The quote is a representative sample of the article, an article which is illustrative of Musk's apparent disinterest in (or ignorance of) the Toyota Production System. I've never seen a Musk quote that clearly demonstrates he has any idea how TPS works or what he is really competing against.
I read the original Forbes article and his opinions sounded very sane to me, like someone who understands the ground reality, is ambitious but also self-aware. Specifically:-
"The car industry thinks they're really good at manufacturing and actually they are quite good at manufacturing. But they just don't realize just how much potential there is for improvement. It's way more than they think,"
Or
"Musk acknowledged that Tesla had been "a little overconfident, a little complacent" in its ability to crank up production volume for battery packs - its specialty - at its massive battery gigafactory near Reno, Nevada. "
But yes, I could have make Musk sound like an idiot too. I chose not to needlessly take someones words out of context for click-bait. You're free to have your own opinion, and Tesla will keep selling more cars I guess. I'd like to buy one but I cannot afford one at the moment..
> But they just don't realize just how much potential there is for improvement. It's way more than they think
Most people would follow a statement like that by contrasting his ideas with the ideas of his competitor to demonstrate why his ideas are likely to be more effective. You know, make an actual argument. He doesn't do that. He just makes statements about his own superiority, and occasionally when reality intrudes too greatly he engages in a little self-deprecation.
(If someone has a link to where he makes a comparison like that in detail, I'd love to see it. Or any statement that would demonstrate he even knows what Toyota Production System is actually about.)
Nope. Most people wouldn't do that actually. The quotes were a tiny part of a conference call with wall street suits regarding Teslas 2017 fourth-quarter earnings. The topic was finance, not a lecture on lean manufacturing. Your demands do not make much sense to be honest. A CEOs job is to run the company and take advise and input from other subject matter experts. It seems like you genuinely are curious about this, so I'd advise you to speak with experts on this topic to learn more.
> Your demands do not make much sense to be honest.
Who's making demands? I think Musk's demonstrated understanding of auto manufacturing is quite superficial and I'm fishing for evidence to the contrary. I'm not bothered by the fact that the evidence does not exist, I think it actually says something.
> A CEOs job is to run the company and take advise and input from other subject matter experts.
Hopefully it's obvious to you, based on how this thread started and more generally Musk's history of statements about manufacturing, that if Musk's attitude were simply "I'm just running the company and taking advice from the experts" we would not be having this conversation.
He has stated what he believes his company can achieve given the information he has. He is not professing to be a subject matter expert on anything. You seem to be off on a ridiculous tangent here and this conversation is not really productive. Goodbye!
> He is not professing to be a subject matter expert on anything.
I don't think much of your posts in this thread but I'll give you credit, that's probably the first time that particular sentence has ever been written about Elon Musk.
I was disagreeing with how a commentor summarized an article, especially so because other quotes from the same article completely discount their assessment. At the very least, can we simply agree to disagree?
