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Next Tesla CEO/COO
- Thread starter Buckminster
- Start date
henderrj
Active Member
I would argue that it will be neither of bean counter nor an engineer. Neither are particularly good at leading people (usually). It needs to be somebody who understands marketing and sales. The consumer facing side of the business is where Tesla has the most issues. It doesn't yet greatly affect their sales, but it will over time.
I.E. Trying to get to the 20 million goal won't work with the idea that you only have six to eight models of cars. Elon doesn't understand what people like. He's just lucked out in having Franz and a few other people who have made desirable cars. Eventually you need a lot more variation than he understands. Just because they aren't necessary from an engineering standpoint doesn't make it unnecessary from a sales standpoint. Tesla will become very stagnant in everything except technological innovation. And that is not enough to keep selling cars. (Or anything else - put some faces on those robots!)
I.E. Trying to get to the 20 million goal won't work with the idea that you only have six to eight models of cars. Elon doesn't understand what people like. He's just lucked out in having Franz and a few other people who have made desirable cars. Eventually you need a lot more variation than he understands. Just because they aren't necessary from an engineering standpoint doesn't make it unnecessary from a sales standpoint. Tesla will become very stagnant in everything except technological innovation. And that is not enough to keep selling cars. (Or anything else - put some faces on those robots!)
I agree 100%, their models change very little in design and I just don't see someone continually purchasing a Model 3 every 5-8 years. However, the software upgrades are very nice. I had a Model 3 for two years and with their current design I just couldn't stand to buy another one - they are too simplistic and have very little interior utility (small cup holders, no seat back pockets, etc.) to get excited over.
I went with a Model X, but in 5-8 years when I trade in if the X hasn't change interior design and/or exterior in a way that is appealing then I likely won't upgrade. Most automakers are refreshing interior/exterior significantly every 3 years. Enough so that makes the car feel like a brand new model.
Historically this is exactly the reason that General Motors eventually surpassed Ford in the 1920's-1930s. Ford, the man, was just like Elon, entirely engineering and cost focused and drove down the price of his cars substantially. It was as few models as possible in giant volumes, few variations few features. And Ford didn't care about opinions of anyone except himself. In his aging years, his son took over management and counteracted some of Henry's poor management decisions and attitudes. But the son died unexpectedly.
But eventually GM gave customers what they wanted, or thought they wanted and took over as US sales leader for decades.
Gigapress
Trying to be less wrong
For all his flaws, Elon Musk is the best leader, marketer and salesperson in modern business history, albeit in unorthodox ways. Drew has been leading for a long time as well, having built up the Tesla engineering organization with Elon and JB.
This is an unproven hypothesis and the data thus far on Tesla’s track record of dominating one market segment after another with a single vehicle model in each suggests that they probably can continue to do so.
In fact, 20M/yr would be about 20-25% global market share which Tesla has already achieved with just the S3XY lineup in some areas of the world that are wealthy and on the leading edge of EV adoption (SF Bay Area and Norway).
Ok
That was not luck. It was leadership. Franz did not randomly go to Tesla; he decided to go to Tesla. Franz has said he did it because he wanted to work on electric cars and fix the industry’s environmental problems, and only one company—led by Elon Musk—was doing that, at a time when the rest of the industry thought mass market electric vehicles were either never going to happen or that Tesla was a giant fraudulent scam.
Also, Franz also could’ve left to go somewhere else a long time ago if he didn’t like working for Elon at Tesla, but he’s still there.
I’m pretty sure he understands that Tesla will need to increase variation if sales growth stalls and customers are selecting other vehicle options from competitors for this reason. This is not rocket science. If being different is the main advantage competitors have over Tesla then it’d only be a matter of time for Tesla to leverage their engineering advantages on technology and cost to make better copies of those other vehicles.
Tesla Masterplan 3.0 is increasingly about energy and Drew has been leading the energy work. Tom is cool because he is super intelligent and can work super fast like Elon. He is great for building factories, but according to this chart that's not even the biggest investment for Tesla and they have already laid much of the foundation:
I think Drew has a pretty good understanding of the other parts also. As for AGI, Optimus, Dojo etc they are mostly a side project, like AWS is a side project(which happens to be >100% of their profit) to Amazon. He can let Ashook, Milan and Bannon run that show.
I think Drew has a pretty good understanding of the other parts also. As for AGI, Optimus, Dojo etc they are mostly a side project, like AWS is a side project(which happens to be >100% of their profit) to Amazon. He can let Ashook, Milan and Bannon run that show.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Spending more time on Tesla (like he said), interviewing new hires are consistent with Elon deciding to take up a product designer role and appointing a new CEO (like in Twitter). It is also consistent with company meeting this week - and live CNBC interview later.
It is possible he announces that he will step down as CEO at the end of 2023 ... but I give that a 50% chance now.
Posting "Obviously, bringing on Linda allows me to devote more time to Tesla, which is exactly what I will be doing!" instead of categorically writing "No - I'm not stepping down as CEO" or something similar.
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