
In deep with Tesla CEO Elon Musk - christiansmith
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/09/07/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-q-and-a/
======
hinathan

      It was a difficult thing that was made more difficult
      by one of our investors who was just an absolute
      bastard, nobody should ever take money from them.
    

Anybody know whom he's referring to? Pretty harsh.

~~~
confluence
From Crunchbase here are my likely sources of bad investor groups (I've
excluded individuals and Google):

> _Compass Technology Partners 4 investments - from the start (probably not).

Valor Equity Partners 3 investments - from the start (probably not)._

> _JP Morgan 2 - maybe (unlikely)

Technology Venture Partners US 1 - (unlikely)_

> _Capricorn Management 2 - maybe (probably not)

VantagePoint Capital Partners 2 - maybe

Draper Fisher Jurvetson 2 - maybe_

Now it seems that Musk didn't expect the investor to act like a douche. So I
doubt it's JPMorgan (who are have been historically known to be douches).

It was probably one of the VC funds trying to squeeze Musk on TSLA during the
GFC - a firm with whom he has dealt with before. I doubt that it was US tech
ventures - since they don't have much weight.

It was probably one of the VC firms. I doubt it was the Europeans (once again
not much weight).

So it's either DFJ or Vantage. I remember Sameer Bhatia (of hotmail fame)
stating that DFJ loves a good squeeze (they tried to screw him by telling
other VCs to back off) - so I wouldn't put it past them.

Vantage point has been known to manipulate deals and are probably the most
likely along with DFJ.

This is all speculation - someone else help me narrow it down?

Tesla Investors: <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tesla-motors>

DFJ: <http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/Draper+Fisher+Jurvetson>

Vantage Point:
[http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/VantagePoint+Venture+Par...](http://www.thefunded.com/funds/show/VantagePoint+Venture+Partners)

~~~
wololo
am i missing something, or does crunchbase have the investors wrong?

ie, that it was Technology Partners
(<http://technologypartners.com/cleantech.html>), and not Technology Venture
Partners US (<http://tvp.com/Investments.aspx> has no mention of Tesla), who
made the investment (not to be confused with Compass Technology Partners who
also invested). oi, names...

<http://gigaom.com/cleantech/who-wins-in-the-tesla-ipo/>

------
zachalexander
Who am I to criticize Elon Musk, but several things in this interview seemed
puzzling to me, and concerning if I were an investor in Tesla. And I'm not
even talking about the explicit discussions of their corporate finances.

> ... deliver cars to customers who have been waiting for a long time

If the demand for Tesla cars at a given price point exceeds their supply,
shouldn't they be charging more?

> Q: Have you had cars come back from customers, where you noticed a mistake
> ... A: No.

If the CEO is inspecting every single car, sending lots of them back for (what
in some cases sound like) extremely minor tweaks, despite the fact that they
haven't had any real complaints about quality, while potential customers are
on long waiting lists -- might the CEO's well-intentioned perfectionism be
hurting them?

I mean, it's great to see someone obsessed about quality, but I want to see
Tesla turn a profit and become an established force in the market, and this
article makes me continue to wonder if they'll make it.

~~~
rogerbinns
He is doing the right thing. They start out low volume and are ramping up.
Little issues that are ignored can end up being really big issues (and
expensive) once combined with all the other little issues at higher volumes.
Additionally every single one of them can be learned from. Maybe you need to
tweak the design to improve things, maybe a new machine will help, perhaps a
supplier is having issues which will blow up as volume ramps.

When you are doing manufacturing there is something they call the learning
curve which is roughly the rate at which efficiency improves. The more
attention and learning you can do earlier on, the steeper that curve can be
which will also affect your profitability.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effects>

For example current estimates are that Boeing are losing $100m on each 787
manufactured. They expect that their learning curve will bring them into
profitability down the road, which much debate as to how steep the curve is,
whether it will be better than prior planes (eg 777), and if Boeing was the
capital to keep this up.

------
MarkMc
This is a great article, full of interesting details you wouldn't get from an
interview with the CEO of Ford or Toyota. The 'bastard investor'; the knight-
in-shining-armour who rescued the company; the big-name suppliers who 'can't
get their shit together'; Musk's personal attention to detail and quality of
every single car. If he writes an autobiography I'll be the first to buy it.

------
wazoox
> _But if you work for Tesla, the minimum is really a 50-hour week and there
> are times when it'll be 60- to 80-hour weeks._

And we recently saw statistics here on HN proving that working more than 40
hours/week for long durations is counter-productive. Alas, I'm sorry to see
Elon Musk falling for this "tough men work hard" nonsense.

~~~
shazow
I suspect that people who expect and look forward to working +50 hours/week
would perform much better than people who are guilted into it. Also sounds
like they're well compensated for it.

I liked his "special forces" analogy.

~~~
wazoox
People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to
fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever you
want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired.

Amphetamines were invented for the military and particularly the special ops,
mind you. As you know they come with their problems, too.

So please stop bullshitting yourself. As much as I like and respect Elon Musk,
when he says this he's full of shit, plain and simple. Asking mechanics to
work long hours building cars is terrible management. No wonder he finds
defaults on each and every car.

~~~
shazow
> People who want to be pilots love flying. Nonetheless they're not allowed to
> fly more than a number of hours, because passion, motivation and whatever
> you want won't prevent you from messing up when you're tired.

Correct me if I'm wrong but quick googling shows that pilots are restricted to
100 hours of flight time per month by the FAA. That's 25 hours per week.
Perhaps flight time is not exactly comparable to building cars time?

> So please stop bullshitting yourself.

I don't appreciate that.

I have friends who can eat twice the calories each meal that I have and don't
gain a pound. Some of them sleep 5 hours per night and they're perfectly
rested. Some of my friends spend 60 hours a week at work and still always feel
behind.

Turns out that not everyone is built the same. I can't have a slice of pizza
every day. I need at least 8.5 hours of sleep per night to function. I can
accomplish as much work in 30 hours as some of my peers take 60 hours to do.

I can't sustain long work hours unless I'm working for myself, but not
everyone is built the same.

~~~
wazoox
> _Perhaps flight time is not exactly comparable to building cars time?_

It's not comparable in the consequences of you messing up because you're tired
(150 deaths vs a misaligned rubber joint that leaks). However the underlying
principle remains; when people work too much, they get tired and they makes
many more errors. So it Musk wants absolutely perfect cars, he must gives more
time off to the workers. Basic common sense supported by experience and
scientific studies.

> _> So please stop bullshitting yourself.

I don't appreciate that._

Sorry for the formulation, it wasn't targeting you, but this quite US-specific
mix of protestant and macho ethos of hard work pushed to the absurd. Many,
many people are dead sure _they_ can work so much more than the next guy and
stay efficient.

> _I have friends who can eat twice the calories each meal that I have and
> don't gain a pound. Some of them sleep 5 hours per night and they're
> perfectly rested. Some of my friends spend 60 hours a week at work and still
> always feel behind._

Yes, and some people can drink a bottle of wine everyday and never get
cirrhosis, etc. Of course we're all different, and there probably are people
that can work 60 (or maybe 80) hours a week and don't be tired and
inefficient.

However you can't count on that, thus it's not reasonable to build a business
model betting that you'll only get absolutely exceptional people with nearly
super-human abilities in your team. Particularly when the number of employees
is in the thousands (from the article Tesla currently has 2800 employees).

------
sixQuarks
I think Elon Musk has surpassed Steve Jobs as the best entrepreneur of the
century (IMHO)

~~~
autophil
Oh my gosh no. Elon hasn't changed the world anywhere NEAR as much as Steve.

~~~
ehsanu1
Here's what I think everyone can agree with: we don't want conversations on HN
that amount to pissing contests between fans of different celebrity figures.
There is little insight to be had here.

------
ComputerGuru
I must say, I've been on the wall about the Model S, being a hard-core auto
enthusiast and really loving my gears (e.g. I only drive stick shift). But
this interview, the revelation that Elon Musk is out there personally
inspecting each and every car (well, more or less), that the guy designing my
cars is even more of an anal-retentive OC-freak than I am who won't laugh and
scoff at me like the guy at the Audi dealership did when I pointed out the
flaws in the cockpit of the RS5 (which I consider to have one of the best-
engineered cockpits of consumer cars, being both practical and well-designed)
has really changed my mind.

~~~
mahyarm
You must see the model s in person. It's so well designed, I wish you could
buy one for $30k new as a hybrid version. Just get rid of the front trunk.

~~~
LockeWatts
Having a hybrid version of the Model S would completely defeat the purpose of
the design.

~~~
mahyarm
I'm saying it's well designed as a car cabin. Not about it's propulsion
technology.

------
vette982
It's amazing just how real Elon Musk is -- he doesn't sugar coat answers and
isn't furtive when describing Tesla's many weaknesses, unlike most other
automaker CEOs.

~~~
Causalien
The most important thing is that the stock doesn't fall even when he says
these things that shouldn't be said. Indicating approval of his style. Or how
insignificance it is compared to missing delivery target.

------
guimarin
I really enjoy this article and hope tesla succeeds, but I am always turned
off by plug-in EVs. Say for example, he does achieve 30 minutes charging for 3
hours driving. And say I drive from SF to LA. after about 3 hours, there is
this one in n out station, that everyone stops at, are we going to have 20
superchargers at that station? in off hours of the day, those will not all be
utilized, thus lose money. It seems like a terribly inefficient way to power
cars. Even gas stations get lines on 5 and 101, and it only takes like 3
minutes there. EVs will always be niche until you can 'refuel' in 3 minutes or
less, and you can't do that with 'chargers' because people will die. Swappable
packs is the only way to go, and I hope that Tesla is at least thinking of
that.

~~~
mkramlich
When there's a much smaller number of electric cars you can get away with a
much smaller number of recharging/swapping stations and "pumps". They can
incrementally add more stations as more electric cars are operating. Swapping
stations would probably take a greater real estate footprint and require more
human staffing than a charging station, which can be fairly small and
automated (picture a coin-operated tire air machine). I would not be surprised
if somebody at Tesla has already put R&D time into the idea of not only
setting up a swapping station, but also automating it and designing a car
model that works well with it. But it takes time, and devil in the details. As
Elon (or any good engineer would say), there are a lot of constraints and
trade-offs involved. For now, for launch, they're confident a network of
roadside charging stations will suffice for the number of vehicles they
expect, at least the first few years, and for the _kind_ of buyer who will be
buying early -- folks that have the most wealth and/or most want the shiny
and/or most are about having an electric car rather than having everything
work exactly like a gas car. As Elon has said too, I think, they'll have to
deliver different features and tradeoffs in long run to be able to sell to a
broader mix of customer types. But never let the perfect be the enemy of the
better than what you have today. Sell to a certain customer segment. Ship
product. Then later expand to other segments with different products. They
could launch with what they have now, then later create new models or variants
designed to allow battery swapping. That is not mutually exclusive with the
charging approach, strategy-wise.

Also since they're following a "we only build what people have actually
ordered" approach, they also have the opportunity to forecast, much more
accurately, where there's going to be increased demand for charging/swapping
stations. But regardless, they can do the cow pathing technique. (Or MIT
sidewalk laying technique.) Watch where the cows/students go. Add sidewalks
there. More students/cows? Widen paths or add more paths. Put one station in
each major city. Add more stations and more nodes to match demand. Add
stations along journey mid-points (bisections). Rinse, repeat, scale up.

~~~
guimarin
I disagree. I've modeled it. If 500+ of these cars go from SF to LA on a
weekend, it's going to be utter chaos. One pump at one service station
servicing 500+ cars is barely a win on the SF to LA route for gasoline, so
it's beyond incredulous to think that charging stations that take at least 10
times longer are going to change that or make the economics even remotely
desirable from a business standpoint.

I am a firm believer in "the medium is the message." For 15 years before the
iPhone, Microsoft parroted your comment above almost exactly about smartphones
and tablets, needing to hit "critical mass". It didn't happen. They had a
shitty UI, and people didn't want to develop for it, and so people didn't buy
their hardware.

Simply. Batteries are very expensive. They are not going down in price like
transitors, not even linearly with a reasonable slope. We are already at
'economies of scale,' due to the electronics industry. ( you can think of the
electric packs, as N MBP batteries strung together ) Batteries will always be
the most expensive part of the car ( it's like buying 80% of all the gasoline
your car will ever need when you purchase it initially, rather than
incrementally over the life-time of the car ). Charging stations are both too
dangerous and too expensive to implement for even 1% of vehicles to be
electric. It will be like parking spaces, but much more expensive. The only
solution for EVs, on technology even on the horizon, is battery exchange
systems.

I believe Elon could do it, if anyone can, but not with how Tesla is set up
now.

------
srik
> Usually, when people say it's the all-new blah-blah-blah, whatever car,
> that's bullshit. 40 percent of that car, if not 60 percent of that car, if
> coming from some parts bin. In our case, two percent is coming from the
> parts bin.

I was definitely not aware of this practice. Recycling material is one thing,
but reusing parts is something customerss need to know about, especially if
it's about 40-60 % like Musk claims.

~~~
mkramlich
I'm pretty sure he didn't mean recycling previously owned/installed/used/worn
parts. I think he meant using previously designed parts --- parts that are
components because they have been used in other models before. In other words
he's saying most of the parts in this Tesla are debutting with this model, for
the first time, anyway. So there's going to be teething issues. R&D rather
than pure heads-down production.

~~~
srik
Oops, misunderstood that. Got to work on my English. Thanks for clarifying :)

------
hastur
The "Occupy Mars" t-shirt is awesome! :D

~~~
spatten
I agree. Anyone know if there's anywhere I can order one? A quick google
search turns up a much lamer version[1].

[1]:
[http://www.cafepress.ca/+occupy_mars_34_sleeve_tshirt_dark,6...](http://www.cafepress.ca/+occupy_mars_34_sleeve_tshirt_dark,684679589)

~~~
eluos
Will someone please find out where we can get that Occupy Mars T-Shirt?!!!

