Title:Elon Musk Admits Mistakes Caused Tesla's Model 3 Production Delays

Tesla (tsla) CEO Elon Musk is known for setting ambitious goals and timelines for the electric car company, but he isn't known for hitting them. Tesla Model 3 production, after all, came in 84% below Musk's predictions in the mid-size sedan's first quarter on the market last year—and the company has yet to release its promised $35,000, mass-market version of the car.

特斯拉(Tesla)首席执行官埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)因设定了雄心勃勃的目标和时间表而闻名，但他并不清楚自己打中了这些目标。特斯拉Model3的产量毕竟比上年第一季度市场上的马斯克预测值低了84%，该公司尚未发布其承诺的35,000美元大众化汽车版本。

So it wasn't entirely surprising that shareholders at Tesla's annual meeting Tuesday thought it was about time Musk qualified the reliability of his own timeline estimates, or  "Elon time,"  as one investor put it. Indeed, Fortune counted at least 30 instances in which Musk predicted the timing of various Tesla products during the meeting.

因此，特斯拉周二的年度会议的股东们认为，当时马斯克对时间表估计数的可靠性做出限定，或者如一位投资者所说的那样“准时”，这并不足为奇。事实上，Fortune统计了马斯克在会议期间预测各种特斯拉产品的时机至少30例。

Here is a sampling of when Musk expects Tesla to hit certain milestones: the $35,000 Model 3 (end of 2018); free trials of autopilot (July 2018); Model 3 test drives (end of June 2018); a Tesla compact car (by mid-2023); Model 3 leasing (end of 2018 or early 2019); Model 3 all-wheel drive (by September 2018); Model Y (March 2019 for unveiling); positive Tesla net income and cash flow (third quarter 2018); and 5,000-per-week Model 3 production (end of June 2018).

马斯克公司希望特斯拉达到某些里程碑：3.5万美元Model(2018年底)；自动驾驶员的免费试用(2018年7月)；Model3测试驱动器(2018年6月底)；特斯拉小型车(到2023年中)；Model3租赁(2018年底或2019年初)；Model3全轮驱动(2018年9月底前)；ModelY(2019年3月揭幕式)；正特斯拉净收入和现金流动(2018年第三季度)；Model3的产量(2018年6月底)。

Then again, Musk, who was wearing a motorcycle jacket atop a t-shirt depicting a butter-passing robot from the cartoon Rick and Morty, advised taking his own predictions with a grain of salt.

接着，马斯克在一件T恤上面穿着摩托车夹克，描绘了卡通里克和莫蒂的黄油机器人。

"I'd probably put some sandbag on future dates, that's probably wise,"  Musk said.  "I kind of say when I think it can occur, but then I'm typically optimistic about these things."

“我可能会把沙袋放在将来的日期，这很明智，”马斯克说，“我想什么时候会发生，但我总是对这些事感到乐观。”

The billionaire entrepreneur was responding to a question from shareholder Galileo Russell, a YouTube channel host who gained notoriety last month when Musk took his questions during Tesla's quarterly earnings call, after refusing to answer what the CEO called  "boring bonehead questions"  from Wall Street.

这位亿万富翁企业家回答了YouTube频道主持人Galileo Russell提出的问题。在拒绝回答CEO所谓的华尔街的“无聊、无聊的问题”之后。

"I hate to say this, but I feel like my trust in Tesla's timelines sort of eroded a little bit with the Model 3 ramp. So should I keep discounting things on Elon time or have you learned anything about this?"  Russell asked during Tuesday's shareholder meeting.

“我不愿意这样说，但我觉得相信特斯拉的时间表会随着Model3的斜坡而逐渐消失，所以我应该继续讨论Elon时间上的事情，还是让您知道这方面的情况？罗素在周二股东会上提出质询.

"I think I do have an issue with time,"  Musk confessed, to loud applause.  "I have a condition, I don't know."

“我想我确实有时间出了问题，”马斯克坦白承认，赢得了热烈的掌声，“我有一种条件，我不知道。”

The CEO noted that when he and his brother Kimbal Musk, a Tesla board member also present at the meeting, used to take the bus to school, Kimbal  "would lie to me about the time,"  and say the bus was always  "earlier than it actually was."  Elon Musk explained,  "Then I'd get there slightly after that, and then we'd actually be able to catch the bus."

CEO指出，当他和他的兄弟Kimbal Musk(特斯拉董事会的一名成员)也出席会议时，曾经乘公共汽车去上学，Kimbal说，‘时间对我说谎，’并且说公共汽车总是比实际要早。马斯克解释说，"然后我会稍微到那里，然后我们确实能够赶上公共汽车。"

"This is something I've been trying to get better at,"  Musk added.  "So I'm trying to recalibrate these estimates, yeah. I'm trying to recalibrate as much as possible."

“这是我一直试图获得更好的东西，”马斯克补充道，“所以我正在努力重新校准这些估计，是的，我在尽力重新校准。

As for why Model 3 production is running behind schedule—regardless of how realistic the initial timeline was—Musk also admitted mistakes contributing to the delays, as he has done at prior Tesla shareholder meetings. Chief among the errors: Too much automation of Model 3 factory production.

马斯克承认了造成延误的错误，正如在特斯拉股东大会上所做的那样。其中的主要错误: 3型工厂生产自动化程度过大.

"One of the biggest mistakes we made was trying to automate things that are super easy for a person to do, but really hard for a robot to do,"  Musk said.  "And when you see it it looks super dumb, like wow, why did we do that."  Now, Musk explained, Tesla is focusing on automating only assembly-line tasks that are  "most difficult for people to do,"  and those most likely to result in worker injuries.

"我们所犯的最大错误之一就是试图使那些对于一个人来说非常容易去做的事情自动化，但对一个机器人来说确实很难做到，" 马斯克说，"当你看到它看起来非常笨，像wow，我们为什么这样做了。马斯克解释说，特斯拉只注重自动完成装配线任务，这些任务对人们来说是最难完成的，而且最容易造成工人伤害的。

Still, Musk was adamant that while questions remain as to when Tesla will hit its targets, it's not a question of if.  "It pretty much always happens, but not exactly on the time frame,"  Musk said.

不过，马斯克坚称，虽然对于特斯拉何时将达到目标的问题仍然存在，但这并不是一个是否存在的问题。