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Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

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Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#31

Post by jandrese »

jdnenej wrote: post #27

This is becoming more and more of a problem as everything becomes more complex. I remember when I was a child my dad repaired the power switch on the vacume cleaner by going to the local electrical store and buying the exact same switch. Now every single device has its own custom part and the switch isn't just connecting 2 wires, it's contacting a main board telling it the button has been pressed triggering the power…

The good news is you can get almost anything on the Internet. I've found so many weird parts from shady eBay sellers that worked perfectly in the end.

Other times I've had to order a similar part off of Mouser and hack it to make it fit, with varying levels of success.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#32

Post by gpm »

cromka wrote: post #26

It's only a matter of time until it becomes profitable enough to salvage that one orbiting the Earth...

It's not orbiting Earth, it's orbiting the sun. I think it's fair to say that it would be the most ambitious space mission we've ever taken to try and retrieve it, at least when not adjusting for our increased technical sophistication since the appolo era...

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#33

Post by irjustin »

I love listening to this. It's all the beauties of a great business. There's a problem, a loyal group and someone willing to solve and love the problem at the same time.

It's sad to see that the Roadster community was left behind so quickly. For better or for worse, Tesla plays cars like the startup game. Pivot, deploy, traction?, repeat. As terrible as that sounds, I do hope Tesla is here to stay. Even in its current form, the world is better with Tesla than without.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#34

Post by Scoundreller »

jdnenej wrote: post #27

This is becoming more and more of a problem as everything becomes more complex. I remember when I was a child my dad repaired the power switch on the vacume cleaner by going to the local electrical store and buying the exact same switch. Now every single device has its own custom part and the switch isn't just connecting 2 wires, it's contacting a main board telling it the button has been pressed triggering the power…

At least for random electronic widgets, there's some manufacturer in China selling that exact part or an aftermarket one on Ebay/AliExpress.

Backlight burnout on your LCD TV? No problem.

You can buy brand new NES controllers today. (!).

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#35

Post by jacques_chester »

wmf wrote: post #17
droithomme wrote: post #14

That they won't service them or supply parts shows the future for all Tesla owners. We need legislative reform that requires any companies selling products in US jurisdiction put enough parts and cash in escrow to guarantee for a reasonable time period the ability to service anything that costs more than $500.

It's more like the present; every part they manufacture goes into a new Tesla while owners wait weeks for replacement parts.

This is the key: Tesla's goal is increasing new-car production. Diverting intermediate assemblies into spare parts inventories directly competes with that goal. If Tesla had spare manufacturing capacity this wouldn't be as pressing. As they bring more online it would presumably ease, though with lag while the backlog of demand is drained.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#36

Post by ianai »

jonknee wrote: post #24
twblalock wrote: post #5

A lot of early adopters were probably worried that Tesla would go out of business and they wouldn't be able to get parts. Tesla is still in business and there still aren't parts. Hopefully enough of the current Tesla models will end up on the road to make it profitable for aftermarket suppliers to make some parts. So far it doesn't seem like that is happening at very much scale.

Parts are hard to come by for their mass market models too, it's crazy.

What are owners supposed to do? Are there any indications these cars fail so rarely?

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#37

Post by save_ferris »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #25
latchkey wrote: post #4

This guy is great, he found a niche full of customers and became the expert. I wish more startups would do this. With regards to Tesla, it is always interesting to me to see how as companies grow, they become more political, less effective and generally suck more. All the good people, like this guy, get pushed out or leave on their own. Makes me generally not want to build or work for a large company ever again.

> it is always interesting to me to see how as companies grow, they become more political, less effective and generally suck more. All the good people, like this guy, get pushed out or leave on their own. The skillsets required for a $100k company, and $1M one, and $100M one and a >$1B one are very different. It's not even surprising when a CEO who launched a company gets replaced once the company goes big (oh hey sp…

Having just wrapped up a stint at a >$1B company, I was floored by the incredible amount of waste of human effort on the part of management, which never really visibly impacted the bottom or the stock price.

I agree that the skill sets change as companies add zeroes to their value, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there’s a way to determine the optimal size of a company from a productivity standpoint.

Sure, it would likely be super subjective and not necessarily repeatable, but I noticed how much worse we were as a software team shipping a product under the guidance of our corporate overlords compared to our days as a startup.

In our case after the acquisition, our product features were essentially cut in into two halves and sold as separate bundles, so customers all of a sudden had to pay twice as much for the same product. Then they laid off the bespoke support team from our startup days and handed that responsibility to people who didn’t know our product.

Our customers were once so happy that we existed, and our new overlords trampled over that goodwill in an instant to boost their stock price.

It’s really hard to believe that big companies truly have a positive and productive role in our system after that experience.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#38

Post by pvg »

Scoundreller wrote: post #30

Basically the Apple philosophy. On the plus side, it really drives up re-sale values and part-out values when you don't have the manufacturer undercutting you. Source: I parted out my old Macbook and ended up with a pretty good downpayment on my next done. Got new mid-2015 Macbook Air new by parting my mid-2011 and ~CAD$300 by selling the promo "free" Beats headphones.

Tesla threw together of a couple of thousand prototype-ish cars based on an already-uncommon sports car. Apple makes zillions of devices and supports them for years. What's the connection here?

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#39

Post by jandrese »

paulddraper wrote: post #7

Wow. I had a '91 Saturn sedan until 2015. Despite my model being out of production for decades, and Saturn having closed up shop for years, I could still find aftermarket auto parts. How common of a problem is this? Any other manufactures/models notorious for poor part availability?

Most of the parts on your car are just GM parts. Auto manufacturers don't design a new pump/bearing/condenser/etc... for every make and model of their vehicles, they take one off of the shelf. When it breaks you can find a replacement because there are dozens or hundreds of cars that used the exact same part and supplying one supplies them all. Even when the manufacturer stops making that part (because the last car they used it in is 15+ years old) there's a healthy market of people making knockoffs just for people like you. I gave plenty of money to companies like Dorman to keep my old 90s truck alive.

With something like those early model Teslas there is a lot of custom one-off parts that are near impossible to find. The problem is a lot harder.

Re: Keeping Tesla Roadsters Alive Is Serious Work

#40

Post by Scoundreller »

wmf wrote: post #17
droithomme wrote: post #14

That they won't service them or supply parts shows the future for all Tesla owners. We need legislative reform that requires any companies selling products in US jurisdiction put enough parts and cash in escrow to guarantee for a reasonable time period the ability to service anything that costs more than $500.

It's more like the present; every part they manufacture goes into a new Tesla while owners wait weeks for replacement parts.

Depends on the part and who the supplier is. Some parts are more easily ramped up in production.

Are parts buyers struggling for some parts, or all parts equally? If it's the latter, Tesla is either really good, or really nasty.

If you're getting stamped steel body panels from a manufacturer that can't ramp up its supply, you're with the wrong manufacturer.

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