Musk is trying to undercut delays by aiming for July production while only promising December deliveries, and by proactively cutting delayed suppliers.
They claim that delays are also less likely to a design tailored for ease of manufacturing.
You'd think these plans would be at least worth mentioning. In the end the essay comes across to me as just another "ok he can do X, but can he do Y?" sliding of goalposts.
fair enough, but Elon Musk does have a credibility problem when it comes to what he says his companies are going to do and when they are going to do it by. To be flip, I can't remember a production target that he has hit (and without redefining what the word "produces" means).
There is undue criticism and there is undue praise. Somewhere in the middle is a degree of balance and this author should try and find that.
He is right to some extent. People will step in and defend Musk with the obvious counterpoints so I won't bother. SpaceX is his most ambitious company, which is saying something. They have issues. They are transparent, and they handle them the right way, but they exist. Tesla does too, but missing projections at that level is a much different story.
The article basically compared Tesla missing financial guidance to SpaceX. Thats like saying that when Tesla misses a production goal, a cargo ship sinks with all their cars on it for the quarter.
Space X successfully recaptured that rocket, thats amazing. Missing a benchmark can be 1/12 of the companies revenue (more since they were grounded). Tesla is actually executing well and they have less consolidation risk
They claim that delays are also less likely to a design tailored for ease of manufacturing.
You'd think these plans would be at least worth mentioning. In the end the essay comes across to me as just another "ok he can do X, but can he do Y?" sliding of goalposts.