马斯克坦言开发Model 3走过弯路

刘颖

If there's one thing Tesla's CEO is comfortable with, it's admitting when he makes a mistake. For the second year in a row, Elon Musk used the Tesla shareholder meeting Tuesday as a platform to confess the errors his electric car and energy company had committed in the past—and how he planned to avoid them in the future.
Tesla (tsla, +1.94%) is on track to deliver the first orders of its Model 3 lower-priced sedan in July, but customers should not expect to have as many bell-and-whistle options to choose from as were available with previous Tesla cars. In fact, Model 3 buyers will only have two options for customizing the car at first: the color and the size of the wheels, Musk said.
The CEO said he made the decision to significantly pare down the configurations for the Model 3—Tesla's most affordable vehicle yet, starting at $35,000—after learning from mistakes he made with Tesla's SUV known as the Model X, which Musk called "hubris extraordinaire."
"The big mistake we made with the X, which primarily was my responsibility, was having way too much complexity right at the beginning. That was very foolish," Musk said.

"It had way too many cool things in it that really should have been rolled in with version 2, version 3," he continued. "We got overconfident and created something great that probably will never be made again, and perhaps should not be."

Meanwhile, the rollout of the Model S, which came with just one configuration when production began, had been smoother, Musk recalled—though he said it had not been a strategic decision, but rather all Tesla was capable of delivering at the time.

Learning from that experience, Musk had initially considered offering a dual motor for all-wheel drive as opposed to just a single motor on the Model 3, but decided against it because it would have "doubled the probability of something going wrong," he said. ("We’ll get to the other configurations later, as soon as we get configuration one right," he added, noting that he expects to be able to offer the dual motor by the end of 2017 or early 2018.) Likewise, Musk is also aiming to simplify Tesla's supply chain so that it is not so widely spread across the globe, which exposes it to "so much risk from earth."

Another misstep Tesla made was building the Model X SUV too much in the image of the Model S sedan, when the company should have started from scratch to avoid stumbling blocks in the design process.

"We made a mistake in trying to derive the Model X from the Model S platform—it would have been better to just design an SUV the way an SUV should be designed," Musk said. "Otherwise, you just try to shoehorn something that doesn’t make sense." Because of that, he said, Tesla is designing its forthcoming Model Y semi-truck completely independently from its past vehicles, even though critics have suggested it should be more similar to the Model 3.

Musk also made some more personal confessions at Tesla's shareholder meeting, suggesting he sometimes unwinds by taking insomnia drug Ambien and drinking wine, among other habits.

刘颖

让特斯拉（Tesla）CEO感到舒服的一件事情，就是承认自己犯过错。上周二，埃隆•马斯克第二次在特斯拉董事会上，承认了其电动汽车与能源公司过去曾经犯过的错误，以及他计划未来如何避免这些错误。

特斯拉即将在7月份交付低价车型Model 3的首批订单，不过预计消费者不会像之前几款车型一样，拥有那么多的花哨选择。事实上，马斯克表示，Model 3的买主初期只有两种定制选择：颜色和车轮尺寸。

特斯拉CEO表示，由于“过于自负”，他在特斯拉SUV Model X上犯了许多错误，所以在汲取教训后，他决定大幅减少Model 3的配置。Model 3是到目前为止特斯拉价格最低的车型，起售价35,000美元。

马斯克表示：“我们在Model X上犯下的最大的错误，是在最开始集成了太多复杂的功能。这主要是我的责任。这样做是非常愚蠢的。”

他继续说道：“这款汽车配备了太多酷炫的功能，但实际上，这些功能应该在第2版或第3版中逐步推出。我们过于自信，创造出这款伟大的产品，但未来可能再也无法复制，或许也不应该再这样做。”

马斯克回忆称，在开始生产时仅有一种配置的Model S，最初上市时顺利得多。但他表示当时这样做并不是战略决定，而是因为当时特斯拉只能提供这一种配置。

马斯克最初在设计Modle 3时，除了单一发动机型号，还曾经考虑过双发动机全轮驱动汽车。但总结了以往的经验教训，他决定放弃这种选择，因为他认为，这会让“出问题的几率增加一倍”。（他补充道：“我们会在第一种配置成功之后，再推出另外一种配置。”他预计在2017年底或2018年初之前可以发布双发动机车型。）另外，马斯克还计划简化特斯拉的供应链，控制其在全球的广泛分布，因为这令公司面临“巨大的风险”。

特斯拉的另外一个失误是过度参照Model S的形象开发Model SUV。公司当初本应该从零开始设计，以避免设计过程中的障碍。

马斯克表示：“我们的错误是试图根据Model S平台设计Model X——如果以设计SUV的方式来设计Model X，效果可能会更好。否则，你只是在堆砌一些没有意义的东西。”因此，他表示特斯拉正在设计的Model Y半悬挂式卡车，将完全独立于之前的车型，虽然有评论家认为，这款汽车更类似于Modle 3。
马斯克在特斯拉股东大会上还坦白了自己的一些个人问题，比如他有时候会服用失眠药物Ambien和饮酒来让自己放松。