211–220 of 334 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't Elon a sort of supply chain pariah at this point though? His learnings from SpaceX and Tesla so far probably make him one of the most experienced people in modern supply chains.
Not sure 'pariah' was the word you were looking for?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I've personally made 6 figures on TSLA. If I'm an idiot, what does that make someone who thought they were smarter than someone who would invest in TSLA? Here's the thing about investment: whether you're playing the long or short game, the only way you make money is through stock volatility. And as far as volatility is concerned, TSLA has been fantastic to play over and over again.
I would think that volatility would be a shot term play. Give me a stock the just goes up 0.1% every day and I'll borrow to the hilt to buy it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't Elon a sort of supply chain pariah at this point though? His learnings from SpaceX and Tesla so far probably make him one of the most experienced people in modern supply chains.
Not sure 'pariah' was the word you were looking for?
Yes, this is a chicken-and-egg problem. But a real one nonetheless.
Uber as a ponzi scheme of ambition 1/ Basic premise was they keep highlighting their entry into larger and larger markets and so investors keep ponying up $ for the ambition. 2/ First, it was taxis 3/ Then, it was taxis + logistics 4/ Then taxis, logistics, vehicle ownership 5/ Then taxis, logistics, vehicle ownership, autonomous 6/ Then taxis, logistics, vehicle ownership, autonomous, trucking 7 / Then taxis, logist…
Musk, by contrast, has show over and over that he cares a lot about doing what's right, starting with the very fundamental purposes of his companies: not profit, but making things better for everyone, with profit as a necessary part of the real goal. To point to a recent quote from his twitter, he had said he didn't care if his participation in Trump's panels hurt his reputation or that of his companies, because it was right and he didn't care what people said. And it seems (and many people close to him have said as much in interviews) that this is very much in line with who he is as a whole. Every time someone has made an accusation against his companies of a customer or employee being shortchanged, he's publicly investigated it and resolved it within a couple days. I recall him saying in one such case that if indeed a contractor had been injured on Tesla property, he would have seen to it that they were completely compensated in every way, even if a court did not compel them to do so, simply because it was the right thing to do.
I hate seeing a company mired in wrongdoing compared to a company like Tesla, which is the polar opposite.
Then we come to this accusation of a "ponzi scheme of ambition." Did your creeping pattern recognition notice that Tesla is being led by the same person who leads SpaceX? I don't understand how people can write this off. No matter what your criticism or doubts of Tesla are, it's simply impossible to deny SpaceX's astounding accomplishments. This is obviously not a CEO who fails to deliver despite unparalleled challenges. Do you truly believe manufacturing another car, after having already succeeded with the Model S, is harder than starting a successful space program from scratch?
Musk doesn't do Ponzi schemes. He builds Paypals and Model S's and rockets that have successfully landed when industry leaders mocked it as impossible.
Your pattern recognition needs work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's because of the fast pace of the company. I doubt they are any worse than any other company introducing a new model. As a new model recedes into the past quality issues should decrease linearly, and maybe faster. Alot of the BSR issues (often caused by worker inaccuracy) that Tesla faces today are probably catchable nowadays with a convnet before they even go down the line. If I had to guess right now, many years…
"I doubt they are any worse than any other company introducing a new model." Except they are. The Model S is 5 years old (even the refresh model is a year old) and they are still running into parts and build issues. It has improved a long way but during the whole process they had to cut the number of interior and exterior colors/trims just to streamline the production. Other manufacturers introduces new fit/finish an…
What I mean is, you appear to be trying to apply the standard of a very broadly experienced car magazine critic, which yes, will absolutely 100% find a laundry list of grave shortcomings. And they won't matter.
As an investor of Tesla who bought into Elon's vision I've been getting more and more nervous about how the company is actually run at this point. A modern car company is as much of a production and supply chain company as it's a product and tech company. I get the feeling that due to Tesla being cutting edge in the tech department it led to all the supply chain/production problems being treated as if they are speed…
I think the time is ripe for TESLA to launch into India, a manufacturing plant. Modi govt is keen to ratify the Paris accord and raise the clean energy initiatives. On another side, it would help TESLA brand if they first launch a high end car in India and later market the mass market car as a better luxury car, they'll earn an awfully large income on this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was an exercise in creative problem solving. I'd query the data to find out where on the line the most (costly x incidence) problems were occurring and then devise a solution. If a worker was scratching the paint every time he put his tool down the secure a fastener, we'd get a heavy rubber guard fabricated, change his man assignment and have him put down the guard before he did his little peice, or even better ch…
How did they gather comprehensive data like that? Seems like you'd need an employee to watch every employee, recording everything they did.
Final Vehicle is concerned with testing and certification and whatever other finishing touches need to be performed. It also operates the repair department, and the 'yard' with all the defect jobs. Our yard was so packed the company was renting new yards away from the factory.
The repairmen who worked in the bays and yard were stone cold experts on the vehicles and they kept written logs. Those logs were typed up and put in the database by the office clerks. These were mostly signal. There were also networked terminals at some stations but not all down the line.
Finding the root cause of an issue was basically like git-bisect. You knew where a part was added and where it ended up. So you just needed to narrow it down. For a high priority issue, I'd go do a visual inspection myself at the mid station before a part got covered by another part. Broken? Go to the mid station between here and start. Not broken, go the other way. We got stumped sometimes, but mostly we could narrow it down pretty fast. For the workers, it's impossible to lose your job so there isn't a care factor about covering up shoddy workmanship.