

An Electric Car Loses Its Juice - bdfh42
http://www.newsweek.com/id/169161

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marvin
How can a troll get work as a Newsweek reporter?

You can start complaining when Tesla starts begging for a government bailout
after producing shitty products for 20 years. In fact, Detroit does so badly
that just about any advice would be an improvement. Developing a car like this
would have cost them a billion dollars with the same number of delays, except
they wouldn't have come up with the idea in the first place.

Let's not forget all the other projects that are "late and over budget, has
gone through loads of redesigns, still has bugs". Just about any big project
these days are. Construction projects, government restructurings, industrial
design projects..it just happens that very much of what happens today is
related to software.

Best of all, the conclusion doesn't match the derisive tone of the article. It
actually sounds like he's praising the project in the last sentence.

~~~
rflrob
"But the past two years have been rocky for Tesla, which first announced it
would build a big factory in New Mexico, then said it would instead build in
San Jose, after California dangled incentives to stay in the state."

Oh no! They took advantage of incentives to change their plans.

~~~
justindz
Yeah, I read that and was unable to understand how this was un-intelligent.
Announce something, change plans without committing any work in exchange for
payola. Sounds smart to me.

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Agathos
_a classic Silicon Valley product—it's late and over budget, has gone through
loads of redesigns, still has bugs and, at $109,000, costs more than
originally planned._

Ugh. Is that what we're calling "classic" now? The real classic is still two
guys in a garage with no schedule and a drop-dead budget ceiling in the
thousands.

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Xichekolas
_"I'm very unhappy about what's happened to my company" under Elon, says
Eberhard, who still owns about 3 percent of Tesla. "I think he's a terrible
CEO." Elon Musk responds that "Martin is the worst individual I've ever had
the displeasure of working with."_

Wow, don't hold back guys.

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mattmaroon
I do feel like Tesla is working on the wrong car. The future of the electric
car is based on achieving cost-competitiveness with gasoline. I'm much more
excited about $25k electric sedans, or something like the Chevy Volt.

~~~
gcheong
In the long run yes, but I think they did the right thing to focus on the high
end sports market initially. It gets more attraction from the media and
creates brand awareness. It's a cool project that attracts the best
engineering talent. It allows them to experiment with and push the technology
far beyond what would be needed for an every day car with more room for early
failure, and perhaps more understanding from early adopters. If they are able
to execute on their plan, when regular folks are thinking of purchasing their
first fully electric vehicles I think the Tesla name will have a more positive
association in people's minds than the Chevy volt.

~~~
natrius
High end cars also have much higher profit margins. To make money with an
affordable car, you need to sell a lot of cars, which takes a lot of
infrastructure. As a new company, you don't have that infrastructure yet. Why
not sell more profitable cars while you ramp up?

