GRA
Well-known member
No, the glass is neither half full or half empty, as those are judgemental descriptions based on someone's own biases or priorities. To me, 1/2 of the glass's volume is occupied by liquid, 1/2 by air; no skewing intended or needed.scottf200 said:GRA, I appreciated your time, thoughts, and efforts. They are interesting. Generally factual based but frequently skewed to fit your narrative. And, of course, glass is half empty
My judgements are based on claims which are repeated on an annual basis, that 2/3rd of the glass's volume would be occupied by liquid and 1/3rd by air by the end of the year, when the glass remains 1/2 occupied by liquid and 1/2 by air at that time. As I've said repeatedly in this thread, they're free to set internal goals as high as they like, but the goals which are publicly announced should reflect the real world constraints of bureaucracy and money, both of which are foreeseable and inevitable.scottf200 said:
There is no dispute that Tesla has done more to build a QC infrastructure than any other company or government entity - I've said as much many times, but that is irrelevant to how well they measure up to their own claims.scottf200 said:
There is nothing HUGE about exceeding last year's total U.S. SC construction. To date, Tesla has opened 105 SCs in the U.S. this year, compared to 92 last year. But they opened 102 in 2015, so the actual increase over 2015 so far is just 3%. Let's be generous and assume that they will open another 15 U.S. SCs by the end of the year despite the holidays, which will mean that it's taken them two years to learn how to increase SC openings by just under 18%, despite the fact that there is nothing novel about them; they are repeating what they've done many times before (with minor variations) using standardized components. Contracts, permitting, construction, equipment are all same old, same old. Are you suggesting that despite 5.5 years of building these things, Tesla and their supervising contractor Black and Veatch (not to mention the numerous subcontractors, many of whom have built a dozen or more SCs now) approach each new SC as a tabula rasa, with no knowledge or experience of timing, costs etc. of the several hundred previous SCs built here being used? If that were the case, incompetence is hardly an adequate description - imbecility comes closer but still doesn't do full justice.
Again, this is not in dispute, and is irrelevant as to why Tesla is seemingly incapable of learning from experience and announcing a realistic public construction schedule. It's really very simple: they can choose to announce that they will complete X SCs and once again only complete .6 or .7X (or this year's even worse total, currently .33X for North America), or they can announce that they will complete .6X and actually complete .6 or .7X. The total completed's the same in both cases, but one method damages their rep and the other bolsters it.scottf200 said:
I recently watched Ken Burns' documentary on the Vietnam War, and it reminded me of a phrase I hadn't thought about since I was a kid. We are far more cynical as a country than we were then, and we fully expect government or corporate figures to lie to us whenever it's convenient for them. Even so, Tesla's inability to announce a production schedule (any schedule) and come close to meeting it over their entire 14 year existence has opened a credibility gap that is rapidly approaching the size of the Johnson administration's pronouncements on Vietnam. No one besides the most hopelessly star-struck Tesla fanboi now believes that they will produce what they say they will, when they say they will, at the price they say they will.
This is an entirely self-inflicted wound on Tesla's part, and it's starting to hurt them. As long as the economy stays strong it may not matter, and enough people will continue to be dazzled every time Elon Musk holds up his keys and shakes them: "Ooh, shiny!" But if the economy contracts or even suffers a short hiccup, all of a sudden people will start being a lot more careful with their money, and Tesla will go down the tubes because no one will trust their claims on ANYTHING, and the money will be gone.
While I think Tesla has already accomplished about 80% of their mission, and their ultimate survival is no longer critical to the continued advance of ZEVs, I do believe they remain a valuable goad to other companies, and would like to see them develop some maturity (and even some profits) as a company so they can survive the inevitable bad times. IMO, that requires that they start being realistic with their announced timetables.
And now, having beaten this poor horse to death again, I leave you the last word on the subject for this year.
