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Comment by zaroth | Hacker News Reader

I get that it’s fun to beat up on Tesla. We love nothing more than the little guy winning and the winning guy brought low. Tis the great cycle of life.

However, Tesla is the largest battery manufacturer in the world, and manufactures their batteries at significantly lower cost, higher performance, tighter tolerances, and with greater automation than anyone else in the world.

It’s underestimating the difficulty of the problem by far to point to specific (relatively minor, if not insignificant) failures of Tesla and generalize that their logistics IP isn’t worth stealing or couldn’t possibly be beneficial to a competitor.

The gross margins that Tesla has achieved on the Model 3 I believe speaks for itself as the worlds best at that price point, and that does not come without a well run supply chain.

There is no question that Tesla runs hot. I’d like to see anyone else try and come close to what they’ve shipped without a fair share of fuckups along the way.

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Tesla is the largest battery manufacturer in the world, and manufactures their batteries at significantly lower cost, higher performance, tighter tolerances, and with greater automation than anyone else in the world.

Panasonic manufactures the battery cells for Tesla and most of the market. Tesla assembles the cells into batteries. It would be accurate to say that Tesla is the largest manufacturer of car batteries, but they are nowhere close to being the largest battery manufacturer in the world.

The gross margins that Tesla has achieved on the Model 3 I believe speaks for itself as the worlds best at that price point, and that does not come without a well run supply chain.

We must be talking about a different Model 3. If Tesla had terrific Model 3 gross margins, it wouldn't have needed to (try to) close all of its stores and eliminate all customer referral incentives just to make the $35k Model 3 possible...in one color and style...with limited options. It's competitors could have great margins too if they only sold the car in one color, one style, and no packages, because their economies of scale would absolutely dwarf Tesla's.

I’d like to see anyone else try and come close to what they’ve shipped without a fair share of fuckups along the way

Toyota and VW shipped 10 million cars worldwide last year without any logistics issues. Hell, most companies are able to ship their products without any controllable logistics issues. Why does Tesla get a pass for failing to do something that every other manufacturer gets right?

The Model 3 cells are custom 2170 li-ion cells co-developed with Tesla and manufactured by Panasonic at Gigafactory 1.

Tesla Gigafactory 1, which started in 2013, has already grown into the biggest battery factory in the world with an annual production capacity of over 20 GWh. [1]

Actually they have exceeded 20 GWh currently and are pushing towards 35 GWh. [2]

Panasonic is a 25% stakeholder in Gigafactory 1. The fact that you think Tesla merely assembles packs, is because most of what they are doing to hit $100/kWh is trade secret.

Their packs are cheaper, lighter, denser. They will be cobalt free. And that’s driven by Tesla IP not just Panasonic. [3]

As far as margins, the idea that you could ship a 50kWh electric car for $35,000 was pure and utter lunacy 10 years ago.

There literally isn’t enough battery production in the world to produce a million EVs a year, let alone 10 million. You are comparing apples to oranges.

[1] - https://www.google.com/amp/s/electrek.co/2018/09/26/panasoni...

[2] - https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...

[3] - https://electrek.co/2018/11/13/tesla-battery-cells-improved/

I think people should just watch the gigafactory video:

https://vimeo.com/176841432

there's a lot going on behind the scenes.

IP is not the same as manufacturing capability.

Exactly!

Tesla fans love to claim Autopilot is the best because, for example, Waymo's system is not available to purchase. How then can we be expected to believe a secret Tesla battery project is beating competition? There is no independent review and it is not in production.

> Toyota and VW shipped 10 million cars worldwide last year without any logistics issues. Hell, most companies are able to ship their products without any controllable logistics issues.

These companies are shipping with more or less established infrastructure and supply chains that have been optimized over decades. Tesla has been building almost all of its infrastructure and supply chain from scratch (batteries, supercharger networks, software tech, etc.), while also getting cars delivered. And breaking tons of new ground in almost every area of automotive tech.

(You can argue that Torota and VW build infrastructure too, but almost all of it is incremental, and almost none of it is groundbreaking.)

> Why does Tesla get a pass for failing to do something that every other manufacturer gets right?

Nobody's giving them a pass. It just seems unreasonable to draw conclusions without understanding the entire context.

>It would be accurate to say that Tesla is the largest manufacturer of car batteries

Pretty sure that title goes to Johnson Controls, who produces about 1/3rd of all car batteries globally.

Interestingly they're selling that business to Brookfield

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...

"one color and style .. with limited options" is simply incorrect, and your biases are showing. You're either being disingenuous or not affording the same luxury to Tesla that other manufacturers get. Plenty of manufacturers charge more for different colors, and, by the way, that's considered an "option".

It's also an assumption that they had to (try to) close all their stores to make the $35k Model 3 possible.

The fact of the matter is, every manufacturer wants to sell products for the highest overall profit (unit profit * volume) possible, and lower overhead. The fact that they previously refused to sell (presumably lower margin) short-range 3s does not mean it wasn't possible. Maybe it wasn't possible. Or maybe they'd rather make $100 per unit on a mid-range than $1 per unit on a short-range.

> in one color

Why is "black" and not "white" the standard color?

Asking this because I think that black electric cars need in general more air-conditioning, therefore more energy, have therefore less range than white cars - based on the belief that it's easier to heat a car than to cool it => if the previous statements are correct, why is the high-energy-consumption-colour less expensive than the low-energy-consumption-colour?

I wouldn't put it past Elon to be because of Ford's famous edict when ramping the Model T: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

I've secretly thought it was like the airlines taking away legroom and making you buy it back with an upgrade.

Maybe a nod to Ford on the model t? I think he famously said, "they can have it in any color they want, as long as it's black"

> It would be accurate to say that Tesla is the largest manufacturer of car batteries,

Uh, duh? Last I checked, Tesla mostly sells cars. If they were the largest manufacturer of, say, cellphone batteries, THAT would have been surprising.

They're not even the largest manufacturer of car batteries.

In term of overall capacity they mean.

They're the manufacturer of the largest batteries then. Not the largest manufacturer of batteries.

Have you ever played a real time strategy game?

I see Tesla as a company that is basically putting all their resources into building their tech tree and their vehicle and parts factories, but cannot mine enough vespene gas to support the stores.

> I get that it’s fun to beat up on Tesla. We love nothing more than the little guy winning and the winning guy brought low.

Huh.. and here I thought Tesla was the little guy in an industry defined by century-old behemoths.

The truth is people like to shit on other people. As Taylor Swift famously said[0], "we don't live just in a celebrity takedown culture, we live in a takedown culture. People will find anything about you and twist it to where it's weird or wrong or annoying or strange or bad."

Yes, there's plenty we can criticize Tesla on, but people will extend this to even seemingly benign things like having something stolen from the company because it's cool to hate on the company in $current_year

––––––––––

[0] https://www.pressparty.com/pg/newsdesk/taylorswift/view/1136...

Well, shitting on Tesla for something like the fatal crashes where autopilot played a role does have a certain appeal. But at the same time, when they released their $35k vehicle I was still cheering them on too.

Except... It wasn't $35k anywhere but on paper. You had to buy the upgrades.

Do you mean in the past? I'm talking about their recent release in February. I can order one now, $35k, no mandatory upgrades that increase the price, delivery in 6-8 weeks.

No: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282810/tesla-model-3-st...

> without a fair share of fuckups along the way

My problem with Tesla is the same I have with Uber and AirBNB: it's not that they royally fuck up now and then, it's not even that they fuck up regularly.

It's that their fuckups all betray their moral turpitude.

They do not "fuck up" as in "security breach" or "bad bugs".

They "fuck up" as in "lie, steal, cheat" and yes, arguably even "kill".

I don't care which great achievements these companies may bring us. Or have already brought us. They need to die. Other companies can pick up those achievements and iterate on them.

Not to feed the troll, but I would put Boeing a hell of a lot higher on that list than Tesla.

I drive with AutoPilot every day. One thing is damn sure, you watch it vigilantly, and you can always, always take control by just turning wheel or tapping the brakes.

Tesla tells me every single time I engage AutoPilot to keep my hands on the wheel and be ready to take control.

A special place in hell for automation that you don’t even know exists, that was concealed from you for a profit motive, flying your plane into the ground.

In a worst case scenario Tesla can veer into a concrete lane divider and kill you in under a second. I don't think Boeing comes anywhere close to that timescale. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a person monitoring the vehicle to be able to react in time. Calling an L2 assist 'Autopilot' is just .. evil. Just like peddling shitty statistics that 'shows' AP is safer than manual driving (it really isn't).

Honest question, because I've never used an autopilot feature and have virtually no commute: if you have to watch it so vigilantly, what is the appeal or practical value?

It changes the way I drive. I don't focus on making minor adjustments to keep the vehicle centered in the lane. I don't need to predominantly look far down the lane to try to keep my peripheral vision maximized, and only take cursory glances around, like I would if I was actively steering. I don't worry about drifting out of the lane if I'm looking at something in the next lane over or in the rear-view for a moment.

I can scan more of my immediate surroundings and notice potential hazards which are not just directly in front of me much more easily.

I also find it's a lot less tiring to have the car dealing with the micro-adjustments in steering while I do the higher level planning.

I've said it before in other comments, but I honestly believe 20 years from now we might not have "sleep in your car while it takes you from point A to B" but we will look back and wonder how we managed to drive cars while constantly have to manually and meticulously center them in our lanes.

In fact I personally think it's quite analogous to how airplane autopilot actually functions (even if the general public perception of airplane autopilot does not match reality). It requires a pilot to constantly be monitoring the situation, and in fact it frees the pilot to be able to do necessary planning tasks, but at no point does the autopilot itself carry the actual responsibility of operating the vehicle.

Very interesting, thank you. I think the comparison to airplane autopilot is apt. At that industry did go through a period of readjustment, where autopilot contributed to a lack of attention/readiness. Those systems have been tweaked over the years to mitigate that risk. Cars will undoubtedly have to go through the same growth. Makes me wonder if special training should be required for drivers of such cars before we get to L3-L4 self driving capabilities. You sound responsible in your use though.

You are risking your life and the lives of others in return for convenience.

> I don't focus on making minor adjustments to keep the vehicle centered in the lane.

Why is this a benefit? In this video [1] you only have two seconds to make a correction.

> I don't worry about drifting out of the lane

That is concerning given what we know about AP's behavior.

The behavior demonstrated here was new as of March 2018, later disappeared, and then reappeared again in an AP update in 2019 [2]. This issue was also demonstrated to appear at the location of a Model X crash that resulted in a fatality [3].

Then there are the two left-turning white tractor-trailer deaths in Florida, seemingly identical conditions on divided roads, spaced 3 years apart [4] [5].

You could say, "well I don't have conditions like those where I commute", but then, you don't know where the next screw-up will be.

EDIT: Here is another case, just happened two days ago [7], a Model X on autopilot unexpectedly veered right at highway speed, crashing into a truck.

Also note, there is no proof that AP is safer. NHTSA's "40% safer" claim was debunked when they were forced to release data as a result of a lawsuit [6].

> In fact I personally think it's quite analogous to how airplane autopilot actually functions

Airplane pilots have minutes to react to autopilot malfunctions. In a car you may have only 1 or 2 seconds.

[1] https://v.redd.it/n6iukmpsw3q01

[2] https://v.redd.it/p3xhls52w6n21

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/899i1w/my_mode...

[4] https://electrek.co/2016/07/01/understanding-fatal-tesla-acc...

[5] https://electrek.co/2019/03/01/tesla-driver-crash-truck-trai...

[6] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26455/nhtsas-flawed-autopilot-...

[7] https://i.imgur.com/UZS1m6j.png

> I get that it’s fun to beat up on Tesla.

There are many reasons to legitimately shit on Tesla including their worker treatment, statements made by their CEO etc.

The point isn’t that you can prove Tesla isn’t perfect. That goes without saying.

The assertion was they are so far from perfect that in fact their IP isn’t even defensible in a court of law.

So please don’t reply with more quips about how Tesla isn’t perfect. Why does their CEO mouthing off on Twitter, or attacking disgruntled employees, or dubious onsite health care, or pie-in-the-sky volume estimates, or market manipulation, or literal dumpster fires on their property, mean that their IP is so much shit it can be stolen without consequence?

Throughout, despite, or perhaps even in part due to all of the above, they have still achieved great things and changed an industry. They are still the biggest battery manufacturer in the world. They still make a handful of really fucking awesome electric cars, which you can order in a few minutes on your phone and have delivered to your house. And their margins on those cars are the industry best. Those points seem to support the notion that they must have some valuable logistical IP and trade secrets backing that up.

What are you talking about ?

Nobody said that Tesla's IP was not valuable or that stealing it is okay.

Oh, that’s funny. All this time commenting on my phone, I just realized I posted my OP as a top-level comment and not as a reply to gamblor956 as intended.

> But given the shitshow that is Tesla's logistics , that's extremely unlikely, as Tesla's logistics processes simply aren't valuable IP. Tesla has displayed a chronic inability to manage their own supply chain, especially during the period the employees were at Tesla. If anything, Zoox used the information allegedly taken from Tesla as an example of what not to do logistically, and trade secrets law doesn't let you sue for that.

I'm not saying that Tesla has no valuable IP (it's brand IP is quite valuable).

I am saying that its logistics IP is worth nothing to another company, and right now its logistics IP isn't worth much to Tesla either. Even Musk acknowledges that they're in "logistics hell" right now...

Seems quite odd that people keep trying to steal worthless property.

Nothing you've said actually runs counter to the parent comment, though. Tesla can simultaneously be awful at logistics and still be the largest battery pack manufacturer because no one else really wanted to get into that game until recently.

Also, the gross margins on the Model 3 have little to do with supply chain. They cut a lot of corners on build quality, interior fit and finish, etc. to get to that margin and they're only able to do so because of lack of competition in the segment.

They cut corners but have the highest safety rating ever and the highest customer satisfaction?

Is it reasonable to call something a cut corner when the end result is success by nearly every metric? Maybe that corner needn't exist? Scaling issues are unavoidable. So much nitpicking.

Cutting corners during manufacturing is unrelated to safety rating (within reason).

The safety comes from robust design, not superior manufacturing practices. Neither are fit and finish related to safety.

Cut corners on amenities, though only compared to their other models. Still a lot nicer than my car

When body panels don't line up, doors don't close properly without slamming them, and your infotainment system randomly bugs out (all issues I saw when borrowing a Model 3), your vehicle manufacturer cut corners. Meanwhile my distinct impression of interior quality when sitting in one is that it's basically a mass market car with a leather option, not a luxury price point vehicle.

And no, scaling issues are absolutely not unavoidable. These are all solved problems. Tesla just rushed vehicles out the door with crap production line QA because they were running out of money and market patience.

So existing manufacturers ship flawless vehicles?

It's really annoying when you twist commenters' words to suit your agenda and go straight to logical fallacies. I'll ask you to please stop doing that. No, existing manufacturers do not ship 100% flawless vehicles, but the average build quality of the ones they actually sell to customers is significantly higher than what Tesla is pushing out with Model 3. A five second Google search for "Model 3 Quality" will show you this.

His argument was some vehicles had flaws and that can be avoided. Who avoids it? That's not even a partial twist.

Moreover, both of your responses ignore my original point of customer satisfaction. If this were a major problem, why would they have among the highest satisfaction?

https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-consumer-reports-owner-s...

How do you reconcile those positions? All Tesla buyers are so blinded by the cult of Musk that they tell everyone their car that they hate is great?

> Tesla is the largest battery manufacturer in the world, and manufactures their batteries at significantly lower cost, higher performance, tighter tolerances, and with greater automation than anyone else in the world.

Are we expected to just ignore LG Chem? Tesla's batteries are good, and I'm glad they're investing in them, but Tesla isn't ahead of their competitors there in any significant way.

Tesla is not anywhere near the largest battery maker and their product is made to the exact same specifications as off-the-shelf Panasonic batteries, by Panasonic, in a Panasonic factory with a big Tesla sign on it. But what I'd love to know is how you came to believe any of that stuff you wrote.

The batteries in the Model 3 are not in fact off-the-shelf Panasonic batteries.

Tesla has the largest single battery factory, but they seem to be second behind CATL in the latest annualized production rates.

CATL shipped 7.3GWh in 2018-Q2, I can’t find Q3 numbers but I did find one site saying “monthly installed battery capacity with 1.47GWh, 2.45GWh, 2.49GWh and 3.4GWh produced respectively from August to November in 2018.” But these are not just EV batteries.

For EV batteries specifically, Tesla produces more than 50% of global supply.

The global lead-acid battery market is still much larger than the global li-ion market, so your statement that Tesla is the world's largest battery maker has degraded into Tesla is the world's 2nd-largest maker of Li-ion batteries for the EV market, a much weaker statement.

Tesla claims they make 60% of all supply for the EV market specifically.

I believe this excludes plug-in hybrids and buses. It is also counting all Gigafactory pack capacity, which includes cells made by Pano in Asia that are assembled at Giga for Model S/X packs, so a bit squishy.

How is it a "Panasonic factory" when Panasonic only own a 25% stake in it?

> I’d like to see anyone else try and come close to what they’ve shipped without a fair share of fuckups along the way.

Um, okay. I mean, there's the Chevy Bolt and the Jaguar I-PACE. They're both pretty good EVs, and they compare against the short-range RWD M3 and the MX 75D, respectively. I don't see any big fuckups with those two cars, at least compared to the Tesla cars.

Speaking personally, I've owned a LEAF, an MX, and an I-PACE. Of the three, the Tesla has been an order of magnitude more problematic than the other two.

An article about Tesla on HN always has the top comment defending them. Always.

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