scottf200 said:
GRA said:
So tell me, Scott, which method has proven consistently more accurate, mine by forecasting Tesla's likely SC building accomplishments for this (and previous) years based on their past performance, or yours based on "how things are
VERY different now and why it could easily happen now because
their motivations are WAY different than the past"?
It appears to me that things aren't so VERY different after all, and motivations alone aren't enough.
We have seen an increase in efforts and results in 2017 vs previous years. I thought it would be more but clearly there is a LOT of activity per the construction cones, permit dots, and opened SCs. Like 1.3 or 1.4 times the number in 2016.
Why yes, Scott, 1.3 or 1.4 versus the 4.0 Tesla announced.
scottf200 said:
Also as part of the changes not being recognized that putting in 40 stall SCs is a WAY different effort than adding 8 to an existing Meijers parking lot!
You recognize that, and I recognize that, although installing more stalls and a bigger transformer is a lot less work than doing all the contracts, permitting etc. for a new site. How is it that no one at Tesla recognized that?
scottf200 said:
I see your angle but understand that the premise of things being WAY different was the ramp up of Model 3s being delivered and how many new Tesla supercharging cars would be out there and wanting to fill up superchargers. Obviously the ramp up of Model 3s has not taken place and isn't expected until 1st quarter of 2018.
The problem with that logic is that Tesla was falling behind their SC goals from early on this year, long before the Model 3 had even entered production, as documented monthly upthread. Even if the shift were based on the delay in the Model 3, none of that excuses the fact that they've also failed to complete many of the major interstate routes they announced, even though most of those don't require large numbers of stalls and their completion is needed regardless of the Model 3's presence or absence. Just to take one example, The I-10 SC in Ft. Stockton, TX, has been sitting in permit status for over a year now, even though it's essential to connect San Antonio to El Paso (and San Antonio itself still lacks an SC).
scottf200 said:
I do thinking you trivialize and do not appreciate or give credit for the effort of putting in SCs across the diverse and unique regulatory bodies (util company's, local codes, local installers, etc).
Every single one of these factors has applied over the 5 1/2 years that Tesla has been building SCs. As I've noted many times before (seemingly every year when I have this conversation with you, Zythryn or someone else who wishes to offer excuses for Tesla), such issues are constant and predictable. In 2012 and 2013, maybe even the first half of 2014 if I want to give Tesla the benefit of the doubt, they were still on the steep part of the learning curve, and I wasn't concerned that they were falling short; I expected it. But that doesn't excuse 2015, 2016 and 2017 when the same excuses are being trotted out, during the first two years of which they averaged SC completions of about 60-70% of their announced goals,t he same as in 2014.
Just answer this: How is it possible for a casual, non-partisan unpaid observer with no access to internal plans, budgets or organizational info who bases forecasts on nothing more than the ratio of past SC completions versus announced goals plus the total number completed each year, able to consistently beat Tesla's presumably highly-paid professionals who have access to all that internal info before they announce these public goals? Either they're incompetent or lying. If they were cluelessly incompetent, the errors would be random, some years too high, some years too low, and the % would also vary. But the errors are always in the same direction, and typically 30-40% off (considerably more this year). This requires a different type of incompetence: optimism so divorced from realistic considerations (such as the inevitable 'frictions' you enumerate above) as to constitute nothing more than wishful thinking - "everything will go right, because we want it to and we're saving the world", or similar attitude.
The alternative is that they're simply lying - they know the goals are unattainable in the real world or even worse just numbers picked out of the air, but they choose to support Elon's hype (or leave or get fired, as many Tesla execs do when they are unwilling to try or fail to meet the unrealistic goals). In the case of other companies they may decide to end their collaboration (see Mobileye). Elon has a habit of announcing internal 'best case' (that is, everything goes perfectly) goals publicly as if they were realistically attainable, and most of the time the company backs him up. Am I the only one here who's read Ashlee Vance's bio?
Re motivating employees, when you work people like dogs to meet unrealistic goals and then fire them when they don't, the motivation is likely to be strongly negative.