it, wish I'd never sold it. I will say, the water pouring into the trunk bug is singularly annoying, all the more so since the Civic doesn't have a lot of character to make up for it. Or maybe that's the Civic's manifestation of character, and I haven't yet found the flaw it's there to make up for.
- farisjarrah 7y agoTurns out even cars that are over 6 figures are still totally full of trade offs and compromises. This is a particularly insane example, but luxury cars are still in no way perfect. Doug DeMuro Reviewing a $200000 hummer: https://youtu.be/UqKUExgryXo https://youtu.be/UqKUExgryXo
- zaroth 7y agoTurns out from Model 3 sales numbers, safety numbers, and efficiency numbers, the answer to that is a resounding yes.
- olivermarks 7y ago'Move fast and kill people'? It is definitely a concern. http://www.tesladeaths.com http://www.tesladeaths.com