Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Electric car manufacturer Tesla has called for people to volunteer their time, to help Tesla hit production targets and prove the “haters” wrong.
Tesla Asks for Model 3 Factory Volunteers to Prove ‘Haters’ Wrong
By Dana Hull
30 March 2018, 01:12 GMT+10 Updated on 30 March 2018, 02:55 GMT+10
Tesla Inc. exhorted its factory workers to disprove the “haters” betting against the company and is letting a small number of volunteers join the effort to ramp up output of the crucial Model 3 line.
In a pair of internal memos last week, the heads of engineering and production spelled out measures to free up workers for the Model 3 line and challenged them to reach production goals. Doug Field, the engineering chief, told staff that if they can exceed 300 Model 3s a day, it would be an “incredible victory” at a time when short-sellers and critics are increasingly doubting the company’s ability to fulfill CEO Elon Musk’s vision of building a mass-production electric-vehicle manufacturer
“I find that personally insulting, and you should too,” Field wrote in the March 23 email. “Let’s make them regret ever betting against us. You will prove a bunch of haters wrong.”
…
The “haters” in this case seems to be a reference to shareholders and investors. Tesla has recently seen its share price collapse, in part because of failure to hit production targets. As a result a lot of traders have reportedly shorted Tesla stock in anticipation of further falls in value.
If Tesla collapses, the failure will represent a remarkable destruction of US taxpayer’s funds. In 2015 LA Times reported Tesla had received over $4.6 billion in government subsidies. $4.6 billion of public money which could have been spent repairing roads or helping poor people ended up being used as green corporate welfare for a private company.
When do we get our $15 BILLION back from GM?
you had it back multiple times over in taxes over the decades it has existed.
If you were pitched a business model as an investor that relied upon volunteer labor and subsidies to make it work, would you be sold? If the pitch never mentioned the need for free labor, would you feel you’d been had?
Tesla paid back their loans…
They have paid back loans, but they do not have to pay back the subsidies awarded to them for being so called, green. I also hate seeing Teslas and other so called green cars with “Access OK” stickers allowing them to drive in the “Commuter” lanes.
Yup – get rid of all the subsidy BS. Let the product sink or swim on its own merit, and at a realistic price that reflects the cost of manufacture.
I would like to say one more thing about engineering. Engineering is the art of compromise in the quest for performance. In manufacturing, cost is part of engineering. The distortion here is subsidies, which enable the fine engineering to succeed, while the product that was designed could not be sold otherwise. That is, the “value” of the engineering is lower than its cost.
If a company can’t meet its production targets by paying people it seems unlikely that it will suddenly achieve them by asking people to do something extra for free. Appeals to emotion didn’t save previous car manufacturers when faced with more efficient competitors. The footsteps of doom are becoming quite loud now.
Someone should clue Elon that bumping his keel along the bottom occasionally is survivable; making a habit of it is unsustainable.
What is the range on one charge? I generally like to drive 1000 miles a day, when traveling cross country… Any comments?
So you are on the road 27 hours a day?
50 mph divided into 1000 is 20 hours. I used to drive from Saskatchewan to Whistler at that distance regularly. 20 hours was easy.
Recalibrate.
Driving south from Pittsburgh to Florida my average speed is 65 mph. Typically, I drive 13 hrs the first day, but 15 would be entirely possible. Done it numerous times.
JPP,
Yes, I to like to go as far as I can (1000 mile goal) in a day.
NN,
(I drive a careful 37 mph on the highway so I too have to drive 27 hours a day.)
NN:
There are significant sections of our country where 70+ mph is the legal speed, with drivers pushing over the limit.
Montana did not have speed limit on many roads, until the Federal Government withheld transportation and highway funds.
Now, Montana has limits on all of their roads.
Which does not mean Montana enforces the limits frequently.
Back in the tricky Dick era, Nixon arbitrarily declared the nations maximum speed limit at 55 mph. An order that ignored vehicle’s most efficient speeds. Instead of saving fuel, Nixon’s order wasted it.
My car broke down in Missouri. I left the car at a mechanic’s shop, then hitchhiked miles to stay in a Missouri State Park.
Hitchhiking did not work, at all.
However, just walking down a rural road caused people to stop and ask if I could use a ride.
That rural road had prominent signs stating a 40 mph speed limit. Over several days traveling back and forth, not one person went less than 60 mph. Including the County’s deputy Sheriff who picked me up the second day.
It was the Deputy Sheriff who invited me to come watch Friday night drag races; after we talked cars and engine modifications.
1,000 miles, 70 mph –> 14-15 hours driving. Easy, though YMMV.
Personally, driving across America’s West, I start driving between 7AM and 8AM. Depending whether I camp or not, I stop around 11PM. Earlier if I get sleepy, later if I’m fine. Driving times that attain at least 500 miles in distance and often 800 miles.
Professional drivers, even those constrained by law to limited times and miles often drive much further than I achieve.
You’ve never heard of Iron Butt riders? Some 60,000 motorcyclists in the US alone have qualified for that distinction – and I’m one of them. Rough on the back. Much easier in a car. Stopped every 150 miles to get forgiveness from the back. The Dakotas and Montana really helped with speed limits of 80 mph on the interstate. Since I always drive 10 – 15% over the speed limit, you can really eat up the miles.
We considered a relaxing day a mere 600 miles. Gave us lots of time to barhop in the evenings – especially going East to West.
I remember a very close call when I fell asleep behind the wheel. Just woke up in time to be able to put things right again, with the help of skyrocketing adrenaline. Since that event, I’m having a break, a KitKat and a nap regularly. Occasional speeding is fine, but there are so many idiots on the roads who never learned to even handle a pram.
At what temperature And at what battery age? When new at 20C, the $35k model 3 is advertised as 215 miles. Colder or older makes it worse by up to half for both.
Which is exactly why “electric cars” will never replace ICE cars until their power is drawn directly from the roads they travel on while in motion.
How about rain and dark?
http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/d88e182ce65e743b5d1fdb07cfeb1316/204000016/elvag.jpg
(not a fake)
Haters? Why didn’t he call them “Profit deniers” and threw dead cats at them?
Still, I believe Elon has a goodly few billions left in his personal fortune? He has done well on OPM. Can he carry on without it?
There was a reference to Tesla from a commentator “Joseph” on JoanneNova’s site 2 days ago which I find difficult to believe . The reference was to a blog from a financial entrepreneur discussing Tesla’s finances and the extraordinary fact ( if it is a fact )that Musk has been awarded a bonus of billions at a time when he is apparently asking people to work for nothing:
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/tesla-without-any-doubt-is-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy-23219/
some quotes :
-“Just a few days ago, shareholders of Tesla approved an almost comical pay package for their cult leader CEO Elon Musk that could potentially put $50 BILLION in his pocket over the next decade.
Let’s put this figure in perspective: at $5 billion per year, Musk would make more than every single CEO in the S&P 500. COMBINED.
In other words, if you add up the salaries of all the CEOs of the 500 largest companies in America, it would still be less than the $5 billion per year that Mr. Musk stands to earn.
That’s pretty astounding given that Tesla’s own 2017 4th quarter financial report (page 24) states that Elon “does not devote his full time and attention to Tesla”.-”
—“Or more importantly, that under Musk’s leadership, Tesla’s chronic financial incontinence has racked up more than $4.97 billion in operating losses for its shareholders.
Or that the company has been under SEC investigation (without bothering to disclose this fact to shareholders). (Is this true?- MW)
Yet they saw fit to reward him with the largest CEO pay package in the history of the world.
This is precisely the type of behavior that is only seen during periods of extreme irrationality when financial markets are at their peak… and poised for a serious correction.-”
and a comparison with Ford:
. -“As a reality check, Tesla is worth twice as much as Ford* yet Ford made 6 million cars last year at a $7.6 billion profit while Tesla made 100,000 cars at a $2 billion loss.
Further, Ford has $12 billion in cash held for “a rainy day” while Tesla will likely run out of money in the next 3 months.”–
As I said before I do not know how much credence can be put on these comments , and I should stress that I have no problems with EVs . I would like every car or truck passing our house on a busy road to be electric and would love to have a Nissan Leaf for local journeys but cannot afford a new one , and how reliable would be a 3-4 year old pre -owned one?
apparently so https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/mobility/2017/12/15/report-tesla-sec-investigation/108638994/
The target for these EVs is to make them as much like petrol/gas/diesel as they can, especially refill/recharge time.
Does a forecourt petrol pump move 20 litres per minute?
That equates roughly to a 3 mega-Watt power flow.
Compare: UK’s biggest, fastest & powerful ordinary passenger train (the West Coast Pendolino) in normal usage burns 6 mega-Watt on full chat.
(One quite impressive machine for those that understand electrics, electronics and feedback control systems. Italian of course, they’re the REAL engineers around this part of the world.)
Our elders and betters in Europe have decided that us plebs are unable to handle a home vacuum cleaner with a power rating of over 1500 Watts but expect to fit, and everyone to handle, a power connection that is 2000 times more powerful into most people’s homes.
Get it now?
A CO2 level of 10,000,000ppm would be the very least of our problems. The real one is here and now= Congenital Stupidity.
One of these days, these muppets are going to inflict upon themselves (and us) what they did to the Rapanui and countless other little tribes.
Extinction.
“Enron” Musk’s scams are starting to unravel and the rats are leaving the sinking ship.
I made a quick calculation. If you wan to quick charge 1000 Tesla S, you have to fire up a complete semi-sized power Station with 500 MW. Wind turbines will not turn quicker, if you connect some Teslas to them.
Quick Charging with 400 Volts needs 250 Ampere Lines. Don’t ask me wo will build them and pay them. Here in Germany I guess, the payer will be the simple man on the street – the electricity customer who can never afford such toys.
This reminds me of a machine tool company that I worked for 50 years ago.
They would get all the parts onto the assembly floor and built the machine in record time, then the supervisor says, “now we have to rebuild it to make it work”.
They went bankrupt less than 10 years later.
Buy one Tesla bond today and receive 10 cyptocurrency credits in Venezuela, a ticket to Mars, and a free autograph.
Volunteers with experience replacing bolts are especially needed.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-recalls-123k-model-sedans-220842247.html
I do think that the headline could be misleading when it refers to “volunteers.” None of the following quotes cite a call for volunteers, only cooperation and a willingness to switch to the Model 3 line. (Instead, I suppose, of just being re-assigned to it.) It certainly doesn’t say they won’t be paid.
I take it more like the meaning of a call for volunteers in the military, not a call for free labor, and especially not from outsiders. If there was some clarifying detail in the original source, it should be added to the article here.
Elon the stinker Musk will electrocute them if they dare to ask for fair pay. Just firing his workforce won’t do any more. Foul play, that’s it!
I agree. I’m one of the Original Tesla Haters ™, but there is no evidence that they’ve asked anyone to work for free. Tesla is such a disaster that there’s really no need to lie about it.
Seriously? Unpaid volunteers to help prove that Tesla can reach production goals?
Not unpaid then. But still…why can’t they just hire more people to fix the production problems?
Their production problems aren’t a matter of short staffing. They are a matter of a Silicon Valley computer merchant’s inability to make a car.
That’s how the Soviets won the cold war: the far-famed subbotniks…
I have often said that Elon Musk is the PT Barnum of the 21st century. I have then been shouted down by the “faithful” who claim that he is the all benevolent Saviour of the planet. Sometimes I hate being correct, not so much this time…
Sounds like the same message Mao gave during the “Great Leap Forward!”
Tesla. A very good example of Western Democratic crony corruption. Of course defence contractors and war profiteers are just the same (recall Halliburton in Iraq). The Green movement is really just a sort of peacetime war – an excuse to slosh billions around to the favoured few.
This is the New Capitalism that is being presented to the Millennial’s tender hands…profits for Justice.
It’s a common pattern in technology. The bleeding edge often truly bleeds. It’s those who come afterwords with common sense and sound business practices that make the real money.
If so-called “greenies” could ever pull their heads out and accept reality they might realize the most practical and efficient personal vehicle must be powered by a combination of sources. The vast majority of the country requires a vehicle that can operate in the cold, dark winter as well as the hot summer. That means powering the lights, heater, defroster and air conditioner separately and together for more than 250 miles at a time. It also means refueling can’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes. The simplest way that would be possible with present technology is by powering the drive train with an electric motor, supplied by fast charge batteries, charged by an alternator, powered by a small but efficient multi-fuel engine. I would also cover the roof with efficient, and replaceable, photocells capable of charging during use and while parked. So long as sane people are forced to listen to the incoherent ranting of semi-educated fools who deny the climate is always changing, can’t tell what gender they are, feel communism is good for us all and detest all things internal combustion we will continue to circle the drain with these nut cases. It’s way past time for the adults in the room to push them off into the corner and take over the conversation.
If so-called “greenies” could ever pull their heads out and accept reality they might realize the most practical and efficient personal vehicle must be powered by a combination of sources. The vast majority of the country requires a vehicle that can operate in the cold, dark winter as well as the hot summer. That means powering the lights, heater, defroster and air conditioner separately and together for more than 250 miles at a time. It also means refueling can’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes. The simplest way that would be possible with present technology is by powering the drive train with an electric motor, supplied by fast charge batteries, charged by an alternator, powered by a small but efficient multi-fuel engine. I would also cover the roof with efficient, and replaceable, photo cells capable of charging during use and while parked. So long as sane people are forced to listen to the incoherent ranting of semi-educated fools who deny climate is always changing, can’t tell what gender they are, feel communism is good for us all and detest all things internal combustion we will continue to circle the drain with these nut cases. It’s way past time for the adults in the room to push them off into the corner and take over the conversation.
Photocells on the roof are an affectation and nothing more.
Aren’t these photocells mockups?
Now they are trying something similar: cow’s manure ist good for us all, all these flies can’t be wrong. The same with battery-powered vehicles: they are gooood because everybody says so. Dear supporters, get a life.