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One of the things I'm really perplexed about is the general criticism of Elon Musk over really candid statements. It's really refreshing to see someone just sa

One of the things I'm really perplexed about is the general criticism of Elon Musk over really candid statements. It's really refreshing to see someone just say something like this with honesty. He gets flak for when he posts things like this on twitter because "omg, the stonks!?" but I find the criticism more indicative of systemic problems with the fiduciary duties of publicly traded companies than something Elon is doing wrong.

kop316 6y ago
To offer a counterpoint, I agree I like the honestly, but I will ask (I genuinely don't know): what does Tesla do about it? So say I buy a Tesla, and I have some sort of manufacturing issue. Can I go to a Tesla service station to have it fixed? (Once again, I genuinely don't know, and I am curious actually). If they are taking steps to fix it, I would applaud them as well, but I would not be happy to spend money on a Tesla, have an issue, and have these sorts of issues awknowledged, but then be stuck with said issue.
- jsight 6y ago
  Yes, though the service experience varies about as much as if you were dealing with car dealers.
- secabeen 6y ago
  Generally, it depends on the level of the issue and how long you've owned the car. The car comes with warranties that last between 4 and 10 years, depending on the part. They should cover this sort of thing. Issues that can compromise passenger safety are subject to recalls, and do not have a time limit. Tesla runs service centers and dealerships across their sales area.
- alexrson 6y ago
  In my experience there were two manufacturing issues with my car and they came to my location and fixed them for free. Obviously, it would better to not have them in the first place and I can't speak to the full set of issues people have had.
  - kop316 6y ago
    That's comforting to hear that they do address the issues.
- giobox 6y ago
  All of the flaws Munro talks about in his videos and with Musk here are visible really from moment you pickup the car at mile zero. I believe Tesla do have some kind of no questions asked return of the car at pickup time (my Model 3 did in CA anyway). More shocking to me is that some people will accept (new!!) from Tesla cars with paint and panel fit this bad. Some of the Model Y examples in my neighborhood are truly shocking - several of them the rear hatch door just does not sit flush at all when closed, yet the buyer still drove it home? If a dealer sells you a brand new car with paint and panel fit issues, it's probably a good idea to refuse and request one free of defects. Sadly there are now some online checklists for buying Teslas that walk you through the most common cosmetic defects so you can spot them at pickup time (sad because this should not be necessary).
  - MBCook 6y ago
    I wonder how many people even realize that’s an option. After all, there is no other major car company where you would have these kind of issues. It’s not normal to have to give back your car at mile zero because of massive quality issues.
silexia 6y ago
I agree, we need to encourage people in power to be honest! Too many aren't, especially public company CEO's. I know lots of these guys and what they say on the golf course is totally different than what they say publicly.
user-the-name 6y ago
He gets flak because he says a lot of things that are quite shitty.
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  I must admit his current tweets about Dogecoin seem weird. He's literally shitposting, and some people will take it seriously and buy Dogecoins with real money instead of mining them.
duxup 6y ago
I feel like the folks who have a reputation along the lines for "just tells it like it is" are just as likely to make some horrible / wrong statements as well. It seems like the impulse to just speak some blunt truth is as likely to be off the target as on.
spaetzleesser 6y ago
I agree. He is pretty honest which is a good thing. I think the problem is that the general trend is to put people either into the "good" or "bad" category in total. This doesn't allow to recognize that people are flawed and do some good and some bad things. Instead people want to perceive them as always good or always bad. You see the same in politics. A politician does 10 things of which you make like some and not like others. But a lot of partisans bend their minds to like everything a certain politician does or hate everything he does.
- totalZero 6y ago
  > He is pretty honest "funding secured" "pedo guy"
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
snowwrestler 6y ago
Musk comes in for criticism because he spends a lot time on condescending shit-talk about older competitors, and then part of the time talking about how hard it is to do things that those older competitors spent decades laboriously working out. Like, yeah, who knew mass-producing quality cars was way harder than it looks at first? How about the millions of people who’ve been doing it for a century?
- rblatz 6y ago
  But they built their moat and got lazy behind it. It should be even easier for the legacy manufacturers to innovate because they figured out the hard stuff in scaling already.
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    Innovators dilemma, it’s hard to be innovative as well as optimized.
  - snowwrestler 6y ago
    This is the sort of condescending stuff Musk likes to say. What, specifically, is the moat that they are behind? Auto manufacturing is one of the leanest and most competitive industries in the world. If they “got lazy” how come many manufacturers are still better than Tesla at basic fit and finish and hardware reliability? Do we suppose that Tesla is even lazier? (I don’t think that Tesla is lazy at all; I’m pointing out the flaw in using “laziness” as a metric.) A car is a collection of many things. Musk properly understands the impact of Tesla’s electric drivetrain. He underestimated the sustained difficulty of manufacturing the rest of the physical car at scale, just like you are. It’s tempting to look around the world at things as they are, and think that they must be easy since they’re already happening. People have been building cars for 100 years! How hard can it be? The truth is, a lot of what we take for granted in life is delivered through continuous effort against sustained difficulties. Tesla is certainly not the only carmaker who struggles with automation and quality. Musk does seem like the only carmaker CEO who is regularly surprised that those things are hard.
    - 6y ago
happytoexplain 6y ago
He gets flak for his occasional cavalier statements and mocking tone, which is just a realistic reaction to expect from humans. Sure, there are those who dislike him in the typical shallow context where people take on team-sports attitudes about business and society, and we may argue about which source of criticism is more prevalent, but it's too easy to say that it's because he's "candid", "honest", etc. Those are common fallacious defenses for antagonistic behavior (and fits into the team-sports portion of attitudes).
thomaskcr 6y ago
He said on an earnings call just a couple years ago that when he did the Toyota factory tour things were moving like granny on a walker slow and you would need a strobe light to see how fast the Tesla machines were moving and they were needing to account for air friction. He deserves more than the criticism he gets but he is surrounded by people enabling him and journalists have been uncritically reporting the things he says. The majority of articles about the Nevada factory still use the fake render of that factory rather than any actual images as just one example of the enablement of the lies and fantasy around the company.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  This is despite Tesla selling 21 times less cars per year, and only making not making all that much more (definitely more, but potentially not what you would expect for a company much smaller) per car sold? Consider also that Toyota's best selling car is cheaper than the cheapest Tesla, and their range extends significantly cheaper than that.
- nickik 6y ago
  Tesla never claimed their manufacturing would be that fast in just a few years, that was a long term goal. Its totally disingenuous to claim this is what they believed they could do for the Model 3. Its still the long term vision. The argument that everybody around Elon is a Yes men is also just nonsense, Tesla tries to do difficult things and sometimes they manage it and sometimes they hit delays. Tesla did actually hit their manufacturing goals eventually. Maybe a half a year later then Elon hoped but it did happen. And if you look at Model 3 in Shanghai, its much better. Model Y in Fremont was better and Model Y in Shanghai is better again. These program hit their goals pretty consistently. Tesla is clearly improving in their ability to execute mass manufacturing. Nevada equally worked out perfectly. Its literally being cooped by everybody. Your criticism has literally nothing to do with Tesla, but rather with the media. The factory targeted 35GWh capacity in 2019, and it managed that in 2020. Its beyond that now. The building is only supposed to be complete, once its producing 150GWh. Nevada hit both cell production targets and meet all state contracts in terms of employment numbers.

kop316 6y ago

To offer a counterpoint, I agree I like the honestly, but I will ask (I genuinely don't know): what does Tesla do about it? So say I buy a Tesla, and I have some sort of manufacturing issue. Can I go to a Tesla service station to have it fixed? (Once again, I genuinely don't know, and I am curious actually). If they are taking steps to fix it, I would applaud them as well, but I would not be happy to spend money on a Tesla, have an issue, and have these sorts of issues awknowledged, but then be stuck with said issue.

jsight 6y ago
Yes, though the service experience varies about as much as if you were dealing with car dealers.
secabeen 6y ago
Generally, it depends on the level of the issue and how long you've owned the car. The car comes with warranties that last between 4 and 10 years, depending on the part. They should cover this sort of thing. Issues that can compromise passenger safety are subject to recalls, and do not have a time limit. Tesla runs service centers and dealerships across their sales area.
alexrson 6y ago
In my experience there were two manufacturing issues with my car and they came to my location and fixed them for free. Obviously, it would better to not have them in the first place and I can't speak to the full set of issues people have had.
- kop316 6y ago
  That's comforting to hear that they do address the issues.
giobox 6y ago
All of the flaws Munro talks about in his videos and with Musk here are visible really from moment you pickup the car at mile zero. I believe Tesla do have some kind of no questions asked return of the car at pickup time (my Model 3 did in CA anyway). More shocking to me is that some people will accept (new!!) from Tesla cars with paint and panel fit this bad. Some of the Model Y examples in my neighborhood are truly shocking - several of them the rear hatch door just does not sit flush at all when closed, yet the buyer still drove it home? If a dealer sells you a brand new car with paint and panel fit issues, it's probably a good idea to refuse and request one free of defects. Sadly there are now some online checklists for buying Teslas that walk you through the most common cosmetic defects so you can spot them at pickup time (sad because this should not be necessary).
- MBCook 6y ago
  I wonder how many people even realize that’s an option. After all, there is no other major car company where you would have these kind of issues. It’s not normal to have to give back your car at mile zero because of massive quality issues.

silexia 6y ago

I agree, we need to encourage people in power to be honest! Too many aren't, especially public company CEO's. I know lots of these guys and what they say on the golf course is totally different than what they say publicly.

user-the-name 6y ago

He gets flak because he says a lot of things that are quite shitty.

ASalazarMX 6y ago
I must admit his current tweets about Dogecoin seem weird. He's literally shitposting, and some people will take it seriously and buy Dogecoins with real money instead of mining them.

duxup 6y ago

I feel like the folks who have a reputation along the lines for "just tells it like it is" are just as likely to make some horrible / wrong statements as well. It seems like the impulse to just speak some blunt truth is as likely to be off the target as on.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

I agree. He is pretty honest which is a good thing. I think the problem is that the general trend is to put people either into the "good" or "bad" category in total. This doesn't allow to recognize that people are flawed and do some good and some bad things. Instead people want to perceive them as always good or always bad. You see the same in politics. A politician does 10 things of which you make like some and not like others. But a lot of partisans bend their minds to like everything a certain politician does or hate everything he does.

totalZero 6y ago
> He is pretty honest "funding secured" "pedo guy"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

snowwrestler 6y ago

Musk comes in for criticism because he spends a lot time on condescending shit-talk about older competitors, and then part of the time talking about how hard it is to do things that those older competitors spent decades laboriously working out. Like, yeah, who knew mass-producing quality cars was way harder than it looks at first? How about the millions of people who’ve been doing it for a century?

rblatz 6y ago
But they built their moat and got lazy behind it. It should be even easier for the legacy manufacturers to innovate because they figured out the hard stuff in scaling already.
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Innovators dilemma, it’s hard to be innovative as well as optimized.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  This is the sort of condescending stuff Musk likes to say. What, specifically, is the moat that they are behind? Auto manufacturing is one of the leanest and most competitive industries in the world. If they “got lazy” how come many manufacturers are still better than Tesla at basic fit and finish and hardware reliability? Do we suppose that Tesla is even lazier? (I don’t think that Tesla is lazy at all; I’m pointing out the flaw in using “laziness” as a metric.) A car is a collection of many things. Musk properly understands the impact of Tesla’s electric drivetrain. He underestimated the sustained difficulty of manufacturing the rest of the physical car at scale, just like you are. It’s tempting to look around the world at things as they are, and think that they must be easy since they’re already happening. People have been building cars for 100 years! How hard can it be? The truth is, a lot of what we take for granted in life is delivered through continuous effort against sustained difficulties. Tesla is certainly not the only carmaker who struggles with automation and quality. Musk does seem like the only carmaker CEO who is regularly surprised that those things are hard.
  - 6y ago

happytoexplain 6y ago

He gets flak for his occasional cavalier statements and mocking tone, which is just a realistic reaction to expect from humans. Sure, there are those who dislike him in the typical shallow context where people take on team-sports attitudes about business and society, and we may argue about which source of criticism is more prevalent, but it's too easy to say that it's because he's "candid", "honest", etc. Those are common fallacious defenses for antagonistic behavior (and fits into the team-sports portion of attitudes).

thomaskcr 6y ago

He said on an earnings call just a couple years ago that when he did the Toyota factory tour things were moving like granny on a walker slow and you would need a strobe light to see how fast the Tesla machines were moving and they were needing to account for air friction. He deserves more than the criticism he gets but he is surrounded by people enabling him and journalists have been uncritically reporting the things he says. The majority of articles about the Nevada factory still use the fake render of that factory rather than any actual images as just one example of the enablement of the lies and fantasy around the company.

mhh__ 6y ago
This is despite Tesla selling 21 times less cars per year, and only making not making all that much more (definitely more, but potentially not what you would expect for a company much smaller) per car sold? Consider also that Toyota's best selling car is cheaper than the cheapest Tesla, and their range extends significantly cheaper than that.
nickik 6y ago
Tesla never claimed their manufacturing would be that fast in just a few years, that was a long term goal. Its totally disingenuous to claim this is what they believed they could do for the Model 3. Its still the long term vision. The argument that everybody around Elon is a Yes men is also just nonsense, Tesla tries to do difficult things and sometimes they manage it and sometimes they hit delays. Tesla did actually hit their manufacturing goals eventually. Maybe a half a year later then Elon hoped but it did happen. And if you look at Model 3 in Shanghai, its much better. Model Y in Fremont was better and Model Y in Shanghai is better again. These program hit their goals pretty consistently. Tesla is clearly improving in their ability to execute mass manufacturing. Nevada equally worked out perfectly. Its literally being cooped by everybody. Your criticism has literally nothing to do with Tesla, but rather with the media. The factory targeted 35GWh capacity in 2019, and it managed that in 2020. Its beyond that now. The building is only supposed to be complete, once its producing 150GWh. Nevada hit both cell production targets and meet all state contracts in terms of employment numbers.