If he's really serious about making a dent in expenses, he should definitely consider hiring outside of Fremont, CA. There's much more cost effective labor outside the bay area, up to 1/3 cheaper in the rest of the US and even cheaper outside the US. I understand, factory jobs can't be outsourced since people have to use the factory in Fremont, but software engineers, web designers should be remotable.
Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
191–200 of 248 posts
Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#192In the letter, Elon stated they have burned through over $200m/month this year after the cost reductions from last year and January and again in March. (That's net $200m lost each month, not $200m spent each month.) They raised $2.4 billion a few weeks ago, about half of which must go toward servicing existing debt, and had about $900m in the bank before the offering, leaving them about $2.1billion in cash. Or in oth…
Won’t they just get more funding?
The price is not attractive
Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
The $35k model 3 does exist (well, $35.4k after last week's price bump). But it's a software limited version of the $40k SR+ model and it's not listed on the website and you have to talk to person to order it who will probably try to upsell you as if their job depended on it.
What are the limits?
The range is software limited.
Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#194I worked for a company that had a similar take on spending. The company was extremely profitable and brought in greater than 1 billion dollar in revenue. Yet any PO that was greater than $100 needed approval by the CEO. Not only that, the PO had to be typed on a manual typewriter (this is 2007) using carbon paper, and hand-delivered to a number of people to start moving up the chain. The process intentionally took MO…
When engineers quit did they just back a van up to the building to remove their property?
Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#195Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good question whether Tesla survives or not. If you buy a car that is heavily dependent on software, even if the brand does not go out of business, who will support it in 10 or 20 years? Most automakers do not support their vintage cars or make new parts for them.
A 20 year old car today is heavily dependent on software, and they still seem to work.
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Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
This ignores the fact that EVs are currently the only viable path towards road-based transport that is compatible with the continued existence of our species. The transition isn't urgent due to oil prices. It's urgent due to greenhouse gases making the planet inhospitable for humans.
There are also fuel cell vehicles such as the Honda Clarity, Toyota Mirai, and Hyundai Nexo.
Musk has said that hydrogen is foolish. I can understand that angle, because the concussive blast from compressed hydrogen ignition would be more dangerous than a lithium fire.
But a hydrogen economy feels like it could work when scaled up. Somehow it feels practical as the most abundant element in the universe, with high energy density. Lithium/cobalt reserves are limited, though recycling measures might could solve that problem.
Platinum-group element coated electrodes powered by ~25 year life spans of cadmium/tellurium solar cells (or Perovskite, and many others I'm sure, but Cd/Te is the one I've deployed en masse personally) would allow for low maintenance hydrogen generation and a shift away from natural gas sourcing.
Nafion is necessary for the fuel cells themselves but I'm not sure about the production process behind that.
Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Governments are pushing electric vehicles through subsidies and mandates Specifically, isn't this because of CAFE[1]? Gas mileage compliance is calculated per manufacturer. So BMW can keep selling 17mpg M3s as long as they're selling enough of those i3s[2] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_econom [2] - Which sell for $50K but are like $15K used!
You can find an i3 for $15K used? Where? Carfax has like $24K at minimum for a 2017. Edit: NM, had to widen my search params. I dunno if I'd want to trust a 2015 electric car, though. ;)
FWIW there were at least 2 <$20K at my local dealer when I checked it out in the winter or fall. Maybe people have caught onto the cheap i3 thing.
Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This resulted in engineers that would purchase their own equipment and bringing it to work to use because they couldn't wait a month for a $200 piece of equipment. That's a mistake. You should never pay other people's costs. If the company wants to put itself in a position where work is delayed by a month for the sake of $200 then that is the company's cost to pay.
It’s a mistake if the company is healthy. But if individual workers are in a position to get a performance bonus or impress their boss, it may be worth it for them to spend some money to ensure that would happen. It would also be a bad work environment.
It won't impress anyone. All it will do is incentivize them to see what else they can get out of you for free. They won't respect you if you don't respect yourself.
Re: Musk to review all of Tesla's expenses in new cost cutting plan
#200Traditional car companies must be damn scared to have to publish this FUD. Tesla cannot be possibly dying out. Don't you see Tesla cars everywhere in the US? yes they are spending money, buying things to grow as they are so incredibly successful they cannot satisfy demand. Dying out? you make me laugh. If you spend 10M dollars buying equipment that in a year is worth 100M dollars, you are not dying out.
> Don't you see Tesla cars everywhere in the US? No I don't, might see one once a week or month. They're common in Silicon Valley but that's a small fraction of the US. edit: Tesla has sold something like 300k cars in the US which comes out to under 0.15% of all cars in the US. So basically, negligible. And a third to a half of that seems to have been in California. So in most of the US you'd need to look at on avera…
I live near Kansas City, and see probably a dozen a day. They seem to be very popular, but there is a good charging infrastructure in this area. I'm cheap though, and bought a used Leaf.