Idiot index

7.5×

How many times more than the materials?

Price divided by materials.

Materials
Price

You pay for the metal, and for everything done to it. A $1,000 part made from $100 of aluminum is 10.

The pile test.

How it was made

The pile — metal, plastic, copper

If assembly were free, you’d only pay for the pile.

A phone chip can be expensive. A bent piece of steel usually shouldn’t be.

$120,000 for a garage-door opener.

A supplier wanted $120,000. Musk said it was no more complicated than a garage-door opener. Steve Davis built it for $3,900.

Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk, 2015. Quote versus homemade — not the cost of the metal.

Batteries were $600. The metals were $80.

7.5×

In 2012, packs cost about $600 a kilowatt-hour. Musk added up cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon, and a steel can: about $80 on the metal market.

Elon Musk, interview with Kevin Rose, 2012. Per kilowatt-hour.

$13,000 for one piece of steel.

65×

A half-nozzle jacket cost $13,000. Musk said the steel was about $200. That’s 65.

Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk, 2023. One part. Not the whole engine.

Same move. Different parts.

They didn’t find cheaper metal. They changed the process.

Latches and cooling: Isaacson, 2023. Radio: Vance, 2015.

Price something you own.

5.0×

Most of the price is labor and process.

Rough guesses. A toaster is mostly steel and plastic. A phone isn’t.

If the number is huge, don’t shop for cheaper steel. Change the process.