Pretty sure Model 3 production is going amazingly well, yeah. Astoundingly well. But the media's portrayal of it has people convinced otherwise.

Let's try this perspective instead:

"Decade-old electric car company moves up plan for mass production of new affordable long-range sedan by 2 years"

And then ask ourselves, after moving it up by 2 years, does a 3-month delay mean "things are going badly"?

If I say I'm going to leap 500 feet, and then I leap 450 feet, do you say I failed?

> If I say I'm going to leap 500 feet, and then I leap 450 feet, do you say I failed?

Yes, that's what the word failed means.

Considering the long jump record is 30ft, I'd say he technically failed his lofty goal, but was still more successful at jumping than anyone else.

I think that's the point the OP above is trying to get at.

and if your leap is 1 foot instead?

If I owe you $500, and I give you $450, does that mean I paid back the loan?

The consequence of not living up to an expectation depends on what's riding on that expectation. For a company trying to live up to a valuation higher than companies producing orders of magnitude more vehicles, I think it matters.

you over-promised and under-delivered, in that sense you failed.

does it matter though?

I'd say someone who buys robots and operates them manually by men and claims "air resistance" is the biggest challenge in robotics because they should move so fast you can't see them, looks to me as not very sophisticated. But I don't operate robots.

"It's like if you can see the robot move, it's too slow. We should be caring about air friction like things moving so fast. You should need a strobe light to see it"

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4122890-tesla-approaches-te...

He wasn't saying that air resistance is currently a problem. The current problem is that the robots don't move fast enough for air resistance to be a problem. He's basically pushing the question 'Going faster is obviously good. What happens if we go really really fast?'

> Is that why model 3 production is going so well?

I think OP is talking about the big picture, there will always be issues like the on with the production.

I've seen dozens of them around LA. Give it a few months and if it doesn't ramp then there might be a problem.