That sounds more like institutional knowledge than people knowledge–one smart guy, or even a room full of smart guys, can’t replace the kind of embedded knowledge that an organization builds up over time.
Tesla’s been around for a while but they haven’t been a mass producer for long at all. So it’s no surprise that they would come up short in this area. It’s not something you can fix by just hiring a bunch of people. Even hiring a team of people only gets you partway there.
Technology can help ameliorate some of the effects. Good revision control systems, knowledge bases, etc. can help solidify this knowledge and get new people up to speed faster, but there are certainly limits. Even the best Silicon Valley companies can’t get around this (I know, because I work for one).
There’s only one real fix, and that’s time. Tesla has to survive long enough that they can build up this institutional knowledge, so that future products will come more smoothly. They can afford slipups for the Model 3, but will have to do better for the Model Y.
Of course, the downside of this institutional knowledge is the potential for building in dumb processes. That seems to be the inevitable course of all organizations–become increasingly sclerotic over time by trading innovation for efficiency. This works well for a while until some new disruptor comes in and the process repeats.
You constantly downplay Tesla’s technology lead with no evidence but your gut feeling that what they’re doing is easy. And yet you continue to have no answer for if it were that easy, why isn’t everybody doing it?
Even though the technology was out there (lithium-ion batteries had been used for years in other applications), GM still thought it was a decade away. It took someone else to actually implement it before GM even started looking at it. Precisely why there was this “logjam” is impossible to say, but the same thing happens over and over in many industries. Proof-by-counterexample beats any argument for why something is impossible.
And note that this is just one narrow aspect of modern EVs–the use of lithium-ion batteries. Tesla has many other innovations which other makers are only just barely starting to copy. And more which others will copy years from now, like minimal-button interiors.
Perhaps he’s going senile; perhaps he never really understood how innovation works. In any case, he never quite generalized from lithium-ion to all the other stuff Tesla is doing, even though that was the most obvious and straightforward step of all.
All tech can be copied. What separates innovators from copiers is that the innovators identify when something new can be done with the technology at hand and then goes and does it.
All of which is not to say that Tesla’s survival is guaranteed. But your focus on “secret technology” is not just misguided, it’s ass-backwards. Tesla’s use of extant technology to produce a genuinely new product is innovation enough.
QTF, and very well said. In my company (a competitor of Tesla), the institutional knowledge technically exists in the I.T. systems, but honestly, if it weren’t for people knowledge, everything would grind to a halt. If we were all fired and replaced tomorrow, it would be chaos.
I happen to have a very good grasp on this, as the five years I spent in Asia-Pacific from 2011 to 2016 to build a new organization touched on this greatly. The I.T. knowledge existed, certainly, but it took being on site applying that knowledge with all of our new employees to really make it work. The Company Culture isn’t something that’s read and memorized in Chinese fashion; it has to be lived to really work.
We’re very well capitalized, but we essentially built an entirely new company in an untapped region of the world in much less time than Elon Musk because we have the experience and know how (and, yes, the institutional and people knowledge). Our output in our new Thailand and India plants dwarfed Tesla in the first year, let alone China’s numbers.
We know how to build cars. So do GM and FCA and VW and Nissan and Honda and Toyota. More importantly, we know how to do so profitably. Electrification per se is not a challenge, and any apparent “lead” by Tesla is only perceived.
What technology lead? Tesla didn’t invent electric motors, lithium batteries or any other part of the car. They’ve never mass produced anything, ever.
Now GM, the company you suggest is behind the technology curve based on your quotes, is selling a mass produced electric car. You also seem to have forgotten the Volt. You remember the Volt. The GM car everybody drooled over because it met most people’s EV driving needs. The car I said would not sell well. The car that is technologically much more advanced than than anything Tesla has attempted.
The only thing Tesla has done (and I’ve given them credit for) is taking off-the-shelf technology and making a wicked-fast sports car. But I can say the same thing about the Dodge Demon. There’s nothing innovative about either car except someone brought them to market. If Ford or GM or any other car company wanted to build one they could. Ford has the GT as their flagship car and GM has the Corvette. This is what they think works for their product mix.
Not only does Tesla not have a technology lead they are lagging behind in the EV market.
[If this article is correct Tesla made 345 Model 3’s in November](First, we have the InsideEvs estimate for Model 3 deliveries in November. While the chart below might show strong growth, an increase of 200 units to 345 total is not a tremendous reason to celebrate. Through its first five months, the Model 3 is at a total of 712 units, while the Chevy Bolt (GM) saw just under 3,000 units in November alone. As a comparison, in the first five months of Bolt sales, Chevy sold nearly 5,000 units.):
First, we have the InsideEvs estimate for Model 3 deliveries in November. While the chart below might show strong growth, an increase of 200 units to 345 total is not a tremendous reason to celebrate. Through its first five months, the Model 3 is at a total of 712 units, while the Chevy Bolt (GM) saw just under 3,000 units in November alone. As a comparison, in the first five months of Bolt sales, Chevy sold nearly 5,000 units.
I would say the company with a technological lead is the one who can knock out a car as promised without taking people’s money up front.
So… you’re defining “technology lead” as something that has nothing to do with technology? More power to you.
Again, Tesla didn’t invent lithium-ion, but they were the first to put them in a production car. At a time when, according to Lutz himself, GM thought they were ten years away.
You also have a strange definition of “lagging behind” with charts like this. Spoiler: the Model S is in the lead. And grouping per make and excluding hybrids puts Tesla way in the lead. And if you count revenue instead of raw sales, Tesla is really way in the lead.
The Bolt should have beaten the Model S to market, not the Model 3. But it took the S to demonstrate to GM that yeah, they can be made reasonably affordable and don’t just appeal to an extremely narrow niche.
As a side note, does anyone else remember the Bolt concept? Compared to the one we got? All this talk about Tesla lying makes one forget about what Chevy showed off and didn’t deliver.
Ahh, right. We know that concept cars never deliver. It’s not lying because they’ve never shipped the concepts, and so we’re used to it. Funny, that.
Uhhhh, what are you talking about? Was I supposed to look at the first picture and go “coooooooooool!” and then look at the second and go “what a waste!”
Because I was like, “I hate those colors but it’s basically the difference between a “refresh” model year in any other car.”
I was with you until the end here :). I would agree that Tesla is no longer the only automaker that can ship successful long-range EVs. However, already we are shrinking the group considerably: only one competitor is actually shipping a 200-mile product, and although others are coming, the fact is that they aren’t shipping yet. Some don’t appear to have anything for the next few years, and what they’re targeting then is what Tesla is shipping now, more or less.
Competition will come, surely. And Tesla’s lead is shrinking. But it ain’t here yet from where I’m sitting. And it will be a long time yet before the Model 3 has real, direct competition, in large part because the European sedans where it more directly competes are the farthest behind in EV development. I haven’t yet seen a roadmap containing a car I’d prefer over the Model 3, and I suspect I’m not alone.
Yes, this is all the kind of stuff that we expect to get stripped off concepts, because despite looking cool it lacks something in practicality. And that Tesla ships it anyway, probably to their detriment. Nevertheless, we have one company that ships something almost identical to what they showed off years before, and another company that doesn’t.
um, yes it is. This industry has 100+ years of experience with the nuts-n-bolts of assembling cars. There are shit-tons of people out there who took a buyout or early retirement who are founts of knowledge on how to assemble cars. Hell, Tesla hired a lot of them back starting 2006 when Detroit was flirting with disaster; it’s what got them the Model S. But St. Elon and his cohort decided “these people are stupid old dinosaurs, we can do it better and faster,” burned all of those people out and now they’re mired in “production hell” with an assembly line which doesn’t work.
Technology is defined as the collection of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation.
So Yes, I’m saying GM has a technological lead over Tesla building EV’s and they’ve successfully demonstrated it with the Volt and Bolt.
I’m pretty secure in my definition of lagging behind. Failure to deliver a product on time. In this case the Model 3 is a day late and millions of dollars short. GM is on target and producing cars. As the model 3 is Tesla’s only mass produced car it’s an apples to apples comparison of a production process between the 2 companies.
That’s simply not true.
The car’s are almost identical. What on Gods green Earth are you talking about? Do you think the buyers who didn’t have to shell out a down payment and wait over a year are somehow disappointed?
You couldn’t get me to buy a glass roof ever, so I see a normal roof as an improvement.
So we are left with flush door handles and a polarizing interior. One of the things I’d like to see on the M3 is whether the door handles that don’t pop out a la MS are actually convenient, so I will withhold judgment there.
As far as the interior, I think you’re picking up more on the color scheme, and probably the vents, than the layout generally. In the production version, looks like there’s more places to store stuff, like phones, glasses, cups, tissues, etc.
Read Balthisar’s comment if you won’t bother with mine. You can’t just buy institutional knowledge off the shelf. Even integrating a complete team is not a seamless process. And simply aping an existing process is a guaranteed fail.
I haven’t heard any reviews say it’s a problem, but I haven’t tried myself. In any case, there are many possibilities here. Tesla has three different styles (the Model X handles are basically buttons)! Surely there are even more potential designs.
That’s part of it but the biggest thing is the front instrument cluster. The concept has a tiny and minimalistic screen there and a smooth dashboard behind it. The production one has a more typical layout, with the large hood present on most cars.
At any rate, I’m by no means claiming that Chevy should have shipped their concept. Just that, as we expect, they load up the concept with cool-looking goodies and then ship something else. Maybe they shouldn’t have put in the glass roof if they never had any intention of shipping it. That’s not truthful to me, even if we do expect it. Tesla’s concepts have been much more “honest”.
And in case it’s not clear, I’m by no means claiming that GM is the only or close to the worst offender here. “Concept” is basically a synonym for “sweet-looking car that will never ship in that form”.
However, I am reminded of another GM concept. Anyone else remember the GM Hy-Wire? I don’t know if it was the first “skateboard” concept but in any case it preceded Tesla by a substantial amount.
Never shipped, obviously. Not sure that it even led to any results at all. It was based on fuel cells, which are a dead end, but it lends itself nicely to EVs, since the cells pack nicely in a flat shape and the motors are so small that they can be squeezed almost anywhere.
Took Tesla to ship the first skateboard design. Gave the Model S great handling and certainly simplified production in a number of ways. Somehow they were the first to realize that the concept works.
I am aware of that. I guess you two have very different views of the same organization.
In any case, this is not something exclusive to automakers or any industry. There is virtually no company on earth where you could replace 100% of the staff and have it not take years to recover, no matter how good the internal documentation.
Concept cars are exactly that, CONCEPTS. They are traditionally futuristic cars that will never see production. Here’s a 1985 Buick Wildcat and Oldsmobile equivalent. these were quarter million dollar UFO’s. the Closest to these would be the Ford GT which was always a rich man’s toy.
The Bolt is remarkably close to it’s concept car. It’s built under the Chevy banner and it looks like a Chevy.
So what was stopping them? Not the fundamental technology, as you keep reminding us, since electric motors and lithium-ion batteries are off the shelf items. Why didn’t Lutz start development of a 200-mile car as soon as GM got past their lithium-ion mental block? We know why Tesla didn’t do it: they didn’t have the money or experience. GM had neither of those excuses.
No, because they only bought the car when they could see it in person. On the other hand, all those Model 3 reservation owners made a satisfied sigh when they saw they made the right choice.
For reference, here’s the Model X concept vs. the shipping one. Do you see the difference? Yes: the shipping model looks more advanced and ambitious than the concept, and is missing none of the cool concept features (the doors, in particular).
The concept looks like a reasonably futuristic (but believable) car, while the shipping model looks like any generic hatch from the past decade. Look at the other pics I linked to if you really can’t see the difference.
I was actually pretty impressed with the concept back when they first showed it. Funny how exactly none of the features I mentioned made it to production.
GM did build an electric car before Tesla. There was no money in it. Nobody wanted a car with a limited range. They then went on to build the Volt to address range anxiety. Nobody wanted it.
Tesla went after the sports car market. It was an expensive car that sold well to people with money. It did not generate a positive cash flow for the company and they had to go begging for money ahead of production going forward.
63,000 Model 3 reservations have been cancelled. That would mean something if Tesla could build that many cars because it would be a tremendous loss of revenue. Now it’s just 63 million dollars out of their production-from-hell budget.
You don’t seem to understand that the lost sales can’t be made up. They’re gone forever. the cost of future model 3 production has now gone up with no way of correcting for lost sales. It was a double wammy. They lost revenue and increased production costs. that revenue was supposed to fund the next project (as you keep pointing out) but now they’re asking for the entire cost of the new truck so they can prop up the Model 3 production. It’s a financial house of cards.
