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Comment by beltex | Hacker News Reader

"Can’t believe you’re even writing about this. My job as CEO is to focus on what’s most critical, which is currently Model 3 production. Doug, who I regard as one of the world’s most talented engineering execs, is focused on vehicle engineering."

"About a year ago, I asked Doug to manage both engineering & production. He agreed that Tesla needed eng & prod better aligned, so we don’t design cars that are crazy hard to build. Right now, tho, better to divide & conquer, so I’m back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell …"

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980910671763193856

[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/980913157739765761

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I don't really get this. "What's the story here? Everything is running exactly as planned. Now I'm sleeping at the factory because it's hell."

One of those things doesn't sound much like the other.

Most people who understand how difficult it is to produce a new line of cars, or have been listening closely to what Elon has been saying pretty much expected that ramping up production would be hard and Tesla would miss their goals many times. Tesla has never delivered a car on time. But there is enormous demand for this car and they will eventually make it work. At the current run rate they are already able to produce around 100,000 Model 3 per year, and are ramping up quickly

This will become a problem if they run out of cash. Not delivering as many cars as planned is fine if you make a profit (or at least positive cash flow). But burning more cash than expected can be problematic. Especially if you constantly miss deadlines which means investors don't know if they should believe any of your plans.

The second issue is that of competition. Model S didn't have any meaningful EV competition. Model 3 competition is still comparably low but this will look different in 2-3 years. If they produce enough cars until then, prospective buyers will eventually switch to another brand.

Someone will give them cash. Elon will if nothing else.

Does he still have that much cash? Would expect that SpaceX would have to cut if Tesla really needs money. I don't think Musk has much cash lying around that's not already in one of his companies.

Enough people believe in Tesla that they can certainly find a way to generate cash. As a WORST case scenario i’m sure another auto maker would love to recapitalize them in order to acquire their technology. Tesla actually going out of existence seems unlikely to me at this point.

This is why I don't think it's a very big problem for Tesla. There is a big difference between not delivering (so far Magic Leap for example) and slow delivery.

Most people who ordered a Tesla realy want one so they are just going to wait.

Maybe some shareholderd might see it as a problem because they could have sold more Teslas in the same amount of time. But it's not that they are cheap and everyone can afford one.

Why would he even engage this, he just turned it into an actual story.

I can only imagine how much experience and knowledge Elon is gaining by micromanaging (a good thing) this much, compared to say how much the top executive at other vehicle manufacturers have evolved to become.

Edit: Downvotes on this comment? Really? What, do you think you're able to imagine the amount of experience he's getting? Do you think the top execs at other manufacturers have the same experience and hands-on approach?

From personal experience I can say that I am certain that both Dieter Zetsche and Harald Krüger know more about basically every aspect of producing cars than Elon Musk ever will. Both are very much hands-on people and have 3-4 decades of experience.

Even if they have lots of experience, they failed to see how that the market was going to have to seriously build evs. It took an 'idiot outsider' like Musk to push it as far as it can go. and now we know that separately from the business success of tesla that it's possible to make successful and interesting electric cars like teslas, but also other companies have interesting cars.

Yet they never thought to move away from making cars with internal combustion engines and 2k parts vs 200.

Say what you want about how long it is taking them to get going, Tesla make excellent cars and the longer they make them the better they will be.

You know all 3 of these people well? Wow.

"Zetsche joined Daimler-Benz in 1976, working in the research department. In 1981, he became Assistant Development Manager at the Vehicles business unit. He became a member of DaimlerChrysler's Board of Management in 1998 and served as the President/CEO of Chrysler Group from mid-2000 to 31 December 2005, where he was credited with a turnaround of DCX's American operations. Since 1 January 2006 he succeeded Jürgen Schrempp as Chairman of DaimlerChrysler (now Daimler AG), being succeeded in the position of Chrysler Group CEO by Thomas W. LaSorda."

and

"Mr. Krüger joined BMW in April 1992 and served as Director of its Production Strategy, Control and Planning Division. He managed BMW Group's engine plant at Hams Hall in the UK and served a number of positions within the Human Resources division. He served as the Chairman and Director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd. from May 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013. Mr. Krüger serves as a Director of BMW Manufacturing Co. LLC."

Yep, quite a fair bet that any of those two know far more about auto-making than Musk ever will.

Ever is a long timeframe especially if Tesla continues selling double yoy.

I'm not sure how Musk's experience grows with sales on a linear basis.

Or how sustainable "double yoy" sales are.

Double yoy? Where?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/502208/tesla-quarterly-v...

I totally believe that reading resumes can support the conclusion, but stannol claimed they knew this info from personal experience.

How is that your personal experience?

The person who posted that wasn't the same person.

I don't mean to overly shill for "In Search of Excellence". (And yeah, I remember when it came out.)

But I just happened to catch the bulk of an hour long interview with its author, Tom Peters, today.

https://the1a.org/shows/2018-04-02/excellence-explained

And the parent comment reminds me of what he had to say about MBWA -- Management By Wandering Around.

It doesn't exactly fit what it appears Musk is currently doing. But as for the experience gained and benefit of being down on the floor, on the front line. Well, Peters' enthusiasm and description of same, seemed on point, to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_wandering_around

If there are problems, at least Musk is not sitting in his office, learning of them and trying to deal with them through layers of reports (both people and paper/electrons/photons).

P.S. As a possible counter-balance to this, I'll mention the complaints that have been reported about worker welfare on those same production lines. To the extent those are true, they would be in opposition to the practices Peters espouses.

Also liked from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemba#Gemba_walk

If I had to pick two tools from Lean production methods that everyone at every level of any company should use, it would be Go and See (Genchi Genbutsu) and Ask Why 5 Times.

I think the reason why you are getting downvotes is "micromanaging (a good thing)"

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