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Tesla CEO Elon Musk took part in a long interview of the podcast Recode / Decode with Kara Swisher this week. In addition to an hour, he covered a lot of ground. It is worth listening.
I understood it all by understanding how hard it was for Musk to work for the 100 or more weeks needed to solve the many problems associated with ramping up the production of the Tesla Model 3 sedan.
I've shared Musk's pain – because, honestly, it's heartbreaking to hear him constantly repeating the same sad stories about the difficulty of assembling a car when one is working. with modern supply chains. I feel as if he has hit this topic of discussion dozens of times at this point. He generally notes that the slowdown in the Tesla manufacturing process can be blamed on the slower supplier of the company.
This is certainly true, but it is not new. Swisher did not insist on this and I did not expect her to do it. She probably does not have a detailed understanding of the auto industry and she does not need it. She is a technology journalist. But she could certainly say something like, "Great, it sounds like a challenge – but are not all the other car manufacturers also struggling with this problem?"
She was just the last audience for this muskian lecture. Do not mistake yourself; Musk lectures can be fascinating and important. They have real value. But his article "Carmaking 101" is often used by the most seasoned automotive media and investment bank analysts who have been covering for years the major global automakers facing daily supply chain management.
Musk tells us something that everyone already knows
In the end, when Musk launches into this conference, my reaction has generally been to ask, "Why are you so relentless in telling me something that I already know?" It was as if I had spent 10 minutes informing him that gravity was a fundamental consideration in the design of rockets designed to carry payloads into orbit.
The way cars are built is the result of the widespread adoption of Toyota's production system, developed by Toyota in the 1970s and 1980s. (Musk, in addition, criticized TPS, not without justification. Essentially, TPS has been striving to manage inventory "just in time": a part is supposed to arrive at the vehicle's mounting point at the appropriate time. Proper management of the supply chain avoids having to store bulky and expensive stocks.
All players in the automotive sector are aware of this. It's an offer. In fact, nobody except Musk never talks about it. Over the past decade or so of covering the automotive industry, I've had some conversations with experts in "light manufacturing", but the supply chain is a fundamental part, the endless buzz of the machine in walk around the world.
Read more: Tesla does not disrupt the auto industry, according to the expert who created the theory of disruptive innovation
Serious problems arise from time to time. Ford had to recall this crucial production of F-150 pickup trucks this year due to a fire at a supplier. A number of automakers have had to deal with the massive recall of airbags manufactured by Takata. And after the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, Toyota and Honda have seen their supply chain disrupted for months.
Why does Musk come back to that?
So why does Musk revisit rap so often?
This is partly because Tesla has not always had access to the best suppliers or the best supplier teams. It was simply a consequence of the Tesla scale. The situation has improved.
You might suggest that Musk is engaged in a wrong direction or transfer of responsibility. But I do not think it's there. On the contrary, I think that he does not like to express serious frustration and uses various types of masterful speeches to escape it. He loves technical details. It calms him.
Should I refuse Musk his coping mechanism? No, but he's getting old and what Musk likes to call "the hell of production" is starting to look like something Tesla has trouble avoiding or learning. It is indeed important that Tesla improves its ability to manufacture cars in order to meet an impressive demand for its vehicles and achieve Musk 's goal of accelerating sustainable transport.
So, it does not matter if the conference on supply chains is actually a bad direction. It has become at best an annoyance and at worst a distraction.
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