Colin Chapman, "guy who made lotus" had the maxim "Simplify, then add lightness" had similar guidance.
Take everything out of the race car, then if something breaks add the last thing you took out back in. I imagine he'd get frustrated at a car still running on the victory lap.... "Darn, the wheels are still on we made the wheel hubs too strong."
The problem here is safety. Making a race car that disintegrates as it crosses the finish line is best for winning a race, but probably isn't terribly robust in an accident.
I don't think Musk is trying to make "barely safe enough" cars, but he is exploring a bunch of design limits. I think the CT specifically is an engineering sample or beta program for the model 2, designed to have low uptake and validate a bunch of _really_ big changes to "normal car" architecture. When some of those gambles turn out to be bad after 2 years, they'll have to fix thousands of dud trucks not millions of model 2s.
Take everything out of the race car, then if something breaks add the last thing you took out back in. I imagine he'd get frustrated at a car still running on the victory lap.... "Darn, the wheels are still on we made the wheel hubs too strong."
The problem here is safety. Making a race car that disintegrates as it crosses the finish line is best for winning a race, but probably isn't terribly robust in an accident.
I don't think Musk is trying to make "barely safe enough" cars, but he is exploring a bunch of design limits. I think the CT specifically is an engineering sample or beta program for the model 2, designed to have low uptake and validate a bunch of _really_ big changes to "normal car" architecture. When some of those gambles turn out to be bad after 2 years, they'll have to fix thousands of dud trucks not millions of model 2s.