I basically agree, but would point out that the OP is about “Costly failures” and if Tesla is purchased for, say, $15 billion that would be a resounding success.
Also technology is important. But it’s not like Toyota or GM are slouches at that either.
Perhaps. So the model persists by the decade, and eats all supposed better alternatives, decade after decade, because…?
There are ways to buy cars without ever going within 100 miles of a dealership. They remain a tiny fraction of the sales market.
The dealership model is about more than sleazy Sammy Shakehands and working over the customer at sales time - it’s about presence, and convenience, and support, and getting to look over the range of vehicles, and getting to test drive them, and driving home in the one you want, and having a close place for routine service and issues.
You can’t app or mailorder most of that.
I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but the discussion has persisted towards independent success, which has historically been… rare. I (think I) was the first to suggest that Tesla could only “succeed” by being acquired by a maker who has all the things they don’t - that national network of sales, support and service.
“There are ways” is a far cry from a seamless experience. I know if I want a Tesla, I go to teslamotors.com, click on “order”, and configure and order the car. If I want a BMW, I go to bmwusa.com, and… no idea from there. Maybe there’s some third party that provides online ordering? I looked around a bit, but all the online sources just point me to dealers.
When I bought my car ~12 years ago, they didn’t have what I wanted anywhere on the west coast, so I had to order it. I did the research online and figured out the correct price. Unfortunately, from there I had to put the order in through the dealer, who wanted their fee and put me through the usual rigamarole. In every conceivable way it was worse than if I had just been able to order directly from BMW.
Shame you have to go through Sammy Shakehands to get there. And his friend Sleazy Snakemouth.
Some points:
I’d like to see this evidence.
I can control my heat/cool bright lights or dim, my turn indicators, sound system and cruise control with out taking my eyes off the road. And in much of the above, my hands don’t come off the wheel.
If touch screens come into being for everything, we will never see a turn signal again.
And I don’t have to have a 6x6 screen shinning in my eyes at night to do it. Opps. Pressed GPS and it was set for daytime.
Starting one is easy; between 1896 and 1930 over 1800 were started in the US alone.
Maybe you should drive a Tesla before commenting on it. The Model S still has the usual complement of steering wheel controls, such as turn indicators and wiper controls, and buttons on the wheel for things like volume control. Only those things which would have been buttons on the center console have been converted to a touchscreen.
The evidence is the lack of examples. The Tesla is still the darling of the media, both with fawning praise and with overhyped examples of failures (as we saw with the stories about fires in Teslas, even though the rate of fires is vastly less than in ICE cars). We would be seeing news stories about the problem if it were one. We don’t, so it’s not. Problems like texting-while-driving are orders of magnitude worse.
It’s not enormously difficult to build. Antitrust laws prohibit manufacturers from restricting dealers to only sell that manufacturer’s vehicles. You should look to the example of the Japanese cars moving into the American market. As soon as there was the demand for those cars the Japanese manufacturers had no problem finding dealers.
The 1990 Buick Reatta had this very feature. it was not popular (although part of the problem was that the screen was a CRT, not an LCD).
A decent touch interface only became possible fairly recently. CRT vs. LCD is only the very first part of it. The hardware had to meet a critical threshold, but just as importantly the software had to be good enough. I think that we actually had to go through the smartphone and tablet era to learn the necessary lessons for a car touch interface. Previous efforts were too janky and limited to have any chance at success.
One of the most damning features of the Ford MyTouch system that’s been reported is the touch screen interface and lack of any type of feedback not involving looking at it. Ford has been adding a lot more pushbuttons back into their cars lately as a result. Touch screens are great if you can look at them.
To be fair, though, the Tesla I sat in at the mall last month was perfectly intuitive and had enough physical pushbuttons to meet my needs as a daily driver. It was even amazingly easy to figure out how to change the car’s language to English (from Chinese). However as beautiful and big as the display was – and, it was truly beautiful and big – there’s still a lot that requires a passenger, or stopping the car, or driving dangerously to use.
Everything we hear about their processes and culture is marketing drivel, though.
Auto manufacturing in China requires an already-established joint venture partner, and they’re going to want to work with someone who can teach them to build proper cars, so that chances of one wanting to work with a paper company are slim to none.
Here’s a video of Tesla’s body shop, and here is final assembly area. I couldn’t find videos of DTP, but anyone is free to visit the final assembly area as part of the Rouge Tour at the Henry Ford.
There’s nothing unique about Tesla’s facility, because Tesla builds cars, not automation equipment. They use the same Kuka robots other people use. They’ll have ABB, Rockwell, Hyundai, Siemens, Bosch, etc., doing the same thing that every other volume manufacturer uses.
On the other hand if we wanted to compare Tesla’s body shop to some of the third world body shops some of my JV partners have, then there’s a world of difference!
Some claims can be verified; some can’t.
Take their claims about rapid iteration. We can test this against reality: do we see that their cars change frequently and incrementally, as compared to the more traditional approach of having at least one-year cycles? The answer is yes–Model S owners report that vehicles do change gradually based on the exact production date; sometimes even month-to-month. Whether this is a good thing is up for debate, but it certainly seems to be true. It is undeniably true about their over-the-air software updates.
Claims about vertical integration are a bit harder to test, but again, it seems to be true. The motors are made in-house, as are the batteries (but not the cells). Their head-unit is made in-house and so is the software. Of course they do all the traditional stuff like stampings as well. Again, whether this is a good thing or exactly how we quantify “vertically integrated” is a matter of debate, but the basic claim is apparently true.
Given the complaints about long hours, poor work-life banance, and so on from Tesla ex-employees, I think we can also take their claims about having a Silicon Valley-like work culture at face value…
I wonder what would happen if the UAW made a push to unionize Tesla?
When it comes to union-friendliness, at one end of the scale you have Volkswagen, which is about as union-friendly as any major company ever gets. At the other end of the scale are the Japanese companies, who’ll pretty much take off and nuke 'em from orbit. [Trivia fact: Tesla’s factory began life as a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. It was unionized. Eventually, GM pulled out, leaving the plant to Toyota. Within a couple of years it was closed, and by all accounts Toyota had absolutely zero interest in keeping it open.]
The domestic companies are somewhere in the middle, essentially regarding the unions as a necessary evil.
If Tesla really does treat their employees badly, I’d expect their attitude would be more in-line with the Japanese.
Daimler (Mercedes) already owned 10% of Tesla stock (until last year). Its semi-parent, the UAE government (through Aabar Investments) now owns its old stake.
Toyota has $48 billion in cash (or at least in liquid assets) and already has a longstanding relationship with Tesla. VW has $34 billion, and is probably the best long term partner since it seems to be doing very little of its own electric development.