Most of the design tolerances of the Model 3 are already better than any other car in the world. Soon, they will all be better. This is not enough. We will keep going until the Model 3 build precision is a factor of ten better than any other car in the world. I am not kidding.
I’d settle for precision beating their previous janky models with a nearly 50% recall rate.
Our car needs to be designed and built with such accuracy and precision that, if an owner measures dimensions, panel gaps and flushness, and their measurements don’t match the Model 3 specs, it just means that their measuring tape is wrong.
Right, and if their “autopilot” kills them, they were using it wrong.
There is a very wide range of contractor performance, from excellent to worse than a drunken sloth. All contracting companies should consider the coming week to be a final opportunity to demonstrate excellence. Any that fail to meet the Tesla standard of excellence will have their contracts ended on Monday.
This whole letter reads like a puff piece intended for fanboys and stakeholders to pass around and fantasize about, but three weeks of meeting goals shouldn’t give anyone a head this big. This is from the same guy who just realized he couldn’t automate everything he wanted to, and who the NTSB just booted off a death investigation. The last thing needed here is grandiose talk.
Instead of trying to leap from being marginal to the greatest ever, how about trying to meet reasonable goals, safety standards, and work with the NTSB? Instead of trying for Ferrari-esque panel gaps, just do better than the Model S and meet basic industry standards within class.
A good part design reduces the requirement of tight mechanical tolerances to perform correctly. Manufacturing costs can be reduced. This is preferable to a design that requires tight tolerances to function equivalently. Maybe in terms of fit and finish of the interior or the exterior panels superior 'precision' is a desirable attribute. But this still reads a little odd to an engineer.
> Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.
I'm not sure how seriously it was ever taken. I also suspect that using an acronym for a major initiative is seen differently than adding them to the workflow.
I don't know anything about Tesla or working there, but my experience from large financial institutions is that acronyms are part and parcel of business speak. It's beyond comical, because very often you'll see the acronyms immediately followed by their expansion in parenthesis making it very clear that the acronyms are not widely known or accepted. But they keep being used, and each business unit likes to come up with their own. I find it pretentious and inhibiting to communication, and I make a point of not using acronyms that aren't already very well established to the point where the communications can be understood by more or less anyone.
I detest the invention and use of these acronyms and – ignoring the rest of the email – I for one would love to see such an instruction come from management at my place of work.
I've found it more of a cultural phenomena. I haven't seen so many useless acronyms used anywhere outside of USA and maybe UK (to the lesser extend). A good practice is to use the full form when first used, add acronym in parenthesis then use it when mentioned next, for example, Hacker News (HN) - not doing it is simply rude imho, unless it's a really well-known acronym for the intended audience (HTTP, IP, CPU etc.)
It's not just rude, it's an intentional power play and a shibboleth to identify outsiders. No one wants to be the one who looks stupid or not part of the scene by asking what an acronym means, so it's a way to lord over other people.
> Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication.
The wicked jargon is the normal English word with a weird specific meaning.
If you use a TLA or a bunch of latin I know that I don't know what you mean, and I look it up or I ask you.
If you use a normal English word but in a specific way I may think I know what you mean, and I may not ask you. This is a hinderance to communication.
Not to mention that all the COTs or nearly COTs assemblies on their cars are made to the same spec as they are for whatever other OEM buys them.
A TRW unit bearing supplied to Tesla in one bolt pattern and spline configuration isn't any more precise than the same bearing assembly in a different bolt pattern and spline configuration sold to GM.
Tesla is not in a position to dictate abnormally high tolerances to it's suppliers for stuff like that.
Edit: Why am I being down-voted. Is this not a correct analysis of the situation?
Not defending the gaps, but "most of the design tolerances" != "all design tolerances". There's much more to a car than just cosmetics. And I'm not claiming that those non-cosmetic parts are all top quality, just that it's possible that they are.
His next line clarifies that it is about cosmetic parts:
> Our car needs to be designed and built with such accuracy and precision that, if an owner measures dimensions, panel gaps and flushness, and their measurements don’t match the Model 3 specs, it just means that their measuring tape is wrong.
I think it's more "design tolerances" != "manufacturing tolerances". Tesla could design their body gaps to be 1mm but that's meaningless without the ability to manufacture them to that tolerance consistently. Tesla's quality problems are clearly a production and not a design issue. No engineer at Tesla said "Hey, let's design the model 3 with gigantic body gaps".
Earlier he says "Moreover, there has simultaneously been a significant improvement in quality and build accuracy, which is reflected in positive owner feedback." Sounds like he's talking about the current state of affairs, which presumably reflects changes in response to feedback like that?
Designing in tolerances that allow considerably mismatched parts to be combined is beneficial for the manufacturer, if they have a long list of people willing to buy the product regardless of the mismatch.
I guess when he starts talking about their achieved manufacturing tolerances?
Wowsa. This is the type of e-mail that would get me to polish ye olde resume and start looking for other jobs. Nothing like the combination of impossible goals, additional overhead, and reduced capacity.
Are they adding additional employees to handle that shift (additional employees at all levels - not just operators and technicians)? Or are existing employees expected to do more work?
“Please refer anyone you know who you think meets the Tesla bar for talent, drive and trust” he wrote. “Between Fremont and Giga, Tesla will be adding about 400 people per week for several weeks.”
They're going to switch to 24/7 (because thats apparently required for the 6k/week goal) by end of June. Your parent probably thinks (like I do), that it's not enough time to hire enough people and onboard them for an entire extra shift in 8 weeks.
There is a very wide range of contractor performance, from excellent to worse than a drunken sloth. All contracting companies should consider the coming week to be a final opportunity to demonstrate excellence. Any that fail to meet the Tesla standard of excellence will have their contracts ended on Monday.
Unless this is an empty threat a bunch of contractors will be out the door on Monday. Which means less capacity to do the work.
Hiring line employees for a 3rd shift is great, but where are all the supporting ops people like safety engineers and plant managers going to come from? Doing that means a bunch of white collar employees just got a whole lot more work to do.
This section on meetings is something that actually makes me want to apply at TESLA.
>Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.
>Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.
>Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.
Your section with long monotype lines, which makes you have to scroll right to read it, makes we want to plead with HN commenters to stop doing it. Please, do quotes with >, it reads fine that way.
That's an incredibly stupid reason to want to apply somewhere. Marissa used to send out emails with a variation of that content once in three months, and business went on as usual 2 levels and more below her.
Hey man, that' pretty aggro. I agree it would be a silly reason to apply to someplace solely because they didn't have meetings. I also agree that just because the CEO says it doesn't mean the company can do it.
But I still don't like the social convention that its people think its rude to leave a meeting when you have nothing left to contribute. I think any effort to change that could have a positive effect on workplace productivity and moral.
> I think any effort to change that could have a positive effect on workplace productivity and moral.
Of course. But in most big companies, that's just CEO speak, business goes on as usual 2 days later. Musk already has a cult of personality, this type of email makes it sound even more like it'd be a good place to work (which it might be, but not because of the line you quoted).
To some degree, if your first instinct is to quit, then the email has done it's job. Elon wants to scale up production which will require sweeping changes and he will want all of his employees 'on board'. If you are not interested in helping the company grow, then quitting is the best option at that point. I suspect for most employees it is just business as usual.
To all the naysayers here: you may not believe in the factory reaching the goals and standards he is announcing -- but a proper time to pass judgment will be by July, not now, not in advance. Until then all you say is (mostly) noise.
Why? What about all the previous times Tesla hasn’t made goals and said they were doing something to fix it?
At this point I don’t trust any predictions or promises Musk says. His timelines (and level of product quality) are something to be very suspicious about.
And that doesn’t include when I think he’s flat out lying for marketing reasons (“Autopilot”).
I used to like Tesla, but this happens too much. I don’t doubt the production rate will improve, I doubt his estimate. I doubt the quality will improve to the level he claims (or possibly much at all). I doubt the Y will come out anywhere near on time.
I don’t see why he should deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore.
I didn't believe in Elon the 20 times before that he sent out emails like this and -- shock and awe -- they didn't reach their target. I still wait with bated breath, but will be pleasantly surprised if they actually achieve this goal this time.
> A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.
This is a way to create a clusterfuck. Nothing is worse than having people barging in from other departments going over managers' heads and imposing their own priorities.
I think it depends on the sensitivity/urgency of the matter. Its better to avoid chain of command in urgent matters that an employee might feel slows down production for example. In other cases common sense dictates going through the chain in order to avoid chaos as you describe.
I disagree: I have seen so many situations where a simple piece of information turns into a game of Telephone and a political football, resulting in absurd delays.
That's not the same as imposing different priorities, it's just a question of "I need X in order to do Y".
I'm a huge fan of this. But it relies on your co-workers having commons sense, the ability to logically reason, and to have the ability to judge priorities on their own.
This is how a company should operate. Where everyone is on the same team, working to solve the most pressing problems, and working on what on what justifiably blocks the company from it's most critical goals.
Again its critical to hire non-idiots, and this works great. Hence why people who do things without rationally justifiable reasons get fired from Tesla regularly.
Provide some examples of when this happened, why it caused harm, and to what degree the harms from this sort of thing outweighed the benefits.
One would generally assume that if someone from another department is commenting on something, particularly if they are a lower level employee, they are generally doing it because they genuinely believe there is some kind of important issue.
And even if it turns out that it isn't important, the time spent briefly annoying someone is generally going to be much less costly than overlooking an issue of actual importance.
Bloomberg agrees they got their production rate up.[1] Now they're getting someplace.
This is about what you expect from a highly automated production line. If it's not working perfectly, production quality and quantity are poor. There are line stops all the time. Once it's fully debugged, product comes out in vast quantities. Then you need to watch quality.
In the end, Tesla took about as long as everybody else does to debug a final assembly line. They tried to use it for production during debugging, which ran up their costs.
> We are burning the midnight oil to burn the midnight oil.
This is an odd way to end a memo titled "Progress". Are employees supposed to be motivated by the prospect of a self-propagating series of tough slogs?
> Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the “chain of command”. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.
If the chain of command is inefficient, then change it, don't go around it. Managers are there for a reason, and leaving them out to get quicker results will bite you in the butt down the road.
"If the chain of command is inefficient, then change it, don't go around it."
I work in a "flat" company now and couldn't be happier. Also, I haven't seen such productivity in any siloed company around. Managers should help with communication and cooperation when needed, not act as a gateway when I need to have a quick chat with another technical people in different department.
> Btw, here are a few productivity recommendations:
> - Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.
> - Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.
> - Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.
> - Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.
> - Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the “chain of command”. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.
> - A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.
> - In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a “company rule” is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.
With all the respect I have for Elon, I don't think he realizes he's not the CEO of a startup company anymore.
Getting rid of acronyms will have an inverse effect on productivity. Are you supposed to explain each time you refer to it?
I agree if someone is new to the team then you should probably explain a few times before using acronyms. But for established teams, this just slows everyone down.
Chain of command is there so that no one goes over the other person's head. If two developers disagree on an approach and one just straight up goes to the manager instead of the project manager it causes issues for the whole team. I'm a fan of "hey you should be able to talk to whomever you want", but not as the default.
Company rule is there to protect the worker in case they made a bad decision. As long as it was within the company rule, they can't be blamed as much as "hey I used common sense".
For massive companies you need these systems in place.
Seems like he's advocating little more than "critically examine your behavior and forgo following stupid conventions if you deem them stupid". He's just giving concrete examples to make easier the connection to what that actually would mean in practice.
There are smarter-than-average people working at Tesla; they will figure out what is useless and what can be reasonably applied as productivity measure. They just need to be reminded to consider these things every once in a while, like the rest of us.
When Musk writes "We are going to find a way or make a way to get there" he echoes this quote attributed in Latin to Hannibal: "Aut viam inveniam, aut faciam" (I will find a way, or make one) when his generals told him it was impossible to cross the Alps by elephant. It was used as a motto by Francis Bacon.
Discussions about Elon Musk and, specifically, Tesla has become quite the lightning rod around here with negative sentiment rising. Here's a little tidbit of info that I think partly explains it: a lot of it is driven by schadenfraude. "Investors have placed more bets against Tesla than any other U.S. stock, with short interest hovering around 25 percent, according to S3 Analytics."
So I suspect a fair amount of posturing and astroturfing amongst the detractors mixed within those who have are more sincere in their positions.
I really like his attitude that an already big company should not act like a conglomerate. Cutting middleman is always something that I advise my managers to do, as well as pointless time-wasting meetings.
Keep in mind that some Germans here think Tesla is a joke, because “nobody can mass produce cars so easily”
And they are both right and wrong. It’s a tough business, but I have no doubt that someone like him can actually make it till the end.
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[ 0.17 ms ] story [ 2097 ms ] threadI’d settle for precision beating their previous janky models with a nearly 50% recall rate.
Our car needs to be designed and built with such accuracy and precision that, if an owner measures dimensions, panel gaps and flushness, and their measurements don’t match the Model 3 specs, it just means that their measuring tape is wrong.
Right, and if their “autopilot” kills them, they were using it wrong.
There is a very wide range of contractor performance, from excellent to worse than a drunken sloth. All contracting companies should consider the coming week to be a final opportunity to demonstrate excellence. Any that fail to meet the Tesla standard of excellence will have their contracts ended on Monday.
This whole letter reads like a puff piece intended for fanboys and stakeholders to pass around and fantasize about, but three weeks of meeting goals shouldn’t give anyone a head this big. This is from the same guy who just realized he couldn’t automate everything he wanted to, and who the NTSB just booted off a death investigation. The last thing needed here is grandiose talk.
Instead of trying to leap from being marginal to the greatest ever, how about trying to meet reasonable goals, safety standards, and work with the NTSB? Instead of trying for Ferrari-esque panel gaps, just do better than the Model S and meet basic industry standards within class.
I'm guessing "HTTP" is exempt.
In any case, I think you could enforce the spirit of that idea with something like:
1) Don't use abbreviations or terms outside of common English unless it's in The Glossary.
2) If you want to use such a term, add it to the Glossary.
3) It's some group's job to review the Glossary for garbage.
I detest the invention and use of these acronyms and – ignoring the rest of the email – I for one would love to see such an instruction come from management at my place of work.
It's not just rude, it's an intentional power play and a shibboleth to identify outsiders. No one wants to be the one who looks stupid or not part of the scene by asking what an acronym means, so it's a way to lord over other people.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/accessibleinfo/
The wicked jargon is the normal English word with a weird specific meaning.
If you use a TLA or a bunch of latin I know that I don't know what you mean, and I look it up or I ask you.
If you use a normal English word but in a specific way I may think I know what you mean, and I may not ask you. This is a hinderance to communication.
Really? The Model 3's panel gaps are quite well-known among car owners. One example from Munro and Associates: https://youtu.be/QCIo8e12sBM?t=394
How can Elon say this with a straight face?
A TRW unit bearing supplied to Tesla in one bolt pattern and spline configuration isn't any more precise than the same bearing assembly in a different bolt pattern and spline configuration sold to GM.
Tesla is not in a position to dictate abnormally high tolerances to it's suppliers for stuff like that.
Edit: Why am I being down-voted. Is this not a correct analysis of the situation?
A bit cheeky none the less.
"We found this massive list of a problems with this build of the car."
'So? That's from, like, a year ago, we've changed a ton of stuff since then.'
> Our car needs to be designed and built with such accuracy and precision that, if an owner measures dimensions, panel gaps and flushness, and their measurements don’t match the Model 3 specs, it just means that their measuring tape is wrong.
Designing in tolerances that allow considerably mismatched parts to be combined is beneficial for the manufacturer, if they have a long list of people willing to buy the product regardless of the mismatch.
I guess when he starts talking about their achieved manufacturing tolerances?
“Please refer anyone you know who you think meets the Tesla bar for talent, drive and trust” he wrote. “Between Fremont and Giga, Tesla will be adding about 400 people per week for several weeks.”
There is a very wide range of contractor performance, from excellent to worse than a drunken sloth. All contracting companies should consider the coming week to be a final opportunity to demonstrate excellence. Any that fail to meet the Tesla standard of excellence will have their contracts ended on Monday.
Unless this is an empty threat a bunch of contractors will be out the door on Monday. Which means less capacity to do the work.
Hiring line employees for a 3rd shift is great, but where are all the supporting ops people like safety engineers and plant managers going to come from? Doing that means a bunch of white collar employees just got a whole lot more work to do.
Sure that company has employees, but if they are not doing the job it is better to find a different company that will.
>Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.
>Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.
>Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.
But I still don't like the social convention that its people think its rude to leave a meeting when you have nothing left to contribute. I think any effort to change that could have a positive effect on workplace productivity and moral.
> I think any effort to change that could have a positive effect on workplace productivity and moral.
Of course. But in most big companies, that's just CEO speak, business goes on as usual 2 days later. Musk already has a cult of personality, this type of email makes it sound even more like it'd be a good place to work (which it might be, but not because of the line you quoted).
At this point I don’t trust any predictions or promises Musk says. His timelines (and level of product quality) are something to be very suspicious about.
And that doesn’t include when I think he’s flat out lying for marketing reasons (“Autopilot”).
I used to like Tesla, but this happens too much. I don’t doubt the production rate will improve, I doubt his estimate. I doubt the quality will improve to the level he claims (or possibly much at all). I doubt the Y will come out anywhere near on time.
I don’t see why he should deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore.
This is a way to create a clusterfuck. Nothing is worse than having people barging in from other departments going over managers' heads and imposing their own priorities.
That's not the same as imposing different priorities, it's just a question of "I need X in order to do Y".
This is how a company should operate. Where everyone is on the same team, working to solve the most pressing problems, and working on what on what justifiably blocks the company from it's most critical goals.
Again its critical to hire non-idiots, and this works great. Hence why people who do things without rationally justifiable reasons get fired from Tesla regularly.
One would generally assume that if someone from another department is commenting on something, particularly if they are a lower level employee, they are generally doing it because they genuinely believe there is some kind of important issue.
And even if it turns out that it isn't important, the time spent briefly annoying someone is generally going to be much less costly than overlooking an issue of actual importance.
This is about what you expect from a highly automated production line. If it's not working perfectly, production quality and quantity are poor. There are line stops all the time. Once it's fully debugged, product comes out in vast quantities. Then you need to watch quality.
In the end, Tesla took about as long as everybody else does to debug a final assembly line. They tried to use it for production during debugging, which ran up their costs.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/
This is an odd way to end a memo titled "Progress". Are employees supposed to be motivated by the prospect of a self-propagating series of tough slogs?
If the chain of command is inefficient, then change it, don't go around it. Managers are there for a reason, and leaving them out to get quicker results will bite you in the butt down the road.
I work in a "flat" company now and couldn't be happier. Also, I haven't seen such productivity in any siloed company around. Managers should help with communication and cooperation when needed, not act as a gateway when I need to have a quick chat with another technical people in different department.
> Btw, here are a few productivity recommendations:
> - Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.
> - Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter. Meeting frequency should drop rapidly once the urgent matter is resolved.
> - Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.
> - Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorize a glossary just to function at Tesla.
> - Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the “chain of command”. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.
> - A major source of issues is poor communication between depts. The way to solve this is allow free flow of information between all levels. If, in order to get something done between depts, an individual contributor has to talk to their manager, who talks to a director, who talks to a VP, who talks to another VP, who talks to a director, who talks to a manager, who talks to someone doing the actual work, then super dumb things will happen. It must be ok for people to talk directly and just make the right thing happen.
> - In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a “company rule” is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.
Getting rid of acronyms will have an inverse effect on productivity. Are you supposed to explain each time you refer to it?
I agree if someone is new to the team then you should probably explain a few times before using acronyms. But for established teams, this just slows everyone down.
Chain of command is there so that no one goes over the other person's head. If two developers disagree on an approach and one just straight up goes to the manager instead of the project manager it causes issues for the whole team. I'm a fan of "hey you should be able to talk to whomever you want", but not as the default.
Company rule is there to protect the worker in case they made a bad decision. As long as it was within the company rule, they can't be blamed as much as "hey I used common sense".
For massive companies you need these systems in place.
There are smarter-than-average people working at Tesla; they will figure out what is useless and what can be reasonably applied as productivity measure. They just need to be reminded to consider these things every once in a while, like the rest of us.
So I suspect a fair amount of posturing and astroturfing amongst the detractors mixed within those who have are more sincere in their positions.
As always, be skeptical.
Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-13/tesla-may...
I really like his attitude that an already big company should not act like a conglomerate. Cutting middleman is always something that I advise my managers to do, as well as pointless time-wasting meetings.
Keep in mind that some Germans here think Tesla is a joke, because “nobody can mass produce cars so easily”
And they are both right and wrong. It’s a tough business, but I have no doubt that someone like him can actually make it till the end.