Elon Musk Writes About Living With P1

[Zak]

Hi All,

My name is Zak Edson. I work at Tesla Motors. I thought you might be interested to know that Elon has written a blog about his first month owning P1.

Tesla Motors - think

Regards,
Zak

 

[doug]

Thanks for the head's up, Zak.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I still think "fastest 50-70" is a tad overstated when they are handicapping 150MPH+ ICE supercars in "top gear". If you were willing to drive a McLaren F1 in 3rd or 4th gear on the freeway I don't think the Roadster would stand a chance. But yes, the noise and fuel consumption of an ICE supercar would leave some highway cruisers at a disadvantage stuck in 5th or 6th gear.

The Roadster has enough advantages as it is without having to resort to overstating.

Ha, ha did you express that at the blog or give a PM to Elon? You just might want to do that before that keeps getting quoted. "Fastest top gear 50-70" is more appropriate. It will just be embarrassing if someone corrects him or something after it gets spread too much.

 

[TEG]

Ha, ha did you express that at the blog or give a PM to Elon? You just might want to do that before that keeps getting quoted. "Fastest top gear 50-70" is more appropriate. It will just be embarrassing if someone corrects him or something after it gets spread too much.

I had written about that here before, so I didn't feel the need to add another comment to his new blog. The fact that he qualified it this time with "in 2007" suggests that he might have even read my comment here. The Roadster is really responsive at any speed, and not needing to hunt for a downshift will make it "seize the opportunity" that other cars would have missed. Touting its' highway passing behavior is very appropriate, I just take issue with saying it offers the proven best acceleration possible compared to other cars with many times the horsepower. The Roadster is going to make it embarrassingly easy for anyone to out-drive most others on the road. However you could someday go up against a real racecar driver in a real supercar that could take you on.
Street racing your neighbor's Corvette doesn't prove a whole lot. When someone gets them on the track with professional drivers against Ferraris and Porsches then we would know about the real potential.

 

[WarpedOne]

Elon:

As far as criticisms, my biggest concern is that I don’t think our seats are comfortable enough. I’ve asked the engineering team to work on an upgrade right away. It will be provided at no cost to any customers that receive the existing seat design before the upgrade is ready. The back curvature and side support need to be improved. We are also looking at offering custom tailored seats, matched to each customer’s height, width, leg length, etc., as an optional upgrade.

When ever will this man be satisfied?

I sure hope, never

 

[vfx]

Elon:

Quote:
As far as criticisms, my biggest concern is that I don’t think our seats are comfortable enough. I’ve asked the engineering team to work on an upgrade right away. It will be provided at no cost to any customers that receive the existing seat design before the upgrade is ready. The back curvature and side support need to be improved. We are also looking at offering custom tailored seats, matched to each customer’s height, width, leg length, etc., as an optional upgrade.
For all my gripes with Elon, this does impress me. First he made the public call about "real" headlights and absorbed the price to make the Roadster not look like a kit car.

Now with 20 plus prototypes on the road with hundreds of thousands of miles on them driven by a range of experts, Elon drives casually the car for a month and has the vision to not only see that the seats need work but that they need to be changed before the cars go into production and that he will not sell a car with them.

He is an amazing man with a focus for doing thing right and backing it with his wallet. I may not like his decisions re the company but love the decisions that affect the car.

 

[Cobos]

Yes I can agree that all these changes will make a better car, but as they say. Best is the enemy of good. They need to at a certain point say this is the production version, any changes goes in the 2009 model. Changing the seats probably wont delay the car much, but at some point they need to ramp up the production, even if Elon can pay for the delays. If Think's 4 door sedan really does arrive in 2011 in great numbers then Tesla should have their sedan done.
Cobos

 

[raymond]

Elon:

For all my gripes with Elon, this does impress me. [...] Now with 20 plus prototypes on the road with hundreds of thousands of miles on them driven by a range of experts, Elon drives casually the car for a month and has the vision to not only see that the seats need work but that they need to be changed before the cars go into production and that he will not sell a car with them.

He is an amazing man with a focus for doing thing right and backing it with his wallet. I may not like his decisions re the company but love the decisions that affect the car.

Having just read the blog this is exactly what I wanted to say. Knowing the Elise seats I didn't think a small upgrade would make for proper seats. I had already factored in installing custom seats in my budget! Too bad my gut feeling was right. Very bold of Elon to repair this at such a late state.

 

[TEG]

...a focus for doing things right and backing it with his wallet. ... love the decisions that affect the car.

There is that whole "Eating your own dogfood" thing. If the ultimate decision makers have to like and live with the product it leads to superior products.

 

[malcolm]

I just wish Elon gets one of his tin cans into orbit so that he can drop the whole NASA-envy thing, sell SpaceX and get back to working on electrical energy storage systems.

Improve capacitors / buy a controlling share in EEStor and give them a kick / whatever.

 

[Michael]

After reading Elon's posting, I couldn't help thinking that just because the seats are not the most comfortable for Elon, doesn't mean that the seats aren't the most comfortable for many others. What I hope happens is that Elon gets a seat developed that is adjustable for a range of body types. It would then make sense to offer that seat to current owners (perhaps at wholesale price). I would definitely vote against anything changing which delays putting the vehicle in production, unless the change is safety related. Everything else could most likely be offered as optional upgrades to existing customers. Let's 'get er done'!