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Tesla Badly Misses Model 3 Production Goals (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): Tesla badly missed its goal of building 1,500 Model 3 cars in the third quarter, the first sign that the production ramp-up for the new sedan isn't going as smoothly as planned. The Silicon Valley electric-car maker built 260 of the Model 3s between July and September, the company said Monday in a statement. In August, the auto maker predicted it would build more than 1,500 Model 3s before cranking up production to 5,000 a week by the end of the fourth quarter. Tesla blamed "production bottlenecks" for the weaker production. "It is important to emphasize that there are no fundamental issues with the Model 3 production or supply chain," Tesla said in a statement. "We understand what needs to be fixed and we are confident of addressing the manufacturing bottleneck issues in the near-term."
Bottlenecks in a production line are extremely difficult to address. There's been tons of excellent books about it (such as The Goal) but it remains a major issue in companies with a normal growth so it's not surprising to see Tesla struggling with that given their insane expansion pace.
I spent years in the manufacturing world and countless times I've seen stuff like HR authorizing crazy overtime in the weeks following a layoff or plant managers scrambling to rent containers to store surplus of a part that was backorder the week before. You got JIT? Next thing you know Texas is blown away and gas prices skyrocket, making parts more expensive to get delivered. You decide to build up inventory? Real estate prices go up and you end up paying top dollar for low quality warehouses.
Supply chain, project management and interest rates: all examples of things that are too complex for the human mind to fully comprehend.
lucm, indeed.
"Musk can't build a rocket"
Later... "Okay but he can't build a cheap rocket"
Later... "Okay but he can't make them reusable"
Later... "Okay but he needs the military and they'll never use him"
etc etc
"Electric cars will never work"
Later... "Okay but they'll never have the performance of petrol cars"
Later... "Okay but car manufacturers will never embrace them"
Later... "Okay but Musk isn't a car manufacturer"
Later... "Okay but they'll never have a range of more than 100 km"
Later... "Okay but there's no practical way to charge them quickly enough"
Later... "Okay but they'll never be able to mass-produce them"
etc etc
In what world do you live in?
Tesla was late with the Roadster and had a slow rampup. (*Cue the doomsayers!*) .... then they ramped up and hit their production target, and everyone who ordered a Roadster got one.
Tesla was late with the Model S and had a somewhat slow rampup. (*Cue the doomsayers!*) .... then they ramped up and hit their production target, and everyone who ordered a Model S got one (and continues to).
Tesla was late with the Model X and had a very slow rampup. (*Cue the doomsayers!*) .... then they ramped up and hit their production target, and everyone who ordered a Model X got one (and continues to).
Tesla was moved the Model 3 launch date up significantly, and actually launched on time, but at present is one month late with the rampup. (*Cue the doomsayers!*)
This is pretty insignificant, for a number of reasons, and is the reason why TSLA isn't plunging today (as of time of writing, the pre-market has it down less than 2%, and I bet it'll close similar to or higher than it started, because there's a lot of bulls looking to buy on weakness). Mainly, though, everyone already knew this. Anyone who cares, at least. The vin number count has been low this past month. Articles had already discussed first a problem with welds that they had to go back and correct, and then later a problem with grounding bolts that they had to go back and correct. Normal production ramp stuff. The Q3 report mentions a couple parts in limiting supply as well, which again, while news, is normal production ramp stuff. Meanwhile, every other part will continue its rampup while the whips are cracked on that which are in short supply.
With most companies, there's not much public attention on rampup issues on new vehicle architectures; only investors generally care about it. Most companies also don't begin sales until rampup is already well underway. But obviously, Tesla is a different story. Overall, unless there's a serious design flaw or other issue with the parts that are in short supply or their production lines that mean it'll take many months to catch up, there's not much to this. For most people waiting for a Model 3, how many lines Tesla ultimately decides to open matters a lot more than how long it takes them to get the first line running right. Also, they're just making one specific configuration right now (LR, with PUP, without dual motor/air suspension). The rate at which the other configurations mature and their config-specific parts go into production also constrains most customers a lot more than this.
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."
It's almost as if there's some money being paid to write slam articles about certain companies who are either disruptive or successful, who are not also paying those same sources to write glowing fluff pieces. If we called it protection money...it would sound like the mafia. So let's call it marketing money. These companies don't need to pay the marketing money because their products sell themselves, so instead we write trash pieces.
Tesla makes excellent cars. All the rest of this is just stupid. If you paid your money for a pre-order, you probably knew that delivery was TBD if you were paying any attention at all.