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I have another hypothesis: "benevolent dictator" leadership leads to higher variance of outcomes -- more huge successes and more huge failures. And you usually don't notice the companies that have been driven into the ground. You notice the ones whose benevolent dictators were exceptionally competent, because those are the ones that stick around and make headlines.

Very good point, I would probably agree with that.

I don't know if that's the case. Perhaps Musk is enabling the media by specifically stating that these reinforcements are for preventing fires. I actually would go so far as to say that a good CEO would not do something like this because it lends credence to the media's claims about the fires - that the fires are an issue that need to be fixed, rather than some rare occurrence that would probably be worse in any other vehicle in the same wreck.

I don't know if I'd go as effusive as the grandparent in my praise for Musk here. It's just PR.

But on that note, I would say it's good PR in light of what's going on with GM. The current story in the media isn't so much the issues with GM's vehicles, but the company's negligence in not owning up to the problems.

So, Tesla is simply getting out in front and contrasting themselves with that story. There is virtually no risk that it will be seen as an admission, and every chance that it will play as a glaring positive differentiation.

BTW, the timing nods to this play. Rumors of fire issues and actual fires have haunted Musk for years now. He usually comes out defensive. But, suddenly, with GM's woes, he is taking these over the top measures. So, not sure that he was so much a visionary in this, as much as a fast learner.

> We believe these changes will also help prevent a fire resulting from an extremely high speed impact that tears the wheels off the car, like the other Model S impact fire, which occurred last year in Mexico. This happened after the vehicle impacted a roundabout at 110 mph, shearing off 15 feet of concrete curbwall and tearing off the left front wheel, then smashing through an eight foot tall buttressed concrete wall on the other side of the road and tearing off the right front wheel, before crashing into a tree. The driver stepped out and walked away with no permanent injuries and a fire, again limited to the front section of the vehicle, started several minutes later. The underbody shields will help prevent a fire even in such a scenario.

That is not just PR. That is damned amazing engineering. That's the kind of description you get out of an episode of Knight Rider, not something in real life.

That's clearly evidence that these cars are designed and built to an amazing level.

>That's the kind of description you get out of an episode of Knight Rider

Well, yeah, it's exactly that: a description, and a fantastic one at that. It makes no guarantees or even assertions about the efficacy of the changes. Instead, it plays up this explosive scenario, then concludes that they hope the changes will help prevent fires.

And, there's a reason it's not written in technical, engineering jargon with test results, etc. Instead, it reads like a Hollywood screenplay. Judging from your comparison to Knight Rider, it appears to be working.

>That is damned amazing engineering

So, I mean what engineering are you hailing as amazing here, with regard to the new announcement that was gushed over higher up in the thread? The part you quoted just briefly references bolting some plates on the undercarriage amidst a lot of hyperbolic crash talk from the pre-plates days.

Sure, there can be great engineering alongside good PR. The auto itself without the newly announced iron man suit is an impressive piece of engineering.

I'm simply saying that I wouldn't gush over the new announcement. The guy walking away without injuries was pre-crash plates and we have no evidence that the plates will actually help or to what extent. Just sensational, cool-sounding descriptions. There are a lot of things for which Musk deserves credit as a visionary, but this bit of PR could have just as easily been the brainchild of a relatively astute PR staffer talking to an engineer over lunch.

That is not just PR. That is damned amazing engineering.

Really? Choosing a high-strength material, turning it into a sheet and bolting it to the bottom of a car is "damned amazing engineering"?

No, but the survivability of the passenger in the story is evidence of such.

You're missing the point. This discussion is about the announcement that is the topic of this thread.

The survivability of the passenger is amazing engineering. That happened pre-announcement.

> But, suddenly, with GM's woes, he is taking these over the top measures.

There are no sudden movements in industry. That shield is probably being developed since the fires happened.

> This is what you get when a company/group/effort/community is lead by a "benevolent dictator" - someone with an absolutely pure vision of what they want their output to look like and the autonomy and strength to make it so no matter what.

Good explanation of Steve Jobs as well IMO

Unfortunately not. Apple's success was many times despite Jobs. He was indeed a visionary, but 'benevolent' is the precise wrong term for him.

Well, not to other people, no. "Benevolent" would be the last word I'd choose to describe him.

But I believe Jobs was "benevolent" to the product itself.

Yup. Benevolent in this case has nothing to do with the person's personal treatment of others, and everything to do with the person being willing to serve the company/state rather than herself. The conventional dictators in failed states simply extract as much value as they can, at the expense of everyone else. A benevolent dictator uses her power to advance the cause. The way she does it might be suspect, even unethical or wrong, but there's no denying that it's to further the cause rather than selfishly extract-and-dump.

> Yup. Benevolent in this case has nothing to do with the person's personal treatment of others, and everything to do with the person being willing to serve the company/state rather than herself

Jobs made billions. Your sentence is subsequently nonsense.

Allow me to clarify. The difference between a failed-state dictator and a benevolent one isn't how much money they have in their banks at the end of it, but how much they grew their nation/state/company/organization/brand in the process. I think it's fine for a CEO to be compensated in the billions if he does it by making his company billions more. It's a question of the relationship the CEO has with wealth- does she help to create it, or is she just siphoning it into her pockets?

It's not always clear, but I think it's an important thing to consider. The size of a CEO's bank account alone is insufficient information for a meaningful answer.

> The difference between a failed-state dictator and a benevolent one isn't how much money they have in their banks at the end of it, but how much they grew their nation/state/company/organization/brand in the process

Are you joking? Is this your serious view of reality? That dictators are fine as long as they make the country as a whole richer?

I'm not making any normative statements about what is fine and what is not fine. I don't claim to have such moral authority.

All I'm saying is that different dictators achieve different things. Some 'dictators' enrich their countries, and some 'dictators' impoverish it. Similarly, some 'democracies' enrich their countries, and some 'democracies' impoverish them.

That's all I'm saying.

I know that it is trendy on HN to hate on Jobs now (ok, that was spiteful, sorry) but I think no-one around here has the insight to judge what Steve Jobs what in the success of Apple.

Apple grew from zero to great; Jobs lead it. This is all the correlation I feel entitled to dare, did reading the biography grant you more? (Again spiteful. Sorry. So this is how aggressive comments are written...)

I didn't downvote you, but I have to wonder why you didn't just edit out your self-described spiteful bits, instead of leaving them in and pointing out that they are spiteful.

Also a good explanation of Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew

ahahah, visakanv, you smart guy! that's a nice comparison.

Capitalism without democracy is what we want!!! /s

Not sure what you're getting at. =\ If you have anything thoughtful to bring up, I'd love to hear it and we could have a constructive discussion.

Ok now I'm not sure anymore you were ironic. Do you really believe that Singapore is a positive example?

Yeah, I wasn't trying to be ironic. I think the comparison is reasonably apt. I think LKY's stewardship of Singapore mirrors Steve Jobs' of Apple and Elon Musk's of Tesla. I think all of them had a clear idea about what needed to be done, and they did it, in a way that could be described as obsessive or pathalogical. I'm trying to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

I think "positive example" is too vague a term. What do you mean by positive example?

It will be interesting to see how this approach changes when the money is a bit tighter ie the model c. You can't just go and add titanium reinforcing to a 30k$ car whenever something bad happens.

I think something to moderate Musk's thin skin wouldn't be a bad thing but I certainly agree that the absolute power to do what ever he wants coupled to his technical depth has and will continue to see him changing the transport industry.

It won't be as low to the ground most likely, so that won't be as much of a problem is my guess. If you've seen a Tesla, they're very low to the ground

Whether it's a product of how bad the airline experience is, or evidence of their greatness, I find Virgin's flying experience to be worlds away from the status quo.

Seen their safety video they play in lieu of the flight attendants talking? Great job.

I find those videos obnoxious after seeing them the first couple times.

Indeed; the video is a bit grating (it goes on forever, and the guy speaks so slowly). But the terminal experience, the quality of the interior of the planes themselves, the entertainment options are all miles above (pun not intended) the rest.

I agree completely, but I'm not so sure I like the idea of OTA updates... for an embedded system.

I mean, I can understand GP computing devices, but this is a bit concerning. Not just for security reasons, but because it dramatically decreases the control you have over the vehicle.

Maybe I'm beating up a dead horse here, but I'd much rather take my car into the shop and have it updated than have a packet sent out over LTE.

I'm pretty sure most people would rather never take their car into a shop, though.

As a Model S owner, the OTA updates are one of the my favorite parts of the vehicle. Going to a shop for service has always a really frustrating experience for me. Ironically, Tesla's service is so amazing that I don't mind it, yet I don't even need to go in!

They just added a feature in the 5.9 update that is pretty important to me (hill assist) and I've n

Do you have the option to be prompted before an update is installed, or is it a completely automated process?

Not a Tesla owner, but I believe it prompts. Lots of owners were not installing a specific update at one point that contained a feature they disliked. Not sure exactly how the "blocking" of the update happens though.

> I wonder what air travel would be like instead of the race-to-the-bottom experience it is now.

Comparing a niche (expensive) car manufacturer to major airlines isn't really an apt comparison. First, airliners are mass transit. Second, the airliners used to be very much nicer than they are now, it was market pressures that drove them to where they are (combined with the deregulation that was also due to people wanting to pay less).

A better comparison would be to compare Tesla to some of the General Aviation aircraft that are available. The [DA-40](http://www.diamondaircraft.com/aircraft/da40_xls/index.php) would be a reasonable starting point and could likely be afforded by the types of people who can afford a Tesla.

>I am picturing this same thing happening at Chrysler or GM and I think 9 out of 10 CEOs would just let the whole non-issue blow over and go back to business

Of course, because around here we're taught that executives from the Valley are smart, and everyone else are clueless "MBAs".

First, realize that it's a lot easier for Tesla to undertake changes like this, not because they are oh-so-awesome, but because they are operating on a scale a magnitude (or two) smaller than bigger auto companies.

Second, the larger companies do react to such problems, a specific case being the "exploding gas tanks" in the Crown Victoria's. If memory serves me correctly, in the early aughts it was discovered that Ford Crown Vic (and the same-model Mercury Grand Marquis') were exploding due to rear impact collisions. The problem was severely overblown in the media, and the reality was that the significant uptick in real-impact explosions of these models was due to the fact that these were cars used by police around the globe, and hence had a higher probability of being parked on the side of the road and, hence, a higher probability of being impacted from behind at high speed and sometimes exploding due to the gas tank being ruptured.

So, like Tesla, Ford tried to explain, "Look, if you take any car and park it on the side of the road and it gets slammed into, from behind, at high speed, it has a chance of exploding. These cars are parked on the road more often than other cars as emergency service vehicles".

But, nobody wanted to hear that (which I agree with), so Ford set about solving the problem through engineering. They ended up developing some sort of impact resistant gas tank bladder. Case closed.

So, TL;DR: try not to compare the issues that Tesla faces to those of much (much) larger companies. Tesla is not magical.

This is a great fix - they will blow apart the competition, fire past the doubters, burn the naysayers and smoke the market!