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Comment by dmckeon | Hacker News Reader

> And we’re actually going to have […] ‘installathons,’ ” Musk said, which will pit two teams against each other to see who can roof one of two similar-sized/designed roofs faster. Musk reiterated later that there’s “quite a bit of R&D just in the installation process itself.”

Not a short seller, but that sounds a lot like: “We don’t yet know how to do this well, but in the meantime we are going to optimize for speed.” This may look good to investors, but homeowners might cringe. Did Musk learn nothing from the pre-Titan installs? Somebody get him a copy of _The Mythical Man-Month_. This quote alone took me from possible early-adopter to wanting to wait 3 to 5 years until they decide to optimize installation for correctness and lowered risk of ignition.

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Have you ever seen roofers work? They move like there's a storm coming all day. Total hustle, it's why existing roof installs are relatively cheap. It makes sense that they need to ptiomize for near same amount of time.

Conventional roofs do not have live power and electronic components. Solar tiles (and panels) add "must not self-ignite" to the usual install requirements like "must not leak for N years".

Good, fast, cheap - between good and fast, I want good first. Cheap remains to be seen.

Luckily, you fall in the textbook mainstream part of the adoption "S" curve. I think it's expected by any early adopter that you're basically testing beta products, I know technology taught me that in all regards.

I say luckily because it's a good thing that most people do not jump too quick on all bandwago... oh wait. Well, it's great when they don't, not too fast. Society isn't a startup.

"Great artists ship" - Steve Jobs (apocryphal?)

It's better to ship and start iterating than to sit around and refine without sufficient real world feedback.

Cool, where is a v3 solar roof tile that's shipping?

He prioritizes speed apparently at the cost of anything else. I wonder why he feels such urgency?

I mean yeah he finally got a profit out of Tesla last quarter. But there’s really no tolerance for hiccups in a roof install.

Isn't speed a very important factor when addressing climate change?

I thought replacing ICE engines and developing more in renewable energy would be accepted.

Speed is of course great. But you still have to engineer and execute properly. I was hoping HN knew where he was getting his urgency from other than the obvious. Like is he short on money.

I don't want to turn this into a debate about Tesla's financials, but I think just about everybody can agree Tesla has always operated in a risky position - highly leveraged, relatively low on cash (in terms of months of runway), extremely risky bets (pre-orders on FSD which has yet to come to fruition).

Love or hate Tesla, they are a financial engineering marvel. And it's easy to make an argument that the company needs more cash, but again I don't want to make this into a flame war.

Musk rejects Kanban and Toyota Production System. Chaotic pressure is only one type of production speed.

Hmm interesting. Is there an article that goes over Musk's internal production style or why he rejects the ones you've listed?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-extreme-...

I suspect, from what I've read of his early life, that he is a flow addict and runs his companies to force employees into flow as well. 'Impossible' deadlines are an easy way to hack a team's flow, see e.g. the games industry.

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