Tesla’s New Car Smell • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#81

Post by r00fus » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:20 AM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #54

xenadu02 wrote: post #49

Manufacturing ramp-up is exactly this sort of thing. Building by-hand as you work out the process and employ more automation. I'm not sure this is unexpected? As an investor I know full well Tesla has a ticking clock. They must achieve scale before the giants can catch up. People underestimate how god-awful slow the big car makers are. They haven't even come to terms with what Tesla is really doing yet. None have any…

> People underestimate how god-awful slow the big car makers are I think it’s exactly the opposite. People enamoured with Tesla and Musk tend to over -estimate how slow the old car makers are, because they’re so used to the “Silicon Valley story” that we will inevitably come in and take over everything. Look: it’s 2017. Everybody has read the Innovator’s Dilemma, everybody knows how fast e.g. Palm, Nokia, etc. went o…

This may be true, but why don't they have auto-pilot (or at least adaptive cruise) on their Bolt? One reason I didn't buy one - why pay ~$40k pre-incentives for something without a key luxury feature?

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#82

Post by Animats » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:20 AM UTC

Hypx wrote: post #13

> I couldn’t help check off the sins against the “Toyota Bible”, prescriptions for car manufacturers that are lucidly detailed in The Machine That Changed The World (a great and, in parts, sad read). In particular, one mustn’t stockpile parts on the floor, they must be fed in small quantities at small time intervals. If a part has a problem, only a small quantity needs to be shipped back to the supplier who can inspe…

Tesla is doing stamping on-site and in-house. They have to store their in-process inventory somewhere. Toyota tends to push that problem back on their suppliers, demanding small just-in-time deliveries at a steady rate regardless of the optimum batch size for each part.

It's an classic problem in manufacturing. Where do you put the in-process inventory? Near where it's made? Near where it's used? Someplace else? What batch size do you use for each part? Bigger batches produce lower costs, but you have to put the stuff somewhere. There's software for optimizing this. But over-optimizing that can be a mistake.

Part of the Toyota system is to deliberately keep sources of confusion away from assembly, because confusion in assembly, where many parts come together, is likely to affect both quality and cost. It's better to have trouble upstream, where there's more buffering.

Tesla is in this mess because their production line is running far slower than planned, and their production planning was for a higher rate. So parts manufacturing and final assembly are out of sync.

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#83

Post by bjelkeman-again » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:26 AM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #65

> As I watched Tesla’s messy, hiccuping line, with workers dashing in to fix faulty parts in place, my mind travelled back to the Honda plant I had visited years ago in Marysville, Ohio. Clean, calm, everything moved smoothly. I was so shocked by the contrast that I imprudently voiced my concern. That didn’t go over well with my fellow Tesla owners. I was a killjoy, I was calling their choice into question. Well, it'…

I am under the impression that the criticism here on HN is more nuanced than I normally read on the web.

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#84

Post by prostoalex » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:34 AM UTC

carlivar wrote: post #59

majormajor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So even that interpretation leaves me wondering "why didn't they take that into account earlier"? Do the fancy computer-control-all-the-things people have too much influence compared to the boring practicalities of things like "how will we build this?" Fundamentally my question on Tesla is now: if you're priced as a "we have a fundamentally better way of doing things that will disrupt the industry" company, but the c…

Here we agree. I come across as a Tesla fanboy in these comments but I think Tesla's valuation is crazy high, too high, and I still think there's a chance they fail completely like so many other auto companies (a tough business). My theory is Musk knows the only way he'll be able to compete is attracting the best talent through stock incentives, and to do that he needs to jack up the stock price by pushing engineers…

The increase in shares was due to secondary offering https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/05/26/tesla-motors-maxed...

Tesla’s stock behavior is due to the ongoing game of “who blinks first” between TSLA shorts and TSLA short-squeezers. With $10 billion short position the company’s fundamentals are reduced to a side show.

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#85

Post by prostoalex » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:44 AM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #51

carlivar wrote: post #4

The author is only comparing production ability and basic mechanical stats with the Bolt and Leaf. I am on the Model 3 waiting list for the Autopilot. Heck, it could be gas powered and I'd be on the waiting list for the Autopilot. I don't need full autonomous. I just want the best system, and currently Tesla has it. So hopefully they figure out their production issues. I also just bought a 2018 Honda Odyssey as our m…

What makes you think Tesla has the best system? The managers in charge of autopilot keep quitting. The media says they are quitting because Elon is making deceptive claims about autopilot. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

It’s not like choosing a fridge, where there are 500 models available.

There are two autopilot systems commercially available today - Tesla Autopilot and Honda Sensing Driver Assistance. Two more are slated to be released - Cadillac SuperCruise and Audi Traffic Jam Pilot. The rest is an all-you-can-read buffet of press releases about some great tech this one company tested in this one lab (I hear Waymo is great, and Volvo’s is even better).

Pending Cadillac’s and Audi’s road tests in 2018, Tesla Autopilot v1 is the best driver assistance suite available commercially in 2017, even with all of the executive departures.

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#86

Post by prostoalex » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:45 AM UTC

tgtweak wrote: post #67

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think Tesla has the best system? The managers in charge of autopilot keep quitting. The media says they are quitting because Elon is making deceptive claims about autopilot. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Also they've disabled autopilot for the time being. It's an interesting time for Tesla, they feel like the automotive equivalent of AMD - David keeping Goliath honest. How many automotive companies saw Tesla become an actual disruptive threat and then spent tens of billions on self driving and electrification? Tesla isn't going to compete with Honda or Toyota by copying their model (or even their manufacturing proces…

> Also they've disabled autopilot for the time being.

Can you elaborate?

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#87

Post by ucaetano » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:50 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #76

ucaetano wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, actually, most of the "Autopilot" features have been available in production cars for over a decade. Tesla is really late to this game, although people can't seem to realize it because of the distortion field. And that's before we get into disengagements per 1000 miles, where Tesla trails most of the industry by far. No wonder Musk tries to demonize AI. Self-driving is a race to the bottom, with its development…

> Self-driving is a race to the bottom, with its development slashing car sales by an order of magnitude. This isn't bad if you're the only one who can ship self-driving cars with acceptable quality and volume as you'd be disrupting the rest of the industry to fuel massive growth. Steve Jobs was also famous for denouncing something right up until Apple had "the best on the market" of that same thing. It seems like st…

> This isn't bad if you're the only one who can ship self-driving cars with acceptable quality and volume as you'd be disrupting the rest of the industry to fuel massive growth.

Fixing it:

This isn't too bad if you're the only one who can ship self-driving cars with acceptable quality and volume as you'd be disrupting the rest of the industry to fuel massive growth.

But you won't be the only one for long. And then the entire industry will downsize.

And Tesla is (1) the most susceptible to it, since most of the enterprise value comes from expectation of future growth and (2) it lags behind other makers in self-driving tech.

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#88

Post by prostoalex » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:51 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #16

carlivar wrote: post #4

The author is only comparing production ability and basic mechanical stats with the Bolt and Leaf. I am on the Model 3 waiting list for the Autopilot. Heck, it could be gas powered and I'd be on the waiting list for the Autopilot. I don't need full autonomous. I just want the best system, and currently Tesla has it. So hopefully they figure out their production issues. I also just bought a 2018 Honda Odyssey as our m…

Don't the BMWs of the world have this tech integrated into their cars too? I get Tesla's cars are really good, but my understanding was that it wasn't "miles ahead".

It’s not an off-the-shelf sensor one can buy, integrate, and congratulate oneself on the job well done.

The learning systems need to be fed data to improve their models, so that they can understand bad lane markup, merging lanes, diverging lanes, lane splits and highway off-ramps, construction cones and barriers, motorcycles and trucks being obstacles and flying plastic bags and garbage not being an obstacle.

Unless they’re buying this data some place else, it needs to come from millions of miles driven by the current owners.

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#89

Post by bjelkeman-again » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:54 AM UTC

tgtweak wrote: post #67

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think Tesla has the best system? The managers in charge of autopilot keep quitting. The media says they are quitting because Elon is making deceptive claims about autopilot. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Also they've disabled autopilot for the time being. It's an interesting time for Tesla, they feel like the automotive equivalent of AMD - David keeping Goliath honest. How many automotive companies saw Tesla become an actual disruptive threat and then spent tens of billions on self driving and electrification? Tesla isn't going to compete with Honda or Toyota by copying their model (or even their manufacturing proces…

Disabled Autopilot? I am not aware of the Autopilot being disabled by Tesla on cars that have been sold and are on the road. Unless it is Model 3 cars, which there hasn't been much written about.

Re: Tesla’s New Car Smell

#90

Post by locusm » Mon, Oct 16, 2017, 6:56 AM UTC

Makes some good points except for the competition, I think its weak. Always wondered why Nissan intentionally made such an ugly car, I think the Leaf is no longer sold in Australia due to poor numbers. Isn't the Bolt a hybrid?