馬斯克坦言開發Model 3走過彎路

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.

讓特斯拉（Tesla）CEO感到舒服的一件事情，就是承認自己犯過錯。上周二，埃隆•馬斯克第二次在特斯拉董事會上，承認了其電動汽車與能源公司過去曾經犯過的錯誤，以及他計劃未來如何避免這些錯誤。

特斯拉即將在7月份交付低價車型Model 3的首批訂單，不過預計消費者不會像之前幾款車型一樣，擁有那麼多的花哨選擇。事實上，馬斯克表示，Model 3的買主初期只有兩種定製選擇：顏色和車輪尺寸。

特斯拉CEO表示，由於「過於自負」，他在特斯拉SUV Model X上犯了許多錯誤，所以在汲取教訓后，他決定大幅減少Model 3的配置。Model 3是到目前為止特斯拉價格最低的車型，起售價35,000美元。

馬斯克表示：「我們在Model X上犯下的最大的錯誤，是在最開始集成了太多複雜的功能。這主要是我的責任。這樣做是非常愚蠢的。」

他繼續說道：「這款汽車配備了太多酷炫的功能，但實際上，這些功能應該在第2版或第3版中逐步推出。我們過於自信，創造出這款偉大的產品，但未來可能再也無法複製，或許也不應該再這樣做。」

馬斯克回憶稱，在開始生產時僅有一種配置的Model S，最初上市時順利得多。但他表示當時這樣做並不是戰略決定，而是因為當時特斯拉只能提供這一種配置。

馬斯克最初在設計Modle 3時，除了單一發動機型號，還曾經考慮過雙發動機全輪驅動汽車。但總結了以往的經驗教訓，他決定放棄這種選擇，因為他認為，這會讓「出問題的幾率增加一倍」。（他補充道：「我們會在第一種配置成功之後，再推出另外一種配置。」他預計在2017年底或2018年初之前可以發布雙發動機車型。）另外，馬斯克還計劃簡化特斯拉的供應鏈，控制其在全球的廣泛分佈，因為這令公司面臨「巨大的風險」。

特斯拉的另外一個失誤是過度參照Model S的形象開發Model SUV。公司當初本應該從零開始設計，以避免設計過程中的障礙。

馬斯克表示：「我們的錯誤是試圖根據Model S平台設計Model X——如果以設計SUV的方式來設計Model X，效果可能會更好。否則，你只是在堆砌一些沒有意義的東西。」因此，他表示特斯拉正在設計的Model Y半懸挂式卡車，將完全獨立於之前的車型，雖然有評論家認為，這款汽車更類似於Modle 3。

馬斯克在特斯拉股東大會上還坦白了自己的一些個人問題，比如他有時候會服用失眠藥物Ambien和飲酒來讓自己放鬆。（財富中文網）

譯者：劉進龍/汪皓