A lot of hype about America's superboy sending his Electric Lotus into space, and a lot of gushing discourse in a related SpaceX thread here, but this news quietly leaked out today. Media co-ink-i-dink?
A lot of hype about America's superboy sending his Electric Lotus into space, and a lot of gushing discourse in a related SpaceX thread here, but this news quietly leaked out today. Media co-ink-i-dink?
Tesla is not good at production. Just not good. This comes from friends who have worked there.
I have already cancelled my deposit. This just confirm my decision.
Tesla took over the NUMMI plant which was Toyota's first manufacturing venture in the US. If they had played his cards a little differently, they could have had an experienced, Toyota trained workforce running production. Instead they got a large GM built factory complex built in 60's and 70's.
Type Q said:Tesla took over the NUMMI plant which was Toyota's first manufacturing venture in the US. If they had played his cards a little differently, they could have had an experienced, Toyota trained workforce running production. Instead they got a large GM built factory complex built in 60's and 70's.
They are not making cars yet, so it's not GM's fault.
Yeah, but at least the build quality is terrible.
In reply to NickD :
Think of this in reverse terms. Think bout how good modern cars have become.
NickD said:Yeah, but at least the build quality is terrible.
Funny how most of those design problems are blamed on people building it. The key to making a great car is designing it so that it can be made quickly and easily, and really well. Sure, the people assembling a car can really influence it's quality. But a well designed car takes a lot of that influence out of their hands.
Tesla, and many of silicon valley, think they can do it better than Detroit or any other OEM's, and they are finding out how hard it really is. Or they are finding out how cutthroat the auto industry is thanks to far, far, far more competition than tech industries normally face.
alfadriver said:NickD said:Yeah, but at least the build quality is terrible.
Funny how most of those design problems are blamed on people building it. The key to making a great car is designing it so that it can be made quickly and easily, and really well. Sure, the people assembling a car can really influence it's quality. But a well designed car takes a lot of that influence out of their hands.
Tesla, and many of silicon valley, think they can do it better than Detroit or any other OEM's, and they are finding out how hard it really is. Or they are finding out how cutthroat the auto industry is thanks to far, far, far more competition than tech industries normally face.
I find it interesting/irritating how many people cover for Tesla with "But they're innovative, so there are going to be issues." That would be acceptable if they were having problems with the electric drivetrain and batteries, which are relatively new to the automotive landscape. But they are screwing up door handles, and windows, and windshields, you know, stuff that has been on cars for the past century or so.
I'm mostly fascinated at the economics of the company. I keep thinking that it can't go on, but go on it does. Tesla was (at least somewhat) disruptive to the auto industry, but I wonder if a solid competitor from a regular auto manufactured won't be disruptive to Tesla.
These are not manufacturing issues, they are design issues.
mazdeuce - Seth said:I'm mostly fascinated at the economics of the company. I keep thinking that it can't go on, but go on it does. Tesla was (at least somewhat) disruptive to the auto industry, but I wonder if a solid competitor from a regular auto manufactured won't be disruptive to Tesla.
Someday (I keep thinking this someday will be soon, but the markets keep disagreeing with me), investors will realize that Tesla should be valued as a manufacturing company, not as a technology company. Before this happens, Tesla needs to use their inflated valuation to get their production capability in order - in recent days I've thought that the most effective way for them to do this is to buy a struggling automaker. I wonder if they could swallow FCA...
In reply to szeis4cookie :
Why would they buy the last-place automaker for durability and reliability?
chaparral said:In reply to szeis4cookie :
Why would they buy the last-place automaker for durability and reliability?
For the huge step up in durability, reliability, and quality, of course.
That's both a joke and the truth.
alfadriver said:Type Q said:Tesla took over the NUMMI plant which was Toyota's first manufacturing venture in the US. If they had played his cards a little differently, they could have had an experienced, Toyota trained workforce running production. Instead they got a large GM built factory complex built in 60's and 70's.
They are not making cars yet, so it's not GM's fault.
I was not blaming GM.
My point was, they had a chance to get people who were well practiced with processes and systems that built vehicles to reasonable 2000's quality standards. They decided to go their own way.
They are pretty normal for Silicon Valley though. Manufacturing is viewed as low skill work that anyone can do with minimal training no experience. The attitude is often, if you don't need an engineering degree to do the job, it must be easy. My impression is that from the beginning, Musk and crew have grossly underestimated how much expertise and experience is required for every aspect of vehicle design and manufacturing.
chaparral said:In reply to szeis4cookie :
Why would they buy the last-place automaker for durability and reliability?
Last-place though they may be, they can still engineer a car and produce it at scale, something Tesla has been struggling mightily to do.
Personally I think it's a case of trying to do to many things to fast. Cars, space ships, solar power, flamethrowers. Probably 300 other things I don't see in the news. It would be a lot for a veteran company to handle, let alone something as new as Tesla. Also tired of people calling them a start-up. They have been around for a pretty good while now.
Fueled by Caffeine said:These are not manufacturing issues, they are design issues.
That screen would drive me berkeleying nuts.
I wonder what Tesla thinks the average length of ownership will be. They obviously lack experience designing and building cars, and that shows up in tons of little details from tolerance stack ups to non intuitive menus. I'm not convinced that they really care about improving a lot of that though.
They're not building these things to last decades because The software and battery tech in these vehicles will be outdated in less than 10 years. Probably much sooner. They want these things to be turned back in and replaced with new ones in 2-3 years like a smart phone would be. That keeps revenues strong. I wonder how long it will be until they're limiting range or something the same way that Apple limited battery life on older phones. Welcome to the age of throwaway cars. So much for the record age of vehicles on the roads too.
In reply to STM317 :
They already limit range. The "ugraded" battery on the S is just turning on more of the capacity for owners. They did this over the air as a courtesy for some owners after a couple of the hurricanes this year. People justified it by saying that a lot of regular auto manufacturers have different performance levels with just a software change in their cars, and that makes battery crippling ok. What I don't like is what you allude to, if they can increase range on a whim without your permission, they can do the reverse, and that's not something that traditional cars can or will do.
NickD said:I find it interesting/irritating how many people cover for Tesla with "But they're innovative, so there are going to be issues." That would be acceptable if they were having problems with the electric drivetrain and batteries, which are relatively new to the automotive landscape. But they are screwing up door handles, and windows, and windshields, you know, stuff that has been on cars for the past century or so.
I both agree with this and disagree with this. On the one hand, ask any BMW or VW owner how they feel about window regulators and switchgear - these are car manufacturers that have been around for a century, and still can't get it right at the weight / size / pricepoint they want.
On the other hand, I work in the building construction industry, which is very, very conservative. New methods and materials take decades to come into common use, even though old methods and materials may be inefficient, slow, or expensive. Sometimes common practice needs to be rethought, even if that means reinventing the wheel (so to speak) with a lot of failures in the meantime.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Great point.
STM317 said:I wonder what Tesla thinks the average length of ownership will be. They obviously lack experience designing and building cars, and that shows up in tons of little details from tolerance stack ups to non intuitive menus. I'm not convinced that they really care about improving a lot of that though.
They're not building these things to last decades because The software and battery tech in these vehicles will be outdated in less than 10 years. Probably much sooner. They want these things to be turned back in and replaced with new ones in 2-3 years like a smart phone would be. That keeps revenues strong. I wonder how long it will be until they're limiting range or something the same way that Apple limited battery life on older phones. Welcome to the age of throwaway cars. So much for the record age of vehicles on the roads too.
On the "disposable car" thread- they will lose out on that in a very big way. Average car lifetimes keep going up- we are over 11 years for the average car age on the road these days. And nobody in their right mind will do what is basically a 3 year lease on the whole value of the car.
The missing mindset on phones is that most of the phones are subsidized by phone subscriptions. But the only "subscription" that the Tesla needs is from the power company. And they are already not paying that much for energy. It will not be made up there.
Cars are too expensive to treat like phones.
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