Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory | Hacker News Reader

Inside Tesla’s Model 3 Factory

bloomberg.com

146 pointsadventured59 comments

A few random comments, having toured a few auto plants and watched plenty of videos:

* I'm surprised to hear Tesla is using robots to install seats. This isn't common, from what I've seen.

* I toured the Tesla factory back in October, perhaps a month after touring BMW in Munich. Tesla was vastly less automated than BMW, for better or for worse. So I take the whole "Tesla is automating EVERYTHING!" with a grain of salt.

* It's not uncommon for cars to have the seatbelt integrated into the seat itself. Particularly with convertibles.

* A lot of this reads like a puff piece.

> So I take the whole "Tesla is automating EVERYTHING!" with a grain of salt.

FTA:

> Even so, Tesla says the Model 3 body line is now 95 percent automated, including the transfer, loading, and welding of parts.

Apparently, there's a big difference between the "body line" assembly and the rest of the line, as people in r/teslamotors have pointed out:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/8pim5q/inside_...

> When I was visiting the BMW plant in Munich a few years ago, they said the body line was automated 99%. It‘s really impressive, showed me that the real secret is not in the design of your car, but the design of your assembly line.

> But keep in mind that this is only the body line. The rest of the assembly process involves quite a bit more humans.

Ah, cool, thanks. Yeah, I saw humans doing TONS of stuff at Tesla; driving forklifts around (dragging chunks of wood under the wheels and bumping into things), etc. OTOH its also possible BMW just hides that stuff from their tours :)

I can't really judge how much insight can be gained from this article. It's a little short on details, and reads as much like a press release as a piece of journalism.

That said, damn are those some incredibly cool pictures. Seriously.

It's PR, and it has cool pictures. No insight necessary.

Wow. There is so much machinery that it's hard to spot the actual car parts. Would like to know how this compares to other car manufacturers. I've seen pictures from VW where there always seem to be humans around, though that may be part of PR.

I also wonder when the typical Muskian move of in-housing more than is usual (ie car seats) will fall over, or whether this will remain a competitive advantage as Tesla will have more skin in the game than others.

Most established car manufacturers have the body line near 100% automated. Tesla isn't doing too bad really but they are still playing catch up.

People like to talk like the existing companies are back in the stone age or something. Hardly.

The thing that stands out to me here is that Tesla has wasted a ton of time and money building up competency in commodity features. No consumer considers Tesla Seats to be the differentiating factor. Why on earth didn't Tesla just decide to use a more conventional seat design and outsource the work to a Seat supplier like all other car manufacturers. Kind of reminds me of Software Engineers that always want to roll their own implementation of everything... They get less done and are overconfident in their own abilities.

It's because Musk is a micro-manager that is easily frustrated by flaws in external solutions and more tolerant of even greater flaws internally. It's why he puts his nose into everything his companies do (eg in the article it mentions he had a role in designing the extruded aluminum base of the Model X seat, which is absurd).

I don’t think it is absurd. I think it shows he wants to know what goes into his cars and rockets. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had executives above me who had never even seen the products they were representing. I admire it when an executive can roll up their sleeves and get into it without being disruptive.

One possibility: that mindset of mediocrity doesn't produce excellence.

Apple, for example, is famous for caring about things that rationally they shouldn't care, like the insides of their computers.

And since history is written by victors and we apply post factum rationalization, no one says that Apple is wrong to care about details that are arguably irrelevant to the success.

The same will happen with Tesla.

If Tesla is successful then Musk will be a genius with uncompromising standard for quality.

If Tesla will fail then Musk will be an idiot whose hubris, micro-management and inability to prioritize doomed the company.

And reality is that neither you or me have enough information to judge this decision one way or another. You weren't there and the it was probably more complicated that what you assume based on zero data.

According to reports Tesla started doing seats in-house when a contractor that was supposedly an experienced seat maker failed to produce Model X seats which contributed to 18 month delay in delivering the car.

> One possibility: that mindset of mediocrity doesn't produce excellence.

> Apple, for example, is famous for caring about things that rationally they shouldn't care, like the insides of their computers.

Except, by all accounts and opinions, there's a fair degree of interior "mediocrity". Whilst the screen is all flashy and showy, the dash, console are pretty "average". And by average I mean, creaking, flimsy-ish, plastic parts. Even on a $100,000+ Model S. My Altima has a comparable dash to the Model S. My Audi S class? Hugely better, objectively and subjectively.

A key elements of successful outsourcing are defining quality standards and remediation processes in the case the supplier quality changes and fails to meet those standards. Outsourcing can often and if managed well likely lead to higher quality components. A successful automotive supply chain is deeply rooted in the division and specialization of labor in the supply chain. Partnering with Recaro is one option that would have resulted in high quality seats built to OEM spec, it would have also brought a lot of positive media, it would have allowed cross marketing between the companies, it would have allowed Tesla purchasing executives and engineers to collaborate with experts in seat engineering and manufacturing. They could have also shared all the warranty costs with Recaro or whatever supplier they chose. Using suppliers does not automatically mean lower quality. My bet is on internal Tesla disorganization and or low standards that caused the supplier relationship to fail. Recaro for reference: https://en.recaro.com/business-areas/automotive-seating.html

I believe this is also to do with political power (as is much of this play). The car dealship issue/ selling direct, was about power.

The reasons the seats were delayed was because they also contract with other car companies - so, priorities. This political mechanism applies to ever aspect of the car. If you build it all yourself, your competitors have 0 power over what you do.

There is probably a cost consideration here. Every additional layer of supplier means more and more margin goes to them.

I’d also imagine that if Tesla used the seat suppliers that the rest of the industry does, they’d get lower priority in terms of access to seat designers, engineers etc. A company doing 200k vehicles a year in sales, split across 3 models, doesn’t really have much buying/bargaining power.

When Musk visited Khan Academy for an interview some years ago, he mentioned that their USB cord supplier had shipped over defective cables, so they went to Fry’s to buy cables as a stopgap. I’d assume that kind of supply chain disruption is what they’re trying to avoid, for the more essential parts.

For what it's worth, the seats in my Model 3 are the most comfortable car seats I think I've ever sat on. The seats didn't really influence my decision to purchase, but they've sure influenced my satisfaction with the car.

I have not tried Tesla seats, but in general car seats, airplane seats, and most office chairs are absolutely horrible, not designed with any regard for human anatomy.

If an auto maker produced better shaped seats, that could make a more significant difference to the experience of riding in the car than many other possible features.

I'm 6'7". Car seats have influenced my decision to purchase before, and will again.

Right now, I drive a Subaru, and not the (cheaper) Ford or Mazda equivalents that I was considering because the Subaru seat is that much better.

I sat in each car in a tesla showroom a few weeks ago, and was pleasantly surprised by the seats, Although the driving position in the model 3 isn't great for me. - I'm unlikely to be able to see traffic lights. No such issue in the model X with it's wrap-over windscreen, but that's out of my price range.

I can second Subaru being great for tall people.

When I was shopping for our current vehicle, we excluded 50% of the list after trying the driver's seat even with adjustment, they aren't designed for tall people.

For example the Nissan Rogue is a fantastic vehicle by all accounts (and the trunk organizer I still miss), but we skipped on it due to the seat comfort.

The pillar seats in Model X were considered by Tesla to be a killer feature at launch.

Lots of people Monday-morning quarterbacked Model S's disappearing door handles, and now Porsche is putting them on Mission E.

You do realize that Tesla's $55b valuation is the result of doing the opposite of what you suggest?

I'm guessing you missed this in the Article:

But relying on suppliers got Tesla into trouble with the Model X, when its engineers designed an extremely difficult-to-make “monopost” seat and an impossible-to-hit timeline. Problems with suppliers set production back by months, and Musk decided he wasn’t going to put up with it again.

I’ve worked with for a Tesla supplier and can attest that they do ask for some exotic designs/stuff. What made my company a good partner is that it was relatevely small and technologically advanced, we could cope with their engineering requests and changes and collaborated on R&D. When they went for the model 3 they used a bigger OEM supplier. We heard constant complaints about lack of flexibility. They iterate faster than other manufacturers. They are... different.

Really would have loved if these were animated gifs, even if just 3-5 second loops. It can be hard to parse what you’re even looking at without seeing it move.

>But relying on suppliers got Tesla into trouble with the Model X, when its engineers designed an extremely difficult-to-make “monopost” seat and an impossible-to-hit timeline.

I chuckled a bit when I read this. I can relate to this a lot.

For awhile I worked at a university in the mechanical engineering department machine shop. I like to think I know when I'm talking about when I say that everyone makes this mistake. They just usually stop making it by the time they've got their degree.

Designing parts that deviate greatly from industry standards for marginal gain and then finding out it's impossible to build what you want in the time you have is rookie engineer mistake 101. It's always tempting at the time but it's basically never worth it in hindsight

If you need a widget for your application and this particular widget isn't central to your application then use an off the shelf widget or tweak it as little as possible. Don't design a bespoke widget from the ground up. Designing your own widget from scratch consumes resources you should bet spending core aspects of the thing that you're building and has a high risk of being a time and effort black hole as you work out teething issues. Reinventing the wheel is fine, you should require that people have damn good reason or every team will want to reinvent every wheel and nothing will get done on time.

edit: I want my ass to be comfortable as much as the next guy but I'd rather have an off the shelf seat and have a Tesla now than have a bespoke seat and be on a waiting list.

I think I read somewhere with Tesla that a problem with outside suppliers is that you can't always negotiate the price down to a competitive place. Specifically if the supplier has a patent or something that gives them leverage in pricing.

I'm not sure I'm wording what I mean correctly.

Tesla makes relatively few cars and has credit worries, I can definitely imagine suppliers not wanting to hand out big discounts.

You worded it perfectly. Here in the US, we call that “the free market“.

Pretty much everything you just wrote is applicable to the Juicero hardware. Business model set entirely aside for a moment, its hardware is an example of what happens when some C-level decision makers let the engineering staff go wild with no real world constraints:

https://blog.bolt.io/heres-why-juicero-s-press-is-so-expensi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ

More on the monopost seats, if you’re curious:

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-addresses-model-x-2nd-row-se...

They might have been preparing for their trucks. A lot of engineering time is spent on their ride quality, so I wouldn't be surprised if they use a lot of highly custom parts.

If you're planning to take over trucking, working out some of the details early with your cars might make sense.

How do you decide on which brand of robots to use? I remember seeing videos from the Model S production line having only KUKA robots, but for the Model 3, I only see FANUC.

I guess whoever offers better pricing, support, timelines etc

Given how fast they were trying to ramp up production I wouldn't be surprised if they had to buy robots from multiple vendors becauase no single vendor was capable of building and installing the 2,000 robot arms he needed to hit that 5,000 car/week in 2 months target.

The bottleneck is not so much with robot manufacturers, but actually with the software implementation. There are software consultancies who will program the robot arms per Tesla specs.

With Tesla being focused on doing things in-house, shouldn't those be employees?

Does anyone know approx. how much one of these costs? https://www.fanucamerica.com/home/products-services/robots/f...

"List prices for FANUC’s most common robots vary from $25,000 for the simplest, least expensive M1iA, 4 axis “spider” robot with .5kg capacity to the M2000/1200 6 axis robot with 1200kg capacity topping out at over $400,000 list price."

Here's quite a funky one on ebay https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fanuc-R-2000iB-210F-Robotic-w-Servo...

The robots often are sold as a lease or payment plan, so typically the big robot vendors try to win big accounts where they will outfit many things and essentially they pay a monthly fee that includes access to have the robot vendor come out and tune things up for you.

> the big robot vendors

I feel that I have been embracing the future my whole life, yet I was not quite prepared for that phrase in regular use.

This isn't exactly new, Unimation was already selling a bunch of robots to the auto industry in the 1960s.

a fairly standard industrial welding cell like a Panasonic 750 is between $85 to 125 thousand dollars per unit, which includes robot arm, welding power supply, turntable, chassis that is it mounted to, and the transformer to power it. Requires 240V 3ph 60A service.

http://www.insrobotics.com/panasonic-robotic-parts-repair/Pa...

Source: I own two. They kick ass, and make more stuff that you would believe is possible in a day.

What does one do with just two manufacturing robots?

What do you make?

I know how TESLA decides . . . .. they bought Grohmann Engineering, a German firm that specializes in automated manufacturing.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/8/13561146/tesla-acquisitio...

Grohmann doesn't build robots.

I would love to see some videos of the Robots in action.

There are some on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVCCroN7vS0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM

And one with more than just factory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA18tusTgE4

The first 2 videos are from 2015 and 2013, respectively. I'm guessing things have changed a bit since then?

Tesla S didn't really change since then, why do you expect a huge manufacturing plant to change drastically? It's not like you just throw all robots and conveyor belts in a bin like an iPhone. Car industry is on significantly longer cycles.

Elon said[1] in the shareholder meeting that the Model S has changed significantly from the older versions. I don't know the differences myself, so take it FWIW.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/shareholdermeeting at around 01:16:00

There are quite a bit of oil/grease on the floor from the latest pictures.

The youtube video looks so much cleaner.

I understand that Musk comes up with his radical innovations by starting out with first principles and then reasoning from there.

I wonder what was his specific set of thought processes that lead to the radically different approach that Tesla is taking to manufacture the Model 3.

> radically different approach that Tesla is taking to manufacture the Model 3.

I thought they gave up and went back to more traditional methods?

Only partially, with bits and pieces being re-automated as kinks get worked out.

They’ve postponed full on automation until the Model Y.

That machines could build machines faster, cheaper, and better than humans. It was more about extreme evolution in that aspect, but then it allowed for a very different design in the factory itself since it didn't need to accommodate humans everywhere.

In reality, it seems it might have been too much technological complexity all at once. Traditional assembly lines have decades of optimization with talent readily available. It's the inevitable bugs of any new tech approach, compounded by timeline, talent, and cash pressures.

smart phones where a radical innovation, but how is making batteries, electric cars, or reusing rockets radical?

From my understanding Musk is investing in tough challenges for prestige. The innovation, if any, comes from his engineers.

>how is making batteries, electric cars, or reusing rockets radical?

No one ever made a reusable satellite-launching rocket before that landed on its tail and was cheaper than a disposable rocket. And Musk came up with the basic plan for how to do it.

Nobody made an electric car before that ran off of lithium ion batteries, and no one made an electric luxury car. And Musk made up the basic plan for doing it.

Or perhaps you already knew all this and are in a tight spot because you shorted a whole lot of Tesla stock.

This is called optimization. And yes there were electric cars before, just maybe not as consumer products because nobody optimized it enough to be profitable. Innovation means doing something new. I'd argue that the drone ships the rockets land on might be more innovative than the rockets themselves.

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