
Tesla posts big loss, cuts production of Models X and S to catch up on Model 3 - kgwgk
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/come-tesla-earnings-tsla-195239276.html
======
chollida1
Since this came out as part of the Tesla earnings, here's my recap from their
earnings release and call....

\- Tesla will be late getting up to 5,000 units a week of Model 3. It will
happen at the end of Q1 instead of the end of this year. The bottleneck is
batteries.

\- Some lines are at only 500 cars a week. Namely the battery pack assembly,
body shop welding and final vehicle assembly.

\- The $2.92 a share loss was much bigger than the $2.27 analysts expected.

\- The company burned $1.4 billion and has $3.5 billion in cash. Raising money
shouldn't be necessary.

\- Automotive gross margins fell from 28% to about 18% and will slip to 15%
next quarter.

\- Auto revenue grew 10% to $2.4 billion as sales of Model S and X grew.
Revenue is at risk, though. Tesla will divert resources from Model S and X to
the Model 3.

\- Tesla didn't say much about China. The company added a supercharger station
with 50 chargers in Shanghai, but no word on a new plant.

\- Musk expects to spend $1 billion on capital expenditures next quarter.
That's consistent with expectations for ramp up for Model 3.

\- Tesla installed 109 megawatts of ``energy generation systems'' in the third
quarter. It acknowledges this is an underwhelming figure: ``the lower
deployments are in large part a result of deliberately de-emphasizing
commercial and industrial solar energy projects with low profit and limited
cash generation.''

As to the battery delay.... Tesla says it's the suppliers fault. "key
elements" of the battery module assembly had to be taken over and redesigned,
Musk says.

 __EDIT __

\- most importantly, Elon has moved his desk to the giga factory as that is
where the largest bottleneck is.

~~~
williamscales
_" key elements" of the battery module assembly had to be taken over and
redesigned, Musk says._

Tesla seems to be taking the opposite approach to Apple here. In my
observation, Apple drives its suppliers extremely hard to achieve the quality
it requires. Tesla, on the other hand, is too eager to bring any sundry part
in house (e.g. car seats). Apple's approach appears to work in that it pushes
suppliers to do what's necessary. I worry that Tesla, having already bitten
off a large bite to chew, is inviting too much distraction that will, in the
long run, not put Tesla in a stronger position (there is a reason most
automobile manufacturers outsource their seats after all).

~~~
btian
Then how do you explain Apple making their own SoC?

~~~
dzdt
It is a part of their core product differentiation. They can get better
performance and longer battery life by owning the hardware design and OS
design and being good at it.

Apple in particular understood lomg before competitors that battery life is an
extremely important real world metric. Doing their own SOC helps them optimise
that.

~~~
peoplewindow
Seems like revisionism to me? Before the iPhone/smartphones in general,
battery life on a mobile phone of a week was not uncommon. One of the first
criticisms of the iPhone was that you had to charge it every night. I'm not
sure I'd say that they had some unique insight into the importance of battery
life.

~~~
sah2ed
Not revisionism. Prior to the launch of the iPhone, "smartphones weren't very
smart" to quote Steve Jobs.

Anyway, you are comparing the battery life of touch-based smartphones with its
non-touch predecessor which isn't a fair comparison. Besides, mobile phones
that could last for a week from a single charge are definitely not considered
smartphones, those are feature phones.

------
ericabiz
SeekingAlpha predicted this a few weeks ago:
[https://seekingalpha.com/article/4114125-will-tesla-zero-
mon...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4114125-will-tesla-zero-month)

"Leading up to the end of September, we saw new-high Model 3 VIN numbers in
the wild almost every other day, culminating in number 521.

But since the beginning of October, nothing. I can’t find a single one above
521 with VIN picture evidence on any forum.

It’s unlikely to end up this way, but the sole evidence we have to date is
this: Tesla is on track to deliver zero Model 3 units in October.

Of course, I don’t believe it will be exactly zero. However, it’s no longer an
impossibility. It’s looking like my previous estimate of 240 units may be way
too high."

Tesla says today they produced only 260 vehicles in October--and it's unlikely
very many of those got all the way to end users!

From SeekingAlpha October 17: "At this stage, I'll continue to roll the dice
one more time in favor of betting that for a third full month, the Chevrolet
Bolt EV will out-sell the Tesla Model 3 in the U.S. - and probably by a very
wide margin, along the lines or 10:1 or more. Maybe even 100:1 or an infinite
margin."

Even if you consider Elon Musk a sort of demigod (as much of the tech industry
seems to), the leap from 260 vehicles a month--which indicates the vehicles
are still being made mostly by hand--to 5,000 a week is going to be incredibly
difficult to make in just a few short months.

~~~
revelation
One or another amateur writer on that site predicts the bankruptcy of Tesla
every other week. Even a stopped clock is right once a day.

~~~
csours
It turns out that if you have billions in cheap funding, you can keep doing
things the wrong way for quite some time.

~~~
Smaug123
"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

~~~
rrhd
Except in this case it's more than other way. The market is fine, it's tesla
causing issues.

~~~
Smaug123
Sorry, I thought the analogy was clear, but evidently it wasn't :) "Tesla can
remain irrational longer than the investors can continue to bet against it".
More of a flippant remark than anything.

------
dogruck
As an engineer who has zero investment in Tesla, I truly hope they overcome
this setback. Simultaneously, I know from experience that failure is a real
possibility.

At this point, it’s nice to have the additional transparancy into the current
production bottleneck.

~~~
colordrops
What would failure look like? Worst case outcome to me seems that they would
just take longer to get to their goals rather than not achieve them at all.
They have enough money in the bank and no unsolved technical issues - it's not
black hole physics. I mean they've delivered cars already. They just are
slower than expected at scaling up.

~~~
selectodude
Their burn rate is incredible. If they run out of money and nobody is there to
give them more, they file for bankruptcy.

~~~
aquadrop
They burn it that fast because it brings more money in the future and they
have funds reserve. Their net loss is getting smaller proportionally to the
revenue constantly. They could stop capital investments any moment and be
profitable, but that would mean much slower growth later.

~~~
jklp
Not sure that's the case as looking at this graph from The Verge, their
revenues are growing but their losses are also getting larger proportionally
to their revenues.

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/1/16593582/tesla-
model-3-pr...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/1/16593582/tesla-
model-3-production-q3-largest-quarterly-loss)

------
pwinnski
The first two zones of a four-zone process to produce battery packs are being
completely reworked, and this is something they only found out about after
they were already failing to deliver on promised production goals?

I've mis-estimated a lot of things in my career, so I'm trying to be
sympathetic, but it seems like someone with production line experience should
have been able to test individual parts of the production line before
committing to thousands of units per month.

~~~
sixQuarks
As much as I'm a fan of Elon, the Model 3 production always had me worried
when they kept having to replace senior production and battery executives in
the run up. I'm still very bullish on Tesla long-term, but I think the Model 3
will be a fiasco unless some sort of miracle happens, and we haven't even
gotten into initial quality problems that may arise once enough units are in
customer hands.

~~~
vkou
Initial quality problems may not arise. They will definitely arise. It's a
brand-new model, with brand-new (To TESLA) manufacturing processes - there
will always be problems in this situation.

What they should hope for is for these problems to arise sooner, rather then
later - lessening the cost of recalls.

------
rsynnott
> But a problem with a subcontractor, compounded with other issues, forced
> Tesla to start over in certain areas, delaying production.

> “We had to rewrite all of the software from scratch,” Musk said, adding that
> they’d redone “about 20 to 30 man years of software in four weeks” for the
> battery module.

Maybe I'm just overcautious, but I would prefer not to be anywhere in the
vicinity of a high-discharge actively cooled 100kWh battery whose control
system was written, presumably as a rush job, in four weeks.

~~~
j7ake
Yeah doing 30 man years of software in 4 weeks is nothing to brag about. It's
like assuming putting 9 women together can output a baby in a single month.

~~~
varjag
So your opinion is parallelizing software development is impossible?
Interesting.

~~~
sushibowl
This is not an unorthodox or unreasonable position. The Mythical Man-Month is
a classic text in software engineering and project management and essentially
argues this very point. The analogy to child birth is actually also a classic
one made originally by the author.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law)

~~~
varjag
Of course just like everyone on HN am aware of the book and heard this quote a
billion+ times. And of course I know it's badly misused in this particular
case (as it often is).

~~~
mrguyorama
software development parallelization works about as well as it does for actual
software, ie non-linearly at best. Add to that overhead/mistakes/difficulties
caused by "synchronization" and you come to the conclusion that a significant
amount of that "30 man years" of software had to be just discarded when
rebuilt

~~~
varjag
But consider that the existing "30 man years" design had couple year calendar
time for it at most. Doesn't that say something about the task at hand?

EDIT guess this is just rephrasing of your point, in a way.

------
penglish1
The great thing about corporate missions & goals is that they are written so
broadly: "Our goal when we created Tesla a decade ago was the same as it is
today: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing
compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible. "
([https://www.tesla.com/blog/mission-
tesla](https://www.tesla.com/blog/mission-tesla)).

Thanks to Tesla - seriously(!! COULD not and WOULD not have happened without
them), we now have a compelling mass market electric car on the market.

The Chevrolet Bolt.

~~~
Avshalom
Well no, companies have been trying on EV every decade since the invention of
the car.

The Prius normalizing an electric drive train pushed full electric further
into the mainstream then Tesla has. Granted Tesla's investment into batteries
bumped Panasonics time line up a bit and bumped full BEV up a bit but a
compelling mass market electric car on the market has been clearly inevitable
since 2000.

Edit: I changed it from "Tesla ... may have". To "Granted Tesla " to more
accurately reflect my evaluation of Tesla's contribution to the time line.

~~~
penglish1
Fair enough - I did fail to give Toyota credit, where credit is definitely
due.

But I would say it is more a case of "necessary, but not sufficient."

Toyota unarguably pushed electric into the unsexy, mass production, mass
consumption mainstream. This was a necessary step.

But Tesla showed that electric COULD be luxury, performance, etc - not
necessary for mass market - but the related headlines generated arguably were.

But also that _pure electric_ could be delivered with _more than enough_ range
to eliminate range anxiety, even with "notably better than a Prius" levels of
performance. And it could at least appear to be "mass manufactured" (even if,
on Toyota/Chevy/Nissan scale, or if you will, BMW/Mercedes/Lexus/etc they
really weren't). This WAS necessary, and did cause a tipping point that, IMHO
led to the Chevy Bolt.

The Prius led to the Bolt evolutionarily.

The Model 3 led to the Bolt "by Marketing force."

And now we have a Bolt.. and basically no Model 3.

We'll see what happens in the next couple of years.

------
antiviral
So this is the real reason that they had those 'performance-based' layoffs. If
you need to fire a certain number of employees, just give bad performance
evaluations to those people and fire 'for cause.'

As a company, Tesla can use whatever nonsensical management techniques they
want. But firing people 'for cause' will unreasonably hurt otherwise
productive people in their future careers. And it will make future candidates
far more wary to ever want to work there.

~~~
moduspol
Or maybe they could normally keep lower performing employees around, but cash
is getting tighter so they decided to let some of them (less than 4%) go.

"Cash being tight" and "firing some employees for performance reasons" are not
mutually exclusive.

~~~
vkou
Are they replacing them, or are they just making everyone else work more for
the same pay?

How much ramp-up will replacing them require? How will that impact their
production rate?

~~~
moduspol
Low performers (and especially the bottom 2%) can often provide negative value
to the company. It's quite possible there is no net additional work to
distribute, or if there was, that they had additional capacity in the rest of
the workforce for the same tasks.

They may not need to be replaced. If they do, we can safely presume they
determined those resources (cost / time) involved in doing so were less than
what it takes to replace them.

It may not negatively impact their production rate. They may be able to
improve their production rate by spending that money in a more targeted way
now.

------
sumitgt
Out of curiosity, has anyone who paid the $1000 to get in line for a Model 3
actually heard back from Tesla?

I've never received any communication about timelines at all.

~~~
nik736
Me neither. Also, I am trying to get my $1000 back for 2 months now since it
probably would take around 2 years until I get my Model 3. They are delaying
and delaying the payout, so instead of me becoming a Tesla customer I am
hating them more from day to day.

~~~
kemiller
I got mine back fairly quickly, for what it's worth.

~~~
shpx
I canceled my pre order on June 29 and got the money from paypal on August 18.

------
S_A_P
Seeing as how this is an issue in one of their core competencies, this is
concerning. Tesla wants to be a battery company(amongst other things). I hope
that with this redesign, they're actually fixing problems and working their
way to viability. Its easy to doubt Teslas viability(and I think they're
overvalued for sure)but Musks teams are solving hard problems at SpaceX so I
think they at least have a shot...

------
babesh
Disclaimer: I own Tesla shares. Tesla has a long history of taking far longer
and far more money to achieve a goal than they forecast. They don't show signs
of adjusting their forecasts based on previous misses. For the last couple of
years the market has given them a pass for that when the market has punished
other companies for far less. Tesla has gone to the well again and again to
raise money. One concern is that if market support drops, they may not be able
to go to the well again. And history suggests that they will need to and will
miss their revised goal as well.

~~~
junkscience2017
> Disclaimer: I own Tesla shares

why do people do this? it is not relevant, helpful or required in order to
comment. Anyone with a NASDAQ index fund in their portfolio or 401k has at
least one share of Tesla...which is basically everyone here

~~~
probe
It's just to be honest that you're not hyping up a stock for a pump and dump
scheme (see some cryptos). But you're right it doesn't really matter for such
a big/liquid stock like TSLA

For what it's worth, Disclaimer: I own Tesla Shares :)

~~~
nhebb
FWIW, I think you all mean disclosure, not disclaimer.

------
jeffdavis
What is the main practical selling point of a model 3 over, say, a leaf?
Longer range and that's it?

Good thing tesla has a lot of vertical investment in batteries. The market is
very competitive.

~~~
hwillis
> What is the main practical selling point of a model 3 over, say, a leaf?

Much better value, larger size, better fuel economy, more conventional, more
power, more range, and superchargers.

Cost per mile of range: $200 for the 2018 leaf, 132 for the Model 3. 147 hp vs
258 hp, 10" of extra length and 6" of extra width, over twice the range at
less than half the capacity.

The Tesla is way superior to any other electric car on the road. The
supercharger alone makes it the obvious buy for almost all consumers.

~~~
sushisource
How about compared to the Bolt, though? The Bolt seems dramatically more
competitive than the Leaf. 200hp, comparable range, and cheaper than the model
3.

I think people getting fed up with the wait and switching to Bolts en-masse is
a possible scenario. Imagine if Chevy made an ad targeting exactly that
scenario....

(You can thank me later Chevy ad execs)

~~~
Tiktaalik
The Bolt is a sort of unsexy compact hatchback so I can see it being
unappealing to some groups of people even though from all accounts it's a
fantastic product that matches the Model 3 in quality.

Tesla should be concerned if GM expands their market by taking their Bolt
technology and rapidly expanding into vehicle lines that appeal to other
groups, such as a Bolt crossover or sexy Bolt hot hatch.

Personally the Bolt looks a bit lame to me, but I'd consider one that was a
bit sportier and that looked about as good as a Golf GTI.

~~~
sushisource
Give me a bolt coupe and I'm sold in a heartbeat.

Or this thing: [https://www.wired.com/story/crazy-cute-concept-cars-from-
the...](https://www.wired.com/story/crazy-cute-concept-cars-from-the-tokyo-
auto-show/)

~~~
hwillis
A mini countryman is already over 5" longer than a Bolt- there isn't much more
coupe to go.

------
_Codemonkeyism
There will be Tesla defenders right till the end.

~~~
TeMPOraL
They have earned that. There aren't many companies who care about anything
other than making money.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
I have a bridge to sell ...

So Tesla is good ("anything other than making money"), and Nissan with doing
more good by selling more Leafs is not? If Nissan is good, which electic car
producer is bad?

I would agree on SpaceX - though a cynic might say it's Musks way out of the
earth catastrophe[1] - but with many more companies selling electric cars the
argument falls flat for me.

Especially if one looks at all the allegations by employees - if they are
employees at all or sub-contractors without rights. Either Tesla has bad press
or there are much more than with other car companies.

[1] Because you can be sure you're not the one on the last ship out

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _So Tesla is good ( "anything other than making money"), and Nissan with
> doing more good by selling more Leafs is not?_

Not saying that. But where were the other automakers when Tesla was single-
handedly pushing _against the market_ to make EVs viable?

I get people are cynical, but come on. Musk has been actually proving for
years that he cares, and the goals for Tesla and SpaceX were idealistic for as
long as he was involved, did not change, and the companies did nothing to
suggest they're not what he says they are.

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Musk? How? By giving away money? Or by making money? I'm confused.

------
Animats
There's good information at the Daily Kanban.[1] They describe what corners
Tesla cut, and why it backfired. "Tesla has not yet built a Model 3 using the
automated tooling", says one of the people from the company that builds the
automated tooling.

Normal testing and tweaking time for a new body assembly line is 6 months to a
year, and before that, sections of the line are run in test at the supplier's
factory. Tesla skipped all that. It didn't work out well.

[1] [https://dailykanban.com/2017/10/source-tesla-responsible-
mod...](https://dailykanban.com/2017/10/source-tesla-responsible-
model-3-production-hell)

------
perseusprime11
I feel like I should cancel my reservation of Tesla Model 3. Something tells
me that subscription-based autonomous cars will be here before my Model 3 and
will render purchasing cars useless. Anybody in a similar boat?

~~~
rootusrootus
While I agree that the Tesla 3 backorder delay is pretty long, I think you may
be underestimating the time it will take before we see any subscription-based
autonomous cars by perhaps a factor of 5.

------
pmurT
I've been considering cancelling my preorder. As late as they'll be (assuming
they do deliver) and my estimated place in line, the other manufacturers will
have competitive offerings

~~~
kylec
No other manufacturer has a charging network like the Supercharger network,
and that isn't likely to change anytime soon. Not being able to take a car on
the occasional long-ish trip greatly diminishes its utility for a lot of
people.

~~~
bunderbunder
I'm guessing that most households who are likely to go for one are also multi-
car households, and you probably aren't going to normally be taking _all_ of
your cars on a long-ish trip at the same time. I'm guessing most of any
potential loss in attractiveness represents anxiety more than it represents a
genuine loss in utility.

------
mudil
Elon's ROAs (returns on announcements) are getting slimmer.

------
ww520
TSLA was up 10 points. Now is down 10 points. Interesting time.

~~~
r00fus
20 point swing? We call that Wednesday.

------
avs733
And now other media outlets are reporting that Musk shouted "SHAME" at a
reporter on the earnings call. All in all, not Tesla's finest hour

[https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-just-yelled-shame-at-a-
bunch-...](https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-just-yelled-shame-at-a-bunch-of-
journalists-1820059349)

------
nickik
Elon Musk project not as fast as he claimed, yet still faster then everybody
else.

That literally every Tesla/SpaceX story in the last 10 years.

~~~
gozur88
"Faster than everybody else"? I guess that depends on exactly what you're
looking for. This year's Bolt has a 60kWh battery, which is supposed to give
it a 238 mile range - more than the base Model 3. What exactly will the Model
3 bring to the table when I can actually walk into a showroom and buy one?

~~~
nickik
Thinking in a bigger scale then just right now Model 3 will make it clear. The
way Tesla has transformed the whole car industry and the scale at which they
approach the problem is way beyond anybody else.

The Bolt can not be produced in the numbers needed for a revolution. The
people who produce it are not interested in a revolution in the first place.

The stock might be below peak right now, but the scaling they have achieved
since they started is massive, and in the long term they are still on track.

~~~
gozur88
>The Bolt can not be produced in the numbers needed for a revolution. The
people who produce it are not interested in a revolution in the first place.

That's an odd argument to be making in favor of a company that's having so
much trouble producing cars. Why do you think the Bolt can't be produced in
larger numbers? Does Tesla make in a year as many cars as GM makes in a day?

~~~
nickik
I'm not saying its impossible. I'm saying that they don't seem to want to do
it.

Meaning that they are totally unprepared to sell 1million cars a year and they
also don't seem to have plans of scaling to that.

------
glbrew
"cuts production"

I don't follow official statements closely but it sounds like they are using
this retooling as an excuse for low demand for the S and X. This way they get
to have their cake and eat it too: low S/X numbers justified and re-energized
promises for increased 3 production.

~~~
fmihaila
Musk said on the call that they will produce fewer cars but that they expect
increased deliveries, with the difference being covered from their existing
inventory.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Well, if they have all that existing inventory just sitting around, surely it
implies they've built more cars than they've been able to sell, no?

------
m3kw9
It feels like all of musks other business could align and take over
everything, sort of like Go strategy

------
agumonkey
I really wonder what kind of hell it is. Supplier issues ? bad management /
employee relationships ? Design failures ? ...

ps: someone explained to me that Tesla cars are still mostly hand assembled.
Explains a lot of things

------
ben_jones
If Tesla goes under what happens to long term support for their cars? Don't
Tesla owners depend on a lot of Tesla services? Subsidized charging stations,
sending it in for maintenance, etc.?

~~~
mikestew
You might want ask Fisker Karma owners:
[https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/hybrid-support-
solutions-...](https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/hybrid-support-solutions-to-
fisker-owners-join-us-or-kiss-your-100k-bricked-karma-goodbye/)

I imagine the same fate would await Tesla owners. However, there enough Teslas
rolling around that someone might find it profitable to pick up support.
Multiple vendors still sell, and in some cases manufacture, parts for fifty
year old Volkswagens, for instance.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah but 50 year old Volkswagens are a lot simpler, including being almost
wholly mechanical. And even today there’s a pretty robust aftermarket parts
market for ICEs generally.

------
PatientTrades
Tesla best car I ever owned. I will wait 6 months if that what it takes for
perfection.

~~~
j7ake
What makes it better than other cars of similar price range in your opinion ?

------
Giorgi
On the side note - good time to buy Tesla Stock

~~~
mattbierner
Only around a 10% drop from the start of trading today. Some nice
opportunities short term but I don't see that changing anyone's longer term
outlook. At $300, the stock is still either a great value given the company's
potential or terribly overvalued

------
SaltySolomon
Not really all that suprising.

~~~
0xCMP
Especially not with other articles talking about lack of the right production
mindset or process[0]. I'm a bit worried these days for Tesla cause these seem
like problems stemming from ego of "doing it better through technology" and
ignoring wisdom from the rest of the industry that actually works.

When major leadership keeps leaving[1] it feels like it's more of an ego,
expectations, and political problem than a technical one.

[0]: [https://mondaynote.com/teslas-new-car-
smell-315c72c955d3](https://mondaynote.com/teslas-new-car-smell-315c72c955d3)

[1]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/two-
tesla...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/two-tesla-
production-chiefs-to-leave-ahead-of-biggest-challenge-yet)

~~~
SaltySolomon
I feel like they are trying to invent the wheel anew. Yes, electric cars have
some differences, but everything besides the drive system has been a ton of
times and there are a lot of companies and people who know how to get what you
want.

Also I agree with you that it feels that they belive that they can do
everything better than anybody else and thus try to do everything themselves.

------
xHopen
My shares!!!!

------
draw_down
It sounds like they are struggling. Hopefully they can pull it together and
turn things around.

~~~
crush-n-spread
They are not struggling. This Yahoo article is fear mongering. I just listened
to the whole earnings call and everything sounded terrific: They pulled their
best engineers to Gigafactory to mitigate a supplier misleading them about one
of their battery production lines, and so they dropped production of S and X.
Apparently as a result of the supplier f __* up, they rewrote "20 man years of
software in 4 weeks". Which is absolutely incredible.

Don't listen to this fear mongering BS. Tesla is the only one in the electric
car game. Who else has the charging network, the half-million pre-orders, the
3.5 billion in cash and easy ability to raise more, the Elon shine?

Can't stand these articles

~~~
FireBeyond
> they rewrote "20 man years of software in 4 weeks". Which is absolutely
> incredible

... if accurate, if bug-free (for varying reasonable values of same).
Otherwise the mythical man-month seems to creep in.

That's a project that's complicated enough to require 240 developers (12
months x 20 years, fitted into 1 month), yet somehow was reliably chunked up,
retrofitted into their supplier screw up, tested and deployed in 4 weeks??

I'm considering myself skeptical.

~~~
StephenMelon
Sounds a bit like doing the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs?

Seriously though, you can probably redo a typical 20 Man Year project in 2,
given how much of the development process is usually taken up by missed
requirements and re-work, IF you have a bombproof specification and a well-
drilled team of stars.

The part I’m not quite getting though is how a battery software issue impacted
on wider productivity? Couldn’t they get them in-place and then patch the
software after the fact?

------
smallhands
<shout>most importantly, Elon has moved his desk to the giga factory as that
is where the largest bottleneck is.</shout>

wow elon musk must be something out of a movie! daniel (aka me) WHAT HAVE YOU
BEEN DOING WITH YOUR LIFE

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neilalexander
I can't help but feel that price is an inevitable factor here. Tesla Model S
and Model X are expensive! Now that the novelty is wearing off and more EVs
are hitting the road from other manufacturers, it strikes me that they just
won't remain competitive models.

I expect the Model 3 to go some way towards helping this by being much more
affordable, but with delayed production on those and an interior design that
won't suit everyone, I'm yet to be convinced.

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mmanfrin
I disagree completely. Tesla has 400k people who put down a grand to 'reserve
a spot in line' for a Model 3.

The issue is production. Tesla fired off hundreds of workers a month ago,
right as they were ramping up Model 3 production. Elon seems an awesome person
in terms of what he's doing at a macro level, but he sounds like a horrendous
person to work for.

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ac29
If they can achieve the production goal of 5000/week (an order of magnitude
more than they are currently at), it will take nearly 2 years to just fulfill
pre-orders. I have to believe a lot of people will be cancelling their pre-
orders, and Tesla wont be getting many new pre-orders until production has
caught up with demand.

