There was never a plan

[goRt]

If you don't have a real leader running the company, someone that actually inspires people, you end up with a company just like everyone else: full of clock-punchers and PowerPoints.

For as clunky as Tesla is, their "ideas person" is the brightest star in the industry and is the reason they're shattering production records and lighting the auto industry on fire.

(oh boy, look, now I'm an Elon fanboy again. I was a hater just 5 minutes ago on Twitter, lol)

So we're agreed he could get someone who knows how to run a company to actually run the company.

 

[FalconFour]

So we're agreed he could get someone who knows how to run a company to actually run the company.

Surprising you could reach that conclusion from what I wrote.

No, the company is run just fine - look at them, shattering production expectations, raking in cash, 6-month wait list to get a new car. What incentive is there to change that?

Tesla without Elon would be like Apple without Steve Jobs. Flailing blindly into corporate inertia while more and more people cry foul over their uninspired, repetitive, non-innovative products. Relying on their entrenched user base (e.g. not offering a web/PC-compatible interface for Messages, like Android has had for years) to keep buying their stuff. FWIW: I recently switched to an iPhone 8+ after years of Android... they continue to do many things right, but visionary innovation isn't just "being right" - it's taking wild risks that inspire the engineers to build amazing things and deliver those promises and that vision.

There isn't a good argument other than "they should be more like Toyota" for Elon not being the face of Tesla. You want to support a company more Toyota-like? Get a Mirai and call it "innovative". Hell, for that matter, look at Nissan - the only reason the Leaf ever existed was because Ghosn was like "Yo, F it, we're doing an EV - now make it happen". That guy was... something else. Hauled off in a guitar case. That's more what I'd expect from a wild leader that gets stuff done... not the corporate golden-parachute suit and tie run of the mill boardroom excrement.

Last I heard from Nissan, the Ariya was unveiled at CES 2020 with a carbon-copy list of features hoping to match Tesla but nothing more, while acting like they invented every one of those things. Innovation, boardroom style.

 

[Microterf]

If you don't have a real leader running the company, someone that actually inspires people, you end up with a company just like everyone else: full of clock-punchers and PowerPoints.

For as clunky as Tesla is, their "ideas person" is the brightest star in the industry and is the reason they're shattering production records and lighting the auto industry on fire.

(oh boy, look, now I'm an Elon fanboy again. I was a hater just 5 minutes ago on Twitter, lol)

I agree with everything you said. MBA types will always hate Elon and people like Elon because he will never fit their mold. He gets it done and lets the engineers do the best engineering work they can. I believe that's why SpaceX and Tesla are the top 2 most attractive employers for engineering students.

Does him acting like a 12-year-old frustrate us a lot? Of course, but would Tesla/SpaceX without Elon be better than one with Elon? I highly doubt it. I always cite the countless posts on here that go something like "I bought FSD on my first 3 Teslas, but I'm not buying it again on my refreshed S/X until it is finished." Obviously build quality issues and other complaints can replace the FSD complaint, but the point is that they make the best cars for what we want currently. Could that change? Of course.

Personally, I think it's more likely that the real threat to Tesla will come from Lucid or Rivian or some other startup than existing OEMs. Someone that has the freedom to create an equally compelling product but also deliver great customer service.

 

[techlogik]

A plan??? What is that? Hmm...this is such a bizarre topic.

 

[Knightshade]

It also somewhat misunderstands Teslas philosophy.


They had a plan. It didn't work, so they changed it. That didn't work, so they changed it.

Each time try and be less wrong.

Versus Waymo that's been working on this for twice as long as Tesla but with the SAME plan and is still stuck in one tiny suburb in Arizona as far as consumer availability.

 

[goRt]

Surprising you could reach that conclusion from what I wrote.

No, the company is run just fine - look at them, shattering production expectations, raking in cash, 6-month wait list to get a new car. What incentive is there to change that?

Tesla without Elon would be like Apple without Steve Jobs. Flailing blindly into corporate inertia while more and more people cry foul over their uninspired, repetitive, non-innovative products. Relying on their entrenched user base (e.g. not offering a web/PC-compatible interface for Messages, like Android has had for years) to keep buying their stuff. FWIW: I recently switched to an iPhone 8+ after years of Android... they continue to do many things right, but visionary innovation isn't just "being right" - it's taking wild risks that inspire the engineers to build amazing things and deliver those promises and that vision.

There isn't a good argument other than "they should be more like Toyota" for Elon not being the face of Tesla. You want to support a company more Toyota-like? Get a Mirai and call it "innovative". Hell, for that matter, look at Nissan - the only reason the Leaf ever existed was because Ghosn was like "Yo, F it, we're doing an EV - now make it happen". That guy was... something else. Hauled off in a guitar case. That's more what I'd expect from a wild leader that gets stuff done... not the corporate golden-parachute suit and tie run of the mill boardroom excrement.

Last I heard from Nissan, the Ariya was unveiled at CES 2020 with a carbon-copy list of features hoping to match Tesla but nothing more, while acting like they invented every one of those things. Innovation, boardroom style.

Well as someone whose career was turnarounds (without an MBA) I can confirm musky is not the person for the role - needing Tesla owners to move cars around in the car park when M3 production ramp up began (in those temporary tents), the fiasco of share price manipulation (20m*2, more to come), FSD hyping

 

[dckiwi]

It also somewhat misunderstands Teslas philosophy.


They had a plan. It didn't work, so they changed it. That didn't work, so they changed it.

Each time try and be less wrong.

Versus Waymo that's been working on this for twice as long as Tesla but with the SAME plan and is still stuck in one tiny suburb in Arizona as far as consumer availability.

OP here - my point was not that they didn't have a plan to actually *solve* FSD. I totally agree that their ability to fast-fail and adapt is fantastic and the only way to tackle a problem like this.

My point was that they didn't develop a much SIMPLER plan - how to roll out these new features to customers, whenever they might be ready.

 

[Knightshade]

Well as someone whose career was turnarounds (without an MBA) I can confirm musky is not the person for the role - needing Tesla owners to move cars around in the car park when M3 production ramp up began (in those temporary tents), the fiasco of share price manipulation (20m*2, more to come), FSD hyping

Yeah he's driven the company into the gro^h^h^h 6th largest company in the world by market cap. What an idiot!

Of special note in your post:

the fiasco of share price manipulation (20m*2, more to come),

Did you mean the 20 million dollar SEC fine?

Which Musk, in response to, bought 20 million dollars in TSLA stock.

Which today is worth vastly more than he paid for it.

Yeah... "fiasco"

I do not think that word means what you think it means

 

[EVNow]

There was never a plan.

You know who had a solid plan - Apple for their EV.

How are you liking your Apple EVs ... let us know.

 

[dckiwi]

You know who had a solid plan - Apple for their EV.

How are you liking your Apple EVs ... let us know.

Congratulations for completely missing the point of my original post.

 

[tomas]

There was a plan, but not everyone likes the plan.

1 year, no accidents. Plan is working. FSD beta is improving very quickly.

Agree, but that’s not a plan, it is a milestone.

 

[tomas]

Well as someone whose career was turnarounds (without an MBA) I can confirm musky is not the person for the role - needing Tesla owners to move cars around in the car park when M3 production ramp up began (in those temporary tents), the fiasco of share price manipulation (20m*2, more to come), FSD hyping

Which direction did you turn ‘em?

 

[powertoold]

Agree, but that’s not a plan, it is a milestone.

I'm not saying I agree with Tesla's plan, but to go a year without a major accident and/or regulators banning FSD beta is quite an accomplishment. I wouldn't have released FSD beta when Tesla did in Oct 2020. It was mind blowing at the time, but it wasn't ready for lay people (IMO). Somehow, Tesla has gotten away with it until now, and FSD beta is vastly better now than when they released it.

 

[gearchruncher]

but to go a year without a major accident and/or regulators banning FSD beta is quite an accomplishment.

You're acting like the whole population of 1.5M Teslas were using "FSD" "Beta". 71 people have it that are not under employee NDA.
It's a super low bar to not have 71 people get into an accident for a year.

There are about 330 collisions per 100 million miles driven in the USA. 300,000 miles between accidents. If the average driver does 12K per year, you only expect 1:25 drivers to have a collision in a given year. But there is no way "FSD" was driven 12K miles per year by the average youtuber. Let's say 2000 miles. That's 151 years between accidents in a population of 71.

It's completely statistically irrelevant that they had no accidents. All it proves is that it as a system (driver + algorithm) isn't a complete disaster, but it doesn't really tell you how it will behave in a larger population, nor tell you the quality of FSD at all, given those drivers were supposedly the hand picked "safest drivers," (Elon's words) and the drivers are the safety backup to the system. We still have no idea how FSD will work when given to average drivers at scale (and we still won't anytime soon).

I wouldn't have released FSD beta when Tesla did in Oct 2020.

LOL at FSD beta being "released" in October 2020. Keep re-writing that past. Why not say it was released in October 2016? There was a video back then too.

 

[linux-works]

I get that it's a really long video, and for someone like you who is already convinced on your stance, you don't have a lot of patience to watch the video. But... if you were to just put yourself in a neutral stance just for the sake of argument, and watch this video as a way to learn more about Starship, you'll find that Elon knows his stuff and is the decision maker for lots of what they are doing.

sure, whatever.

ceo's can spout off figures. proves absolutely nothing.

but you guys already are a fan of his, so I'll throw your comment right back at you. nothing we could say could change YOUR mind.

I know that to think of a ceo as an 'engineer' is well beyond absurd, but hey, this is the TMC and so its par for the course.

 

[Knightshade]

sure, whatever.

ceo's can spout off figures. proves absolutely nothing.

Kinda like you spouting off more and more evidence you didn't bother to watch the video proving you're wrong?

He's not "spouting off figures"

he's discussing in complex detail the actual physics and engineering of their spacecraft.

He's explaining why, in detail, specific things are the way they are.

I know that to think of a ceo as an 'engineer' is well beyond absurd

I'm deeply sorry you find facts absurd.

So much so you can't invest a few dozen minutes to learn them and correct your own factually wrong claims about this particular CEO.

 

[Tesomega]

Please point to another company that has done better and achieved more than Tesla.

So much these days is utter hogwash. Highly-scripted and just empty marketing with little to no substance. Tesla and SpaceX are the completely opposite.

When Tesla was small they had the bandwidth for ~individual customer care, but those days are long gone. There are >2M Tesla owners and tens of thousands new additional owners monthly. It's projected to be >100k monthly new owners within a year or so. All of this is going to be achieved by prioritizing substance over marketing.

This is absurd!. I don't give a dam what other companies have done and who else made multi-billions on selling stuff that does not exist. What matters to me is if the company keeps it promises - I paid money for a product (expected to do a Coast-Coast end of 2017), deliver the product.

They have changed approaches on how they will deliver and In my case Tesla has not delivered (even a Beta - MCU1/AP3) "."

 

[EVNow]

I know that to think of a ceo as an 'engineer' is well beyond absurd

Can you tell me who is an engineer ? For eg. am I one - if all I do is some high level architecture for software ?

You seem to think ceo can't be an "engineering lead" or "lead engineer". You probably think only people who are individual contributors who directly work on engineering tasks are engineers. People who lead them and make technical decisions are not. Rookie mistake.

 

[doozenberg]

Gotta hand it to him. Watching him talk about literal rocket science entirely from self-taught knowledge and experience over the decades is impressive. He was coding PayPal with zero rocket knowledge before starting SpaceX. Impressive for anyone, let alone what he’s achieved with Tesla.

And if you want to see for yourself how technical Musk can be, just watch this video (jump past the intro fluff). He knows his stuff.