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Comment by qaq | Hacker News Reader

It might be cultural differences but it always amazes me how people can have such strong opinions without even a tiny doubt that there might be a chance that the person they are criticising is a bit more informed/experienced and is maybe taking actions based on their knowledge and experience.

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Normally I'd agree with you on this point, but it seems that Musk is the one displaying hubris here. The gullwing doors were a blatant disregard for the 100+ years of engineering expertise that has converged on the current design of a car door, and throwing that out the window for something flashy and attention grabbing. The criticism is well deserved.

>he gullwing doors were a blatant disregard for the 100+ years of engineering expertise that has converged on the current design of a car door, and throwing that out the window for something flashy and attention grabbing. //

Gull-wing doors surely are designed to do one thing, sell the car on look alone. Surely people know they're impractical; but they have the essence of supercar in that impracticality. I had a Lambo' Countache poster as a kid, the flip up doors were probably terrible in practice but they had an evocative unusualness that showed this was no ordinary car. I imagine it gives the vehicle a lot of free marketing and a strong differentiator.

100+ years of expertise also converged on the ICE

Sure, but that's a straw man arguement. Cost effective LiPo batteries didn't exist until a few years ago, making ICE's the only viable means of powering a vehicle for long distance travel.

As far as I know, the laws of physics governing car doors hasn't changed in the last decade.

The falcon wing doors were only a small part of the post the parent was commenting on. IIRC even Musk has conceded that their reach exceeded their grasp a bit when it came to those doors, but does that one point validate the entire comment?

I was thinking the same thing after reading OP's comment.

I wouldn't even try to wrap my arms around what Elon is doing. Cars, Energy, Rockets, etc. It's not everyday that someone who wants to change the status quo comes along. All I know is he must be very lonely with so many people hoping he fails.

That's another thing I can't understand if he succeeds we all win in a very fundamental way, why so many people hope he fails is beyond me.

If he fails for making promises he could never keep, many will stand to lose. I live in the home of Toyota in Japan, and would welcome any competition that pushes Japanese automakers to achieve more, but in my opinion Tesla is not showing the signs of a business that can scale. Incidentally, I blame the American consumers, investors, media, and labor pool for that shortcoming as much or more than I would blame Musk. A great leader is still only as good as his weakest link. In my view, America is incapable of sustaining a great manufacturing culture at scale due to the influence of various perverse incentives that have woven themselves into the cultural fabric.

I don't think people are necessarily hoping he will fail, rather they believe his failure is a forgone conclusion, and they can't understand why others can't see that...including Musk.

NOTE: I'm not a hater or a fanboy.

Few want him to fail, and we'd all love the grand plans to succeed....but at some point a dose of realism has to be injected. Elon isn't a pied piper. We do need to think for ourselves occasionally, as do investors.

I am not hoping he fails, and certainly where battery tech is concerned Tesla have moved on R and D - especially when it comes to battery pods and keeping batteries at a consistent temperature and state.

But.....the grand visions before the boring grunt work of engineering has been accomplished, and trying to build massive $5 billion factories before any kind of profitability is on the horizon is not going to help Tesla stick around beyond a few years at most.

The battery technology is certainly where Tesla have a big lead. It's not really the battery chemistry per se, but building and engineering a battery pod that is safe and that keeps battery cells in a consistently good state whether under charging or discharging. Once a battery starts losing performance it only accelerates. If you have to keep it in a good window and it will last for many years. Liquid cooling is also the way to be doing this.

They're also right about hydrogen fuel cells. They're stupid. Maybe if we get into space and can get an abundance of hydrogen things will be great. But, here on Earth you have to manufacture the hydrogen and create a vast infrastructure to transport and store it.

Tesla also have a big lead in the use of telemetry and their ability to do software updates over the air and their approach to security and building this in-house. Other car manufacturers will continue to outsource this and continue to fuck up completely.

However, Tesla had to follow through with all of this, maybe be out of the public eye for a while and iterate over the engineering, keeping costs to a minimum and doing the R and D, before moving on to other capitally expensive projects. They've massively overstretched and I don't see it being recoverable.

I kind of think that in case Tesla runs into serious financial issues in the future it might get a hand from the US government in some way or another, because of the long term benefits of Tesla succeeding. Just my opinion, no sources for that.

You seriously think you are in a better position to make such analysis then FMR, Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard?

> All I know is he must be very lonely with so many people hoping he fails.

Huh, I'd have assumed the opposite -- that the masses of people following the progress greatly outweighs the man-will-never-fly crowd.

I really don't see any difference if he wins or succeeds. Do you think he is the only person who can do cars or rockets for example? If he fails someone else will pick up the slack, so I see no reason to cheer that he will do it (or for the same reason to expect the opposite).

Moreover, if he succeeds it is not only for his personal merits. That's one of the things that the media gets completely wrong. It is more for the merits of a large group of people working in engineering, advertisement, financing, and because of the general state of the economy. Similarly, if he fails it will not be solely because of his personal qualities.

> Do you think he is the only person who can do cars or rockets for example?

Who else is trying? A lot of people who could do this are reading Hackernews right now. How many of them are actually trying to do it?

He is the only one who came this far, will someone else try probably, but I'd rather see it happen as soon as possible. Also if he fails raising funding for this type of project will be very problematic also there are very few people in the position to try in the first place.

The problem is that Elon Musk has a history of not keeping his promises. Sure, we got the Model S, but late, and a lot more expensive than promised. With the Model 3, he is promising even more.

It's relatively easy to build an expensive luxury car. It's incredibly difficult to mass produce an affordable mass market car. We have yet to see any evidence that Tesla is capable of doing so.

This is not just something that I believe. Lots of people believe it, and put their money where their mouth is. Tesla is one of the most shorted stocks there is.

"It's relatively easy to build an expensive luxury car." Would be nice to back this up with examples. Especially in volume segment like here's another example of a company entering luxury car market making a competitive vehicle that's for the sake of argument just hits top spot in sales in the S class segment.

Tesla has made large gains in their production compared to other manufacturers in the same class of cars[0]. However, from what I've heard the interior build quality on Teslas is that it is of the lowest quality in their price bracket. As such, while the numbers are promising they are at a bit of a discontinuity point in their market that might show these numbers to be more favorable than they actually are.

[0] https://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/15/1-large-luxury-car-in-u...

What are the criteria that go into quantifying interior build quality?

Tesla's interior is definitely spartan, with things like center console and extra cupholder set available only after-market, but that seems to fit into the story of "design the most lightweight vehicle possible in order to increase the range".

Are there reports of numerous interior-level problems, like fobs or panels or lights or switches falling off, etc.? Because honestly there's not much of "interior" there to discuss its quality.

The comment above is exactly right. There are dozens of high-end car makers for this very reason. Because this is a small but profitable market, they just need to have engineering that is good enough and provide esquisite features that are perceived as luxurious and exclusive. Just buy any specialized magazine or visit the show rooms to see how these high-end cars manufacturers churn one expensive car after another...

These high end car manufacturers are mostly parts of conglomerates sharing part bins with far less exotic vehicles. Most of them were underwater before they were acquired by respective conglomerate. Many of them are money losers kept alive for prestige and halo effect. There is not a single independent volume luxury car manufacturer that was able to enter the market in a very long time.

its not only easy to build them its easy to profit off of them. they are the biggest profit makers for car makers because it really doesn't cost that much more to reach that point.

I don't understand your doubt, there are many examples of boutique car companies who sell on either luxury or performance and sometimes both. They are all low volume adventures. There simply is more room to profit and that is attractive. Plus its very easy to feed off of pretentious people, pretentious geeks are even simpler.

50,000 a year is not boutique. It's hard to build competitive production luxury vehicle, the only success stories in that segment are Lexus, Acura and Infiniti and they are obviously subsidiaries of existing large automakers. Majority of boutique luxury brands are owned by major conglomerates and with exception of few are actually loss leaders that primarily exists for prestige purposes.

> few are actually loss leaders

Nothing could be further from the truth. Brands such as Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes are extremely profitable, because they offer cars that cost just a little bit more than a "normal" car and charge up to 30K or more for that privilege. The only constraint on the growth of these car makers is that there are not enough people who want (or afford) to pay that price just for the extras.

That was about boutique brands Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes are not boutique brands are they? Bugatti is not profitable niether are majority of other boutique brands owned by major automakers.

These aren't the few that are loss leaders. But also a BMW 3 series costs less than my minivan, so I would hardly call that a luxury vehicle. Of course you can get a high end BMW, but somehow I doubt they would be very profitable without the lower end of the market. And that's the point for Tesla as well. By introducing a car that starts around the same price as a 3 series BMW, and selling in similarly high volumes, they can also be extremely profitable.

(Finance rookie here) Is there a public register of short contracts or is this just a generally held belief?

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/short-interest

I'm afraid it's a case of "Show me the money", meaning, "Have you achieved what you say you can and have before you move on to the next grand vision of the future?"

For him to say that 'stage one' is complete is laughable. We haven't seen Model 3s on sale for $35,000 yet, we haven't seen whether Tesla can get the required production (which they simply can't) and they haven't achieved profit on any car at all yet.

I am also afraid this is a case of "Show me the money". He built 3 multi-billion dollar companies 2 are profitable. That's speaks volumes about his ability to make business decisions now unless you have comparable experience calling his business abilities "laughable" is in itself laughable. Might Tesla fail sure it might, but to use such a condescending tone to comment unless you have a comparable track record is very bad form.

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