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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Only 220 Model 3 cars in an entire quarter? There's a big problem somewhere. That sounds like some key part of the production line doesn't work at all, and something is being hand-built to get some product out the door. Tesla isn't saying what's not working. Has anything leaked out?

When something like this this happens, the manufacturer has most of the costs of full production with the revenue of tiny production. Profitability just got further away.

As of August 2017, there have been about 63,000 cancellations of Model 3 preorders.[1]

[1] https://www.recode.net/2017/8/2/16087432/tesla-model-3-elect...

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Regarding leaks, yes, there were rumors of battery pack replacements due to corrections on welds and a separate production issue with ground terminal bolts.[1]

These issues could be due to the different composition of the 3 compared to the S and X - more steel, less aluminum - or with them trying to build a denser automated production line, or just general gremlins setting up new production.

[1] https://electrek.co/2017/09/29/tesla-model-3-production-ramp...

Is anyone inside the plant talking about what's wrong? That's what I meant by "leaks".

(Back when newspapers had real reporters, some reporter would go to a bar near the plant, buy some of the guys a few beers, and listen. The recent stories about Tesla are all from press releases or CEO interviews.)

It's extremely unlikely there's a big problem in the sense that you mean it. The Model 3 is easier to produce than the Model S and less complex. There's practically nothing new on the Model 3 that would plausibly be a big thing that's not working as to hold everything up in the scandalous manner you're implying (leaks, hand-building, not working, big problems, oh my).

More likely is that Musk set an overly ambitious target, for the hundredth time, and what they're doing for the quarter they probably should not have been doing at all. They produced something like 60-80 Model S vehicles in the first month. Check back in two quarters, if the Model 3 production is down 80%-90% from projections, that will be something meaningful.

I don't think OP's post is as hyperbolic as you characterize it.

The press release makes it clear that there was a major production bottleneck. Will it get fixed? Very likely. But as of today, they've got a serious problem.

Absent more data, I think the OP's guesses are plausible and not malicious.

It’s more likely a confluence of supplier/s, retooling and new hire temporary chaos.

Rather than a bottle neck, I'd say the production line wasn't up for the majority of the quarter. At 220 cars in ~120days, that is an 8-12 hour average takt time. Since nobody does that in production, it's more likely that they take the line down, fix things, and bring it up again days later. I'd be more interested in the change in delivery rate over the 3 months. If 218 cars were delivered on the last day, it would be 6k/mo or 70k/yr, great! More likely progress has been slow and hopefully steady (30=>60=>90 per month) for their ramp.

Workers at Fremont are complaining of overwork, time pressure, unsafe working conditions, and long hours. They're trying to join the UAW. It's not like they have production employees standing around doing nothing while the production engineers try to fix the line. "I’ve seen people pass out, hit the floor like a pancake and smash their face open. They just send us to work around him while he’s still laying on the floor."[1]

Comments on Glassdoor indicate that lower and middle management are disorganized.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-workers-detail-...

It sounds like “kitchen chaos” startup mode while their “TPMS” workflow, tooling, fixtures and techinques get figured out for higher capacity, routine production. Unionizing is important because people shouldn’t be treated like animals and should make a living wage.

Yep, that’s why Elon is suddenly talking some random bs about rockets.

Very clever of him to also have founded SpaceX for this very reason.

He's playing the long con, you see. He founded SpaceX even before getting involved with Tesla for this very reason /s

If it weren’t sarcasm, Poe’s law would be invoked. Sometimes even Godwin’s law on really interesting days.

Well, if rockets fail for some reason then there’s hype loop or tunnel to China

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