Tesla vet says “Review Real Products” – no mock -ups – is the key to innovative | Techcrunch

EV GM has recently been a role. After only Chevy Bolt sold for years, a wave of new models – now up to 17 fully electrified vehicles – moved second place in the US for Tesla.

How did it get there? With a little help from veteran Tesla.

GM McNeil’s board member was President of Tesla during the development and introduction of Model 3, a key period of growth of society. One of the things he attributes to Tesla’s success is how Elon Musk operated product meetings.

“No images were our first rule,” McNeil told the audience at the TC All Stage in Boston at the beginning of this month. “You need to revise the real product.”

Every week, the leadership would sit down with the product manager to see their progress. The practice was inspired by encouraging Musk with Steve Jobs, McNeil said.

“There was this belief that I think it is true: Steve Jobs did not have a lot of time for Elon in the first days. And soon in the first days Elon tried to chase Steve at the events and parts in Silicon Valley.

“But one night, Elon was lucky and said,” Steve, if you had one advice for me as a young entrepreneur ” – he had a payal and joined Tesle -” What would it be? “Steve said,“ Elon, you are now in a hardware business, but hardware is a lot like the software store itself.

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Musk took it to heart, McNeil said, and the concept of the perfect product became the central point for the development of Tesla products.

“The thing we were looking for first was a surprise and pleasure. Like, we do something that just makes someone go wow or laugh or have fun with fun?”

“The crazy example is the fart button,” McNeil said, renewing the software button, “emissions testing”, which would be simulated by flatulence via the car speakers.

The company also appreciated minimalism, which on the software side meant maintaining functions accessible in less than two taps on the screen.

“It wasn’t supposed to be any brain for the average user.

Meetings, such as those where the real product could be seen, not a dummy, helped keep Teslav culture as it grew, McNeil said. “You can imagine a culture that will be communicated when people bring their CEO every week.

“This keeps this company to one-wek cadence of innovation. Every week they make progress in product reviews.”

McNeil left Tesla in early 2018. In 2022 he was added to the Board of Directors in GM.

“One of the things I am most proud of is Mary Barra, CEO and Mark Reuss, President (who oversees) 275,000 people, $ 200 billion, operates product reviews every week with no slides. You have to see real product hardware, software.

“The thing is so powerful. And it led to the introduction of GMS 17 EV, now the second best -selling EV in the country.

(Tagstotranslate) GM

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