Tesla, Elon Musk, & the Manufacturing Engineering Culture

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You worked with him?

I worked with him directly. Every century when you read history, you see maybe two or three people who can exist or can live like him at his capacity. It's a mental capacity; his personal power is really unique. I could see him working three or four days in a row, not going home, just staying at the factory. Or I could find him sleeping on a chair next to the production line; he was so dedicated. Every morning when we had meetings with him on the productions held in 2018, I said to the guys I think this is his last day. He was passionate and energetic and asked for changes and improvements. The level of pressure on him was not usual. Any usual person might just have a heart attack or kill himself under that pressure.

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What do you mean by not having this reliability?

The car is not reliable. The car has many problems. If you compare Tesla cars to other legacy car manufacturers, Tesla is not great. There are many defects. When you buy a car, the chances of being trapped in the service zones are a lot; you might see that. You can compare that.

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This is a small sidebar because it's a company that always comes up. People criticize that the materials and the finishing are not as good as with other cars, particularly German cars. What do you say about this?

I agree with the quality of the parts themselves. I think there is another factor, car integration. The integration of the whole car's assembly together; they don't have time to get it to that level of maturity. I need to confess, over time, since 2020 till now, they have been making millions of Model 3 and Model Y cars. It has much better quality these days, but I still see friends complaining. During the big California rains this season, they have many leaks in their cars. This is not great. You don't see that in German cars. The seats of the Tesla car are among the most comfortable I've ever tried, and the handling is great. But the problem is usually, for example, the body, the gap and flush of the body is not perfect, or you see a lot of systematic problems. I don't want to get into too many details, but some parts of my Model 3 don't work sometimes. Sometimes it works perfectly. It's an electronic problem or a software glitch that works great some days, but sometimes it doesn't. Over time, I can see the progress, but every year they are changing the volt system or the electronics, changing the whole product. They don't allow it to mature like Toyota, who's been making the Corolla for 50 years.

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