Tag: Tesla

There's a lot to admire about Elon Musk. I admire his risk taking and his entrepreneurial spirit. I use PayPal a lot (one of his early companies) and I admire the innovation of Tesla and SpaceX. But, I question how much Musk and Tesla have been willing to learn from Toyota or people like Paul O'Neill.

Tesla builds cars in what used to be the NUMMI factory, a joint venture between Toyota and GM (which meant it was run as a Toyota plant with "Lean" practices). Before that, it was a dysfunctional GM plant. Now that it's a Tesla plant, did they learn from Toyota or does it seem more like "the old GM?"

TL;DR (2026): Toyota shows that the future of Lean manufacturing isn't robots instead of people--it's technology that supports human problem-solving, safety, and continuous improvement....

TL;DR: Automakers often overproduce because incentives reward shipping cars to dealers, not matching real demand. Excess capacity, revenue rules, and "channel stuffing" drive inventory...

I was able to tour the NUMMI factory in 2005, which I really enjoyed (see my series of blog posts here). NUMMI was, of...