>The fact that Tesla can simultaneously demonstrate brilliance and incompetence in the same vehicle is not surprising, considering it is a high-tech software company trying to master complex manufacturing processes that took established automakers more than 100 years to perfect.
This is wrong. At the very least it would be since the 60's and probably later. Seeing as 1963 was the first time CNC was used by the auto industry as far as I can tell. While they have been making cars for over 100 years you really can't include the time before technologies like CAD and CAM. And even those took a while to see widespread usage. Add to that the ability modern CAD software has to model stresses bases on the different forces in play makes a hell of a difference.
Even just going back 12 years and the amount of computing you have access to vastly changes. That was when AWS came out. AWS lets you compute massive amount of engineering data without having to invest into a super computer. (Not to say the auto industry did not have those super computers before then.)
> The fact that Tesla can simultaneously demonstrate brilliance and incompetence in the same vehicle is not surprising, considering it is a high-tech software company trying to master complex manufacturing processes that took established automakers more than 100 years to perfect.
>> This is wrong. At the very least it would be since the 60's and probably later.
If you watch the video on Youtube (that someone else posted here) where Munro is talking about the Model 3, (jump to 36m20s, he gets into it about 15-20s later [1]), you'll realize that the "complex manufacturing processes that took established automakers more than 100 years to perfect" are not about advances in tooling/tech, but advances in quality control processes. If you don't want to watch the video, the acronyms Munro drops are AIAG, PPS, PPAP and APQP.
Things get even more interesting when someone on the panel asks him what would have happened if Tesla would have subbed out the design and manufacturing to a company like Magna.
I think it's reasonable to talk of a culture of engineering (or design) going back earlier than a given technology. A large company has to make sure at any given that a new approach does everything that an older approach does. The company may have access large customers for testing and requirements gathering so they can wind-up doing technology X "correctly" even if they start-out behind on technology X.
With the variety of changes different companies go through (being bought, sold, spun-off, etc), it's certainly an interesting question whether a company retains a given "core competency" or any core competency at a given time.
I know in the case of CNC manufacturing, the devices were essentially programmable lathes and one can talk of a "CNC programmer" but the system was designed to leverage the existing knowledge and population of manual lathe operators and there's no relation to computer programmers and instead the "touch stone" is ordinary lath operation I believe (a CNC programmer makes $22/hour average conveniently). Thus it's reasonable to say manufacturing culture in the US references things earlier than CNC.
You can see a similar thing in the way Photoshop, Illustrator and cousins ape paper and pencil tools - the standards, skills and terminology of layout were carried through the transition (to the point that these industry standard tools have an interface that seems fairly pathological to newbies).
I know in the case of CNC manufacturing, the devices were essentially programmable lathes and one can talk of a "CNC programmer" but the system was designed to leverage the existing knowledge and population of manual lathe operators and there's no relation to computer programmers and instead the "touch stone" is ordinary lath operation
There is a fascinating book "Forces of Production" [0] that analyzes the history of the development of numerical control in the 1960s that argues exactly the opposite. I read it many years ago, but I will try to summarize it TLDR style below:
Before software ate the world there were two competing approaches to automating machine tools:
- Record and Playback: a skilled machinist makes the part and the motions and operations are recorded. Subsequent parts can be made by playing back the recording on a machine with the assistance of a less skilled worker.
- Numerical Control: A white collar worker in an office writes a script (in G Code [1]) to control the tool which is then played on the machine attended by a less skilled worker.
This was a hard problem at the time and technically Record and Playback was easier and worked better. However management, particularly at GE, resented the power of the skilled machinists who had effective unions and were not replaceable in the event of a strike. So despite the advantages of Record/Playback they persisted for years to create the NC technology as it let them replace highly skilled union labor with coding monkeys. The parallels with the present day seem obvious but oddly underappreciated.
That is indeed an interesting story but my searches seem to say that even G-codes are now entered by machinists rather than office workers or specialized G-code programmers ( a G-code programming guide describes it as final thing a machinist learns in their career).
My guess is that management was conflicted in what it wanted - on the one hand, a drop-in replacement system and on the other hand, a system so simple they could hire people off the street to do it.
> At the very least it would be since the 60's and probably later.
So Tesla is a high-tech software company trying to master complex manufacturing processes that took established automakers more than 50 years to perfect? I'm not sure that really changes the implicit argument.
This is wrong. At the very least it would be since the 60's and probably later. Seeing as 1963 was the first time CNC was used by the auto industry as far as I can tell. While they have been making cars for over 100 years you really can't include the time before technologies like CAD and CAM. And even those took a while to see widespread usage. Add to that the ability modern CAD software has to model stresses bases on the different forces in play makes a hell of a difference.
Even just going back 12 years and the amount of computing you have access to vastly changes. That was when AWS came out. AWS lets you compute massive amount of engineering data without having to invest into a super computer. (Not to say the auto industry did not have those super computers before then.)