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Tesla Hires Aston Martin's Vehicle Engineering Leader
- aashaykumar92 13y agoI was wondering why Elon tweeted, "Anyone interested in doing ultra hardcore vehicle engineering at Tesla, please apply!" but now it makes sense. On a similar note, isn't it odd that this position is just being filled? Elon's Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/elonmusk https://twitter.com/elonmusk
- changdizzle 13y agoHis previous tweet before that read "Chris Porritt from Aston Martin just joined as head of vehicle engineering at Tesla" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/331489911842689025 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/331489911842689025
- toomuchtodo 13y agoAlways be closing amazing talent.
- kmfrk 13y agoAs someone who's anything but a greasemonkey, how good are Aston Martin from an engineering standpoint compared to the competition?
- no-opinion 13y agoI'm no expert, but I know that they're highly respected in industry.
- beat 13y agoTheir direct competitors are Porsche and Ferrari, not Ford and Toyota. They're GOOD.
- sliverstorm 13y ago"good" is a very murky term here. They are certainly more high-tech, but are they as simple? As reliable? As easy to service? You really need to define "good" in this context.
- joshu 13y agoyou're asking if something is as simple as a ferarri?
- ryanhuff 13y agoI think he was trying to argue that "good" is subjective. That Ferrari/Porsche aren't necessarily good, as it depends on what you value. If you value simplicity and reliability, perhaps you would view Toyota/Honda as superior.
- MrFoof 13y agoActually, Porsche has been #2 in reliability (J.D. Power Vehicle Dependability Survey) for two years running (behind Toyota's Lexus brand), #4 in 2011, and was the leader in 2010. However, to be perfectly fair, your average Porsche sees far fewer miles per year than a bread-and-butter mid-size sedan.
- guimarin 13y agoAston Martin engineers good cars for their production volume. Since they are more or less in the same production volume as where tesla wants to be in the medium term, I would say his experience will bring a lot to Tesla. It was probably one of the best pick-ups they could have made.
- joshu 13y agoThat really depends. They do sound way, way better though. I got to drive a Vantage GT4 on the racetrack recently: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/8368748201/in/set-72157633011530193 http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshu/8368748201/in/set-7215763...
- nlh 13y agoSo here's the thing - they're not actually that good. Let me preface this by saying that a) my perspective isn't a normal consumer one -- my business has put tens of thousands of miles on various Aston Martin models (we rent them) and b) the last model I've dealt with extensively is an '06 DB9, so things may have changed a lot in the past few years. But that being said, despite being IMHO the most gorgeous cars on the road, Astons are not particularly well-engineered. First, we had an '02 Vanquish and an '03 Vanquish, both of which had a very fundamental and deeply expensive flaw in the transmission design. Without getting too deep into it, they used a "auto manual" style transmission, which was basically a 6-speed manual combined with hydrolic actuators to shift automatically. No manual clutchwork required (same design, basically, as BMWs SMG). On just about all similar cars, after a while (i.e. 12k - 15k miles) the clutch needs to be replaced. On Ferraris and Lamborghinis, it's a simple job that costs a few $thousand - drop the transmission, replace clutch and flywheel, and you're good. On both the Vanquishes, the way in which the clutch would fail would literally destroy the entire transmission, and we TWICE had to spend $15,000 to rebuild the entire transmission after a failed clutch (one on each car). I've never seen another car with design like that, and since it happened the exact same way on two different cars, we're pretty sure it's endemic to the design. Move to the later models - we had a bunch of 05 & 06 DB9s, and they just weren't great. The brakes were notoriously bad, the bodyflex was particularly bad on the convertibles, and they suffered repeated electrical gremlins. So from my purely technical perspective as a heavy user of Astons, I'd say I'm not impressed with their engineering. NOW - that all being said, I'm not going to make any judgment about this guy and his work at Tesla and what this means about that. There is far too much that goes into the production of a car to make any real judgment call about things to come -- Astons could have been beautifully engineered and then ruined with bad supplier decisions, that were outside this guy's control. Etc. etc. So them's my $0.02.
- joshu 13y agoMy neighbor used to have an F430 or F360 (I forget) and told me that he allocated $25k a year for maintenance and clutch replacement. The DCT on the 458 is rated for the life of the car, though. Note that Aston was sold in 2007 and I believe engineering quality changed after that.
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- shin_lao 13y agoThe car is brilliant, especially in terms of design and engine, but it's a small scale production and they don't have the means of Porsche, Mercedes, Audi (great but not perfect though) or Ferrari and therefore aren't state of the art when it comes to gearbox, transmission and brakes. The worst part is the gearbox who is notoriously unreliable and many models have issues around 20,000 km. It's really upsetting to put 100 k€ in a car to have the reliability of a 80' Lancia. That being said I love Aston Martin, they make awesome cars. Probably the best car body there is to date. But if you're looking for engineering perfection, get a Porsche 911 Turbo.
- mrkmcknz 13y agoTesla also recruited Henrik Fisker from Aston Martin. Those who don't know of Fisker, he went on to found his own company after a couple of years at Tesla(http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/ http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/). Looks like Aston Martin have some serious talent working on those machines.
- kiba 13y agoFisker then left Fisker Automatives, and that company is now in the process of dying or dead.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoFisker Karma. What irony.
- mtgx 13y agoMust've been bad karma from leaving Tesla.
- coob 13y agoTSLA is up on the news - have a look at the end of today's graph: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA&ei=vSGIUeCSGcGHwAOwOQ https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATSLA&ei=vSGIUe...
- toomuchtodo 13y agoAs someone who bought several thousand shares at $17/share when it went IPO, its hard not to be excited for TSLA.
- enraged_camel 13y agoHeck, I bought 100 shares when it was at $40 and even I feel incredibly lucky!
- gcb0 13y agoTesla shares are the only reason this is on the front page here.
- gigabytejack 13y agoCould have something to do with a pending deal with AMG which would lead to a very different development cycle. http://www.leftlanenews.com/aston-martin-in-talks-for-amg-engines.html http://www.leftlanenews.com/aston-martin-in-talks-for-amg-en... From a reliability standpoint there have been more problems with them than their German counterparts (ie: Lamborghini - engineered by Audi with Italian design, or Porsche). From an engine perspective this move makes a lot of sense with the rising cost of compliance with EU emission standards. Cars will continue to look awesome, will be more reliable and cheaper (relatively) to service.
- DerekAlia 13y agoHilarious review of an Aston Martin Vantage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi0yXeuqBjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi0yXeuqBjU
- calinet6 13y agoMan I wish I had capital now... or a year ago... or 13 years ago when I told my parents they should buy AAPL. Oh well. The best investment you can make is always yourself.