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Comment by Cookingboy | Hacker News Reader

>No, he said that of "Today's auto factories" not of Toyota in particular.

Last time I checked the big automakers all operate under Toyota's manufacturing philosophy (again, they literally wrote the book on this subject), and more than once Elon has dismissed industry's knowledge and experience in this field.

Even without involving Toyota, most of "today's auto factories" operate at a better efficiency and are producing higher quality vehicles in a larger quantity than the Tesla factories. Maybe Elon is right, but it's best to say that kind of things after you are proven right.

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You're all over the comments on this article dumping on Tesla's quality, but evidence seems to be anecdotal (in the form of comments on a forum for this article).

Also last time I checked, the big automakers investigated and then abandoned Toyota's manufacturing strategies, and it's the Korean manufacturers who have taken top quality marks lately while Toyota has fallen. GM and American manufacturers may have improved, but are still straight garbage when it comes to quality control... I dare you to buy a Buick.

You might be write, but as you said it's best to say that kind of things after you are proven right, and anecdotes and comments in a forum are hardly proof.

There are few surveys of Tesla owners because Tesla refuses to disclose buyer lists to third-party research companies that have been trying to conduct such surveys.

Also, anecdotes are data. They're not observational data, but they're data all the same. One or two anecdotes might not indicate anything, but when you're dealing with dozens or even hundreds of anecdotes from disparate groups of owners, that's data that something is seriously amiss with Tesla build quality.

> Tesla refuses to disclose buyer lists to third-party research companies that have been trying to conduct such surveys.

I would prefer it if my car manufacturer wasn't selling out my personal details so I can be harassed for surveys.

Is disclosing a buyer list really that big an obstacle to those research companies? Like, how much could I charge for a (large) list of Tesla owners?

It seems like an easy thing to motivate (share your Tesla story, learn about other owners', here's a free t-shirt) and confirm (what's your VIN). Much easier than other target audiences to develop a true survey audience...

> Also last time I checked, the big automakers investigated and then abandoned Toyota's manufacturing strategies, and it's the Korean manufacturers who have taken top quality marks lately while Toyota has fallen.

Is there anywhere I can read about this? I was still under the impression that Kanban/Kaizen and the whole package are the state of the art.

Here's the evidence. It's not a true random sample though.

https://www.truedelta.com/Tesla-Model-S/powertrain-reliabili...

They aren't "Toyota's manufacturing philosophy". Kaizen is, generally, a result of Deming and total quality management. Deming failed to convince top brass of American auto manufacturing and took his process elsewhere. Toyota and Mazda being the two more notables to adopt early.

Read about GM's Hamtramck failures in the 80s for context on the ignorance of US auto brands as they tried to outdo Toyota after starting to lose the quality wars.

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