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Comment by thewopr | Hacker News Reader

I am a huge Tesla fan (and Elon fan). I own stock (shortly after IPO). I have a model 3 reservation. I have been singing their praises for a long time. Elon is an incredible visionary and probably an incredible engineer. This is a great combination for making the impossible possible.

And I totally agree with this article. If not a new CEO, Tesla needs a good COO. They need excellent, consistent execution, not novel, groundbreaking execution. They have 100's of thousands of reservations for the 3 (and I don't know how many powerwall and solar roof reservations). If they can just execute on this, the world is theirs. But if they continue to have delays and major, public mistakes like the model 3 ramp, my stock purchase may have been a poor choice.

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There will come a time when Musk needs to step away from Tesla, but that day is not today. He's publicly mused about stepping away (SpaceX is his real fav), but had his tenure renewed recently.

If all Tesla did was sell pretty good cars, they'd probably get crushed by the incumbents. Tesla, is selling way more than that - they're selling the idea of a brighter, better future. You're not just buying an EV, but you're helping climate change, you're reducing pollution, you'll be reducing human death and suffering and ending traffic jams and hey - it all comes in a exclusive, technologically-advanced, aesthetically pleasing package.

Now, some might object that this is largely a bunch of marketing/PR bullshit, and you will likely be technically correct, but would still miss the point. If people wanted a nice, efficient EV, they'd buy the Bolt, which by all accounts, is pretty damn good. But Tesla sells this "bullshit" because it's what people actually want to buy, and EVs happen to be the delivery vehicle. So as much as you might dislike this "bullshit", it's a core reason why Tesla even exists in 2018.

Where does Musk fit into this? He happens to be the personification of this idea today. In the popular mind he is "cool" so when you buy a Tesla, you're also implicitly buying part of this cool, much like buying an iPhone back in the day got you a part of Jobs' cool. Eventually Tesla will become it's own thing (as Apple is today) and outgrow Musk, but that's still years away.

OTOH, if you want to know what's actually going on at Tesla and what they need, this will probably give you the best idea out of any material on the internet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpCrkO1x-Qo

It's an in-depth interview with a guy who owns a consultancy which disassembles, analyses and sells reports on vehicles, both for manufacturers looking for research on their competitors and at improving their own products. His findings are extremely interesting - he's downright astounded at how incredible parts of the car are (battery, electronics) and thinks established companies should be quacking in their boots. OTOH, he thinks they've made a number of blunders in other parts, such as their production line design or parts of the car (for example, he thinks the body is 20-25% heavier than it needs to be, with parts that serve no discernable purpose)

This is a common misunderstanding in my opinion. People don't really care about the environment/climate change that much. People may think they do, but in practice the amount of people that would convert that sentiment to a purchase on a high-ticket item is probably a tiny niche, and not something you would build a business strategy around for something so capital intensive.

The point of Tesla is to force electrification simply by making cars that are better than gas cars, because then the broader market does most of the remaining work. Tesla has always known that the whole environmentalism thing is insufficient and unnecessary.

I think what throws people off is Tesla's stock price and brand. People who don't understand what can go into these assume it must be "hype and dreams," and they conclude that Tesla is popular because of marketing tricks.

The brilliant stroke of Musk was to market the electric car to sports car buyers. They don't care about high cost, short range, and performance at sub zero temperatures.

I wonder how many people buy Teslas because they think it will save the planet vs because they think it has a lot of torque

I wish these people understood that the aluminum in the Tesla is mined in Australia, sent to China, sent to Iceland, sent back to China, sent to the USA. Almost the same with the new process lithium they use.

These cars will NEVER outpace their own footprint. But try explaining truth to people who just “want to believe”.

“The Union of Concerned Scientists did the best and most rigorous assessment[1] of the carbon footprint of Tesla's and other electric vehicles vs internal combustion vehicles including hybrids. They found that the manufacturing of a full-sized Tesla Model S rear-wheel drive car with an 85 KWH battery was equivalent to a full-sized internal combustion car except for the battery, which added 15% or one metric ton of CO2 emissions to the total manufacturing.

“However, they found that this was trivial compared to the emissions avoided due to not burning fossil fuels to move the car. Before anyone says ‘But electricity is generated from coal!’, they took that into account too, and it's included in the 53% overall reduction.” — Michael Barnard, Quora. <https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-carbon-foot-print-of-manuf...

[1] Rachael Nealer, David Reichmuth, and Don Anair, _Cleaner Cars from Cradle to Grave_, The Union of Concerned Scientists, November 2015. <https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Cl... (PDF)

> These cars will NEVER outpace their own footprint

Can you provide citations and numbers for this claim? This seems extremely unlikely to me. A gas powered car that runs for 150,000 miles in it's lifetime could burn 6000 gallons of gasoline. Are you arguing that it takes more than 6000 gallons of gasoline worth of energy to manufacture a car? I would need to see hard data to believe this, as that seems like an incredible claim to me.

That sounds bad but transport by ship is very cheap, even for long distances. I'd want to see the numbers.

Ships use heavy fuel oil, which is the dirtiest transportation fuel in use today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Bunker_fuel

Cheap, yea. But also extremely dirty. What is the mpg ona tanker using crude diesel again? Cool, now swing that tanker three or four times through Singapore.

Okay, but you have to divide by the entire cargo of the ship, which is quite enormous. So I still don't think it's something easy to estimate without doing the math.

Cargo ships are flagged in countries of convenience and don’t meet many standards.

The top 15 biggest polluting ships produce more pollutants like sulfur oxide than all cars

The bunker fuel used by cargo ships is a byproduct of the refining process after they extract the higher quality fuels.

The fuel has to go somewhere. We could bury it back in the ground because we don't want to burn it, but we need some fuel to power international trade.

In terms of energy per ton mile, you can't really beat a cargo ship.

Horribly long link from Google, pdf warning.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...

It's way better than anything else. Seriously.

You appear to be concerned about the environment. Do you have a better plan for accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation?

Fooling gullible people into what is (steel) and what isn’t sustainable (aluminum, lithium, composites) is a good first start.

Not to crap on composites because I work with them, but carbon fiver for example is extremely bad for environment.

At least aluminum recycles well. Lithium does to but not cost effective so “environmental” companies like Tesla don’t do it.

I don't think Tesla's goal is to use more lithium or aluminum. It's to switch the world's main energy source for transportation from fossil fuels to electricity (yes, I know electricity isn't an energy source, and that fossil fuels are stored solar energy).

Tesla can't solve all the world's environmental problems. But the one they are helping solve seems important. Do you think they should stop because they aren't also solving how to use lithium sustainably?

Most of what Tesla is doing right, is using very light and strong materials to get an advantage over typical vehicle designs. This only happens with aluminum and composites.

Tesla also does the marketing game extremely well. Including marketing to the government for tax breaks.

I will admit their engineering on the power delivery is good, but that’s such a tiny thing compared to the marketing.

Short version... Tesla doesn’t exist if they made actually environmentally friendly vehicles (I like to explain most Teslas are coal powered cars), and doesn’t exist without their amazing marketing.

Thank you for a reasonable response on a polarizing topic. Maybe you're right, and in fact maybe today an environmentally friendly car can't be made profitability, at least not without impurities in the process.

I do think Tesla is closer than anyone else, though, and while I personally think they'll make it, even if they don't, they'll certainly inspire or goad someone else into doing it, and that's a form of progress.

He also thinks that the the suspension system is amazing and comments that anything having to do with the "skateboard" (floorboards, suspension, lower chassis) are absolutely phenomenally good.

So, you have a car with highly advanced electronics that drives spectacularly well but has lousy fit and finish. That combination has produced a lot of very profitable cars over the years.

Basically, the stuff that can be improved gradually got pushed down on the list while the core stuff is correct from start.

https://youtu.be/CpCrkO1x-Qo?t=2176 "Anybody that's in the car industry that ignores this car is doing it at their own peril."

This talk show is amazing. Thanks

Any TLDR version of this video?

That's not the only issue they face. Tesla is on a downward spiral and can't make money off a 35k base model. They owe a lot of money to creditors and all it takes is for one of them to recall the debt owed and other creditors will follow. I'd strongly suggest reading this article:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-19/more-hilarious-fac...

I was really interested in what you had to say, since it was relatively different from what I've heard, then I saw a link to ZeroHedge and... well, do you have another source that isn't ridiculous?

> it takes is for one of them to recall the debt owed

That’s not how corporate bonds work.

Exactly, it was simply fearmongering. People can't just call loans due because they want to.

Bonds can be sold, thus lowering their price and making it harder for Tesla to sell new bonds.

Zero Hedge is a joke

They only have delays from their CEO's promises. Had he set expectations more realistically the stock might not be such a roller coaster and deposit holders would have had more accurate estimates.

If you eliminate every time table Musk has said and evaluate Tesla only what they've done so far, which is a simple Model 3 ramp up from scratch, perhaps they look more impressive.

I expect a more conservative CEO would have been better at setting and meeting expectations, worse at marketing, and maybe worse at thereby gaining access to capital under favorable terms (including via reservations). A traditional CEO would have been better for investors looking for low volatility (but then why are they in TSLA?); maybe not so good for Tesla and its supporters.

In that vein there are many people who believe Apple’s* most important hire was not Jony Ive but Tim Cook. Tim built the machine that allowed for the type of manufacturing and logistics execution you see at Apple today.

* I say Apple’s hire because Jony joined during Steve’s gap in tenure

He intends to step away from Tesla, but he doesn't think now is the right time. His vision and leadership are necessary to get Tesla to the point where the Model 3 has taken off -- after that, he'll hand over the reigns and focus on other stuff (SpaceX, Neuralink).

As long as Elon is learning, increasing his understanding, and implementing improvements to these systems and efficiencies - and he does publicly discuss these fairly often - then they'll be fine.

Musk is not an engineer.

He's not a licensed one, but he's a better engineer than 99.9% of HN and all the engineers I employ. So, call it what you want.

I think the US definition of engineer is the best. Around here, anyone who works on any device is an "engineer".

It's fucking hilarious when a Gas Safe registered "engineer" can't figure out how to replace your boiler pump. What a racket.

He holds a BS in Engineering Physics.

That doesn't make him an engineer.

There seem to be two different senses of what an "engineer" is. In one sense, it is "someone who has trained as an engineer", and in the other it is "someone who does engineering". Elon Musk fits the first, because he has trained as an engineer, but does not fit the second, because he is currently employed as CEO. I fit the second, because I am currently employed as an engineer, but do not fit the first, because I was trained as a physicist.

If you are arguing semantics, please take care to understand that not everybody has the same definitions of words as you do. Without the context of how you interpret words, your posts will fail to convey reasonable information.

He's the second too.

"But actually almost all my time, like 80% of it, is spent on engineering and design. Engineering and design, so it's developing next-generation product. That's 80% of it."

"At Tesla, it's working on the Model3 and, yeah, so I'm in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as engineering of the factory."

https://www.quora.com/In-Tesla-and-SpaceX-how-much-of-the-te...

In a lot of places, "engineer" is only for those who have the recognition of their professional body.

But those (while they might be good professionals) are not doing what Elon is doing.

So if that's the case I might say that saying Elon is not an engineer is a compliment.

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