Musk has been quite endurant so far. It's possible tesla will keep up, or not.
As long as tesla doesn't die i'd bet Musk will find a way to crank up the next stage.
As long as tesla doesn't die i'd bet Musk will find a way to crank up the next stage.
At some point, he'll need to understand how to design an effective large-scale manufacturing system, and not simply yell for one.
Specifically, he should actually learn some things about managing people, and the place that has in producing quality at volume at speed. It's sad, because that's exactly the lesson Toyota was trying to teach at NUMMI, and their legacy has been totally forgotten by its new owner—at great cost. It's simply a shame.
> "According to this, they're using 7 times as many employees and still making less than a 1/5 of the cars NUMMI did when they had the factory." https://insideevs.com/teslas-fremont-factory/ -- via https://twitter.com/Benshooter/status/1012113642689519617
(albeit they're earlier in their maturity, for sure, but still)
Let's just see now.
Musk wanted to grow a plant on Mars, and when the Russians pulled out of a deal to sell him a couple of ICBMs he decided he would will his own rocket into existence.
Then he decided he wanted it to be reusable, so he willed that into existence when everyone said it was impossible.
Then he wanted to strap three of them together, so he willed that into existence.
Then we wanted electric cars, so he willed into existence not only the best electric car ever, but one of the best cars ever, period (Model S)
etc. etc.
I think it unwise to underestimate Musk.
Are there really? I feel like a massive percentage of people are against Musk and Tesla precisely because he's trying to do something new, and take some risks.
It's like a majority of Americans don't want anyone to do anything radical anymore, like they're happy to stagnate.
That said, I think he'll get it done, but it's still arrogant (and inefficient) to take all of the learnings of manufacturing and management of the past 30 years and try to "start fresh."
It's a waste. It's a waste of money, a waste of time, a waste of human capital and life and happiness. He's expending energy to learn things we've already learned.
That's the sad part. I'm sure he'll get it done, but at what cost? At what despair and unnecessary strife? And at what level of waste and inefficiency.
Sure, you'll say, necessity is the mother of invention, and new knowledge and innovation will come out of this struggle—but how can we know even more could not be done in a better process? We can't, and this naysaying will go by the wayside. As perhaps it should.
I disagree that he’s not good at managing people, he just has very different success criteria, which do not highly rate the welfare of his workers. I think like Jobs, Bezos and many other successful business leaders he’s good at finding talented people, selling them a dream, and wringing every last ounce of life out of them in service of his dreams, then finding someone else to keep it going. A lot of people will be broken along the way, a lot of people will produce their best work.
They'll burn through supposed 450K before the end of Q3, and then the order book is dry/cash crunch time for Tesla.
Further, I expect the number of people who can put down 1k and wait with no new car for a long time is but a small fraction of those who can buy without those substantial barriers.
Hmm. This strikes me as somewhat implausible or at least uncharitable.
Are there other example of doing something as complex, in a 'new' field, at a scale to compete with incumbent operators AND vertically integrating both design and manufacture?
If one zooms out a little to place what Tesla is doing in context, or Musks 'performance', it doesn't seem they've been particularly bad per se, more that they've faced difficulties that are inevitable. It's somewhat of a testament to them 'doing well' and learning to do it pretty damn quickly that we here can continue to talk about how bad they continue to be - namely because they're still around and not dead and disbanded.
I may, of course, be talking rubbish seeing as I don't know much about this subject nor do I have a horse in the race. But it just strikes me that Tesla is doing something extraordinarily hard (I know about the logistics of supply chain management and that's hard enough in the auto industry) and being played out in public view with intense competition.
The shame is that the parts that are innovative, like the engineering of an electric car, the design, the interface, and the battery technology, are all going so well, all things considered.
Whereas the parts that don't necessarily require innovation on a major scale, such as management of people, the operation of a manufacturing line at scale, systemic quality control, and safety and health—are being done (by all accounts) not so well. These are the things that are far more difficult than the technology and innovation precisely because they are so much more complex, and require a different mindset. For the same reason Musk is so good at engineering, it is not totally surprising he is not so spectacular at leading the human systems required for this new pursuit. Again, by all accounts.
And the sad part: these are the parts that have been done before, in similar situations, at similar scales, with similarly new technologies, without drastically different requirements or problems. Having that experience available to you and not using it is not exactly wise.
All that said, I think he'll learn what he needs to learn, get it done anyway, and will not fail. Making this point of efficiency at this stage pretty moot. I realize that.
And an assembly line. In a tent. From a bunch of scraps.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely admire what Elon Musk is capable of. But it's worth being realistic when we draw opinions of leaders lest we fall victim to hero worship.