Slashdot Mirror
Tesla Is Making Over 2,000 Model 3s a Week, Falling Just Short of Its Goal (theverge.com)
According to an email from Elon Musk, Tesla has increased its production of its mass-market electric Model 3 to over 2,000 units per week. "It's an impressive ramp up of production, but it still falls short of Musk's goal of 2,500 Model 3s per week by the end of the first quarter of 2018," reports The Verge. From the report: In the companywide email (which was obtained by Jalopnik, Electrek, and Autonocast host Ed Niedermeyer), Musk sounds a celebratory note on the 2,000-vehicle per week benchmark, while ignoring the larger issue of missed deadlines: "It has been extremely difficult to pass the 2,000 cars per week rate for Model 3, but we are finally there. If things go as planned today, we will comfortably exceed that number over a seven-day period! Moreover, the whole Tesla production system is now on a firm foundation for that output, which means we should be able to exceed a combined Model S, X, and 3 production rate of 4,000 vehicles per week and climbing rapidly. This is already double the pace of 2017! By the end of this year, I believe we will be producing vehicles at least four times faster than last year." With Q1 now behind us, we can expect to see Tesla report its official production numbers to investors sometime this week.
S and X production were only down for one day. Lines have to go down periodically regardless; tooling does not last forever, even if you're not doing upgrades.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Welcome to Bear World, where pointing out facts is "spin".
The only reporting that described people from the S and X lines working on the 3 line described it as a 1-day downtime.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Meanwhile, Tesla produced its first 10k Model 3s in the time it took GM to produce its first 1000 Bolts. I guess that's that "decades to tune their processes and supply chains" they had going for them, eh? And it costs Tesla $10k less per vehicle.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
What "moving the goalposts"? Even with their delays, they brought a new EV to market in higher volumes faster than GM. So where's your "the big automakers are going to teach upstart Tesla a lesson" coming from? If they're so good at making EVs, well, why don't they? Why is it that Tesla, even with half a year of delays, can tool a brand new line and churn out EVs faster than them?
Exact same line we've been hearing for the past ten years. Meanwhile, Tesla sells more nearly-six-figure-average vehicles in the US than its closest EV competitors sell econoboxes to a vastly larger customer base and half a million people are waiting on the Model 3, a vehicle designed to - like the S and X - turn a profit 25% margin.
Did you ever stop and think that maybe, just maybe, the ability to make a good, affordable EV doesn't just get magicked into existence because you're a "big automaker", that you actually have to invest billions of dollars a year in research and infrastructure to make it happen? Did you ever stop and think that the reason that the big automakers haven't pushed harder on EVs is because they don't want to, because they're all tooled up and researched to build ICEs?
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Toolings typically last for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of operations. Tesla should still be on its first toolings UNLESS they've redesigned parts, forcing tooling changes or new tools altogether.
Yes, the tool lasts that long. Of course it never needs to be sharpened, or never chips, or rebuilt, or damaged, or, or, or, or, or
As someone who has worked in a factory, it is normal to change tools very regularly, so as to not make bad parts that need rework or scrapping.
Do you actually think a drill or a tap can just run forever?
And those are quite good compared to an endmill, to say nothing of a facemill.
I'm not sure what sort of tooling is required for building a Tesla, but even a drill needs to be changed, and I'd be surprised if at least something wasn't tapped.
So you're saying that Tesla has been lying to the SEC for years? The average margin on S and X was 25%. Their overall automotive margin is down to 18% now because of the problems with the 3 dragging down their average, but that's to be expected; you can't have a line designed for 5000/wk running at a fraction of that and still expect to get your design profit margin.
From your link:
Four. Years. The line downtime was 8-10 weeks, but it took four years to tool up.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
*Swoon*! Oh you spoony bard - I am vanquished.
I shall retreat for the evening and drown my sorrows with Teslaquilla.
(Rei has left the party)
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Having worked a lot with installing factory automation, I can actually parse what is stated in that article. The four years were not spent planning, but actually building the replacement factory content.
That is how installing factory assembly lines work. They are built offsite, one sub-assembly line at the time, complete with SAT acceptance, and then moved to the factory and installed and tested there.
That is what the article explains. They spent four years speccing and building sub-assembly lines, and then budgeted 8 weeks to remove the old assembly line and get the new ones running. Which is a crazy schedule, which they almost managed to keep - which is amazing.
But no, they did not shift over production in 8-10 weeks total implementation time. The new factory already existed at the start of those 8 weeks, only spread out at the integrator sites.
Nobody sane goes to China with new tech. They will be happy to cooperate with you. One year later, an almost identical car from an almost identical factory in a different city will hit the market. That factory will be owned by your cooperation partner. But unlike your joint factory, only by them. In fact, they'll not even tell you that the other factory exists, despite if you were put in either one without being told which one it is, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Tall story? Happened to Mercedes Benz.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org