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I mean, there's not much to be said about this is there, this is absolutely standard Tesla behaviour. Oh we didn't realise installing rooves could be complicat

I mean, there's not much to be said about this is there, this is absolutely standard Tesla behaviour. Oh we didn't realise installing rooves could be complicated, here's a 30% price rise after we've already signed the contract. Don't worry though, your FSD package is definitely going to be working very very soon. I don't know what it is about this continually unlearned lesson of "Maybe just chat with someone who does the thing you're trying to replace for 5 minutes". Absolutely same thing with the boring company- 5 minutes with an expert would have saved them years of learning the lessons everyone already knew.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago
Could this just be an example of inflation taking place in the US economy due to the COVID response?
jgilias 6y ago
But that's exactly the modus operandi of Musk's companies. Figure out the big picture of something based on first principles, assume that the industry is stuck on some local maximum, and try to do it in a different way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it may not. I mean, there would've been plenty of knowledgeable people in the relevant industries telling Musk why landing rockets and reusing them is not going to work, and why battery powered mass market electric vehicles is a pipe dream.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  > Sometimes it works, sometimes it may not. The way this should work is: Sometimes it works and a company is successful, and sometimes it doesn't and the company isn't successful. Musk's apparent mode of operation is: if it works, my company is successful, and if it doesn't work, a lot of customers (or even would-be-customers) will take part of the hit and the company won't be that unsuccessful. That's not how it should work.
- verbify 6y ago
  I think it's generous to attribute reusable rockets to Musk - the Space Shuttle Columbia went on 17 missions - Musk didn't develop the first reusable rocket. As for electric cars, I believe the limiting factor was battery technology, which has improved in leaps and bounds in the past decade. Tesla wasn't the only company developing electric cars - Renault-Nissan Alliance achieved the sales milestone of 350,000 all-electric vehicles delivered globally in August 2016, ranking second was Tesla Motors with over 139,000 electric cars sold between 2008 and June 2016. It's also not clear that Musk founded Tesla, but I'm not clear on the history there. Tesla do have the strongest branding in electric cars though, and I would attribute that to Musk's ability as a showman.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    And batteries can be attributed to a large degree to Panasonic.
  - jgilias 6y ago
    There is a categorical difference between the Space Shuttle boosters and the Falcon 9 rockets. First of all, the external tank of the space shuttle didn't get reused. The solid rocket boosters were, but only after they were recovered from splash-landing into the ocean, requiring extensive and expensive refurbishing before further launches. Which Falcon 9 boosters largely avoid by landing vertically. And the Shuttle itself was reusable, but that's sort of besides the point, as that's a space-plane, not a rocket used to bring things into orbit. Whether capsules or space-planes is a better concept for the spacecraft itself is a different discussion altogether. The per kg cost to orbit of Falcon 9 launches is an order of magnitude less than it was for Space Shuttle, so credit should be given where credit is due.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > First of all, the external tank of the space shuttle didn't get reused. To be fair, the Falcon 9 similarly discards its entire second stage. I really wish they'd have boosted the Shuttle tank to stable orbit and used it for space stations.
- azernik 6y ago
  The space launch industry was uniquely dysfunctional; SpaceX could get away with starting near the bottom of the learning curve. Tesla, by contrast, is up against companies that build products at large scales in a thick market while competing against the best the international economy has to offer. There's much less room for error there.
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    I don't know any other company that offers vertical energy integration just like Tesla. I was just talking yesterday to a guy who loves his Model 3 and is waiting for his Tesla batteries in his house for over a year now (and can pay more if needed). He isn't thinking of using another company, as vertical software integration is more important for him than timing / price.
    - azernik 6y ago
      Yeah, that integrated offering is a great market differentiator. Still a much higher bar than the basic competence that SpaceX has had to display to eat everyone else's lunch.
- hef19898 6y ago
  ESA / Ariana Space did some studies on reusable rockets in the early 200s (if memory serves, and for the love of god I can't find the study anymore...). Their conclusions were: - technically feasible - economically not feasible due to limited number of launches And weather or not i is econommically feasible for SpaceX is impossible to tell without their financials. It does seem so, that Starlink is increasing SpaceX launches. There is truths to Tesla, but to be honest, Tesla was considerably close to running out of money some while ago. The art of Musk is to have Tesla seen as a tech company, and not as a car maker.
  - fundatus 6y ago
    I mean, McDonnell Douglas had a working prototype already in the 90s: https://youtu.be/JzXcTFfV3Ls?t=76 https://youtu.be/JzXcTFfV3Ls?t=76
    - hef19898 6y ago
      Damn, didn't know about that! Impressive thing!
    - andy_jensen 6y ago
      So had Spectre in 1967 https://youtu.be/Dnaorqo6krg https://youtu.be/Dnaorqo6krg
    - himinlomax 6y ago
      It was barely a prototype, more of a proof of concept, as it couldn't lift anything much but itself. Also it was not just reusable (though not reused) but SSTO. And SSTO is almost certainly a dead end for chemical rockets. In part but not exclusively because aerospikes seem to be impractical, but also because fully reusable and inexpensive boosters are obviously working just fine. The case for sending a lot of deadweight up the gravity well is simply too poor, even if you could do it with great efficiency.
      - dingaling 6y ago
        A PooC seems a reasonable moniker, but the sole reason it didn't proceed to anything more practical was the lack of government funding. Big Space had become so dependent on gov contracts that they couldn't envisage doing anything on their own initiative: that was the true innovation of SpaceX, not landing rockets. Frankly Delta Clipper was even more impressive given that it came from MDC who were by far the most conservative defense contractor. That sort of thing would have been more typical of Northrop.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
Small nitpick: AFAIK, you don't say rooves, but roofs.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  That's because you DKVF :-) It's unusual an dated in the US but unexceptional in the UK.
  - drawfloat 6y ago
    I've never seen anyone spell it "rooves" in the UK. It's roofs.
    - kzzzznot 6y ago
      Hilariously, someone tried to petition parliament to change the spelling. It was rejected (quite understandably) because "The UK Government or Parliament is not responsible for setting the "official spelling" of words." https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/268579 https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/268579
  - kzzzznot 6y ago
    What does DKVF stand for?
    - shawabawa3 6y ago
      Guessing it's play on AFAIK = as far as I know DKVF = don't know very far?
      - kwhitefoot 6y ago
        Yes, that's what I meant.
- tokamak-teapot 6y ago
  You may be replying to someone who has read many ‘old’ books and become accustomed to the spelling ‘rooves’. They may also have a different cultural background to yourself. In the UK, for example, ‘rooves’ seems to be more common than in the US.
hef19898 6y ago
This maybe the big difference between SpaceX, where Musk worked based on previous work done by NASA and others, and all his other companies (Tesla and so on) where he ignored existing knowledge. Wouldn't he be Musk, there is a non zero chance of Tesla being bankrupt by now because of this.
hobofan 6y ago
Oh they absolutely do have a chat with the experts beforehand. It's just that they think they know everything better so they straight up ignore the lessons, as they think for some magical reason they won't apply to them. Source: Someone from an established boring company they tried to buy their first boring machine from, until they decided on a cheaper much more outdated model, with which they encountered basically all the problems they were warned about.
moduspol 6y ago
> 5 minutes with an expert would have saved them years of learning the lessons everyone already knew. I'm not sure it's fair to make this statement without acknowledging the times he's been successful doing precisely what that five minute conversation would have had him avoid. For example: Tesla itself, SpaceX, and PayPal.
- lottin 6y ago
  Define successful.
  - moduspol 6y ago
    I'm not sure the discussion benefits from debating that.
- adwn 6y ago
  > For example: Tesla itself Bad example: Tesla almost went down the drain during the Model 3 ramp-up because they thought they knew better how to do large-scale car manufacturing than all the other large-scale car manufacturers. Turned out, they didn't, had to rethink and redesign many processes, and had to shift part of the production to hastily erected tents.
  - moduspol 6y ago
    The point is that the company wouldn't have been started if he had listened to industry experts. The point was not that the company would never have benefited from other lessons from the industry at any other point.
    - adwn 6y ago
      Tesla's main innovation and unique selling point was "attractive, high-end EVs", and later, "attractive, mass-market EVs". It was never "marginally more efficient mass production of cars". Before SpaceX, there was little to no competition in reusable, cost-efficient rockets. Before Tesla, there was little to no competition in attractive, high-end EVs. That's why they're successful. There was, however, a lot of competition in car mass manufacturing. It was arrogant and misguided of Tesla and Musk to ignore industry knowledge in highly competitive areas.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

Could this just be an example of inflation taking place in the US economy due to the COVID response?

jgilias 6y ago

But that's exactly the modus operandi of Musk's companies. Figure out the big picture of something based on first principles, assume that the industry is stuck on some local maximum, and try to do it in a different way. Sometimes it works, sometimes it may not. I mean, there would've been plenty of knowledgeable people in the relevant industries telling Musk why landing rockets and reusing them is not going to work, and why battery powered mass market electric vehicles is a pipe dream.

alkonaut 6y ago
> Sometimes it works, sometimes it may not. The way this should work is: Sometimes it works and a company is successful, and sometimes it doesn't and the company isn't successful. Musk's apparent mode of operation is: if it works, my company is successful, and if it doesn't work, a lot of customers (or even would-be-customers) will take part of the hit and the company won't be that unsuccessful. That's not how it should work.
verbify 6y ago
I think it's generous to attribute reusable rockets to Musk - the Space Shuttle Columbia went on 17 missions - Musk didn't develop the first reusable rocket. As for electric cars, I believe the limiting factor was battery technology, which has improved in leaps and bounds in the past decade. Tesla wasn't the only company developing electric cars - Renault-Nissan Alliance achieved the sales milestone of 350,000 all-electric vehicles delivered globally in August 2016, ranking second was Tesla Motors with over 139,000 electric cars sold between 2008 and June 2016. It's also not clear that Musk founded Tesla, but I'm not clear on the history there. Tesla do have the strongest branding in electric cars though, and I would attribute that to Musk's ability as a showman.
- hef19898 6y ago
  And batteries can be attributed to a large degree to Panasonic.
- jgilias 6y ago
  There is a categorical difference between the Space Shuttle boosters and the Falcon 9 rockets. First of all, the external tank of the space shuttle didn't get reused. The solid rocket boosters were, but only after they were recovered from splash-landing into the ocean, requiring extensive and expensive refurbishing before further launches. Which Falcon 9 boosters largely avoid by landing vertically. And the Shuttle itself was reusable, but that's sort of besides the point, as that's a space-plane, not a rocket used to bring things into orbit. Whether capsules or space-planes is a better concept for the spacecraft itself is a different discussion altogether. The per kg cost to orbit of Falcon 9 launches is an order of magnitude less than it was for Space Shuttle, so credit should be given where credit is due.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > First of all, the external tank of the space shuttle didn't get reused. To be fair, the Falcon 9 similarly discards its entire second stage. I really wish they'd have boosted the Shuttle tank to stable orbit and used it for space stations.
azernik 6y ago
The space launch industry was uniquely dysfunctional; SpaceX could get away with starting near the bottom of the learning curve. Tesla, by contrast, is up against companies that build products at large scales in a thick market while competing against the best the international economy has to offer. There's much less room for error there.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  I don't know any other company that offers vertical energy integration just like Tesla. I was just talking yesterday to a guy who loves his Model 3 and is waiting for his Tesla batteries in his house for over a year now (and can pay more if needed). He isn't thinking of using another company, as vertical software integration is more important for him than timing / price.
  - azernik 6y ago
    Yeah, that integrated offering is a great market differentiator. Still a much higher bar than the basic competence that SpaceX has had to display to eat everyone else's lunch.
hef19898 6y ago
ESA / Ariana Space did some studies on reusable rockets in the early 200s (if memory serves, and for the love of god I can't find the study anymore...). Their conclusions were: - technically feasible - economically not feasible due to limited number of launches And weather or not i is econommically feasible for SpaceX is impossible to tell without their financials. It does seem so, that Starlink is increasing SpaceX launches. There is truths to Tesla, but to be honest, Tesla was considerably close to running out of money some while ago. The art of Musk is to have Tesla seen as a tech company, and not as a car maker.
- fundatus 6y ago
  I mean, McDonnell Douglas had a working prototype already in the 90s: https://youtu.be/JzXcTFfV3Ls?t=76 https://youtu.be/JzXcTFfV3Ls?t=76
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Damn, didn't know about that! Impressive thing!
  - andy_jensen 6y ago
    So had Spectre in 1967 https://youtu.be/Dnaorqo6krg https://youtu.be/Dnaorqo6krg
  - himinlomax 6y ago
    It was barely a prototype, more of a proof of concept, as it couldn't lift anything much but itself. Also it was not just reusable (though not reused) but SSTO. And SSTO is almost certainly a dead end for chemical rockets. In part but not exclusively because aerospikes seem to be impractical, but also because fully reusable and inexpensive boosters are obviously working just fine. The case for sending a lot of deadweight up the gravity well is simply too poor, even if you could do it with great efficiency.
    - dingaling 6y ago
      A PooC seems a reasonable moniker, but the sole reason it didn't proceed to anything more practical was the lack of government funding. Big Space had become so dependent on gov contracts that they couldn't envisage doing anything on their own initiative: that was the true innovation of SpaceX, not landing rockets. Frankly Delta Clipper was even more impressive given that it came from MDC who were by far the most conservative defense contractor. That sort of thing would have been more typical of Northrop.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

Small nitpick: AFAIK, you don't say rooves, but roofs.

kwhitefoot 6y ago
That's because you DKVF :-) It's unusual an dated in the US but unexceptional in the UK.
- drawfloat 6y ago
  I've never seen anyone spell it "rooves" in the UK. It's roofs.
  - kzzzznot 6y ago
    Hilariously, someone tried to petition parliament to change the spelling. It was rejected (quite understandably) because "The UK Government or Parliament is not responsible for setting the "official spelling" of words." https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/268579 https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/268579
- kzzzznot 6y ago
  What does DKVF stand for?
  - shawabawa3 6y ago
    Guessing it's play on AFAIK = as far as I know DKVF = don't know very far?
    - kwhitefoot 6y ago
      Yes, that's what I meant.
tokamak-teapot 6y ago
You may be replying to someone who has read many ‘old’ books and become accustomed to the spelling ‘rooves’. They may also have a different cultural background to yourself. In the UK, for example, ‘rooves’ seems to be more common than in the US.

hef19898 6y ago

This maybe the big difference between SpaceX, where Musk worked based on previous work done by NASA and others, and all his other companies (Tesla and so on) where he ignored existing knowledge. Wouldn't he be Musk, there is a non zero chance of Tesla being bankrupt by now because of this.

hobofan 6y ago

Oh they absolutely do have a chat with the experts beforehand. It's just that they think they know everything better so they straight up ignore the lessons, as they think for some magical reason they won't apply to them. Source: Someone from an established boring company they tried to buy their first boring machine from, until they decided on a cheaper much more outdated model, with which they encountered basically all the problems they were warned about.

moduspol 6y ago

> 5 minutes with an expert would have saved them years of learning the lessons everyone already knew. I'm not sure it's fair to make this statement without acknowledging the times he's been successful doing precisely what that five minute conversation would have had him avoid. For example: Tesla itself, SpaceX, and PayPal.

lottin 6y ago
Define successful.
- moduspol 6y ago
  I'm not sure the discussion benefits from debating that.
adwn 6y ago
> For example: Tesla itself Bad example: Tesla almost went down the drain during the Model 3 ramp-up because they thought they knew better how to do large-scale car manufacturing than all the other large-scale car manufacturers. Turned out, they didn't, had to rethink and redesign many processes, and had to shift part of the production to hastily erected tents.
- moduspol 6y ago
  The point is that the company wouldn't have been started if he had listened to industry experts. The point was not that the company would never have benefited from other lessons from the industry at any other point.
  - adwn 6y ago
    Tesla's main innovation and unique selling point was "attractive, high-end EVs", and later, "attractive, mass-market EVs". It was never "marginally more efficient mass production of cars". Before SpaceX, there was little to no competition in reusable, cost-efficient rockets. Before Tesla, there was little to no competition in attractive, high-end EVs. That's why they're successful. There was, however, a lot of competition in car mass manufacturing. It was arrogant and misguided of Tesla and Musk to ignore industry knowledge in highly competitive areas.