11 ms·

In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk

93 points by christiansmith 14y ago

wazoox 14y ago
> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40 hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.
- christiansmith 14y ago
  Having been through several cycles of burnout over the years I tend to agree with you. These days I take nearly as much time to play as work, and my work is better for it. That said, I wonder how much the type of work has an impact on diminishing productivity over a duration. Also wonder if EM takes this into account in other ways, like vacation time, etc.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Statistics aren't people. In other words, Your Mileage May Vary.
  - zachalexander 14y ago
    I imagine this varies with the kind of work. I suspect creative work degrades more quickly beyond 40 hours/week than repetetive work does.
    - wazoox 14y ago
      Actually fatigue means that people doing repetitive work are extremely prone to error and worse, wounding themselves past a number of hours (depending upon the job). There's a reason there are laws forbidding truck drivers and plane pilots piling in hours.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- BasDirks 14y ago
  Ironic?
  - wazoox 14y ago
    I'm dead serious. http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-those-hours.html http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-tho...
- nightski 14y ago
  That is looking at it from the perspective of the individual. But the company can choose to not care about its individuals and just try to get the most out of them until they burn out. While not optimal this is pretty common in some startups in my experience.
- acgourley 14y ago
  Well at least he's upfront about it. Better than an org that says you should work 40 hr weeks then presses deadlines so hard you have no choice than to go over.
  - christiansmith 14y ago
    That's a good point. It sucks to work overtime constantly when you had other plans, commitments, etc, especially when the bosses are ungrateful. On the other hand, when working on something that you know upfront is going to be an enormous challenge, and you really love what you're doing, the hours don't seem to matter. The problem for me becomes more of a physical thing. I can work a 70+ hour week or two, but then it takes a week to get back to the same level of output.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- shazow 14y ago
  I suspect that people who expect and look forward to working +50 hours/week would perform much better than people who are guilted into it. Also sounds like they're well compensated for it. I liked his "special forces" analogy.
  - wazoox 14y ago
    People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever you want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired. Amphetamines were invented for the military and particularly the special ops, mind you. As you know they come with their problems, too. So please stop bullshitting yourself. As much as I like and respect Elon Musk, when he says this he's full of shit, plain and simple. Asking mechanics to work long hours building cars is terrible management. No wonder he finds defaults on each and every car.
    - CamperBob2 14y ago
      You may be right. Maybe working 50+ hours a week is always a net negative. Maybe a sane, family-friendly work environment will, in fact, maximize both the happiness and well-being of individual contributors and the productivity of the organization as a whole. But you know what? Nobody told the kids in the garage down the street. You know... the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage.
      - wazoox 14y ago
        > the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage. Because they're 20 years old, and they'll do that only for a limited time anyway because even the energy from youth won't protect them from burnout. This is nice, heart-warming story we like to believe, but this is anecdote. In general, people work efficiently about 40 hours a week for long periods (months or years). By the way, old asses like me have had their fair share of being in the office from 9AM to 22PM and you know what? While you're congratulating with your co-workers on what a bunch of hard-working supermen you are, you aren't actually getting anything done. It's incredibly hard to get things done 7 to 8 hours a day, it demands incredible energy and commitment; I don't pretend being even capable of this more than once or twice a week. Yes, I think that programming efficiently 40 hours a week is already nearly super-human, unless you're incredibly passionate and it's incredibly rewarding.
- pxlpshr 14y ago
  It's not considered 'work'. You're counting hours as if the 40 hour ceiling is of importance; no offense but it doesn't seem like you understand passion.
  - wazoox 14y ago
    Bullshit. When you're piling long hours, you make many mistakes, and that's totally independent from your passion, interest of whatever. This is just being tired. BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. So I think I've seen that from the inside, too. As a high level knowledge worker (CEO or CTO), I may "work" for long hours getting informed on the latest trends reading HN. I can be in the office, or in the shower, ir running in the woods thinking about my next product. Heck, I can even be working, golfing with an important customer. By this metric of course I work 120 hours a week (though I spend at most 40 hours a week in the office). However when you're typing in code, or carefully assembling a car engine, if you work too much you'll simply make more errors. This has been verified many times. It's absolutely not debatable. If you want to believe it's not this way, you're deluding yourself, and that's not good, don't do that.
    - CamperBob2 14y ago
      BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. Hell of a difference between spending 50 hours a week on the job and spending 100. Everything you've said in this thread is undeniably true at 100 hours/week. Almost nothing you've said in this thread is generally true at 50.
hastur 14y ago
The "Occupy Mars" t-shirt is awesome! :D
- spatten 14y ago
  I agree. Anyone know if there's anywhere I can order one? A quick google search turns up a much lamer version[1]. [1]: http://www.cafepress.ca/+occupy_mars_34_sleeve_tshirt_dark,684679589 http://www.cafepress.ca/+occupy_mars_34_sleeve_tshirt_dark,6...
  - eluos 14y ago
    Will someone please find out where we can get that Occupy Mars T-Shirt?!!!
hinathan 14y ago
It was a difficult thing that was made more difficult by one of our investors who was just an absolute bastard, nobody should ever take money from them. Anybody know whom he's referring to? Pretty harsh.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Would love to know too.
- confluence 14y ago
  From Crunchbase here are my likely sources of bad investor groups (I've excluded individuals and Google): > Compass Technology Partners 4 investments - from the start (probably not). Valor Equity Partners 3 investments - from the start (probably not). > JP Morgan 2 - maybe (unlikely) Technology Venture Partners US 1 - (unlikely) > Capricorn Management 2 - maybe (probably not) VantagePoint Capital Partners 2 - maybe Draper Fisher Jurvetson 2 - maybe Now it seems that Musk didn't expect the investor to act like a douche. So I doubt it's JPMorgan (who are have been historically known to be douches). It was probably one of the VC funds trying to squeeze Musk on TSLA during the GFC - a firm with whom he has dealt with before. I doubt that it was US tech ventures - since they don't have much weight. It was probably one of the VC firms. I doubt it was the Europeans (once again not much weight). So it's either DFJ or Vantage. I remember Sameer Bhatia (of hotmail fame) stating that DFJ loves a good squeeze (they tried to screw him by telling other VCs to back off) - so I wouldn't put it past them. Vantage point has been known to manipulate deals and are probably the most likely along with DFJ. This is all speculation - someone else help me narrow it down? Tesla Investors: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors DFJ: http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Draper+Fisher+Jurvetson http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Draper+Fisher+Jurvetson Vantage Point: http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/VantagePoint+Venture+Partners http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/VantagePoint+Venture+Par...
  - wololo 14y ago
    am i missing something, or does crunchbase have the investors wrong? ie, that it was Technology Partners (http://technologypartners.com/cleantech.html http://technologypartners.com/cleantech.html), and not Technology Venture Partners US (http://tvp.com/Investments.aspx http://tvp.com/Investments.aspx has no mention of Tesla), who made the investment (not to be confused with Compass Technology Partners who also invested). oi, names... http://gigaom.com/cleantech/who-wins-in-the-tesla-ipo/ http://gigaom.com/cleantech/who-wins-in-the-tesla-ipo/
sixQuarks 14y ago
I think Elon Musk has surpassed Steve Jobs as the best entrepreneur of the century (IMHO)
- autophil 14y ago
  Oh my gosh no. Elon hasn't changed the world anywhere NEAR as much as Steve.
  - vette982 14y ago
    Maybe not in terms of absolute impact on the world, but they're both comparable in sheer audacity as entrepreneurs.
  - ehsanu1 14y ago
    Here's what I think everyone can agree with: we don't want conversations on HN that amount to pissing contests between fans of different celebrity figures. There is little insight to be had here.
MarkMc 14y ago
This is a great article, full of interesting details you wouldn't get from an interview with the CEO of Ford or Toyota. The 'bastard investor'; the knight-in-shining-armour who rescued the company; the big-name suppliers who 'can't get their shit together'; Musk's personal attention to detail and quality of every single car. If he writes an autobiography I'll be the first to buy it.
zachalexander 14y ago
Who am I to criticize Elon Musk, but several things in this interview seemed puzzling to me, and concerning if I were an investor in Tesla. And I'm not even talking about the explicit discussions of their corporate finances. > ... deliver cars to customers who have been waiting for a long time If the demand for Tesla cars at a given price point exceeds their supply, shouldn't they be charging more? > Q: Have you had cars come back from customers, where you noticed a mistake ... A: No. If the CEO is inspecting every single car, sending lots of them back for (what in some cases sound like) extremely minor tweaks, despite the fact that they haven't had any real complaints about quality, while potential customers are on long waiting lists -- might the CEO's well-intentioned perfectionism be hurting them? I mean, it's great to see someone obsessed about quality, but I want to see Tesla turn a profit and become an established force in the market, and this article makes me continue to wonder if they'll make it.
- christiansmith 14y ago
  Minor imperfections are very often indicative of bigger underlying problems. We're talking about a physical product here. Variations in the output demonstrate a need to tighten up the process. You can't just redeploy, like with software. I think it makes all kinds of sense to get it right before you ship on a massive scale. Recalls and warranty work erode margins.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  He is doing the right thing. They start out low volume and are ramping up. Little issues that are ignored can end up being really big issues (and expensive) once combined with all the other little issues at higher volumes. Additionally every single one of them can be learned from. Maybe you need to tweak the design to improve things, maybe a new machine will help, perhaps a supplier is having issues which will blow up as volume ramps. When you are doing manufacturing there is something they call the learning curve which is roughly the rate at which efficiency improves. The more attention and learning you can do earlier on, the steeper that curve can be which will also affect your profitability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects For example current estimates are that Boeing are losing $100m on each 787 manufactured. They expect that their learning curve will bring them into profitability down the road, which much debate as to how steep the curve is, whether it will be better than prior planes (eg 777), and if Boeing was the capital to keep this up.
vette982 14y ago
It's amazing just how real Elon Musk is -- he doesn't sugar coat answers and isn't furtive when describing Tesla's many weaknesses, unlike most other automaker CEOs.
- Causalien 14y ago
  The most important thing is that the stock doesn't fall even when he says these things that shouldn't be said. Indicating approval of his style. Or how insignificance it is compared to missing delivery target.
ComputerGuru 14y ago
I must say, I've been on the wall about the Model S, being a hard-core auto enthusiast and really loving my gears (e.g. I only drive stick shift). But this interview, the revelation that Elon Musk is out there personally inspecting each and every car (well, more or less), that the guy designing my cars is even more of an anal-retentive OC-freak than I am who won't laugh and scoff at me like the guy at the Audi dealership did when I pointed out the flaws in the cockpit of the RS5 (which I consider to have one of the best-engineered cockpits of consumer cars, being both practical and well-designed) has really changed my mind.
- christiansmith 14y ago
  I just had a chance this week to see the Model S up close at the Washington Square showroom in Portland. Have to say I wasn't all that hyped about it from the pictures (and I'm more of a truck/jeep guy), but in person it is just awesome. Reeks of quality. When Tesla makes a 4x4 I will be first in line!
- mahyarm 14y ago
  You must see the model s in person. It's so well designed, I wish you could buy one for $30k new as a hybrid version. Just get rid of the front trunk.
  - LockeWatts 14y ago
    Having a hybrid version of the Model S would completely defeat the purpose of the design.
    - mahyarm 14y ago
      I'm saying it's well designed as a car cabin. Not about it's propulsion technology.
guimarin 14y ago
I really enjoy this article and hope tesla succeeds, but I am always turned off by plug-in EVs. Say for example, he does achieve 30 minutes charging for 3 hours driving. And say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20 superchargers at that station? in off hours of the day, those will not all be utilized, thus lose money. It seems like a terribly inefficient way to power cars. Even gas stations get lines on 5 and 101, and it only takes like 3 minutes there. EVs will always be niche until you can 'refuel' in 3 minutes or less, and you can't do that with 'chargers' because people will die. Swappable packs is the only way to go, and I hope that Tesla is at least thinking of that.
- lutusp 14y ago
  > ... say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20 superchargers at that station? That's a legitimate issue. There's talk of eventually having battery-swap stations -- you drive in and your battery is swapped out for a freshly charged one. There are obviously practical difficulties, not least of which is the size and weight of EV batteries and the fact that there's no standardization right now. But it's expected that these issues will eventually be addressed as the system's advantages become obvious.
- christiansmith 14y ago
  Give that the battery pack is part of the floor, I really doubt they're thinking of swappable batteries: http://dsc.discovery.com/pdi/files/2012/02/Tesla-ModelS-platform.jpg http://dsc.discovery.com/pdi/files/2012/02/Tesla-ModelS-plat...
- dave1619 14y ago
  You'll probably be able to reserve the SuperCharger from your phone while you're driving, or even from your Tesla dash. That way, when you arrive, you're all ready to charge. If when you try to reserve a charging space from your phone, there aren't any spots... I guess you'll have to reserve the next available time then... unless they do something creative.
- mkramlich 14y ago
srik 14y ago
> Usually, when people say it's the all-new blah-blah-blah, whatever car, that's bullshit. 40 percent of that car, if not 60 percent of that car, if coming from some parts bin. In our case, two percent is coming from the parts bin. I was definitely not aware of this practice. Recycling material is one thing, but reusing parts is something customerss need to know about, especially if it's about 40-60 % like Musk claims.
- skrebbel 14y ago
  I agree. Reusing well-working and trusted components is a horrible engineering practice and customers should be notified of this. In other news, I told my boss that I'm going to be pushing native code in a hex editor until my assembler is done.
  - srik 14y ago
    Hah. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I thought he meant reusing parts from other cars, when he actually mean reusing designs. That actually makes so much more sense. My bad.
    - skrebbel 14y ago
      ha! Ok, now your comment makes more sense to me, at least :)
- mkramlich 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure he didn't mean recycling previously owned/installed/used/worn parts. I think he meant using previously designed parts --- parts that are components because they have been used in other models before. In other words he's saying most of the parts in this Tesla are debutting with this model, for the first time, anyway. So there's going to be teething issues. R&D rather than pure heads-down production.
  - srik 14y ago
    Oops, misunderstood that. Got to work on my English. Thanks for clarifying :)

> But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks. And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40 hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.

christiansmith 14y ago
Having been through several cycles of burnout over the years I tend to agree with you. These days I take nearly as much time to play as work, and my work is better for it. That said, I wonder how much the type of work has an impact on diminishing productivity over a duration. Also wonder if EM takes this into account in other ways, like vacation time, etc.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
Statistics aren't people. In other words, Your Mileage May Vary.
- zachalexander 14y ago
  I imagine this varies with the kind of work. I suspect creative work degrades more quickly beyond 40 hours/week than repetetive work does.
  - wazoox 14y ago
    Actually fatigue means that people doing repetitive work are extremely prone to error and worse, wounding themselves past a number of hours (depending upon the job). There's a reason there are laws forbidding truck drivers and plane pilots piling in hours.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
BasDirks 14y ago
Ironic?
- wazoox 14y ago
  I'm dead serious. http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-those-hours.html http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/06/stop-working-all-tho...
nightski 14y ago
That is looking at it from the perspective of the individual. But the company can choose to not care about its individuals and just try to get the most out of them until they burn out. While not optimal this is pretty common in some startups in my experience.
acgourley 14y ago
Well at least he's upfront about it. Better than an org that says you should work 40 hr weeks then presses deadlines so hard you have no choice than to go over.
- christiansmith 14y ago
  That's a good point. It sucks to work overtime constantly when you had other plans, commitments, etc, especially when the bosses are ungrateful. On the other hand, when working on something that you know upfront is going to be an enormous challenge, and you really love what you're doing, the hours don't seem to matter. The problem for me becomes more of a physical thing. I can work a 70+ hour week or two, but then it takes a week to get back to the same level of output.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
shazow 14y ago
I suspect that people who expect and look forward to working +50 hours/week would perform much better than people who are guilted into it. Also sounds like they're well compensated for it. I liked his "special forces" analogy.
- wazoox 14y ago
  People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever you want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired. Amphetamines were invented for the military and particularly the special ops, mind you. As you know they come with their problems, too. So please stop bullshitting yourself. As much as I like and respect Elon Musk, when he says this he's full of shit, plain and simple. Asking mechanics to work long hours building cars is terrible management. No wonder he finds defaults on each and every car.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    You may be right. Maybe working 50+ hours a week is always a net negative. Maybe a sane, family-friendly work environment will, in fact, maximize both the happiness and well-being of individual contributors and the productivity of the organization as a whole. But you know what? Nobody told the kids in the garage down the street. You know... the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage.
    - wazoox 14y ago
      > the ones who are working 60+ hours a week, and who are about to kick your company's ass, because there's no place on Earth they'd rather be than in that garage. Because they're 20 years old, and they'll do that only for a limited time anyway because even the energy from youth won't protect them from burnout. This is nice, heart-warming story we like to believe, but this is anecdote. In general, people work efficiently about 40 hours a week for long periods (months or years). By the way, old asses like me have had their fair share of being in the office from 9AM to 22PM and you know what? While you're congratulating with your co-workers on what a bunch of hard-working supermen you are, you aren't actually getting anything done. It's incredibly hard to get things done 7 to 8 hours a day, it demands incredible energy and commitment; I don't pretend being even capable of this more than once or twice a week. Yes, I think that programming efficiently 40 hours a week is already nearly super-human, unless you're incredibly passionate and it's incredibly rewarding.
pxlpshr 14y ago
It's not considered 'work'. You're counting hours as if the 40 hour ceiling is of importance; no offense but it doesn't seem like you understand passion.
- wazoox 14y ago
  Bullshit. When you're piling long hours, you make many mistakes, and that's totally independent from your passion, interest of whatever. This is just being tired. BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. So I think I've seen that from the inside, too. As a high level knowledge worker (CEO or CTO), I may "work" for long hours getting informed on the latest trends reading HN. I can be in the office, or in the shower, ir running in the woods thinking about my next product. Heck, I can even be working, golfing with an important customer. By this metric of course I work 120 hours a week (though I spend at most 40 hours a week in the office). However when you're typing in code, or carefully assembling a car engine, if you work too much you'll simply make more errors. This has been verified many times. It's absolutely not debatable. If you want to believe it's not this way, you're deluding yourself, and that's not good, don't do that.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    BTW in 1998 I've worked 100+ hours/week for a few months; it ended in the hospital. Hell of a difference between spending 50 hours a week on the job and spending 100. Everything you've said in this thread is undeniably true at 100 hours/week. Almost nothing you've said in this thread is generally true at 50.

hastur 14y ago

The "Occupy Mars" t-shirt is awesome! :D

spatten 14y ago
I agree. Anyone know if there's anywhere I can order one? A quick google search turns up a much lamer version[1]. [1]: http://www.cafepress.ca/+occupy_mars_34_sleeve_tshirt_dark,684679589 http://www.cafepress.ca/+occupy_mars_34_sleeve_tshirt_dark,6...
- eluos 14y ago
  Will someone please find out where we can get that Occupy Mars T-Shirt?!!!

hinathan 14y ago

It was a difficult thing that was made more difficult by one of our investors who was just an absolute bastard, nobody should ever take money from them. Anybody know whom he's referring to? Pretty harsh.

marcamillion 14y ago
Would love to know too.
confluence 14y ago
From Crunchbase here are my likely sources of bad investor groups (I've excluded individuals and Google): > Compass Technology Partners 4 investments - from the start (probably not). Valor Equity Partners 3 investments - from the start (probably not). > JP Morgan 2 - maybe (unlikely) Technology Venture Partners US 1 - (unlikely) > Capricorn Management 2 - maybe (probably not) VantagePoint Capital Partners 2 - maybe Draper Fisher Jurvetson 2 - maybe Now it seems that Musk didn't expect the investor to act like a douche. So I doubt it's JPMorgan (who are have been historically known to be douches). It was probably one of the VC funds trying to squeeze Musk on TSLA during the GFC - a firm with whom he has dealt with before. I doubt that it was US tech ventures - since they don't have much weight. It was probably one of the VC firms. I doubt it was the Europeans (once again not much weight). So it's either DFJ or Vantage. I remember Sameer Bhatia (of hotmail fame) stating that DFJ loves a good squeeze (they tried to screw him by telling other VCs to back off) - so I wouldn't put it past them. Vantage point has been known to manipulate deals and are probably the most likely along with DFJ. This is all speculation - someone else help me narrow it down? Tesla Investors: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors DFJ: http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Draper+Fisher+Jurvetson http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Draper+Fisher+Jurvetson Vantage Point: http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/VantagePoint+Venture+Partners http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/VantagePoint+Venture+Par...
- wololo 14y ago
  am i missing something, or does crunchbase have the investors wrong? ie, that it was Technology Partners (http://technologypartners.com/cleantech.html http://technologypartners.com/cleantech.html), and not Technology Venture Partners US (http://tvp.com/Investments.aspx http://tvp.com/Investments.aspx has no mention of Tesla), who made the investment (not to be confused with Compass Technology Partners who also invested). oi, names... http://gigaom.com/cleantech/who-wins-in-the-tesla-ipo/ http://gigaom.com/cleantech/who-wins-in-the-tesla-ipo/

sixQuarks 14y ago

I think Elon Musk has surpassed Steve Jobs as the best entrepreneur of the century (IMHO)

autophil 14y ago
Oh my gosh no. Elon hasn't changed the world anywhere NEAR as much as Steve.
- vette982 14y ago
  Maybe not in terms of absolute impact on the world, but they're both comparable in sheer audacity as entrepreneurs.
- ehsanu1 14y ago
  Here's what I think everyone can agree with: we don't want conversations on HN that amount to pissing contests between fans of different celebrity figures. There is little insight to be had here.

MarkMc 14y ago

This is a great article, full of interesting details you wouldn't get from an interview with the CEO of Ford or Toyota. The 'bastard investor'; the knight-in-shining-armour who rescued the company; the big-name suppliers who 'can't get their shit together'; Musk's personal attention to detail and quality of every single car. If he writes an autobiography I'll be the first to buy it.

zachalexander 14y ago

Who am I to criticize Elon Musk, but several things in this interview seemed puzzling to me, and concerning if I were an investor in Tesla. And I'm not even talking about the explicit discussions of their corporate finances. > ... deliver cars to customers who have been waiting for a long time If the demand for Tesla cars at a given price point exceeds their supply, shouldn't they be charging more? > Q: Have you had cars come back from customers, where you noticed a mistake ... A: No. If the CEO is inspecting every single car, sending lots of them back for (what in some cases sound like) extremely minor tweaks, despite the fact that they haven't had any real complaints about quality, while potential customers are on long waiting lists -- might the CEO's well-intentioned perfectionism be hurting them? I mean, it's great to see someone obsessed about quality, but I want to see Tesla turn a profit and become an established force in the market, and this article makes me continue to wonder if they'll make it.

christiansmith 14y ago
Minor imperfections are very often indicative of bigger underlying problems. We're talking about a physical product here. Variations in the output demonstrate a need to tighten up the process. You can't just redeploy, like with software. I think it makes all kinds of sense to get it right before you ship on a massive scale. Recalls and warranty work erode margins.
rogerbinns 14y ago
He is doing the right thing. They start out low volume and are ramping up. Little issues that are ignored can end up being really big issues (and expensive) once combined with all the other little issues at higher volumes. Additionally every single one of them can be learned from. Maybe you need to tweak the design to improve things, maybe a new machine will help, perhaps a supplier is having issues which will blow up as volume ramps. When you are doing manufacturing there is something they call the learning curve which is roughly the rate at which efficiency improves. The more attention and learning you can do earlier on, the steeper that curve can be which will also affect your profitability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects For example current estimates are that Boeing are losing $100m on each 787 manufactured. They expect that their learning curve will bring them into profitability down the road, which much debate as to how steep the curve is, whether it will be better than prior planes (eg 777), and if Boeing was the capital to keep this up.

vette982 14y ago

It's amazing just how real Elon Musk is -- he doesn't sugar coat answers and isn't furtive when describing Tesla's many weaknesses, unlike most other automaker CEOs.

Causalien 14y ago
The most important thing is that the stock doesn't fall even when he says these things that shouldn't be said. Indicating approval of his style. Or how insignificance it is compared to missing delivery target.

ComputerGuru 14y ago

I must say, I've been on the wall about the Model S, being a hard-core auto enthusiast and really loving my gears (e.g. I only drive stick shift). But this interview, the revelation that Elon Musk is out there personally inspecting each and every car (well, more or less), that the guy designing my cars is even more of an anal-retentive OC-freak than I am who won't laugh and scoff at me like the guy at the Audi dealership did when I pointed out the flaws in the cockpit of the RS5 (which I consider to have one of the best-engineered cockpits of consumer cars, being both practical and well-designed) has really changed my mind.

christiansmith 14y ago
I just had a chance this week to see the Model S up close at the Washington Square showroom in Portland. Have to say I wasn't all that hyped about it from the pictures (and I'm more of a truck/jeep guy), but in person it is just awesome. Reeks of quality. When Tesla makes a 4x4 I will be first in line!
mahyarm 14y ago
You must see the model s in person. It's so well designed, I wish you could buy one for $30k new as a hybrid version. Just get rid of the front trunk.
- LockeWatts 14y ago
  Having a hybrid version of the Model S would completely defeat the purpose of the design.
  - mahyarm 14y ago
    I'm saying it's well designed as a car cabin. Not about it's propulsion technology.

guimarin 14y ago

I really enjoy this article and hope tesla succeeds, but I am always turned off by plug-in EVs. Say for example, he does achieve 30 minutes charging for 3 hours driving. And say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20 superchargers at that station? in off hours of the day, those will not all be utilized, thus lose money. It seems like a terribly inefficient way to power cars. Even gas stations get lines on 5 and 101, and it only takes like 3 minutes there. EVs will always be niche until you can 'refuel' in 3 minutes or less, and you can't do that with 'chargers' because people will die. Swappable packs is the only way to go, and I hope that Tesla is at least thinking of that.

lutusp 14y ago
> ... say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20 superchargers at that station? That's a legitimate issue. There's talk of eventually having battery-swap stations -- you drive in and your battery is swapped out for a freshly charged one. There are obviously practical difficulties, not least of which is the size and weight of EV batteries and the fact that there's no standardization right now. But it's expected that these issues will eventually be addressed as the system's advantages become obvious.
christiansmith 14y ago
Give that the battery pack is part of the floor, I really doubt they're thinking of swappable batteries: http://dsc.discovery.com/pdi/files/2012/02/Tesla-ModelS-platform.jpg http://dsc.discovery.com/pdi/files/2012/02/Tesla-ModelS-plat...
dave1619 14y ago
You'll probably be able to reserve the SuperCharger from your phone while you're driving, or even from your Tesla dash. That way, when you arrive, you're all ready to charge. If when you try to reserve a charging space from your phone, there aren't any spots... I guess you'll have to reserve the next available time then... unless they do something creative.
mkramlich 14y ago

srik 14y ago

> Usually, when people say it's the all-new blah-blah-blah, whatever car, that's bullshit. 40 percent of that car, if not 60 percent of that car, if coming from some parts bin. In our case, two percent is coming from the parts bin. I was definitely not aware of this practice. Recycling material is one thing, but reusing parts is something customerss need to know about, especially if it's about 40-60 % like Musk claims.

skrebbel 14y ago
I agree. Reusing well-working and trusted components is a horrible engineering practice and customers should be notified of this. In other news, I told my boss that I'm going to be pushing native code in a hex editor until my assembler is done.
- srik 14y ago
  Hah. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I thought he meant reusing parts from other cars, when he actually mean reusing designs. That actually makes so much more sense. My bad.
  - skrebbel 14y ago
    ha! Ok, now your comment makes more sense to me, at least :)
mkramlich 14y ago
I'm pretty sure he didn't mean recycling previously owned/installed/used/worn parts. I think he meant using previously designed parts --- parts that are components because they have been used in other models before. In other words he's saying most of the parts in this Tesla are debutting with this model, for the first time, anyway. So there's going to be teething issues. R&D rather than pure heads-down production.
- srik 14y ago
  Oops, misunderstood that. Got to work on my English. Thanks for clarifying :)