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New 'Tent' Assembly Line Is 'Way Better' Than Conventional Factory, Says Tesla CEO (arstechnica.com)
A few days ago, Elon Musk announced a "new general assembly line" made with "minimal resources." As Ars Technica reports, this new tented facility "is seemingly the first phase of an entirely new building, dubbed 'Factory 2.0.'" From the report: The tent is easily visible from the nearby Warm Springs BART station platform. When Ars visited on Monday afternoon, there appeared to be cranes and forklifts moving around the site. We could not easily see inside the long white temporary structure, but there did not appear to be any newly completed vehicles rolling off the lines in the adjacent parking lot. Still, one automotive expert that Ars spoke with said that a new temporary manufacturing facility on the same site as conventional automotive factories was unprecedented in the industry. Dave Sullivan, an analyst with Auto Pacific, told Ars that he wondered what was wrong with Tesla's existing facilities, if Musk decided the company needed more capacity. "It's almost a sign of desperation," he said. "It's a sprint to be profitable in the third quarter." Ars notes that "each tent is 53-feet-high by 150-feet-long -- there seem to be several connected in a long line, mounted with aluminum framing." In a tweet, Musk said: "It's actually way better than the factory building. More comfortable & a great view of the mountains."
"What is wrong with the other production lines?"
Sabotage, that's what. We've been over this.
Tesla-people, please point out where I'm wrong.
"It's actually way better than the factory building." = "I wasted a couple billion of your money, and will be asking for more soon"
I really have a lot of respect for Elon Musk. The guy is a true captain of industry- he has taken his fortune into half a dozen new, genuinely interesting ventures, as opposed to buying boats or islands or giving his money away. I wish there were more like him.
But reading all these "This tent kicks ass and this kicks ass and these guys also kick asses" tweets about how you just built a fucking tent as part of your five-thousand-dollars-per-MINUTE-burn rate... and somehow your tent kicks so much more ass than the factory that kicked ass through the first 99% of your company's life... smells of sweaty desperation to me.