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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."
The temperature topped out at about 75 degrees today. Let's see how much better it is when its 105+.
"What is wrong with the other production lines?"
Sabotage, that's what. We've been over this.
Didn't they say they tried to automate too much? If so all this room is probably needed to allow more manpower to work in parallel.
Whatever works.
We already know who the clown is, now we've got tents for this circus. Very good, Elon.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Hey, it worked for circuses for years. Why not car production?
And, they all sing Kumbaya around the blazing battery packs on breaks.
Not surprising. Tesla has been shifting to humans over automation. They probably had some difficulty working around the existing layout and instead of reworking much of their factory floor I'm guessing they decided to move people outside. Heat from bodies may also make the factory uncomfortable if it wasn't designed for it.
So, Elon Musk and his company just built in 5 weeks, literally from the ground up, what GM might spend 10 years architecting and designing, getting the EIR, hiring the right unions and negotiating their contracts, contracting for an acquiring equipment, actually assembling it, staffing it, and starting it running.
This race for profitability is actually viewed with contempt by a commentator of the conventional auto industry.
There is a lot to be said for agility, as any manager or investor in a start-up will tell you. This is simply another difference between Silicon Valley business and the conventional auto business. The same sort of difference that allowed Tesla to make electric cars that could actually compete with gasoline cars on their own turf.
I hear Ferrari is just starting to introduce one that might compete, after Tesla has had theirs on the market since 2007, with three new models since. But that's it so far. Ferrari is pretty agile as auto manufacturers go, but at the cost of low manufacturing volume. Ferrari won't be selling its cars at even 5000/month. Tesla is trying to get both the volume and the innovation.
Bruce Perens.
Who's the shift foreman, Sheriff Joe?
Where's the paint shop?
I don't see any issue assembling parts and, since it's an electric car, you don't have to worry about carbon monoxide when the engines are running (driving off the line).
But I can't see how you could implement a paint shop in a structure like this in short order.
Can anybody comment?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Take a close look at the photos of those "tents". That's a tent the same way that my car is a go-cart. Better to call it a soft-sided building
When sports clubs put these things up for tennis courts or cities put them up over facilities, they can be expected to last quite a few years. You can even get away with fairly decent climate control. In a mild climate like that, I bet it could last a decade with a bit of maintenance.
I would think dust and dirt would be a bigger problem than humidity. This time of year, dew points are in the 50s and during the day the humidity is reasonably low, and fairly consistent. As above, the first problem is going to be the temperature - so far this year, temperatures have been abnormally cool, but its going to be consistently in the 90s and up into the low 100s as far as the temperature goes before too long. The last week has indeed been really nice, cool with some wind. But that will not last all summer.
I've never been in a modern auto factory, but I've spent a lot of time in places where complex weapons systems were assembled. Temperature and humidity control wasn't an issue. In California, there wasn't any of either although the sheer mass of the facility tended to moderate temperature swings. In colder areas elsewhere there was some heating.
We're not talking a semiconductor fab facility here.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
this makes me wonder about working conditions. e.g. heat & cold. Also safety. I'd also wonder about environmental concerns. There's a lot you can get away with fume wise in an open air design. I've read somewhere (ars?) that they've got a 10 month limit on the structure's use.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So Tesla is obviously struggling to keep up with demand, but how is this a "sign of desperation"? It's a sign of how popular the cars are. And they still have money to burn, so where's the problem?
And, they all sing Kumbaya around the campfire on breaks.
I think they had a campfire marshmallow roast on top of the Gigafactory last fall
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Have you guys ever been in Denver International Airport main terminal? It's a tent. It gets as hot in Denver as it does in Fremont.
Snark all you want but just because something is a quote TENT unquote doesn't mean it isn't a robust and practical structure.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is on Earth. They achieved at least 4 trillion degrees Celsius.
And, they all sing Kumbaya around the campfire on breaks.
If they make their production goals, all employees will get their "car maker merit badges".
To raise capital for Tesla, they plan to go out canvasing selling "Muskscout" cookies . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Its an assembly line for a product that will live in the open wind swept air, rain and mud, snow and salt, etc. Things that need to be sealed were likely sealed at the subassembly plant before delivery to Tesla. Plus they will still have a clean room for steps where there would be an issue, such as painting. For many stages, bolting in instrument panels, consoles and seats, bolting on doors, etc what is the issue? Is there an issue for welding frame components, given the material thrown into the air during welding I kind of doubt it?
What are the open air and humidity problems that you are referring to?
This is just another way be cheap at the expense of the workers. I lived in a tent in the desert for 2 years (Hi, Iraqistan!). It was miserable. Now imagine working your ass off in one.
Obviously you were not Air Force, otherwise you would be aware of the fact that tents can be air conditioned too.
Since most of the robotics come from Germany, I am guessing that the next factory will be in Europe, possibly Germany or France. It should be easy to set up a quick and inexpensive tent, followed by robotic lines.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
AC did you forget all the UK government holding company efforts of the 1970's? To try and save the UK car production lines?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Congratulations, you're the thousandth immature male to make that joke :P
Concerning the article, some of this is head-smackingly stupid. E.g.:
*facepalm*
There Is No More Space At Fremont. Something that has been discussed endlessly in the conference calls and at the investor meeting. Tesla applied for a permit long ago to build a new building, but it's still in progress, and meanwhile, they've been filling up Fremont at a rapid clip as they expand Model 3 production alongside the existing S and X lines. They could build a new line in a temporary building, get it up and debugged and running and turning out vehicles, or they could sit around waiting for months (or more) for a new building. Gee, I can't imagine what's the right choice here, hmm...
The current building (still being improved, but with the line in place inside) is permitted for six months, but given that they've been liking it, it may become permanent.
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
are you describing a tent they use for camping? its looks a bit more robust than that
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Meanwhile, if you actually hung out on Tesla forums and watched people take delivery and write about their cars, you'd know that this is a myth. Yes, as with any brand, the occasional vehicle has problems, and needs to be corrected by a service centre. But it's not at all like the shorts portray, in their endless glee sharing every last case that they can get their hands on.
Tesla has always had the highest consumer satisfaction rate in the auto industry. Back in the Roadster days when they were selling hundreds of vehicles, you all said, "Well, that's only because you have hardcore early adopters - once you get more mainstream, people will stop putting up with it and will hate Tesla!". Then Tesla started selling thousands of vehicles with the early Model Ss. And you all said the same thing. Then they were selling tens of thousands of vehicles. Then a hundred thousand per year. And are now moving into the hundreds of thousands per year. At what point is your "people are going to start hating Tesla" hypothesis going to come true? Did you ever stop and think that the reason people tend to rate them well is that they actually really like the cars after having owned them?
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
Those recordings are over a week old. You can tell by counting the number of windows and panels visible on the buildings that they're from earlier in the construction. The building wasn't even fully built yet.
Contrary to your article's assertion, Tesla has never had a goal to build 5000 cars per week every week in June. The goal is to get the line capacity up to 5000 cars per week by the end of June. They'll want to ideally have one week at that rate by that point, but at least 1-3 days to show that it can be sustained. Of course, the shorts will just insist on pretending that it's a burst rate, just like they did last time (and were wrong).
More to the point, Tesla has a very strong disincentive not to make too many cars this month, as they don't want to hit delivery #200k and start expiring the US tax credit until Q3. They certainly can stockpile, but cars take up a huge amount of space (5000 cars packed closely together takes up an amount of space about a third of a kilometer by a third of a kilometer), and the longer you stockpile something outdoors, the greater the risk of damage.
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
Tesla has a very strong disincentive not to make too many cars this month
Wut? I assume this means Tesla doesn't want to produce many cars, but this is a ridiculous point. With cancellation rates at 1/3 of the preorders for model 3, and with an unsustainable cash burn rate, the only reasonable thing Tesla should be doing is ramping up production with what they've got already, instead of wasting time on bullshit.
This will make sense if their variable costs are lower than the variable revenues. The only scenario where Tesla doesn't want to increase output is that they lose money on the variable costs - something you Tesla lemmings have been denying is true (although it is).
What would they be "stockpiling" if they claim orders that have been outstanding for over a year?
It was 1/4th. Over the course of two years. With new reservations keeping pace or outpacing cancellations. With a reservation list that even at 5k per week would take them nearly two years to get through. With massive potential for reservation growth.
Complete. Non. Issue.
Half a billion dollars from the federal government to customers - some of which will be spent on extra options packages - is anything but "bullshit". Giving that up to move some deliveries forward a couple weeks would be moronic.
Meanwhile, Tesla has been upping their capacity from 2k at the start of the quarter to 3,5k in the middle and is now headed toward 5k. Maintaining production through most of the quarter, avoiding tolling the credit by instead saturating the Canadian market of first-production orders.
But by all means if you disagree, make sure you got those short positions in!
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
1970s Britain's problem was more to do with the cars being shit than anything else. People used to take it for granted that cars were unreliable and disintegrated after a few years. Then better foreign cars became available and they wouldn't put up with it any more.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's a Sprung Structure, manufactured by Sprung Instant Structures, LTD:
http://www.sprung.com/structur...
They refer to it as a prefab building.
Sam
This only confirms my theory that the new product out of Tesla is going to be a pop-up camper trailer.
#DeleteFacebook
You forgot to talk about Canada's new cars. Our new maple-syrup-powered cars can run 25000km on only 1.2 litres of maple syrup.
#DeleteFacebook
Hundreds of casino's in the US use this same style tenting, none have rusting and ruined slot machines, nor do they have standing water by the craps table.
People in the business of making money love the tents.
British Leyland has that timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... of gov cars. People went for quality from Japan. Reliable in the cold climate.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
NUMMI built about 7,000 cars and trucks per week; Tesla isn't even to that level yet. And Tesla loves to talk about how much simpler EVs are to build than ICEs, so perhaps Tesla simply isn't as space efficient at GM or Toyota - needing the same space to build half the number of vehicles?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
where does it say that the NEXT factory will be in China?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Don't know why you are telling me, but I'll claim the easy win. It's written clearly on that page that Australia by itself is 1%, so more obvious lies from you WindBourne.
Which makes sense because individual components may (or may not) need careful climate control for manufacture, but if the assembly of the whole vehicle is so fussy that cleanish non-wet conditions can be a problem, then those components probably have no business in a car that must survive weather.
Seek psychiatric help, please.
OK idiot, R&D is fixed and finished
Uh, not when they want to develop new cars, or update and fix the beta cars they're selling to their beta testers.
interest is fixed and finished
So they have no outstanding debt?
Both those things will go down per car as more cars are made.
Only if they stay fixed, or don't grow as fast as production does. They're not staying fixed. They're growing. Production is growing very slowly, and growing that production capacity is costing them heavily.
So the more cars they make the smaller your 'nonsense claimed loss' is. When that number gets smaller and smaller it will turn positive. Selling more cars won't make the number worse, it will make it better. Why you might ask (well if you had a brain) because the cars are profitable to make once those fixed costs are paid.
The costs aren't fixed. Tesla is still struggling to build a fraction of a real auto factory. They're still bleeding R&D costs to tweak and update the models they've already shipped. They're going to bleed more R&D to make future models. The demand isn't limitless, and competitors exist. If you expect a few thousand cars a week to save Tesla, how many years will that take? Who wants to buy a new 2018 Model 3 in 2025?
Another Thatcherite. Had the UK government not injected capital into Rolls Royce when they were developing the RB211 jet engine (a pre-Thatcher Conservative UK government from the 1970s) the company wouldn't even exist today. Yet because of that nationalisation, they survived, and are now the 2nd largest civilian turbofan engine manufacturer in the world with only GE having more share of the market.
The solution was kinda simple, allow partnerships with Japanese companies, to get their know-how. That's what the Chinese have been doing for quite some time now. A lot of people forget that the UK spent decades after WWII paying war debts to other nations, including the US, so a lot of MAJOR sacrifices were done even post-WWII to repay that debt inc. rationing to reduce imports.
Fact is all car manufacturers end up getting subsidized to a degree regardless of their country of origin.
Those recordings are over a week old
Check out the news paper pic in particular: https://twitter.com/skabooshka... This new line isn't near completion.
The EU tried that "allow partnerships with Japanese companies". The results did not sell.
EU car company worker quality made good design from Japan totally fail when that was attempted.
Re " subsidized to a degree regardless of their country of origin.
All the UK tax payers money that was lost into 1970's UK production lines?
People wanted good cars from Japan. With real quality control and working electrical systems.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
NUMMI built about 7,000 cars and trucks per week; Tesla isn't even to that level yet. And Tesla loves to talk about how much simpler EVs are to build than ICEs, so perhaps Tesla simply isn't as space efficient at GM or Toyota - needing the same space to build half the number of vehicles?
I think you are confusing simple with small...
I would think dust and dirt would be a bigger problem than humidity....the first problem is going to be the temperature ...
Because no-one else thought about this until now...quick get Elon on the phone!