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Comment by yincrash | Hacker News Reader

It should be clarified that this is an op-ed. The author does not cite any hard facts, and the primary argument seems to be that the author believes that only Toyota's methods are the methods that work, and because Tesla isn't doing what Toyota did, but has ambitious goals, it will fail.

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Yeah yeah. But does anyone here with a history of building something more complicated than a Rails app want to bet real money that Musk will put a Dragon on Mars AND ship 500,000 Teslas in 2018?

He's not exactly known for hitting his ship dates or volume targets.

What is exactly the penalty for missing ship date targets? Slight cost increases? Lower profit margins? Do they have difficulty with cash?

- Until you start shipping, you are burning money. Hit 0 and you die. Tesla is widely believed to need another round before it starts shipping Model 3, even if everything goes to plan. [1]

- US tax rebates for electric vehicles are phased out after a manufacturer has sold 200 000 of them. [2] The longer Tesla takes to start selling Model 3, the more it will have sold of the upmarket (hence less rebate-sensitive) S and X, the fewer price-sensitive Model 3s it will be able to sell at the rebated price.

- Competitors are not standing still. Who knows what else will be available in 2019 or 2020? And how long will those 400k preorders stand in the face of delays when there are alternatives?

[1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/tesla-to-raise-more-cash-2016-...

[2] http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1085549_when-do-electric...

People will buy an alternative electric car which is very likely to be available from other manufacturers by then.

I don't put too much trust into Elon time, but I do believe that if it is at all possible to achieve, Elon is going to will it into existence.

Are you saying that he'll get to Mars, but not on time? I'm positive he'll do it alright. Whether its 2018, 2019, or 2020, hardly diminishes the feat.

Agreed, but just a correction, if not 2018, then you don't get a launch window for another couple of years.

Reminds me of Louis CK rant "..cause now we live in, in an amazing, amazing world and it's wasted on the, on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots...". The dude disrupted 3 major industries and all we can do is complain that he is not hitting ship dates or volume targets let's just stone him for this horrible transgression.

Four! Look at what PayPal did for online banking... They pioneered it.

The issue is that people will jump ship especially since the reservation fee is refundable. By 2018-19 other manufacturers will have alternative electric vehicles ready to ship.

It's been years and there is no credible competitor to the Model S. Maybe it will be different with the Model 3, but until an equivalent car is on the road I'm not sure I agree with your statement. The Bolt - a nice car, and I've test driven it - is just so clearly sub-par compared to what Tesla is aiming for with the Model 3 that I would not consider it a true alternative.

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